Four Color Apocalypse 2020 Year In Review : Top 10 Ongoing Series

Rolling right along with our end-of-year surveys, we come to 2020’s Top 10 Ongoing Series. Qualifiers in this category are serialized comics that saw more than one issue or volume released in the past 12 months. Not sure any further explanation beyond that is necessary? And so —

10. Psychodrama Illustrated By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics) – Beto’s latest side-step limited series focuses on somewhat surreal interpretations of the lives of Fritz and her family, resulting in a heady mix of the topical, the trippy and, of course, the libidinal. Familiar faces, unfamiliar places.

9. The Immortal Hulk By Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, et al. (Marvel) – The best “Big Two” series in ages showed no signs of slowing down in 2020, as Ewing interjected political issues and plenty of plot twists into his “long game” storyline, while Bennett continued to wow with richly-illustrated action sequences and uniformly inventive character designs. Where it’s all going no one knows but them, but where it’s already been has, to date, proven to be downright fantastic.

8. Vacuum Decay Edited By Harry Nordlinger (Self-Published) – Premier indie horror cartoonist Nordlinger is a guy with a vision, and in his new anthology series he invites others to the party to broaden it out, resulting in an intriguing blend of talents both old and new, all telling punchy, short-form tales of terror that delight in subverting conventions and norms without ever disrespecting them.

7. The Lighthouse In The City By Karl Christian Krumpholz (Self-Published) – Few cartoonists, if any, have made more productive use of their time in quarantine than Denver’s Krumpholz, who started this project looking to make diary comics about his wife’s then-upcoming surgery and her attendant recovery, and ended up documenting, for lack of a better tern, “The Full 2020 Experience.” As real and immediate as comics get.

6. Kids With Guns By Alex Nall (Self-Published) – What first began as a rather touching story about the inter-generational friendship between two neighbors has evolved into a taut but understated thriller of sorts that examines any number of pitfalls and challenges facing today’s youth with wit, wisdom, and grace. I can’t imagine Nall will have any trouble finding a publisher for the collected edition of this once all is said and done.

5. Love And Rockets By Gilbert And Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics) – Another strong year for a series that seems to be experiencing a creative resurgence of sorts since returning to its original magazine format with Jaime, in particular, turning in some of the most compelling work of his illustrious career. For those of us of a certain age, these guys got us through our adolescence and our young adulthood, and they’re doing much the same now that we — and their characters — navigate middle age.

4. Now Edited By Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics) – A very nice bounce-back year for the increasingly-infrequent anthology, and who knows? Maybe that increasing infrequency is the key to its success. After padding his pages with substandard and reprinted material last year, editor Reynolds is once again commissioning almost entirely strong original work, and presenting it in a format — and at a price — that makes “art comics” accessible to the general reading public. One big blemish emerged at the end of the year in terms of his choices that calls his thinking, and perhaps even his judgment, into question, but this isn’t the place to go into all that.

3. Tinfoil Comix Edited By Floyd Tangeman (Dead Crow) – This one came out of left field this past year and hit me like a ton of bricks, as it represents the kind of thing so many of us are always looking for : a collection of unique and idiosyncratic strips largely done by cartoonists you’ve more than likely never heard of before. There’s a real underground sensibility at work here, a kind of “anything goes” philosophical approach that results in every page holding the promise of something new and unexpected — and usually delivering.

2. Ex. Mag Edited By Wren McDonald (Peow Studio) – A conceptually-innovative new deluxe anthology series with a rotating genre theme — Cyberpunk and Paranormal Romance anchoring the first and second volumes, respectively — has proven itself to be precisely the tonic world-weary readers have needed in this year unlike any other, and why not? This is a comic unlike any other, and with its “expiration date” built in from the start one gets the distinct sense of this being a work that is being carefully cultivated to both reflect the concerns of the here and now while also standing the test of time. “Where comics are going” is here now.

1. Future By Tommi Musturi (Boing Being) – Dazzling both in its array of styles and its top-flight production values, the planet’s most versatile cartoonist is here crafting a tapestry and a puzzle box at the same time, depicting diverse future worlds that are somehow all connected, somehow all real — and somehow, paradoxically, all self-aware of their own fictitiousness. It’s hard to say what we’re getting more of here, imagination or talent, but what’s certain is that both are combining to create something that bears all the hallmarks of being, I kid you not, one of the best comics of all time once everything is said and done.

Two lists down, four to go! I’ll be back with the Top 10 Special Mentions in the next day or two!

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Review wrist check – Zodiac “Super Sea Wolf 53” in its modern “Blackout Edition” variant.

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