Morning Christmas folks,
We’re releasing early this week. Rather than the ‘week’ in ‘Tops & Bottoms’ we are again doing the year.
Hopefully many of us will be managing a break and a fart on the couch? If you’ve found yourself floating on the turds of the holidays already, Gavin, Kat Slater, Gail, Stacy, Stars on Sunday, Ant and Becky then this may provide a momentary scroll of interest. It’s longer this week, a little earlier and a little thicker. Maybe I need more sprouts. I just hope you get some decent comics?
Onwards with King Kong’s thumb.
I’ve tried to keep it to ten…honest. In no actual order. All have won that medal. Well done you!
(More will come soon on the upcoming ACP, and on here. Figures, Conventions, moments, worst, sexiest etc etc).
And yes. I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. Here for now, are these comics.
Merry Fucking Christmas.
Rook Exodus.
Written by Geoff Johns with art by Jason Fabok this really is top of the tree in the monthly comics market at the moment. I’ve tried to limit how many Ghost Machine comics I have in this list but in all honesty I buy, look forward to reading and could have included them all. This is also one of the few books artistically that could sit alongside albums in a Franco/Belgian marketplace. The art is that good. And deserves that BD oversized publishing style in my opinion.
Telling the story of a small group of men and women alone on a dying planet. They are linked to the animals through technology they wear, and possibly more. This is both what used to get called over here ‘Boys Own Adventures’, a gorgeous world in tonally perfect writing and art AND it has an environmental message in its narrative. As a reader you can live for hours on each page. The highest of recommendations. Consistently great comics. Long may Ghost Machine run.
Printopia.
Criminally ignored by UK Comics Shops and elsewhere this was a late nomination into the list. Swift on the lightning boots of his career retrospective and just before the Illustrators Magazine feature, Fingerman dropped this hundred and something page graphic novel. A brilliant and slightly more elaborate than normal framing sequence snags the reader into reading a series of vignettes. These character driven sequences show the mad, bad, deluded, and more, characters in a certain corner of Manhattan. Each figure having a ‘Figment’ to accompany their thoughts. A floating muse that reflects or contradicts the featured dropout’s thoughts. Bob is back in the landscape we saw in Minimum Wage but with all new celebutantes of their own dramas. There’s a dirty and barmy/potty/eccentric elegance to Bob’s work that is amplified here through a grubby underlay of tones and some spikes of narratively driven sharp colour. Oversized and under appreciated. Get your copy from Cosmic Lion Productions.
Batman/Dylan Dog.
Easily the best Batman comic I have read in the last five years. possibly even further back. This is actually, and finally, an English translation of a 2019 Bonelli release (the Italian Dylan Dog/Nathan Never/Tex/Zagor publishers). Written by Roberto Recchioni with art by Luigi Cavenago and Wertha Dell’Edera this manages to capture both characters and their respective casts perfectly. The art is up there with the best we’ve ever seen in The Bat.
Sadly we haven’t seen any decent packaging of a collection as there’s just a frill-less trade available. NIA pod co-host Alan Henderson got himself a french album! And I’m tempted to follow his example. You can also hear myself and Eamonn Clarke chat about it on an NIA podcast if that is something you’d fancy.
Falling in Love on the Path to Hell.
This is a series that came out of nowhere for me and then kept making it to the ‘Top’ every Wednesday. I remember reading the first issue in the departures lounge heading to Heroes Con in North Carolina and then racing to the LCS when I landed to grab a physical copy. Gerry Duggan and Garry Brown weave something that deals with bad people in bad places. But then you begin to cheer at least a couple of them onwards. Not only to survive but to flourish (see the title). Death, life, redemption and damnation all in the pages of a monthly comic series. What a time to be alive! There’s a trade out of the first arc and a plea from this reader that this isn’t a surprise mini/maxi series. It’ll only survive if you buy a copy, so be a pal!
Thorgal Saga: Wendigo.
Admittedly this took me a while to read as it’s in French and I’m rubbish. But I leafed through it and looked at the art on the train journey back from Angouleme in January 2024 and found it incredibly inspiring. The French and those Belgians know what they are doing. Written by Fred Duval with art by Coretin Rouge this feels like the comic that should have grown out of the British weekly comics tradition but never did. Thorgal and party travel from their lands to another and discover a war between tribes and their own particular deities. I’m hoping we get a big-format translation soon. Then I can bore everyone that I was there first! (Apart from a few hundred thousand French people!)
Adam Falp’s Smokin’ Bedroom.
Allow me to jump about between comics empires. But this may be the UK Small Press comic that you missed. I confess that it is from a buddy/collaborator/co-publisher so I offer it as a recommendation (and not a ‘review’ – see my previous self-inflicted rules). This taps into the depths of Britain as it really is to the ignored. The land of Lionel Asbo. The land of unfriendly pubs, smelly bookies and late night lunatics. John Self would wallow and find a drunken home within these pages. Del Boy would warn others not to mess. Falpy makes comics constantly. His work is honest and outrageous. I value his art and his friendship equally.
Hate Revisited!
If this isn’t ignored, as it has been in a number of corners, then the casual reviewer may say something flattering along the lines as ‘You can come home.’ Or ‘Fitting back into the groove it left years ago…’ But what Bagge has in fact done is use his own style to comment on what is happening now, out there in the argumentative world. Sure, we see Buddy as the put-upon/not really put-upon every-man, but he’s more than that. The frustrations of an auto bio comic in 2024 are on show with current world affairs and grievances creeping in at the sides, from below and above. A few series made an attempt at a comeback this year. This was my favourite.
Doom. (Marvel one-shot).
A surprise. From Marvel. Their first and only re-entry on this yearly NIA list. A fact I find incredibly sad in all teary honestly. This was an impulse buy on ComiXology and then an earlier than usual rush to Gosh to grab a copy. Upon my arrival at the LCS nobody was talking about it! Jonathan Hickman and Sanford Green have made something that, perhaps, feels out of continuity. But is only comparable to the glory seventies days of the cosmic at the same company and maybe some Jack at DC. I just reread it before preparing this list and it still stands up, thoughtful, full of action and epic – all at once.
The Scrapbook of Life and Death.
Avery Hill make it back on the list again this year. We got a preview copy, loved and reviewed it over at the ACP then got J Webster Sharp on for an interview. This new release from ‘J’ takes a step away from a more autobiographical approach and delivers from a historic swerve. As with a lot of J’s work it is at once repulsive and beautiful, and i mean that in a totally complimentary way. It tells short and strange stories grabbed from a scrapbook. But does so with a stylistic twist. I haven’t been as entranced by this style since the glory days of Lord Horror. This experimentation in darkness is really what we need in the UK small press. Word of JWS grows – now people just need to know that the rumours of her being a hairdresser are false and a little scandalous.
Steamroller Man.
Few things bash my buttons as much as a pile of Mad Magazines. With that tradition pretty much made un-alived where can I find a similar joy? You may feel the same way. If so, Steamroller Man from Matthew Schofield is your answer. Available at his site or on Global Comics.
Pod brother Dan Butcher put this my way and we’ve had Matthew on the show a couple of times for a chat. It has a sense of bounce, a sense of the Underground and loads of just good comic’ing. It’s also a freakin’ great design.
So.
Thanks for playing along. This may be the first of a series of 2024 retrospectives. I still have a significant ‘Bottom’ to look at. Also there are a few mentions of comics that didn’t make the list on the way, what some people call ‘worthy mentions’. But do have a listen to the Christmas ACP as we’ll be going through some different categories.
And as always, many thanks for reading.
‘No legacy is so rich as honesty’.
Out.
Never Iron Anything - The Comics Review Website 