By Comix and Spooky Sean
2012 has been an amazing year for the comic book industry. Avengers and Batman broke box-office records, comic-con attendance is at an all time high, and everywhere you look, new comics are popping up by the barrelful! But it wasn’t just a good time for superhero comics, but all genre comics, especially horror (do I even need to mention Walking Dead?) Old hands like Mike Mignola and Garth Ennis are back at spinning their tales of terror and macabre and new creators such as Simon Spurrier and Gabrielle Andrade are paving the way for a bright and glorious 2013. It really is an amazing time to be a comic fan.
Everyone’s beloved comic reviewer Comix teams up with internet fave/horror comic lover Spooky Sean of spookysean.com to give a rundown of the top ten comics of 2012.
Crossed
Spooky Sean: Crossed: Psychopath was this year, and it was written by Lapham, as was Crossed: Badlands, which sees the return of Ennis on writing duties. Psychopath is very unsettling. It was the crossed crazies, vs. someone who is just actual crazy. So, possessed vs. psychotic.
Comix: The thing about Crossed is not only that the comic is constantly pushing boundaries but it’s also finding new ways to reach audiences. It has to be one of the few comics that ran an entire series for free online and with the double powerhouses of Ennis and Lapham, it’s about as fucked up as a comic can be! I mean, how many things does a blood-crazed, diseased human need to rape before he hits the limit? Apparently, a lot.
Spooky Sean: Burrows does blood and guts like no one else, and he’s been drawing the Crossed from day one. Rape, rape, raping, and killing their way across the globe. It’s beautiful really.
Comix: Yeah, and with the addition of Fernando Melek and Simon Spurrier on the web comic, the whole thing has become larger than life.
Ferals
Spooky Sean: These werewolves are on roids. They are fucking huge! The artist Gabrielle Andrade draws some of the best werewolves, other than Sir Templesquid. Also, he does this amazing thing with jaws that are ripped off, and laying by corpses. All his gore stuff is really great. He tends to draw all the boobs like huge fake ones, but hey, it’s comics, I’d be surprised if they looked natural, frankly. Did you notice everyone in Ferals has really tiny nipples? But, despite the tiny nips, yeah, Andrade does some really spectacular evisceration and wolf monsters.
Comix: Nothing like a gratuitous amount of tits to really make a comic pop. I like the fact that they ended pretty much every comic on a cliffhanger and not like a ‘meh’ one, but ‘hot fuck! what is going to happen!’ And David Lapham? Don’t get me started. Everything he touches is like horror gold! For such a new comic, it really has proven its worth. I’m hoping this is the kind of comic that becomes a huge epic, like Preacher did back in the 90’s. It has awesome potential.
Spooky Sean: It really does, and it’s nice to see werewolves that aren’t all lame, and nice to humans. I like monsters that are like rabid animals, so duh, Ferals is right up my alley.
The Goon
Comix: I love Goon! I can’t even express that enough. I really feel that it’s the kind of comic that I can suggest to anyone and they will like it. The characters are hilarious but never goofy, and the noir tinge on the comic keeps it well grounded. Also, carny folk! Goddamn, do I love me some carny folk.
Spooky Sean: How could you not love carny folk? The Goon is, I think, the quintessential comic both written and drawn by a creator. Much like Hellboy and Mignola. Eric Powell consistently knocks it out of the park. And, he has that beautiful mix of one shots in the series, as well as an over-arcing storyline.
Comix: I agree. It’s one of those comics that you can pick up right off the shelf and start reading. I mean, maybe you have to go back one or two issues, but it’s not so involved that you have to go back to the very first issue published to understand what’s going on. Also, all the graphic novels are stuffed full of little extras like mini-comics, art concepts, and alternative covers, so it’s really worth your money to pick up.
Spooky Sean: It makes it very accessible. Also, it is so fucking funny. Consistently makes me fear I’m going to soak my short pants. That’s old people for “pants.” I think? Oh yeah, it’s always rad seeing notes, and concept art, and things like that. Hell, I’d look at random pics of Powell at home, and running errands. He’s just a very entertaining dude.
