January 2022 has been a strange month for comics, but when isn’t that true? We felt that to truly give our readers a sense of what this month was like, we needed a variety of voices to share what their most notable comic moments of January were. And so, we asked some of our senior staff – Kate, Elias, Jaina, Chris, and Brian – to each pick one or two moments that felt fun or representative of the sort of month it was. Share your favorite moments in the comments!
Best Returning Series: “Saga” #55
Has it really been more than three years? For the better part of a decade, “Saga” was an ongoing, well, saga. It’s big and long and epic; a story taking place over years, told over years. You’d see it in comic shops, at cons, in libraries, winning awards, everywhere. “Saga” felt as ubiquitous as “Spider-Man.” But a couple years without a new installment and passion starts to wane. Well “Saga” #55 doesn’t miss a single step. Issue #54 could have come out a month ago, and it would read the same. But absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it is wonderful to be caught in the conflict between Landfall and Wreath with Hazel and her family once again. – Jaina Hill
Most Bittersweet Conclusion: “All My Friends”
Hope Larson’s ‘Eagle Rock’ trilogy has provided some of the most satisfying and entertaining comic booking of the past few years. The story, about a creative, kind young girl named Bina navigating her way through middle school and budding rock stardom, is inspiring for a few reasons. It is the rare story that gives you the perspective of both parent and child in ways that make you understand and sympathize with both sides. I’m sure part of that is the fact that I’m a parent now, but I was once a 12 year old with a guitar, too.
Larson manages to make music, an auditory experience, into something that leaps off the page and acts as a visual language for the books. The details are so spot on, in terms of equipment, tone, and young hopefulness, that this almost reads like autobiography. Larson put a lot of herself into Bina, even if she is not living a life that remotely resembles Bina’s 21st century brush with minor pop stardom.
But this is bittersweet, because “All My Friends” represents the final chapter in this trilogy. Perhaps Larson will return to the characters in the future, but for now, this is the last we see of Bina. And oh, how we’ll miss her. – Brian Salvatore
Most Extreme Drift: “MF Ghost” Vol. 1 – 10
January 2021 saw the surprise drop of the first ten volumes of “Initial D” sequel series “MF Ghost” drop on ComiXology. Say what you will about these two series – the treatment of women is…not great – but as an ardent fan of blasting Eurobeat to get pumped, the release of MORE “men yelling about cars doing ludicrous things fast” had me over the moon. While Takumi Fujiwara, the downhill drifting god with his trusty Trueno, is only a shadow presence here – much like most of the original cast – his successor in doing BAFFLING things with limited resources, Kanata Rivington (what a name, right?,) picks up the slack and brings the fun.
We got drifting. We got records being broken. We’ve got a pompous rival who needs to be taken down a couple pegs. We got everyone crushing on our oblivious pure boy protag. We got him LITERALLY LEAPING IN FRONT OF A TRAIN AFTER RUNNING T-1000 style and coming out safely due to his ability to calculate and extrapolate speeds. If that sounds like your jam then get ready for some “Gas, Gas, Gas” as you go “Running in the ‘90s,” swearing all the while you’ve got major “Deja Vu.” – Elias Rosner
Best Phoenix From the Ashes: “Cowboy Bebop” #1
Netflix’s live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop had a fair bit wrong with it, so it wasn’t a complete shock to see it cancelled after one season. (Dropping the original anime on Netflix close to release date didn’t do it any favors, either.) So readers would have good reason to be skeptical upon Titan Comics’s announcement of a comic tie-in series. Is this fun expansion of the world or just a cheap marketing ploy for a series that was on life support as soon as it premiered?
Continued belowFortunately, the comic leans more towards the former than the latter, taking all the things that make the anime great and putting them in the spotlight. The Bebop family is best when they’re chasing down bad guys with plenty of banter with an edge, a found family that no matter how much time they spend together, there’s just a hint of friction. The story at the heart of this series – – the pursuit of unlimited luck in a very tangible form – – tugs right at just what they’ve always had ever so close in their grasp only to see it slip away: luck. Complementing this classic Bebop script is artwork that captures the stylish post-apocalyptic noir of the series beautifully.
Titan has a good track record at expanding canon of franchises – – take a look at what they’ve done with Doctor Who and Blade Runner, for example. If the series can stick to what makes the franchise work best, and stay away from the weaker soap opera elements (looking at you, Vicious and Julia), the Netflix series can have new life on the page. – Kate Kosturski
Best Observer/Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize Winner:
I really enjoyed Astrid Goldsmith’s “A Funeral in Freiburg,” the strip that won 2021’s belated Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize: a chronicle of the funeral of Goldsmith’s grandmother, it’s a sequence of events so shockingly awful you can only laugh at it. However, I think I personally preferred both of last month’s runner-ups, “Andrew” by A. Wolfgang Crowe, and “Cancer Sells!” by Tat Effby. As someone who recently lost family during the pandemic, Crowe’s commemoration of his late uncle spoke deeply to me about the need for closure with our loved ones, while Effby’s dazzling strip has its cake and eats it, candidly showing her struggle with cancer while mocking the oversaturation of similar memoirs in publishing. It’s an amazing and visually outstanding piece compared to the other two; still, at least they’re all winners right? – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Best Team-Up: “Mary Jane/Black Cat: Beyond” #1
Laurel and Hardy. Dautermann and Wilson. Peanut Butter and Jelly. These are just some of the all-time great pairings. There’s no disputing how well they work together (and I don’t even LIKE peanut butter). Now I think we have to add another to that list because Jed MacKay has proven that MJ and Black Cat are an inimitable team who deserve to have their own spin off book.
The banter is hilarious. The personality clashes are just enough to be tense but not enough to be frustrating or mean. And the situations are tailor made to showcase why they need each other in this instance and have both come out glowing. Black Cat had already been one of my favorite characters thanks to her recent solo series, and Mary Jane’s adventures in Hollywood were tons of fun; this issue just reinforced why both characters have lasted as long as they have AND made me wonder why they weren’t allowed to play off each other like this more often.
Plus, Jed Mackay got Marvel to put in the line “Dump Truck Ass” without any of their swear symbols! That’s a win in my book. – Elias Rosner
Most Compelling Argument for More Weekly Comics: ‘Shadows of the Bat’ in “Detective Comics
There has not, in the modern era, been a weekly comic that has succeeded each and every week. Some have more peaks than valleys, but they are usually a mixed bag of some sort. ‘Shadows of the Bat,’ currently running in “Detective Comics,” has had a fair amount of both valleys and peaks thus far, but it has done something really compelling thus far: it has sped up the stereotypical, decompressed modern comic story into something that feels much more palatable due to the speed at which it is progressing.
Sure, there are bits of Mariko Tamaki’s script that are repetitive or extraneous, but that is mitigated by the fact that each week, we are pushing things along and not dwelling too long on any one beat. Yes, the shift in art from Ivan Reis to Max Raynor will be a jarring one, but because of the schedule, we will fall in line with Raynor’s work before we know it.
But the best part is that, when every story is presented as ‘the most _____ since ______,” the pace of a weekly story allows that to feel a little more possible. The world doesn’t collapse slowly, it happens in the blink of an eye. This is as close to a blink as comics get. So, to present the Arkham Tower situation as truly dire, the expedited pace is a boon to making the audience feel that while reading.
Other comics have done this recently (“Spider-Man Beyond,” for instance), but the type of story being told here is such that this feels like it could only work in this format. Otherwise, we wouldn’t feel the intensity or the pressure with a monthly, or even twice monthly release schedule. For a medium that sometimes can feel staid, more books should change up their release schedules now and then. – Brian Salvatore
