As the first Snowpocalypse of the year descends, we conclude this review of last year's books by ranking them through my entirely arbitrary and undefined criteria.
Favorite Ongoing Series (min. 6 issues):
1. Fantastic Four
2. Moon Knight
That's it, that's the list. There are only three other titles that even shipped 6 issues, and those were all mini-series. This is not a strong category. MacKay didn't seem to have nearly as much plot for this Black Spectre arc as he had issues to put it in, which is why I went with Fantastic Four, where Ryan North stuck to 1-2 issue stories, with an appropriate amount of stuff. I do like the Cappuccio/Rosenberg art team more than anything we got on FF, but I had five issues of that.
Favorite Mini-Series (at least 50% shipped in 2023):
1. Coda
2. Great British Bump-Off
3. Unstoppable Doom Patrol
There ended up being 15 mini-series that met the criteria, but I dismissed a half-dozen of those on the grounds I didn't like them enough to keep them. Of what remained, some books were weak in story (Clobberin' Time, Space Outlaws), others were weaker in art (Grit n Gears), and some were just OK (Ms. Marvel - The New Mutant.) Coda isn't not done, Spurrier and Bergara could still flub the ending, but it's felt like such a well-done book on the writing and art I gave it the edge of Great British Bump-Off, which suffers from my disinterest in cooking shows, and a lackluster mystery.
Favorite One-Shot:
1. Werewolf by Night
2. Impossible Jones Team-Up
3. Blood Run
Things like Sudden Death and Deadfellows, which only shipped one issue but ended with "To Be Continued," did not qualify. Which limited the field somewhat. Blood Run was ridiculous in a good way, but let Cardoselli go nuts, and Impossible Team-Up had its moments, but Werewolf by Night felt like the strongest entry overall.
Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel (anything purchased in 2023):
1. Mage and the Endless Unknown - SJ Miller
2. Star Power and the Lonely War - Michael Terracciano and Garth Graham
3. The Terrifics: The Tomorrow War - Gene Luen Yang, Stephen Segovia, Sergio Davila and a lot of other people
Bit of a mixed year for tpbs. Lotta swings and misses, lotta things that were OK, but not great. A few winners, though. Mage and the Endless Unknown was a largely silent book about a mage exploring the world, encountering some nice people but also a lot of horrors and gradually being ground down by the whole experience. Not cheerful, but the simplified, innocent looking figures make the lousy stuff they experience hit a little harder. The fourth Star Power volume likewise got rough with its main character, but avoided being a joyless slog through the difficulties of stopping a war. The Terrifics collection was just a lot of comics with some concepts either introduced or used I liked a lot.
Favorite Manga (anything purchased in 2023):
1. No Longer Allowed in Another World volume 1 - Hiroshi Noda & Takahiro Wakamatsu
2. The Boxer volume 3 - JH
3. Planetes volume 1 - Makoto Yukimura
I did better with the manga I tried this year (still a few whiffs, though.) No Longer Allowed in Another World consistently cracked me up, and I greatly identified with a protagonist who isn't really interested in the great conflict raging across the land he's been dumped into. Volume 3 of The Boxer was about the point I figured out JH was using the main character more as a way to examine what responses he brings out of the people he faces, as we see what someone who understands what he's facing will do to try and meet the challenge. I bought the second Planetes omnibus on sale at a bookstore that no longer exists, in a mall that barely does, years ago. So it was nice to see how things got to the point they did.
Favorite Writer:
1. Hiroshi Noda
2. Si Spurrier
3. John Allison
This one was hard. There weren't many writers I bought more than one thing from, and the ones I did (Jed MacKay, Si Spurrier) were hit-or-miss. It's hard to judge off just one thing. I went with Hiroshi Noda because not only does No Longer Allowed. . . make me laugh, I like the way he plays around with how different characters behave and why and what they're running from (while wondering when we'll see what "Sensei" is really running from.)
As for Spurrier, Uncanny Spider-Man may not have knocked my socks off, but Coda's been excellent. Especially in what the characters do and don't say to each other or themselves. And even if I wasn't impressed with the mystery aspect of Great British Bump-Off, Allison's writing is always clever and funny, and that'll carry it a fair distance with me.
Favorite Artist (min. 110 pages drawn in 2023):
1. Chris Burnham
2. Alessandro Cappuccio
3. Henry Ponciano
Cappucio's got a very sharp-edged, clean style that I can appreciate, especially with Rosenberg's colors over it, but he tends to skimp on the details as a result, and while I think part of it is about Moon Knight having tried to keep his life simple and with limited attachments, it does work against the book at times. It's hard to feel like Moon Knight's protecting anyone when the streets and buildings he moves through seem deserted. Burnham's characters are a lot squishier, messier, and there's stuff going on all around. Again, I think it fits this book as Cappuccio mostly does Moon Knight. Unstoppable Doom Patrol was also about all the characters as people and their lives, desires, all that jazz. Nobody's much paring their life down to just work there. Ponciano's on here as much for his color work, because I thought it was excellent and really brought the imagery to life.
If I removed the page limit, Matias Bergara and Max Sarin would probably be 1 & 2 in some order.
And with that, we're done. Regular blog features resume tomorrow.
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