Snarked #10

While the kingdom slides into bankruptcy and tyranny, the Gryphon has taken over the Mad Hatter’s pirate ship, and Queen Scarlett, Prince Rusty, Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, the king, and the crew are stranded on Snark Island. Scarlett and Rusty wander off in the night, the Walrus and the Carpenter follow them, and the Gryphon constructs his secret weapon — a mechanical Jabberwock! Can everyone manage to escape? Or will they all fall prey to… a Boojum?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I love anything with a Jabberwock in it. And beyond that, it’s a fun story, good art, lots of humor, and even some fairly ominous mystery.

Daredevil #15

Dr. Doom’s underlings have exposed Daredevil to nanobots that have robbed him of all of his senses. But some of his senses seem to be coming back — including sight, which he lost when he was a child. When he finally manages to escape, he takes to the roofs to try to escape Doom’s underlings, but with his senses scrambled and confused, does he have a chance of escape?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, great story, good characterization and suspense. I’m always amazed by how very, very good this comic is.

Dark Horse Presents #14

A extra-long comic — heck, it’s actually a double comic! You read one half, then flip the comic over to read the other half! As always, some good stuff, some not so good stuff, but the work that impressed me the most included: Bo Hampton and Robert Tinnell’s spooky “Riven,” Nate Cosby and Evan Shaner’s madcap “Buddy Cops,” Kim W. Andersson’s creepy “Love Hurts,” John Laymon and Sam Kieth’s “Aliens: Inhuman Condition,” Carla Speed McNeil’s always excellent “Finder: Third World,” Tony Puryear, Erika Alexander, and Robert Alexander’s “Concrete Park,” and short gag comics by Mike Russell, Patrick Alexander, and Jim Benton.

Verdict: Thumbs up. When it rocks, it rocks.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A nice article focusing on why DC feels safe continually blowing off its most vocal fans.
• Max has some good thoughts on the shootings at Aurora.
• A very rare snark-free post from Wonkette about what it’s like inside a random mass shooting, and why “MOAR GUNS” isn’t the answer. Read the comments, too — they’re very good.
• It’s been a rough few weeks. I think we all need some cute.

Snarked #9

The Walrus, the Carpenter, Queen Scarlett, and Prince Rusty have finally found the dreaded Snark Island. But of course, one of the big problems with Snark Island is that it’s got a Snark on it, and no one wants to mess with a Snark. It’s has plenty of other problems, too, including treacherous cliffs, deadly traps, and a Lion and a Unicorn who are guarding the king’s prison. Once they persuade the Lion and the Unicorn to let them pass, they discover that they king not only doesn’t want to leave his cave, he doesn’t even remember his own daughter! Plus the monstrous Snark is still out there on the island somewhere…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was a joy to read from beginning to end. Characterization, humor, danger, dialogue, artwork, you name it. Go get it, people, come on.

Daredevil #14

Matt Murdock has been captured and imprisoned in Latveria, home of Doctor Doom — but his captor isn’t Doom, it’s Chancellor Beltane, Minister of the Bank of Latveria, and he’s not happy that Daredevil stole the Omega Drive with all the secrets of the world’s Megacrime organizations. Beltane hits him with some kind of gas before Matt makes his escape, but while he’s on the run, he realizes that the gas is slowly eliminating his senses. Can Daredevil escape from Latveria and get help before all his senses disappear permanently?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding action and dialogue. Seriously, it’s amazingly thrilling stuff, and nice and tense, too, as Matt’s amplified senses vanish one by one. All that plus a cool twist ending that leaves me very interested in where the next issue will go…

Avengers Academy #32

Juston Seyfert, the kid with his own reprogrammed Sentinel robot, joins the main cast in this issue, as he has to deal with various people who are unhappy about there being a Sentinel at a school where there are several mutant students. X-23 tries to get Juston to shut it down, and he tells her that, despite its tendency to occasionally bellow “Destroy all mutants!” most of its other directives override that one. Juston discovered that it’s not actually possible to erase that part of its programming, and rather than destroy what he thinks is a living mind, he’s chosen to make sure that its “destroy all mutants” directive is its lowest priority.

