Tom's Favourite Comics of 2024!

I love year-end awards. I could survive on a diet of award shows and “best-of” lists alone. Even though I’ve only done 3 of these blog posts so far, I would be doing myself the highest disservice if I didn’t do some form of end-of-year list. I went back and forth on how to go about doing it; giving out awards seemed way too pretentious, and calling it a “best of the year” list didn’t feel right either, there’s so much I haven’t read from this year that it feels wrong for me to call any of them the best. So instead I’m going to keep doing what I have been doing, and talk about my favourite books, except this time it’ll be out of everything I read in 2024!

Helen Of Wyndhorn

Writer: Tom King, Art: Bilquis Evely Colours: Matheus Lopes

A Tom King miniseries being one of the best books of the year? Who could have predicted? Honestly, from the moment that King was reuniting with the incredible art team of Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, (after they had worked together on the brilliant Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow), this one was a lock to be here. Clearly inspired by early pulp fantasy novels, this is Tom King saying, “what if Robert E Howard was telling a true story when he wrote about Conan the Barbarian?”. King uses the main character of Helen as the vessel to guide us there as she is brought to her grandfather’s manor after her life is turned upside down, and is eventually introduced to his uncanny other life.

The writing is poetic and full of flourishes, and feels ripped from the pages of a dusty old epic fantasy novel. I loved the characterization of the core characters, the way they are written had me feeling everything alongside them, from Helen’s enthusiasm and whimsy, to her governess’ concern and exhaustion at her antics, to her grandfather’s impatience and harsh temperament.

That being said, the stunningly detailed and hypnotic art is the main draw here, even over an A-list writer like Tom King’s name being attached to the book. If there’s anyone in comics making art like this, I haven't found them yet, the intricate, painterly style is a perfect fit for this story. Every panel could be cover art for a sword and sorcery book from the 30’s or 40’s. The more the story leans into the fantastical and magical hidden world hiding beneath the surface, the more it shines, with the colours and the line work almost showing off, but with every right to do so. On a weird note, I tend to hyper-fixate on mundane things when they’re done spectacularly, and to that end, I don’t think there’s anyone out there that can draw vegetation like Bilquis Evely, I lost count of the time I spent staring at trees and bushes and leaves and grass for god’s sake, it’s on another level. But the same rings true for all of the art here, the way it can sweep you off your feet is seriously magical.

Zatanna: Bring Down The House

Writer: Mariko Tamaki Art: Javier Rodriguez

I could put this book on here for just the cover arts alone, but thankfully every other aspect of Zatanna: Bring Down the House is so wonderfully realised, I can heap a lot more praise on to it. I adore a good monomyth – a hero’s journey story where they battle wit their demons and come home a changed person, and that’s exactly what Bring Down the House is. Zatanna goes through a crisis of identity, a crisis of confidence and a crisis of faith as she learns the strength of her powers and comes to terms with her past. A really well rounded, supremely satisfying story, the kind that Mariko Tamaki has always been great telling.

Javier Rodriguez’s art is a total powerhouse. His beautiful and unique style elevates every issue of the series, and is absolutely on par with Helen of Wyndhorn for the art I loved the most this year. The vibrant, pop-art colours, as well as the excellent use of negative space help to fully flesh out the personality of the book, and the panelling and page layouts added so much to drive and pacing of the story. I couldn’t say enough good things about it honestly, I was blown away reading every issue of this series.

I Heart Skull-Crusher

Writer: Josie Campbell Artist: Alessio Zonno Colorist: Angel De Santiago

I liked a lot of books this year, but I Heart Skull Crusher was easily the one I had the most fun with. Essentially a hybrid between a sports manga and a post apocalyptic action comedy, this one is all gas, no brakes. Our main character, Trini, builds a team to compete in her favourite sport – Screaming Pain Ball – in order to get a chance to meet her hero, and the best to ever play the game – Skull-Crusher. She recruits an over the hill coach, poisonous identical twins, a young hotshot and a literal bear to help get her there, all the while narrating her problems to the skulls of her dead parents. If all of this sounds completely insane to you, that’s because it is, incredibly so, but it has more personality and spark than just about anything I’ve read this year.

Not only is this a fun read, it’s also a really easy one as well. The story is fast paced, a massive amount of ground is covered in the first six issues (all that has been released so far, but it has been renewed to continue with more issues coming next year – yay!). But at the same time it’s all been so cohesive, while also managing to spare a lot of time to flesh out the main characters to a point that you really care about them, even the bear (especially the bear, his name is David and he’s lovely). So much about these characters and this story is insane, but none of it is annoying or grating, which it so easily could have fallen into had it have been told by someone else.