Hellraiser
Spooky Sean: What’s exciting about the Hellraiser comics, is it’s the first time Clive Barker has written about Pinhead in quite a while. So, getting back to the man behind the Lament Configuration is a real treat. The storyline is fantastic. I don’t want to give away the plot, but it’s very exciting, and completely turns the character of Pinhead on his…head. The art by, well, numerous people, has displayed Hell and the Cenobites in glorious detail.
Comix: Well, I’m gonna give a little bit away. We see our favorite heroine Kirsty Cotton return and give Pinhead a run for his money, but as with any good Barker work, she ends up getting a bit more than she bargained for. The art has definitely been one of the big draws for this comic and the visions of Hell and Hell on Earth have been masterfully detailed under Barker’s direction. An interesting note is that BOOM studios had started to reprint the old Epic Comics Hellraisers from back in the 90’s, a great read for anyone who grew up on the franchise.
Spooky Sean: I remember in the beginning of The Hellbound Heart, the character of Frank is first visited by the Cenobites, and it is explained he has the best orgasm of his life, before he is torn to shreds. If that’s not enough reason to pick this series up, then you do not want to see people have orgasms and get ripped apart, and I find you weird. What’s next ringleader? Fearless leader? Lets Comix it up.
Comix: I’m putting all that on my business card. So…Hellboy?
Hellboy
Spooky Sean: Hellboy has been so epic this year. So much revelatory information has been thrown at the reader. Mignola has been upping his game. Hellboy lost an eye, and got all Odinish. He found out he was a descendant of King Arthur (not sure how that works unless Arthur was a demon, but…) and he fought the dragon, Ogdru Jahad. He then has his heart ripped out, and most recently, the arc Hellboy in Hell started. This is the return of Mignola writing and drawing the comic, all by his lonesome. How could it not be on our top ten horror list? Hellboy died, and now he is in Hell. Yeah, boy.
Comix: Very, very, super crazy exciting to see Mike Mignola back at the helm of both drawing and writing the upcoming Hellboy in Hell arc. I’ve been praying for him to come back to drawing and they finally came true. Hellboy is not just a top comic of 2012, but a top comic in general. I mean, it spawned a whole second comic in the form of BPRD, made two movies, is a board game, video game, and a whole marketing phenomena. If it was in Japan, they would be making cartoons out of it by now. Oh wait, there are cartoons of it.
Creepy
Comix: Creepy has been a horror staple since our daddies were kids. It’s a bit dated, a bit bat shit, and sometimes downright goofy, but the comic itself is so iconic that I think it’s a must-read for any horror fan. I mean, this is the stuff that launched a thousand horror stories. Especially all that good, scary stuff that they were pumping out back in the late sixties, early seventies. Dark Horse did a completely tits job of reprinting it, too bad I’m too poor to buy the whole collection.
Spooky Sean: And Dark Horse started some brand new Creepy releases. What can you say about Creepy? It’s like Tales From the Crypt. It’s pretty much what you think of when someone mentions the phrase “horror comics.” I particularly enjoyed the Lovecraft themed issue, number 10. Richard Corben is in it, and it’s the shizzle. There’s a story with Lovecraft as a character in the new Creepy 10, in which Cthulhu tells him to his face he has written “the worst fiction ever inscribed and inflected upon any future ever imagined.” Clearly, he hasn’t read mine.
Comix: Awww, right in the feels.
Hellblazer
Spooky Sean: Hellblazer is the story of a demon who happens to be an incredible pothead. The demon tries to corrupt human souls, except it’s so damn baked, it mainly just laughs at them, and then stares at cars driving by for hours on end.
Comix: The epic struggle of Satan’s stoner baby trying to find a box of twinkies for 24 years.
Spooky Sean: This year, Peter Mulligan has had John Constantine go insane and chop off his own thumb, get married, have his coat sold on Ebay which proceeded to kill people and make others commit suicide, and man it’s been busy. He’s in Ireland right now, trying to get his sis out of Hell via his nephew. Craziness. Sadly, Hellblazer will be cancelled after issue 300, and replaced by Constantine, which will feature a new writer, and a younger version of John. It’s sad, as Hellblazer is 24 years old. I will pour one out for fifty year old John, when his time comes.
