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Creators' Year in Review Part 1: Comics We Loved in 2024

Come for the comics, stay for the, uh, comics.

Cover by Joshua Cassara.

One of the pieces I most looked forward to at the end of every year was Multiversity's Creators' Year in Review. Brian, the man behind the curtain, would send out questions to comics creators all the around the comics world and come back with a list of answers that was every bit as eclectic as the people answering them. You never knew what comics or other creators would be reified en masse and which ones would bubble up from the underground, catching you completely off guard.

It was fun and I always got some excellent recommendations.

As is my wont, I wanted to fill that hole with my own Creators' Year in Review. and that's what you're reading now! My pool of comics creators is not nearly as wide as Multiversity's was - to be perfectly frank, I knew I wouldn't be able to field that many potential responses during my first year - and it was on shorter notice than I'd have liked, but I'm proud to say I got a damn fine group assembled below.

So. Five Questions. Five Posts. Let's get this started.

Thank you to everyone who responded, whether that was to say they were so swamped they couldn't make it this year or whether they gave me five mini essays to format. Y'all are great!

What were some of the comics - print, digital, web, etc. - you loved in 2024?

Rodrigo Vargas (“The Do-Over,” “Walking to Do”): I loved Jerzy Drozd’s “The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue.” It’s such a good fantasy/adventure comic that’s good for all audiences. Jerzy is a great cartoonist and dude loves his monsters. So it’s good.

Also, been really liking Luca Debus and his comic strip “Wannabe.” Hard to pull off making a fun daily comic, but Luca does it like a star.

Evan Dahm (“3rd Voice,” “Island Book”): I liked Sajan Rai's "ALAS," that just came out through the Shortbox comics fair. And I read the majority of the enormous currently-ongoing webcomic "Superpose" recently; I am pretty blown away by that.

Sebastian Girner (“The Dead and the Damned,” “Scales and Scoundrels”): Between spending a good portion of the year between jobs, managing two kickstarters for Goats, and just generally trying to keep it together I read very few published comics this year, instead reading peer review PDFs or pitches sent my way. I did manage to catch Juni Ba’s “The Boy Wonder,” which I enjoyed a lot, as I do all of Juni’s work, and I’m glad to see my friends and colleagues Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox bring their sci-fi thriller ‘The Weatherman’ to a furious and deserved finale.

Harry Bogosian (“A Better Place,” “Angel’s Orchard”): I dropped off reading “Chainsaw Man” for a while, but I've recently gotten back into it. The ability of Tatsuki Fujimoto to defy my expectations while also consistently having strong themes and character building is incredibly impressive. He hides so much of the worldbuilding under a facade of "oh that's dumb but cool"- when in reality it's "wait that's actually brilliant AND cool". It's often hard to know how much you are deluding yourself when reading his work, and I absolutely love that.

I have also been continuing to read and love the webcomic "Amunito" by Hambonous. It's a beautifully realized bizarre world full of characters I want to see succeed as well as fail. Every line and color choice is aesthetic, and I'm impressed with each update!

Thom Zahler (“Love and Capes,” “Time & Vine”): I really loved “Barda” by Ngozi Ukasu. It’s a perfect distillation of the Kirby characters, and it expands some of the story in really interesting ways. Beautifully drawn, too.

And my friends Tony Fleecs, Trish Forestner, and Tone Rodriguez are knocking it out of the park with “Feral.”

Pat Shand (“Destiny, NY,” “Private Dance”): “Chi's Sweet Home” – I read that for the first time this year and I can't get enough. That was beautifully told, slice-of-life cartooning from Konami Kanata. Simple, evocative pages, incredible motion in the art, and writing with heart.

I like what Dave Franchini is doing at Zenescope. He's become the current main voice of Zenescope and he's doing great work on “Grimm Fairy Tales” and “Belle” that should be appreciated more. He's been on almost 100 consecutive issues of “Grimm Fairy Tales,” redefining that series in major ways. How often does something like that happen in indie comics?

