Did anyone put up Scalpedyet? Jason Aaron's crime drama is both beautiful and brutal dealing with a Native American reservation in South Dakota, and undercover FBI agent Dashal Bad Horse returning home to take down corrupt tribal president Lincoln Red Crow. (I'd write more about it, but my break's ending, and I hate writing on my mobile. Hopefully another Aaron fan can sell it better)
I second Scalped.
Did we get a ruling on Wildstorm? If its Big Two, then I nominated Sleeper. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips tell the story of Holden Carver, a secret agent who went undercover to infiltrate an organization run by supervillains. Then his handler, the only person who knows he's not a villain, goes into a coma. Dark and intelligent superhero noir with gorgeous art and sharp writing.
I thought that Sleeper was earlier, but the final issue just sneaks in past the cutoff date. So seconding that.
I will second Northlanders, although I will admit that I would rate the "Sven the Returned" storyline as a 9 and everything else as, like, a 5 (but "Sven the Returned" is worth it).
I will also second King City, because it's a cool comic, Brandon Graham's art is dense and laden with puns and little details that are significant in their insignificance, and because at over 400 pages for like $12 it's an incredible value proposition.
There have just been too many great comics to hit every single one. Ten years is a long goddamned time. Shit, the Walking Dead, for all the problems I have with it, is one of the most popular books on the market and has spawned one of the most insanely popular shows on television, and it only got one nomination.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah this poll, for as difficult as I thought it was going to be, was actually an easy vote for me. I like a lot of the things on the list, but there were some there that are my distinct favorites.
I never did get around to looking at my bookshelf for all the things I forgot, but I think I'm better for it, in the end.
I'm just realizing that we didn't nominate Casanova, which seems like an oversight.
I probably also should have brought up Umbrella Academy, because I love it and am infinitely sad that it will probably never be finished.
Ooh, yeah. But Umbrella Academy is only 15 issues and I haven't read Casanova (I know) so I wouldn't have nominated either of them. But they should have been nominated by other people.
I probably should have nominated The Boys. There wouldn't have been much point to it as it falls outside my top 5, but it deserves at least something.
I'm just realizing that we didn't nominate Casanova, which seems like an oversight.
I probably also should have brought up Umbrella Academy, because I love it and am infinitely sad that it will probably never be finished.
Ooh, yeah. But Umbrella Academy is only 15 issues and I haven't read Casanova (I know) so I wouldn't have nominated either of them. But they should have been nominated by other people.
I probably should have nominated The Boys. There wouldn't have been much point to it as it falls outside my top 5, but it deserves at least something.
The Boys is such a weird one. There are great moments, and its an overall decent series, but I'm not even sure I'd list it as one of the Top 5 Garth Ennis books over the same period..
I think it's his most significant non-big two work in the last 10 years. I've quite liked some of his 4 or 6 issue limited series that he's done but I only vote for series that have had a decent run. Overall I wouldn't say it's the best work he's done, but it certainly had its fair share of Garth Ennis's best bits.
I'd like to go to bat for Lumberjanes. It's a title that was original meant as a mini series that took on a life of its own and ended up getting flipped into a monthly. It has a great art-style, a memorable cast of characters and appeals to all ages and genders. What other comic has a page dedicated each issue to a character's mix-tape (or CD for the young folks) playlist?
23) King City (14 pts)
Wait, did nobody nominate Prophet? What? How did this happen
21) Sleeper (16 pts)
The only Brubaker/Philips jam to make the list for some inconceivable reason. That’s right, I’m choosing this format to talk mess on your nominations! That’s what I do!
21) Prince of Cats (16 pts)
A hip-hop retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that focuses on Tybalt (derisively referred to as "the Prince of Cats") and his Capulet crew as they do battle nightly with the hated Montagues. Set in a Blade Runner-esque version of Brooklyn, PRINCE OF CATS is a mix of urban melodrama, samurai action and classic Shakespearean theater...all written in Iambic Pentameter!
That’s the Amazon description. That sounds fucking incredible.
