2011 Retrospective

Books in 2011

Best Book I read for the first time this year: Dawn, by Octavia E.Butler

Runner-up: Elric: The Stealer of Souls, by Michael Moorcock

Very different books, but similar in their sense of depth and ability to shake me with their awesomeness.

Favorite Graphic Novel I read for the first time this year: Batgirl Rising (Bryan Q. Miller, et.al.)

Runner-up: Blue Beetle: Reach for the Stars (John Rogers, et. al.)

Best Book I read this year that was published in 2011: Reamde, by Neal Stephenson (review in queue)

Runner-up: Either Snuff, by Terry Pratchett or Stray, by Andrea K. Host. All three very different books, enjoyable in very different ways.

Most fun bookish moments:

• Browsed some awesome used bookstores in Seattle this summer.
• I can put library ebooks on my Kindle now. This is super-exciting!

Comic Books in 2011:

Favorite Issue of a Series: Batgirl #18

Absolutely gorgeous Valentine's Day themed one-issue story about Stephanie's encounter with Klarion the Witch-Boy. I loved this issue to bits.

Runners-up: Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13 (ALL THE ROBINS!), PowerGirl #26 (Power Girl inspires girl-power in her cosplay fans), American Vampire #12 (One-shot story about Skinner Sweet)

Best One-Shot: Jimmy Olsen

I know, this is patently unfair, because the content was written as a back-up in Action Comics, but then they cut the page-count on the series and shuffled this off into its own thick one-shot. Which was fantastic.

Runner up: Superman Beyond 

(because awwwwww...)

Best Miniseries: American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest

The core American Vampire book had ups and downs this year, but this miniseries set in the same world was pretty solid. I mean, Nazi vampires plus flamethrower equals fun, right?

Best Ongoing that got canceled this year: BATGIRL, by Bryan Q. Miller

Man, this is why I can't stay excited about current DC. Because there is nothing now that I like as much as I liked this.

Runner-up: Darkwing Duck

This started to falter in the last arc or two... (did the writers run out of time and try to crunch stuff in?) but it was incredible early in the year. And then it got canceled.

Favorite New On-going Series that I started collecting this year:

A lot of books that I followed were canceled this year. Almost all my favorite titles were stopped, and the ones that weren't had some rough patches. I had high hopes and kind words at the start of the DC New 52, but no book has had three straight issues that I really enjoyed, and for me, those books are all dragging each other down with their sameness.

So, the best new on-going series I'm collecting is: Wolverine and the X-Men.

Because it's got great style and humor, and is not boring. So far.

Runner-up: Maybe Demon Knights? It's more up and down than the other DC books, but the high parts are higher than most of the others.