I haven’t written much about comics here on my blog since I got tired of writing reviews of comics and started making comic book haul videos instead. I found that when I was writing reviews I was reading comics books differently than when I wasn’t writing reviews. I was looking for an angle to write about as I was reading. That wasn’t always an annoyance but at times it could be. Some comics were easy to write about since the comics had something to say but not all of them were. It’s tough to find something to say about a comic that isn’t saying much itself.
The comic book haul videos have been much more fun. I get to show off all of the comics I buy in any given week and ramble on for about a minute a piece about each of them. I show the comics off before I’ve even read them but I do talk about what happened last issue in them. No reviews in any real sense but some information. Besides I’ve always thought that any comic that I buy regularly means that I give it a good review. I’m not a completest collector so I wouldn’t by any comic just to have it and not even read or enjoy it.
One of the things I often mention in my videos are that a bunch of comics are on my hypothetical top five list. My favorites. I’m not much for making lists, as I often mention, but the concept of a top five list gets across how much I might like a certain comic. One of the recent commenters on my comic book haul video asked me what my actual top five would be. I looked at the list of all the comics I’ve bought this year and picked my very favorites. It was tough because there are so many good comics these days, we’re in a golden age, and I buy a lot more than five. I think I’m up to about forty comics a month. That is a lot of good comics. I didn’t want to whittle any more off my favorites list so I ended up with a top seven instead of five. So here they are.
Matt Kindt has put out about thirty issues of this comic and it’s going to end soon at issue thirty six. It was originally going to be a six issue story but it was successful enough to keep going. It’s been a lot of fun. Mind MGMT was a spy organization that used people with all sorts of strange super powers. It was disbanded years ago and the first story arc is about our lead character, Meru, finding out about it. Then she finds out someone is trying to put it back together and she and others band together to stop it. All sorts of adventure, intrigue, weird powers, and crazy things happen.
Put any Stray Bullets title that is currently coming out right here. This is one of my favorites that had been missing for years as David Lapham did other things but now it’s back. And it hasn’t missed a beat. If you like crime comics then you should be reading this one. It’s all about low level criminals and the people that get caught in their wake. Part thrill ride and part cautionary tale Stray Bullets is always a lot of fun even as you’re saying to some character, “No! Don’t do that! It’s not going to end well for you!”. And it usually doesn’t end well but it sure is a good story.
I’ll buy just about anything Terry Moore does. I used to buy his “Strangers In Paradise” and bought his more recent “Echo” but now he’s doing “Rachel Rising”. It’s a horror comic of all things that started with a woman climbing up out of a shallow grave. It took twenty-some issues to tell that story as we found out the town was cursed by witches a couple of hundred years ago. I guess the series has been doing well and Moore is still interested in it since he started a second story arc and it’s up to issue thirty two now. Like most of his work “Rachel Rising” is as much about the cast of characters and their interpersonal relationships as anything else. Good stuff.
Rick Remender and Wes Craig bring us a comic that I almost didn’t buy because I though the description of it was stupid. But I liked the cover, flipped it open, liked the inside art, and have been buying it ever since. It’s the story of a kid who goes to a high school for assassins. Yeah, that still sounds dumb to me but the comic is really good. It’s not so much about their school or their training but about the kids and what they get up to and how they get along. There are tons of gangs and cliques and most of them are a bit crazy. But they can’t get into too much overt trouble because the people who run the school are crazy adults and are much more dangerous than the kids. Lot’s of dysfunction and fun.
Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting bring us a period piece spy story. The first story arc, though well done, is pretty standard spy stuff. It’s the late 1960s or so an Velvet is no longer a field agent but still works for whatever British spy agency it is. MI6 or some such. She’s framed as a traitor and everyone is after her. That was the first four issues or so but it really takes off after that as they delve into the history and workings of the agency. We get to see other people who may or may not trust the info they got on Velvet’s betrayal. It’s only up to issue nine as I imagine Epting’s detailed and very well thought out art take quite a bit of time to draw but every new issue is a treat.
Brubaker makes my list again and also again you could put whatever the current work by Brubaker and Sean Phillips is right here. This one only has four issues under its belt as they just finished their series named “Fatale” but it’s as good as all their stuff. “Fatale” was horror but “The Fade Out” is a 1950s Hollywood crime drama. The Hollywood studio system is still in full effect and one of it’s starlets gets murdered. Studio security covers it up and makes it look like a suicide as they’d rather not have the scandal but a friend of hers who was the writer on her last movie finds himself sucked into the mystery of what really happened. Anything these two do shoots to the top of my list and this is no exception.
Something new and surprising found itself on my list and that’s “Drifter” by Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein. I don’t think I’ve read a comic by either of these guys before and I picked this one up just because I read a description of it. I liked the first issue well enough but it was the third that really hooked me. “Drifter” is the story of a man who crash lands on a far away frontier planet. It’s like an old western town filled with strange characters. And things aren’t as they seem. Our lead character disappeared for a year between the crash and his being found. And he has no idea why. Besides that we’re introduced to all sorts of characters and tough to understand alien life. It’s not an easy book to describe but it’s full of ideas. That’s what I like about it. Plus it’s got the most poetic recap page in comics.
So there is my top seven. What are yours?
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