Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2020! While this has been, by many accounts, a terrible year, there were a number of fantastic comics released in 2020, and over the next ten days, we’ll be highlighting our favorites across 25 categories. If you want to give your thoughts on our picks or share your own, feel free to do so in the comments!
While new comics are the lifeblood of the industry, every year, there are some wonderful archival releases that repackage comics, allowing us to reassess their value, place in comics’ history or, in some cases, gain access to previously difficult stories. These are our favorites from this year.
3. The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 1
This collection of four adaptations of Neil Gaiman short stories showcases the impact that an outside perspective can have on an already-published work. While they all originally stem from Gaiman’s imagination, the teams behind each adaptation add their own unique character to them. This massive oversized hardcover is also brimming with extra content to allow those who want to go deeper into these worlds the chance to do so.
“The Neil Gaiman Library Volume One” collects four previously-published stories: “A Study in Emerald”, “Murder Mysteries”, “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”, and “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire”. Fans of Gaiman who may not previously have been exposed to these stories might find some new favorite tales. Those who have read the original graphic novels can find value in the oversized printing showcasing the art even more prominently, and the wealth of backmatter included for each story.
The designation of this as the first volume implies that there will be more of these editions in the future. If the quality of “The Neil Gaiman Library Volume One” is maintained, they will likely be a boon to any graphic novel collection that they belong to. – Jodi Odgers
2. Usagi Yojimbo Color Classics
In 2019, IDW started a new run of Usagi Yojimbo comics under the namesake of the character. This series assumes nothing and everything of continuity, with Stan Sakai’s signature gutter notes clarifying where needed. This ‘loose rules’ continuity style left room for another great side series to retell some important stories that do define the character of Usagi.
“Usagi Yojimbo: Color Classics” is a seven-issue miniseries that ran for nine months, due to a global pandemic you may have heard about, starting in January 2020 and running to September 2020. Each issue tells two classic 8-page Usagi stories, woven together by having Usagi tell the stories to his friend, Gen, as they wander the Japanese countryside.
This is the first time these stories have been colored, and they represent some key moments that shaped the type of man and hero that Usagi is in the current IDW run. From childhood bullies to traitors on the Adachi Plain, every issue of this series delivers on the quality craftsmanship of Stan Sakai’s storytelling as you can see the contrast of his past writing to his current writing.
If you are like me, and you have always admired Usagi Yojimbo from afar then “Color Classics” is a great read. Even if you are a seasoned Usagi vet, Tom Luth’s masterful coloring is great to look at. This was one of my favorite reads all year because Usagi is a fun character with depth, and the color classics gave me more perspective into the character’s history without taking me through too much. It is light, easy, and accessible. – Ryan Pond
1 (tie). House of X/Powers of X Hardcover
No one really needs me to tell them that HOXPOX by now. If you’ve read it then you’ve been impressed by it, and everyone who hasn’t must be refusing to because of some kind of chemical imbalance. These two miniseries swept our awards last year, scoring two of our best artist spots, our best writer overall, best single issue, best letterer and the two best limited series of the year. The real revelation here is that it only gets better when you cram it together into a hardcover.
Continued belowThere was something magical about the discussion over this series as it came out week to week, waves of fan theories, annotations and interrogations brought this level of enthusiasm we hadn’t seen in comics in years back to the forefront of the medium. However, reading it cover to cover has its own kind of adrenaline rush. The sheer pace of Hickman’s innovation becomes evident, Larraz and Silva just bounce off of one another with a magical kineticism, and the monument that is Marte Gracia’s coloring brings a lustre to the book throughout. However, what solidifies this book as a near-perfect concerted artifact is the design work of Tom Muller. His construction of an identifying format for the title has become the glue for the entire line of X-Men, which this book established with confidence through its rampant mix of prose, infographics, layered timelines and this magnetic ASCII-esque aesthetic. All of that is amplified here by his hardcover design elements, making him the reader’s easy entry into a book that already seemed about as streamlined as you can find.
Now, this book is expensive, and there is a cheaper softcover out there, but the House of X/Powers of X Hardcover really is invaluable. Every time you flip through a Dawn of X comic or Reign of X comic or whatever machiavellian madness these creators put us through next, having this beautiful book there for reference just gives you an anchor in the beginnings of it all and the thousand years since. Afterall, you have new gods now, and this is their genesis. – James Dowling
1 (tie). Black Hammer – Library Edition Volume 2
The first “Black Hammer” library edition made it onto Multiversity Comics’ Best Reprinted Material list back in 2018, collecting the stories from 2016 and 2017. It earned that recognition for many reasons―the oversized printing, the high quality of its paper stock, and the presentation of the stories which felt at once both classical and important.
The second volume collects the 2018 and 2019 stories (The ‘Age of Doom’ arc, the Eisner winning ‘Cthu-Louise’ one-shot, and ‘The World of Black Hammer Encyclopedia’). Everything that was true of its predecessor is true for the second volume. This library edition features a new painted cover by Dean Ormston, plus an expanded pin-up gallery, making the book feel more special than just a new presentation of previously collected material. But the main reason it’s on our list this year is to highlight Dark Horse’s approach to the line as a whole. We’ve got three library edition volumes now with another two on the way in the first half of 2021, and each of these books maintains the high quality of the first volume. All are incredibly consistent both in terms of their quality and their release schedule. We appreciate that Dark Horse thinks about how its library editions fit together as a set and gets them out relatively quickly after the trade paperbacks.
(And on a personal note, it was really awesome seeing the reading order I put together with editor Daniel Chabon in the back of this year’s library editions.) – Mark Tweedale
1 (tie). Be Gay, Do Comics
It’s hard out there for queer comics fans. Right now there is a world of representation if you fit into a few niche categories, but the rest of us have to squint to see ourselves. So often, complaining about this can feel unfair, as though we’re unfairly judging the world on standards it doesn’t have the ability to achieve. But then there is “Be Gay, Do Comics”.
A big fuck-you to the limitations main stream culture puts on the impossible varieties of the queer identites, “Be Gay, Do Comics” is a collection of stories created by a variety of queer people depicting lifestyles I’ve never seen depicted in any medium before. It’s focus is the variety. It breathes life into the corner of the world we easily forget can be depicted.
I cried multiple times reading “Be Gay, Do Comics” and I’m not an easy crier. It was the unique experience of having a part of myself be reflected back to me in the culture. It was the world I knew made real. Stories may vary in mature content but I can’t imagine a better piece of work to show the world the breadth of our existence.
In this exquisite hardback collection published by The Nib, every identity is valid. Every person is real. There are stories from our history, from our culture and from our lives that have needed to be represented. Within these pages, you are seen and heard. You are real. You are valid. – Jacob Cordas
