Looking Back at 2024: The Year in Comics
By Dan Brown It’s time to go over the last 12 months in comics to pick out the highlights. These categories are arbitrary, the choices are mine alone, and I invite you to chime in with your own selections! Best graphic novel of year: This goes to Walter Scott’s The Wendy Award, the latest chapter in the story of everyone’s favourite anxiety-ridden, coke-snorting young artist. It ends with Wendy, an MFA graduate from the University of Hell (i.e. Guelph), possibly turning her back on the world of art. Say it ain’t so! Best debut graphic novel of the year: I give this one to Maurice Vellekoop’s I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together, his memoir of growing up gay in Toronto as the son of strict Dutch immigrants. His lines are lively, and they evoke Seth’s work for me. Best local graphic novel: You gotta love the Curly Head Ballet from Doug Rogers, the only comic I know that was inspired by London’s Original Kids Theatre. It’s a trip! Barbenheimer of my summer: Montreal cartoonist (and Western Gazette alum) Gabrielle Drolet’s rat character went on vacation in Europe in the warmer months, as Drolet herself went on a parallel journey. Daily deadlines were no obstacle for the artist, and I hope she assembles these strips into an anthology. If the folks at Montreal’s Drawn & Quarterly are as smart as I think they are, they’ll be the ones to publish it! Anniversary of the year: Goes not to a superhero, but to a giant lizard with the ability to breath nuclear fire! I’m talking about Godzilla, the kaiju who in November marked 70 years since his first movie appearance. Oh, no! They say he’s got to go! Go, go, Godzila! Comic villain of the year: I’m giving this one to a flesh-and-blood person, not a comic baddie. A big boo to sometime footballer Colin Kaeprnick for his idea to create a company, Lumi, that aims to replace the talented humans who make comics with AI-created work. Way to cheese off an entire industry! It’s about time: The winner in this category is Canada Post, which issued a series of stamps this year to recognize homegrown graphic novelists such as Chester Brown and the Tamaki cousins. Finally! Better never than late: Marvel Comics might have had a better year if they hadn’t belatedly given Roy Thomas a credit as one of the character Wolverine’s creators, a move which antagonized fans and likely made no one happy apart from the former Marvel editor himself. Least surprising plot twist of the year: Speaking of Marvel, I understand that the Krakoa phase of the X-Men’s history has ended, with our favourite band of mutants returning to mainstream society – thus confirming that as long as a comic sells, any change is temporary. Burgeoning trend of the year: Actor Elliott Page used a pop-culture con, the Calgary Expo, to speak out about the Alberta government’s policies on trans youth. Are we seeing cons become platforms for celebrities to speak out on issues? Something I’ll be watching for in 2025. Say what? of the year: Easily won by Marvel Studios, who used San Diego’s Comic-Con International to announce Robert Downey Jr. is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a suit of specialized armour, only this time he won’t be playing Iron Man, he’ll be . . . Doctor Doom? “New mask, same task,” the popular actor enigmatically pronounced from the con’s stage. Non-news event of the year; At the same event, Marvel competitor DC had an announcement of its own: The company is changing its logo back to the one it used to slap on comics in the 1980s. Yay? Cause for concern: In snippets of footage from the upcoming Fantastic Four film, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards still has that damn moustache. Not a good sign. Dearly departed: John Cassaday, Trina Robbins, Greg Hildebrandt and Ed Piskor are among the talented individuals who left us this year. Comic journalist of the year: Eisner Award nominee Rob Salkowitz, who writes about comics for publications like Forbes and Publishers Weekly, was a must-read in 2024. I also finally got around this year to reading Salkowitz’s book Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture, which I greatly enjoyed. Person of the year in comics: It’s a tie between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, who with their $1.3 billion-grossing Deadpool & Wolverine stopped superhero movies from their downward slide with a huge dose of fan service. We’ll find out in 2025 whether it’s a temporary pause or not. And now I wanna hear from you! What were the year’s comic highlights for you? Let me know in the comment box below. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
The Few, The Proud, The Unproductive
By Dan BrownLet us now praise those comic creators who had a big impact on comic history despite spending very little time in the spotlight.I’m talking about your David Mazzucchellis, your Michael Goldens, your Paul Chadwicks. You may have your own favourites.What do these artists have in common? Compared to such stalwarts as Kurt Swan and Jack Kirby, they were . . . not all that productive. Which hasn’t stopped them from inspiring wildly loyal fandoms.Some of them are still active today. Once in a while.They had brief runs (that are still remembered 50 or 60 years later), they did an amazing job, they revolutionized comics. And then they more or less disappeared.Perhaps some of them had a hard time meeting the grind of monthly deadlines. No doubt some of them made more money as illustrators in other fields. For whatever reason, they found other vineyards to toil in.Oh, we young comics fans loved them. If it was up to us, they would have had their choice of assignment.Mazzucchelli we knew as the artist on Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, which reset the Dark Knight’s origin for a new generation. The Neal Adams Batman belonged to our older brothers, but this one was OURS. The brilliance of his style was that you couldn’t tell which era this Batman came of age in. Was it the 1970s? The 1930s? The modern day? You couldn’t pin this