Meanwhile, the Avengers vs. X-Men war is still going on, and the X-Men have basically won because the Phoenix Force has bonded with five mutants — including Emma Frost, who shows up ready to destroy Juston’s Sentinel — the last Sentinel on the planet. Will the students try to stand against one of the most powerful, destructive beings in the universe? Should they even try?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good dialogue and characterization — it’s nice to learn more about Juston, who’s been a background character for the past several issues, and we also continue to get a good focus on X-23’s hellish past and how she’s dealing with that. I have one serious complaint — the art is pretty alarmingly horrendous. Everyone’s poses look mostly unnatural, and every female character has the exact same body type and stance. It’s just astonishingly unattractive, and I hope they get the regular artist back very soon.

Daredevil #13

Matt Murdock and his date were just ambushed by a member of the criminal organization Black Spectre — but wasn’t Black Spectre destroyed, thanks to the info on Daredevil’s Omega Drive? Daredevil heads for Times Square — with the Omega Drive around his neck — to fight Black Spectre, and he’s soon attacked by the other members of Megacrime — Hydra, A.I.M., the Secret Empire, and Agence Byzantine. And then they’re all attacked by the fully revitalized Black Spectre, which quickly escapes with the Omega Drive. It’s a humiliating defeat for Daredevil… or is it? All that, plus Foggy Nelson finds something horrifying hidden in Matt Murdock’s desk at his law firm.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Awesome action from beginning to end. Intrigue, mystery, multiple amazing plot twists. How good was this? It was so good, I had to go back and re-read the comic twice before I realized how awful the artwork was. Seriously, Marvel, this comic used to have the best writing and best art out there — don’t go short-changing the artwork on this brilliant comic masterwork, a’ight?

Batwoman #9

Batwoman and Sune deliver some whupass to the evil wizard Falchion after going undercover to track down the secrets on his yacht — and maybe get a lot closer as well? But it’s not all sunshine and happiness — Bette Kane’s condition in the hospital takes a turn for the worse.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I don’t think Trevor McCarthy is as good as Amy Reeder or J.H. Williams III himself — but he’s not bad, and this comic is still pretty much the best looking one on the stands. Nice drama and action, plenty of intrigue — and I really hope Bette Kane comes out of all this okay…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Wanna be a good nerd? As opposed to a bad nerd? This is a nice way to start.
• Nikola Tesla was awesome. And Thomas Edison was a douchemook.
• Not everything they told us in history class was true.
• I can’t remember if I’ve ever linked to this awesome animated car chase movie before…

Daredevil #12

Matt Murdock is on a date with Assistant District Attorney Kirsten McDuffie, a woman who would really like to prove once and for all that Matt is Daredevil. They visit a local amusement park, and Kirsten has Matt blindfold her so she can see what it’s like to be blind. Matt tells Kirsten about his days rooming with Foggy Nelson in college — and how they had to deal with their tyrannical professor. But Matt’s date may be ruined by Daredevil’s crusade against Megacrime.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The best thing about this is the look back at Matt and Foggy’s younger days, with a little legal badassery in defense of each other. It’s a nice break from the ongoing Megacrime saga.

Justice League International #9

OMAC has zoomed up out of nowhere and is beating the stuffing out of the JLI. They finally get him to make sense after they knock a hole in the street and drop him underground — apparently, this cuts him off from mind-control rays the bad guys were beaming at him. And then there’s an attack at the Eiffel Tower that the team needs to thwart, too.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This one’s starting to get a bit ridiculous. The dialogue isn’t improving, and nearly all the female characters have been fridged into the hospital so we’re not even seeing them anymore. This isn’t anywhere near the worst stuff DC is publishing, but it could be so much better, and that’s why it’s so frustrating to read.

Snarked #7

Well, Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, Queen Scarlett, and Prince Rusty are adrift in a lifeboat facing the possibility of having to eat each other to survive when a sudden storm blows them to a tropical island. But they soon find themselves taken captive by the island’s natives, a bunch of birds decked out in facepaint and tribal gear. The good news is they believe the castaways are rain gods because they arrived at the same time as the storm  did. The bad news is they’ve decided they can steal the rain gods’ powers if they cook and eat them. And their lifeboat — the only way they have to escape the island — has been smashed to bits. How are they ever going to get out of this one?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent humor, action, dialogue, art — just an all-around fun all-ages comic. Get it for your kids, or get it for yourself.

