10. Fallen World (Valiant Comics)

It doesn’t take long into one’s journey through the criminally underappreciated Valiant universe to notice the parallels between Rai, the mainstay of Valiant’s future timeline, and Bloodshot, the popular character with an upcoming feature length-film. Fallen World could have been a simple conflict story between the two characters, but the way that it weaves in characters like the Geomancer and War Mother, and the delicate attention that writer Dan Abnett gives to the world of the story elevates it significantly.

9. Usagi Yojimbo (IDW Comics)

If you listen to the NewRetroWave comic book podcast, you know that the IDW relaunch of Stan Sakai’s longrunning series is a monthly favorite. It knows exactly what it wants to be and executes its stories well along those lines. It may not always have the loftiest ambitions in terms of art or storytelling, but at the end of the day being able to tell a compelling story with a compelling lead for over two decades is a greater ambition than most books and creators can hope for. The relaunch has been one of the most consistent and entertaining books of the year.

8. Sonata (Image Comics)

When I read Monstress for the first time I was overwhelmed by the world within its pages in a way that I hadn’t by other comics before. The first comic to captivate me with its world since has been Image Comics’ Sonata. While this comic could have sat comfortably on the creativity of its world and the strength in the art depicting that world, it ramped up significantly by making a level of intrigue between its characters that each issue has been hard to put down.

7. Ruby Falls (Dark Horse Comics)

Another title that shouldn’t be a surprise to NRW Comic Podcast listeners. Series writer Ann Nocenti shows her considerable skill at both characterization and strong thematic storytelling in equal measure with this mini-series. All of the characters in this story are memorable and likable, but Lana is one of the most relatable protagonists of 2019. She manages to have obvious and apparant flaws that the readers are usually able to find in some measure within themselves, and to see her attempt to solve the mystery of a decades-old murder in a town that seems stuck in the past makes for some great reading.

6. Blossoms 666 (Archie Comics)

If there was ever a time to strike while the iron is hot for Archie Comics, and for the Archie Horror imprint in particular, its 2019. With outstanding art and a killer story from Cullen Bunn, Blossoms 666 delivered up devilish fun in 2019 with its story of Jason and Cheryl (and even a mystery third Blossom heir) and their quests to become Riverdale’s own Anti-Christ. The Archie Horror imprint has some of the best comics of the past decade at their helm, and Blossoms 666 is right at home.

5. The Plot (Vault Comics)

Oh look, another book raved about on NRW’s Comic Book Podcast. (Please listen to it) The Plot managed to be not just the best book from a publisher who drastically has delivered quality titles for the past two years, but one of the five best books of the year. Its gothic sensibilities married to its 70;s horror aesthetic makes this easily the most atmospheric book of the year. It might be wrapping up it’s initial run now, but this is going to be the kind of trade paperback that people who don’t typically like comics are going to love.

4. Ascender (Image Comics)

The Jeff Lemire-written and Dustin Nguyen-drawn series Descender was consistently one of the best books on shelves during its 32 issue run starting in 2015. How could the team follow such a beloved, original, and stylish sci-fi series? By bringing several of the series’ beloved characters into an equally original and stylish sequel, but one which shifts genres toward fantasy. The results are compelling in a way that few books are, and the unique identity between the original and sequel manage to be significant while not feeling wholly disjointed.

3. Going to the Chapel (Action Lab Comics)

Another favorite here at NRW. As you could tell from our review of the debut issue, this comic started with a bang. If you listened to the recent NRW Comic Podcast interview with Going to the Chapel writer David Pepose, then you know that the series has maintained that level of energy and has spent four issues endearing readers to its robust cast of characters. Balancing something as intense as a hostage situation with jokes and levity is no easy task, but Pepose and the art team of artist Gavin Guidry and colorist Elizabeth Kramer deliver.

2. Excellence (Image Comics)

Has there ever been a book so perfectly titled? Writer Brandon Thomas and artist Khary Randolph deliver a world that is as fascinating as it is thematically rich. Main character Spencer Dale navigates a world where he experiences pressures from his society and his family, and his conflicts in this world get heightened with artist Khary Randolph’s incredibly fluid and stylish panels. Colorist Emilio Lopez rounds out the team and makes this book one of the most can’t-miss titles of 2019, and of all the titles on this list, this is the one that feels most likely to jump to other mediums.

1. House of X / Powers of X (Marvel Comics)

For a publisher that’s pretty egregious with their use of large-scale events, House of X and Powers of X is the first time in my life as a reader that a comic story has lived up to the name ‘event’. There really is no writer better suited to injecting the X line up with new energy and new ideas than Jonathan Hickman, and this two-as-one series showed exactly why. These books were electric with an energy rarely found, and following each book was the mountain of discourse from the rabid X-fan community who seemed to finally all agree that something huge was here for their favorite heroes. Whether Hickman’s relaunch lives up to this hype remains to be seen, but HoXPoX is some of the best that this medium can produce.

Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049 in association with Columbia Pictures, domestic distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures and international distribution by Sony Pictures Releasing International.

Now news has surfaced via CBR.com that London based publishing company Titan will be co-publishing with Alcon Media a BLADE RUNNER comic book set in-canon with both Blade Runner films. That means that the drama taking place on the page will be happening in the same universe as Deckard and K.

“In partnering with the exceptional Titan Comics and Titan Books,” Kosove and Johnson said, “we’re confident that the world of Blade Runner will continue to organically grow in a way that refuses to sacrifice the quality, tone and high standards of this beloved property.”

Landau and Cheung added:

“We are extremely excited to be publishing Blade Runner comics and illustrated books. The Blade Runner universe has barely been explored; there is so much more there. It’s an honour to be bringing this world to life in new ways for a new audience — and to reveal tales from that universe that you’ve never seen before.”
– Titan’s co-founders, Nick Landau and Vivian Cheung.

That quote was from a statement made with Alcon co-founders and co-CEOs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. They also mentioned that the companies are set to develop a mix of Blade Runner comics, as well as a “a variety of publications focused on the visual and technical sides of the production process.”

I’m nowhere near on the moon but, my excitement is in the red. I just hope for a good team of creators to sign up for the project and deliver. It’s a good time on the horizon for people that relish in the HI-TECH, LOW LIFE aesthetic and pessimism of technology putting the polish on this turd of civilization while the concrete jungles of the world are crumbling around the sheep surrounded by hungry wolves.

Keep your head up. Keep your fingers on that rewind button.

Here’s a fun game: What makes a good Batman story? Is it Bruce Wayne? There have been good Batman stories with the cowl being carried by former Robin and usual Nightwing Dick Grayson, and beyond that, several Batman comics have had a primary focus on one of his iconic rogues. The common thread of Batman comics is the atmosphere.

That atmosphere is Gotham.

Gotham is such a pervasive aspect of Batman stories that it’s often overlooked, but unlike real life cities in other comics or other fictional cities like Metropolis, Gotham never seems incidental or interchangeable. The seedy, gothic noir of Gotham is so well established and, for lack of a better word, characterized that it transcends the typical idea of a setting. There’s a reason the Fox show is called Gotham and not Rogues. Gotham is the connection to the idea of a Batman story more than anything else. And do you know which Batman comic might paint the best portrait of Gotham, in all its gritty, seedy glory?

That’s right, Year One.

We see the city that molds Bruce Wayne, further shapes James Gordon and Selina Kyle, and the way it weighs on every character from start to finish, with the difference between heroes and villains being the difference between those who fold under that weight.

2. A Sign of the Times

1986 and 1987 are interesting years in comic history. Maus had been released in ‘86, which changed the critical perception of the levels to which comics could aspire, while Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, and Walter Simonson were arguably at creative peaks with their respective roles in writing Marvel’s “Mutant Massacre” arc, as well as Frank Miller’s revamp of the Daredevil comic, which in 1987 was somehow pushed to the character’s peak by writer Ann Nocenti. Over that two year period of time, Frank Miller and Alan Moore each delivered what is likely the trinity of 80’s comics in Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, while Moore’s Watchmen has a reputation that rivals novels in the literary canon.

Of this pulpy trilogy, Year One is easily the most accessible and grounded. A lot of Dark Knight Returns’ strength lies in the way that it builds on expectations of Batman and Gotham as a setting, while Watchmen can get a little too cerebral at times with its ambitions feeling daunting. Year One is more welcoming, as its status among those other two titles is more of a affirmation of the shifting tone of comics than the powderkeg blowing the entire things up. Its indicative of the changing climate and themes involved in comics from that point forward, and if you’ve picked up a comic published after that time, you’ve seen the DNA of Year One.

3. James Gordon

What might be most surprising for new readers is the way Year One presents its secondary protagonist, James Gordon. Year One follows a Gordon who is new to Gotham, not yet a commissioner, and perhaps above all deeply human. Gordon is exceptionally competent and more than a few times is Miller’s badass star, but he isn’t perfect, and we see his personal life in shambles as he slips into an affair while his wife is pregnant.

His personal failings only make him that much more interesting to read, as he is often more compelling than Bruce Wayne — partially due to Gordon’s much more readable handwritten narration. His hard-boiled persona also keeps the comic squarely in the noir roots that it needs to create the atmosphere. Gordon might not be a Gotham native, but he is more essential to the city’s oppressive presence than Batman.