Batman down, he was timeless.Oh yeah, Mazzucchelli also worked on Daredevil briefly, then years later came out with the graphic novel Asterios Polyp. Might he be a perfectionist, might that be the reason that prevented him from doing more?Michael Golden lit the comic world on fire with his 12-issue run on the Micronauts. It was a comic adaptation based on a toy line, and like Mazzucchelli he also created an otherworldly milieu, with exhausted heroes and truly diabolical villains. Then, a glimpse of something even more awesome: For one issue, Star Wars No. 38 in 1980, Golden showed us a vision of a galaxy far, far away with art that we actually dug.It had seemed up to that point Marvel was abusing Star Wars fans on purpose by using mediocre artists.When we got a little older, graduating to more mature stories, Chadwick spoke to our young-adult selves with his thought-provoking Dark Horse series Concrete. A book built around a superhero who wanted only to sit around and think? We were intrigued, It was as if Ben Grimm had become a philosopher.But unfortunately for us, it didn’t last. He was another creator who, it seemed, had found other things to do outside of comics. Perhaps he just lost interest.Like I said, not everyone is blessed with the work ethic of a Kirby or the endurance of a Swan or a John Romita. Not every comic creator even wants to be in the conversation.Some are destined to be excellent, then be gone. Could be it’s a blessing in disguise? One byproduct is we will never get sick of their expressive lines.Nor am I suggesting any of these talented people are snobs for finding other pursuits. Not everyone has thousands of individual issues in them, I get it.Heaven forbid they should ever be among the most productive people in the industry’s history. Because those folks get a different label: We deride them as hacks.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Nothing Compares to Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Negasonic Teenage Warhead was unknown to me until the first Deadpool movie. She’s a young mutant who has the power to blow up – literally.So when I saw the debut issue of a Marvel Comic named after her, I picked it up. Turns out it reprints the story from a previous series she starred in. Since she first appeared on my radar, I found out, the character has developed more powers. This time out she isn’t just a living explosion, she can potentially snuff out all reality.Talk about teenage angst!With writing by Andrew Wheeler and art by Eleonora Carlini and Carola Borelli, the new Negasonic Teenage Warhead No. 1 is a breezy tale of one teen’s search for a date for the end of the world.The complication is, if she doesn’t find a specific girl to date, all of existence goes kablooey. And NTW would be to blame.Deadpool appears in a brief prefatory section. He is a one-mutant reference machine, spouting on about Thelma and Louise, Alien and Predator, Frost and Nixon.Also appearing are agents of the Time Variance Authority, which I remember from the Loki Disney + series. These are the folks who make sure time is unspooling as it should. If they find a fugitive from one timeline in another, as a result of time-travelling, they can erase them permanently. Since Negasonic Teenage Warhead – or, more accurately, a future evil version of her – threatens everything that ever existed, the TVA wants to put her on trial. Thus begins a breakneck story co-starring pretty much every female Marvel character. Scarlet Witch makes the scene, as do Sue Storm, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost.The complaint from some older Marvel fans is that the current comics are just expansions of storylines that in the old days would have been resolved in a single issue. So the X-Men will fight the Avengers, let’s say, but in today’s comics it will be a year-long event that spawns multiple side series.This comic is the opposite of that. It’s one of those old-fashioned universe-shaking premises – “What if NTW was even more powerful than Galactus? – but it is so compressed. In the world of the comic, it takes place within one hour. In other words, it won’t dispel comments from readers my age that today’s fans have a limited attention span.I have read Marvel sporadically in the last few years, but I was able to keep up fine with the story.Genosha, the site of a mutant massacre, is one setting, and the Krakoa Era of mutantkind is also evoked. From what I understand, the children of the atom have moved on from their island Utopia in the main Marvel continuity. There’s also a sly reference to the most popular mutie of all, Wolverine.There’s even a bone thrown to oldsters like me in the form of an in-panel reference to another Marvel comic, the kind the narrative voice used to drop in every Marvel issue. What’s next? Are thought balloons also going to make a comeback?And there’s some patented Marvel philosophizing, with one character expounding on a central quote from Friedrich Nietzshe.I will leave it to you to find out if Negasonic — also known as Eloise Olivia Phimister – is able to save the universe from herself. I’m glad I checked this one out. Now I know why the Sinead O’Connor circa 1989 lookalike is brooding so deeply every time Deadpool comes calling.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Dan Brown's Graphic-novel Gift Guide
