Here we are in full swing of 2018 already, and I am still reminiscing about all the great comics from last year (The Realm, Heathen, The Dregs, Animosity). I have come up with a list of some of my favorite series from 2017, and a few little previews of new books coming out that I am really looking forward to. Keep in mind that these are in no particular ranking order. So without further ado…
TOP NEW ONGOING SERIES
THE REALM
IMAGE COMICS: Seth M. Peck, Jeremy Haun, Nick Filardi, Thomas Mauer
Fifteen years ago, our world was overrun by creatures of myth; orcs, dragons, and other nameless horrors threw the entire planet into total chaos. Today, the shattered remnants of civilization must fight just to survive in a deadly new era of violence and mayhem. While a powerful sorcerer marshals his forces, a group of warriors embark on a journey to reclaim our world from the growing darkness.
BABYTEETH
AFTERSHOCK COMICS: Donny Cates, Garry Brown, Mark Englert, Taylor Esposito
Sadie Ritter is sixteen years old, nine months pregnant, and scared out of her sweet nerdy mind. Having a baby that young is tough, but with the support of her loving family behind her, everything should be okay. OH YEAH, and also her baby is the antichrist and it’s going to break open the barriers between the earthly and demonic planes and unleash eternal suffering to all of humankind. Other than that, though…should be fine
HEATHEN
VAULT COMICS: Natasha Alterici, Rachel Deering
Nordic fantasy adventure that defies conventions and expectations. Aydis is a viking, a warrior, an outcast, and a self-proclaimed heathen. Aydis is friend to the talking horse Saga, rescuer of the immortal Valkyrie Brynhild, and battler of demons and fantastic monsters. Aydis is a woman. Born into a time of warfare, suffering, and subjugation of women, she is on a mission to end the oppressive reign of the god-king Odin.
ALIEN BOUNTY HUNTER
VAULT COMICS: Adrian F. Wassel, David M. Booher, Nick Robles, Deron Bennett
Ben Madsen is a bounty hunter from Arcadia. Yeah, he knows how that sounds, but the job has its perks. He’s got time to take care of his aunt, a community that loves him, and the transition from USMS made sense. Following a newsworthy takedown, Madsen is offered a bail he can’t ignore. It’s attached to a ridiculously dangerous-sounding fugitive, but aren’t they always? Unfortunately for Madsen, his mark is not from Arcadia, and the city he’ll be tracking him through… well, nobody knows it exists.
REDLANDS
IMAGE COMICS: Jordie Bellaire, Vanesa Del Ray, Clayton Cowles
A mysterious and bloodthirsty matriarchal force runs the town of Redlands, Florida, and in order to stay on top, sacrifices must be made. Someone is intent on removing these women from the top of the food chain, and he’s ready to unleash their darkest secret but has seriously underestimated the lengths the townspeople will go to protect the new order of things. Inspired by the strange complexities of real-world politics and crime, the characters of REDLANDS play victim and villain, attempting to understand themselves and others through murder, magic, and mayhem.
TOP MINI-SERIES
THE FEW #1-6
IMAGE COMICS: Sean Lewis & Hayden Sherman
In an America divided between the haves and the have-nots, Edan Hale is a soldier on the run. Saddled with a gas-mask wearing infant and aided by the very terrorists she was once sworn to hunt, Edan is suddenly a woman without a country in a place where you only survive if you have allies. For fans of George Miller’s Mad Max films and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
2018 OUTLOOK – Betrothed (AFTERSHOCK COMICS: Sean Lewis, Steve Uy)
Kieron and Tamara are both seniors at the same high school. They’ve never paid much attention to each other, even though they are the only kids at school who are orphans. On the eve of their eighteenth birthdays, they discover a lifelong secret: in a dimension far away, they are each the leader of an army that is at war with one another…and what’s more, when they turn eighteen, they’re to be Betrothed or Fight to the Death!
2018 OUTLOOK – Cold War (AFTERSHOCK COMICS: Christopher Sebela, Hatden Sherman)
Panacea Cryonics offered its customers life after death by keeping their heads frozen until the day technology could rebuild them, free of disease and death. However, as these everyday people from the past are revived, they’re not handed the keys to a new life, but a gun, body armor and an ultimatum. They must fight in a war against unknown opponents for unknown reasons, to secure their place in a brave new world that doesn’t want them around.
SPY SEAL #1-4
IMAGE COMICS: Rich Tommaso
A journey into the thrilling world of international espionage as one of Britain’s most covert MI-6 divisions, The Nest, recruits a brand-new secret agent to their team: SPY SEAL! An exciting new comic series—reminiscent of The Adventures of Tintin and Usagi Yojimbo
2018 OUTLOOK – Dry County (Rich Tommaso)
Set in the late 1980s of Miami, a young Generation Xer plays amateur detective in order to find a missing lady he’s recently fallen hard for.
