The Mrs and I will be settling down to watch my 2010 Blu Ray tonight. Who else is ?

I think I would lump myself in with the grumpy bloggers. Comics and I, we have a long and torrid relationship, and sometimes we have down periods. I think this is one of them. It’s not just the superhero comics– I’ve given up hope of any good superhero comics lasting very long in this market– but comics in general. The only comics I read in 2009 that really set my pants on fire were Atomic Robo, which was cover-to-cover awesome (I feel like we’re the only two people on the internet championing this book, Greg), and Umbrella Academy: Dallas, which is the spiritual successor to all those crazed late 80s/early 90s Grant Morrison books (though it is better than those. Yes, I said it). A lot of comics are decent, or good-but-not-great, but I demand excellence at all times.

Even Seaguy 2: Electric Da-Fugaloo let me down, though I suspect it deserves a reread and further analysis (my expectations may have killed it; I expected it to be the best comic ever made). Heck, if we look at the Top Five Things To Look Forward To in 2009 post I did last January, it’s filled with disappointments and shrugged soldiers. Vertigo Crime? I can’t even pretend to feign interest in that. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 3? Did not work for me at all, and I probably won’t bother with the rest of the chapters (whenever they come out). Ignition City? It was decent, but it sagged in the middle, and Ellis’ disinterest in future installments kinda makes the thing fizzle more. Daytripper? Well, we got one issue, and it was interesting, but now I’m waiting for the trade.

2009 was the year I decided to switch mostly to trades, and I feel like this is adding to my buzzkill for comics. Yes, trades are prettier and easier to store and cheaper and all that, but those flimsy bastards were comics to me. Out of sight, out of mind? Absence makes the heart grow colder? I don’t know. I’m starting to lose track of books and series, and find myself caring less and less. It hurts. I want to love comics. Why don’t I love comics?

To be fair, Superheroes as a genre are fine. See the The Dark Knight movie, the Batman: Brave and the Bold TV show, and the Iron Man movie as examples of superhero stuff that’s popular and works well. Every one of those has an audience that’s much larger than what any comic book sells.

The real problem is selling 22 page pamphlets for 2.99-3.99. Unless the art is so dramatic that you stare at it for hours or the writing is so profound that you read it multiple times, that’s a horrible ratio of entertainment to money. And because DC/Marvel do a lot of mass-produced comics, they generally aren’t worth the value unless you really like the character or the writer’s ideas speak directly to you.

Sally Forth beat you to it as well.

[...] forward | Speaking of CSBG!, Greg Burgas looks forward to 2010, declaring "Comics [...]

I’d been thinking of 2010: Odyssey Two a lot lately, but just the book, not the movie. I didn’t much like the movie.

I’ve noticed that at the local Hastings bookstore, a few of the comics are in with the regular books of their genre, although most are still in the comics section. There are several manga volumes in the gay section. (Although I guess some people will still complain that gay books are segregated in their own section.) I’ve seen a few other comics in with their specific genres, but at the moment I can’t remember what they were.

And amen! Happy New Year boys and girls… and let’s try to make it a fine year! And now we wait 51 years to make another Arthur C. Clarke reference.

“I’m a bit chuffed we’ll probably never see a new series of Phonogram”

Hey, everybody, Greg hates Phonogram!

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/chuffed

[Adj. 1. chuffed - very pleased; "I'm chuffed to have won"]

Good column Greg. I always find the anti superhero comic sentiment amusing. We’re talking about musclebound costumed characters with magical powers and objects here. What do people expect, 40 titles of Watchmen a month? Sure there are some writers who raise the bar, but the complex and thought provoking stories are the exceptions. This is true all across the entertainment medium. Most movies, novels, and music are schlock, because, well, the average consumer is not looking for deep engaging content, they are looking for simple amusement. Frankly America is no bastion of intellectualism in the first place. To expect high art from superhero comic books is like expecting Filet Mignon in a Happy Meal.

Sorry, Jack. I could have sworn it meant pissed off. That’s why I shouldn’t use British slang!

“are you ready for Justin Long as NOVA?!?!?!?!?”

This made me laugh out loud.

I’ll throw in my lot with the grumpy bloggers as well. 200i was the year I gave up on new comics, both buying and reading. There are tens of thousands of old comics out there and I find myself enjoying those more than the new stuff.

