I don’t think I have it in me to do any year end Best-Of lists this year. I didn’t read enough comics in 2014 to really feel like I am qualified to survey the landscape of material and pick out what was really good. I loved Twelve Gems, Battling Boy, and Seconds. I didn’t read any serious comics at all, unless you count mini-comics, which I take kind of seriously. In which case the best one was…that Noah van Sciver one? Did the Lizard Laughed even come out this year?
Rather than create a subjective list of comics that I think are better than other comics, I have created an objective list of comics I actually read on a monthly basis. I doubt this represents the best of what is on the shelves at your local shop. It doesn’t include a single DC comic, because I’m just fed up with those, and I don’t think there are any comics from publishers other than Marvel and Image. For reasons known only to my compulsive lizard brain, I used to try to be “fair” with my pull list and get something from every publisher I could. Now I don’t really care so I just buy the comics every week that I want to read, and Image happens to publish most of them. Did my consumer demand direct Image’s editorial choices, or was my weak soul destroyed and then reformed by Image’s sly marketing? I think I know the tragic answer.
Without further ado, these are the books I’m reading as of December 2014, in no order other than the order they were on my coffee table:
Saga – I think the drug-addled space wrestler storyline this year really pushed this title into overdrive.
All New Ghost Rider – The only comic that made me cry this year.
Secret Avengers – Avengers + Spy Stuff + Literary Allusion = Catnip for my Brain
Zero = The best looking comic almost every month, even though it is illustrated by a different person every time.
Tooth and Claw – Added to my pull list after one issue, because FLOATING CITIES FULL OF ANIMALS WHO ARE WIZARDS. And Kurt Busiek.
Stray Bullets – The Killers miniseries reminded me of a Harmony Korinne movie crossed with a Paul Thomas Anderson movie crossed with a Tarantino movie but significantly more fucked up.
Silver Surfer – If Whimsy were a vitamin, Allred and Slott’s Silver Surfer would be 800% of your recommended daily allowance.
Captain Marvel – Now that Guardians of the Galaxy is mostly an advertisement for itself, this is the best choice for fans of the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe.
Thor –
Unreasonable comics fans: so Thor’s a girl now?
Normal people: Yeah Thor’s a woman now. She picked up the hammer and…GO.
Unreasonable comics fans: does she kick as much as the dude Thor?
Normal people: So far she is kicking more ass than the last Thor. You get that whoever has the hammer just is Thor so it doesn’t matter if it is a man or a woman, right?
Unreasonable comics fans: So, is it like, sexy Thor?
Normal people: *rage blackout*
The Wicked + The Divine – How early is too early in a career to remix one’s own body of work? Let’s use the Bob Dylan rule and see…he was like 14 or something when he ‘went electric’ and changed the game so…yup, checks out, McKelvie and Gillen are totally allowed to sample their own ideas from a few years ago and blow them up all super-sized and make a comic that is as much about Miley Cyrus as it is about the true nature of the human soul.
Rat Queens – Roc Upchurch draws the coolest characters in comics. Please read this book and fall in love with sword and sorcery medieval high fantasy all over again.
Manifest Destiny – for the history nerd in all of us.
Iron Fist: The Living Weapon – This is both a perfect adaptation of Mortal Kombat into comic book form and possibly the most personal Iron Fist story ever told. Very winning.