Daredevil #11

This is actually the conclusion of a Daredevil/Spider-Man/Punisher crossover — and I didn’t get the previous parts of the story. Nevertheless, from what I can deduce, the “Megacrime” organizations — A.I.M., Hydra, Agence Byzantine, and the Secret Empire — have made an all-out push to obtain the Omega Drive that Matt Murdock possesses — a data drive built out of the unstable molecules from a Fantastic Four costume — containing all their secrets of all the organizations. Daredevil and Spidey have enlisted Frank Castle’s help after making him promise not to kill anyone. And the Punisher has another assistant, a woman named Cole, who is assisting them, too. Or she was assisting them — she just stole the data drive in the middle of a firefight and took off. Will Daredevil be able to track Cole down and convince her to give up the data drive before Megacrime gets to her?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not quite as good as it could’ve been, since I was only getting part of the story. But it’s still pretty good, for all that. Good dialogue and drama, pretty darn good action, and just a lot of the wonderful superheroics we’ve come to expect from this comic since its relaunch.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a really entertaining article that touches on everything from camp to Fredric Wertham to fetishwear to what makes a fictional character gay or straight, all filtered through Grant Morrison’s recent statements about the “gayness of Batman“…
• Okay, parents, I expect to start seeing more pictures of your kids and their awesome homemade jet packs.
• Seems to me Hulu is getting set to go out of business.

Daredevil 10.1

Matt Murdock gets called in to consult with a prisoner who he’s been hired to represent — a pyrokinetic supervillain who, coincidentally, got arrested for trying to kill Murdock — and got brought in after getting stomped by Daredevil. Matt’s been called in because the pyro claims he’s undergoing cruel and unusual punishment — the prison is hitting him loud noise and constant heating changes that make it impossible for him to sleep, even if they do break up his concentration so he can’t use his powers. But the bad guy is still under contract to bring capture Murdock and bring him to the Hellfire Club. Can Matt get out of this situation? And why does the Hellfire Club care about him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another truly outstanding Daredevil story, with lots of action, humor, and brains. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that the art on this comic isn’t up to the extremely high standards of previous issues of this title.

The Amazing Spider-Man #683

The world’s leaders and top scientists are trying to figure out if they can take Dr. Octopus’ ultimatum seriously — he wants to be acknowledged as the world’s savior or he’ll burn the planet to a cinder by accelerating global warming. The Avengers soon appear, and Spider-Man makes a scene by punching Al Gore’s lights out. Now don’t get all excited, Republicans — it was really the Chameleon in disguise. Doc Ock starts to activate his satellite network, and Iron Man tries to track the signal, but to no avail. And Mayor Jameson shuts down the power for Horizon Labs while they’re trying to assist. But Octavius temporarily reverses the effects of his rays, and the world’s leaders insist the heroes let the Chameleon go. Spidey has this all planned out, and the Avengers track Cham’s escape vehicle, which leads to a confrontation with the rest of the Sinister Six. Spidey’s been planning for this fight, too — but has he been planning enough?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots and lots of stuff happening in this issue, but it’s all organized well, and we don’t lose track of the action. Lots of intrigue and scheming and plenty of fisticuffs as well.

Justice League International #8

Batwing joins the team in this issue, as the JLI fights off a bunch of metahuman terrorists, including a light controller called Lightweaver, a decay master called Breakdown, and a communications hacker called Intersek. But most of the JLI are injured or dead, and the hospital and the UN are coming down hard on the few able-bodied Leaguers — and the bad guys have a secret, unwitting ally who they’ve manipulated into attacking the heroes.

Verdict: A very modest thumbs up. It’s not a bad story, just not shoot-the-lights-out good. I’m still bugged that most of the (extremely good) female characters are stuck in the hospital, and a bit peeved by the announcement that Batwing and Vixen knew each other back in Africa. Come on, it’s a great big continent — why assume that everyone from Africa knows each other?

Today’s Cool Links:

• A bunch of Internet celebrities hang out and play board games. And it looks like huge fun. I need to go get some new games, durnit…
• It is what it is: a world map of heavy metal bands per capita.
• There are some people out there who really, really don’t need to be parents.
• And now that the previous link has enraged you, John Prine brings you a nice stress-reducer for the day.

Daredevil #10

The Mole Man has turned grave-robber, snatching dozens of bodies from a cemetery in New York City — including the body of Matt Murdock’s father. So Daredevil has pursued the Mole Man underground, narrowly avoiding death in the jaws of his monstrous minions. He soon learns the Mole Man’s motives — when he was just normal, short, ugly Dr. Harvey Elder, there was a woman at his workplace who was the only person who treated him kindly — and when he found out she had died, Harvey had stolen all the bodies in the cemetery just to find her and tell her, postmortem, that he loved her. Daredevil shows up, and a terrific fight breaks out — the Mole Man, despite being short, overweight, and almost blind, is a skilled fighter. Will Daredevil be able to stop him? Will he be able to save the gravenapped bodies?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Near-perfect from beginning to end. Amazing action, great dialogue, and beautiful characterization. Unexpected depths for the Mole Man, who is both sympathetic and astoundingly creepy. It’s a little scary how much fun this comic is every month.

