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Top five comics of the year (not 2000ad or Meg)

Started by Colin YNWA, 31 December, 2017, 07:30:59 AM

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Greg M.

As, historically, a big fan of Marvel, trying to figure out my top 5 comics has been extremely difficult this year - their output has been very poor, and 2017 has been something of a nadir for their comics, even though their movies are thriving.

Things I have enjoyed this year:

Kid Lobotomy
Hillbilly
Eleanor and the Egret
Amazing Spider-Man
Jenny Finn (which isn't new at all, but it's newly in colour, so that'll have to do.)

Tjm86

Quote from: Greg M. on 01 January, 2018, 12:58:24 PM
As, historically, a big fan of Marvel, trying to figure out my top 5 comics has been extremely difficult this year - their output has been very poor,

Likewise.  I would say that their output has been dire.  Artwork quality that would not get a look in from even the most cack-handed fanzine, story writing that is completely devoid of depth, characterisation that could not even be described as one-dimensional ... Unless something changes soon the days of Chapter 11 are going to seem like a golden era.

BPP

1) Stray Bullets
2) Spy Seal
3) Punisher - The Platoon
4) Southern Bastards
5) Lady Killer 2
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

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Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Professor Bear on 31 December, 2017, 04:34:35 PM
John Allison's Giant Days vol 1 is a print debut for newcomer Allison, who transplants some background characters from his 20 year-old webcomics Bobbins and Scary Go Round to the printed page for an unusually gentle bit of Brit humor compared to the usual fart and wanking gags one expects from cultured limeys.

Whilst I will always, always be delighted to see some love for Giant Days, I feel compelled to point out that Vol 1 reprints #1-4 and, this very afternoon, I'm lettering #35... so there's the better part of three years' worth of material out there, and John's been Eisner-nominated twice for the book. Hands down the favourite book to come across my desk every month.

Launch artist (and Disney/Pixar animator) Lissa Treiman only drew the first six issues before being replaced by Max Sarin, whose spikier style is a bit of a shock in the first couple of issues, but she's quickly paired with inker Liz Fleming who brings more variation in line to the art and I can't now imagine anyone else drawing the book...
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Art

Really not read as much as I should have this year, for instance I still need to catch up on that new Punisher, but here we go...

1) Mr Miracle - 9 panel grids! Gritty deconstruction! What is this, the 80s again? And yet somehow it's great.
2) Kim & Kim - extremely fun Post Brothersesque space bounty hunter nonsense - kind of reminds me of the sort of thing that might be a Milligan and Hewlett type strip in the end days of the bog paper era?
3) Al Ewing bravely plugging away on all his Marvel titles despite endless crossovers. If i had to pick one to recommend I'd go with Rocket, which has a special treat for fans of the Moore and Davis era Captain Britain. Hmm, bit of an unintentional retro callback thing going on here...
4) Saga, WicDiv and all the image usuals. Still ongoing, still great.
5) Aliens: Dead Orbit - oh no! I'm harking back to the 80s again! But Stokoe really does have a great grasp of the look and feel of the original and uses it to great effect.

Link Prime

Precisely the same as 2016, my picks of 2017 were;

Ragnarok
Providence
AD: After Death

They only comprised a handful of comics however.
As did my other reads- I also greatly enjoyed Sabrina and Afterlife with Archie (if and when published).

I'll round it up with an honorable mention for Batman: White Knight, which is pushing all the right buttons.

Marvel Comics: Nil pwa


The Mind of Wolfie Smith

well, nothing from the big three (after tiring from the general plotless nature of many image titles - which suffer from the same slick problems as a lot of contemporary tv - fabulous surface but general aimlessness, cancelled once the audience figures fall rather than when the story is properly resolved; there are very few morrisons and moores around now - where one senses that the 400th page was conceived around about the same time as the 1st). oh well. the following indies were truly excellent:

1. grass kings - beautiful and uncomfortable watercoloured meeting of steinbeck and a fever dream.
2. love and rockets - so rich these days that it's often more believable than our twisted reality.
3. eleanor and the egret - sam kieth drew this bd-inspired weirdness that can be read as an innocent fable by a child and as something more disconcerting and worrying by a 'mature' reader.
4. long lost - only one issue so far, but probably my comic of the year. every word and image perfectly judged. reader is so involved, and therefore so ready to be horrified.
5. peepland - sleazy seventies thriller. convinced that tharg should sign up christa faust for some dredd now. gritty and perfect storytelling.

honourable mention to fantagraphics' tremendous new 'now' quarterly anthology.

I, Cosh

I had to go back through my Comixology history to see what I've actually bought new this year. There's not very much.

New titles:
01. Ragnarok. Great conclusion to this. I hope the rumours are true that Walt was working on more but wanted to have a few issues in the bank before releasing it. I notice he's been working on something with Rob Williams lately.

02. East of West. After a couple of books of treading water/repositioning, the most recent volume was bag with a big bang. Getting towards the end of this now so plenty of scope for brutally maiming all our least favourite characters.

03. Angelic. Very Spurrier and very beautiful art.

04. Godshaper. Seems like Spurrier is the creator I follow most these days. This one wasn't his absolute best but it's better to fail from trying to stuff too much in than too little.

05. Archangel. This was pretty good, sporadic fun and it came down to this or the second Brittania mini which I didn't like as much as the first.