THE DREGS #1-4
BLACKMASK STUDIOS: Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, Eric Zawadzki & Dee Cunniffe
A gentrified city. Its homeless population restricted to six square blocks called The Dregs. When people start disappearing, a drug-addled homeless man obsessed with detective fiction becomes addicted to solving the mystery. Equal parts Raymond Chandler and Don Quixote set in a thriving metropolis that literally cannibalizes the homeless, The Dregs is the first homeless meta noir ever made.
2018 OUTLOOK – Relay (AFTERSHOCK COMICS: Zac Thompson, Andy Clarke, Dan Brown, Donny Cates)
A perfect future of intergalactic travel and community. Every newly discovered planet is unified culturally through a monolithic structure known as the Galactic Relay. Although the towering monument is meant to inspire conformity of ideas, technology, and progress – many resent the foreign structure. Jad Carter, a Relay employee, must keep the peace and act as an emissary to new civilizations. But when he finds the Relay’s mythological creator, Hank Donaldson, his idea of reality and the universe shatters. Equal parts The Fifth Element and Philip K Dick, Relay is an exploration of monoculture, identity, and the deceptive nature of legend set in a thriving future where humanity forcibly assimilates new worlds.
SECRET WEAPONS #1-4
VALIANT ENTERTAINMENT: Eric Heisserer, Raul Allen & Patricia Martin
The government has dispatched Amanda McKee – the technopath codenamed Livewire – to investigate the ruins of a secret facility formerly run by Toyo Harada, the most powerful telepath on Earth and her former mentor. In his quest for world betterment at any cost, Harada sought out and activated many potential psiots like himself. Those who survived, but whose powers he deemed to have no value to his cause, were hidden away at this installation. But Livewire, having studied Harada’s greatest strengths and learned his deepest weaknesses, senses opportunity where he once saw failure. A young girl who can talk to birds… A boy who can make inanimate objects gently glow… To others, these are expensive disappointments. But, to Livewire, they are secret weapons…in need of a leader. Now, as a mechanized killer called Rex-O seeks to draw them out, Livewire and her new team of cadets will be forced to put their powers into action…in ways they never could have imagined..
2018 OUTLOOK – Shadowman (Andy Diggle, Stephen Segovia, Tonci Zonjic)
DON’T FEAR YOUR DEMONS. FIGHT THEM. Orphaned at birth and raised on the margins of society, Jack Boniface never knew his place in the world. Until he discovered it waiting for him… in a darkness far older than the reign of men… Unbeknownst to him, Jack was fated to become the next in a long lineage of Shadowmen – mortals bound to violent voodoo spirits of immense power – that could safeguard our world against incursions from realms beyond.
MISTER MIRACLE #1-12
DC COMICS: Tom King & Mitch Gerads
Scott Free is the greatest escape artist that ever lived. So great that he escaped Granny Goodness’ gruesome orphanage and the dangers of Apokolips to travel across galaxies and set up a new life on Earth with his wife, the former female fury known as Big Barda. Using the stage alter ego of Mister Miracle, he has made a career for himself showing off his acrobatic escape techniques. He even caught the attention of the Justice League, which counted him among its ranks. You might say Scott Free has everything…so why isn’t it enough? Mister Miracle has mastered every illusion, achieved every stunt, pulled off every trick—except one. He has never escaped death. Is it even possible? Our hero is going to have to kill himself if he wants to find out.
MUST READ SERIES
4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK
BLACKMASK STUDIOS: Matthew Rosenberg, Tyler Boss, Thomas Mauer
When a group of bumbling criminals show up in her father’s life looking to pull one last job, young Paige has two choices – let her father get caught up in their criminal hijinks or enlist her three best friends to do the job first. Paige picks the bad one.
ANIMOSITY
AFTERSHOCK COMICS: Marguerite Bennett, Rafael de Latorre, Rob Schwager, Marshall Dillon
One day, for no reason, the Animals woke up. They started thinking. They started talking. They started taking REVENGE. The world is plunged into chaos as the newly-intelligent Animals fight humanity, and simply fight each other, for their own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. In the midst of the turmoil is Jesse, an 11-year-old girl, and her dog, Sandor, who is devoted to her and her protection.
PAPER GIRLS
IMAGE COMICS: Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, Jared K. Fletcher
In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this critically acclaimed story about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.
EXTREMITY
IMAGE COMICS: Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer
Thea dreams. Not of a better life, but of revenge on the clan that ruined her family. With ferocious battles between man, machines, and monsters ahead…who knows where her quest for vengeance will take her?
SAGA
IMAGE COMICS: Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples
Saga is an epic space opera/fantasy heavily influenced by Star Wars. It depicts two lovers from long-warring extraterrestrial races, Alana and Marko, fleeing authorities from both sides of a galactic war as they struggle to care for their newborn daughter, Hazel, who occasionally narrates the series.