Looking Back at 2023: The Year in Comics
By Dan BrownThe categories are arbitrary. My picks are open to debate. You likely have come to totally different conclusions.That said, here are the highlights – according to no one but me – from the last year in the comics biz.Villain of the year: The hip dragon from Scott Chantler’s Squire & Knight graphic novel, who sounds to my ear like a beach bum. When attacked by a self-promoting paladin, he responds in a laconic way: “Pretty rude, man.”Hero of the year: Common sense, as portrayed in the same book, which comes from the Stratford-based comic creator. It outlines the adventures of a medieval do-gooder and his young apprentice, who refuses to jump to conclusions based solely on circumstantial evidence. Turns out common sense is actually not that common. Writer of the year: BealART grad Lynette Richards, for Call Me Bill, an evocative tale delving into a long-standing East Coast maritime mystery. Richards gives the title character, an actual mariner, a plausible back story, in the process paying tribute to someone who was ahead of the times. Artist of the year: London’s D.S. Barrick for his work on Murgatroyd & Nepenthe, which he describes as a tale of two travelers trekking through the hinterlands of the imagination. It’s a visual feast not to be missed.Comic of the year: Crimson Fall: Lambs of God. This Derek Laufman mini-comic about two mismatched characters, a cleric and a knight, can be read as a straightforward story about demons in a dungeon, but underneath that is a much broader debate about the limits of reason to explain the world around us.Graphic novel of the year: Palookaville No. 24, particularly the latest instalment of Nothing Lasts, Seth’s autobiography-in-the-making. He calls attention to the constructed nature of his life story, encouraging the reader to think about the way memory becomes fiction. Or was it always fiction? (I suppose Seth’s latest is technically a comic, but it has a hard cover so it qualifies as a graphic novel in my mind. It’s not like Seth is publishing it monthly.)Panel of the year: The final panel of Are You Willing to Die For The Cause?, the Chris Oliveros book about the FLQ’s early days. On page 134, he shows the police celebrating the demise of the FLQ – just as the separatist terrorists were about to embark on their bloodiest exploits. “Hurrah!” the officers cheer. Bitterly ironic. The same book features a panel on page 123 of an FLQ hideout littered with empty Labatt 50 bottles. It doesn’t get more Canadian than that!Cartoon of the year: A New Yorker cartoon by Ellis Rosen depicts God, wine glass in hand, explaining to an angel helper why heaven looks different: “I had the vastness of creation replaced with hardwood floors.” Originally published two years ago, it came up in my New Yorker desk calendar on Dec. 1.Understatement of the year: Bob Iger, Disney CEO, said the glut of Marvel content online and in movie theatres has “diluted focus and attention” among fans of the company’s superheroes. (The Marvels, which I’m told is a strong movie, debuted with less than $50 million at the box office on its opening weekend, a first for a Marvel release.)Comeback of the year: Michael Keaton reprised his role as the Dark Knight in The Flash. By many accounts, the funnyman was the best thing about the motion picture, which served as the swan song for the current phase of DC’s big-screen superhero adaptations.Disappointment of the year: Marvel introduced Doctor Aphra in its Darth Vader title way back in 2015, yet still no movie or show built around the amoral archeologist. At this rate, the gonk droid will have its own Disney+ series before Aphra.Dearly departed: Among the comic creators who died this year are Al Jaffee, Joe Matt, Keith Giffen and Chris Browne. I once had a lovely conversation with Browne about how he continued the Hagar the Horrible newspaper strip after his father retired. Just a really nice dude to interview. The world is poorer without these guys.Comic blog/website/web presence of the year: I continue to enjoy a Facebook group seemingly titled with me in mind, Old Guys Who Like Old Comics. Jeremy Kirby is also doing yeoman’s service preserving his grandfather Jack Kirby’s legacy with his group the King of Comics.Comic journalism of the year: The book Dirty Pictures by Brian Doherty is a history of the underground comics scene in the U.S, the surprising part being how much of an impact these often-crude publications made on mainstream comics culture. It shows what can be done in the medium without an industry censor.Now, over to you . . . what were the comic highlights for you in 2023? I want to hear all of your picks in the comment box below. Feel free to invent some categories!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Laufman makes jump to grownup themes in Crimson Fall: Lambs of God
By Dan BrownWith Crimson Fall, London graphic novelist Derek Laufman has effortlessly made the shift from all-ages comics to more mature sequential art. That said, I’ve read the books Laufman has written/drawn for younger readers, and I never felt like I was being talked down to. And I’m old.Longtime Laufman fans need not fret about Crimson Fall. It has all the fun and adventure of Bot 9, RuinWorld and Witch of Wickerson; in the Forest City creator’s words, Crimson Fall is “Hellboy meets the Witcher with a splash of Game of Thrones in there.” In other words, the 24-page offering is a dungeon adventure with swear words and one very meaty adult theme that could be lost on younger readers: the complexity of faith.Byron’s Laufman debuted the black-and-white book in April at the Toronto Comics Art Festival, a gathering of creators whose specialty is producing indie comics, which is exactly Laufman’s jam, even though he has done work for DC and Marvel – the Coke and Pepsi of the comics industry – drawing characters like Batman, Spider-Man and Luke Skywalker.Subtitled Lambs of God, it’s part of a projected series set in the same milieu, and takes readers into a shadow-filled monastery that has been pillaged by forces unknown. Father McKellen is seeking answers about how his fellow holy men died, retaining the broadsword-wielding knight Sir Duncross to handle any, er, supernatural entanglements.You can enjoy the story as a straightforward, kickass adventure tale about a pair of demon slayers doing what they do best. But if you go beneath that surface battle, paying attention to the interplay between the two men, you’ll notice a difference in their beliefs.It is Father McKellen, the man of the cloth, who – when confronted with irrefutable evidence that creatures from hell exist – asks a rational question: “How is it possible that demons walk in our world?”Sir Duncross, in between hacks of his wide blade that echo with sound effects like “Slash,” “Slice” and “Stab,” outlines his belief in an older order: He puts his faith in gods, not God. He is not impressed with monotheism. “Does your church not still seek the truth?” the fighter quizzes the cleric, revealing the disgust he feels for religious leaders who won’t be straight with their followers about the nature of evil.The foray into the monastery comes to a fiery conclusion, and in the end, each of the men makes a small symbolic move in the direction of the other.As I have with Laufman’s previous creations, I give Crimson Fall: Lambs of God an enthusiastic thumbs up. This is a fun adventure, stylishly rendered, that left me with much food for thought.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for 30 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
