Favorites of 2024 (On Reflection)

When I wrote my best-of-2024 list for The Comics Journal last December, I predicted that what I had to say there would "differ sharply from whatever I say months from now." I was right. These days, I don't get to catch up with the talked-about comics of the previous year until, at least, the ides of March. In fact, mid-March is here and I am still working to track down acclaimed volumes from last year.* In the meantime, Jamie Colville has published his annual combined list of "best comics and graphic novels," a compilation of opinions and rankings from more than 250 sources, which is an useful resource you should go check out right now.

Below in slideshow format are twenty-two comics from 2024 that I found interesting and vital. Of these, nine appeared on my list for TCJ. The others I've mostly read since January 1, 2025. Of these, I consider perhaps five or six of them to be in KinderComics territory — that is, comics that could plausibly be labeled young readers' comics. I reviewed three of those here.

Notes: Four of what follows are pamphlet comics of some kind. Three are manga. One (Sunday) is a work by a Belgian originally published in Berlin. One (Bald) hails from the Czech Republic. Eight are at least partly autobiographical. Sadly, there are no webcomics on this list, a sign of my continued foot-dragging and perhaps of middle-aged stubbornness (but I'm working on that). Also missing here are the various Marvel and DC periodicals I follow on my tablet, not out of Luddism but because this time around none of them quite rose above the general pleasurableness of the habit (um, I read Absolute Wonder Woman on paper).

(Note: Clicking on a book's slide will take you to a publisher's or creator's webpage.)

A few more notes:

• Five of the above comics appear in the Top 20 derived from Jamie Colville's list: Absolute Wonder Woman, Final Cut, Sunday, Blurry, and Lunar New Year Love Story.
• Jamie's data suggest a disconnect between what's being talked about most and what interests me most. For the record, I am following the current Ultimate Spider-Man, Absolute Batman, and The Ultimates, but don't think of them as Top 20 books.
• The book above that I wrestled with the most was Tessa Hulls' Feeding Ghosts, probably because it is thickly narrated in what I think of as post-Fun Home style. I fought the book until the home stretch, but its layering of familial and sociopolitical history is amazing and I nearly drowned in Hulls' drawings. 
• I subscribe to Mike Dawson's Monthly 'Zine Club, which means I get something delightful in the mail roughly every month. 
• The long-awaited My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two, was, alas, a letdown.
• My Books of the Year? On reflection, I'd say Ash's Cabin, Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies, Arctic Play, Grand Electric Thought Power Mother, and Sunday.
• I just finished reading Sunday today (a Sunday!), and it works wonders with the familiar sequential grammar of paneled comics. Its density and connectedness are mind-boggling. So is its playfulness. Meanwhile, Grand Electric Thought Power Mother overflows the grammar of comics; it's a stunning series of experiments with patterned image-making. As I worked my way through it, I moved from stymied confusion to reveling in its sheer chutzpah. And Arctic Play — as it combines collage, pattern poetry, list poetry, and a even a visual sonnet — has me rethinking, again, the possible relationships between comics and verse. These books reinvigorate the idea of comics; they've rewired my understanding of what comics can be.

I eagerly await the Eisner Award nominees for 2024, which will probably be announced in May.

*PS. I'm still anxious to read acclaimed 2024 titles such as Big Jim and the White Boy, I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together, The Library Mule of Córdoba, Ninja Sarutobi Sasuke, Tender, Tokyo These Days Vol. 1, and Young Hag and the Witches' Quest. I've requested these from my local library.