2018 in - Comics
Steve Taylor-Bryant cannot be bothered with awards or nonsense arguments. Instead he is just going to force upon you his highlights of the year. Next up in his look back at 2018 is comics…
I’ve begun to fall in love with comics over the last few years again for the first time in thirty odd years. Everyone takes a break from things occasionally, but I maybe took too long out of the game and my knowledge of what was good and who was who went through the floor. I’ll get around to catching up next year (there is a project to improve Steve’s comic knowledge in the works – Ed) but for now I haven’t read anywhere near enough to be fair to all the great creators in the world. Next years highlights for comics will be huge I promise, but my knowledge of everyone and everything will be off the hook [nobody speaks like that any more – Ed]. For now, though I just have a short list of those few folk who have helped me rekindle that love for an artform I really should have treated with more respect.
An app that works like Netflix for comics? What a huge game changing idea. The guys involved in this are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Stan Lee levels of genius. One place, easily downloaded and incredible value for money where you can read thousands of comics? These guys need all the awards! But, not only are they THE place to go to read comics, not only are they this generations most intelligent folks, they are lovely. They give 50% of their profits back to the creators who produce the comics! Marriage material, that’s what Comichaus are. Brave, entrepreneurial, but so kind they could be taken home to meet your mother.
Monty Nero
Monty is one of my favourite people in the world. He is insanely talented, produces comics that are different, that push all the boundaries that need pushing and some more you haven’t thought of, teams up with likeminded talent to make incredible works of art, and yet always finds time to talk to people, to help and advise, to chinwag about everything and anything. In 2018 he has brought back the incredible Death Sentence with Liberty, and thrown into the world Hollow Monsters, which is going to blow up into one of the worlds best comics you can trust me on that. You need to jump onboard the good ship Monty before there’s no more room.
Ken Reynolds
Ken has one of those once in a generation minds. Well, that may not be true I am not the right person to judge that level of smartness but he’s so much more intelligent and creative than I will ever be. I got know Ken’s work through the incredible Sliced (Quarterly) anthologies which have blown my mind. They are different to an average comic book, they push my understanding of storytelling, they make me think deeply about what I have just seen on the page. On top of all that he’s currently running the web-novel How to be Happy on his website which is entertaining, he is a top letterer, and is involved in Cognition which is highly loved in my household.
I am not sure how or why Madius Comics came about but I am pretty sure they are sent from a higher plain of existence just for my benefit. They produce strong book after strong book, I mean look at their roll of shame – Paperbacks and Inkstains, Tragic Tales of Horrere, Griff Gristle, The Incredible Bun to name a few. Add into that they are top, top dudes who have time for everyone and they have set Susan heavy metal homework on our sister site AlbieMedia, and you can see why they come across to me as a gift from my own personal version of heaven. They will continue to grow as publishers throughout the next few years, and my ambition for 2019 is to get a man hug from Rob Jones so you can guarantee I’m invested in their future.
Find these incredible people here:
Image - Comichaus/MontyNero/KenReynolds/MadiusComics
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