Last week, Mike Shinabargar and I released a video outlining our five favorite comics of 2024. I wanted to break that down and round the list out as a comprehensive Top Ten because that's how deep the Letterman runs in my DNA.
10) Andrew Krahnke's Bloodrik
A modern comics success story, I loved Andrew Krahnke's Bloodrik and am dying for more. A "Barbarian Survives in the Prehistoric Wilderness" story a la old-school Krull or Conan, Bloodrik is Krahnke's labor of love, taking it from a self-released project to a three-issue mini from Image.
9) Energon Universe: Transformers
Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona and their crew have, in just over two years, given us a brand new all-time Transformers continuity. Let me make my preferences plain: We have the original Transformers cartoon and movie (I really only care about the post-movie seasons), we have the original Marvel comic continuity developed by Bob Budiansky and later taken to glorifying new heights by Simon Furman, and for a looong time that was it. I didn't go looking for more, either. IDW fired off countless iterations that I had no interest in.
Robert Kirkman's Energon Universe, however, is more than Nostalgia Fuel - it's proof you can revitalize nostalgic properties for a new age, taking the benefits of creative hindsight and applying them to make something new and exciting. This Transformers book does that, and I've loved every minute of it so far. Aso, SO much purple!
8) Epitaphs From the Abyss
Earlier this year, seminal indie stalwart Oni Press acquired the rights to and relaunched EC Comics. Instead of just banking on the nostalgia and notoriety of the label, they actually approached this in a very smart and refreshing way. There are A LOT of Horror Anthologies on comic book stands these last few years, and none of them do the kind of justice to the format Epitaphs does.
7) Michael Walsh's Frankenstein
I've missed Michael Walsh's Horror Anthology The Silver Coin immensely this year, but having his take on my favorite Universal Monster acted as a nice reprieve from the Walsh-Withdrawal. I love Frank, both the original Novel version by Mary Shelley and the James Whale Hollywood version from the 30s, so seeing Walsh play in this world was wonderful. The four-issue mini-series retells the Whale version, adding new layers of depth by showing us the stories of several of the body parts that went into making the monster and how the acquisition of those pieces affected characters we had not been introduced to until now.
6) Phantom Road
The "Gottasee" of this book is staggering, and it's on bloody hiatus as Lemire starts up Minor Arcana and confesses he's burnt out on Horror.
AHHHHHHHH!!!!
Seriously, we know so very little of what is happening in Phantom Road, but everything we've seen is bonkers, so I really hope Mr. Lemire and artist Gabriel H. Walta return soon.
Finally, here are my top five, which I'll list here but leave the video to explain (it's all pretty self-explanatory by this point, anyway).
5) Cobra Commander
4) The Deviant
3) Houses of the Unholy
2) Principles of Necromancy
1) Jeff Lemire's FISHFLIES
Finally, a special shout out to Chip Zdarksy's Z Comic News, one of the most delightful surprises in years!
