My Favorite Comics of 2022

Back when Joup was up, I used to always do a "Favorite Comics" list at the end of every year. I got away from that for some time until last year I decided to resurrect the practice. 

And let me get this out of the way at the top: The two Reckless HC GNs that came out this year would be at the top of this list, however, since Reckless just destroys the curve, and since I included it in last year's favorites list, I'm placing it in a class by itself. 

The same caveat applies to Michael Walsh and company's ongoing Horror Anthology The Silver Coin. I love this series so much, it would just be unfair to place it in the Top Ten again this year because, at this rate, it would hold a perpetual spot. So let's just say these two stand alone in their exemplary storytelling.

With that out of the way then, let's get to that list.

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My Favorite Comic Books of 2022:

10) Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to Be Kin:

Completely. F*cking. Insane. Geoff Darrow returns to his magnum opus and fills every centimeter of every page with some of the best damn art I have ever seen. The story is even crazier than the previous iteration, and the political satire is top-notch. This book was the most fun, and the longest amount of time I spent staring at any comic's pages this year.

9) Pentagram of Horror:

From out of nowhere, Marco Fontanili drops five of the most gorgeous Horror Comics I have ever had the pleasure of holding in my hands. Another top-notch Anthology, Pentagram of Horror knocks it out of the part with its originality both conceptually and artistically. Nothing else out there looks like this, and the range of Horror moves from Black Rites in the Woods to Techno-Paranoia.

8) What's the Furthest Place from Here:

Matthew Rosenberg and Tyler Boss's it's the end of the world and we don't know it story is as unique as the other books we've seen these guys do, whether together or apart. The whole damn thing is one big 'Gottasee,' and any details we learn about the larger world usually just open up wonderful new questions. Plus, I don't think I've seen a book that possesses this much Punk Rock spirit since Teenagers From Mars!

7) That Texas Blood:

Michael Condon and Jacob Phillips' era-spanning Weird Fiction Crime Comic started in 2020 with just a very mild sprinkling of "The Weird," but over the past year, the book has REALLY leaned into that more. Think Season One of True Detective or the Fargo series on FX. There's no telling what era each new story will be in, and even less way to anticipate what kind of darkness will haunt its pages.

6) Hulk:

Nothing about this comic should work. On paper, Banner turning the Hulk into a spaceship and flying him off into the farthest reaches of the cosmos doesn't even move a needle with me - unless it's the "sounds dumb" needle. But with Hulk, Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley bring comics back to the late 70s/early 80s when writers like Bill Mantlo took enormous swings. Every issue of this book is an enormous swing, and what's more, each one connects. The shame here is, apparently Cates has now exited this book, with Ottley finishing the current "Hulk Planet" storyline over the next few months, and then passing the torch and leaving himself. 

5) Spider-Punk:

For this page alone, Cody Ziglar & Justin Mason's Spider-Punk series lands on this list! I'm still not over the absolute joy of seeing a Michael Graves-era Misfits-inspired TaskMaster show up! Beyond that, overall, I really enjoyed this quick, five-issue series, and look forward to seeing Hobart Brown and his friends return. 

4) Sandman Universe - Nightmare Country:

I know last year I gushed about Joe Hill's Sandman/Locke And Key series, saying how it was the closest thing to having a new Sandman series. Well, apparently DC took that as some kind of challenge because this year we get James Tynion IV on Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country and this... shit man, this actually is the Sandman series. Not like a modern take, but it feels just like I'm reading old Sandman issues, and it's awesome. Awesome not just because of nostalgia, but because the story centers on the Corinthian, but Tynion does that wonderful trick where the main characters are not the lead characters, just like Neil Gaiman used to write the original series. I'd say main human protagonist  Madison Flynn definitely shares some storytellers' DNA with Rose Walker, and Misters Agony and Ecstasy definitely bring the 80s Clive Barker vibes. All in all, a very welcome addition to Gaiman's mythos, more so than any of the other Sandman Universe books I've taken a chance on and largely nixed.

3) Do A Powerbomb!:

Daniel Warren Johnson body slams the medium AGAIN with his beautiful, heart-rending tale of... inter-dimensional professional wrestling? Yeah, I was surprised A.F. too, but despite my absolute non-interest in the sport, I LOVED this book. It broke my heart multiple times, and despite a weird turn in the penultimate chapter, the final issue recovered nicely. 

