One thing I've discovered from reading a bunch of new series is that you never really know if a book is going to be cancelled, go on permanent hiatus, lose a member of the creative team, go off on some wild tangent unrelated to the premise, or simple peter out in some way or another. It's no wonder that folks wait for trades instead of buying the monthlies. That said, today I finished Mike Carey and Elena Casagrande's Suicide Risk from Boom! Studies, which did go off on a fairly wild tangent but managed to wrap the story up in 25 issues. I wouldn't really call it a great comic, but it was tidy. There was an overwhelming amount of content coming out from publishers like Boom! Studies at the time, and you get blasted with house ads in each issue. How readers were able to navigate al of that content is beyond me. I wonder at times how much of it got read. In that context, Suicide Risk sticks out as memorable, and a book that's worth finishing if you never got round to picking up the issues you missed. I didn't suffer the same kind of disappointment I did with the ending to Sex Criminals, or the frustration of Afterlife with Archie being stuck in limbo, but the highs weren't nearly as high. I will say it's better than East of West, which grew boring after a while, and Nowhere Men, which disappeared to nowhere.
 

I've started taking a look at what mainstream comics had to offer in 2013.

The hit comic of 2012 was Mark Waid's Daredevil. Waid brought a different approach to Daredevil as he wanted to steer Matt away from the living hell that Bendis and Brubaker had put him through, and even came up with a storyline reason for the change in tone, though it was presented as something of a facade that would crumble whenever Waid wanted to include some serious drama. I wouldn't call it a return to Daredevil's swashbuckling days, but there were Silver Age elements, most notably the use of special guest villains. Instead of having Daredevil fight the usual street level guys, he gets tangled up with AIM, Hydra, Fantastic Four villains like Klaw and The Mole Man, and even spends some time in Latveria. 

I was skeptical at first since I consider Waid to be a fairly generic comic book writer, and in the early issues, the dialogue bugged me a bit, but gradually he won me over, and the book became a success despite a revolving door of artists. Very good artists, mind you, but I think it speaks to the strength of Waid's writing that the book was able to become as big as it was without a regular penciler. Once the book does finally get a regular artist, Chris Samnee, it cools off a bit, which may be the reason why it didn't get a lot of nominations for the 2014 Eisners, but it's still a very good run.

Nick Spencer's The Superior Foes of Spider-Man is a Keith Giffen & J. M. DeMatteis style take on a bunch of bungling super villains. The jokes are a little predictable, and it's not quite as witty as Giffen & DeMatteis, but I enjoy this style of humour and it has the same heart to it that JLI had. As an aside, you can feel the impact that having a former Vertigo editor in charge of Marvel is having on the creative output, and I have to say, I like it. It may not have amounted to much sales-wise, but creatively, there's a lot of exciting things going on at Marvel during this time period. 

That said, Dan Slot's The Superior Spider-Man is a big step out of my wheelhouse. It may seem silly to folks that have been reading comics for the past 25 years, but this stuff is brand new for me, and this is perhaps the most high concept book I've tackled since stepping back into the fray. For those of you whom are as clueless as I was, this is the series where Dr. Octopus has taken over Spider-Man's body and is determined to be a superior version of both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, while Parker's ghost hangs about trying to stop him from banging Mary Jane and whatnot. So far, it's been okay. There is a lot of material for Slot to explore, and the art is okay if not a little too manga-influenced at times. 

I'm slowly working my way towards the Batman stuff that replaced Daredevil as the most talked about superhero comic of 2013, but the run starts back in 2011, and I'm struggling a bit as I haven't enjoyed the Snyder stuff I've read so far and the art is ugly at times. 

I read this a few years ago and loved it.  The art had to grow on me, but it did, and Kindt clearly put a lot of effort into mapping out the story.

I must say I've been quite enjoying Young Avengers. I read the first issue and it was a total turnoff, but something clicked with the second issue and I've been onboard ever since. It's hard for me because I don't really keep up with the youth culture, so even a book that's ten years old feels like something from another planet. However, I've always enjoyed teen stories, and a super-powered teens story updated for the 2010s is a cool concept. 

Lumberjanes: Not the kind of title I'd have picked up by myself, but I got a big Boom Humble Bundle once and I really liked the series.

The Fade Out: It started slow for me (as I've said in another thread), but I really liked the second and third parts of the story and overall it scores pretty high on the Brubaker/Philips for me.

Ms. Marvel, by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona: Never got around to it, by now I was mostly focused on everything Image was putting out around this time (like Descender, Injection (which started strong, but fizzled out and I don't think we will ever see a conclusion to), Monstress, Paper Girls and probably more that I can not easily find right now)

Rocket Raccoon, by Skottie Young: It's fine.. not the best thiing he has done. Certainly not terrible, but I wouldn't put it in the top of the year.

The Wicked + The Divine, by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie: Like Fade Out, it took a bit for me to find what the series was going for, but it's one of my all time favourites. By the same team I like Young Avengers a lot less (though still like it) and Phonogram a bit more (because it's laser focused on my interests).

I finally finished a couple of books.

East of West dragged on forever with issue after issue of folks standing around talking about what was about to happen, but it had a satisfying ending, which kind of impressed me since it was 45 issues of build and if Hickman didn't stick the landing it would have a complete waste of time.

Mind MGMT is a book that I respected but didn't love. It was amazingly creative and pushed the boundaries of what's possible in a comic, but it was a pain to keep a track of what was going on at times and I never warmed to the art. I can imagine it being the perfect book for people who enjoy Finder and other stories of that ilk. It also had a satisfying ending, which is tough to do with a lot of these big idea books.

The winner of the 2015 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album was This One Summer by cousins, Mariko & Jillian Tamaki.




On the surface, it's a fairly typical coming-of-age story. It centers around two young girls whose families always vacation at the same beach town each summer. The summer in question here is that final summer between the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence where everything begins to change and nothing will ever be the same again. Instead of being interested in the same fun things they did each year as kids, the girls start to explore their interest in boys and become more aware of the emotional lives of the adults around them. It's beautifully illustrated. The beach town feels like this intimate place that the reader is also familiar with, and the beach scenes are some of the best drawn swimming scenes that I can remember seeing. It's an extremely well-told story. The focus is on young readers, but it has a tremendous amount of depth to it. People sometimes knock slice-of-life stories, but slice-of-life isn't easy to write. It takes a lot of skill. Apparently, there was a film adaptation but it doesn't have a very high rating on IMDB. I highly recommend the novel if you have any sort of nostalgia towards the same period in your life or just want to read a superbly crafted slice-of-life comic.