Uber shows the outright destruction a "super" could produce without comics usual "nerfing". You throw someone though a wall? He is not walking away... Or walking... Or breathing.
I googled Uber, and got the erstwhile cab company, at first. I’m not sure if it isn’t darker than Kieron Gillen’s alternate take on World War Two or not, but there it is.
Manhattan Projects are a silly, gut wrenching fun time of super-science in the hands of less than noble humans who happen to have similar names to some of the greatest minds of our world and what they do to themselves and the universe.
Our second straight World War II reimaging from a prominent Marvel writer, the Manhattan Projects takes a slightly less grim look at the topic than our previous entry.
18) Afterlife With Archie (21 pts)
Frankly speaking, a comic in which the Archie gang runs afoul of zombies sounds like one of those deals where an old man hears about something the kids are into these days, and says “slap it in our stuff and put it out there! I don’t care!” But Afterlife With Archie is legitimately terrific, and one of the best horror comics in years.
16) Fear Agent (22 pts)
You can find examples in this very thread of how great this series was. If you’re looking for batshit science fiction, this is something you should probably check out.
There are lots of book out there that deal with meta fiction, with what it means to be in a narrative or to create a narrative, but Mike Carey's work on The Unwritten sits among the best out there, even in an arena that can quickly become cliched or trite. Mike builds off of generic story foundations and quickly spirals the narrative into something much more surprising and compelling than the audience expects, while also developing extremely interesting characters and relationships.
I normally do not give much weight to how a comic looks, but the art is also consistently beautiful as well as tying into the themes of the meta narrative. Words flow over the pictures and *become* pictures or burst through panels in a way that exhibits the strange journey that the characters are going through.
15) Ex Machina (23 pts)
Brian K. Vaughan’s explicitly post-9/11 tale of a superhero who becomes the mayor of New York after saving one of the Twin Towers has been overshadowed by some of his other comics work, but its political focus marks it as something unique in superhero comics.
Blacksad is a tour-de-force of visual storytelling. The talent behind it miss no details, giving the reader a lush, living, breathing world to dive face first into. I have found nothing else like it and spend my first few times not even reading, just absorbing the scenes as presented.
13) Locke & Key (25 pts)
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Lovecraftian tale has a fair number of dedicated fans on these boards, but I’m not sure they all turned up for this poll.
12) The Wicked and the Divine (26 pts)
The Wicked and the Divine appeared on 10 total ballots, yet still finished out of the top 10. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s story of Gods as pop stars is still going, however, meaning that in ten years, it might find a spot in the GV20 awards. Huh? Huh? You guys excited for that?
At 27 issues over the course of 10 years, Planetary may have a claim as one of the slowest series on this list, but Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s take on the superhero genre as a whole remains some of the most popular and critically acclaimed work of either of their careers.
9) East of West (34 pts)
From Wikipedia, East of West is “a science fiction Western set in a dystopian version of the United States whose fate rests with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It’s from our writer of the decade, Jonathan Hickman, and artist Nick Dragotta, and it sounds like one of the most Hickman things imaginable, so, sounds like something to add to the backlog of comics I need to read, like, yesterday.
8) Rat Queens (50 pts)
Hey, it’s the Rat Queens again! One of our top five teams of the decade! Hi, Rat Queens! I still haven’t read this, but people really love Rat Queens, so you should probably check it out!
It began with a murder mystery in a community in New York, where the Sheriff Bigby, the Big Bad Wolf (yes that one) was investigating the case while being assisted by the deputy Mayor, Ms. White (of the Snow variety). Little did we know at the time, but these 2 characters would spawn years of stories of a truly epic nature. Heck even the most minor side characters at the time, the mild mannered janitor Flycatcher (Once a froggy Prince), and the shoe store owner Cinderella would become major characters as time progressed.
The story was full of legends and mysteries, heroic deeds and valiant sacrifices, comedy and tragedy (Sometimes quite Literal too), all the things that make up fantastic stories, like the Fables they were born from.
