Favorites of 2021

Despite hard times, I've been blessed with good comics reading, especially around this winter holiday season. I've contributed a list of favorites from 2021, along with commentary, to The Comics Journal's annual Best-Of, and what they have assembled is a great resource, well worth checking out (more than 20,000 words by close to thirty different critics). Meanwhile, the slideshow below offers an expanded list of personal faves, sans commentary, just FYI.

I'm sure I've missed many great comics this year, as usual. Who can keep up?

Of the thirty-two comics shown below, only six or seven are clearly "for" young readers. Some are decidedly adult. I note that, once again, I've listed more books (seven) from Drawn & Quarterly than any other publisher. I've also listed four from Fantagraphics. I've reviewed four of the titles below for SOLRAD: The Online Literary Magazine for Comics and three of them here on KinderComics.

The books are listed alphabetically. Click on a book's cover to go to a webpage with more info about the book:

A few notes about some of the above titles:

• Kruger-Howard's Goes and Weinstein's The Gift of Time reminded me of how comics can make a difference in the world. They can make a difference in how we feel, how we imagine, and how we treat one another. Of course they can! Wonderful books.
• The Thud may be the book that taught me the most, because reviewing it required background reading and the ethical problems it poses are complex. 
• The Good Asian is probably the best example of twisting genre tropes to new ends that I encountered in comics this year. I followed many direct-market comic-book serials this year (Adventureman, Far Sector, Fire Power, Head Lopper, Strange Adventures, and more), and sampled many too, but this one grabbed me from the get-go. 
• Thirsty Mermaids made me grin and holler; I got more gut-level pleasure out of that book than any other graphic novel this year.
• Monsters, the second comic I read in 2022 (I finished it yesterday), bugged me more than any other graphic novel this year. It's a beast of a book, weird and dizzying, with an absurdly rigged plot, an ending that doesn't come off, and many questionable if gutsy narrative choices. The book doesn't work entirely, but sustains a nerve-rending suspense, punctuated by stunning moments of violence and cruelty, all served up with a confidence and fury that would be hard to top. I sort of didn't like reading it, and then again it sort of carried me away.
• Trots and Bonnie is a wonderful act of reclamation, a long-overdue collection that traces a path from the heyday of underground comix through the late 1980s. Historic.
• It's Life as I See It is likewise an historic achievement, and a must for all serious comics studies libraries. It represents the work of nine distinctive artists, but so much more. Props to curator/anthologist Dan Nadel for this.