And so we’ve arrived at the final “best of” list of 2020, the Top 10 Original Graphic Novels, which basically just means full-length original works specifically designed as such, or put perhaps more simply : self-contained graphic novels that weren’t serialized anywhere, in print or online, previously. Let’s not waste any time —

10. Desperate Pleasures By M.S. Harkness (Uncivilized) – Not so much a sequel to Harkness’ earlier Tinderella as a response to it — the party’s over, welcome to the hangover that is adulthood without a road map. Illustrated in a breathtaking array of styles and told in a manner both frank and expressive, this is the contemporary memoir against which all others will be judged for the next few years.

9. The Puerto Rican War By John Vasquez Mejias (Self-Published) – Hey, fair is fair : my Top 10 Single Issues list featured a couple of comics…

Moving right along with our next-to-last “best of” list, we come to the Top 10 Contemporary Collections of 2020. Simply put, this category is devoted to collected editions of work originally published, either physically or digitally, since the year 2000, including Manga, webcomics, and Eurocomics. In practice, though, I’ll be honest and admit it’s all fairly recent stuff. Read on and you’ll see what I mean —

10. Inappropriate By Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized) – How the hell spoiled are we these days, anyway? The modern master of disarmingly frank autobio released one of her strongest collections to date and it seemed as though it hardly got a mention in critical circles. Like the Hernandez brothers, Bell’s work is so consistently good that I fear we as readers take it for granted. We shouldn’t — this is a book to be downright thankful for.

9. Snake Creek By Drew Lerman (Self-Published)…

A new year may be upon us, but we’re not quite done talking about last year here at Four Color Apocalypse. My next “best of” list takes a look at my picks for the Top 10 Vintage Collections of 2020, which is to say : books that collect material originally published prior to the year 2000, including Manga and Eurocomics. Let’s dive right in —

10. Atom Bomb And Other Stories By Wallace Wood (Fantagraphics) – One of the best volumes yet in the long-running EC Artists’ Library series collects the very best of the Wally Wood/Harvey Kurtzman collaborations from Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, and as a special added bonus Wood’s strips with Archie Goodwin from Blazing Combat are included, as well. I love Marie Severin’s colors, to be sure, but this stuff has never looked better than it does here, in pristine black and white.

9. The…

As we continue examining the best of the year that was, we come to the category that, year in and year out, seems to confuse the largest number of people, not least myself when I first came up with it : Top 10 Special Mentions. Basically, this is a clearinghouse for everything comics-related that isn’t strictly a comic, per se : ‘zines about comics, books about comics, art books, sketchbooks, unorthodox sequential narratives, collections of single-panel or “gag” strips — they’re all fair game here. Read on, and hopefully it will all become clear —

10. Bubbles Edited By Brian Baynes (Self-Published) – In no time flat, Baynes not only proved that there was still a place for old-school print fanzines, he turned his into the most essential one in recent memory. I’m not sure how he keeps up what I surmise to be a grueling production schedule, but he…

Rolling right along with our end-of-year surveys, we come to 2020’s Top 10 Ongoing Series. Qualifiers in this category are serialized comics that saw more than one issue or volume released in the past 12 months. Not sure any further explanation beyond that is necessary? And so —

10. Psychodrama Illustrated By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics) – Beto’s latest side-step limited series focuses on somewhat surreal interpretations of the lives of Fritz and her family, resulting in a heady mix of the topical, the trippy and, of course, the libidinal. Familiar faces, unfamiliar places.

9. The Immortal Hulk By Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, et al. (Marvel) – The best “Big Two” series in ages showed no signs of slowing down in 2020, as Ewing interjected political issues and plenty of plot twists into his “long game” storyline, while Bennett continued to wow with richly-illustrated action sequences and uniformly inventive…

Is it that time of year again? Why yes, indeed, it is that time of year again — specifically, the end of the year, and with it my end-of-year “Top 10” lists. As usual, things are divvied up into six categories : Top 10 Single Issues (stand-alone comics or comics that are part of an ongoing series that saw only one issue published this year), Top 10 Ongoing Series (serialized comics that saw two or more issues published in the past year), Top 10 Special Mentions (“comics-adjacent” projects such as ‘zines, books on comics history, art books or sketchbooks, or books that utilize words and pictures but don’t adhere to traditional rules of sequential storytelling), Top 10 Vintage Collections (books that reprint work originally published prior to the year 2000), Top 10 Contemporary Collections (books that reprint work originally published, physically or digitally, after the year 2000 and going right…

Oozing forth from the irradiated slime with a wave and a smile, Toronto cartoonist Robb Mirsky’s latest creation is equal parts Casper The Friendly Ghost and The Toxic Avenger, and in the self-published pages of the new mini Sludgy we meet him/it/them in all his/its/their gooey glory, the character’s very existence (on paper, that is) offering a disconcertingly chipper commentary on environmental destruction and the lifelong quest for acceptance on the part of the outcast or those “othered.” Plus, of course, some laughs. Who couldn’t use a few of those?

At heart, Mirsky is a humorist, and his classically-influenced — to say nothing of fundamentally strong and aesthetically professional — cartooning represents a kind of casual apex of thematically-apropos illustration, first setting the proper tone and then carrying it all the way through to the end. He touches on some fairly serious subjects, sure — in fact, his very…

After cutting his teeth on a number of impressive self-published minis in recent years, it was only a matter of time until Thomas Lampion made his full-length graphic novel debut, and with the recent Birdcage Bottom Books publication of The Burning Hotels, that moment has arrived — or maybe it was already here? I mean, yeah, we know that “time is a flat circle” and all that, but even still — synchronicities and repeating patterns throughout history usually don’t figure as prominently as they do here in comics unless they’re written by a certain bearded fellow named Moore.

Yes, this books is a memoir, but it’s a highly inventive memoir, Lynchian in both its structure and imagery, firmly grounded (both in the past and the present) yet nevertheless hallucinatory and even a touch phantasmagoric. It’s unique, that’s for sure — and effectively so, at that. It’s also strangely affecting…

Heralding itself as the first chapter in a multi-part saga, Steve Lafler’s slender new book 1956 : Sweet Sweet Little Ramona — self-published under the cartoonist’s own venerable Cat-Head Comics imprint — is, at first glance, the retail world’s answer to Mad Men (and I say that fairly confidently in spite of being someone who’s never seen probably more than a few minutes of Mad Men — and in passing, at that), but if there’s one thing Lafler’s proven over his long career, it’s that he knows how to subvert expectations even while working within fairly well-defined genre confines. Sure, this being but an opening salvo and all it’s impossible to say whether the same will prove to be true here in the long run, but in the early going? All signs sure seem to point in that direction.

So, yeah, it’s 1956, and a gaggle of department store buyers…

I guess maybe it’s a bit grandiose to call Birdcage Bottom’s release of the fifth and final issue of November Garcia’s Malarkey the end of an era, but fuck it : for the past five years this book has been a staple of my comics-reading life, and I have something of a personal “trajectory” with the title, as well, going from enthusiastic fan to gushing critic to friend of the cartoonist to someone’s who’s consistently thanked in the book’s credits and whose “pill quotes” are regularly featured on its back covers and related promotional internet blurbs. I ain’t no neutral observer or anything of the sort — not that critics ever are, it rather flies in the face of the job description. Still, it’s fair to say that I have a personal interest in Malarkey‘s success, there’s no doubt about it — this comic really is my equivalent…