4. Despite Being Retconned, It Still Stands as the Thematic Origin

When the New 52 retconned much of DC’s history, Batman writer Scott Snyder served up the new official origin for Batman in Zero Year. While Zero Year is undoubtedly a good story from one of Batman’s best modern writers, you can even see in the title why it will never feel definitive, even if it is canonical. Year One is such a remarkably strong comic and origin that sets up everything you really need to understand future Batman stories that even the comic that was supposed to replacement had to title itself in reaction to Year One.

And Zero Year itself is deeply indebted to Year One in terms of actual plot, as is much of Batman’s presentation in film, with Christopher Nolan appearing to be the comic’s biggest fan. It’s pretty hard culturally to avoid Batman’s origin story, especially if you’re reading this, but what makes Year One perhaps the best starting point more than anything is the way that it gives readers exactly what to expect from any Batman comic after it.

Here’s a fun game: What makes a good Batman story? Is it Bruce Wayne? There have been good Batman stories with the cowl being carried by former Robin and usual Nightwing Dick Grayson, and beyond that, several Batman comics have had a primary focus on one of his iconic rogues. The common thread of Batman comics is the atmosphere.

That atmosphere is Gotham.

Gotham is such a pervasive aspect of Batman stories that it’s often overlooked, but unlike real life cities in other comics or other fictional cities like Metropolis, Gotham never seems incidental or interchangeable. The seedy, gothic noir of Gotham is so well established and, for lack of a better word, characterized that it transcends the typical idea of a setting. There’s a reason the Fox show is called Gotham and not Rogues. Gotham is the connection to the idea of a Batman story more than anything else. And do you know which Batman comic might paint the best portrait of Gotham, in all its gritty, seedy glory?

That’s right, Year One.

We see the city that molds Bruce Wayne, further shapes James Gordon and Selina Kyle, and the way it weighs on every character from start to finish, with the difference between heroes and villains being the difference between those who fold under that weight.

2. A Sign of the Times

1986 and 1987 are interesting years in comic history. Maus had been released in ‘86, which changed the critical perception of the levels to which comics could aspire, while Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, and Walter Simonson were arguably at creative peaks with their respective roles in writing Marvel’s “Mutant Massacre” arc, as well as Frank Miller’s revamp of the Daredevil comic, which in 1987 was somehow pushed to the character’s peak by writer Ann Nocenti. Over that two year period of time, Frank Miller and Alan Moore each delivered what is likely the trinity of 80’s comics in Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, while Moore’s Watchmen has a reputation that rivals novels in the literary canon.

Of this pulpy trilogy, Year One is easily the most accessible and grounded. A lot of Dark Knight Returns’ strength lies in the way that it builds on expectations of Batman and Gotham as a setting, while Watchmen can get a little too cerebral at times with its ambitions feeling daunting. Year One is more welcoming, as its status among those other two titles is more of a affirmation of the shifting tone of comics than the powderkeg blowing the entire things up. Its indicative of the changing climate and themes involved in comics from that point forward, and if you’ve picked up a comic published after that time, you’ve seen the DNA of Year One.

3. James Gordon

What might be most surprising for new readers is the way Year One presents its secondary protagonist, James Gordon. Year One follows a Gordon who is new to Gotham, not yet a commissioner, and perhaps above all deeply human. Gordon is exceptionally competent and more than a few times is Miller’s badass star, but he isn’t perfect, and we see his personal life in shambles as he slips into an affair while his wife is pregnant.

His personal failings only make him that much more interesting to read, as he is often more compelling than Bruce Wayne — partially due to Gordon’s much more readable handwritten narration. His hard-boiled persona also keeps the comic squarely in the noir roots that it needs to create the atmosphere. Gordon might not be a Gotham native, but he is more essential to the city’s oppressive presence than Batman.

4. Despite Being Retconned, It Still Stands as the Thematic Origin

When the New 52 retconned much of DC’s history, Batman writer Scott Snyder served up the new official origin for Batman in Zero Year. While Zero Year is undoubtedly a good story from one of Batman’s best modern writers, you can even see in the title why it will never feel definitive, even if it is canonical. Year One is such a remarkably strong comic and origin that sets up everything you really need to understand future Batman stories that even the comic that was supposed to replacement had to title itself in reaction to Year One.

And Zero Year itself is deeply indebted to Year One in terms of actual plot, as is much of Batman’s presentation in film, with Christopher Nolan appearing to be the comic’s biggest fan. It’s pretty hard culturally to avoid Batman’s origin story, especially if you’re reading this, but what makes Year One perhaps the best starting point more than anything is the way that it gives readers exactly what to expect from any Batman comic after it.