All Star Western #7

Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham have traveled to New Orleans in pursuit of criminal mastermind Thurston Moody. They soon team up with Western vigilantes Nighthawk and Cinnamon after Hex saves a bunch of people in a terrorist bombing. Turns out the terrorists are radical anti-immigration loons, and Nighthawk and Cinnamon recruit Hex, with his ever-present Confederate Army uniform, to spy on them. This leads him to a gladiatorial arena where immigrants and non-whites are served up to be killed by beautiful assassin Z.C. Branke. But will Hex’s undercover investigation stick him in the ring as well?

Verdict: Thumbs up. My minor nitpicks are (1) Aw, gee, not more of that useless Amadeus Arkham! and (2) I think Jonah Hex is too well-known in DC’s version of the Wild West to be able to go unrecognized by the criminal community. But other than that, good dialogue, good action, and great art by Moritat.

Snarked #6

Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, Queen Scarlett, and Prince Rusty, along with the rest of the crew of the Old Gertrude, are searching for Snark Island and the kidnapped King — but they’re soon accosted by pirates — the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the White Rabbit, Humpty Dumpty, and the Caterpillar. The pirates are all starving and desperate for our heroes’ crocodile steaks, and their battle tactics are fairly eccentric — firing some of their own crew at the other ship, then sitting around and arguing until they themselves get boarded. Will Queen Scarlett be able to hatch a plan to subdue the pirates? And will the Walrus manage to rescue everyone when that plan flops?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderfully funny stuff. Great cartooning, lots of funny situations, just an all-around fun comic for kids of all ages. Yes, that includes you grownups, too.

Secret Avengers #24

The Secret Avengers run around the robot-filled secret city of the Descendants. They get beat up, argue, get shot, and get angsty while the robots plan some sort of generic Evil Doomy Evil Doom.

Verdict: Thumbs down. So much angst, so much boredom.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Bully takes a look at pop music and the Fantastic Four.
• At last! Researchers have finally learned how to communicate with octopuses!
• This is the only way I’ll ever find baseball interesting.
• Let your good friends, the Daleks, relax you and EX-TER-MIN-ATE your stress.
• 12 movies improved by the inclusion of cats. Yes, it’s silly. I don’t care.

Daredevil #9

Someone has burgled a cemetery and stolen a lot of bodies, including the body of Fightin’ Jack Murdock, the father of blind New York lawyer Matt Murdock. So Daredevil goes on a trip deep underground, following the trail of the graverobbers. Turns out it’s a bunch of Moloids, the underground dwellers who serve the Mole Man. He has a few skirmishes with the Moloids and doesn’t even realize how close he gets to some of the Mole Man’s giant monsters. But the question remains — why is the Mole Man steal and desecrating corpses? And how is Daredevil going to stop him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, beautiful art and writing. It’s neat to see Daredevil in an environment where he’s on an equal level, at least as far as senses go, with his opponents. The sideplot, with the Black Cat searching Matt’s apartment for the trinket he stole from the world’s major criminal organizations, is also pretty interesting.

Snarked #5

Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, Queen Scarlett, and Prince Rusty have set sail on the Old Gertrude in search of the King — but they haven’t yet shared with the crew that the map to the King’s prison has mysteriously turned up blank. Or that they’re supposed to go to the dreaded Snark Island. That’s bad news, because the whole crew of the ship was been severely traumatized by a Snark-hunting incident years ago. And to add to the chaos, there’s a great big crocodile stalking the ship, determined to eat someone on board — and it’s just gobbled up Rusty! What are our heroes to do?!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Inspired and silly and glorious work here — even better than many of the previous issues. The threat of the crocodile, the flashback to the crew’s previous visits to Snark Island, the crewman who spends his whole life hiding inside a barrel — the whole thing is gloriously fun from beginning to end.

