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The villain dude in the pic above with the crotch cannon above goes by the name of 'Codpiece'. He was a DC baddie back in the 90s, I believe he was in Doom Patrol. One could argue he is one of the most ridiculous characters in the history of comic books; an after thought in the many not so great comic experiences of the 90s. I would say that Codpiece is needed now more than ever #bringbackcodpiece. We need him to join us as we travel from comic book publisher to comic book publisher so he can unleash the ammo of his loins onto the pathetic idiots who are running comic books into the ground. I'm sure we can use him for other things but this is not a political blog. I will say if you're shooting off M-80 or M-98 fireworks in my neighborhood all the time and frightening my pups I would like Codpiece to show up to your door and obliterate your living room. Back to comic books...
This was the worst year ever in the history of comic books. You read that right, the worst ever. Maybe not for you. Maybe you’ve been desensitized or conditioned to accept and expect mediocrity. Maybe this is all you know. If that’s true for you then I feel sorry for you. From where I’m sitting, this year was the collapse of Atlantis, the sinking of the Titanic and Jeter retiring from the Yankees all wrapped up into one. I have never in the decades upon decades of reading comic books ever been so disappointed in the comic book industry. Notice I said reading, not collecting. I don’t give a f*ck about how much something is worth, especially in an overinflated variant cover market, I only ‘collect’ what I collect because I’m interested in reading it. What I’ve read this year was painful. It was a giant swipe left on title after title and I don’t see it getting better, I see it getting worse.
Entertainment in all forms is at a crossroads: Dysfunctional corporate entities, soulless executives making bottom line only decisions, AI seeping into all the cracks of the creative process and a phone which is the center of the collective hive mind universe demanding an endless stream of blips of dopamine content. Of course there’s been great art created in the past year, but my goodness it is hard to find amidst the noise and it is fucking noisy out there. Brain rot is real. The conditioning of the human attention span to consume zillions of bytes of whatever in a day while disdaining anything over a minute is ruining entertainment. I just read that they're having trouble getting film students to watch films because they're too long and they can't stay interested in following along. God help us all.
I think you can sum up entertainment in general in one scene from the brilliant show ‘The Studio’ on Apple TV, one of the few bright spots in the dark cosmos of content. The fictional Continental Studios is making a Kool Aid movie with Ice Cube starring as the voice for Kool Aid. All the execs are standing around a casting board with pictures of the cast and all they talk about when it comes to their decision making on the cast is ‘Is this racist? Will this offend people’. It gets to the point where they get rid of all the actors not because of their talent but because of their fear of being offensive. The Studio Head then speeds over to a recording studio to talk to Ice Cube and have him confirm that they’re not being racist or offensive. This is where we’re at as a culture. We’re so frightened of offending anyone that we take zero risks and make all creative decisions based on appealing to everyone and nobody at the same time lest we get labeled and cancelled by the cancel mob. It is rock bottom, art and audiences needs a twelve step program, ‘Hi my name is Joe Shmo and I read comics’, ‘Hi Joe Shmo, sucks for you’.
I pulled 96 comic books this year, ninety-fucking-six. That’s nuts. That’s down from about 150 the past couple years, 250 maybe 5 years ago and a steady pull of over 300 a year 8 years ago and beyond. The drop is staggering. I basically used to read a comic a day now I’m down to about less than two a week. It’s not for lack of trying. Of what I pulled probably 1/3 I dropped or just tossed after one issue. I go through every monthly solicit and peruse every story line and release. When I grab my books I go to the racks and look at everything I can, just begging to be wowed, begging to have me go ‘what the hell is this, how did I miss this??’. That used to happen a lot, this year? Not once.
The Big 2 are dead. Yeah yeah, blah, blah Absolute and Ultimate books woo hoo! As good as they were they weren’t earth shattering must haves, but yes, comparatively speaking they were the best of the bunch. Marvisney is a dumpster fire. It’s quite a feat to completely destroy Marvel Comics, the MCU and Star Wars all at the same time but they have. Whatever Marvisney touches turns to poop eventually. DC? A directionless rudder in a vast ocean of crappy decisions. Black Label, which was putting out unbelievably spectacular books a few years ago is all but buried. Now DC is being gobbled up by Netflix and it’s only a matter of time before they reduce the print media to a bare minimum and give you AI Batman Books to stream on your wall size TV with Amazon links to buy Scott Snyder tube tops. Image? Garbage. I don’t know what happened over there but they used to put out nothing but hit after hit now it’s a steady drip drip of swing and misses, even Saga has been a blah yawn affair. Dark Horse is a mini pony that’s been devoured by a video game company. Dusty Larry or DSTLRY, what the hell? They fell off the face of the earth after proclaiming themselves to be the saviors of the comic book universe. My comic shop chick said it’s because of Penguin distribution problems or whatever. I say it’s because you failed Dusty Larry, you failed! The other publishers, some okay mnyeh stuff some not. Not a single comic publisher distinguished themselves this year, what a mess.