” Frankly America is no bastion of intellectualism in the first place. To expect high art from superhero comic books is like expecting Filet Mignon in a Happy Meal. ”

There’s a middle ground that you’re not acknowledging. There’s still plenty in American comics, movies, TV, and music that’s high quality, even in the popular sector. I wouldn’t call Dollhouse an un-intellectual show; I wouldn’t even put that label on House M.D. And there’s quite a bit of cerebral focus in mainstream superhero comics by authors like Grant Morrison, Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, and others.

I don’t expect Filet Mignon, but I do expect a good Red Robin Whisky River BBQ burger.

I can’t really drink the top-shelf stuff all the time, but I won’t go for bottom-shelf unless it’s dirt cheap or free. Mid-shelf’s always a safe choice.

Comics are ridiculously expensive. Lets face it 22 pages, maybe 15 minutes tops with the book for 4 dollars. My movie theatre sells matinees for 5 dollars; thats a 1:30-2 hour entertainment for 5 bucks. Comics are already losing there. The only appeal to comics are their art, storytelling and characters. Which is why we love comics right? Well a huge problem is that we are running out of ideas to write stories. I have read tons of batman stories that rehash his parents death. Which isn’t a bad thing, but definitely not a good thing. Xmen is another example. How many times will phoenix arise?

We need complex stories with new characters and new ideas. Thats our hunger. And we aren’t getting it (at the pace that we want). I love Alan Moore. He is a great writer who rights amazing stories. I could read his stuff a million times and never get bored. We need more writers like Geoff Johns. Blackest Night is EPIC. Its truly a fantastic spin on a character no one thought had the potential. Geoff Johns not only created many characters but shoved DC characters right in the mix fitting them in place beautifully.

The point is that comics cannot recycle stories, like modern culture does. Im not bashing any tv shows but how many CSIs do we have on the air? how many medical shows like House or Greys Anatomy do we have? Our modern culture likes to recycle. Comics is the another medium where its easiest to recycle stories. That is why we need our writers and artists need to step up their work and make stories fun to read again.

For the record, yeah,. I completely agree with everything.

And I’ll raise you: Superhero comics, if not exemplary right now, are doin’ just fine quality wise. This year was no 1973 or 2002, but It’s certainly no Marvel circa 1992 or (God forbid) DC circa 1979.

The people bitchin’ about the superhero mainstream are probably just outgrowing it, or growing bored with the static storytelling and same repeated tropes. Not me personally. I’m pretty excited to see Norman Osbourne get his come-uppance.

(When the trade comes through the library, of course. I’m not so excited I’m gonna spend money.)

” The people bitchin’ about the superhero mainstream are probably just outgrowing it, or growing bored with the static storytelling and same repeated tropes. Not me personally. I’m pretty excited to see Norman Osbourne get his come-uppance. ”

I agree. And the most excited I was about comics this year was with the Iron Man story World’s Most Wanted. I was practically camped outside the store for the conclusion’s ship-date. And this wasn’t just because Iron Man is my favorite Marvel character, but because it was a great story that really spoke to me.

To criticize static storytelling and repeated tropes is one thing, but to disavow superhero comics entirely is myopic and asinine.

We need more writers like Geoff Johns.

You were doing so well with your “let’s get new ideas” bit until this sentence.

Burgas: “I don’t know about you, but every year I’m stunned by the quality of comics being produced.”

I’m more stunned by the fact that the retailers and fandom alike consistently ignore many of the quality works available in favor of buying the garbage and then complain about what they read.

Burgas: “If you’re burned out by superhero comics, find something else to read, for crying out loud! I know these bloggers do read other things, but why don’t they write about how awesome those things are instead of whining about superhero books?’

Because that’s not what Jonah wants you to talk about. It equals more traffic for CBR to have debates about what sucks than it is to review (i.e. promote) obscure titles that practically nobody reads and thus have nothing to comment about. Just saying.

Burgas: “Those grumpy bloggers I referenced above have a point, but a lot of mainstream superhero comics have always been shit. I dare you to go back and re-read some shitty comic from the 1970s or 1980s and try to take your childhood nostalgia out of the equation.”

That’s not difficult at all; there’s a quite a few 70s, 80s books that I remembered being better than they actually are. The thing is though, Greg, I usually get those books for ten cents to a buck a book, so even when they ‘suck’, they’re still far better than the $3 to $4 for current stuff. I still feel like I got my money’s worth. Whereas even the best of the best works of today really have to impress me to say they’re worth the expense. I suspect that many others probably have similar experience/ views.

Burgas: “I have no idea what the deal is with that – Image is all about creator ownership, so presumably some fault must fall to the creators being slow, but there also seems to be cash-flow problems at Image, too.”

