2015 Year In Review - Part 5

As always, these categories are relegated to what I bought this year. Why would you even expect me to list something I hadn't read? That wouldn't make any sense. For trade paperbacks, it's open to anything I bought this year, regardless of what year it was released.

Favorite Ongoing Series (minimum 6 issues published):

1. Ms. Marvel
2. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
3. Daredevil

Not a lot of options this year. 6 total (the other 3 being Deadpool, Descender, and Starfire). It was really close, and I might change my mind if you asked me next week, but right now, this seems right. Relaunches count as a separate series, so tough luck, Ant-Man. {Note: Ant-Man would not have come close to cracking the Top 3 anyway}

Favorite Mini-Series:

1. Marvel Zombies
2. Atomic Robo: Ring of Fire
3. Master of Kung-Fu

Again, fairly limited pickings. Probably a Top 2 would have been sufficient, because there's a fairly sizeable gap between those two and Master of Kung-Fu. I had to give Marvel Zombies the edge over Robo because of how I didn't love the first issue of Ring of Fire, and I haven't seen the final issue yet. Clevinger and Wegener are usually money on the endings, but there's always a chance I don't like it. I already know I liked the end of Spurrier and Kev Walker's offering.

Favorite One-Shot:

1. Secret Wars: Agents of Atlas
2. Empowered Special #8

Those are the only two options. Agents of Atlas may have benefited from low expectations, but I was more entertained by it than the Emp Special.

Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel:

1. Bandette Vol. 2, Stealers Keepers, by Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin, Ryan Jorgensen, and Tina Alessi
2. The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: King Radical, by Christopher Hastings and Anthony Clark
3. Locke & Key Vol. 6, by Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, Jay Fotos, and Robbie Robbins
4. Copperhead Volume 2, by Jay Faerber, Scott Godlewski, Ron Riely, Thomas Mauer
5. Wild Blue Yonder, by Mike Raicht (story/writer), Zack Howard (story/art), Austin Harrison (story), Nelson Daniel (inks), Jolyon Yates (inks assist), Thompson Knox (letters)

Oh, the top 2 were close. The sheer ridiculousness of Dr. McNinja almost won out, but Colleen Coover's art was the difference maker. Wild Blue Yonder narrowly edged out Station 16 for the final spot. Air combat in dystopian futures generally beats Soviet time travel shenanigans mixed with horror.

Favorite Writers:

1. G. Willow Wilson
2. Christopher Hastings
3. Ryan North
4. Jay Faerber

Faerber's making the list not only because of Copperhead, but also because I tracked down his and Mahmud Asrar's Dynamo 5 series in back issues over the summer, and enjoyed it a lot. Hastings is good at triggering that part of my brain that just wants to see the craziest stuff, and he's pretty funny. But I think Wilson did very well with some emotional weight, and more serious scenes, in addition to being able to make me laugh on occasion.

Favorite Artists (minimum 110 pages):

1. Chris Samnee
2. Erica Henderson
3. Dustin Nguyen

That was a pretty easy top 3. If Nguyen had drawn more in the style he employed on stuff like Lil' Gotham, I might have nudged him ahead of Henderson, but as it is, I like artists who can do comedy, and she had much more opportunity to show off her ability there than he did. Honorable mentions (for the artists who didn't make it to my entirely arbitrary page limit): Scott Wegener, Kev Walker, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa.