2019 Guelph Comic Jam & 15th Annual Joe Shuster Awards

Brenden Fletcher @ 2019 Guelph Comics Jam

Brenden Fletcher @ 2019 Guelph Comics Jam

Last weekend I went to Guelph to go to the Guelph Comic Jam. It was sponsored by The Dragon, a 3 chain store owned and run by Jennifer Haines. The Dragon is an Eisner Award winning comic shop that is different from other shops as it is very family friendly store. There are two stores in Guelph and one in a nearby Milton, Ontario. I witnessed one comic creator beg Jennifer to open a 4th store near where he lived saying he would happily work there. I could write a lot more about the all the wonderful work that Jennifer does for the comics community but I think she’d rather I focus on the event she just put on.

The Comics Jam was held in the Old Quebec Street Shoppes @ 55 Wyndham St N, Guelph, ON where the Dragon’s flagship store is. It was free to attend and the Jam was in the isles of the mall. I had a good time chatting with a lot of creators, among them Sam Noir, Jay Stephens, Brenden Fletcher & Andy Stanleigh. I also enjoyed a few conversations with Robert Haines too. I took photos which you can see here.

On the night of the 14th, I also attended the 15th Annual Joe Shuster Awards. Kevin Boyd did the presenting of the ceremony, except for Jennifer Haines who presented the The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids). Robert Haines also presented a surprise T.M. Maple Award to his wife Jennifer. My audio recording and pictures of the ceremony are here. It was particularly nice to see Gerhard, who was the background artist on Cerebus get inducted to the Hall of Fame.

Gerhard gets inducted to the 2019 Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame

I left fairly early on Sunday as I had a long drive ahead of me and I wanted to visit The Dragon in Milton on my way home. The Guelph Art Museum did have a Exhibition on Seth’s work and I did stop by the museum late Sunday morning, but it was closed. For those that don’t know Seth is a popular cartoonist who created a number of critically acclaimed graphic novels.

Regarding The Dragon stores, they are all brightly coloured stores with a dedicated kids  area with a small table and chairs and nearby small bookshelves with age appropriate books. They focus on graphic novels but do have some comics and pop culture products there. A nice touch was a healthy diversity of stuffed animals for kids, which gave the stores a fun atmosphere. The graphic novels were broken down by genre with books going alphabetically by title. They also had a comic book section and place for gaming too. The staff were all very friendly as well.

I spent more money than I was expecting. Below is my haul from the show and the Dragon store shopping.

Guelph Comic Jam & Dragon Haul

Toronto Comicon 2019

Rhino. Toronto Comicon 2019

Rhino. Toronto Comicon 2019

Over the weekend I went to Toronto Comicon. I used to attend this con regularly but stopped going back in 2013. I won’t go into the details as to why, but I will say it was nice to go back and see some people whom I haven’t seen in many years. Compared to San Diego Comic Con and TCAF, this con was ‘light’ work for me in terms of recording panels and didn’t require me to take days off work to get my stuff online quickly. I audio recorded 5 panels and took some pictures.

Two of the panels were spotlight panels of creators I’ve recorded before at San Diego (Steve Englehart & Ron Wilson) but I learned some new stuff about the creators at both of them. I’ve recorded Denny O’Neil at other panels, but not a spotlight panel. I also learned that some colourists really don’t like working on Green Lantern books and that Marvel’s current Editor in Chief C. B. Cebulski really appreciates it when a creator makes a very difficult deadline.

All of the panels were in the same room and it was easy to find the comic guests. Having a laptop with me instead of a tablet made a huge speed difference in terms of preparing audio and pictures. As usual with this convention, there was a lot of cosplay and one could spend all their time just taking photos of cosplayers and still not get them all. I used to take a lot more photos but between going to panels, taking photos of pros’s, chatting with friends and doing some shopping for myself I no longer have the time to devote to it.

I did take a couple of short videos showing some of the fun of happening at the convention with cosplayers.

The only thing that disappointed me about the trip was the handy and close to the convention public parking lot I used to use was no longer there. It’s been replaced by large half-built condo sky scrapper, which meant finding a new place to park and going for a longer walk.

 

King Con 2019

So I went to King Con, a local convention in Kingston, Ontario, Canada that was able to bring in a surprising number of comic book creators, a prose writer, a magician and even a celebrity. The event was held at Sydenham Street United Church and Chalmers United Church as the Kingston Public Library was not yet finished it’s renovations.

David Lloyd Sketch, King Con 2019.

David Lloyd Sketch, King Con 2019.

As usual I mainly stuck to the comic books portion of the show but I did spent some time watching the magician James Harrison do magic and even teach some simple magic. I  took a number of pictures, audio recorded some panels and got to speak with a number of creators which was nice.

I almost never get sketches, but David Lloyd got me to pay for a sketch and I got a nice V for Vendetta from him. David’s sketch also came with a free issue of Aces Weekly, an online comics anthology he puts together. Georgia Webber, Chip Zdarsky, Allison O’Toole & Jason Loo signed their books for me. I got to take pictures of some cosplayers, including several from the 501 Legion, but unfortunately was unable to wait for the cosplay contest as they were running late and I was exhausted.

I did attend but did not record a Group Cosplay Panel which was really well done. I have attended a number of cosplay related panels this was the first one on this particular topic I’ve seen and those on the panel did a great job highlighting the benefits of doing group cosplay. Among the reasons were combining resources, using each others unique skill set  and inspiring each other to work on their costumes.

I had a good time at the convention, but I’m looking forward to it being back at the newly renovated library next year.

 

Will Eisner Week

A bunch of my friends on facebook are calling this Will Eisner week to celebrate the man.

In going over some old notebooks I came across some notes I took the one time I met and saw Will Eisner talk on a panel. This was at the 2004 Paradise Comics Toronto Comic Con. I was not yet recording panels so I only have the notes I scribbled down. The notes are faded and will be illegible soon so I’m putting them here to preserve them.

The title of the panel was Graphic Novel Pioneers. On it was Will Eisner, Dave Sim and Chester Brown.

2004 Paradise Comics Toronto Comic Con - Graphic Novel Pioneers panel. Will Eisner, Dave Sim, Chester Brown

2004 Paradise Comics Toronto Comic Con – Graphic Novel Pioneers panel. Will Eisner, Dave Sim, Chester Brown

Will Eisner starts off telling Dave Sim “We have to be very careful about what we say, there is an audience.”

Eisner thinks a Graphic Novel is about the content, not page numbers.

He thought readers were older and wanted to read something other than 2 mutants smashing each other.

Eisner said the President of Ballantine Books was very impatient.

Chester now accepts the Graphic Novel name. He didn’t before.

Eisner calls some books graphic narrative.

Al Capp told Eisner in 1945 he’d never make it, said he was to normal.

Rube Goldberg told Eisner that comics wasn’t nothing but vaudeville and jokes.

Spirit got 5 million in circulation, that was considered nothing then.

Eisner talked about how comic strips had huge cultural impact among immigrants.

Eisner said Superman had the same costume as strong man in circus.

Eisner said the Spirit was supposed to be short stories. Eisner did Splash pages to get attention.

Dave did Cerebus because of the direct market, the retailers took all the risk. He did things in Cerebus that he knew couldn’t do in Marvel/DC. He had almost complete freedom and he pushed boundaries.

Dave said he and the people in Beguiling (Popular Indy focused Comic Book store) thought Louis Riel was career suicide.

Eisner thought undergrounds was literature because Denis Kitchen introduced him to them.

Eisner sold his company and went into doing Graphic Novels.

Dave said Cerebus + Star Reach was called Ground Level Comics.

Eisner credits the undergrounds for the Graphic Novel.

Eisner thinks the Editor should be the reader surrogate, tell him what doesn’t work and Eisner will fix it himself. He doesn’t want advice.

Chester uses Seth as his “editor” to give him advice. Sim did it all himself.

Eisner used Dave Shiner, a friend, as an editor, he died recently. He now uses his wife Ann who never read comics prior to this.

Eisner said doing comics is like sex. He doesn’t like talking about it while he’s doing it. After he’s finished, then he goes through it.

Eisner starts writing with the ending. He writes a timeline, not the story.

With Louis Riel, Chester did his work on panels with dialog at first, did stick figures if he didn’t think he would remember.

Will Eisner

Will Eisner

Dave Sim

Dave Sim

Chester Brown

Chester Brown

Will Eisner and Chester Brown

Will Eisner and Chester Brown

Will Eisner talks to media

Will Eisner talks to media

The Combined Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2018!

Over the last few months there have been many, many websites with “Best of 2018” lists concerning comic books and graphic novels. If you’ve looked at a few, you may have noticed some of the same books on different lists and seen some unique to only that list.

I went through over 194 different “Best Of” Lists regarding comic books and graphic novels and combined them into a spreadsheet. There are over 3,000 different listings of books from these websites. I should note that I’ve included books that were given honorable mentions. In short, if somebody thought it was a good book that you should check out, it’s on here. Pivot tables have been created to show which books appeared on the number of lists. Here are the books with 5 mentions or more:

 