I’d say it’s more that they can’t afford to do the book on time because they aren’t selling enough to make a living off them, so they do Marvel or DC work (if they’re “lucky” and can stomach doing so) or they work a “real job” while trying to make a go of it, either of which slows the production process down. Which of course hurts orders, which means even longer waits.. until the book just dies and you’re all going, “Whatever happened to that book? I liked it.” Same deal with most indie books (and they have even less of a shot getting noticed and picked up to write the Big Two properties).

Nitz the Bloody: “And there’s quite a bit of cerebral focus in mainstream superhero comics by authors like Grant Morrison, Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, and others.”

Seems to me those guys are just retreading the work of the eighties, pre-Image nineties indie market; various works by Alan Moore, Howard Chaykin, Gary Reed, Randy Zimmerman, Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette, Mike Baron, Mike Grell, John Ostrander, et. al. (and many of those guys also were more cerebral in their mainstream comics work as well). I don’t find today’s superstar writers to be anything but “NuCoke”, if you get my analogy. And even the current stuff by Moore or some of the others named here- it’s basically them retreading themselves. Don’t really need or want that from them, either.

I’ve been looking back over the past ten years in terms of entertainment media, and I’ve gotta say: comics beats the crap out of both television and movies by far. Maybe there’s a secret stash somewhere, but in terms of percentage of good stuff to bad and in terms of memorable works within the genre, comics is definitely striving better. For every “Six Feet Under” there are five more “Survivor” ripoffs that followed on the boob tube. For every “Wall-E” there were ten different soul-less pieces of Hollywood trash.

Sure, there have been some questionable or downright stupid decisions in comics, mostly relating to the crossovers that never died since 2005, but this decade has produced some unmitigated creativity from every corner, from Marvel’s early output with Morrison and JMS and Ennis, to DC’s New Frontier and nearly every second title that Vertigo produced, successful or not, to all of the great and even-not-so great indie titles that were created in the past ten years. To bitch about comics and where they’re at today seems to be missing the forest for the trees completely.

For every “Six Feet Under” there are five more “Survivor” ripoffs that followed on the boob tube.

Problem is all those Survivor ripoffs are essentially free. Comics don’t just need to be better than TV, they need to be substantially better than TV to justify the cost.

“I’m not “disappointed” by mainstream superhero comics because I don’t expect too much from them in the first place. Why any of these bloggers read Infinite Crisis or House of M or Civil War or Secret Invasion or, now, Siege in the first place is beyond me. Chad and Tim make the point that they review comics for the Mothership, and that’s fine, but why anyone would spend money on them if they’re sure they’re going to suck makes no sense whatsoever. If you’re burned out by superhero comics, find something else to read, for crying out loud! I know these bloggers do read other things, but why don’t they write about how awesome those things are instead of whining about superhero books?”

I’m not so sure you read my post, because I didn’t say anything even approaching what you’re implying here. My post, in a nutshell, was about how I used to love superheroes, fueled in part by childhood nostalgia, and now I don’t. I’m not grumpy and I don’t think all superhero comics suck. I like more than a few out of both companies. Instead, I was talking about how something that used to do it for me didn’t do it any more, and how I’d been looking in other directions for entertainment.

And you say that I should write about how awesome the other things I read are– I did exactly that. Quoting here: “I’ve made five negative posts about 2009-era superheroes since [September], and a whole bunch of posts about old superheroes or books from Viz, Boom! Studios, Image, Dark Horse, and other companies.”

I was never really Captain Fanboy to begin with, but I’ve always enjoyed superhero books. Realizing that they weren’t doing it for me like they used to was something I felt was worth talking about. I looked at why it wasn’t working for me, tried to put what I didn’t like about the big books these days into words, and figured it’d start an interesting conversation, which is exactly what it did.

I don’t think that really qualifies as “grumpy.” I’m not telling kids to get off my lawn with that rock’n'roll and loose women and drugs. I’m just accepting that maybe everything ain’t for me and putting together why.

Wouldn’t it be a much better idea to LEAVE OUT irrelevant pop-culture references? Especially since the film in question STUNK.

[...] Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic… – http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/ More: 2010: The year we make contact* | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic … January 2nd, 2010 in Affiliates, [...]

Wait, I didn’t whine about superhero comics, either, now that I went back and actually read what Chad and I discussed. I just pointed out that there’s less enthusiasm in the intelligent corner of the blogosphere regarding superhero comics in the second half of 2009. Because there is.