New to Me:
01. The Discipline. Picked this up in a sale as some of Pete Milligan's recent output has been right back on form. Liked it a lot (much better than The Names, for example, which I was struggling through at the same time) but it seems it never went anywhere. Which is a shame.
We never really die.

TordelBack

#23
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 01 January, 2018, 06:20:00 PM
Whilst I will always, always be delighted to see some love for Giant Days, I feel compelled to point out that Vol 1 reprints #1-4 and, this very afternoon, I'm lettering #35... so there's the better part of three years' worth of material out there, and John's been Eisner-nominated twice for the book. Hands down the favourite book to come across my desk every month.

How all-ages is Giant Days, Jim?  My youngest (a sophisticated 8. but still 8) has been nagging me to get it since she read a teaser at the back  of her beloved Lumberjanes, but without seeing anything too grown-up in that, the college setting made me think it might trend towards the more mature elsewhere. I'm reluctant to prevent her reading comics when the ineterst is there, but still...

(Aside: I was amused to watch my daughter explaining the characters in Lumberjanes to her grandmother: "so Jo and Ripley look like boys but they're girls, and Mal and Molly are both girls tol and they're in lo-o-o-ve but they don't talk about it but you can tell".  Great stuff!).

Colin YNWA

Quote from: I, Cosh on 03 January, 2018, 10:49:04 AM

01. Ragnarok. Great conclusion to this. I hope the rumours are true that Walt was working on more but wanted to have a few issues in the bank before releasing it. I notice he's been working on something with Rob Williams lately.


Fret not I had a Facebook chat with him a while back and yes Ragnarok will be back, he just wants to build up content first is all. So fingers crossed it won't be too long.

The thing he worked on with Rob Williams is Kamandi Challenge 11 (as far as I know this is all) a really fun comic, but a one off.


Professor Bear

Quote from: TordelBack on 03 January, 2018, 12:40:00 PMHow all-ages is Giant Days, Jim?  My youngest (a sophisticated 8. but still 8) has been nagging me to get it since she read a teaser at the back  of her beloved Lumberjanes, but without seeing anything too grown-up in that, the college setting made me think it might trend towards the more mature elsewhere. I'm reluctant to prevent her reading comics when the ineterst is there, but still...

Giant Days is PG13 stuff in execution, but storylines cover subjects like one night stands, excessive drinking, allusions to casual drug use, etc.  If you have any comics reading apps, it might be worth checking if there are any free issues knocking about for preview purposes so you can judge for yourself.

A possible alternative might be the Bad Machinery collections by the same author, which do a reverse-Torchwood in being an all-ages property spun off from a mature-readers original and which follow two groups of children in Yorkshire who have a boys vs girls rivalry based on who can solve more of the seemingly banal mysteries in their one horse town which almost always snowball into brushes with the supernatural.  It's also drawn by Allison himself, who's never been what you'd call a bad artist, but he did often deliberately change elements of his drawing style on Scary Go Round so that the overall effect was inconsistent, but here he sticks to a distinctive and bold style throughout, to the point that you may find reading his words over other people's art to be an occasionally jarring experience.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: TordelBack on 03 January, 2018, 12:40:00 PM
How all-ages is Giant Days, Jim?  My youngest (a sophisticated 8. but still 8) has been nagging me to get it since she read a teaser at the back  of her beloved Lumberjanes, but without seeing anything too grown-up in that, the college setting made me think it might trend towards the more mature elsewhere. I'm reluctant to prevent her reading comics when the ineterst is there, but still...

Not wanting to derail to far, I'll try to be brief...!

Having no kids, it's a hard call for me. GD is very matter-of-fact and non-judgemental about a lot of stuff — Susan smokes cigarettes (and is plagued for several issues by the attendant smoker's cough), Daisy experiments with drugs and decides she doesn't like them very much. She likewise experiments with boys and decides much the same. Language is never worse than a very mild British swear, physical affection is never more explicit than, say, this:



I can't imagine there's anything in there that would warp an eight-year-old's fragile little mind if you wanted to give her a try with Vol1. The worst I can imagine is that she just might not find it that interesting until she's in her teens... in which case, you can read it! (John McCrea recently told me he was a fan, solely due to reading his daughter's copies... which didn't make me feel old at all. No, sir.)

EDIT: Also, what the Prof says.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Link Prime

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 03 January, 2018, 01:18:35 PM
Quote from: I, Cosh on 03 January, 2018, 10:49:04 AM

01. Ragnarok. Great conclusion to this. I hope the rumours are true that Walt was working on more but wanted to have a few issues in the bank before releasing it. I notice he's been working on something with Rob Williams lately.


Fret not I had a Facebook chat with him a while back and yes Ragnarok will be back, he just wants to build up content first is all. So fingers crossed it won't be too long.


I knew it was due back sometime this year, but cheers for the confirmation Colin.
12 more issues of this over the next couple of years would be most welcome.

Tombo

Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 02 January, 2018, 08:10:26 PM
4. long lost - only one issue so far, but probably my comic of the year. every word and image perfectly judged. reader is so involved, and therefore so ready to be horrified.

I saw the third issue of this whilst trawling through Comixology for forthcoming releases so on a whim I ordered the first two issues off of E-bay, should be delivered tomorrow.  Sounds like I made a good investment.