Wonder Woman #6

While Wonder Woman and Poseidon smack each other around, Lennox parleys with the wonderfully creepy Hades. After saving Zola from another pair of murderous centaurs, Wonder Woman reveals her plan to end the war to become Zeus’ replacement — by day, Heaven will be ruled by Poseidon, and by night, by Hades — and they’ll share Hera as the queen. Predictably, Hera is so infuriated at this suggestion that she shows up to confront everyone — and that’s when Wonder Woman’s new scheme against her goes into effect.

Verdict: Thumbs up — and a large part of that is how cool Hades looks: black-clad little tyke with a half dozen flaming candles on top of his head and fountains of melted wax covering half his face. It might be my favorite of Brian Azzarello’s reimaginings of the Greek pantheon.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a segment from the PBS show “History Detectives” about an obscure romance comic from the ’50s.
• I love it when John Scalzi hoists the black flag and declares war on ridiculously rich whiners.
• Not only does life not begin at conception, but the entire concept of “life begins at conception” is actually younger than I am.

Okay, I know I just got back from one hiatus. But can I have another? I’m so freakin’ tired of writing comics reviews. What, no more hiatuses? You guys are slavedrivers.

The Amazing Spider-Man #677

So Spidey runs into the Black Cat, and being the recently-dumped loser he is, he tries to get her to hook up with him. And she blows him off ’cause the Wall-Crawler was coming across as entirely needy and desperate. Soon afterwards, she gets arrested for stealing a hologram emitter from Horizon Labs, where Peter Parker works — but he doesn’t believe she did it. He tries to enlist Matt Murdock’s help in defending her, which of course leads to a team-up between Spider-Man and Daredevil. And that means lots of snappy patter and superheroes daring each other to jump off of skyscrapers. When the trail leads through some bad guys using a holographic projector, is the chase already almost over, or is the Black Cat going to get the drop on everyone?

Daredevil #8

And the continuation of the two-part story sees Spidey, Daredevil, and Black Cat teaming up to look for the villains who framed Felicia Hardy. Before long, they realize the thief actually worked for Horizon Labs — he’s been overdosed with poison, so Spidey rushes him to the hospital, while Daredevil and Felicia head for the criminal organization that’s really responsible. But will they be able to find the equipment? And will this lead to the kind of romantic entanglement that Matt Murdock and Felicia Hardy are both famous for?

Verdict: Thumbs up, for both issues. Excellent story, beautiful art (and an outstanding cover!), amazing characterization and dialogue and action and humor. These two issues got everything you want from a fun superhero comic book. Go get ’em, kiddios.

The Amazing Spider-Man #678

And back to an issue of Spidey’s comic! Peter Parker has to deal with Grady, an irritating co-worker at Horizon Labs — and in this case, he’s an irritating co-worker who’s just invented a time portal that takes someone 24 hours into the future! When Grady steps through the portal, he gets to bring back tomorrow’s paper. But when Peter steps through, he finds New York City smashed to rubble! Grady realizes that anyone who goes through the portal skips forward in time, so the resulting destruction resulted because Peter Parker wasn’t in the Big Apple for 24 hours. So that means Spider-Man needs to do something to avert a future catastrophe. But will Spidey and Grady be able to figure out what went wrong before it’s too late?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good plot and characterization. Fantastic cliffhanger. Really looking forward to seeing how this gets resolved.

Well, everyone else is doing end-of-year best-of lists, so I reckon I will, too. What’s Newsweek magazine got that I ain’t got, right? I mean, the way magazine readership has been falling, there’s a decent chance that I’ve got more readers now. ZING! Oh, Newsweek, you know I kid ’cause I love.

Anyway, this is not a list of the very best of all comics. I haven’t read all comics. I haven’t even gotten close. This is my list of the comics I read that I enjoyed the most.

Also, I don’t think I could manage to say which of these is the best — so I’d rather just arrange them in alphabetical order.

So here we go: The 16 comics I enjoyed reading the most in 2011.

American Vampire

This series by Scott Snyder is still carrying the torch for serious vampiric horror with great characterization, boundless imagination, and really awesome bloodsuckers.

Atomic Robo

One of the best comics out there — this one packs in action, humor, and mindblowing science into something that is always fun. Fun cameos by the famous and infamous, and an incredibly cool lead character.

Avengers Academy

Thank goodness someone still remembers how to do a good teen comic. You can do teen angst without it turning into a bloodbath. This series combines a great concept with outstanding characterization.

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth

The most audaciously imaginative comic of the year, thanks to its seven-year-old writer. Loved the drama, loved the action, and laughed out loud at the humor.

