Best of the Best 2010

[NexusOfLight]

The Comic Ledger's Best of the Best 2010

I think it's a fine time for a best of the year comic thing. I mean, this forum's done quite well with itself for this long, I say we're all deserving of a lil' something like this. What do you think? 2010's certainly had its ups and it's certainly had its downs, but only you guys can tell how it's been all around.

And of course, I am in no way ripping off this thread in every way, shape, and form down to the letter, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't get--shall we say--"inspired" by the notion.

Okay, I'm totally ripping it off, but who cares? So this is how we'll do it. You guys'll fill out the form in the second post with your favorites for any or all of the categories. You can give your reasons why or just list it one by one, I don't care. Let's keep that goin' on for a week, and afterwards, I'll set up a couple a' polls and we'll see what the Comic Ledger's absolute favorite thing is of all time! I think it sounds cool, but hey, if not, then I guess this'll just go down as a nothing kinda thing. Your choice.

[NexusOfLight]

The Categories

Best Artist:


Best Ongoing Series:

Best New Series:

Best Miniseries:

Best Issue:

Best Original Graphic Novel:

Best Collection:

Best Storyline:


Character of the Year:


Thing That Was Best Turned Into Comics: (from direct adaptations to licensed properties)

Thing That Comics Were Best Turned Into: (from movies to cartoons to games to toys)



Brilliant Thing You'd Really Like to Mention But Doesn't Fit Anywhere:

Thing So Crap it Makes You Wish We Were Doing 'Worst of' Awards:

[NexusOfLight]

What we have so far.

Best Artist:
Danny Luvisi
Mike Deodato Jr.
Alex Maleev
Mike Choi
Stjepan Sejic


Best Ongoing Series:
Secret Six
Amazing Spider-Man
Batman and Robin
Invincible Iron Man
Green Lantern


Best New Series:
Hawkeye & Mockingbird
Freedom Fighters
Incorruptible
Avengers Academy


Best Miniseries:
The Mighty Crusaders
The Thanos Imperative
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Star Wars: Blood Ties


Best Issue:
Gotham City Sirens #9
Amazing Spider-Man #625
Spider-Man #647
Uncanny X-Force #1

Best Original Graphic Novel:


Best Collection:
Secret Six: Depths
Deadpool: Suicide Kings
Spider-Man: the Gauntlet
Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead
Brightest Day


Best Storyline:
Cats in the Cradle (Secret Six)
Grim Hunt (Amazing Spider-Man)
Artifacts (Top Cow Crossover)


Character of the Year:
Richard Rider
Iron Man
Dick Grayson


Thing That Was Best Turned Into Comics:
Charmed (Adapted by Zenescope)
Star Wars: Blood Ties
Serenity


Thing That Comics Were Best Turned Into:
Young Justice
No Ordinary Family
Iron Man 2
Kick Ass


Brilliant Thing You'd Really Like to Mention But Doesn't Fit Anywhere:
Inception
Invincible

Thing So Crap it Makes You Wish We Were Doing 'Worst of' Awards:

[Strafe Prower]

Best Artist: Danny Luvisi

Best Ongoing Series: Secret Six

Best New Series: Hawkeye & Mockingbird or Freedom Fighters

Best Miniseries: The Mighty Crusaders

Best Issue: Gotham City Sirens #9

Best Original Graphic Novel:

Best Collection: Secret Six: Depths

Best Storyline: Cats in the Cradle (Secret Six)

Character of the Year: Ragdoll

Thing That Was Best Turned Into Comics: Charmed (Adapted by Zenescope)

Thing That Comics Were Best Turned Into: Young Justice (Even though it has nothing to do with the comics.

Brilliant Thing You'd Really Like to Mention But Doesn't Fit Anywhere: Inception

Thing So Crap it Makes You Wish We Were Doing 'Worst of' Awards: N/A

[NexusOfLight]

Tight, tight. Good stuff.

[Admin]

Awesome thread. I'll fill this out soon.

[NexusOfLight]

I look forward to it.