The art is fantastic too, clearly heavily manga inspired, but with enough variance to set itself apart from both manga and traditional western comic art, which really adds to the unique personality I Heart Skull Crusher has. Action scenes are frequent, but easy to follow, and every page feels so alive and full of energy. There’s really nothing else out there like this one at the moment, and if Boom Studios and local comic shops can figure out a way to get manga readers onto it, I think it could really take off in popularity and get the attention that it deserves.

Rare Flavours

Writer: Ram V Artist: Filipe Andrade

A mythical demon from ancient India with a love of food sees a news report on the death of Anthony Bourdain and sets out to make his own documentary about the beauty of food and the people who create it. Oh and it’s by the same team who created The Many Deaths Of Laila Starr. If that’s not enough already to convince you to read this book, then there’s probably some ghosts about to visit you in your sleep to show you the error of your ways. If you’ve read Ram V’s work before, especially his books set in India where his enthusiasm for sharing his culture and bringing its mythology to western audiences really shines, then you have a fair idea of what you’ll be getting out of Rare Flavours.

Playing out almost like a season of Bourdains “Parts Unknown” TV series, each issue focuses on primarily on our demon (anti)hero, and his young assistant Mo, who he has commissioned to film his grand documentary. But each issue also spends a lot of time focusing on the individual making that issues signature dish whether it be raan, daal fry or even just the perfect cup of chai, each issue not only provides a recipe for creating the dish, but also an in depth, personal, often heartbreaking look at the people who create them. This is a story about food, but it’s also a story about humanity, passion and the dedication and love it takes to perfect your craft, even just to make a simple cup of tea. Rare Flavours truly has something to say about human bonds and connections created by and passed through food, and it often feels incredibly warm, like a great hug. It can be sad and tragic, but it's always full of hope and sincerity.

Andrade’s typical ethereal art is perfectly suited to this setting, as has already been proved, and the earthy colour palette of the series helps to keep the atmosphere grounded and human, even when the story goes in more fantastical directions from time to time. He’s brilliant at conveying emotion through body language and expressions, and when he needs to draw something larger than life, he turns it up to 11. This is a prime example of a writer/artist combo that work perfectly in sync and complement each other to the highest level.

The Boy Wonder

Writer and Artist: Juni Ba Colourist: Chris O’Halloran

Welcome to the Juni Ba show, this time a Big 2 publisher! Witness the gorgeous, energy-filled, absolutely unique art (which as I’m looking over this blog, I’m seeing is a major theme) and revel in the charming and feisty story of Damian Wayne, son of Batman, and current holder of the Robin moniker. The Boy Wonder does a brilliant job of riding a border between what could be a YA story, and what could be something much more mature, and it brings both of those energies to every page which results in something that’s a ton of fun, and also very poignant.

The issues look at the past Robin’s – Dick, Tim and Jason – through the eyes of Damian who desperately wants to prove himself to be his own person. But he also feels the incredible burden of not only living up to the standards of those that came before him, but also the weight of their past actions, for better or worse. We also get a look at how he sees his mother, and her relationship with his father in what was definitely the best issue of the series. It all plays into Damian’s insecurities around his place in his family, his struggle to come to terms with his past, and his desire to live up to the legacy of his father, who happens to be Batman. Poor guy.

Damian narrates the story like a fairy tale, which if I’m being honest, is a trope that often drives me crazy, but it works so perfectly with Juni Ba’s art that I was fully behind it from start to finish here. His thick, crooked line work exaggerates the features of all the characters, and his awesome use of shadow elevates and mythologises his villains, turning the times that they meet the heroes into grandiose good vs. evil scenes that play around with the way a young boy would be processing all of these very heavy events that have

happened to him throughout his life. The story is wonderful on it’s own, but paired with the art it truly becomes something very special, a story that could only be told in comics, like all the best ones are.

***Book of the Year!!!***

The Power Fantasy

Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Caspar Wijngaard

I said I wasn’t doing awards, and I LIED. There is one book that stands above the rest for me this year, one that has permanently taken up so much permanent real estate in my brain since the moment I finished the first issue, that my very prestigious and illustrious Book of the Year award was never going to go to anything else. There has only been five issues released so far, but this isn’t recency bias talking. I was so excited for The Power Fantasy as soon as it was announced, way too excited, I put massively unrealistic expectations on it in my own mind, but here we are at the end of the year and I can safely say it hit every silly benchmark I set for it and I’m completely loving it.