Book Title Count Writer Artist Publisher
The Prince and the Dressmaker 46 Jen Wang Jen Wang First Second
Sabrina 41 Nick Drnaso Nick Drnaso Drawn and Quarterly
On A Sunbeam 39 Tillie Walden Tillie Walden First Second
Mister Miracle 37 Tom King Mitch Gerads DC Comics
Berlin 34 Jason Lutes Jason Lutes Drawn and Quarterly
Immortal Hulk 32 Al Ewing Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Paul Mounts Marvel Comics
Saga 28 Brian K. Vaughan Fiona Staples Image Comics
Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles 26 Mark Russell Mike Feehan, Sean Parsons, Paul Mounts DC Comics
Woman World 24 Aminder Dhaliwal Aminder Dhaliwal Drawn and Quarterly
Why Art? 24 Eleanor Davis Eleanor Davis Fantagraphics
Venom 24 Donny Cates Ryan Stegman Marvel Comics
Infidel 23 Pornsak Pichetshote Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia Image Comics
Be Prepared 23 Vera Brosgol Vera Brosgol First Second
Young Frances 21 Hartley Lin Hartley Lin AdHouse Books
Gideon Falls 21 Jeff Lemire Andrea Sorrentino Image Comics
The Lie and How We Told It 20 Tommi Parrish Tommi Parrish Fantagraphics
My Boyfriend Is A Bear 20 Pamela Ribon Cat Farris Oni Press
Hey, Kiddo 20 Jarrett J. Krosoczka Jarrett J. Krosoczka Scholastic
Upgrade Soul 19 Ezra Claytan Daniels Ezra Claytan Daniels Lion Forge
All the Answers 19 Michael Kupperman Michael Kupperman Simon & Schuster
X-Men: Grand Design 18 Ed Piskor Ed Piskor Marvel Comics
Nancy 18 Olivia Jaimes Olivia Jaimes United Features Syndicate
Dirty Plotte: The Complete Julie Doucet 17 Julie Doucet Julie Doucet Drawn and Quarterly
Crowded 17 Christopher Sebela Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Triona Farrell Image Comics
Bingo Love 17 Tee Franklin Jenn St-Onge, Joy San Image Comics
Black Hammer: Age of Doom 17 Jeff Lemire Dean Ormston, Rich Tommaso, Dave Stewart Dark Horse Comics
Monstress 16 Marjorie Liu Sana Takeda Image Comics
Prism Stalker 16 Sloane Leong Sloane Leong Image Comics
Abbott 16 Saladin Ahmed Sami Kivelä Boom!
My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies 15 Ed Brubaker Sean Phillips Image Comics
Frontier #17 15 Lauren Weinstein Lauren Weinstein Youth In Decline
X-Men Red 14 Tom Taylor Mahmud Asrar, Carmen Carnero, Roge Antonio Marvel Comics
Coyote Doggirl 14 Lisa Hanawalt Lisa Hanawalt Drawn and Quarterly
Check, Please!: #Hockey 14 Ngozi Ukazu Ngozi Ukazu First Second
Batman 14 Tom King Lee Weeks, Jorge Fornés, Mikel Janin, Mark Buckingham, Clay Mann, Joëlle Jones, Michael Lark DC Comics
Batman: White Knight 14 Sean Murphy Sean Murphy DC Comics
Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures 13 Yvan Alagbé Yvan Alagbé New York Review Comics
The Mighty Thor 13 Jason Aaron Russell Dauterman, Matt Wilson Marvel Comics
Passing for Human 13 Liana Finck Liana Finck Random House
Runaways 13 Rainbow Rowell Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson Marvel Comics
Parallel Lives 13 Olivier Schrauwen Olivier Schrauwen Fantagraphics
Eternity Girl 13 Magdalene Visaggio Sonny Liew DC Comics
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World 13 Pénélope Bagieu Pénélope Bagieu First Second
Poochytown 12 Jim Woodring Jim Woodring Fantagraphics
Coda 12 Simon Spurrier Matias Bergara Boom!
Skyward 11 Joe Henderson Lee Garbett Image Comics
Ice Cream Man 11 W. Maxwell Prince Martin Morazzo, Chris O’Halloran Image Comics
Girl Town 11 Carolyn Nowak Carolyn Nowak Top Shelf
The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins 10 Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, Carey Pietsch Carey Pietsch First Second
The Wild Storm 10 Warren Ellis Jon Davis-Hunt DC Comics
Speak: The Graphic Novel 10 Laurie Halse Anderson Emily Carroll Farrar, Straus and Giroux
One Dirty Tree 10 Noah Van Sciver Noah Van Sciver Fantagraphics
Love That Bunch 10 Aline Kominsky-Crumb Aline Kominsky-Crumb Drawn and Quarterly
Isola 10 Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl Karl Kerschl, Msassyk Image Comics
Fearscape 10 Ryan O’Sullivan Andrea Mutti, Vladimir Popov Vault Comics
Doctor Star and the Kingdom of Lost Tomorrows 10 Jeff Lemire Max Fiumara, Dave Stewart Dark Horse Comics
Chlorine Gardens 10 Keiler Roberts Keiler Roberts Koyama Press
The Cardboard Kingdom 9 Chad Sell Chad Sell Knopf Books
Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310 9 Chip Zdarsky Chip Zdarsky Marvel Comics
Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection 9 Junji Ito Junji Ito Viz
Justice League Dark 9 James Tynion IV Alvaro Martinez DC Comics
Grip 9 Lale Westvind Lale Westvind Perfectly Acceptable Press
Dark Nights Metal 9 Scott Snyder Greg Capullo DC Comics
All Summer Long 9 Hope Larson Hope Larson Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction 9 Inio Asano Inio Asano Viz
Black Panther 9 Ta-Nehisi Coates Daniel Acuña Marvel Comics
The Winner 8 Karl Stevens Karl Stevens Retrofit Comics
These Savage Shores 8 Ram V Sumit Kumar, Vitorio Astone Vault Comics
Thor 8 Jason Aaron Mike Del Mundo, Christian Ward Marvel Comics
The Weatherman 8 Jody Leheup Nathan Fox Image Comics
Soft X-Ray/Mindhunters 8 A. Degen A. Degen Koyama Press
Paper Girls 8 Brian K. Vaughan Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson Image Comics
Home After Dark 8 David Small David Small Liveright
Kill or Be Killed 8 Ed Brubaker Sean Phillips Image Comics
Brat 8 Michael DeForge Michael DeForge Koyama Press
Black Hammer: The Quantum Age 8 Jeff Lemire Wilfredo Torres, Dave Stewart Dark Horse Comics
West Coast Avengers 7 Kelly Thompson Stefano Caselli Marvel Comics
Thanos Wins 7 Donny Cates Geoff Shaw Marvel Comics
Supergirl: Being Super 7 Mariko Tamaki Joëlle Jones DC Comics
The Wicked + The Divine 7 Kieron Gillen Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson Image Comics
Your Black Friend And Other Strangers 7 Ben Passmore Ben Passmore Silver Sprocket
The Seeds 7 Ann Nocenti David Aja Dark Horse Comics
Sleepless 7 Sarah Vaughn Leila del Duca Image Comics
Eternal 7 Ryan K. Lindsay Eric Zawadski, Dee Cunniffe Black Mask Studios
East of West 7 Jonathan Hickman Nick Dragotta Image Comics
Fake Blood 7 Whitney Gardner Whitney Gardner Simon & Schuster
Love And Rockets 7 Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez Fantagraphics
Fence 7 C.S. Pacat Johanna the Mad, Joana Lafuente Boom!
Friendo 7 Alex Paknadel Martin Simmonds Vault Comics
Illegal 7 Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin Giovanni Rigano Sourcebooks
Green Lantern: Earth One 7 Gabriel Hardman Corinna Bechko DC Comics
Bitter Root 7 David F. Walker, Chuck Brown Sanford Greene, Rico Renzi Image Comics
All the Sad Songs 7 Summer Pierre Summer Pierre Retrofit Comics
Doomsday Clock 7 Geoff Johns Gary Frank DC Comics
Aquicorn Cove 7 Katie O’Neill Katie O’Neill Oni Press
Action Comics 7 Brian Michael Bendis Ryan Sook, Patrick Gleason, Yanick Paquette DC Comics
Belonging: A German Reckons With History And Home 7 Nora Krug Nora Krug Scribner
Blammo #10 7 Noah Van Sciver Noah Van Sciver Kilgore Books
Superman 6 Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason Barry Kitson, Scott Hanna, Gabriel Eltaeb DC Comics
The New World 6 Aleš Kot Tradd Moore Image Comics
The Dreaming 6 Simon Spurrier Bilquis Evely, Mat Lopes DC Comics
Shit is Real 6 Aisha Franz Aisha Franz Drawn and Quarterly
Shanghai Red 6 Christopher Sebela Joshua Hixson Image Comics
My Brother’s Husband 6 Gengoroh Tagame Gengoroh Tagame Pantheon
My Hero Academia 6 Kohei Horikoshi Kohei Horikoshi Viz
Rogue & Gambit 6 Kelly Thompson Pere Pérez Marvel Comics
Photographic: The Life Of Graciela Iturbide 6 Isabel Quintero Zeke Peña Harry N. Abrams
Justice League 6 Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV Jorge Jimenez, Jim Cheung, Francis Manapul, Mikel Janin, Doug Mahnke DC Comics
Is This Guy for Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman 6 Box Brown Box Brown First Second
From Lone Mountain 6 John Porcellino John Porcellino Drawn and Quarterly
Farmhand 6 Rob Guillory Rob Guillory, Taylor Wells Image Comics
Judas 6 Jeff Loveness Jakub Rebelka Boom!
Hawkeye: Kate Bishop 6 Kelly Thompson Leonardo Romero Marvel Comics
Giant Days 6 John Allison Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar Boom!
I Am Young 6 M. Dean M. Dean Fantagraphics
Art Comic 6 Matthew Thurber Matthew Thurber Drawn and Quarterly
Assassinistas 6 Tini Howard Gilbert Hernandez, Rob Davis IDW
A Perfect Failure: Fante Bukowski 3 6 Noah Van Sciver Noah Van Sciver Fantagraphics
Black Bolt 6 Saladin Ahmed Christian Ward Marvel Comics
Death Or Glory 6 Rick Remender Bengal Image Comics
Amazing Spider-Man 6 Nick Spencer Ryan Ottley Marvel Comics
Captain America 6 Ta-Nehisi Coates Leinil Francis Yu, Sunny Gho Marvel Comics
The Dead Hand 5 Kyle Higgins Stephen Mooney, Jordie Bellaire Image Comics
Von Spatz 5 Anna Haifisch Anna Haifisch Drawn and Quarterly
The Pervert 5 Michelle Perez Remy Boydell Image Comics
The Weaver Festival Phenomenon 5 Ron Regé Jr. Ron Regé Jr. Self-Published
Wasted Space 5 Michael Moreci Hayden Sherman, Jason Wordie Vault Comics
Wonder Woman: Earth One 5 Grant Morrison Yanick Paquette DC Comics
The Nameless City 5 Faith Erin Hicks Faith Erin Hicks First Second
The Vision 5 Tom King Gabriel Hernandez Walta Marvel Comics
The New World: Comics From Mauretania 5 Chris Reynolds Chris Reynolds New York Review Comics
The Bride Was a Boy 5 Chii Chii Seven Seas Entertainment
The Nib: Death 5 Various Various The Nib
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 5 Ryan North, Will Murray Erica Henderson, Zac Gorman, Derek Charm Marvel Comics
Multiple Man 5 Matthew Rosenberg Andy Macdonald Marvel Comics
Oblivion Song 5 Robert Kirkman Lorenzo De Felici Image Comics
Manfried The Man 5 Caitlin Major Kelly Bastow Quirk Books
Long Lost 5 Matthew Erman Lisa Sterle Scout Comics
Koshchei The Deathless 5 Mike Mignola Ben Stenbeck, Dave Stewart Dark Horse Comics
Flavor 5 Joseph Keatinge Wook Jin Clark, Tamra Bonvillain Image Comics
Euthanauts 5 Tini Howard Nick Robles IDW
Descender 5 Jeff Lemire Dustin Nguyen Image Comics
Dognurse 5 Margot Ferrick Margot Ferrick Perfectly Acceptable Press
Cosmic Ghost Rider 5 Donny Cates Dylan Burnett Marvel Comics
Angloid 5 Alex Graham Alex Graham Kilgore Books
Darth Vader: Lord Of The Sith 5 Charles Soule Giuseppe Camuncoli, Jim Cheung Marvel Comics
All-New Wolverine 5 Tom Taylor Juan Cabal, Marco Failla, Djibril Morissette-Phan, Ramon Rosanas, David Lopez Marvel Comics
Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation 5 Ari Folman David Polonsky Pantheon
Beneath The Dead Oak Tree 5 Emily Carroll Emily Carroll Shortbox

 

Of interest Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam, which showed up as a web comic in 2016 and 2017 now shows up at #3 in print form on this years list. Olivia Jaimes take on Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy is the top ranking web comic (unless you count On a Sunbeam) getting far more mentions than any webcomic previously. While I normally remove the issue number on mainstream titles to make the list more useful to readers, I made an exception with Chip Zdarsky’s Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310 because so many people made reference to it. Also, Captain America is on here with 6 mentions but 2 of those mentions were for the Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson run.

The full spreadsheet with pivot tables for books, writers, artists, publishers and more is available here


Regarding Publishers:

Image was the most popular with 90 different titles.

DC and Marvel are tied for 2nd with 73 different titles.

Fantagraphics is 3rd with 52 different titles.

Dark Horse has 42 titles.

Boom! did well with 33 titles.

104 Self-Published books made the list too.

Caveats:

Where a reviewer/writer wrote ‘best of’ lists for multiple websites, I’ve cross referenced their lists and removed books that were named twice. I did not think it would be fair if those writers could tip the popularity scale by naming the same book(s) over and over again on multiple websites. Sadly, there was an increase of websites publishing lists with no credit to who (of whom) created the list. In those cases I marked them as Unknown but the practice of not crediting writers is a shameful one.

If a writer wrote for multiple sites, but one of those sites picks was a group effort, I did not remove books that are listed twice.

I generally did not include lists that were a mixed of prose books and graphic novels unless there were a significant number of graphic novels on the list.

I did not use lists where the website was not in English and the books appeared to be translated versions.

With inkers and colourists I often, but not always included them within the Artist section. Where there were multiple (usually more than 5) involved in a book, or in the title’s run over the course of the year, Various was used of listing them all. In some cases I combined those involved even if they worked on the title for different issues.

For simplicity sake, if a list named a specific comic book issue or specific volume of a graphic novel, I removed those specifics and just listed the series title, with rare exceptions. Apologies to the reviewers of those books.

Some writers included books that were technically published in 2017 and at least 1 just listed best books they read that year, but the vast majority of those lists were 2018 books. The number of non 2018 books in the spreadsheet is very tiny and insignificant to the overall list.

Most of the lists were general ‘best/favourite books’ of 2018, but I also included lists dedicated to young readers, manga, etc… What type list is noted on column B in the spreadsheet.

A small number of lists also had rankings and those are included in Column C.

This list of website this list is compiled from:

101 Comics https://101comics.com/best-comic-series-of-2018/
Advenures In Poor Taste http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2018/12/14/aipts-favorite-comics-of-2018-part-1-the-best-of-everything-else/
Advenures In Poor Taste http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2018/12/17/aipts-favorite-comics-of-2018-part-2-the-best-series/
Advocate https://www.advocate.com/books/2018/12/20/best-lgbtq-graphic-novels-2018#media-gallery-media-0
Affino https://www.affino.com/blogs/blogs/best-of-entertainment-2018—film-tv-albums-songs-and-graphic-novels
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=s9_acss_bw_cg_BOTY18_3c1_w?node=17388344011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-4&pf_rd_r=RRZ5ZWV6QTNM30GW5G3J&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=09b4dfa3-c856-4416-85ee-67abbfa4b511&pf_rd_i=17388344011
Autostraddle https://www.autostraddle.com/50-of-the-best-lgbt-books-of-2018-441796/
AVClub https://aux.avclub.com/the-best-comics-of-2018-1830657952
Bam Smack Pow https://bamsmackpow.com/2018/12/31/time-year-top-ten-comic-books-2018/
Barnes And Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/our-favorite-comics-graphic-novels-of-2018/
Barnes And Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/best-manga-of-2018/
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2018/12/28/best-comics-of-2018-batmans-bookcase-contributor-picks
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2018/12/28/taylor-pechters-top-5-comics-of-2018
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2018/12/28/the-stewart-bros-top-10-comics-of-2018
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2018/12/31/top-comics-of-2018-16-25
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2018/12/31/top-comics-of-2018-6-15
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2019/1/1/top-comics-of-2018-1-5
BATMAN’S BOOKCASE https://www.batmansbookcase.com/updates/2019/1/1/best-single-comic-book-issues-of-2018
Berkley Place http://berkeleyplaceblog.com/2018/12/10/the-best-comic-books-of-2018/
Big Comic Page https://bigcomicpage.com/2018/12/21/bcp-best-of-2018-mark-editio/
Big Comic Page https://bigcomicpage.com/2018/12/23/bcp-best-of-2018-ceej-edition/
Big Comic Page https://bigcomicpage.com/2018/12/29/bcp-best-of-2018-indy-edition
Book Riot https://bookriot.com/2018/12/04/best-comics-of-2018/
Booklist Online https://www.booklistonline.com/Top-10-Graphic-Novels-2018-Sarah-Hunter/pid=9677963
Booklist Online https://www.booklistonline.com/Top-10-Graphic-Novels-for-Youth-2018-Sarah-Hunter/pid=9676799
Boston Globe http://apps.bostonglobe.com/arts/graphics/2018/12/year-end-books-2018/#graphic-novels
Broken Frontier http://www.brokenfrontier.com/celebrating-2018-ten-uk-small-press-comics-need-jayde-perkin-cat-sims-peony-gent/
Brooklyn Public Library https://www.bklynlibrary.org/
Bustle https://www.bustle.com/p/8-graphic-novels-comics-that-make-really-thoughtful-unique-gifts-13161953
CBC https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-best-canadian-comics-of-2018-1.4944651
CBR https://www.cbr.com/marvel-venom-best-comic-2018/
Chicago Public Library https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/200121216/1304495217
Colby Sharp https://www.mrcolbysharp.com/2018/
Comic Book Herald https://www.comicbookherald.com/the-best-comics-of-2018/
Comic Obsessed https://comicobsessed.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-top-ten-best-dc-comics-of-2018.html?spref=tw
ComicBook.com https://comicbook.com/comics/2018/12/18/2018-golden-issue-award-winner-best-comic-series/
ComicBook.com https://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/12/18/2018-golden-issue-award-winner-best-limited-comic-series/
ComicBook.com https://comicbook.com/comics/2018/12/18/2018-golden-issue-award-winner-best-graphic-novel/
ComicBook.com https://comicbook.com/comics/2018/12/18/2018-golden-issue-award-winner-best-new-comic-series/
ComicBook.com https://comicbook.com/comics/2018/12/18/2018-golden-issue-award-winner-best-indie-comic/
Comicon http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/31/comicons-7-best-digital-webcomics-of-2018/
Comicon http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/31/comicons-most-progressive-comics-2018/
Comicon http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/27/comicons-7-best-comic-series-of-2018/
Comicon http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/26/comicons-7-best-original-graphic-novels-of-2018/
Comicon http://www.comicon.com/2018/12/26/comicons-7-best-single-comic-issues-of-2018/
Comicosity http://www.comicosity.com/2018-the-10-comic-books-that-turned-our-heads/
Comicosity http://www.comicosity.com/2018-the-world-of-graphic-novels/
Comics Alternative http://comicsalternative.com/episode-303-our-favorite-comics-of-2018/
Comics Beat http://www.comicsbeat.com/the-best-comics-of-2018/
Comics Beat http://www.comicsbeat.com/the-best-manga-of-2018/
Cranboyz http://cranboyz.blogspot.com/2018/12/popas-favorite-comics-of-2018-in-no.html
Daily Grindhouse http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/grindhouse-comics-column-top-ten-graphic-novels-2018/
Den of Geek https://www.denofgeek.com/us/books/278336/best-comics-of-2018
Denver Public Library https://kids.denverlibrary.org/booklist/best-brightest-graphic-novels-2018
Diverse Tech Geek https://www.diversetechgeek.com/2018/12/19/10-favorite-comics-2018/
Doom Rocket https://doomrocket.com/best-comics-2018/
Dustin Harbin http://www.dharbin.com/blog/post.php?s=the-year-in-media
EW https://ew.com/books/best-comics-2018/
Extra Inks http://extra-inks.comicssociety.org/2019/01/19/2018-faves/
Eye On Comics http://www.eyeoncomics.com/?p=4360
Fanfare https://fanfareland.com/andrews-top-10-comics-of-2018/
Five Books https://fivebooks.com/best-books/best-comics-2018/
Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2018/12/07/the-best-graphic-novels-of-2018/#7d193f494aad
Forbidden Planet https://www.forbiddenplanetnyc.com/the-18-best-comics-of-2018/
Four Color Apocalypse https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/four-color-apocalypse-2018-year-in-review-top-10-ongoing-series/
Four Color Apocalypse https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/four-color-apocalypse-2018-year-in-review-top-ten-contemporary-collections/
Four Color Apocalypse https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/four-color-apocalypse-2018-year-in-review-top-ten-vintage-collections/
Four Color Apocalypse https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/four-color-apocalypse-2018-year-in-review-top-ten-special-mentions/
Four Color Apocalypse https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/four-color-apocalypse-2018-year-in-review-top-ten-single-issues/
Free Library https://libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/3583
Gamespot https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/the-best-superhero-comics-of-2018-batman-captain-m/2900-2433/
Geek Cast Radio https://www.geekcastradio.com/comics/m-articles-comics/top-100-comics-of-2018/
Geek Fair http://www.geekfair.co.uk/best-comics-of-2018-part-1/
Geek Fair http://www.geekfair.co.uk/best-comics-of-2018-part-2/
Geeks World Wide https://thegww.com/gwws-best-comics-of-2018/
Goodeads https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-graphic-novels-comics-2018
Gosh London https://www.goshlondon.com/blog/2018/11/6/the-gosh-best-of-2018-kids
Gosh London https://www.goshlondon.com/blog/2018/11/6/the-gosh-best-of-2018-adult
Graphic Novel Resources http://graphicnovelresources.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-favorite-graphic-novels-of-2018.html
Graphic Policy https://graphicpolicy.com/2019/01/01/logans-favorite-comics-of-2018/
Grovel http://www.grovel.org.uk/category/best-graphic-novels-2018/
Herad Scotland https://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/17298714.graphic-content-our-choice-of-the-best-graphic-novels-of-the-year/
Heroic Girls http://www.heroicgirls.com/the-best-graphic-novels-of-2018-for-kids-and-teens/
Heroic Girls http://www.heroicgirls.com/the-best-graphic-novels-of-2018-for-adults/
Hollwood Reporter https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/best-comics-2018-1171840
Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/12/07/2018-was-a-great-year-for-graphic-novels-here-s-proof_a_23610578/
HyperAllergic https://hyperallergic.com/474333/best-graphic-novels-of-2018/
ICPL http://blog.icpl.org/2018/12/30/icpl-top-staff-picks-for-2018-graphic-novels/
IGN https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/10/best-comic-book-series-of-the-year-2018
IGN https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/10/best-original-graphic-novel-2018
IGN https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/10/best-limited-comic-book-or-mini-series-2018
IGN https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/10/best-new-comic-book-series-2018
Infinte Earths https://iearths.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-top-10-best-comics-of-2018.html
iO9 https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-best-comics-of-2018-1831216345
Jennifer Haines https://www.facebook.com/jenn.haines.3/posts/10161159899825635
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-middle-grade-graphic-novels-of-2018/
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-ya-books-of-2018-facing-trauma/
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-ya-nonfiction-of-2018/
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-ya-books-of-2018-that-explore-family-and-self/
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-ya-science-fiction-of-2018/last-pick/#feature
Lewton Bus http://lewtonbus.net/editorials/jonathan-hansens-favorite-comics-of-2018/
LF Press https://lfpress.com/entertainment/books/graphic-novel-on-vinyl-tops-my-list-of-the-years-best-graphic-novels
Library Journal https://www.libraryjournal.com/?page=best-books-2018
Mega City Comics https://megacitycomics.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/top-15-graphic-novels-of-2018/
Monkey Fighting Robots https://www.monkeysfightingrobots.co/best-of-2018-top-5-comic-book-single-issues/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-new-series/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-anthology/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-translated-material/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-original-graphic-novel/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-limited-series/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-reprint/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-digital-first/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-webcomic/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-one-shot/
Multiersity Comics http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2018-best-ongoing/
Mutcolib http://bestof.multcolib.org/2018/#/_
Nerdy Book Club https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/the-2018-nerdies-graphic-novels-announced-by-katherine-sokolowski/
New York Public Library https://www.nypl.org/books-music-movies/recommendations/best-books/ya
New York Public Library https://www.nypl.org/bestbooksadults2018
Newsarama https://www.newsarama.com/43276-best-of-best-shots-2017-our-review-crew-picks-the-best-of-the-year.html
Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com/best-comic-books-1179816
Nijomu http://www.nijomu.com/reviews/comics-i-enjoyed-reading-in-2018/
North Tonawanda Public Library http://www.ntlibrary.org/best-graphic-novels-of-2018/
NPR https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/#/tag/comics-and-graphic-novels
Nylon https://nylon.com/best-illustrated-books-2018
NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/19/books/review/100-notable-books.html
Omaha Library http://topshelf.omahalibrary.org/
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/james-18-favorite-comics-of-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/seans-favorite-limited-comic-series-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/seans-favorite-first-issues-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/seans-favorite-ongoing-comics-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/neil-favourite-comic-reads-of-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/12/mikes-favorite-comics-of-2018.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2019/01/robs-favorite-comics-of-2018-part-1.html
Panel Platter http://www.panelpatter.com/2019/01/rob-favorite-comics-of-2018-final-29.html
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/12/the-10-best-superhero-comics-of-2018.html
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/12/the-25-best-comic-books-of-2018.html
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/12/the-15-best-sci-fi-fantasy-comics-of-2018.html
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/12/the-15-best-horror-comics-of-2018.html
Paste Magazine https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/12/the-20-best-kids-comics-of-2018.html
Pastrami Nation http://pastramination.com/best-of-2018-comic-books/
Polygon https://www.polygon.com/comics/2018/10/19/17983626/best-comics-2018-marvel-dc-batman
Powells https://www.powells.com/post/lists/best-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-and-graphic-novels-of-2018
Print Magazine https://www.printmag.com/comics-and-animation/2018-best-biography-comics/
Print Magazine https://www.printmag.com/comics-and-animation/3-best-graphic-novels-for-kids-2018/
Print Magazine https://www.printmag.com/comics-and-animation/best-graphic-novels-for-teens/
Publishers Weekly https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2018/comics
Publishers Weekly https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2018/young-adult#book/book-9
Random Thoughts https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2018/12/31/the-best-comics-of-2018/
Readings https://www.readings.com.au/news/graphic-novels-and-comics-we-loved-in-2018
School Library Journal https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=top-10-graphic-novel
Scifi Pulse http://www.scifipulse.net/comic-books-2018-the-year-in-review/
Screen Rant https://screenrant.com/best-comic-books-2018/
Sequential State https://sequentialstate.com/blog/comics-that-challenged-me-in-2018-the-complete-list/
Smash Pages http://smashpages.net/2018/12/27/smash-pages-favorite-comics-of-2018/
Spy https://spy.com/2019/entertainment/books-music-movies/best-graphic-novels-2018-saga-marvel-149805/
Study Breaks https://studybreaks.com/culture/reads/the-8-most-important-graphic-novels-of-2018/
Super Skull http://www.superskullshow.com/episodes-all/2018/12/12/best-comics-of-2018
SyFy https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/syfy-fangrrls-favorite-comics-of-2018
TCJ http://www.tcj.com/the-best-comics-of-2018/
Tech Aeris https://techaeris.com/2018/12/31/top-6-best-comic-books-2018/
Texas Library Association https://txla.org/tools-resources/reading-lists/maverick/current-list/
The Bookshelf Corner https://thebookshelfcorner.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/reading-2018-best-of-manga/
The Comeback https://thecomeback.com/pop-culture/the-five-best-comic-books-of-2018-mister-miracle-west-coast-avengers-and-the-wicked-divine-lead-strong-year.html
The Daily Dot https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/best-new-comics-2018/
The Globe and Mail https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/130252.Globe_Mail_The_Globe_100_Best_Books_Of_2018/ (public)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-the-globe-100-our-favourite-books-of-2018/#comics (subscriber)
The Good Men Project https://goodmenproject.com/all-things-geek/gift-guide-2018-books-xela/
The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2018/dec/01/guardian-review-best-books-of-2018
The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-best-graphic-novels-of-2018-1.3734219
THE OKLAHOMAN https://newsok.com/article/5619205/word-balloons-best-graphic-novels-of-2018
The Smart Set https://thesmartset.com/comic-countdown-2018/
The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/13/18136739/best-comics-2018-runaways-girl-town-emily-carroll
The Woolamaloo Gazette http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/?p=6377
Thrillist https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/best-comics-graphic-novels-2018
Toledo Library http://www.toledolibrary.org/blog/best-comics-and-graphic-novels-of-2018
Tor https://www.tor.com/2018/12/12/pull-list-best-comics-of-2018/
Turnaround https://theturnaroundblog.com/2018/11/23/turnarounds-best-of-2018-graphic-novels/
Under The Radar http://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/under_the_radars_holiday_gift_guide_2018_part_10_graphic_novels_and_books/
Villain Media https://villainmedia.com/jorge-solis-top-10-best-comic-books-list-of-2018/
Vulture https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/best-comics-2018.html
Vulture https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/best-superhero-stories-2018.html
WAKING BRAIN CELLS https://wakingbraincells.com/2019/01/10/2018-best-graphic-novels/
Washngton Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-10-best-graphic-novels-of-2018/2018/11/13/a192b760-e2d7-11e8-ab2c-b31dcd53ca6b_story.html
What Culture http://whatculture.com/comics/10-best-comic-books-of-2018
What Culture http://whatculture.com/comics/10-most-underrated-comic-books-of-2018
Why So Blu http://whysoblu.com/best-comics-of-2018/
Wired https://www.wired.com/story/best-comics-2018/
Women Write About Comics https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2019/01/wwac-favorite-big-press-comics-2018/
Women Write About Comics https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2019/01/wwacs-favorite-small-press-comics-of-2018/
Your Chicken Enemy http://www.yourchickenenemy.com/2018/12/books-we-liked-2018-rob-clough-kim.html
Your Chicken Enemy http://www.yourchickenenemy.com/2018/12/books-we-liked-2018-ryan-carey-philippe.html
Your Chicken Enemy http://www.yourchickenenemy.com/2018/12/books-we-liked-2018-nick-hanover-sara-l.html
Your Chicken Enemy http://www.yourchickenenemy.com/2018/12/books-we-liked-2018-francesca-lyn-david.html
Your Chicken Enemy http://www.yourchickenenemy.com/2018/12/books-we-liked-2018-matt-vadnais-justin.html

TCAF & Doug Wright Awards 2018

TCAF 2018 – Brigitte Findakly, Lewis Trondheim, Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, Eddie Campbell and Audrey Niffenegger

I went to Toronto Comics Arts Festival and audio recorded 14 panels and the Doug Wright Awards.

TCAF had a different feel this year. One of the major Canadian publishers, Drawn & Quarterly was not there. They put less tables on the main floor which made the convention more bearable to walk around and browse. In the past few years TCAF had several  popular Image Comics creators, but not so much this year. I haven’t compared numbers but friends of mine believe there were more international creators than usual.

Also different was the spaces outside of the Library being used. The Masonic Temple that normally hosted the Image creators was not utilized and the empty upstairs area of a mall across the street was. Within that space was a Zine Fest which I did not visit, but I understand it was popular. I also couldn’t help but notice the Friday Night kick off event was also less popularly attended than usual. Even the Doug Wright awards were put into a smaller room and was done in an hour.  I’m not suggesting that any of these changes were bad, some of them were quite welcome, but it gave the show an ‘off’ feeling. It will be curious to see what happens with next years show to see if this is a trend or not.

 

King Con 2018

Tom Fowler at King Con 2018

Tom Fowler at King Con 2018

I attended a local convention in Kingston, Ontario called King Con. It was held this year at Sydenham Street United Church at 82 Sydenham Street. I personally enjoyed the show and chatting with some creators, some I hadn’t seen in several years.

Some of the creators include: J. Torres, Andrew Wheeler, Attila Adorjany, Kat Verhoeven, Tom Fowler, Craig A. Taillefer, Andrew Thomas, Salgood Sam, San Noir, Dan Day and more. Andrew Wheeler did a panel on the history of LGBTQ Superheroes which I recorded.

There was also a popular magic show, which I enjoyed as the magician (James Harrison) had a very good act. I was talking with him earlier and he was doing the whole ‘find the ball’ trick on me with.

At the end of Saturday there was a cosplay contest that was mainly aimed at kids.

Pictures are here and Audio is here.

 

 

The winner of the cosplay contest is here (recorded and posted with permission):

The Combined Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2017!

Over the last few months there have been many, many websites with “Best of 2017” lists concerning comic books and graphic novels. If you’ve looked at a few, you may have noticed some of the same books on different lists and seen some unique to only that list.

I went through over 136 different “Best Of” Lists regarding comic books and graphic novels and combined them into a spreadsheet. There are over 2,100 different listings of books from these websites. I should note that I’ve included books that were given honorable mentions. In short, if somebody thought it was a good book that you should check out, it’s on here. Pivot tables have been created to show which books appeared on the number of lists. Here are the books with 5 mentions or more:

 

Book Title Count Writer Artist Publisher
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters 64 Emil Ferris Emil Ferris Fantagraphics
Mister Miracle 45 Tom King Mitch Gerads DC Comics
The Best We Could Do 36 Thi Bui Thi Bui Harry N. Abrams
Boundless 32 Jillian Tamaki Jillian Tamaki Drawn & Quarterly
Batman 27 Tom King Mikel Janin DC Comics
You & A Bike & A Road 26 Eleanor Davis Eleanor Davis Koyama Press
Spinning 24 Tillie Walden Tillie Walden First Second
Black Hammer 21 Jeff Lemire Dean Ormston, David Rubin Dark Horse Comics
My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness 20 Nagata Kabi Nagata Kabi Seven Seas
Shade The Changing Girl 19 Cecil Castellucci Marley Zarcone DC Comics
Anti-Gone 19 Connor Willumsen Connor Willumsen Koyama Press
The Mighty Thor 17 Jason Aaron Russell Dauterman Marvel Comics
Songy Of Paradise 16 Gary Panter Gary Panter Fantagraphics
Hostage 15 Guy Delisle Guy Delisle Drawn & Quarterly
Everything Is Flammable 14 Gabrielle Bell Gabrielle Bell Uncivilized Books
The Flintstones 13 Mark Russell Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi DC Comics
Paper Girls 13 Brian K. Vaughan Cliff Chiang Image Comics
Monograph 12 Chris Ware Chris Ware Rizzoli
Real Friends 12 Shannon Hale Leuyen Pham First Second
Giant Days 12 John Allison Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Whitney Cogar BOOM! Studios
Crickets No. 6 12 Sammy Harkham Sammy Harkham American Comics
Mirror Mirror II 11 Various Various 2dcloud
One More Year 11 Simon Hanselmann Simon Hanselmann Fantagraphics
Saga 11 Brian K. Vaughan Fiona Staples Image Comics
Doom Patrol 11 Gerard Way Nick Derington DC Comics
Roughneck 11 Jeff Lemire Jeff Lemire Gallery 13
The Customer Is Always Wrong 10 Mimi Pond Mimi Pond Drawn & Quarterly
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 10 Ryan North Erica Henderson Marvel Comics
Batman / Elmer Fudd Special #1 10 Tom King Lee Weeks DC Comics
Sex Fantasy 10 Sophia Foster-Dimino Sophia Foster-Dimino Koyama Press
Rock Candy Mountain 9 Kyle Starks Kyle Starks Image Comics
Silver Surfer 9 Dan Slott Michael Allred And Laura Allred Marvel Comics
Pretending Is Lying 9 Dominique Goblet Dominique Goblet New York Review Comics
Redlands 9 Jordie Bellaire, Vanesa Del Rey Jordie Bellaire, Vanesa Del Rey Image Comics
Uncomfortably Happily 9 Yeon-Sik Hong Yeon-Sik Hong Drawn & Quarterly
My Brother’s Husband 9 Gengoroh Tagame Gengoroh Tagame Pantheon
God Country 9 Donny Cates Geoff Shaw Image Comics
4 Kids Walk Into A Bank 9 Matthew Rosenberg Tyler Boss Black Mask Studios
Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero 8 Michael Deforge Michael Deforge Drawn & Quarterly
Spill Zone 8 Scott Westerfeld Alex Puvilland First Second
Wonder Woman 8 Greg Rucka Nicola Scott, Liam Sharp, Romulo Fajardo Jr. DC Comics
Iceland 8 Yuichi Yokoyama Yuichi Yokoyama Retrofit/Big Planet
Aliens: Dead Orbit 8 James Stokoe James Stokoe Dark Horse Comics
Brave 8 Svetlana Chmakova Svetlana Chmakova Yen Press
Black Bolt 8 Saladin Ahmed Christian James Ward Marvel Comics
Dark Nights: Metal 8 Scott Snyder Greg Capullo DC Comics
Pope Hats #5 7 Ethan Rilly Ethan Rilly Adhouse Press
Now #1 7 Various Various Fantagraphics
All’S Faire In Middle School 7 Victoria Jamieson Victoria Jamieson Dial Books
The Complete Strange Growths, 1991-1997 7 Jenny Zervakis Jenny Zervakis Spit and a Half
Crawl Space 7 Jesse Jacobs Jesse Jacobs Koyama Press
Secret Weapons 7 Eric Heisserer Raul Allen, Patricia Martin Valiant
Motor Crush 7 Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart Babs Tarr, Cameron Stewart Image Comics
Extremity 7 Daniel Warren Johnson Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer Image Comics
Mis(H)Adra 7 Iasmin Omar Ata Iasmin Omar Ata Gallery 13
The Girl From The Other Side: Siúil, A Rún 7 Nagabe Nagabe Seven Seas
Everyone’s A Aliebn When Ur A Aliebn Too: A Book 7 Jomny Sun Jomny Sun Harper Perennial
Deathstroke 7 Christopher Priest Diogenes Neves DC Comics
Hawkeye 7 Kelly Thompson Leonardo Romero, Michael Walsh, Jordie Bellaire Marvel Comics
The Wild Storm 6 Warren Ellis Jon Davis-Hunt DC Comics
How To Read Nancy: The Elements Of Comics In Three Easy Panels 6 Paul Karasik, Mark Newgarden Fantagraphics
Fante Bukowski Two 6 Noah Van Sciver Noah Van Sciver Fantagraphics
The Black Monday Murders 6 Jonathan Hickman Tomm Coker, Michael Garland, Rus Wooton Image Comics
Bitch Planet 6 Kelly Sue Deconnick Valentine De Landro, Taki Soma Image Comics
Language Barrier 6 Hannah K. Lee Hannah K. Lee Koyama Press
Providence 6 Alan Moore Jacen Burrows Avatar Press
Nightlights 6 Lorena Alvarez Lorena Alvarez Nobrow Press
Poppies Of Iraq 6 Brigitte Findakly And Lewis Trondheim Lewis Trondheim Drawn & Quarterly
Imagine Wanting Only This 6 Kristen Radtke Kristen Radtke Pantheon
The Wicked + The Divine 6 Kieron Gillen Jamie Mckelvie, Matt Wilson Image Comics
Pashmina 6 Nidhi Chanani Nidhi Chanani First Second
America 6 Gabby Rivera Joe Quinones, Ramon Villalobos Marvel Comics
House Of Women 6 Sophie Goldstein Sophie Goldstein Fantagraphics
Ms. Marvel 6 G. Willow Wilson Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa Marvel Comics
The Stone Heart: The Nameless City 6 Faith Erin Hicks Faith Erin Hicks, Jordie Bellaire First Second
I’M Not Here 6 GG GG Koyama Press
Venice 5 Jiro Taniguchi Jiro Taniguchi Fanfare/Ponent Mon
Royal City 5 Jeff Lemire Jeff Lemire Image Comics
Batman Annual #2 5 Tom King Lee Weeks, Michael Lark, Elizabeth Breitweiser, June Chung, Deron Bennett DC Comics
Aquaman 5 Riccardo Federici, Dan Abnett Stjepan Sejic, Various DC Comics
Savage Town 5 Declan Shalvey Philip Barrett, Jordie Bellaire Image Comics
Mech Cadet Yu 5 Greg Pak Takeshi Miyazawa BOOM! Studios
Education 5 John Hankiewicz John Hankiewicz Fantagraphics
Sunburning 5 Keiler Roberts Keiler Roberts Koyama Press
To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life And Art Of Art Young 5 Art Young,‎ Art Spiegelman,‎ Frank Young Art Young Fantagraphics
Farmer Ned’S Comic Barn 5 Gerald Jablonski Gerald Jablonski Fantagraphics
As The Crow Flies 5 Melanie Gillman Melanie Gillman Iron Circus Comics
The Interview 5 Manuele Fior Manuele Fior Fantagraphics
Bolivar 5 Sean Rubin Sean Rubin Archaia
The Tea Dragon Society 5 Katie O’Neill Katie O’Neill Oni Press
The Wendy Project 5 Melissa Jane Osborne Veronica Fish Papercutz
Mighty Jack And The Goblin King 5 Ben Hatke Ben Hatke First Second
Black Panther 5 Ta-Nehisi Coates Various Marvel Comics
Black 5 Various Various Black Mask Studios
The Unworthy Thor 5 Jason Aaron Olivier Coipel Marvel Comics
Kill Or Be Killed 5 Ed Brubaker Sean Phillips Image Comics
Monstress 5 Marjorie Liu Sana Takeda Image Comics
Spy Seal 5 Rich Tomasso Rich Tomasso Image Comics
Where’s Halmoni? 5 Julie Kim Julie Kim Little Bigfoot
The Abominable Mr. Seabrook 5 Joe Ollmann Joe Ollmann Drawn & Quarterly
Shaolin Cowboy: Who’ll Stop The Reign? 5 Geof Darrow Geof Darrow Dark Horse Comics
Fire!! The Zola Hurston Neale Story 5 Peter Bagge Peter Bagge Drawn & Quarterly
Baking With Kafka 5 Tom Gauld Tom Gauld Drawn & Quarterly
Voices In The Dark 5 Marcel Beyer, Ulli Lust Ulli Lust New York Review Comics
5 Worlds, V.1: The Sand Warrior 5 Mark Siegel, Alexis Siegel Mark Siegel, Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, Boya Sun Random House
Tenements, Towers & Trash 5 Julia Wertz Julia Wertz Black Dog & Leventhal

Also of note, a handful of reviewers included a webcomic within it’s best books lists. Tilly Walden’s On A Sunbeam got the most (4) mentions this year, which is remarkable as she tied for the most mentions last year. Like last year The Nib got 2nd place as a general site and Nib hosted specific comics Sarah Glidden’s The Art of War and Jess Parker’s Who Was The Somerton Man were also mentioned. Tied for 2nd with 3 mentions is Michael DeForge’s Leaving Richard’s Valley.  It should be said that several Self-Published and very small press comics were both web comics and printed books. I did not do a through check, but it’s possible that some of those books are available as web comics and vice versa.

The full spreadsheet with pivot tables for books, writers, artists, publishers and more is available here.

Regarding Publishers:

Image was the most popular with 74 different titles.

DC was 2nd with 54 different titles.

Fantagraphics and Marvel are tied for a close 3rd with 53 different titles.

Dark Horse has 30 titles.

First Second did well with 24 titles.

58 Self-Published books made the list too.

Caveats:

Where a reviewer/writer wrote ‘best of’ lists for multiple websites, I’ve cross referenced their lists and removed books that were named twice. I did not think it would be fair if those writers could tip the popularity scale by naming the same book(s) over and over again on multiple websites.

If a writer wrote for multiple sites, but one of those sites picks was a group effort, I did not remove books that are listed twice.

I generally did not include lists that were a mixed of prose books and graphic novels.

I did not use lists where the website was not in English and the books appeared to be translated versions.

I did not use nominations/winners for awards.

With inkers and colourists I often, but not always included them within the Artist section. Where there were multiple (usually more than 5) involved in a book, or in the title’s run over the course of the year, Various was used of listing them all. In some cases I combined those involved even if they worked on the title for different issues.

For simplicity sake, if a list named a specific comic book issue or specific volume of a graphic novel, I removed those specifics and just listed the series title, with rare exceptions. Apologies to the reviewers of those books.

Some writers included books that were technically published in 2016 and at least 1 just listed best books they read that year, but the vast majority of those lists were 2017 books. The number of non 2017 books in the spreadsheet is very tiny and insignificant to the overall list.

Most of the lists were general ‘best/favourite books’ of 2017, but I also included lists dedicated to young readers, manga, etc… What type list is noted on column B in the spreadsheet.

A small number of lists also had rankings and those are included in Column C

 

A Reading Life – https://areadinglife.com/2017/11/28/best-of-2017-books-for-adults/
A Reading Life – https://areadinglife.com/2017/11/29/best-of-2017-books-for-young-adults/
A Reading Life – https://areadinglife.com/2017/11/30/best-of-2017-books-for-children/
Adventures in Poor Taste – http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2018/01/02/the-year-in-queer-the-top-10-lgbtq-comics-of-2017/
Advocate – https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2018/1/03/best-lgbt-graphic-novels-2017
All The Wonders – http://www.allthewonders.com/podcasts/some-of-the-top-middle-grade-graphic-novels-of-2017-books-between-episode-40/
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17388344011
Anime News Network – https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2017-12-29/best-manga-and-light-novels-of-2017/.125750
AV Club – https://www.avclub.com/the-best-comics-of-2017-1820879242
Bam! Smack! Pow! – https://bamsmackpow.com/2017/12/31/top-comic-books-2017/
Barnes and Nobel – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/best-comics-graphic-novels-2017/
Barnes and Nobel – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/best-new-manga-series-2017/
Ben Towle – http://www.benzilla.com/?p=6266
Booklist Online – https://www.booklistonline.com/Top-10-Graphic-Novels-2017-Sarah-Hunter/pid=8966988
BookList Online – https://www.booklistonline.com/Top-10-Graphic-Novels-for-Youth-2017-Sarah-Hunter/pid=8964161
Bounding Into Comics – http://boundingintocomics.com/2017/12/27/the-10-best-comic-books-of-2017/
CBC – http://www.cbc.ca/books/the-best-canadian-comics-and-graphica-of-2017-1.4453579
CBR – https://www.cbr.com/tag/bestcomics2017/
Chicago Public Library – https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/200121216_chipublib_teens/1058615227_best_teen_graphic_novels_and_manga_of_2017
ComicBook.com – http://comicbook.com/comics/2018/01/01/the-10-best-indie-comics-of-2017/#1
Comicon.com – http://www.comicon.com/2017/12/26/comicons-8-best-comic-series-of-2017/
Comicon.com – http://www.comicon.com/2017/12/26/comicons-8-best-original-graphic-novels-of-2017/
Comicon.com – http://www.comicon.com/2017/12/26/comicons-8-best-single-comic-issues-of-2017/
Comicon.com – http://www.comicon.com/2017/12/28/comicons-8-best-webcomics-of-2017/
Comicon.com – http://www.comicon.com/2017/12/29/comicons-most-progressive-comics-2017/
Comicosity – http://www.comicosity.com/best-of-2017-graphic-novel/
Comicosity – http://www.comicosity.com/best-of-2017-series/
Comicosity – http://www.comicosity.com/best-of-2017-single-issue/
Comics Alternative – http://comicsalternative.com/young-readers-reviews-of-good-night-planet-the-dam-keeper-and-misfit-city-as-well-as-a-look-back-at-2017/
Critical Hit – https://www.criticalhit.net/comics-toys/20-best-comic-books-2017/
Cryptoscatology – http://cryptoscatology.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-cryptoscatology-top-ten-best-comic.html
Daniel Elkin – http://www.danielelkin.com/2017/12/top-13-small-press-comics-i-reviewed-of.html
Den of Geek – http://www.denofgeek.com/us/books-comics/best-comics-of-2017/269562/best-comics-2017-comicbooks
Denver Public Library – https://kids.denverlibrary.org/booklist/best-brightest-graphic-novels-2017
Entropy – https://entropymag.org/best-of-2017-comics-graphic-novels/
EPL (Edmonton Public Library) – https://epl.bibliocommons.com/list/share/664197898_comicsprof/1032066367_best_graphic_novels_2017
EW – http://ew.com/books/best-comics-2017/best-comics-of-2017/
Fantagraphics – http://fantagraphics.com/flog/whats-store-top-comix-2017/
Fantom Comics – http://fantomcomics.tumblr.com/post/169268628241/fantoms-favorite-comics-of-2017
Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/pictures/5a2aaf04a7ea432f2e756465/best-graphic-novels-of-20/#262f8e171d9b
Forbidden Planet – http://forbiddenplanet.blog/2017/best-year-2017-matts-picks/
Forbidden Planet – http://forbiddenplanet.blog/2017/best-year-2017-richmonds-picks/
Forbidden Planet – http://forbiddenplanet.blog/2018/best-of-the-year-2017-joes-picks/
Forbidden Planet – http://forbiddenplanet.blog/2018/best-year-2017-richard-begs-forgiveness-tardiness/
Free Library of Philadelphia – https://libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/3168
Fresh Toast – https://thefreshtoast.com/culture/best-comic-books-from-each-major-publisher-in-2017/
Gamespot – https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/the-10-best-comics-of-2017/2900-1711/
Geeks – https://geeks.media/best-comics-of-2017-for-fans-of-every-genre
Good OK Bad – http://goodokbad.com/index.php/about/2017comics
Good Reads – https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-graphic-novels-comics-2017
Gosh London – https://www.goshlondon.com/blog/2017/11/17/the-gosh-best-of-2017-kids
Gosh London – https://www.goshlondon.com/blog/2017/11/9/the-gosh-best-of-2017
Graphic Policy – https://graphicpolicy.com/2018/01/04/alexs-best-2017/
Guide Live – https://www.guidelive.com/comic-books/2017/12/14/perfectpanels-10-best-comic-books-2017
Hell Machine Jog (Joe McCulloch) – https://twitter.com/snubpollard/status/947651965797961728
Herald Scotland – http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/15784889.Graphic_Content__From_werewolves_to_cross_dressing__our_choice_of_books_of_the_year/
Herald Scottland – http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/15783879.Graphic_Content__Cartoonists_choose_their_comics_and_graphic_novels_of_the_year/
Heroic Girls – http://www.heroicgirls.com/best-graphic-novels-2017-kids-teens/
Hipinion – http://forums.hipinion.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=115077
Hollywood Reporter – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/best-comics-2017-1070417
i09 – https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-15-best-comics-of-2017-1821292444
ICPL – http://blog.icpl.org/2017/12/30/icpl-top-staff-picks-for-2017-graphic-novels/
ICV2 – https://icv2.com/articles/columns/view/39263/the-10-best-graphic-novels-2017
ICV2 – https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39211/top-10-kids-graphic-novels-2017
Infinite Earths – https://iearths.blogspot.ca/2017/12/the-top-10-best-comics-of-2017.html?m=1
Inverse – https://www.inverse.com/article/39420-best-comics-2017-writers-ninjak-batgirl-kaijumax-flintstones
IVC2 – https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39236/top-10-manga-2017
Kevin Huizenga – https://kevinh.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-time-capsule.html
Kirkus – https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-middle-grade-graphic-novels-2017/
Kitsap Regional Library – http://www.krl.org/blog/best-graphic-novels-teens-2017
Large Hearted Boy – http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2017/12/favorite_graphi_6.html
Lars Ingebrigtsen – https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2017/12/14/the-best-comics-of-2017/
Leo Weekly – https://www.leoweekly.com/2017/12/leo-looks-back-best-comic-books-2017/
Let’s Talk Picture Books – http://www.letstalkpicturebooks.com/2017/12/best-graphic-novels-of-2017.html
Library Journal – http://lj.libraryjournal.com/bestbooks2017/graphic_novels.php
Lisa Hanawalt – https://twitter.com/lisadraws/status/946879618551726080
Matt Seneca – http://mattseneca.tumblr.com/post/169372094107/2017-a-fuck-ass-year
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-best-miniseries/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-best-new-series/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-best-ongoing-series/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-best-single-issue/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-graphic-novel/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/2017-in-review-webcomic/
Multiversity Comics – http://www.multiversitycomics.com/reader-poll/2017-readers-choice/
Newsarama – https://www.newsarama.com/37961-best-of-best-shots-2017-our-review-crew-picks-the-best-of-the-year.html
NJ – http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2018/01/what_was_the_best_comic_book_series_of_2017_comic.html
NPR – http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2017/#/tag/comics-and-graphic-novels
Observation Deck – https://observationdeck.kinja.com/comic-books-2017-1821374651
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2017/12/james-2017-favorites-in-17-ridiculous.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-m-favorite-sci-fi-and-fantasy.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-ms-favorite-anthologies-of-2017.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-ms-favorite-horror-comics-of-2017.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-ms-favorite-horror-comics-of-2017.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-ms-favorite-indie-books-of-2017.html
Panel Platter – http://www.panelpatter.com/2018/01/rob-ms-favorite-superhero-style-comics.html
Paste – https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-10-best-kids-comics-of-2017.html
Paste – https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-25-best-comics-of-2017.html
Pierce County Library – http://www.piercecountylibrary.org/books-materials/pierce-county-favorites/Default.htm
Polygon – https://www.polygon.com/comics/2017/12/22/16807870/comics-2017-marvel-dc
Publisher Weekly – https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2017/comics
Publishers Weekly – https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/75675-my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-tops-annual-pw-graphic-novel-critics-poll.html
Readings – https://www.readings.com.au/news/graphic-novels-and-comics-we-loved-in-2017
Ryan C’s Four Colour Apocalypse – https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/2017-year-in-review-top-10-single-issues/
Ryan C’s Four Colour Apocalypse – https://fourcolorapocalypse.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/2017-year-in-review-top-10-collected-editions-contemporary/
School Library Journal – http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2017/12/20/31-days-31-lists-day-twenty-2017-comics-for-kids/
School Library Journal – http://www.slj.com/2017/11/reviews/best-of/top-10-graphic-novels-2017/
Scifi Pulse – http://www.scifipulse.net/comic-books-2017-the-year-in-review/
Sequential State – https://sequentialstate.com/blog/comics-challenged-2017-complete-list/
Slackjaw Punks – http://slackjawpunks.com/top-5-comics-of-2017/
Spy – http://spy.com/2017/entertainment/books-music-movies/best-graphic-novels-2017-comics-72376/
Super Skull – http://www.superskullshow.com/episodes-all/2017/12/7/super-skulls-best-graphic-novels-of-2017
SyFy – http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/syfy-wires-best-ongoing-genre-comics-of-2017
The Beat – http://www.comicsbeat.com/the-beats-best-comics-of-2017/
The Comics Journal – http://www.tcj.com/the-best-comics-of-2017/
The Comics Reporter – http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/fff_results_postr_491_books_of_2017/
The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/03/rachel-cooke-best-graphic-novels-2017-joff-winterhart-driving-short-distances-grandville-talbot
The Hundreds – https://thehundreds.com/blogs/content/best-2017-graphic-novels
The Irish Times – https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/living-colour-favourite-comics-and-graphic-novels-of-2017-1.3324716
The Smart Set – https://thesmartset.com/comic-countdown/
The Verge – https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/22/16807260/best-comics-of-2017
Turnaround – https://theturnaroundblog.com/2017/12/21/top-comic-books-of-2017/
Under The Radar – http://www.undertheradarmag.com/blog/under_the_radars_holiday_gift_guide_2017_part_9_books_and_graphic_novels/
Unwinnable – https://unwinnable.com/2018/01/03/the-best-comics-of-2017/
Uproxx – http://uproxx.com/hitfix/best-comics-2017/
Vice – https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/paqaxk/the-ten-best-comics-of-2017
Villain Media – https://villainmedia.com/jorge-solis-top-10-comic-books-2017/
Vulture – http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/10-best-comics-2017.html
Washington Post – https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-10-best-graphic-novels-of-2017/2017/11/10/ded1688c-af85-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.74d0cde5c002
Waukegan Public Library – https://www.waukeganpl.org/2017-review-graphic-novels/
WhatCulture – http://whatculture.com/comics/10-best-comic-books-of-2017
WhatCulture – http://whatculture.com/comics/10-best-comic-books-of-2017-so-far
Why So Blu? – http://whysoblu.com/best-comic-books-2017/
Wired – https://www.wired.com/story/best-comics-2017/
Women Write About Comics – http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2018/01/03/small-press-bites-faves-of-2017-edition/
Women Write About Comics – http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2017/12/30/wwacs-favorite-big-press-comics-of-2017/
Zainab Akhtar – https://twitter.com/comicsandcola/status/941346392492167168

Azad Interview

Azad at HobbyStar Toronto Fan Expo 2004Originally posted in August of 2004. Comic books were starting to enter a golden age around 2004, not only was there a lot of good stuff coming out from major publishers, a lot of great stuff from the past was being reprinted. Suddenly the standard of “average” went way up and what was better than average even 5 years prior had a difficult time finding an audience. Azad’s Sammy was one of those books.

 

Azad Interview

Azad is an Image creator, one of many that is doing a great book that you probably never heard of. It’s called Sammy, about a cat burglar and his cat Lucky. With this interview we talk about Azad’s background, his book, using computers to make comics, Marvel Comics, Image Comics and more.

 

Jamie: Okay lets start getting some background info from you. Where are you from?

Azad: I’m a born and milk-fed Montrealer. After doodling and taking art classes for years, I resigned to taking Illustration and design at Dawson College. I worked for a world renowned animation company, then apparently, went nuts and decided to draw funny books.

 

Jamie: What jobs did you have before you finally decided to do comic books?

Azad: I wish I had an interesting string of crummy jobs to complain about, but all my jobs prior to comics were drawing or print related. Graphic design, desktop publishing, and pre-press film outputing. Most notably, I was a storyboard artist for 4 years at CINAR animation working on such artistic paragons as Caillou and Arthur.

 

Jamie: You do everything for your book and it all looks very nice and professional. Did you have a mentor that taught you the ropes?

Azad: For drawing, I have a cousin named Haig Bedrossian (co-plotter on Sammy: Tourist Trap) who turned me on to the arts and encouraged me from a very early age to draw comic books. He’s now teaching animation at Max the Mutt animation school in Toronto and living a far more lucrative life than that of a comic artist.

As far as the technical side of things go, my sister (a desktop publisher) was my digital guru. She taught me how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, and all other computer related aspects of art.

But mostly, I was left to my own devices to figure Everything else out on my own. I’m not a “gifted” artist by any means. I’m a studied, learned artist. I work really hard trying not to make a fool of myself.

 

Jamie: So why did you want to do stories about a cat burglar named Sammy and his pet cat Lucky?

Azad: I deliberately wanted to make a book that was both FLEXIBLE and FUN. I have dozens of crazy adventures I want to tell, and the only binding factor between them are these two characters. And it works. I wanted to be able to stick Sammy into any situation and any genre. With that said, there IS a balance, and I know where to draw the line. I can’t really verbalize it, but I know it when I see it. For example, I could have sci-fi elements in a story, but not so far as having Sammy go into an inter-dimensional portal. He could encounter a superhero, but not gain powers of his own.

 

Jamie: Okay, Sammy is a cat burglar with a pet Cat. Why is he not dressed up as Halle Berry?

Azad: Hey, great idea!! I could do stories about Sammy being involved in Hit and Runs, and doing bad movies! A goldmine, I tells ya! Thanksabunch!

 

Jamie: Do you even own a cat? Cause there is no way a cat would do the shit you have “Lucky” do in the comic.

Azad: Funny you should ask. I think of Lucky as a cat with a dog’s personality. He’s still aloof, but actually useful.

I used to think I was a cat person. I never owned one, but my best friend has three. I would go over, pet them, scratch them under the chin. They were okay… kind of cold, kept to themselves and meowed when they wanted food and swiped at me once in a while… “Hey, its a dumb animal” I told myself… these things happen, right?

Wrong!

Then, my buddy goes and buys a DOG. Holy cow! Big difference! Dog’s are playful, they can take orders, and are genuinely happy to see you when you come home. By comparison, the dog makes the cats look like strutting turds that do nothing but sleep, shit and turn their nose up at the food you bought them. You could feed a dog its own crap, and it’ll still look at you with love in its eyes.

Fuck cats!

 

Jamie: A significant part of the Sammy: Tourist Trap mini series is done in Spanish with no English translation. Why?

Azad: Sammy is a fish out of water… he’s in a country where he doesn’t understand what is being said around him. If HE can’t understand Spanish, and we the audience are supposed to be in his shoes, then logically WE shouldn’t be able to understand, either. It’s that way to heighten the tension. Putting the translations at the bottom of the panel would have defeated the purpose.

With that said, I fully realize that there are readers out there who just skip past the balloons, or groan at the plot device… but it’s MEANT TO BE READ! Perhaps I’m asking too much of the reader, but to me it was important to do it that way.

 

Jamie: Do you think you can keep doing Sammy forever or do you have an overall plan for the character?

Azad: As long as I can continue to keep publishing the character, yes. I do have other ideas I’m working on, but I’ve got dozens of stories already written for Sammy. Literally! I have the scripts on my computer as I write this.

Keep in mind, much of the Sammy stories (even Tourist Trap) aren’t so much about the character.. it’s about the situation. He’s just the excuse (or the vehicle) to tell the story.

 

Jamie: Y’know, in the late 90’s comic books sucked so bad that Sammy would have been considered a GREAT book. Today it’s considered very good for a non- Marvel/DC comic. As such, the bar has been raised. You are now competing against Bendis, Millar, Ellis and Morrison on big name books and they’re selling like mad. How does that affect you?

Azad: If anything, I’m going head to head with indy books and smaller press. Sammy is in B&W, so immediately it’s ordered more conservatively by retailers because B&W tends to sell less than color. Plus the content is hardly spandex friendly.

As for the Big Two, I don’t see Sammy in direct competition with Marvel and DC. Different readers for different types of books. I don’t suspect I share the same readership as Hawkman lovers or Ultimate X-Men, so I don’t really worry about that.

The way I AM affected by Marvel is some of their crummy business practices. Namely trying to gobble up market share by dumping piles of unreadable books they know wont succeed into the marketplace, knowing retailers have to buy it for the rabid Marvel Zombies, all the while stretching the retailers’ purse strings until they order fewer copies of smaller press titles (including my own). THAT affects me. That affects everyone, and from the retailers I’ve spoken to, they’ve reached their boiling point.

Shit! I just killed my potential for freelance Marvel work didn’t I…Dang!

 

Jamie: Sammy is one of many Image books that is suffering the same problem of being good, but not getting any major promotion. What do you think has to be done to fix that?

Azad: Well, the responsibility is on US, the creators, to do our own promotion. Image Comics does what it can. We are treated as equal separate companies publishing under the banner of Image, thus, it’s up to us to take care of ourselves. For its part, Image gives us ad space, does our press releases and gives us a forum on their site to help gain a footing online. That’s about as much they can do for the fee they take.

The rest is up to us. I personally, did everything in my power to get the word out on “A VERY SAMMY DAY” this past May. I had a Press Release, Did 10 interviews on the net, started an ongoing online original Sammy serial called Subway Stories, and flooded internet forums with announcements and promos.

In the end, it didn’t amount to much. I’ve learned that online buzz doesn’t always translate into real world buzz. Sometimes, it’s having good word of mouth, sometimes it’s luck. You just have to keep going to cons, and plugging away until someone notices. It’s a lot of hard work.

I’m not sure what ELSE to do. Buying ads in trade papers? Calling retailers ahead of time? Emailing and mailing retailers previews ahead of time? It all costs more and more money. You can buy your way into Wizard with ads, but I don’t know if that makes a difference. I’m guessing it depends on your material. In my case, I doubt it.

 

Jamie: On your website, Guerrilla-Comics.com you use some online comics to promote your comics. Has that helped?

Azad: Marginally. In fairness, I haven’t used the site to its potential. I could have brought in other online cartoonists, maybe had some contests and promotions to go along with the website…Part of the original intent of the site was to have some activism. To get people pumped about doing comics. But life has gotten in the way of myself and my webmaster. We’d like to change that. We’re having a major Pow-Wow for a week this August. Hopefully, we’ll get things up there that should have been up last year. 3D animation, web docs, more comics, more features… hopefully, it’ll build some interest in Sammy and other future projects.

 

Jamie: I’m surprised I haven’t seen you offering Sammy: Tourist Trap as a TPB yet. Are you planning on doing this?

Azad: SALES! Sales dictate everything. The book is still a bit in the red. With that said, I’ve got a great TPB planned for it with TONS of extras. I just hope I get the green light. We’ll see.

 

Jamie: You mentioned in the back of Sammy: Tourist Trap #4 that using computers does not speed up the process of making comic books, instead it slows it down. If that’s the case, why do you use computers?

Azad: In all honesty, it’s become a bit of a crutch for me. I like the way my stuff looks better with it than without it. But it has afforded me the ability to make my artwork look as good as it is. It would NOT have been so otherwise. I’d like to change that though. J.Bone has challenged me to do a computer-less comic one day. We’ll see.

 

Jamie: How has Image changed for you since Erik Larsen took over as head honcho?

Azad: Not in any obvious way, so far. All my contracts and such were signed under Jim Valentino, so they had to honor them. Hell, I have no idea if Erik even likes my work or would have signed me at all, for that matter. I guess we’ll see how this affects me when I ask for a TPB or a sequel.

 

Jamie: When you get a fan following and respectable Sales, will you drop everything and work for Marvel or DC when they offer you lots of money and a title?

Azad: A title with the Big Two would not change my plans for world domination. Especially considering the fact that I’d want to WRITE, not draw for the Big Two. I can write fast. Real fast! Drawing takes forever and I’d never be able to maintain a monthly schedule. But then again, who wants to write pajama-boys when I get to find new ways to abuse kitties on my own book?!

Milton Griepp Interview

Milton Griepp at the 2010 C2E2

Milton Griepp at the 2010 C2E2

Originally published in May of 2004. This is another one of my comic business type interviews. One of the most significant events to happen in the comics industry was Marvel buying Heroes World and exclusively distributing their comics through them. That started a chain reaction leading to Diamond having a virtual monopoly on comic book distribution to the direct market. Milton Griepp had a unique view of those events that I don’t think anybody else had asked him about.

 

Milton Griepp Interview

Milton Griepp has been in the comics industry for 30 years as a publisher, distributor, retailer and consultant. He once ran the largest direct distribution comic book company Capital City Distribution. He was involved with the Internet retail company NextPlanetOver.com and is currently running ICv2.com, a pop culture industry news Website. Along the way he has also done lots of consulting on the comic book industry. In this interview we go through his career and he gives us his analysis of the comic book industry. He also examines the effect other media are having on comics and whether manga’s popularity will last.

 

Jamie: Let’s take it from the beginning. I’m sure that like most in this industry you started as a reader. What kind of comic books got you hooked?

Milton Griepp: The first comic I remember reading was a Carl Barks Disney comic and I continued to read those. I also read a lot of DCs. Superboy, The Legion and Superman were probably the three things I read the most. I inherited a collection from my cousin that was mostly 50’s comics, including a lot of DC’s, and I continued buying those until the 60’s. In his collection were things like the Fox and Crow and other funny animal stuff that I read. When I got to college, I started reading Marvels and I also read a lot of undergrounds which were coming out in great numbers at that time.

 

Jamie: When about did you get involved in the business end of comics?

Milton Griepp: From a friend in high school. When we were in college he started a business advertising in shopper papers in northern Wisconsin, buying collections, and taking them to conventions and selling them there or selling them though the Comic Buyers Guide. I started going to shows with him in the early 70s, about 72 and 73, and working behind the table with him was my first exposure to comics as a retailer.

 

Jamie: When did you move into distribution?

Milton Griepp: That experience in the comics business got me a job in 1976 with a company called Wisconsin Independent News Distributors which carried some magazines and books and had a comic department. I was hired for the comic department. So that was my first distribution experience. The territory was fairly limited: mostly Wisconsin, a little of Illinois, a little bit of Minnesota. Then they went out of business and their business got absorbed by a company called Big Rapids Distribution Company, which at one time became the largest direct distributor in the late 70s. I worked for them, also out of Wisconsin.

 

Jamie: I understand you and John Davis teamed up to form Capital City (Distribution). When about did that happen?

Milton Griepp: I hired John at WIND and we also worked together at Big Rapids. When Big Rapids went out of business, John talked me into starting a business that would handle just comics. Both Big Rapids and Wisconsin Independent News Distributors had comics as a small part of the company, along with book and magazine distribution. So the idea that was different was to do something that specialized in comics. That was in the early 1980s.

 

Jamie: I understand at one point a group of smaller distributors all combined to take Capital to a national distributor?

Milton Griepp: I don’t know where you got that impression.

 

Jamie: That never happened?

Milton Griepp: That never happened, but we did do some small acquisitions. Our first location outside of Wisconsin was–we bought a little company called North Eastern Ohio News, which was primarily a comics distributor, based in the Cleveland area. We did some other small acquisitions over the years but most of our growth was by sales efforts one store at a time.

 

Jamie: I understand Capital was #2 going up to #1 competing against Diamond most of the way . . . Were you surprised when Marvel decided to pull out, buy Heroes World and distribute exclusively through them?

Milton Griepp: Just to set the stage, Capital was #1 until Diamond bought Bud Plant. Diamond was #2 and Bud Plant was #3 and the combination of those two companies made them larger than we were. So we were #2 at the time Marvel did their deal with Heroes World.

I guess in one sense it wasn’t a surprise, as Marvel had been making noises about being dissatisfied with the direct distribution system for a couple of years, primarily because they didn’t think they were getting their due as the largest publisher. But primarily I was surprised, because I didn’t think anybody would do anything that stupid.

 

Jamie: At that time, what did you think would happen to the comic industry?

Milton Griepp: Well, it was a very dynamic situation. We really didn’t know what to expect, so we ran the business on several tracks trying to prepare for different contingencies. There was a lot of damage done to the business during that period. Heroes World was really incapable of distributing Marvels nationally, so that was happening. Also, at the same time, the market was declining rapidly after a period of explosive growth during the early 90’s. And other publishers were maneuvering, deciding what they were going to do in the wake of Marvel’s decision. So it was an unpredictable situation, and it required a number of contingency plans for different eventualities.

 

Jamie: Looking back, do you wish you had tried harder to get DC to go exclusive with Capital instead of Diamond, with some other deal you could have made them?

Milton Griepp: Well, DC came to us and other companies and said they were thinking about going with a single company for their distributor as Marvel had. And we did pitch them hard to go with Capital; we couldn’t have tried any harder to do that. We were also trying to convince them not to go with a single distributor, and we felt they could have taken a leadership position with the retailers and distributors and united the rest of the industry against the model that Marvel was developing with the single distributor model. It would have gotten a lot of good will and a lot of support and I believe that would have been a very viable and successful action for them.

In the end I see DC’s choice as the most conservative option, which is not surprising as DC is part of a large company and that creates a tendency towards conservatism. The first instance of conservatism was that they followed what Marvel had done (Marvel was #1, DC was #2) and they followed to a single distributor. The second conservative choice was picking Diamond, as they were larger than we were, and so it represented less risk of losing business to choose Diamond than it did to choose Capital. So they took the two low-risk decisions and that led them to Diamond.

 

Jamie: How do you think the exclusive agreements between publishers and distributors have affected the industry?

Milton Griepp: Well, it’s brought stability and I think that’s had both positive and negative affects. On the positive side, considering the circumstances (this is very important), publishers had a reliable way to reach the market and through a very profitable company that always pays its bills. Given the volatility in what was happening to the smaller distributors at the time, that was a good thing for publishers and ultimately the industry.

It was also good for retailers because they were experiencing the same upheaval in terms of where and how they got their products. So after the transition period when Diamond took over the Capital stores after they bought Capital City, that led to a very reliable system of distribution for retailers. That was a good thing.

On the negative side, the fact that there were fewer viewpoints at the distribution level slowed innovation to some degree. I don’t know how much of that effect there was, but you have to assume that a number of companies all working in that field with a variety of viewpoints would have led to faster change and more innovation.

 

Jamie: After Diamond bought out Capital, did they offer you a position there?

