Episode 220: Our Favorite Comics of 2016 - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Time Codes:

• 00:01:50 - Introduction
• 00:03:37 - Setting up our favorites
• 00:07:16 - Year-end statistics
• 00:15:54 - Our favorites of 2016
• 01:43:22 - Wrapping up our favorites, and honorable mentions
• 01:48:55 - Contact us

This is the last regular review episode of 2016, and as the Two Guys with PhDs do annually, they use their final show of the year to share their favorite comics from the past twelve months. Both Andy and Derek have each chosen what he considers the 10 best of 2016 -- and in no particular order -- but neither has shared his list with the other until the recording of this episode. So there are some surprises along the way. There is not much overlap between the guys' lists, and only two titles are mentioned by both. Taken together, this is a wide-ranging selection that includes everything from mainstream superhero comics to small-press selections, from webcomics to manga, from comics in translation to works that are sure to become part of many readers' canon.

However, before they plunge into their lists the guys share some year-end statistics. By the end of 2016 The Comics Alternative will have produced 162 episodes (including this episode and the December manga review). Among those shows, 278 print titles will have been discussed along with 36 webcomics. Derek also crunched the numbers in terms of the most reviewed publishers. The one whose titles were discussed most frequently was Image Comics, with the guys focusing on 25 of their titles. Next is Fantagraphics and Dark Horse Comics with 21 reviewed titles each. After that it's IDW with 19, DC/Vertigo with 17, First Second with 13, and BOOM! Studios with 11. Other publishers whose titles have been reviewed at least 5 times over the past year include Kilgore Books (9), Kodansha Comics (8), Alternative Comics (7), Aftershock (7), Floating World (6), Drawn and Quarterly (5), Retrofit/Big Planet (5), and Avery Hill Publishing (5).

After that numerical rundown, the Two Guys get into their 10 favorite titles of 2016:

Andy's Top 10 of 2016

• The Nib - Various (The Nib)
•  Young Animal line - Various (DC Comics)
•  Vision - Tom King. Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and Kevin Walsh (Marvel Comics)
•  The Sheriff of Babylon - Tom King and Mitch Gerads (DC/Vertigo)
•  The Fix - Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber (Image Comics)
•  Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq - Sarah Glidden (Drawn and Quarterly)
•  The One Hundred Nights of Hero - Isabel Greenberg (Little, Brown and Company)
•  March: Book Three - John Lewis, Andrew Ayden, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)
•  The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye - Sonny Liew (Pantheon Books)
•  Rosalie Lightning / We All Wish for Deadly Force - Tom Hart / Leela Corman (St. Martin's Press / Retrofit/Big Planet)

Derek's Top 10 of 2016

• Paper Girls - Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chang (Image Comics)
• Adam Sarlech: A Trilogy - Frédéric Bézian (Humanoids)
• Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus - Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly)
• 5,000 km Per Second - Manuele Fiore (Fantagraphics)
• The Fix - Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber (Image Comics)
• Blammo #9 - Noah Van Sciver (Kilgore Books)
• Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling - Tony Cliff (First Second)
• The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye - Sonny Liew (Pantheon Books)
• Highbone Theater - Joe Daly (Fantagraphics)
• Goodnight Punpun / The Girl on the Shore - Inio Asano (VIZ Media / Vertical Comics)

The Honorable Mentions…These Titles Almost, but Just Didn’t Quite, Make It onto Each Guy's List

For Andy

• The Black Monday Murders - Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker (Image Comics)
• Dept. H - Matt Kindt (Dark Horse Comics)
• Happy Trails - Scott Roberts (Ubutopia Press)
• Paper Girls - Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chang (Image Comics)
• Faith - Jody Houser, Pere Perez, and Marguerite Sauvage (Valiant Comics)
• Future Quest - Evan Shaner and Steve Rude (DC Comics)
• Blubber - Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics)
• Someone Please Have Sex with Me - Gina Wyndbrandt (2dcloud)

For Derek

• March: Book Three - John Lewis, Andrew Ayden, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)
• Briggs Land  - Brian Wood and Mack Chater (Dark Horse Comics)
• Super Weird Heroes: Outrageous but Real! - Craig Yoe, ed. (Yoe Books/IDW)
• The Eltingville Club - Evan Dorkin (Dark Horse Books)
• Panther - Brecht Evens (Drawn and Quarterly)
• Patience - Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)
• The One Hundred Nights of Hero - Isabel Greenberg (Little, Brown and Company)
• Various manga: I Am a Hero - Kengo Hanzawa (Dark Horse Manga); Princess Jellyfish - Akiko Hagashimura (Kodansha Comics); Otherworld Barbara, Vol. 1 - Moto Hagio (Fantagraphics)

Further episodes of The Comics Alternative

Further podcasts by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Website of Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal