Tops of 2025.

“The only truth is COMICS!”.— (Almost) Jack Kerouac.

Morning to all those clinging on to 2025. It’ll soon be over. Then we’ll start kicking the new one in the chops. I’ll be staying up to watch the clocks click onwards. But for one last time in this odd year here is a posting about those damned comics. 

But remember…

Chaos waits outside the door. Especially when you’re in the bath. 

Nothing ever stays the same. We like to look back and think it does, but it doesn’t. Comics reflect our lives in some small way for some of us this happens daily. Us lifers can chart our movements by what we are reading. I’ve remembered more of my life recently whilst listing the comics I bought over the last fifty or so years.

Time passes in fraudulent ways.

But for just the last twelve months I present to you the ‘Tops of 2025’. They are in no obvious order and will change in slight ways over the next few hours when suddenly I regret leaving something out. And have pressed the final post button. (Oh how I wish this was an actual big green button you could smash with your fist!)

My rules in creating this list are simple. I have had to read them in full and they’ve had to have been released in 2025 as new (or newly translated). I also avoided anything I’m involved with making or promoting beyond a weekly pod or blog mention.

There are far too many worthy mentions. 

Let’s have at it. 

‘Redcoat’, ‘Geiger’ and ‘Rook Exodus’.

My three favourite ongoings from the best publisher (Ghost Machine at Image) for my money at the moment. Criminally ignored by awards and press these three represent the tip top of the craft. Geoff Johns writing with top tier artists putting the ‘pulp’ and ‘adventure’ back into comics with dashes of Moorcock, Asimov, Zelazny, Harrison and more. Sometimes with ‘Redcoat’ (within the widescreen art of Bryan Hitch) I close my eyes and hope that Simon Pure can take a crazy walk into the world of the Eternal Champion or Arkwright. 

‘Rook Exodus’ is pure BD sci-fi but with John’s chess manipulations moving it across a US-based comics board full of new and sudden characters and dangers. Fabok’s designs are detailed and cool and (must be) a nightmare to draw over and over.

‘Geiger’ is the longest running of the three and a post war road movie. An atomic-powered skull-faced man searching for his family and a cure. He’s collected knights, mutant zebras and a sometime war-robot as companions and I’m there for every issue. Mostly with art by Gary Frank but all three with colours by Brad Anderson. 

‘Junked’ and the combined work of Black Ink Comix. A true addition to the small but growing New British Underground scene. Brilliantly failing to give a fig about the sensitive emotions of ‘that lot’, they barge onwards. I’m there for everything this crew do. Dan Hughes, Dylan Henty, Paul Kortjohn and Leslie Wenlock. A few of them also produce objects similar but longer with the new imprint Maladaptive Press. I look forward to each new ‘release’. 

‘Prairie Gods’ by Shane Connery Volk crept into the list at the start of the year. Partially interlocking stories with time hopping protagonists this presents as hugely original with brilliantly scratchy and chaotic art. Each page has a darkness and a thousand yard stare. Shane was also a guest on the ACP and turned out to be a totally splendid chap. 

‘Browner-Knowle’ from Paul Ashley Brown. I’ve known Paul for a few years now. We grab a quick chat about ‘Star Maidens’ from time to time at events. I’ve also been a fan of his comics for exactly the same amount of time. However, this caught me (again) off-guard with his power at playing with the lives of what appear more than anywhere else ‘real people’. A collection of auto-bio (the good kind) and a longer story of a woman who (maybe) finds love, each will poke you in the gills. Folks like him and Sean Azzopardi are dealing in honesty and putting really raw emotions on a page.  Some of us old blokes have still got it. 

‘Daredevil: A Cold Day in Hell’. Bringing back those DD glory days of the eighties. I am shame free in my purchasing of multiple covers. Just three issues. Have a look at those near future glorious pages.  They evoked a time when Marvel cut the edge. (Written by Charles Soule with art by Steve McNiven.)

‘Drome’ & ‘We Ride at Night’ – This year really has been Jesse Lonergan’s for my money. From the carefully crafted sci-fi epic of ‘Drome’ that intersects art and meaning for over 300 pages, to the ink-slinging of ‘We Ride at Night’.

Each gallops forward at speed making the page turns keep up with the energy. One a ‘Fat Comic’ for the Gosh Coffee Table Crowd and the other a bootleg to be passed round in the pub. Thanks to my buddy Cliff for gifting me these, I am forever in his debt. 

‘Grixly’ – The ongoing zine styled comic that details Nate McDonough’s travels around the US and beyond buying and selling comic books. The people he watches and encounters will be familiar to us regulars to the comic shop. There’s a collection out there called ‘Longboxes’ of the early issues but I prefer the little zines. If you are in the UK you can usually find them on a low shelf at Gosh in London. 

‘Dry Cleaned’ by Joris Mertens. The most gorgeous comic on the list. Set in the streets of seventies Paris it follows the titular Dry Cleaner as he falls from banality into a murder plot and a bag of cash. I can’t believe that this isn’t hitting all the ‘Best Ofs’ this year. Each page looks like it took a year to paint, but it also contains the BD comics language from page to page and panel to panel. My most reread comic this year and also alongside ‘Drome’ the one I spent most time on each page. 

‘Batman & Robin: Year 1’ by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. Just Batman (the non-‘Absolute’ version) done well. Samnee rarely puts a brush-line wrong. It got a little lost in some Clayface switch and bait towards the end but a series I read straightaway off the pile and shall be double-dipping on the hardback. 

Gareth Brooke’s and (from the grave) Izaak Walton’s ‘The Compleat Angler. A Graphic Adaptation’. Perfectly different from everything else I was reading. Strangely beautiful. Even for a vegetarian. Done with Gareth’s eye for design this still lingers as a lovely Saturday afternoon spent reading it. Another fastest lap for GB! 

I had to rule out the Santos Sisters (I write for their sister magazine ‘American Nature’) and ‘Hellbreaker’ (I’ve been helping behind the scenes on their kickstarter) but both would have easily made the list. (And now they do kinda.) 

May I also recommend the Substacks of Howard Chaykin, Martin Feekins, Dan Charnley, Cliff Cumber (‘The Long Box’), ‘Jonny Cannon on Comics’ and David Cranna. Gentlemen all.

2026 isn’t really meeting my eye at the moment. Whilst mere hours away it refuses to engage until I dive in and get my shoulders under. We’ll see what happens. Everything may end or just continue. I really can’t decide. 

Many thanks for reading. See you next year.