The simplified premise is that there are six people on earth with “superpowers” that are equal to or greater than the power of the U.S.A’s nuclear arsenal. They are all very different people with very different goals and values, but they all understand that if they ever came to blows with each other, it would destroy the Earth. The book focuses on each of these characters intimately, and massively benefits from having such a tight and highly-realised cast. At this point there is only one character that hasn’t had a significant amount of focus, and those that we have met are compelling, magnetic and fully formed on the page. The start of the story has given a lot of focus to Etienne Lux and Santa Valentina, an “omnipath” and a literal angel respectively, using their core values as a way to show us the power struggle that exists between all of the characters. They’re locked in a constant philosophical battle of ethics vs morals, with Lux not afraid to use his world reaching mind control to kill anyone he has to in order to preserve the greater good, and Valentina refusing to consider acting on that level, striving to protect and help everyone, regardless of their views, actions and fears. It’s been a very clever way to connect the reader to the thought processes of each character, and what their existence means to this alternate history version of Earth.

The art is of course fantastic, with Caspar Wijngaard really pushing his trademark style to the next level. His trademark pastel colouring, bold linework and outlined characters are all here, perfectly suited to this world, making everyone really pop in their own way. The art style subtly changes for each character, and combined with the backgrounds that are smeared, blotted and scratched with paint marks, it really drenches the book in character, and helps set it apart from all the other comics coming out at the moment.

With as much as we have been shown about the characters and the world so far, there is also a large amount of mystery to everything going on. Keiron Gillen is pulling the curtain back to precisely the moment where you get all the answers you want, but leaves you with more questions and reason to keep coming back for more. I’ve tried to explain how I feel about The Power Fantasy to other people before writing this, and the best I’ve been able to come up with is that it feels like it’s all that I think about. When I’m reading anything else, thinking about new books to buy or talking about anything else that I like, it’s always there, buried in the back of my mind and I’m constantly hungry for more, and if that doesn’t make it my book of the year, then what am I even doing here.

Honorable Mention Quickfire!

Nights

Gorgeous art, highly addictive story, oozing with confidence and conviction. It never takes itself too seriously, even as the action ramps up, but Nights is firing at it’s best when it focuses on the casually supernatural, slice of life side of itself.

The Ultimates

Consistently beating my expectations for it, The Ultimates gives you plenty while holding back just enough with a Jonathan Hickman-esque grand narrative that grows with each issue. I’m firmly in the front seat of the Deniz Camp hype train right now.

Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees

Dexter, but set in a storybook village, this one manages to stay adorable and gruesome at the same time, heartwarming and chilling, charming and dark. A super enjoyable read all the way through.

Absolute Wonder Woman

Of DC’s new Absolute titles, Absolute Wonder Woman is easily the one that feels like it has the longest legs. The world building and characterisation of Diana has been wonderful, and Hayden Shermans art and paneling is truly hypnotic at times.

NYX

The X-Men are my guys, my ride or die franchise, and I was definitely one of the people who was disappointed to see the last era come to an end. As far as the new era goes, NYX is definitely the standout book of the line for me, and maybe that’s because it feels like the only book that doesn’t want to ignore that the previous era happened altogether. Really intriguing and fresh story going on here.

Fantastic Four

Ryan North’s Fantastic Four run is the only ongoing book from the Big 2 that you can pick up any single issue of and get an entire beginning, middle and end story. It’s remarkable how much he fits into each issue, not only do you get a complete story, each issue builds out the bigger story bit by bit and will almost certainly teach you about a new scientific theory somehow as well. Massive shout out to the issue where The Thing and Human Torch get jobs as cashiers in a small town grocery store and compete for employee of the month. It’s as dumb as it sounds, and might be my favourite single issue of anything this year.

Doom

Jonathan Hickman definitely takes a back seat on this one, guiding a greatest hits story of Doctor Doom and Valeria Richards that is really a vehicle to showcase the insane talent of Sanford Green. Wide open panels and epic double page spreads really made this one larger than life. There was a reason this was one of the most sought after issues of the year, the book is such a spectacle that it demands to be gawped at, slack-jawed and speechless.

If you actually made it this far through, jeez, thank you so much. This is a stupidly large amount of text to read on some random’s nerdy blog and I really appreciate you taking the time to do so!