[Admin]

***so far....will edit/update later***

Best Artist:
Mike Deodato Jr. Yes, his work has a MASSIVE emphasis on shadows, but it works beautifully with darker titles such as Ellis's Thunderbolts.

Best Ongoing Series:
Secret Six. While most titles fluxuate between creative teams, IMHO SS has been consistently fantastic.

Best New Series:

Best Miniseries:
Deadpool: Suicide Kings
Funny, action-packed, highly amusing, and packed with characters I enjoy.

Best Issue:
I don't recall the exact number, but the final confrontation between the new and old Rhino. A surprisingly emotional work of art.

Best Original Graphic Novel:


Best Collection:


Best Storyline:
Grim Hunt.

Character of the Year:


Thing That Was Best Turned Into Comics: (from direct adaptations to licensed properties)
So far, Star Wars: Blood Ties.

Thing That Comics Were Best Turned Into: (from movies to cartoons to games to toys)



Brilliant Thing You'd Really Like to Mention But Doesn't Fit Anywhere:

Thing So Crap it Makes You Wish We Were Doing 'Worst of' Awards:

[NexusOfLight]

A'ight, here's my list for the nominations.

Best Artist: I dunno. I like the work on Chaos War. The work in Thanos Imperative is good, too, same with Secret Avengers, but all for different reasons, but over all, I gotta back my homeboy, Alex Maleev. I've always loved his work. It's so different. Rough, edgy, and it suits most of the stories he works on. I've been enjoying Scarlet partly because of him. Not much else to say other than the dude's great at what he does.

Best Ongoing Series: Amazing Spider-Man without a doubt. What defines a good comic? A good comic is something I can pick up, read all the way through and leave feeling like that was the best thing ever. AMS has been doing that time after time after time. And now that Big Time's started everything's been raised to the nth degree.

Best New Series: Incorruptible Mark Waid's really done some good stuff with Irredeemable. Greatest super hero going bad. The whole world's living in terror. Good stuff, but with Incorruptable one of the world's greatest villains is turning over a new leaf. I don't know why, but this comic has always appealed to me more than the other one. I don't know if it's because of the concept, or the characters. It's more street based so that's a plus. I dunno, it's just been goin' great. Some people seem to think it's been getting worse, but I don't see it. It's as strong as it is now as when the first issue started.

Best Miniseries: The Thanos Imperative

Best Issue: Best single issue? Wow, this is hard. Let's thumb through some--ah here we go. Amazing Spider-Man 647. Why? Well, this was a huge issue. It marked the official end of Brand New Day. It had everything I loved about it all wrapped up in one. The laughs, the relationships, spot-lights for all the side characters, and the sense of moving forward. My favorite part in it was probably the American Hero one. Another Spidey-story focusing on Flash Thompson. This dude's seriously been through some crazy stuff, fighting in the war, losing his legs, and living life without them is really inspiring, and when Spidey and him meet face to face, to talk about it, just hearing Spidey admit that Flash inspires him was really something.

Best Collection: City of Dust. I think the trade came out this year. It mighta been last year, I don't know, but it was good. Really, everything from Radical Publishing has been top notch. Seriously, more people need to check 'em out. City of Dust tells the story of a cop living in a world where imagination of all shapes and sizes has become outlawed. Great concept, the story was cool. Great in execution. I liked every bit of it.

Best Storyline: Top Cow's Artifacts. Ron Marz has been building this up for quite some time. Now that it's finally upon us, I have to say it's definitely living up to the hype. It's three issues in and it's been nothing but non-stop craziness.


Character of the Year: Richard Rider, it's been a crazy year for this guy. From being asked to be a part of the Secret Avengers to continuing the valiant fight against crazy stuff happening all across the universe, and y'know what. I'mma throw in Peter Quill too. Since Annihilation and Conquest, he's been workin' his tail off doin' what he thinks is right. Assembling the Guardians of the Galaxy, fighting galactic threats on a daily basis with his team, and doing it with style--well, I'd like to think of it as style, and now with the conclusion of the Thanos Imperative, these two, Star-lord and Nova prime have bumped up to be my two picks for character of the year.



