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2022 Year in Review: Best Digital First Series

By | December 19th, 2022
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2022! We’ve got over 25 categories to get through, so make sure you’re checking out all of the articles by using our 2022 Year in Review tag.

In just a couple of years, the idea of digital first comics has completely shifted. Substack has emerged as a major player in this field, comiXology Originals has added some major star power to its roster, and DC and Marvel have continued to push out new titles first via their digital platforms. Let’s see how the field has changed in 2022.

3. Three Worlds / Three Moons

We’ve actually talked about “Three Worlds/Three Moons” this Year in Review already, Jonathan Hickman, Mike Huddleston and Mike Del Mundo have made something remarkable by being the first first Substack creators to truly feel like their own publisher, mainly because they work hard to make sure everyone gets a book in their hands. That’s why we gave them a place on our list of best small press publishers, but it’s also proved itself to be an exceptional comic in print and online.

Hickman must have a knack for stringing a story and style between the varying influences artists bring, since he’s basically been managing publishing lines as long as he’s been a creator at Marvel, which makes this a natural evolution. “3W3M” has such a wealth of talent in its first book “Systems,” like Christian Ward, Valentine De Landro and Jason Howard, as well as talented new artists like Nimit Malavia. Tying it together is the design by Huddleston and Del Mundo, who bring their own incredibly diverse techniques to the comics, proving they are genuinely two of the most multi-faceted artists in the industry.

The openness of “3W3M” can frustrate some, but it leaves the story gloriously unbound from the demands of plot, like a concept album that’s made purely to be sonically impressive. Now, in the second year of the publisher we’re starting to see some serialized stories, with the promise of some stronger threads emerging and other writers joining the publisher. We don’t know how long the Substack will go for and how long the books will keep coming, but this first year and a bit has given ample reasons to stay on the ride as long as you can and see what they create. – James Dowling

2. Darkest Night

Substack defined a substantial part of my comics year (especially in the wake of ComiXology trying its best to blow several gaping holes in its own hull). Of the comics I read there, Molly Knox Ostertag’s “Darkest Night” quickly became a favorite. In part, it’s because it’s playing with stylistic techniques I enjoy. Like Better Call Saul, the present is in black and white, while the past is in color. It’s a technique that makes the readers feel how the main character, Mags, is perpetually tired and feels trapped in her life. The past, both good and bad, is in color. However, her phone messages in the present are always in color too, good news or bad.

It’s pretty easy to cast modern technology as an alienating factor in modern life, and given the subject matter it would have been really easy for Ostertag to go down that same path. But she doesn’t. Instead she does something far more interesting, treating it like a lifeline. It’s not the answer to Mag’s isolation—it is monochromatic for a reason, after all—but it does stop her from completely shutting down at times. And after a few years of living alone during COVID, this was an aspect of the story that rings truer now than ever.

It’s also a story about living with self-loathing and not trusting anyone to love you just as you are, compartmentalizing the aspects of yourself that you think no one could ever accept. Here, again, is where color is so powerful. Ostertag often takes a particular color from a traumatic moment in the past and later uses in it the present as a sharp, monochromatic intrusion.

The “Darkest Night” story is still unfolding, but the latest installments are taking these ideas and pushing them further, developing in ever more interesting ways. But more importantly, these techniques are used to reveal the characters more honestly. Less has to be said when the art speaks this eloquently, and since Mags has put up so many walls against the people around her, it allows the reader to see her as no one else does. This could’ve been achieved with narrative caption boxes, but captions are read and processed on a conscious level before they can evoke emotion, whereas color speaks to emotion first. It allows the reader to feel the story through Mags. And since feeling and not feeling are a huge part of the story, this is a much more evocative choice. I look forward to seeing where Ostertag takes “Darkest Night” in 2023. – Mark Tweedale

Continued below

1. Public Domain

Internet funny-man Chip Zdarsky has done it again folks. Thanks to big-papa Substack, he’s finally able to transcend his status as the artist on little known title “Sex Criminals” and the writer on some obscure book known as “Batman” to become the cartoonist on the juggernaut that is “Public Domain.”

You want jokes about shitty tattoos? Zdarksy’s got you covered. You want every poster in the background to be a gag or a pun? Of course you do. You want to read a fantastical comedy that’s a sobering look at the damage mega-corporations have done to the creative industry and the people within it through a dysfunctional family coming to grips with that reality and their own deep-seeded issues? My friends, there’s a reason “Public Domain” is #1 on our digital first list.

To be serious for a second, “Public Domain” is everything you could want from a comic series about comics and everything you could want from both the “Howard the Duck” Zdarsky and the “Daredevil” Zdarsky. It’s not navel gazy or clean and it’s not a biopic either. It’s instead a family dramedy set against the backdrop of an extractive industry that has morphed into something more grotesque than anything anyone can imagine, worshiping at the altar of capital instead of working to support the creators and their art.

Which makes it still so weird that it was another dubious company that allowed this book to come into our lives.

Now, normally this list is dominated by ComiXology or Marvel Unlimited books, mostly because they’re the highest profile publishers of what we consider digital comics (sorry Panel Syndicate.) This year, however, things have changed thanks to ComiXology’s implosion and Substack throwing so much money at comics creators to serialize works through their newsletter based system. And putting aside the inherent misery of reading comics in your email (Panels isn’t on android right now…,) “Public Domain” thrived in this space because of Zdarsky’s talent for pacing and storytelling.

All that is to say, “Public Domain” is an amazing series that’s gotten me thinking about a lot of things and we’re all the better for it. – Elias Rosner


//TAGS | 2022 Year in Review

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