Willingham took the tales we all know (and many we didn't), and managed to turn them on their side, creating an amazing world in the heart of New York, that all of us have ignored, populated by some of the most endearing characters I have ever read about. Where else would you see an immortal who became the world’s greatest spy, because she has honed her craft for hundreds of years? Or the world's greatest Trickster, who's biggest trick was to reveal his story to the world (In a Trilogy of course!) to make himself the most famous and powerful Fable of all. Or one of the weirdest and strangely most believable love stories I've read in comics (or anything really now that I think about it).
He even managed to expand it into several offshoot series and miniseries, prose, and even a video game that have been successful in their own right, and finally has had the balls to actually end the series on his own terms with a truly massive sendoff 150 issues after it began.
This series earned its place in my mind because I STILL constantly pull the Trades off my shelf every few months and read through the entire series again. That’s currently 20 full volumes (22 in a couple months once the series ends, at which point I guarantee I will read it AGAIN), and that’s not even counting Jack of Fables, Fairest, etc. VERY few series can do that.
Fables might have fallen further down my personal list than I would have expected while I was actively reading it, but it created a pretty great cast of characters out of some of the most famous characters in the world, and plopped them in a really intricate narrative, that’s just now starting to wrap itself up.
6) Sex Criminals (67 pts)
First of all, before we get into what some of you said about this comic, I am incredibly upset that this finished two points shy of 69 points. It’s close enough that I am actually angry at this. If you guys had gotten way past the number or way short, I’d be less upset, but it’s so close that it stings all the more. Shame on all of you.
There needs to be more comics like Sex Criminals. Not just for the tongue in cheek nature of how they talk about the sex but in the rather adult way that the topic is approached. It is refreshing to have a comic that isn't erotic in nature but still be able to talk openly about it. It also has a fun engaging story that is able to keep things light and silly while exploring a very weird world.
I still don’t know much about Atomic Robo, but they’re releasing it as a webcomic online, so you can go check it out now, if you want. Seems like a good idea! http://www.atomic-robo.com/
On top of its iconic art and awesome story, Scott Pilgrim rocks for being released in a pseudo manga format. It's easy to get people into a series when it's all contained in discrete volumes. I've owned, lent and lost over 8 copies of Scott Pilgrim #1 and never regretted a repurchase.
Of course, I also love Scott Pilgrim with all my heart. As a Torontonian and Canadian I loved the little references and places and in my late high school years it made for great coming-of-age story set in my backyard. Even now at 23 (I'm now Scott's age!) I read the new coloured versions (which are great) and connect with his problems and issues and see a bit of myself reflected in him. Plus, the movie was fantastic.
Scott Pilgrim, as I’ve noted elsewhere in these polls, is a personal favorite of mine. It’s funny, moving, and full of great action, and has been adapted into one of my favorite movies of all time. Everybody should check these out if you can, and also probably everyone should read Bryan Lee O’Malley’s follow up to this, Seconds.
3) Hellboy (88 pts)
Hellboy almost didn’t make this list at all, which is kind of absurd. He’s one of the most famous comic characters that didn’t come out of Marvel or DC, starring in two really good del Toro movies. Ron Perlman dressed up as him to go to a hospital! That’s serious stuff. Mike Mignola’s art is also incredibly unique and stylish, complementing the fantastic stories he…also writes.
Y: The Last Man is the reason I got into comics when I did. My Dad has always been a fan of comics and I inherited his collection growing up, huge longboxs full of various issues from his teenage years ranging from the original Secret Wars to the Death of Superman. However, it was only when he started buying the Y trades that I got into it something serious. This story would set up a love I have had for many years and also become the bane of my wallet. It is a well crafted story with a good resolution, great characters and is very female friendly, something that is much more prominent now in the industry but Y stood out because of it.
I think, in a decade or so, Y: The Last Man is going to go down as one of the quintessential “this is what got me into reading comics” books, along with stuff like the Walking Dead and Fables. It’s got such a great, easy to explain premise, and is just packed to the brim with great, memorable characters and an incredibly realized world. It’s just terrific.