The final ignominy of 2025 came while reading the Black Label book ‘Second Knight’ the sequel to the great ‘First Knight’ book of 2024 which tells a Bats origin tale set in the 1930s. In the second issue, Batman is bloodied and about to be beheaded in one scene while a car flying off the cliff with his love interest and a newly introduced Lois Lane is in the other; how does Batman get out of it? Oh, he doesn’t. It’s Superman who comes to the rescue of both Bats and Lois. Well, that’s awesome. That’s exactly what I wanted from a Bat Book, my hero not being good enough and needing Supes to save the day. Jeez, really? Oh wait, it happens not once, but twice! With Bats about to be shot in The Scarecrow's Chemical Factory it's Supes who breaks through the wall to save the day. That's like watching a movie about where the nice guy finally gets the girl except both times he's about to kiss her the d-bag ex BF comes in to bang her right in from of him. Thanks DC!
They say that Manga is where it’s at. They say that Manga sales are through the roof and are crushing the domestic comic book competition. I say, sucks for me because I just can’t get into Manga; not my thing man. If that’s my only other option then I’ll leave the sequential art world behind and dive back fully into actual books.
This year only 7 comic titles made it through to the end. Seven that just provided enough of a breadcrumb to remind me that I still love comics. And yes, I still believe they can be great. I believe, just like anything, there are ups and downs and at some point the medium will rise from the ashes and soar again into a new golden age. And yes, I will probably experience that lying prone in some cushy love seat with a headset covering my entire head looking into a world that only exists in the construct of my imagination.
Maybe we’ll all get severed like the characters in ‘Severance’ and our innies will have amazing comic books in their break room. Mr Milchik will come upon us reading them and say ‘Please displace that puerile Bat tome from your fingers and commence on your return to your work surface’.
I'd like for Mr. Milchik to take over Marvisney and DC. At least we'll get some fancy high falutin' words and marching bands outside of our LCS's. I wouldn't call these the Magnificent 7, maybe the Mnyeh, they were Aite 7. Here ya go...
4. Phantom Road - Jeff Lemire, the King of 'What the hell is going on here?'. If you're thinking of getting into comic books and want to know how to grab a reader just dive into a bunch of Lemire books. After every first issue you'll probably be like 'Wait, what just happened?'. That's a good thing! I'm shocked that all of Lemire's stuff hasn't been made into TV shows yet. This current story about some bizarre glowing rock with its flock of naked empty eye socket humanoids and a pseudo upside down world that involves Feds, rest stops and a burly truck driver is screaming for a streamer to pick it up. There's been some interesting reveals this year in this one. I think the main problem with this title has been long hiatuses. They're basically dropping 5 issues a pop and then sailing off into the horizon for however long they want; it's really awful. It really stifles momentum and it's not like you've already established this title for several years like Saga has. That said, this book is still a no doubt looking forward to it pull in a year full of 'Yuck, what the hell is going on here?' so I guess they're getting away with it.
1. City beneath her feet - One single issue is all it took for this Dusty Larry gem to make it the best of the year, that's it. The first wowza holy moley great ish came out last December and they didn't release the second ish until late this year! That's not a hiatus, that's a sabbatical. That's like going on a hot date around Christmas and stalking them until Halloween begging for seconds. Look, I’m not a huge fan of James Tynion, his long form series like Department of Truth and Nice House by the Lake seem to always start off like gangbusters but then fizzle at the halfway point. But my goodness, he can write a short 3-4 issue Dusty Larry series like a champ. His collaboration with Christian Ward on the Dusty Larry series ’Spectregraph’ back in 2024 was absolutely spectacular and this one with one of my fave artists Elsa Charretier is also a major moonshot into the upper deck. It’s a tad too violent for my taste but the writing is nothing short of perfect; this is how you set up a story, hook an audience and dive right into it with no bullshitting around. I don’t even think it’s the best DSTLRY book that’s been released; it might not even be Top 5. But in a depressed wonky underachieving year, this book, without question, takes the prize for it’s superior premise and eye popping art from good ol’ Elsa. Umm, Elsa, by the way, could you please bonk Tom King on the head and get back to finishing up Love Everlasting, pretty pretty please?
Since it was so long since the first issue of City Beneath her Feet I had to go find it in my stack of prestige comics and I gotta say, I got a little verklempt looking at them. There’s been so so many truly great stories put out on the prestige format in the past several years, like, all-time great stories. It made me realize, ‘Hey, this is recent. It’s not from the golden age. If they can put this kind of brilliance out into the world just a few years ago, surely they could do so now, right?' Am I right? Why aren’t I right? Well, a recent news item just reported that DSTLRY is halting all publications indefinitely due to, who knows and who cares. It sucks. Who’s ready to carry the mantle this year as the Publisher that saved Domestic Comics???
If you ask me, nobody. You know how many comics I pulled in January? One. You know how many I have set to be pulled in February and March? Three. I’m pretty much done. I’m sure there’ll be some books that decide, ‘oh hey we’re picking back up again’ which I’ll grab but other than that it is a bleak bleak world of comics for yours truly. Hey, I got doggies with expensive taste, nothing wrong with using comic book budget money for my fancy doggie jerky budget. Maybe it’s been them along, the doggies. They do conspire a lot when I’m not around. Maybe they sent a bunch of emails when I was out and about and helped bring down the Comic Book Empire so I could focus more on filling their cupboard space with more out of this world yum yums. That’s a quaint ridiculous theory. It’s like blaming them for my farts. I’m sure the Comic Book industry is pointing the figure as well at the world, at culture, at economics and blaming them all for passing gas. Nah. You farted this past year, and it stinks to high heaven.
Codpiece? You're up homie. Do your worst.