Batgirl (pre-Reboot)

Stephanie Brown’s tenure as Batgirl was marked by great writing, excellent action, and a very strong sense of humor. Stephanie is still MIA in the new DC, unfortunately.

Batman comics by Scott Snyder

Whether it was on Detective Comics prior to the Reboot or on Batman afterwards, Snyder wrote some of the most engrossing tales of the Dark Knight.

Batman Inc.

Reading Grant Morrison’s Batman has been a treat for years, and it was fun to watch him create the new Batman megacorp.

Batwoman

J.H. Williams III’s writing has been fine, but his art is simply breathtaking. This was absolutely the most beautiful comic book on the stands in 2011.

Daredevil

Daredevil? I’ve never cared for Daredevil in my life. But this one is a blast. Writing and art are incredible. Humor, action, characterization — and again, fun. You can make a pretty good comic if you make it fun, ya know?

Dungeons & Dragons

Did anyone ever expect a D&D comic to be this good? Excellent dialogue, humor, action, drama, suspense — all while doing a pretty good job spotlighting the RPG it’s based on. Best fantasy comic of the year, right here.

Hellboy: The Fury

Mike Mignola has enjoyed another excellent year of comics, and I could’ve put almost any of his B.P.R.D. comics in here, but this one — Hellboy’s last hurrah — was really something special.

Knight and Squire

Paul Cornell’s miniseries focusing on London’s version of Batman and Robin was fun storytelling, along with a quick course in British pop culture. Excellent characters and adventures, and a wonderfully created setting.

Secret Six

Gail Simone’s awesomely epic series of supervillains occasionally doing the right thing had some of the funniest, saddest, most dramatic, most astounding moments in the comics world. Absolutely grand characters, too. Losing this series was one of DC’s biggest mistakes of the Reboot.

Supergirl (pre-Reboot)

After years of being the DC Universe’s version of the useless mallrat in a belly shirt, several creators finally realized they could make the character awesome by treating her more like a real person instead of an MTV stereotype. Yes, DC, character is everything!

Tiny Titans

The best all-ages comic on the market. Still can’t believe they’re going to let something this awesome go.

Xombi

One of the weirdest comics to come out this year. There was usually at least one really mind-blowingly weird thing in every single issue. Beautiful art, too, along with great writing and dialogue. It was a joy to read.

And one more little category? How ’bout Publisher of the Year? DC and Marvel are out — they’ve spent the past 12 months pandering to the worst in comics, cancelling great series, and randomly insulting their readers. IDW, Dark Horse, Red 5, Image, all the other independents came close, because they’re doing more of what good comics publishers should be doing — gunning for new readers, pushing the artistic and storytelling envelopes, making excellent comics.

But I think the Publisher of the Year is Archie Comics. What? But I don’t read any Archies! But Archie is doing even more than the other independents to push the creative and social envelope. They’ve gotten lots of publicity with their Archie marries Betty/Veronica comics, but they also had a great crossover with the Tiny Titans. And who would have ever imagined that staid, conservative Archie Comics would end up being the most progressive comics publisher — whitebread Archie Andrews has recently dated Valerie Brown, the African-American bass player from Josie and the Pussycats, and Kevin Keller, Archie’s first openly gay character, has become more popular and more prominent in the comics. Archie Comics is outpacing all the other independent publishers and rocketing past the Big Two in terms of how much they’re moving the comics industry forward.

So there we go — 16 grand, fun comics series. And I think I’d still have to declare 2011 one of the worst years for comics we’ve seen in a long time. Almost half my list is made up of comics that were cancelled, will be cancelled in the next few months, or are in continual danger of being cancelled. DC enjoyed a nice sales surge in the first few months of the Reboot, but the numbers on many of their series are already dropping back to more normal levels. And they spent months alienating and angering long-time fans in one public relations disaster after another. Not that Marvel has fared much better — they’ve been cancelling comics hand over fist. The independents have a better track record for producing good comics — but of course, they’ve also had more trouble getting those comics sold.

2011 has been an awful, terrifying, depressing year for comics fans. I’d like to tell you that I think 2012 is going to be better. But I don’t think I’d get my hopes up very high. No one’s learned any lessons from this year’s catastrophes, and I’m not even sure the Big Two are even capable of doing anything other than shooting themselves in the foot.

Let’s just hope the non-comics portions of 2012 will be better for all of us. Y’all stay safe, buckle up, call a cab if you need to.