As the year draws to a close we ask some of our favourite cartoonists to choose their comics and graphic novels of the year.
Edward Ross, Filmish
I'd like to pick out Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life, a thought-provoking look at fertility and loss. In the book, Knight explores her difficult experiences of trying to conceive, and her eventual decision to live a life without children. It’s intimate, personal and quite timely, deconstructing our culture’s expectations surrounding reproduction, and offering a vision of a life well lived beyond those expectations.
David Baillie, creator of Red Thorn
I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read as many comics published this year as I should have, and the ones I have read are probably already being raved about by everyone. If I have to pick one title, though, it has to be My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, the first work of a fabulous illustrator who discovered her talent for comics later in life (I think she's in her mid-fifties). Drawn onto a lined notepad, every page is a master composition and the story completely enthralling - and completely unique!
Notable runner up has to be to Aliens: Dead Orbit by writer/artist James Stokoe, who, along with the equally brilliant Brandon Graham and Marley Zarcone, is part of the Yosh comics collective. (If Aliens aren't your thing I really recommend picking up his Wonton Soup from a few years ago.)
Just behind that, I'd have to nominate the various Thor collections that came out this year by Jason Aaron and various artists (but mostly Russell Dauterman) which have been high-octane Marvel fun, getting enormous mileage from Norse mythology, the old Unworthy Odinson and a new mysterious female Thor.
Kate Charlesworth, Nelson, Sally Heathcote, Suffragette
The irony of making a graphic novel seven days a week every week, is that there’s barely any time to read anyone else’s. Luckily, I had a pre-publication copy of Bryan Talbot’s Grandville – Force Majeure, the fifth and final book of his fabulous “anthropomorphic steampunk detective mysteries” to read at my leisure. What detail! What artwork! What a cracking read. The biggest and best of the series – and now with anti-spoiler technology!
Metaphrog, The Little Mermaid, The Red Shoes and Other Tales
John Chalmers: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. With an awareness of Tom Waits and David Lynch and a love of old EC horror comics, this wonderful graphic novel is narrated by a 10-year-old monster wrestling with her identity and racial and sexual issues. Part detective story, part diary and definitely not a comic for kids as it covers paedophile rings, the Holocaust and attempted rape (and that’s just in the first part).
Sandra Marrs: Monograph by Chris Ware. A gigantic treasure trove of Chris Ware’s work – stimulating, fascinating and entertaining. We have been following his comics for a quarter of a century and this tome brings it all together and more.
John Allison, creator Giant Days
One of my favourite comics of the year is Marvel’s Squirrel Girl, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, one of the densest, cleverest, silliest comics ever released, a true “all-ages” title that will delight almost anybody.
Robbie Morrison, Writer: Doctor Who, Nikolai Dante, White Death
My choice is Rok of The Reds. I've often felt like I'm the only Scotsman in the world who's not a football fan, but this rollicking mix of science-fiction adventure, goal-scoring action and black comedy won me over and had me signing up for a season ticket.
Alien renegade Rok of Arkady attempts to escape his intergalactic enemies – who have already destroyed one world in pursuit of him – by trading places with boozy, arrogant loudmouth Kyle Dixon, a one-time star striker now kicking his heels with no-hopers Radford Reds, reviled by both fans and his fellow players.
Rok of the Reds recalls and pays affectionate, occasionally irreverent, homage to the classic age of British comics, but does so to create something that's fresh and new, unlike any other comic out there at the moment, and more fun than all of them put together.
Premiere league writers John Wagner and Alan Grant (Judge Dredd, Batman) and scorching-hot newcomers artist Dan Cornwell, colourist Abby Bulmer and letterer Jim Campbell hit the back of the net with every panel of this series from Scottish publisher BHP Comics. A book collection is planned for April 2018 and a sequel is in the works.
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