Last year six artists drew 110 pages or more of the comics I bought, which was up from 5 in 2020, but well short of the 12 of 2019. 2022 didn't make it all the way up the 2019's level, but it did end up with 8 artists at that level.
Jorge Corona and Pere Perez just made it, with 110 pages each. Five of the artists were within 12 pages of each other, starting with Jim Terry at 143, then up through Jim Mahfood (146), Vanessa Carindali (147), Hayden Sherman (154), and Matias Bergara (155). Sherman's the only one whose pages are spread across more than one title (Above Snakes and Blink).
However, the leader for 2022 is Alessandro Cappuccio, with 180 pages on Moon Knight!
She-Hulk #1-6: After the book that was about Jennifer Walters dealing with the trauma of nearly being killed by Thanos, plus years of whatever Jason Aaron was doing with the character, Rainbow Rowell took the approach of synthesizing stuff from the earlier, more popular She-Hulk runs. Jennifer back working with some of the law firm cast from Dan Slott's run, living in an apartment the Wasp wasn't using. Roge Antonio was the artist initially, but after issues got delayed several months, Luca Maresca took over, although Rico Renzi's color work helped the book maintain a similar feel.
High Point: The best scene was when Jen calls Patsy Walker in issue 3, which confirms they're still friends, but also that Jen thinks Patsy dating Tony Stark is a bad idea. Smart woman, that Jennifer Walters.
I'm also generally cool with Jack of Hearts - not a fave, but certainly not someone I dislike - so Rowell bringing him back from the dead was A-OK by me. The "fight club" thing with She-Hulk and Titania had some possibilities.
Low Point: The pace is worse than glacial, and Rowell put so much focus on the mystery of why Jack was back and where his powers went, She-Hulk felt like a supporting character in what was ostensibly her book. Which really didn't do her actual supporting cast any favors. Mallory Book is suddenly entirely opposed to superhuman clients, and then an explanation is abruptly tossed out in like two pages in issue 6, with no real build.
But the awful pacing is mostly why I gave up.
Slumber #1-6: People are committing murders in their sleep and evidence points to a "dream eater" named Stetson being involved. When a cop named Finch tries to investigate, he wakes up having committed a murder. Tyler Burton Smith was the writer, with Vanessa Cardinali and Simon Robins are the art team.
High Point: I like the weird stuff Cardinali draws in the dreams, even if I think the book could have made more use of the peculiar rules and logic of dreams than it did in terms of layouts.
The "sin eater" aspect Smith sets up with Stetson's work. She removes people's nightmares by entering their dreams and killing the source, so that the client forgets. But Stetson doesn't forget, because now she's seen and encountered it as well, so the nightmare lives on in her mind. And that, plus the issues she won't deal with, and the lack of sleep, means it starts to bleed over into her waking life.
Low Point: It ends on several cliffhangers, and while I want to think it's going to come back at some point in the future, the mini-series also feels like a pitch for a Netflix show. Something about the limited nature of how they use the dream setting, and that Stetson's response to most things is a very simplistic, shoot and/or stab it with conventional weaponry.
Step by Bloody Step #1-4: The Coda team of Si Spurrier and Matias Bergara get back together for a 4-issue mini-series about an armored giant escorting a young girl across the world. The girl is not allowed to go back, or really to interact with anyone at all, which produces friction as she continues to age.
High Point: Bergara's art is fantastic again. His style is exaggerated, but able to do violence or grief, or quieter moments of sorrow equally well. Which is good, since there's no dialogue we can read in the entire mini-series, his art has to carry all the storytelling load.
My favorite issue is still the first, as it shifts back-and-forth between the giant's silent trek across these gorgeous landscapes, and brutal fight scenes as it defends the child from giant wolves or whatever other threats might appear. I compared it to an episode of Samurai Jack at the time, and I stick by it.
The fate of that general or prince or whatever he was in issue 4 was much appreciated.
Low Point: Nothing comes to mind, really. There were times I wouldn't have minded a little expository dialogue, but it's easy enough to follow what's happening. Especially once you've gotten to the end and a few things are explained.