Ryan Holmberg (“The Translator without Talent,” Translator for Yoshiharu Tsuge Library): Old horror manga.

Taylor Robin (“Never Satisfied,” “Hunger's Bite”): “Home by the Rotting Sea” by Otava Hekkila, “Ballad for Black Cassandra” by Olivia Stephens, “Sacred Bodies” by Ver, “Blade of the Fane” by Theo Stultz... Honestly I could list out my whole Shortbox cart and there wouldn't be a wrong answer, and I spent an embarrassing amount of money on them.

Tri Vuong (“Lego Ninjago: Garmadon,” “The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn”): I'm a little behind on my reading but here are some recent-ish comics I enjoyed this year: "Transformers" by Daniel Warren Johnson," The Last Mermaid" by Derek Kirk Kim, and "White Ash" by Charlie Stickney and Conor Hughes.

Blue Delliquanti (“O Human Star”, “Across a Field of Starlight”): I got to read a huge chunk of the ShortBox Comics Fair offerings this year, and there are plenty that stick with me for telling a great story, trying a cool art technique, or offering something that I just can't find elsewhere in the current comic landscape. “Ballad for Black Cassandra” (Olivia Stephens), “The Solar System” (Seosamh Dáire), “Expiry Date” (Sloane Hong), and “We Live Here Too” (Kiku Hughes) are all titles I hope become available again after the fair.

There were some excellent graphic novels out this year by creators I've come to know from the webcomic world, and it's fun seeing their creative sensibilities grow over time. “Tiffany's Griffon” (Magnolia Porter Siddell and Maddi Gonzalez) is an excellent middle-grade read that truly understands what it's like to be a child bookworm waiting for their invitation to a more magical world. “Phobos and Deimos” by J Dalton is a science fiction take on the classic story of an ambitious young woman trying to move up in a rigid and inhospitable society. “Bunt!” (Ngozi Ukazu and Mad Rupert) is a hysterical dig on art school structured like a sports anime, and as an art school adjunct reading it is even funnier.

Manga I've read and enjoyed include Ai Tanaka's dreamy “King in Limbo” and Kasumi Yasuda's stylish “Fool Night.” And of course I had to finish “Delicious in Dungeon,” which Ryoko Kui slam dunked on the ending.

Cover by Sloane Hong

Grover (“Deeply Dave,” “Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within”): “Blind Alley” (Adam de Souza), “Space Deer” (Indiana-Jonas), Stephen P Neary's diary comics, “Football American Dream” (Luke Kruger-Howard.)

Meredith McClaren (“Black Cloak,” “Hinges”): “Sacred Bodies” and “Always Never.”

Kay Davault (“Misfit Mansion,” “Oddity Woods”): Some recent ones I've read and loved were “Unico: Awakening” by Gurihiru & Samuel Sattin, “Jane and the Mermaid” by Vera Brosgol, and “Anzu and the Realm of Darkness” by Mai K Nguyen.

Joe Corallo (“Dahlia in the Dark,” “The Never-Ending Party”): Two that I absolutely loved were Charles Burns’ latest graphic novel, “Final Cut,” and Rick Parker’s debut graphic novel, “Drafted: An Illustrated Memoir of a Veteran’s Service During the War of Vietnam.” Highly recommend both. I’ve also been enjoying runs on a bunch of comics. Too many to name them all, but I’ll mention the “Superman” and “Green Lantern” titles at DC, “Ice Cream Man” at Image, “Flash Gordon” at Mad Cave Studios, the Conan titles at Titan Comics, as well as “Space Ghost” and the continuing “Elvira” comics at Dynamite Entertainment.

Michael Moreci (“Barbaric,” “Dick Tracy”): I loved “Local Man.” I think it's a downright crime this book didn't receive more attention than it did. It's fantastic, and it's premature ending is maddening. It's the exact type of book retailers and fans say they want, and then it comes out and nearly enough people support it. But, thankfully, everyone can still read it--get the trades, get it in digital, whatever it takes, just read this book.