Thing That Was Best Turned Into Comics: Most of the stuff that's been turned into comics usually happen for like two or three issues. I've been hearing the Star Wars comics have been goin' well, but I've never looked into 'em. I dunno. I enjoyed the Serenity comics. They finally answered who Shepherd Booke was, so that's cool.

Thing That Comics Were Best Turned Into: I'm gonna say No Ordinary Family because Young Justice is already nominated, inFamous came out in '09, and probably most of all, this show keeps getting better and better. It's a nice fun, happy show with some interesting interactions between the characters. I love what's happening so far, and I think more people should watch it. Seriously, give it a try. You might like it. Hulu that stuff.


Brilliant Thing You'd Really Like to Mention But Doesn't Fit Anywhere: Invincible. Man, I just got into this amazing thing this year, and it's been the greatest thing ever. It's so familiar, yet so unique at the same time. I think that's what people call relatable. Shoutout to everyone here who got me interested in it, because it's really been great.

Thing So Crap it Makes You Wish We Were Doing 'Worst of' Awards: Don't think I've read any bad comics this year. Well, if you've seen any of my posts, you should know I haven't really read any "bad" comics ever so if there were a "Worst of" awards, I'd be outta the loop with that. I didn't particularly care for that whole Image United thing. Mighta been because it had too much of a 90's feel for my taste, mighta been because I wasn't familiar with all the characters. I oh well, I'm gonna abstain from this category for the time being. If we need more things to vote for, I'll add it.

[NexusOfLight]

Oh dang, I forgot the favorite writer category. Oh well. I guess whoever your favorite writer's been this year would probably be the writer of your favorite book, so I guess it works out, unless you guys what the category anyway, I'll keep it off.

Anyway, k4tz, Suicide Kings came out in '09 so I'm afraid I can't add it to the best mini-series category, but I do believe the trade collection came out for it this year.

[Strafe Prower]

Updated my post to include character of the year.

[Morpheus]

Best Artist: Mike Choi (Second Coming, X-Force tie-ins), Michael Broussard (Artifacts), Stjepan Sejic (Witchblade, the Angelus)



Best Ongoing Series: Amazing Spider-Man (Power to the People, Keemia's castle, Mysterioso, Rage of the Rhino, Shed, Grim Hunt, Big Time), Batman and Robin, Invincible Iron Man



Best New Series: Artifacts



Best Miniseries: The Thanos Imperative, The Return of Bruce Wayne



Best Issue: Amazing Spider-Man # 625, by Joe Kelly



Best Original Graphic Novel: NA



Best Collection: Spider-Man: the Gauntlet



Best Storyline: Grim Hunt



Character of the Year: Iron Man

[NexusOfLight]

Try to pick things for categories that haven't been nominated already. It's cool that everyone loved Grim Hunt, but if that's the only thing to vote for--well, you know how that's gonna work out.

[Morpheus]

Can't help it if that's indeed the best thing I read this year.

[NexusOfLight]

It's cool though. Surprised no one mentioned the Walking Dead TV show yet. I still haven't seen it, so I can't in good conscience nominate it.

[NexusOfLight]

So is this good enough to start with, or should we wait on more nominations?

[NexusOfLight]

Alright, with the nominations in, now we vote, starting with the best artist. The poll locks after 7 days, and when that's up, we'll move on to the next category. It's not too late to keep nominating things, so if you think of something else, feel free to say it.

[NexusOfLight]

Just in case you don't wanna look up these artists on Google, here's each of their galleries. Make informed voting decisions, and let's hope this doesn't turn into a 6-way tie.

Mike Choi
Mike Deodato Jr.
Danny LuVisi
Alex Maleev
Stjepan Sejic
Michael Broussard

[Crom-Cruach]

Kejic is the best, that is a fact.

[NexusOfLight]

He's certainly up there with the greats. Love his work all around. He was actually the reason I joined deviantArt.