Street Fighter Masters - Chun-Li #1: It was a one-shot about Chun-Li thinking she's put her quest to bring Bison to just behind her with his death, and realizing she might still have some unresolved anger issues. It was OK for a concept, although I was hoping for more fighting, and writer/artist Ryan Kinnaird's tendency to make every woman look like they're wearing heavy eyeliner and emphasize their butts got distracting.
Tales from the Dead Astronaut #3: The final issue of Jonathan Thompson and Jorge Luis Gabotto's short-story anthology book. The astronaut escapes the aliens that gave him flesh back, but he reverts to a skeleton and resumes drifting in space.
The Thing #3-6: Walter Mosley, Tom Reilly and Jordie Bellaire have Ben Grimm keeping getting dragged into brutal fights, with a highly intelligent kid and a mysterious and beautiful woman in his corner, though their allegiances are in question.
High Point: Reilly draws some great fight scenes, and Bellaire always shifts the color scheme to a solid red-orange for the most brutal panels, to really make the violence seem a little rougher. It blots out all the background details, reducing things to just Ben Grimm and whoever he's fighting.
That Mosley writes Ben as perceptive enough to know something bigger is going on here, even if he doesn't know what. But also that he writes Ben in a situation where his unwillingness to ever give up could actually be a flaw.
Low Point: That said, I don't know about the idea Ben's got anger issues that had, at the start of the mini-series, tanked his relationship with Alicia. I guess I can see the argument, Ben does get angry sometimes, but I don't know that I see him as having a problem with anger. Or maybe I just think he's justified in being angry.
Tiger Division #1, 2: A mini-series about a group of Korean super-heroes that showed up in a Black Cat Annual a couple of years back. I think I would have preferred the creative team (Emily Kim and Creees Lee) divide the focus more evenly between the characters, rather than just focusing on the backstory for the team's Superman character.
West Moon Chronicle #1: A guy returns home, trying to convince his dad to sell his house, but it turns out he's being played by a fox demon of some sort, and there's a bunch of other spirit stuff going on in the woods. The second issue's out, so hopefully I'll see it soon and have a few more answers.
West of Sundown #1-7: An Irish immigrant stuck fighting for the Confederates finds a woman who buried herself alive, and becomes her assistant. When the Frankenstein monster and a partner of his burn down their home in New York, they have to return to where she was born to save her life, and find a lot of creepy crap already having taken up home there.
High Point: That one panel of that decaying, possessed horse in issue 4. Man, that thing was hideous, but in a good way. It's supposed to be disturbing even to this cast, and it was. Well done, Jim Terry.
While I haven't loved the plots, I do love the friendship between Rosa and Dooley. Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell write it as this complex mix of desires and hang-ups. Rosa is the one with all the power outwardly, but Dooley's companionship means so much to her that she will go without food because there's no one he would consider it acceptable for her to drink from. And Dooley cares about her, but can't shake the feeling he's being party to something awful sometimes. It feels like a real relationship, in that each of them is making compromises and gets frustrated about it, but they decide it's ultimately worth it. Or they have so far.
Low Point: I can't shake the feeling I'm supposed to understand the rules about Rosa's abilities or the properties of where she was born better than I do. Like Seeley and Campbell are operating by a particular concept of a vampire, but it's not one I'm familiar with.
Wolverine - Patch #1, 2: Like Ben Reilly: Spider-Man, another mini-series by an older writer (Larry Hama) set in a distinct period (the Patch/Madripoor set-up), although as Paul O'Brien noted, Hama's the Wolverine writer who ditched Madripoor about as fast as he could when he took over the book. End of the day, I didn't care enough to stick around. I liked the full-page splash of Wolverine falling out of a plane Andrea De Vito drew in issue 1, though.
X-Men Legends #3, 4: Speaking of books from older writers set in distinct times, here's Ann Nocenti picking up Longshot sometime after her first mini-series, but before he joins the X-Men. Mojo throws he, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine into a war movie, which Spiral subverts to express her own vision. Then the X-Men get mindwiped so there's no question of why they didn't recognize Longshot when he met them again. Mojo's a good stand-in for any number of obnoxious shitheads in our current world, but I don't totally follow what Nocenti's doing with Spiral talking about her plots "spiraling" in on themselves.
OK, that's all the comics, so tomorrow is where we compare them to each other based on my entirely arbitrary rankings and declare things the best of the year.