Comic of the Year 2023 - R.A. Young - Jan. 16, 2024
Comic of the Year 2023
The past week has been unfortunately chaotic when it comes to writing. Productivity outlining hasn't been great. As tends to be the case, productivity tied to other efforts was pretty great, in turn. In this week's specific case, I've been putting together the Comic of the Year 2023 awards for a community I spend all my time in on ResetEra.
The ResetEra comics community has a diverse range of tastes but leans heavily toward favoring the Big Two, DC Comics and Marvel. This year's Comic of the Year list has a ton of great Big Two comics, whether it's Birds of Prey, Detective Comics, or Human Target on DC's side, or Immortal Thor, Fantastic Four, or X-Men Red on Marvel's. I lean toward indie comics from Image, or non-canon Big Two stories, but I can't argue that there are great comics to be found no matter the publisher this year.
Being able to put together the Comic of the Year awards for my friends is rewarding in several ways. It lets me give back to the community in a meaningful way, something I always want to do more of considering how close I am to these nerds. It also helps reinvigorate my love of comics, which ebbs and flows with the stresses of life. It's also something that feels very natural and easy to do, for me. Considering my struggles with focus and concentration, it's rare to find things that I can do without hitting a wall. I wish I understood what makes this different than other work, but will take what I can get.
Top 10 Comics
While the ResetEra Comic of the Year awards will be rolling out day to day over the coming week, here's my personal Top 10 list:
10. Friday -- This is my favorite Ed Brubaker book of the year. Brubaker is best known for his crime stories, but on Friday he makes a tribute story to the YA detective stories he loved when he was younger. You can tell how much the effort means to him. Even if Friday doesn't cut as deep as Brubaker's usual work, the obvious heart invested in the story makes it especially beautiful.
9. Roaming -- Three young women visit New York on vacation. Roaming captures this short trip, celebrating moments of friendship, intimacy, tension, and so on. It's beautiful in its simplicity. Hangovers, unexpected interactions with strangers, nostalgic conversations with an old friend, a quick pizza slice between destinations, and so on. Life is wonderful.
8. Miracleman: The Silver Age -- This Neil Gaiman guy is pretty good. He isn't as aggressive a writer as Alan Moore, but his talent for finding stories within stories, layered with empathy and then slow-cooked and left simmering is unparalleled. And that's exactly what you want from a comic about comics, presented as a cool-ass superhero story doing things other superhero stories seem unwilling to do.
7. The Enfield Gang Massacre -- Presented as a Western-ass-Western, The Enfield Gang Massacre's goal is to raise questions regarding genre expectations. Further, it reflects upon the all-too-real hero stories frequently used to glorify historical figures that used power structures and popular biases for their own benefit. It's especially pointed in 2023, when these hypocrisies and cruelties are done constantly and without subtlety -- yet there's little anyone can do to prevent them.
6. Clementine: Book Two -- Tillie Walden is one of my favorite writers/artists currently working in comics. The Clementine books that she's currently working on are, admittedly, somewhat limited due to the framework of the Walking Dead franchise and the zombie apocalypse setting, at least compared to Walden's independent work. But even those limiting factors can't stop Walden from telling a beautiful and heartfelt story that's brave, honest, and with a vulnerability rarely seen in comics of a similar nature.
5. Danger Street -- "Finally! The Tom King books!" is what all my subscribers are certainly saying right now. And what a Tom King book it is. I'd describe it as the most Coen brothers' Tom King book yet, ridiculous in its direction, and yet oh so intentionally empathetic. It's also very esoteric, even for a Tom King book, in that it's packed with no-name DC superheroes that take a while to establish. Danger Street is worth the investment, especially for issue #9 which is my favorite single issue of the year. Danger Street may finish higher on my 2024 list, depending on how King wraps up its ending.
4. Human Target -- Tom King book number two, here. Human Target is more in line with King's most popular works, with big six-panel pages and gorgeous art constantly stealing the show, like Mister Miracle and Strange Adventures. Human Target is simpler than those books, though. It's a romance, with a murder mystery framing and plenty of Justice League International nostalgia. It's perhaps too simple, but so excellently executed (and did I mention that Greg Smallwood art?) that it found an undeniable place so high on my list.
3. A Guest In the House -- Emily Carrol is exceptionally talented at getting under my skin. Her work is so torturously feminine and feminist, in all the best ways. A Guest In the House raises questions of isolation, dependency, maternal duty, human needs, wants, and expectations -- and the lies we tell ourselves to fill the gaps in our sanity. It especially cuts through my defenses as I explore the possibility of having inattentive ADHD as a grown, aging man. Am I dreaming of dragons?
2. Love Everlasting -- The top Tom King book of 2023 is Love Everlasting. I'm just as surprised as you that it didn't take the top spot. In all honesty, the current arc of Love Everlasting hasn't resounded in me as strongly as the first six issues. But it somehow, slowly, insidiously, dug into my brain anyway. I think about it constantly, to spurn and seek love innately, to feel a power beyond ourselves directing us but uninvested in our personal value and needs, to question what has meaning, and how the story ends.
1. 20th Century Men -- When I started 20th Century Men, I didn't expect it to be something I invested myself into. It's a verbose story revolving around the history and politics of Afghanistan, Russia and the USA's war there. I, like many I'd assume, try very hard to detach from much of the news in the Middle East and fail spectacularly. 20th Century Men broke through my barriers, in the end. Perhaps it's the humor that writer Deniz Camp cuts the story's brutal honesty with. Perhaps it's just knowing that despite how raw the story can be, its empathy is clear and comforting. It's so welcoming to read a story that captures a feeling so rarely expressed in the medium, let alone so exceptionally done. 20th Century Men is worth reading and celebrating -- and it's easily my top comic of 2023.
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While I did read a lot of comics in 2023, I'll fully admit I shirked at much of the offerings from the Big Two. I haven't read Poison Ivy, Birds of Prey, Immortal X-Men, World's Finest, or Immortal Thor. I haven't read much manga either. I'll try to do better in the new year, but I'm more than happy with this list and the quality of my picks. I hope you enjoyed the list, and maybe choose to check something out from it.
Lightning Round
The newsletter is already a bit long with my list of 2023 comics, so I won't go on too much more than I already have. Here's a quick lightning round:
Wrestling: Just half a month into January and both Jon Moxley and Will Ospreay have had multiple must-watch matches. I'm so excited for Ospreay to show up in AEW, now more than ever.
Games: I've been this close to pre-ordering the next World of Warcraft expansion and diving into Dragonflight, which I have yet to play. I think I'm just hungry for a new game, but I'm not sure how long I can resist.
Books: I'm reaching the end of The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's much different than I remember. Less clever, more desperate? I better recognize its way of capturing the naivety of youth and its cost.
Hope everyone is doing well and has a great week. Talk to you again soon. <3