2018 Year In Review - Part 2

I bought 114 new comics this year, down three from last year, which was down three from the year before, which was down four from 2015, and so on. Although, if all the books that were solicited to ship in 2018 had actually done so, I'd have ended up around 121. The pitfall of switching to buying more stuff from more creator-owned companies. They aren't going to do a fill-in issue when someone falls behind.

Marvel accounted for 55 (48.25%) of the 114. That's the lowest number of comics for them since I started this blog, well below 2012's 64, but still a slightly higher percentage than 2012's 47.41%. DC had its worst year yet: 8 books total, for 7.02% of the total. 2016 was the previous low in total comics (11), and 2007 was the previous low in percentage (7.5). DC actually finished 5th among publishers this year for me. It hadn't done worse than 3rd previously.

All other publishers totaled 51 (44.73%) books. Boom! is in the lead, at 22 books. That's a new high for a single-year total for any non-Marvel/DC publisher, beating Image's 16 in 2015. After that, it's Dark Horse (12), Image (11), IDW (4), Albatross and NEC (1 each).

Domino #1-9: Gail Simone wrote it, David Baldeon drew most of the pages, with Jesus Arbutov on the color work. Arbutov also drew a few pages, and so did Michael Shelfer. Clayton Cowles handled the lettering. Domino forms a merc team with Outlaw and Diamondback (random, but OK), then has to survive a couple of people with a grudge and a traitor from within. Then they get roped into stopping vampires from destroying humanity by either rescuing or killing Morbius, and Domino's in the middle of trying to kill Longshot as the year wraps up.

High Point: Domino's speech about being a Disney Princess while pummeling the angry redhead with a rock was odd enough to be funny. Simone gets a lot of mileage out of playing up a contrast between Domino, the super-cool mercenary with luck powers, and Domino, who is kind of a dork and looks like a complete mess when she wakes up. It's not how I would have pictured her, but it's an interesting approach. Baldeon's expressive art can really play it up, either by showing how terrified she is when Outlaw uses the fastball special, or how she looks when she first wakes up.

Low Point: The identity of the traitor seemed like a big deal in the first few issues, then it was casually explained and dismissed in the last few pages of issue 6. I was disappointed we weren't seeing more crazy stuff happening as a result of Domino and Longshot's powers clashing in issue 9. Maybe we get that in issue 10.

Domino Annual: You'd think a comic would have to last more than a year to get an annual, but you would be wrong. There were four short stories, two of them about Domino and her old boyfriends, one about how Outlaw joined her and Diamondback, and one about a support group for mutants with a physical appearance altered due to their mutation, that Domino and Nightcrawler started up. Again, not something I would expect from Domino, but OK. The Cable story is the weak point, since it's written from Cable's POV, not Domino's, and is mostly about him trying to come to grips with the Domino he was in a relationship with having actually been a shapeshifter or something. Even Early 90s Calvin wasn't dumb enough to read X-Force on the reg.

Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell #2-6: A book that ran into delays, but at least it finished before year's end. Adam Warren as writer, Carla Speed McNeil on art and lettering duties, and Jenn Manley Lee on color work. Emp and Spooky get trapped in a hellish re-creation of Spooky's high school, where all the girls who tormented her are waiting for a chance to kill her and steal her magic powers. Emp is just collateral damage as far as the girls are concerned.

High Point: Carla Speed McNeil's artwork is excellent, and the ways that the tactics the girls would use back in school are translated to actual powers are usually pretty clever. Or gross. Being strangled by the guts of giant, dissected frogs? The fact that while the attacks are deadly, the taunts and insults aren't really doing much because while all these girls are still the same brats they were in high school, Spooky isn't. She has other traumas, but the old weak spots aren't really there any more to exploit.

Low Point: I dunno, the delays were irritating. After the first few battles, things move into a Lightning Round, which makes it seem as though it's getting easier. Except each girl should be getting more powerful as their classmates are defeated, so it should be getting harder.

Giant Days #34-45: A lot happened. Ed drunkenly confessed his feelings to Esther, which has been causing fallout all year. Daisy broke up with Ingrid - hallelujah! - and is mentoring new students. Susan had a mostly quiet year, but is growing increasingly bothered by the life of domestic bliss she's settling into, the loss of her edge. Esther is trying to mature in her own bizarre, zigzag path. So, not much different from the rest of us. John Allison wrote all issues, Max Sarin drew most of them (with inks by Liz Fleming for two of those issues), minus two Julia Madrigal handled. Whitney Cogar is on the color work, with Jim Campbell as letterer.

High Point: I love most everything about this book. The breakneck pace, the number of plots and subplots running through it. Allison has a great ability for writing clever dialogue, or just stuff that makes me laugh. Max Sarin's art, with the range of expressions and body language, and knowing when to really exaggerate for effect. For a single moment, the panel in #34 when Ed realizes he just confessed to Esther, and that Esther is still sober enough to have heard and understood him was my favorite. I've been waiting for that basically since I realized Ed being interested in her was a thing, and his "Oh God, what have I done?" look was just perfect.

Low Point: I wasn't into that arc with Cliff, the old man McGraw briefly helped, who also ran a very shady Christmas Village. One of those times where the book's tendency to move quickly through plots and onto the next one really worked out because it was over and done.

Giant Days -Where Women Glow and Men Plunder: Ed travels to Australia to spend the holidays with his girlfriend Nina and her family. Hilarity, kidnapping, and giant sausages ensue as Ed tries to live up to the idea of masculinity he thinks Nina's family expects from her boyfriend. He fails, but he tries, and he impresses in other ways. Nana Joan thinks he's extremely well-mannered. John Allison wrote and drew the story, with Whitney Cogar and Jim Campbell on color and letter work, respectively.

Harley Quinn #53: Sam Humphries, Lucas Werneck, Alex Sinclair, and Dave Sharpe. I bought this first issues of a two-parter because I liked what I thought I was gonna get. Harley confronting Minor Disaster, who makes people have small personal disasters, rather than creating earthquakes and such, sounded like it would be fun. The potential for silliness seemed high. Then it turned into this whole thing where Minor Disaster is disappointed in her dial because she's trying to impress her dad, and Harley's breaking down under the strain of trying to film clickbait videos to make money to pay for damage she's caused to the city. Ugh, I wanted a silly story, not all these emotional issues!

Infinite Dark #1-2: A story about what's left of humanity trapped in a space station floating in whatever exists after the universe ends. Except there's something out there, and people are either going crazy, or willingly working with it. Ryan Cady, Andrea Mutti, K. Michael Russell, and Troy Peteri were the creative team. It just didn't really click for me.

That's Day 2. Tomorrow, 3 mini-series from Marvel (none of them particularly good), one ongoing series, another mini-series, and a first issue.