1) Saga (173 pts)
Saga was billed as Brian K. Vaughan’s triumphant return to comics from television, but it’s also served as a fantastic introduction to the work of Fiona Staples to the comics world at large (interestingly enough, she’s done work on a Northlanders one-shot, so she’s bookending this poll, in a way. Ultimately though, Saga has made it to the top of this list by being wildly imaginative and incredibly human, despite its cast of various alien races, and cements BKV as one of the top writers in comics today. He’s basically the Chris Evans of this poll!
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I think that's the best I can hope for with Prince of Cats
Especially because even I only gave it second place, and I think I'm its biggest proponent
Posts
Oh and can I nominate Godzilla: Half Century War
nominating Criminal and Incognito
because i love brubaker and sean phillips.
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
why the hell has
East of West
not been nominated yet?
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
you're the fifth person to nominate east of west, actually
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
hmmm i was just going of your nomination list thing you posted, thought that was all of them so far.
whoooooooooops
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
I'm willing to bet no one else here has read it, despite it being an Eisner Award nominated comic for 2014.
It's a story about a person losing their mother to cancer and a russian cosmonaut lost in space.
it is incredibly moving and completely on point.
PARKER, YOU'RE FIRED! <-- My comic book podcast! Satan look here!
Someone else third g-man, I can't I was first nomination!
I fucking love that comic
I thought that Sleeper was earlier, but the final issue just sneaks in past the cutoff date. So seconding that.
I will also second King City, because it's a cool comic, Brandon Graham's art is dense and laden with puns and little details that are significant in their insignificance, and because at over 400 pages for like $12 it's an incredible value proposition.
Notes added for three of the five in my list. Hopefully those are helpful when the voting is done.
I probably also should have brought up Umbrella Academy, because I love it and am infinitely sad that it will probably never be finished.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
I never did get around to looking at my bookshelf for all the things I forgot, but I think I'm better for it, in the end.
Also,I've only read four of those comics. Should I just not vote then?
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
I probably should have nominated The Boys. There wouldn't have been much point to it as it falls outside my top 5, but it deserves at least something.
The Boys is such a weird one. There are great moments, and its an overall decent series, but I'm not even sure I'd list it as one of the Top 5 Garth Ennis books over the same period..
It’s about Vikings, and it’s sitting here with only two fifth place votes. Two! Vikings! ! ! !
30) Scalped (4 pts)
Jason Aaron’s follow up to The Other Side, created with R. M. Guéra, Scalped also got two votes in this poll. This poll is absurd, by the way.
29) Deadly Class (5 pts)
Here’s a take on this from @Balefuego, which is going to say more than I’ll be able to about this comic. Read it!
28) The Goon (8 pts)
This is supposedly getting a movie from Blur studios, at some point. Maybe!
26) Daytripper (12 pts)
26) Trillium (12 pts)
Both of these comics seem like prime examples of comics you should just go in with as little knowledge of what’s to come as you can manage.
24) BPRD (13 pts)
24) Lumberjanes (13 pts)
23) King City (14 pts)
Wait, did nobody nominate Prophet? What? How did this happen
21) Sleeper (16 pts)
The only Brubaker/Philips jam to make the list for some inconceivable reason. That’s right, I’m choosing this format to talk mess on your nominations! That’s what I do!
21) Prince of Cats (16 pts)
That’s the Amazon description. That sounds fucking incredible.
I googled Uber, and got the erstwhile cab company, at first. I’m not sure if it isn’t darker than Kieron Gillen’s alternate take on World War Two or not, but there it is.
19) Manhattan Projects (20 pts)
Our second straight World War II reimaging from a prominent Marvel writer, the Manhattan Projects takes a slightly less grim look at the topic than our previous entry.
18) Afterlife With Archie (21 pts)
Frankly speaking, a comic in which the Archie gang runs afoul of zombies sounds like one of those deals where an old man hears about something the kids are into these days, and says “slap it in our stuff and put it out there! I don’t care!” But Afterlife With Archie is legitimately terrific, and one of the best horror comics in years.