Petra Nordlund (“Prague Race,” “Tiger Tiger”): This year I finally started reading “Witch Hat Atelier!” I thought I was in for a comfy cozy time- but I was pleasantly surprised by the darker twists and turns. It's also a work that every artist should read, not only for its own art - but how it tells a story about making art. The witches in this world draw their magic, and the whole story is full of interesting perspectives to the process of drawing itself! A story inside of a story, especially for people who draw.

Mike Henderson (“Nailbiter,” “The Forged”): I didn’t have a lot of time to read in the first 1/2 of the year but have caught up a bit since. The Energon stuff has been exciting to see take shape and the offerings from DSTLRY, “Somna” and now “One for Sorrow” have been particularly good. “The Hunger and the Dusk” has also been a lot of fun.

François Vigneault (“Titan,” “Orcs in Space”): Other than reading that I do for work, my overall consumption of comics has gone waaaayy down in recent years... I'm not exactly sure why but it's undeniable! But one new series that I did manage to read in its entirety and really enjoyed was “Tokyo These Days” by Taiyo Matsumoto. A retired manga editor decides to publish the anthology of his dreams, calling upon a motley crew of mangaka. A low-key love letter to comics, art, and the pleasures and pains of everyday life. I did in fact manage to make this into work by reviewing the first volume over at “The Comics Beat,” haha. Hopefully I can find more time to read purely for pleasure in 2025!

Boum (“The Jellyfish,” “Boumeries”): I enjoyed several comics from the Short Box Comics Fair last October, my favourite of the lot being “Dog Days” by Bianca Bagnarelli. But I’m pretty sure my book of the year is “Momm” by Catherin, published by the French side of Pow Pow Press! It’s a story of love, death and grief, told in a very delicate and whimsical way. I hope it gets an English release sometime soon, it deserves a wide recognition!

Coni Yovaniniz (“The Do-Over,” “Walking to Do”): There’s two webcomics-turned-book series that I finished this year and really loved: “O Human Star” by Blue Delliquanti, and “Nihil Negativum” by Mario A. González. I’ve been very bad at keeping up with webcomics lately (probably because I don’t enjoy looking at screens anymore? idk), but there’s this thing in webcomics that I really love…like, there’s no one else involved in it, and so the authors can really do whatever the hell they want, you know?

I also loved “Monica” by Daniel Clowes! Kinda embarrassing to admit, but this is my first time reading Clowes’s work…I think one of my resolutions for 2025 will be to catch up with “Eightball.”

Vera Greentea (“Grimoire Noir,” “The Idols of Solanşehir”): Comics in 2024 were a fun lot, a lot of my favorite creators came out with a book! Gene Luen Yang had the bittersweet and lovely “Lunar New Year Love Story,” Faith Erin Hicks came out with the adorable “Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy,” and Jen Wang published a really thoughtful story in “Ash’s Cabin.” Not exactly new, but the gorgeous “Kochab” by my sometimes collaborator Sarah Webb has been finally published in full after being posted online for 8 years. It was an exciting year!

Reed Hinckley-Barnes (“Hero of Legend,” Letterer on “Wild Wisps”): On Kickstarter, “Tales of the Frog Knight” by Armand Bodnar and Digby May-Porazinski is fun, episodic fantasy storytelling with a unique and gorgeous art style. In the direct market, the new “Ultimates” series has been a great exploration of how good superhero comics can be when they actually have something to say. In webcomics, “Who Killed Sara Shaw” by Frankie White and Adam Markiewicz is a great, stylish exploration of true crime, and the ways it affects the communities those shows cover and the people who make it.

Zach Clemente (Bulgilhan Press): I’ve really been enjoying the first volume of Taiyo Matsumoto's "Tokyo These Days" and am looking forward to more! I've also been keeping up with Chainsaw Man as the chapters come out and strangely it's been an absolute balm. Lastly, a wonderful find was a new webcomic "Automatical" by Bea Ritter.

Vimeddiee (“Under the Aegis,” “The Ocean Soul”): I started “Electric Bones” by Hazel because it really caught my eye and has been so enjoyable to read!

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