By Dan BrownThe holidays are looming, and you’ve been racking your brains for ideas of what gifts to get your family and friends, but coming up short.Well, you’ve come to the right place.We are now at the point where there is a graphic novel for everyone on your list, so please consider the following suggestions as you do your Christmas shopping.For your husband/boyfriend: Any Tintin adventure by HergeFor your wife/girlfriend: Jillian Tamaki’s Super Mutant Magic AcademyFor your dad: Giant by MikaelFor your mom: Any collection of Peanuts comic strips by Charles SchulzFor your brother: Essex County by Jeff LemireFor your sister: Jonathan Dyck’s ShelterbeltsFor your young son: Any Geronimo Stilton graphic novel by Elisabetta DamiFor your young daughter: The Bad Guys Book 1 by Aaron BlabeyFor your best friend: Petals by Gustavo BorgesFor the Marvel fan in your life: Origins of Marvel Comics (the 2024 Deluxe Edition)For the DC fan: Irredeemable by Mark Waid, Peter Krause and Diego BarretoFor the person in your life who loves superhero movies: Robot Dreams by Sara VaronFor the person who hates superhero movies: Ghost World by Daniel ClowesFor the music fan in your life: Leonard Cohen: On a Wire by Philippe Girard For the history buff in your life: Fax From Sarajevo by Joe KubertFor the hockey fan in your life: Essex County by Jeff LemireFor the journalist in your life: Ten Days in a Mad-House: A Graphic Adaptation by Brad RiccaFor the photographer in your life: Weegee from Wauter Mannaert and Max de Radigues For the comics historian in your life: Brian Doherty’s Dirty Pictures (it’s prose)For the lover of newspaper cartoons: Joe Ollmann’s Fictional FatherFor the fan of CanCon: Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? by Chris Oliveros For the grad student in your life: Any of the Wendy titles from Walter ScottFor the theatre lover: Kill Shakespeare by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col and Andy Belanger For the lover of literature: Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel adapted by Ryan North and Albert MonteysFor the fan of the 1970s: Mimi Pond’s Over EasyFor the fan of the 1980s: Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos and Me by Lorina MapaFor the fan of AI: The Wild Robot by Peter BrownFor the deep thinker in your life: Leslie Stein’s I Know You RiderFor the Muppet fan in your life: A Tale of Sand from Jim Henson and Ramon PerezFor the comics newbie: Either The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller) Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) or The Complete Maus (Art Spiegelman)For just about everyone: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. SeussIf you have any of your own gift suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comment box below! Alternatively, what titles are you asking Santa Claus to leave under your tree? Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Is There Product Placement in Comics?
By Dan BrownMaybe it’s because I’m a naive fool, but I don’t ever remember seeing an instance of flagrant product placement in a comic book.I’m talking about the classic kind of product placement, the same type you see in movies or on TV where products are written into the plot of the show in return for brand exposure.(I’ll get to advertising partnerships in comics in a minute. They are a different animal.)For example, in an old episode of Big Bang Theory Raj gets a new iPhone. We know it’s an iPhone because after he and Howard unwrap the device, Raj has a conversation with Siri, Apple’s digital assistant. Not very subtle.Product placement like this would in theory be easy to do in comics. The reference could be written into a comic’s script and then the brand’s product would be drawn by the penciller.We all know Wolverine – being Canadian – loves beer, right? So in a scene in which the deadly mutant walks into a bar, he could order a Budweiser or other brand, and the artist could reproduce the label on the bottle or can in Logan’s hand. Easy-peasy, providing you can get the creative team on board with the idea.As straightforward as the process would be, it doesn’t seem to happen much. Maybe I’ve got feeble eyes, but I don’t recall much along those lines taking place in Marvel or DC Comics. There are opportunities aplenty, it’s true.Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, might prefer a certain make of sports car. Ben Grimm could make his preferences known for a specific type of cigar. Photographers love to talk about the equipment they favour, so why would Peter Parker be any different?The argument in favour of product placement in comics might go something like this: “We live in a world of brands, so superheroes having brand preferences would make them and their milieu seem more realistic. If advertisers want the exposure, publishers could use the extra revenue.”I’m talking solely about comics here. I know there’s plenty of product placement in motion pictures that feature the same superheroes. That’s a whole other column.Nor am I talking about the advertising partnerships comic publishers occasionally embark on, which are embarrassing because they’re so blatant.For example, Marvel characters such as the Hulk and Spidey were loaned out to Hostess in the 1970s to go on adventures in which the villains were all defeated or distracted the same way: By being fed Twinkies. These appeared as clearly marked ads, not part of a comic's storyline.Likewise, about a decade ago, motorcycle maker Harley Davidson signed a deal with Marvel to feature their fine wares in a series of one-shot issues. This led to odd situations in which the Avengers, instead of using the full range of their powers, including that of flight, would ride Hogs to do battle with evildoers.I did once read a Hawkeye storyline set in Madripoor in which a specific brand of credit card was name-dropped, but I can’t recall having seen anything like it since. And I can't say for sure it was the result of a deal.Perhaps the reason for the dearth of product placement in comics is publishers might have to share the fee with creators. Or maybe comic creators who consider themselves "artists" feel they’re above crass product placement.Or maybe it goes back to the traditional perception of comics being stuff for children, and therefore product placement being viewed as unfairly taking advantage of kids. Of course, both you and I know the average comic reader today is in their 40s or 50s so that argument no longer holds water.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Alien: Romulus Comic Short, but Intriguing
How the Alien: Romulus comic fills in Alien franchise story gaps and more reasons to read the comic explained in columnist's Dan Brown's comic book review.
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