So I don't go to as many Nerd sites as I used to so I'm missing any sense of what comics are drawing praise from the masses... of the small number of foilks that inhabit our particular nerdisphere. So rather than face CBR and the like I thought I'd ask you lot - what are the top five titles from this year. Oh and lets exclude 2000ad and the Meg, cos you know they are always no. 1.
I've gone for 2 categories comics that have had at least one new issue come out in the year and comics that I've read for the first time this year:
Top five Comic Titles of 2018
1. Rock Candy Mountain
2. Flintstones
3. Mage
4. Angelic
5. Copperhead
I'm trying to work out how I add Ragnarok and HillBilly on this list as the fact that they aren't there is a travesty based on the fact that they didn't have many issues out this year!
Top five comics I've read for the first time this year:
1. Locke and Key
2. The Goon
3. Barefoot Gen
4. Love and Rockets (most of was new to me)
5. Four Faces of Eve
Again wishing I'd made this a top ten to include Scalped and Y the Last Man in this list!
I've finally made the transition to iPad (it literally arrived yesterday morning)* so I've been downloading my main comic apps. (Namely, 2000 ad and ComiXology.)
On looking through my books on the latter, I came across a comic forgot I'd purchased: East of West.
I've only just started it, but it's certainly interesting stuff so far as a kind of alternate world future sci-fi/supernatural horror/western. It feels a bit like I've been chucked into the deep end as it throws quite a lot of world-building stuff at you at the start. So far there's been an odd macabre fantasy bit with some weird kids, a quick rundown on alternate American history with prophetic stuff, a not entirely standard bustup in a bar and a big reveal [spoiler]it's actually the future. A pale hard-case, who I think might be a personification of Death, gets on a headless robot horse.[/spoiler]
It's not that hard to follow, though. I'm interested to see where this goes.
*After years of using Android devices, I feel a bit guilty, but the deal from the eBay seller was so excellent and coupled with eBays recent 20% discount.....
Its a nice beastie for sure. Nicest tablet I've owned, although the Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 is a major contender. I think I still prefer the Android OS but that might just be due to my familiarity with that platform.
Mardroid: download Chunky. Best iPad DRM-free comic reader by some margin.
I cant really make a list,Superman titles were great,TMNT is strong as always,there was Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,Youngbloods were a nice surprise...and Im probably forgetting a ton of things...
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 31 December, 2017, 10:06:15 AM
Mardroid: download Chunky. Best iPad DRM-free comic reader by some margin.
Seconded. I like it a lot.
I couldn't make a list but Kill or Be Killed by Brubaker and Phillips has been great and Grandville: Force Majure is probably my favourite thing I've read this year.
Chunky is indeed great - recommended.
Can't contribute otherwise... non-Tharg material doesn't get a look-in these days. The Hachette pile grows by fits & starts all the while, even though cherry-picking.
Looking at what's on my iPad:
1. Black Hammer.
2. Kill or be Killed
3. My favorite thing is monsters
4. Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil.
5. Royal City
That's all I've got.
The only non Tharg stuff I have read this year are Rok of the Reds and Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast.
Not counting the occasional Ulimate Spider-man or Lego Star Wars with my seven year old son.
So clear winner is Rok.
The Abominable Mr Seabrook (the weirdest comics biography I have ever read);
Mister Miracle ongoing;
Boundless (short stories by Jillian Tamaki);
Dead of Winter (yes, a licensed comic based on a board game);
Rok of the Reds.
Plus about 20 other things I could have mentioned. Argh.
Argh. Forgot Grandville. Argh.
I seem to have fallen out of love with mainstream comics lately, seemingly only popping in to heap scorn upon the lazy Hanna Barbera reimaginings of DC comics, but they have their fans, so best of luck to them.
Tillie Walden's Spinning is a semi-autobiographical tale about ice skating and coming out, and is what UK girls' comics would be if they were still going. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a comics gift for younger female readers.
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. Lands somewhere between Mork and Mindy and Joey on the "true to the original" spin-off scale, as it features none of the surrealism, occasionally jarring art style changes or variable lettering quality of the originating webcomics, but retains Allison's unmistakable non-sequitur humor and characters.
Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's This One Summer was a great coming of age tale about two young girls who have formed a lasting friendship in the summers their families spend in rented lakeside chalets, and how it's strained by family dramas and the soap operatics of the local townies. This is what American manga should be by now, rather than the furry hellhole of homoerotic Sonic fanart it's become.
Marney the Fox - by page 10, Marney's mum has been gunned to death, his brothers and sisters dragged off to be fed to hounds, he's been mauled by a badger, an otter protecting her babies has been ripped apart by dogs, Marney is locked in a burning shed, and an older fox tears a weasel's throat out shortly before being kicked to death by a deer. So basically it's just like The Wind In The Willows.
Misty Vol 2 - before The Man In The High Castle and its countless knock-offs ran the premise into the ground, Nazis winning WW2 was a reasonably fresh yarn to spin, and while The Sentinels spins it well without having the weight of expectation upon it that would weigh it down were it appearing today, it still starts to fall apart near the end. Same with End Of The Line, a decent story that seems to be going to familiar Death Line territory via some The Shining elements before eventually going a bit off the rails (no pun intended). One criticism I will lay is that the blurb on the back of the book blows the twists of both stories, which seems like an odd thing to do, especially when the second story kind of relies upon its leftfield turn to get a second wind.
Honorable mensh: The Great Disaster is a DC Showcase title that is kind of like a tpb collection of a DC crossover event, in that it centers on DC's post-apocalyptic era properties like The Atomic Knights, Kamandi, Hercules Reborn, and even has some appearances from Superman and Rip Hunter. Great pulpy storytelling and cracking black and white art from the likes of Kirby, Ditko, and Walter Simonson.
Arh can't believe I forgot Rok of the Reds - damnit. I need to make this a top ten!
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 31 December, 2017, 11:15:37 AM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 31 December, 2017, 10:06:15 AM
Mardroid: download Chunky. Best iPad DRM-free comic reader by some margin.
Seconded. I like it a lot.
Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I'll have a look for it. And apologies for posting the above in this thread. I honestly thought I was posting in the comic book day thread. Just realised coming back here. Not sure how I managed that.
Rather then do a top 5, I'm going to break it down this way...
Favorite Comics of 2017
Favorite New On-Going - Extremity
Favorite New Mini - Mister Miracle
Favorite On-Going Monthly- Savage Dragon
Favorite On-Going Weekly - My Hero Academia
Favorite Reprint - The Legion by Abnett & Lanning Vol 1
Issue of the Year - Mister Miracle #4
(https://imageshack.com/a/img922/6486/WNlnRq.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/a/img923/6885/FDVuRK.jpg)
(https://imageshack.com/a/img924/6172/5tdQHa.jpg) (https://imageshack.com/a/img923/3909/Dzn9EG.jpg)
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.)
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.
1) Stray Bullets
2) Spy Seal
3) Punisher - The Platoon
4) Southern Bastards
5) Lady Killer 2
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...
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.
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
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 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.
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!).
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.
- All of the Tank Girl releases
- Shirtless Bear Fighter - https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/shirtless-bear-fighter-1-of-5
- Red One - https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/red-one-book-2-undercover-hc
- Motor Girl - https://comicvine.gamespot.com/motor-girl/4050-95424/
- Kill or be Killed - https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/kill-or-be-killed
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.
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:
(https://i.imgur.com/ZBm6qVb.jpg)
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Tombo on 09 January, 2018, 03:21:22 PM
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.
Well they came yesterday, I've read them and yep pretty good going so far, will certainly order the rest when they are released. One slight quibble is that the art style sometimes edges towards "tumblr-esque" but on the whole a good read, would recommend.
Non-2000AD Weekly
Grandville: Force Majeure
Saga, Volume Seven
2000AD Weekly
Absalom: Terminal Diagnosis
Brink: Skeleton Life
Tharg's 3rillers: The House of Gilded Peak
The Alienist: Inhuman Natures
Late to the party, as usual :-[
Like others, keeping it down to just five is tough, but I've had a go:
1. Black Hammer
2. Southern Bastards
3. Postal
4. Super Sons
5. Dept. H
I feel like 2017 was a great year for creator-owened titles. I hope 2018 continues in the same vein.
Quote from: Andrew Williamson on 16 January, 2018, 04:08:59 PM
1. Black Hammer
That's another one that didn't make my list for reason that bemuse me... then I look at what's on my list and I remember why.
As you say an astonishing good year for comics!