Milton Griepp: They didn’t and I really didn’t expect one. I was a CEO and they didn’t need a CEO and they didn’t need a COO. They had Steve Geppi as the CEO and a very capable COO with Chuck Parker. They didn’t really have a position that fit my skills so I didn’t expect an offer and didn’t receive one.

 

Jamie: After that you started working with NextPlanetOver.com. What was that experience like?

Milton Griepp: Actually that was a while after the Capital sale, and both before and after that I did some consulting in the field.

Well, the NextPlanetOver experience was a unique time and place. It was in San Francisco, and at a venture-funded Internet company at the peak of the dot com boom. That was a really interesting time and place to be geographically, from a business history point of view, and from a technological innovation point of view. It was a really interesting thing to see.

I’d seen a lot of bubbles before in the pop culture products business, you know especially when there is a resale market involved. Like the black and white comics–there was a bubble and then everybody produces them, then there’s too many and then the market collapses. I hadn’t seen a capital bubble of this type, which was that the cost of capital was very low and the money was flowing into all kinds of Internet businesses. So that was new to see, and although there were some negative outcomes, the experience was very positive. I learned a lot about private equity, learned a lot about technology and the Internet.

Capital was a very technologically progressive company; even in the early 90s we were doing order uploads and using electronic communication with our customers. But this was on a different level, because we were on the real cutting edge, at that time, of the development of e-commerce technology. So we sold off the company at the end and that was a negative, but the experience of being there at that time and place and how much I learned was very positive, on balance.

 

Jamie: There was controversy at that time, particularly when they were being located at the same warehouse Diamond was shipping comics from. What did you think about that at the time?

Milton Griepp: Well, it wasn’t really located at the same place. Diamond was doing order fulfillment for NextPlanetOver. NextPlanetOver bought merchandise from Diamond and rather than Diamond doing one big shipment to NextPlanetOver they shipped it directly to NextPlanetOver’s customers. That was a very efficient system in that it gave NextPlanetOver access to a large inventory and allowed the company to offer that to its customers without being in possession before it was being purchased.

It was on the original model that Amazon was built on–an inventory-less model where the product was offered, then acquired from a wholesaler at the time of sale. So from a business point of view I think it made a lot of sense. There was some controversy from the reaction from retailers thinking NextPlanetOver had a special deal that was going to hurt them. But ultimately there was very little threat to brick and mortar retailers from that arrangement. The controversy boomed and then tailed off. It wasn’t unexpected and ultimately didn’t affect our business.

 

Jamie: Out of the whole ordeal what did you learn about trying to sell comic books online?

Milton Griepp: I wouldn’t really call it an ordeal. There were certainly parts of it that were an ordeal, but over-all there were also some positive things about it.

From my first involvement in the company, I wanted it focused not on selling comic books online (periodicals), but on selling graphic novels, toys, apparel–selling the things that customers bought other than comics. Comics are really too cheap to sell through a traditional shopping cart model where you are selling, at that time, a two dollar product one at a time. It just wasn’t an efficient model and ultimately we did change the orientation of the product mix to emphasize the other product lines that Diamond also offered.

The subscription service model that’s been around for many years works well for selling periodical comics via mail order or via the Internet. Selling one at a time is just not a terribly efficient model, which was what I thought going in and that was proven by the results. We did re-orient the mix to focus on some of the higher-priced items and I’d say that was the upshot of the learning experience there–that selling comics like backlist in an “off-the-rack” situation was not a viable business model, but I do think, as other businesses have proven since, selling graphic novels, toys, and the higher-priced stuff works fine.

 

Jamie: During that time you were also doing some consulting work. Were there any clients in particular you could name that you worked with?

Milton Griepp: Well, I’ll talk a bit about the categories I’ve worked with. I worked with publishers, I worked with retailers, toy companies, international consulting firms, educational firms, educational institutions, investment firms. My clients generally prefer that I advise them without revealing their identities.

 

Jamie: When coming up with ICv2.com, why did you decide to go as a Website instead of as a printed magazine?

Milton Griepp: I had just come out of a Web business, and I learned a lot about it, so I had this knowledge base on how to do it. It seemed inexpensive to start a Website as a result of improving technology at the time. When we started NextPlanetOver, for example, the code for the content area had to be all written from scratch. By the time I started ICv2, things like the search function could be acquired relatively inexpensively instead of writing it from scratch. That learning experience of how to develop the Website relatively inexpensively allowed saving a non- trivial amount of money.

The reason I wanted to do it on the Web was to use that knowledge, and I felt the Web was a superior way of delivering news. Obviously it’s faster and more accessible; also it involves the ability to interact with the user, which does not exist in print. I also believed I could develop an audience at a lower cost on the Web than in print so it was a classic business model-driven decision.

 

Jamie: Last year ICv2.com did a printed magazine called the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels. How successful was that?

Milton Griepp: Actually we’ve done a number of magazines; I think the number is over 10, in three categories. We do the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Anime and Manga, the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Graphic Novels, and the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Games.

I started pitching the first magazine at San Diego a year and a half ago and was really surprised at the response, which was that advertisers that were resistant to the idea of advertising online were receptive to the idea of advertising in a magazine. I think it’s just a matter of preference that people have established over the years with certain types of media. So that was a big response on the advertisers’ side.

On the content side, the magazine was also a good fit with our online content. The online content is very fast; we publish daily, with shorter articles, primarily news. The print medium allowed us to take a longer view of things, do more analysis, more features, more in-depth reporting. I think the two media, online and print, are complementary and we really like the way they fit together. I think both are important to how ICv2 serves its audience and advertisers. So online was a good place to start and print was a good place to expand to.

 

Jamie: Despite doing well in bookstores, many comic book retailers are having a hard time selling manga. What do you think retailers have to do to move manga like the bookstores do?

Milton Griepp: Well, I want to push back on the idea that comic stores are having a lot of difficulty selling manga. Obviously they are selling a lot more manga than they were a few years ago and I think that’s going to continue. The thing is, some comic stores are a lot better than others at manga, and I think it’s a matter of how they merchandise the manga line, also what their clientele base is like, and how they retail to their clientele.

The reason bookstores have grown much faster than comic book stores have over the last few years is that bookstores have a larger female audience and a lot of the manga content is directed at female consumers. So a comic store that focuses on superheroes or action adventure material that has a primarily male audience is going to miss out on a lot of manga sales because there is a lot of material that doesn’t appeal to that action adventure audience.

On the other hand, I have seen some comic stores do a very good job with manga. In fact, the best manga stores I’ve seen are comic stores that carry far greater variety than the best bookstores. They also have better product knowledge at the counter than the best bookstores. So I think that comic stores can be extremely successful with manga, it’s just a matter of how they merchandise it, who their clientele is and how they reach out to their clientele–a store that is friendly for consumers of both sexes and all ages (as the manga audience in bookstores is a little bit younger than the typical comic book store audience). So comic stores can reach that audience, but historically comic stores have been a male-supported distribution channel and that presents barriers in some stores.

 

Jamie: ICv2.com has been tracking sales numbers for quite some time. Are there any particular tends you’ve noticed that others in the industry should know?

Milton Griepp: Well, first of all there has been a change a little over a year ago in how Diamond puts out their numbers, how they calculate indexes, and that has affected our ability to do year-to-year comparisons. Between 2000 and 2002, we were able to do year-to-year comparisons which were extremely useful, because it tracked what was happening in comic stores in that period, which was the first growth that had happened in about a decade. That was really a good thing to track.

Now we’re just getting to the end of the first year with Diamond and its new numbers. Once again, the first month we did comparisons for, the market was up and that was a good thing. In the long run, Diamond using actual numbers instead of pre-orders for their index is going to be very positive because it’s a much more accurate snapshot of the market.

In terms of overall trend analysis, by looking at the comic stores and other channels, the biggest growth is graphic novel sales in bookstores. The biggest thing happening there is that bookstores are replacing newsstand distribution, which collapsed for comics in the last five to ten years, as a feeder system into comic book stores. In other words, consumers are exposed to comics in book stores and if they want to find a broader range of titles they’ll end up in a comic store. Before, it used to be that happened from magazine-type outlets and newsstands, convenience stores, those kinds of outlets, where people pick up a comic book and then find their way to a comic store later. I think that’s a huge, huge shift in the comic business.

I mentioned earlier the fact that younger readers and female readers are finding comics in bookstores and that’s a hugely positive trend for the entire industry. Opening up the market to female readers to a greater degree doubles the available pool of consumers.

Getting younger kids reading comics is positive because it will hopefully build lifetime consumers. The comic market has been aging dramatically for the last 10 to 12 years, and this can reverse that trend. Those are really positive things happening in the comics business, the fact that the business in comic stores is also growing, those are positive things.

I think we’re seeing a greater impact of other media on comic sales, specifically movies and television. Obviously the Batman movie had a huge impact on Batman product sales in the late 80s and early 90s, but now there’s a whole plethora of media influences on comic sales just in the last few years. Smaller movies like Ghost World and American Splendor, something like Road to Perdition or From Hell and the mega-blockbusters like Spider-Man, Hulk, and X-men, those have all been really positive events for comic sales.

On television now, not only are there a number of cartoons being done based on American comics but the anime, which is tied to manga, are also popularizing those properties to a great degree. So movies and television are having a much greater impact than they had in the past, which is obviously a very positive thing for the comics business.

There is a bunch of positive trends sort of coalescing in the industry and it’s a good time for the comic business.

 

Jamie: I noticed that movies don’t seem to help the superhero comics quite as much as do the independent comics.

Milton Griepp: Spider-Man and Hulk moved a lot of product through all channels and it lifted Spider-Man graphic novels to the top of the charts. The bookstores moved a lot of Spider-Man product, as did the comic stores, so I think there is a connection. Recent Marvel movies have shown that. I think it doesn’t always work that way, The Punisher, for example. The early indication is it’s not moving product quite as well as Hellboy is. So I think it depends on the combination of the movie and the material.

 

Jamie: How do you see the comic book industry changing in the next 5 years?

Milton Griepp: I see the comic audience growing in a number of demographic groups, including adults that are interested in comics as literature. Certainly there is a pop culture aspect to them, but comics are being taken more seriously as real literature. This has been going on for a while, but for the last couple of years we’ve really accelerated that trend. And at the same time, we see the market for comics growing among younger readers, girls, and women. Comics being reviewed by book reviewers in the literary establishment also opens up an even larger, more serious reading audience of adults. So again we see multiple audiences in which the comics medium is growing. So I think those are very positive trends.

Another aspect that is unlike some previous growth trends of the comic business: none of this is being based on the after-market value, so the risk of collapse in the business due to a collapse of after-market values or overproduction or whatever just isn’t there in the same way as was there in earlier growth periods. That again is a very, very positive trend.

 

Jamie: So you don’t think manga is just a fad then? (laughs)

Milton Griepp: It’s been going on too long to be a fad. The Japanese stuff has been growing since the early 80s, so you can’t take a 25-year trend and say “It’s a fad.”

 

Jamie: yes . . .

Milton Griepp: Certainly there are times where it gets super-hot and then cools off. Pokemon was a huge phenomenon and it exploded, then there was space for a while and shrinks back a little bit, but I don’t think it’s a fad. I wrote something in 2000-2001 that said something to the effect that we’re witnessing a change in world culture, in the sense that more and more pop culture is coming from Asia. You can almost say that as American culture took over from British as the ruling popular culture, now we’re seeing a move towards Asian pop culture.

Hollywood is not going anywhere, American television is not going anywhere, American comics is not going anywhere; but there is a growing influence in all markets from Asian pop culture. Something like Kill Bill is ostensibly an American movie, but it’s got elements of Hong Kong action movies, little pieces of old American movies, there is anime in the first volume.

You can see the Asian influence growing in American pop culture in so many ways. So that’s another reason that I don’t think manga is just a fad.

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