Happy New Year! Our staff has some goals for our personal comics consumption in 2023, and we want to encourage y’all to do the same! So, each day this week, we’ll be sharing some of our thoughts and goals for the next 12 months. We’d love you to continue the conversation in the comments or on social media.
Question #1: In 2023, I want to read more…
Elias Rosner: …weird indie books and webcomics. The first because there was a book called “Pee Pee Poo Poo” #69 and I missed it and I am KICKING MYSELF for not getting it. Also I have, like, 50 books from the Shortbox Digital Fair sitting on my hard drive, calling out to me in plaintive wails. (Sorry I couldn’t read them in time for this year’s voting!)
For the second, I really fell off the webcomics train last year outside of reviews and I’m struggling to stay up to date with the few I love. Chalk it up to focusing more on my anime backlog or not being at a computer screen as much or my RSI issues exploding. Whatever the reason, I want 2023 to be the year I dial back in and explore outside the usual Webtoon/Tapas spaces.
Brian Salvatore: …stuff from creators I don’t know about today. Due to my specific Multiversity responsibilities, a lot of times I’m reading things because of a piece, an interview, or a podcast I’m prepping for, and that can lead to reading a lot of the same folks whose work I’m already familiar with. I want to find stuff from new creators who can give me something totally new and unique.
Also, I want to read more comics held in my hand and not on a screen.
Mark Tweedale: …manga. Except for my Junji Ito books, I’ve neglected manga for a few years now. I think I need to get back into it. I really want to read “Blood on the Tracks.”
Robbie Pleasant: …foreign comics other than manga. That’s not to say I’ll be reading less manga (far from it!) but I do want to expand my horizons. Every year I see Multiversity’s picks for “best translated work (non-manga)” and think “Wow, these sound really neat, I should check them out” and I just… don’t. So maybe this year I’ll change that.
Mel Lake: …I have a feeling this may have been my resolution last year but even if that’s the case I’m sticking with it. I’d like to read more comics that are popular outside the United States. This was spurred on by the news that Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement are set to adapt “The Incal,” a series I know little about.
Ryan Fitzmartin: …books from Marvel and DC. For the past few years I’ve been focused heavily on Dark Horse, and Image, but I’ve heard great things about the recent output from the big two and I want to dip my toes back in the mainstream. The few things I’ve read from them in 2022 were quite good, but they were scattered. In 2023 I’d like to keep up with an ongoing book from each of the big two, maybe read the whole of an event!
Jaina Hill: …Larry Hama work! I started dabbling with his 90s “X-Men” stuff, and now I want to fully commit. I’m hoping to get enough momentum to put a real dent into his epic “G.I. Joe” run.
Kate Kosturski: …in general. That’s it. Just read more. 2022 was a year I fell out of step with consistent comics reading and prose reading. The continued reopening of the world post acute COVID, which included a return to business travel for me in May, upended a lot of my free time. And I will be the first to admit I did not manage that free time effectively enough to incorporate in reading just for pleasure. comiXology’s platform changes also didn’t help matters either.
Now that I have a better sense of my rhythms between work and home post-acute COVID, I want to balance that free time in the stolen moments of each with more reading, and discover (or perhaps rediscover) some of the great works that we’ve covered throughout 2022 (and 2021, and 2020).