But I have no doubt that we’re in a superhero lull right now. Anyone who’s been around a while knows this. It’s not about “growing out of them” or any of that nonsense. It’s about a lack of fresh voices or new writers who just kind of blend in to the house styles. It happens every few years with superheroes, and it’s happening now.

Also, I’m always astounded when people talk about $3.99 comics taking even 15 minutes to read. They take about 8 minutes, tops. Unless you’re pausing after each word balloon to look around at each detail in the panel. Which I suspect most people don’t do.

“Comics are still ghettoized in bookstores, but I wonder how long that will last before they’re simply moved into the sections where the “real” books are – volumes of Criminal in mystery/crime, for instance, rather than stacked next to Infinite Crisis. ”

I like having the comics in their own section. A comic is enough of a departure from a text-only novel that I feel it deserves separation in the same way that all of the CDs, DVDs, and magazines get their own section in a big bookstore.

However, it would be great if comics got their own *distinguishable* section, like CDs, DVDs, and magazines.

Its seems to me we all have our own special problems with the comic book medium. New stories, too much super-heroes, too short, not enough writers, terrible art, etc.

Comics need to be more available and need an edge over movies and TV.

I don’t care what “genre” they are but they need to be at least fun.

“But I have no doubt that we’re in a superhero lull right now. Anyone who’s been around a while knows this. It’s not about “growing out of them” or any of that nonsense. It’s about a lack of fresh voices or new writers who just kind of blend in to the house styles. It happens every few years with superheroes, and it’s happening now.”

But there’s lulls and there’s LULLS, right? I can’t be any clearer than “This ain’t DC comics in 1979. This ain’t Marvel comics in 1992.” On the overall superhero comic quality continuum stretching back to 1939, I’d say 2009 rated around a six outta ten.

“But there’s lulls and there’s LULLS, right? I can’t be any clearer than “This ain’t DC comics in 1979. This ain’t Marvel comics in 1992.” On the overall superhero comic quality continuum stretching back to 1939, I’d say 2009 rated around a six outta ten.”

I have to admit he’s right 100%. I just hope 2010 will be start of a good comic decade.

@MarkAndrew: I’m curious. This isn’t having a go, criticising, inciting an argument or being snarky.
I get the reference to Marvel 1992: the crass Image stuff coming to the fore (dreadful stylised artwork, pouches etc), crap crossovers, exploitative ‘gimmick’ foil-coloured variant covers and 1st issues, Venom overkill, X-toss etc etc etc.

But what was so bad about DC 1979?
Happy Noo Year to all, Pete.

Interesting post, Greg. You, along with lots of the commenters, make valid points. Ultimately I agree most with Ted and Stealthwise: Comics are like any other art form in that most examples are not going to be astonishing (even if the title claims they are).

$3.99 is a lot to spend on a comic. And yes, I’m a guy who tends to go to the cheap shows for movies ($5 or $6 matinee “bargain”) … but I can’t watch that movie again no matter how much I paid for it. Meanwhile, I can re-read that comic as many times as I want. And I have indeed re-read Detective Comics (which is certainly worth staring at for the Williams artwork). I have also (as unfashionable as it might be to admit publicly in this thread) re-read most recent issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. They’re not high art by any means but it they have (along with Blackest Night) consistently entertained me.

Here’s one way to look at “Blackest Night” (and I don’t think this is true of all event comics, but I’m pretty sure it applies here): The thing is a runaway hit and it’s bringing new people to comics (or, more accurately I suppose, older readers back in). I know of two people who’ve started reading comics again because of “Blackest Night,” and I know of one woman in her late 30s who’s picking up “Green Lantern” now and enjoying it. She’d never read superhero comics before. And none of these people are even zombie-heads. Surely some of the zombie film lovers are picking up this comic too. So can that really be a bad thing?

It reminds me of “Wicked,” which is a musical I really didn’t like at all (although I loved the book). But the thing was/is a runaway hit, and it brought tons of new audience members into the theater. Some of them will end up attending more theater, and that’s a good thing. Of course I realize that there’s no comparison, numbers-wise, between “Blackest Night” and “Wicked,” but the underlying point remains: They are both popular works that appeal to a wider audience, and they’re getting people excited about a medium that is underappreciated.

@ Bill Reed: You can be completely dismissive of Geoff Johns, but you can’t blame him for falling out of love with comics. (Not that you said that, exactly.) Why don’t you love comics? I dunno … but you could re-read your fun series of 365 Reasons to Love ‘em, and maybe you wouldn’t feel so disillusioned.

