top 10 books of 2011

Another year in the books, another top 10 list.  These are my favorite books of the year.  As always, the rules for inclusion are ever-changing and probably make sense to no one but me.  After changing the rules last year to include "classic" material that was collected during the year, I've reversed course and excluded those materials this year.  (If I hadn't, the Waid/ Wieringo Fantastic Four collections would've been #1.)  I've excluded books that have incomplete arcs at this point - this took all of the New 52, Severed, & Pigs off the table.  (Pigs would've charted for sure, and Severed would have at least been an honorable mention.)  Where an ongoing series published more than one arc, I've treated them as one entry.  (You'll see.)

All in all, it's an arbitrary set of rules, but hey, I'm an arbitrary fellow sometimes.  So without further ado:

Honorable mention goes to:  Punishermax (Kingpin arc), Scalped (Vols. 7-8), American Vampire (Vol. 1), Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, and Ruse (2011 series).  I didn't do detailed reviews of Ruse or Scalped.  Scalped is so consistent I find i don't have much to say about it on a volume by volume basis.  It's always terrific, though.  Ruse will get folded into a Mark Waid retrospective that I've been mulling for awhile.  Short version: it good.

#10 - Green Wake Vol. 1 (Image/ Kurtis J. Wiebe & Riley Rossmo) - It speaks to the strength of this year's field that this one's so far down the list, because I really liked it a lot.

#9 - Batman: The Black Mirror (DC/ Scott Snyder, Jock & Francesco Francavilla) - Best non-Morrison Bat-story of the last five years.

#8 - The Tooth (Oni/ Cullen Bunn & Matt Kindt) - The only OGN to chart this year - I loved this eerie take on nostalgia.

#7 - Blue Estate Vol. 1 (Image/ Viktor Kalvachev, Toby Cypress & more) - My favorite new crime series of the year.  This one's an Elmore Leonard-style mashup that gets better and better.

#6 - Daytripper (Vertigo/ Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba) - Really amazed this is only #6.  Again, this year's field is very deep.

#5 - Criminal: Last of the Innocent (Icon/ Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips) - My favorite not-new crime series of the year.  Noir meets Archie - another fantastic installment of this always excellent series of miniseries.

#4 - Batman & Robin Must Die/ Batman, Inc. (DC/ Grant Morrison, Frazier Irving & more) - I just finished Inc. and so have not given it a proper review, but both of these arcs are tremendous.  Inc. is like if Morrison wrote Brave & The Bold and it was completely awesome all the time.  My biggest regret of the DC relaunch is that it kind of short-circuited Inc.

#3 - Sweet Tooth (Vertigo/ Jeff Lemire) - This is another one I haven't written up yet.  I'm waiting until the whole series is complete.  The first arc, "Out of the Woods", is good, but the second, "In Captivity" is amazing.  Lemire has a unique voice and art style, and sometimes they get lost on his more mainstream books.  Sweet Tooth is unfiltered Lemire, and it's wonderful.

#2 - Bulletproof Coffin (Image/ David Hine & Shaky Kane) - I've raved about this one many times before, so I'll just pimp the sequel that is coming in January.

and,

#1 - Chew: Just Desserts & Flambe (Image/ John Layman & Rob Guillory) - Every issue of this book is like a big party.  It's gross, uber-violent, twisted, hilarious and endearing all at once.  Moreover, it's just rough enough around the edges to have personality.  Hopefully the TV show can capture some of this magic.

So that's the top 10 for this year.  Obviously Image had a very strong showing, with 4 entries.  In my opinion Image is utterly killing it right now - as noted, Pigs and Severed would have been strong candidates as well. My big thing right now is that I want books that have their own unique voices - a lot of the Marvel and DC superhero books seem to bleed together.  In many cases they are well-done and well-crafted, but there's a sameness to a lot of them that I find unappealing.  The massive emphasis on shared universe continuity is off-putting as well.  I have enjoyed a fair bit of the new 52 and I still like a lot of Marvel books, but series like the ones above are the ones really knocking my socks off these days.

Coming up Friday is.. well, a left-field swerve of a year-end post.  See you then.