BKV's Top Ten Comics of 2022
And a chance to win your own copies!
Lists are dumb.
Brian here, and I think it’s pointless and misguided to “rank” any kind of art… but I sure as shit don’t mind when stuff I’ve worked on ends up on other people’s “best of” lists!
Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, Book Riot, and most importantly, ABC Radio Canberra, for name-checking the latest volume of Saga in their year-end recaps. Lots of other great recommendations in those links.
I clearly still have a lot to read from what turned out to be an awesome year for comics (and I look forward to you yelling at me about what titles I missed), but for your amusement, I’ve assembled a wholly arbitrary ordering of some of my favorite comics of 2022 (that I happened to read this calendar year and still remember loving as I type this at you on Friday afternoon while also trying to snag a ticket for the new Avatar).
To avoid conflicts of interest and protect fragile creative egos, I didn’t include work by any of my talented collaborators (some of whose books I plugged on Monday), or by my “mates” (like Garth Ennis, who hit new heights with PJ Holden on this year’s The Lion & The Eagle), or by any of my many colleagues at Image Comics (Zoe Thorogood’s brutally autobiographical It’s Lonely At the Centre of the Earth is required reading) or here at Substack (where ND Stevenson is making some of the best comics anywhere). Ditto for all of the incredible new work over at my other home Panel Syndicate!
And I love all kinds of comics, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many of my favorites happen to be fully owned and controlled by their creators. That’s always been where we do our best work, so thanks to all the publishers out there who are still doing right by us.
Okay, enough stalling, let’s get to my dumb list, whose order and selections I changed about forty times this morning, and could easily change another forty tonight. I’m just a sucker for a countdown.
Oh, and I’ll be giving a way a few free copies of some of these titles in our weekend chat exclusively to you generous paid subscribers in The Tower. Just tell us in the comments what comics YOU loved this year (and which one of my picks you’d most like to check out), and Santa and/or our intern Genesis the Exploded Giraffe might surprise you with something new to read.
10 - Barely Human by Johnny Ryan
I didn’t think I could still be shocked, but these Instagram-banned comics by Johnny Ryan suggest otherwise. Often deeply offensive, this collection probably shouldn’t be read by any human ever.
Why am I even making this list? Why are you reading it?!
9 - Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki
I guess this delightfully weird fable from the legendary Spirited Away creator originally came out in 1983, but this new translation by Alex Dudok de Wit was the first I’d heard of it.
Even more gorgeous than you’re imagining.
8 - Ducks by Kate Beaton
One of the funniest voices in comics changes gears for a deadly serious look back at her time working the Albertan oil sands. More than a few pages in here hit like hammers.
7 - Upside Dawn by Jason
I’m way in the tank for Norwegian cartoonist Jason, but these new short stories are all incredible, including (quite unexpectedly) the most melancholy episode of Star Trek the Original Series ever?
6 - Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to be Kin by Geoff Darrow and Dave Stewart
How does this series exist?
I can’t understand how any single panel with this obsessive level of detail was created, much less entire issues.
The serialized insanity I most look forward to reading whenever it hits stands…