Also: Has anybody else been reading the CBR list of 100 best comics? It’s surprisingly diverse.

Bright-Raven: how so? It’s one thing to say that they’re just ” Nu ” ( a word often used by traditionalists to disparage what they don’t understand ), it’s another to actually explain why these writers don’t work when compared to the old guys.

I used to be concerned about the cost-to-value ratio of comics too, until I stopped buying more than a few titles a month. Now I just concentrate on those few things that give me pleasure, like the GL stuff and Secret Six, the Goon, Criminal, probably one or two others I can’t think of off the top of my head (now that All-Star Superman and Nextwave and Fell are gone for the moment…).

MarkAndrew mentioned the library, which is a great place to get free entertainment, just not instantaneous-free like television is, which is part of the problem, because every form of entertainment these days has a “water cooler” or “message board” cache to it: we want to be involved in the discussion of things as they happen. I personally am not an avid gamer, so I buy anything for my Wii a year or two after it comes out, because I don’t care if i have the new cutting edge game. I just want to buy something cheap and proven.

The same theory works with library or ordering trade paperbacks through amazon or whathaveyou, you get the same product, only without that immediacy that helps justify buying shitty things. Who would realistically want to pay for some of the crossovers that Marvel and DC have crapped out, now that no one’s talking about them anymore?

The other factor is that we all know what happens in Civil War and Infinite Crisis, for two examples, because the effects of those titles are wide-spanning and talked about to death. Is it exciting to read that Spider-man unmasked in issue 2, now that CNN isn’t talking about it anymore? Heck, that story has been retconned out anyways, so is there even a point in reading it now, except in order to connect dot 134 out of 2,000 in the big puzzle that Marvel is laying out?

I’m trying to reign in this rant a bit, but basically what it comes down to is that comics are not a comparable medium with television. It’s been discussed frequently in the past, but there we have it. Comics are a distinct artform that needs to be treated on its own grounds, mostly because some people will NEVER pick up a comic and try to read it. I have a friend at work who loves violent movies, video games, etc, and loves Bay’s Transformers and The Dark Knight, but would never pick up a comic book that might be similar or better (even for free) because “they’re just not my thing.” It doesn’t matter if he’s never honestly tried to read one, there’s either a stigma there that he can’t get past, or he doesn’t understand how to read them, or he just feels like he’s not missing out on anything.

The thing is, not to sound like a smug hipster douche, he IS missing out on something. But that’s ok, he, and millions of people like him, will continue to watch American Idol and House reruns for days and days and enjoy the hell out of them, with no harm, no foul. But we know better.

Why DC in 1979 sucked:

(A) The DC implosion – where they had cancelled something like sixty-five of their eighty titles was in 1978. (I was off by a year.)

(B) No major new talent moving into the company. Most of the best remembered (and best) DC stuff from the seventies was made by OLD dudes – Kirby’s Fourth World books, Kubert’s Tor and Tarzan, Haney and Aparo’s Brave and the Bold. All of those runs were winding down, and there wasn’t exciting new talent coming in to replace them. (I think JL Garcia Lopez got hired in the last half of the ’70s, but I can’t think of anyone else who’s considered a major, important creator who started with DC in that period ‘o time.)

(C) I, personally, think most of the comics I’ve read published in the ’78 to ’80 time-span were, if not awful, generic and kinda boring.

Oh, whatever. At this point, I just buy what few titles I enjoy, and just ignore the rest. Bitching about stuff I don’t even read is too much of a waste of time.

Besides, at this point, there is soooooo much classic Marvel and DC material from the 1960s, 70, and 80s back in print in Essential, Showcase , Masterworks, Archives, and innumerable trade paperbacks. So, if you do not like the current Marvel and DC stuff, there’s three plus decades of reprinted material to you to delve into.

Oh, yeah, this is a lull, not a LULL. That era that gave us the “Fate” with the stabby knife and scar face plus that crap Fantastic Force stuff. That was a LULL. This is not that.

?Nitz:

The ‘newer’ writers are (for me at least) far more obvious in who and what they homage / recycle
/ do pastiches of, making their work far more predictable and redundant than those writers of
previous generations. (Because let’s face it, the older generations all have done their fair share of
it also.)