Comix: Always with the younger versions, you think DC had some kind of boner for re-vamping their characters? In fact, it’s a wonder it hadn’t happened yet with John. Hellblazer is one of those comics that have survived the test of the time. A lot like Hellboy, it’s just a good comic in general, in fact, almost sharing the same type of main character. A good, but generally laid back and anti-social lead guy with a magical purpose that is beyond his comprehension. It’s a very solid formula. It really is a damn shame that the last flagship Vertigo title is finally going under.
Fatale
Spooky Sean: Picture if HP Lovecraft was into noir, and wasn’t deathly afraid of vaginas. Now, you have a sense of what reading Fatale is like. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (I never remember who performs what duties for the book) have created a brilliant mish-mash of detectives, dames, tentacles, and dark gods.
Comix: I feel like I need to apologize to Brutal as Hell fans for not telling them about this earlier. This comic is amazing. Its got such a slow burning story to it that you really keep on reading issue after issue and never feel like they are wasting space. And the whole other dimension demon thing is done in a way that will really keep you peaking over your shoulder. No tongue-in-cheek, just good, solid horror.
Spooky Sean: I love how time is shown in this comic. We are constantly switching from the present day, to the fifties, then to present day, then to the sixties, or maybe it was the seventies…
Comix: Those were some stylish times.
Spooky Sean: The point is we are traveling through time a lot, yet it’s never very confusing, and always done in a very natural way. And yes, they were very stylish times. I love the guys with the bowler hats, and the sunglasses too. They wear their sunglasses at night, so they can, so they can kill you.
Baltimore
Comix: Baltimore is definitely one of horror comics sleeper hits this year. Another Mignola comic, it’s flown a bit under the radar, but anyone who has picked it up has instantly fallen in love with it. A pretty serious vampire comic that seems to be ripped out of the Hellboy and BPRD universe, it has the potential to become Mignola’s next big thing.
Spooky Sean: Baltimore is not as well known as Hellboy, or BPRD, and this is a shame. I read the first book he released with Christopher Golden, and it was a very thrilling mix of historical/war fiction, and supernatural terror. So, when they started releasing the comics, I knew it would be good. He fights all sorts of monsters, Baltimore does, not just vampires. And Baltimore himself is perhaps the most bad ass vampire hunter in fiction. Move over Van Helsing, this fucker fought in WW1, beat a giant vampire/bat off of him when he was in a near death state, and has a wooden leg.
Comix: Though I imagine if Mignola wrote some Van Helsing, it would be completely bad-ass.
Spooky Sean: Oh, it would. Van Helsing would just constantly be saying, like, “ah hell,” and chain smoking. It’d be a very blue collar Van Helsing. “Hey vampire, take this, ya slimey buggah!” Oh wait, that’s right, he was German. Okay, he’d be all like…I’m sorry, I have no idea what a working class German from the 19th century would sound like.
BPRD
Spooky Sean: So I’m not even going to try and summarize BPRD this year. Basically, end of the world, main characters fucked over, evil shit all around. Much in the same way Hellboy has been epic, well, so has BPRD, and since they are both created by the same man, and in the same universe, it stands to reason. If you like giant monsters, this series is for you. Like Hellboy, then obviously this is for you. If you like shadowy government agencies, this book is for you. Picture Hellboy without Hellboy, and with other agents fighting monsters who have special abilities and supernatural gears in their machines, and there you go.
Comix: Yeah, the only thing that’s kind of a bummer is you have to be well versed in the series to pick up any of the comics at this point. But the rumor mills are flying! Is this the end of BPRD? If Hellboy goes to Hell, are they going to go too? It’s been keeping everyone on pins and needles. Speaking of BPRD, we sure stuffed this list with a bunch of Mignola work. I think we should make 2012 the Year of Mike Mignola.
Spooky Sean: Oh, absolutely! 2012, year of the majestic Mignola. Gaze at his bald head, and listen to him grumble as he writes and draws giant beasties.
