* At The Comics Journal, Tucker Stone weighs in on the 19 best comics of 2012. Tucker's one of the great voices writing about comics right now, which makes it all the more astonishing to me that I haven't read one book, not one, of the 19 he talks about. And honestly? The Nick Fury one by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov, I would read that, and probably will, eventually. But my life doesn't feel one degree less rich or fulfilling for having not read any of the comics Tucker highlights as among the best he read in 2012. And this is not a slam at Tucker at all, I like his writing and I am sure he loves the hell out of those 19 comics. No, this is me wishing there were 19 comics I loved that much in the past year. I wish, really, that there was even one.
* I am so far removed from my former complete immersion in comics that I can barely remember what I read in 2012, and the only other good comics that really come to mind for me are Waid's Daredevil, which I liked but not enough to stay with it forever, and Moore and O'Neill's final volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century 2009, which was wild. I'll probably read that series as long as they keep at it.
* I dig Fatale by Brubaker and Phillips, but even that has only a shade of the joy I got from their collaborations on Sleeper and Criminal, and I admit I am chasing the dragon and hoping Fatale someday clicks for me and I suddenly see all the wonder and delight of their previous collaborations, especially Sleeper, which was just about the perfect intersection of Brubaker and Phillips's talents with what I am personally looking for in the comic books I read.
* After I wrote the above paragraph, I remembered that I bought the new issue (#11) of Fatale last weekend at Excellent Adventures in Ballston Spa, New York, and I settled in with it just before bedtime. Turns out, it was my favourite issue of the series to date, for reasons I suspect I have their origin in the end notes by writer Ed Brubaker. He says he's had this story -- an homage to H.P. Lovecraft in a more direct manner than we've seen to date in the Lovecraft-inspired series -- in the back of his head for years. More importantly, Brubaker informs us that this is the issue with which he has a clearer idea of what he wants to do, and crucially, what it is possible to do, with Fatale now that it is ongoing. The previous two story-arcs, while well-done and recommendable, both felt like Brubaker and Phillips were trying to adhere to the format they established with Criminal, but this breakthrough issue of Fatale indicates a new-found awareness of the greater freedom publishing through Image is allowing them. I suspect narratively and creatively, #11 will be remembered as the issue of this series in which its creators found their sea legs and began doing something truly noteworthy not only with the comics form, but with the possibilities inherent in true creator ownership of their work.
* Somewhat related: Tom Spurgeon links to Tucker Stone's best-of piece and uses it as a jumping-off point to briefly reflect on how the current batch of year-end best-of-2012 posts seems to indicate "some sort of critical rot." Maybe I'm the guy with a hammer who sees everything as a nail, but maybe it's the comics, not the critics. As entertainment, as art, 2012 was the worst year in comics of my life, a year in which the stories largely failed to engage me, the creators largely failed to enchant me, and the community largely failed, period. If the fairly disgraceful state of comics circa now is in any way finding its way into the thinking of critics as a whole, it's no wonder Spurgeon is smelling something rank out there in the blogosphere.
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