2) Deadly Class: A Fond Farewell:

The final storyline of Rick Remender and Wes Craig's Deadly Class was harrowing, confusing, brutal and poignant. Beautiful and cathartic and just wonderful in every way a comic book should be. A fitting end for characters I've loved since the book launched 8 years ago.

1) Immortal X-Men:

No other comic book made me think about it for WEEKS afterward like Immortal X-Men #1, and almost every issue of the series has held up to that initial promise. Those who feared Hickman's departure from the World of X would lead to a Krakoan decline were wrong - everything Kieron Gillen and Lucas Wernek is doing only adds to and increases the mystery and grandeur of Hickman's blueprint. NOTE: X-Men: Red is also fantastic, however, I didn't want to have two X-Books on this list, so consider it guilty of greatness by way of the larger, X-tapestry.

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Honorable Mentions:

Honorable mentions go to Strange, the series that placed Clea Strange as the MCU's Sorceror Supreme. This one has just been delightful surprise after delightful surprise, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every issue. 

The Elseworlds/One-Possible-Future TMNT: The Last Ronin mini-series follows the single surviving Turtle (still not gonna spoil which one it is!) as they attempt to avenge their siblings' deaths in a techno-dystopian future that calls to mind Frank Miller's classic Ronin (see what they did there?) Begun in 2021, I purposely left Last Ronin off my 2021 iteration of this list because I knew it would finish this year. This one definitely evoked those old-school, Black-and-White Explosion 80s comics I cut my teeth on in my youth, and I enjoyed it immensely because of that.

Finally, I did not include Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's opening entries into their new Bone Orchard Mythos because we're still very early in, and I guarantee this will be in my top of 2023. Thus far, with one Graphic Novel and 4 issues of the first mini-series, this one is nothing short of impressive. Sorrentino's art continues to rank as some of the creepiest Horror Art I've ever seen, and when realizing Lemire's otherworldly scripts, we just get such a hyper-stylized approach that I can do nothing but raise the horns and howl.

What a fantastic year for comics! I will say, it surprises me that so much Marvel has snuck in, but that's an appetite for nostalgia and comfort the last few years instilled in me, and Marvel's top-tier creators continue to reinvent their stable of characters in ways that DC surely must envy. Sorry DC, but putting "Metal" in front of the title of every book just doesn't cut it.

Poni Hoax

 

A couple years ago, while watching the extras on my then-newly received copy of Severin Video's edition of Alex De La Iglesia's Day of the Beast, I noticed one of the film's crew members wearing a Poni Hoax t-shirt. I'd never heard of the band, so I looked them up on Apple Music and then promptly forgot all about them. Until recently. I still don't know much about the band or their discography, but I will soon remedy that. I do know that the entire self-titled record from 2006 is fantastic, combining Post Punk DNA with throbbing synths and moody keyboards. 

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Watch:

Last Friday, K and I made it out to see The Menu. 

I'm posting the trailer here, but I will say, this one was over-marketed in my opinion. You may have noticed that since moving, I go to the theatre more than ever before, and I must have seen this trailer before every movie since August. If you're as sick of it as I am, no need to watch it again, as I'm merely posting it here for posterity's sake.

I dug the film, although I had my issues. 

The plot of The Menu is exactly what the trailer hints at, which I found to be a little bit of a disappointment. You get what you pay for, sure, and maybe in this day and age I've become wrongfully indoctrinated to expect a 'twist' or some sleight of hand in the narrative. Not so here. I accept this and move on, except that doesn't gel for me in regards to the end of the film. I think anyone that goes to see this film will expect Anya Taylor-Joy's charater to live, but being that the plot is what it looks like and Fiennes character has assembled all of these folks to end their lives makes me feel like the movie doesn't earn the right to let Margo live. I totally get the mechanics behind "The Cheeseburger," however, it just kinda feels like cheating, or maybe better put that the film doesn't have the heart to live up to its convictions. It's funny, because I was certainly rooting for ATJ to live, but when I got what I wanted, it felt hollow.

 

Oh well. All in all, a good film and a nice night out at the movies. 

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Read:

Last week, I mentioned finally receiving my copy of Brubaker and Phillips' new Reckless book, Follow Me Down. I have to say, this series is fantastic, containing now five of the best graphic novels I've ever read.

I adore everything about this series. The format is a massive win for comic fans: the fact that Brubaker and Phillips have proven the concept of releasing Hardcovers every six months instead of serializing floppies for eventual collection just proves that there are a lot of people willing to pay for this kind of thing. 

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Playlist:

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose

Rezurex - Skeletons

Scratch Acid - The Greatest Gift

Team Sleep - Eponymous

Gang of Four - Return the Gift, Part 1

The Juan Maclean - Happy House (Matthew Dear Remix)

Rein - Reincarnated

Poni Hoax - Eponymous

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Eldovar - A Story of Darkness and Light

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Seven of Pentacles/Disks again, eh? Hmm... Well, the card I started with here, the Three of Wands, popped out of the deck while I shuffled, so that seems the point to which the others refer. Three of Wands often asks the question for you, a sort of, "How true to your ambitions/inner map are you at the moment? Seven of Pentacles denotes difficulty in material or "Earthly" matters, and in this case, the wheel tells me I may need to make an adjustment and wait out the ramifications before things realign with how I want them to be.

Greg Puciato's Fucking Content

 

As if I'm not completely overtaken by my love of Greg Puciato's debut solo album Child Soldier: Creator of God, the former lead singer of Dillinger Escape Plan has put out a new, multi-media package. Available from his own Federal Prisoner label HERE, Fuck Content is a video/audio release featuring a ten-song live set and five new studio tracks. I love Puciato's music, but I've also become quite a fan of his aesthetic. All the glitchy, seizuring graphics, the black and white digital abstractions that almost resemble some cyberpunk version of newsprint. It's all very fitting for the noisy/melodic mash-up that defines this first album's sound, so the idea that his follow-up release is an audio/visual thing really just makes sense. Also, not nearly enough musicians do this.

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Read:

I finished my re-read of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. It'd been over ten years since I read this the first time and inspired by the film, I decided to revisit, not remembering a lot of specifics, except that the movie is very different. Still, I really enjoyed both. After that, I picked up that new Brubaker/Phillips Hardcover Graphic Novel Reckless, expecting to read it in several sittings. Nope. I blew through Reckless non-stop, and even though I just got done telling everyone Pulp is their best, Reckless comes in ahead of that one by about 100 miles. 

This book is the perfect iteration of these gentlemen's ongoing collaboration, and if this is the case, we have nowhere to go but up. Hot damn, go buy this and read it now; Reckless is FANTASTIC!

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Watch:

The Mandalorian's second season ended last night and I am going to feel every day between now and season three. I am absolutely floored, not only at how fantastic this show is, but how John Favreau has completely undone my hatred of star wars - a hatred rooted in a betrayal, the complete undermining and convolution of something that should have been so simple, namely, making new star wars movies. This veritable disgust that I feel for the franchise began to sink deep into my blood three years ago, when I sat in a movie theatre in LaGrange, Illinois and watched the trainwreck that is The Last Jedi.

Disney + has really been a gamechanger for the fan-driven content previously only associated at such a high level with movies released in megaplexes. If you watch The Mando show, you're missing something great if you skip the end credits (especially on this last episode. Whewww! and on that, I will say no more). When you watch all those names and roles scroll up your screen and realize that these television shows Disney is producing are every bit as accomplished as major motion pictures. That in itself just blows me away, the fact that Disney is so big they can change the game this much (also, I secretly hope all the Marvel/Star Wars stuff will go this route and we can go back to having non-blockbuster movies in theatres in a year or four).

Anyway, Favreau really should be crowned king Geek for what he did for starting the MCU with Iron Man and now reinventing and, frankly, saving Star Wars from itself by taking it back to its roots. This final episode brought me to tears. Not just because of the story, but because finally, after twenty years of new star wars material, SOMEBODY GOT IT FUCKING RIGHT.

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Playlist:

Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen

Opeth - Deliverance

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once

Preoccupations - Eponymous

XTC - Drums and Wires

Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Squeeze - Argybargy

Slayer - Live Undead

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Devo - Going Down (single)

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Various Artists - Joe Begos's Bliss Spotify Playlist

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Code Orange - Beneath 

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Card:

 

A solid foundation for a solid trilogy. That's what I've been thinking about as I approach a stopping point in Shadow Play Book Two. I have to wind this plot down just right by the end of this section of three sections, so after I do one last post-Beta Reader edit on Murder Virus and release it, I can hop back into Shadow Play and really make that third act SPRING.