16) Fear Agent (22 pts)
You can find examples in this very thread of how great this series was. If you’re looking for batshit science fiction, this is something you should probably check out.
16) The Unwritten (22 pts)
15) Ex Machina (23 pts)
Brian K. Vaughan’s explicitly post-9/11 tale of a superhero who becomes the mayor of New York after saving one of the Twin Towers has been overshadowed by some of his other comics work, but its political focus marks it as something unique in superhero comics.
13) Blacksad (25 pts)
13) Locke & Key (25 pts)
Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Lovecraftian tale has a fair number of dedicated fans on these boards, but I’m not sure they all turned up for this poll.
12) The Wicked and the Divine (26 pts)
The Wicked and the Divine appeared on 10 total ballots, yet still finished out of the top 10. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s story of Gods as pop stars is still going, however, meaning that in ten years, it might find a spot in the GV20 awards. Huh? Huh? You guys excited for that?
11) Empowered (28 pts)
At 27 issues over the course of 10 years, Planetary may have a claim as one of the slowest series on this list, but Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s take on the superhero genre as a whole remains some of the most popular and critically acclaimed work of either of their careers.
9) East of West (34 pts)
From Wikipedia, East of West is “a science fiction Western set in a dystopian version of the United States whose fate rests with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” It’s from our writer of the decade, Jonathan Hickman, and artist Nick Dragotta, and it sounds like one of the most Hickman things imaginable, so, sounds like something to add to the backlog of comics I need to read, like, yesterday.
8) Rat Queens (50 pts)
Hey, it’s the Rat Queens again! One of our top five teams of the decade! Hi, Rat Queens! I still haven’t read this, but people really love Rat Queens, so you should probably check it out!
7) Fables (62 pts)
Fables might have fallen further down my personal list than I would have expected while I was actively reading it, but it created a pretty great cast of characters out of some of the most famous characters in the world, and plopped them in a really intricate narrative, that’s just now starting to wrap itself up.
6) Sex Criminals (67 pts)
First of all, before we get into what some of you said about this comic, I am incredibly upset that this finished two points shy of 69 points. It’s close enough that I am actually angry at this. If you guys had gotten way past the number or way short, I’d be less upset, but it’s so close that it stings all the more. Shame on all of you.
I still don’t know much about Atomic Robo, but they’re releasing it as a webcomic online, so you can go check it out now, if you want. Seems like a good idea! http://www.atomic-robo.com/
4) Scott Pilgrim (78 pts)
Scott Pilgrim, as I’ve noted elsewhere in these polls, is a personal favorite of mine. It’s funny, moving, and full of great action, and has been adapted into one of my favorite movies of all time. Everybody should check these out if you can, and also probably everyone should read Bryan Lee O’Malley’s follow up to this, Seconds.
3) Hellboy (88 pts)
Hellboy almost didn’t make this list at all, which is kind of absurd. He’s one of the most famous comic characters that didn’t come out of Marvel or DC, starring in two really good del Toro movies. Ron Perlman dressed up as him to go to a hospital! That’s serious stuff. Mike Mignola’s art is also incredibly unique and stylish, complementing the fantastic stories he…also writes.
2) Y: The Last Man (109 pts)
I think, in a decade or so, Y: The Last Man is going to go down as one of the quintessential “this is what got me into reading comics” books, along with stuff like the Walking Dead and Fables. It’s got such a great, easy to explain premise, and is just packed to the brim with great, memorable characters and an incredibly realized world. It’s just terrific.
1) Saga (173 pts)
Saga was billed as Brian K. Vaughan’s triumphant return to comics from television, but it’s also served as a fantastic introduction to the work of Fiona Staples to the comics world at large (interestingly enough, she’s done work on a Northlanders one-shot, so she’s bookending this poll, in a way. Ultimately though, Saga has made it to the top of this list by being wildly imaginative and incredibly human, despite its cast of various alien races, and cements BKV as one of the top writers in comics today. He’s basically the Chris Evans of this poll!
Especially because even I only gave it second place, and I think I'm its biggest proponent