Now part of the reason for that is my own greater awareness of the world around me as I’ve
gotten older – more literature, more film and television exposure, the internet. Not to mention the
years of editing, (ghost) writing and reviewing comics and prose fiction ad nauseam. I obviously
see more of the connections between writers and their works, and what I don’t see personally,
rest assured someone else has and is making note of it somewhere online, if one cares to read
about it. In a way, it’s like Dorothy pulling back the curtain and finding out Oz isn’t what he
appears to be. Judging by the criticism these writers regularly receive (and not just them, but all
the writers, really), I think fandom at large shares that awareness and that by and large, the industry
is failing itself and its audiences, and suffers from denial.

Another key factor is many of these writers are doing way too many projects, and the quality of
their writing typically suffers for it. It happens to everyone.

Now are the older writers ‘better’? I find some of them were far more innovative and explorative
in the medium in their time than today’s writers tend to be. For me to do a compare and contrast I
think would come across as ‘bashing’ the newer guys to you, Nitz, and so I’m refraining from doing
so, because that’s not my intent.

Would the older writers be better today? It’s a different animal today. The eighties were
much more open than the comics market of today. We had better distribution (no Diamond
monopoly), Marvel and DC weren’t flooding the market with redundant books until the tail end
of the decade whereas today the entire publishing structures of those two companies revolves
around flooding the market with events and unnecessary spinoff series. I think these factors
hinder all the creators in the industry, regardless of which generation one is part of.

Sorry that the text of that last post got messed up. I wrote it in another window and pasted it in and didn’t realize it would get screwed up.

Well the “newer” writers are going to criticized because of their influences; because they aren’t the same as the “originators”. Just like music. You cannot compare artists like The Who to artists like the Foo Fighters; it just doesn’t work. The “originals” are always going to be better. Lets face it if we really wanted to compare Jack Kirby to any writer today we would say Kirby. He’s CLASSIC and ORIGINAL.

The point Im trying to make is that by human standards the original is better then the “newer” thats why remakes or sequels are never as good as the original. Whether it be comics or what-not.

All i really ask for are comics that are interesting and fun to read. Do they pass the time well? Sure, then why not read them?

MarkAndrew (“Why DC in 1979 sucked (A) The DC implosion. (B) No major new talent moving into the company….”):
Yes, thinking about it you’re probably right. In the late 70s when I was 6/7 and first bought my own comics I found they weren’t as good as my older brother’s. DC c.70-75 was better (O’Neil/Adams Batman & Green Lantern/Arrow, Kirby, Brave & Bold, ‘relevance’ for a time was interesting, 100-pagers, Cary Bates’ Flash). There was also Swamp Thing etc etc

I kept buying Batman, but the only other thing I got a habit for was Conway’s JLA (that & his Batman were underrated, prefer it to his Marvel work). Apart from Englehart/Rogers, late 70s Batman/Detective largely sucked.

As the 80s dawned Marvel were in pole position: X-Men, Miller’s Daredevil, coming up were Byrne on FF, Simonson on Thor.

I had a great year with comics, in fact I probably brought more than ever before.
One day I was at the shop and there was absolutely nothing ‘mainstream’ I wanted to read, and so I picked up Short Comings, Maus and Jimmy Corrigan – books I’d always meant to read and hadn’t – and they blew the shit out of anything I’d read in a few months so I dived headfirst into getting as much Tomine and Spiegleman – and soon after Seth – as I could.
I’d grabbed the odd ‘indie’ book and such before (Charles Burns, Alex Robinson etc), but in the second half of this year I just went nuts for it – sure, none of it was new this year – except for George Sprott which was fantastic, and for my money beats Asterios Polyp (which was also very good, but everyone raved about it, yet I’ve seen little love for Sprott) – but it was all new to me, and took my love of the medium to a whole new level.
(I just wish some of these guys were a little quicker).
Seriously, Spiegelman’s new comic-intro to the re-release of Breakdowns beat the heck out of anything Marvel released this year… hell, his ‘Be A Nose’ sketchbook beat most of the stuff Marvel did this year, and even he admits it’s far from the greatest Sketchbook ever released.

On the other hand, I brought and read Infinite Crisis this year, and found it to be a bit of fun.
I went in with expectations of lots of colorfully dressed people hitting each other, and that’s what I got.
If you go into these books wanting to write essays about how they are meta essays (like the chap linked to at the top), then of course you’re going to be let down.
I didn’t go into Avatar expecting Solaris, so I wasn’t terribly dissapointed by it being a shallow as a puddle, with a connect the dots plot.

[...] ich weiß, ich bin beileibe nicht der erste. Aber vielleicht der letzte, der damit eine Jahresvorschau aufmacht. Wobei, immerhin scheint es in [...]