My Favorite (non-manga) Comics This Year
Dec. 31st, 2012 04:55 pmA few of my favorite things amongst this year's offerings from the comic book industry:
Marceline and the Scream Queens
It's everything I ever wanted an Adventure Time comic to be: Marceline and Princess Bubblegum have ridiculous adventures together and actually grow as characters because of their influence on each other, the artwork by Meredith Gran and a roster of talented guest artists is fantastic, and the jokes fly fast and furiously while still being every bit as sophisticated and layered as you'd expect Adventure Time humor to be. Absolutely one of the best comics I've read this year. Cannot be recommended enough.
Bandette
My favorite among Monkeybrain's launch titles. The dialogue and characters are delightfully over-the-top, and Colleen Coover's slick, stylized, yet cartoonish artwork fits the tone of the book perfectly. Dueling master thieves! A grumpy detective in over his head! A villainous matadorista! Terrorist organizations that need to be thwarted, hostages in a bank robbery that need to be rescued, cute dogs, rare books, and stolen Rembrandts - and that's all just in the first three issues. I can't wait to read more of this.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Oh look, it's the comic book that spawned over twenty variant covers and that sold over 100,000 issues in pre-orders alone. And that's just for the very first issue. But hey, this is one of those cases where the success of the comic is richly deserved. Andy Price's artwork looks nothing like the style of the cartoon series, but it fits the comic book medium perfectly. Katie Cook's storyline centers around a fan-favorite villain, yet never really kowtows to the Brony fan base the way that many of us feared that it would; the story, the characters, and the humor in the comic remain true to everything that makes the cartoon great. So in short, this comic book is basically perfect.
Krishna
Abhishek Singh is still one of the most criminally under-appreciated comic artists working today. I probably can't write anything here that will convince you to buy his new (utterly gorgeous) graphic novel that will be more persuasive than simply showing you a selection of some artwork from the book and letting that speak for itself, so here you go: http://abhiart.blogspot.com/2012/09/krishna-journey-within.html
Hawkeye
Everything that you've heard about this series is true: It really IS that good. And I'm saying this as somebody who normally doesn't care for Clint Barton as a character. I don't dislike him or anything, but in most comics that I read I just don't find Clint that interesting of a character. To be honest, I started reading this series because I'd heard that it co-stars Kate Bishop being completely awesome (which it does and she is), but by the end of theseries (ETA: first six issues, as this actually an ongoing and not a miniseries like I mistakenly assumed!) I was definitely reading it for Clint. I love this comic. I love the interplay between Clint and Kate, I love the artwork, and I love the way that Matt Fraction writes Clint's narrative voice. It's a fantastic series. I'll recommend it even if (like me) you're usually not that much of a Clint fan.
Astonishing X-Men
Still hands-down the best X-Men title every month. I loved the conclusion to the epic Mauraders/Karma/Susan/gay wedding/Madripoor story arc. I love Karma getting to take a starring role in any story arc, period. I loved the wedding. I love Iceman, Gambit, and Northstar being bros. I loved Danger and Emma co-starring in one of my favorite standalone issues I've read this year. I just love the way that this series is so consistently good, and it's hard not to acknowledge that this is largely because Marvel keeps Astonishing mostly separate from whatever crossover event bullshit they're mucking up the other X-titles with.* It was exactly that same tiresome crossover event bullshit (*cough*Avengers vs. X-Men*cough*) that turned X-Men Legacy from a series that I was enjoying immensely into a series that bored me to tears. Anywhoo, Astonishing is for that very reason still the only X-title on my pull list as I head into 2013, although to be honest I kind of hope that changes soon. I miss Rogue being awesome.
*Okay, I admit that I did really enjoy Schism. But Schism is basically the ONLY one of Marvel's big narrative "events" I've enjoyed in a long while, and it wasn't even a big crossover event at that. Avengers vs. X-Men wasn't just bad, it was actively painful and boring. Thank God that Astonishing had nothing to do with that crap.
Marceline and the Scream Queens
It's everything I ever wanted an Adventure Time comic to be: Marceline and Princess Bubblegum have ridiculous adventures together and actually grow as characters because of their influence on each other, the artwork by Meredith Gran and a roster of talented guest artists is fantastic, and the jokes fly fast and furiously while still being every bit as sophisticated and layered as you'd expect Adventure Time humor to be. Absolutely one of the best comics I've read this year. Cannot be recommended enough.
Bandette
My favorite among Monkeybrain's launch titles. The dialogue and characters are delightfully over-the-top, and Colleen Coover's slick, stylized, yet cartoonish artwork fits the tone of the book perfectly. Dueling master thieves! A grumpy detective in over his head! A villainous matadorista! Terrorist organizations that need to be thwarted, hostages in a bank robbery that need to be rescued, cute dogs, rare books, and stolen Rembrandts - and that's all just in the first three issues. I can't wait to read more of this.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Oh look, it's the comic book that spawned over twenty variant covers and that sold over 100,000 issues in pre-orders alone. And that's just for the very first issue. But hey, this is one of those cases where the success of the comic is richly deserved. Andy Price's artwork looks nothing like the style of the cartoon series, but it fits the comic book medium perfectly. Katie Cook's storyline centers around a fan-favorite villain, yet never really kowtows to the Brony fan base the way that many of us feared that it would; the story, the characters, and the humor in the comic remain true to everything that makes the cartoon great. So in short, this comic book is basically perfect.
Krishna
Abhishek Singh is still one of the most criminally under-appreciated comic artists working today. I probably can't write anything here that will convince you to buy his new (utterly gorgeous) graphic novel that will be more persuasive than simply showing you a selection of some artwork from the book and letting that speak for itself, so here you go: http://abhiart.blogspot.com/2012/09/krishna-journey-within.html
Hawkeye
Everything that you've heard about this series is true: It really IS that good. And I'm saying this as somebody who normally doesn't care for Clint Barton as a character. I don't dislike him or anything, but in most comics that I read I just don't find Clint that interesting of a character. To be honest, I started reading this series because I'd heard that it co-stars Kate Bishop being completely awesome (which it does and she is), but by the end of the
Astonishing X-Men
Still hands-down the best X-Men title every month. I loved the conclusion to the epic Mauraders/Karma/Susan/gay wedding/Madripoor story arc. I love Karma getting to take a starring role in any story arc, period. I loved the wedding. I love Iceman, Gambit, and Northstar being bros. I loved Danger and Emma co-starring in one of my favorite standalone issues I've read this year. I just love the way that this series is so consistently good, and it's hard not to acknowledge that this is largely because Marvel keeps Astonishing mostly separate from whatever crossover event bullshit they're mucking up the other X-titles with.* It was exactly that same tiresome crossover event bullshit (*cough*Avengers vs. X-Men*cough*) that turned X-Men Legacy from a series that I was enjoying immensely into a series that bored me to tears. Anywhoo, Astonishing is for that very reason still the only X-title on my pull list as I head into 2013, although to be honest I kind of hope that changes soon. I miss Rogue being awesome.
*Okay, I admit that I did really enjoy Schism. But Schism is basically the ONLY one of Marvel's big narrative "events" I've enjoyed in a long while, and it wasn't even a big crossover event at that. Avengers vs. X-Men wasn't just bad, it was actively painful and boring. Thank God that Astonishing had nothing to do with that crap.
