comickal/elsewhere: strange horizons - suddenly last year...
2007 in review, or, fun stuff what i have read last year
2007 was a good year for science fiction, fantasy and horror in comics. Zombies continued to enjoy a banner year (and seriously, what's up with that?), sasquatch came out to play in Proof, Sasquatch, and Perhapanauts, and there was even some space opera here and there. And yet, the year was so full of interesting things that only one zombie work, and none of the sasquatch wound up being the most interesting things I saw this year. Only one Marvel title made it onto the list, and no DC universe titles, although All-Star Superman came very close, as did DC/Vertigo's Fables.
Herewith, my criteria for what made it into this year's list. Simple, short, and sweet:
1. Do I remember the book in question? Fondly, or as though it were a four-color root canal? Edifying or not, did I like reading it?
2. Was it good?
As I said, simple, short, and sweet. There's a tiny bit of a fudge factor involved; a few titles were published in late 2006, but only made it into the local comic store in early 2007. Note also that my tastes are somewhat . . . odd. ...
Distinctly odd.
For comparison's sake, the stuff that almost, but not quite made the list, along with one or two comments. Basically, there were something like 20 titles competing for the last five slots, so something had to give.
- Astro City: Dark Age, book 2 ... well, honestly, I completely forgot this existed until it was far too late. Otherwise it would have been there. That said, I don't feel horrible about it not being there, because there's allegedly going to be more of it, plus one-shot inserts, this year.
- All Star Superman: done in by the Bizarro arc. Which, to be fair, was done just about as well as it could have been, but still.
- Fables: "The Good Prince" was a very good story arc. It just didn't quite grab me the way some other stuff did. Don't know why.
- Mail: volume 1 was very good, volume 2 was extremely formulaic, and volume 3 was intermittently formulaic and very good, if creepy in unintended ways. Also creepy in intended ways, since it was horror.
- Glister: a weak first issue followed by two very good ones. Third issue was especially good. The very last spot on the list bounced between this one, Repo, Fables, The Spirit and Madame Mirage, and it took me a couple days to finally pick one. (No, I don't believe I picked Madame Mirage over those other titles either. I plead exhaustion. Plus, issues 3 and 4 of MM were seriously kick-ass.)
- Black Metal, vol 1: featuring the teenagers sorta from hell, and their demon black metal music from Sweden. At least, I think it's Sweden. Scandinavia, anyways.
- Repo: Image 5-issue miniseries about a couple of repo men trying to repossess a heart. Or, more precisely, the clone in which the heart resides. I think it might have gotten more attention if it hadn't come out at the same time as the somewhat similar feeling Highwaymen.
- Won Ton Soup: Space Truckers meets Buckaroo Banzai meets Iron Chef. What's not to like? (Side note: I highly recommend the movie "Space Truckers" both for pure, over the top, ultra-cheesiness, and also for Stephen Dorff in tight leather shorts. Scrawny yet kind of hot ... what? What? Hey, I never said that I was anything but shallow!) (And yes, I have seen Shadowboxer.)
- I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!: nice, pulpy outer-space fun.
- Dreamnasium: very surreal and completely silent first chapter, followed by a less surreal but no less unusual and completely unrelated second chapter.
- Astronaut Dad: about what the early moon and orbital program was like. Eventually, I kicked this off the list because it really wasn't speculative yet, although it may later become such.
- Maxwell Strangewell: reviewed here.
- The Spirit: A good beginning and a strong end to Darwyn Cooke's issues, dragged down somewhat by a zombie story that kept wandering off and not getting finished.
- Styx Taxi: how do the dead get where they need to be?
- The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allen Poo: in which we find out what happened to Edgar Allen Poe during the worst year of his life. The first canto has been published as an oversized comic by Image, and canto 2 is underway.
The continuing titles in the above list may yet appear on a "best of 2008", along with Atomic Robo, Proof, Zudacomics' Bayou, Dan Dare, and a few other things.
2007 was a good year for science fiction, fantasy and horror in comics. Zombies continued to enjoy a banner year (and seriously, what's up with that?), sasquatch came out to play in Proof, Sasquatch, and Perhapanauts, and there was even some space opera here and there. And yet, the year was so full of interesting things that only one zombie work, and none of the sasquatch wound up being the most interesting things I saw this year. Only one Marvel title made it onto the list, and no DC universe titles, although All-Star Superman came very close, as did DC/Vertigo's Fables.
Herewith, my criteria for what made it into this year's list. Simple, short, and sweet:
1. Do I remember the book in question? Fondly, or as though it were a four-color root canal? Edifying or not, did I like reading it?
2. Was it good?
As I said, simple, short, and sweet. There's a tiny bit of a fudge factor involved; a few titles were published in late 2006, but only made it into the local comic store in early 2007. Note also that my tastes are somewhat . . . odd. ...
Distinctly odd.
For comparison's sake, the stuff that almost, but not quite made the list, along with one or two comments. Basically, there were something like 20 titles competing for the last five slots, so something had to give.
- Astro City: Dark Age, book 2 ... well, honestly, I completely forgot this existed until it was far too late. Otherwise it would have been there. That said, I don't feel horrible about it not being there, because there's allegedly going to be more of it, plus one-shot inserts, this year.
- All Star Superman: done in by the Bizarro arc. Which, to be fair, was done just about as well as it could have been, but still.
- Fables: "The Good Prince" was a very good story arc. It just didn't quite grab me the way some other stuff did. Don't know why.
- Mail: volume 1 was very good, volume 2 was extremely formulaic, and volume 3 was intermittently formulaic and very good, if creepy in unintended ways. Also creepy in intended ways, since it was horror.
- Glister: a weak first issue followed by two very good ones. Third issue was especially good. The very last spot on the list bounced between this one, Repo, Fables, The Spirit and Madame Mirage, and it took me a couple days to finally pick one. (No, I don't believe I picked Madame Mirage over those other titles either. I plead exhaustion. Plus, issues 3 and 4 of MM were seriously kick-ass.)
- Black Metal, vol 1: featuring the teenagers sorta from hell, and their demon black metal music from Sweden. At least, I think it's Sweden. Scandinavia, anyways.
- Repo: Image 5-issue miniseries about a couple of repo men trying to repossess a heart. Or, more precisely, the clone in which the heart resides. I think it might have gotten more attention if it hadn't come out at the same time as the somewhat similar feeling Highwaymen.
- Won Ton Soup: Space Truckers meets Buckaroo Banzai meets Iron Chef. What's not to like? (Side note: I highly recommend the movie "Space Truckers" both for pure, over the top, ultra-cheesiness, and also for Stephen Dorff in tight leather shorts. Scrawny yet kind of hot ... what? What? Hey, I never said that I was anything but shallow!) (And yes, I have seen Shadowboxer.)
- I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!: nice, pulpy outer-space fun.
- Dreamnasium: very surreal and completely silent first chapter, followed by a less surreal but no less unusual and completely unrelated second chapter.
- Astronaut Dad: about what the early moon and orbital program was like. Eventually, I kicked this off the list because it really wasn't speculative yet, although it may later become such.
- Maxwell Strangewell: reviewed here.
- The Spirit: A good beginning and a strong end to Darwyn Cooke's issues, dragged down somewhat by a zombie story that kept wandering off and not getting finished.
- Styx Taxi: how do the dead get where they need to be?
- The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allen Poo: in which we find out what happened to Edgar Allen Poe during the worst year of his life. The first canto has been published as an oversized comic by Image, and canto 2 is underway.
The continuing titles in the above list may yet appear on a "best of 2008", along with Atomic Robo, Proof, Zudacomics' Bayou, Dan Dare, and a few other things.