It's that time of year again, where best of lists start to proliferate. The AV Club comic list is usually an interesting read, as it goes well beyond the big 2, but takes them into consideration as well. It's turned me on to some comics I had passed over but ended up liking quite a bit (Five Ghosts: The Haunting of Fabian Gray and Brandom Graham's Prophet come to mind).

Here the link to this year's list and as is usually the case, there's a ton of stuff I haven't heard of let alone read, so there is a lot of stuff to explore. There's three contributors, each of whom does their best of essay, so there's a lot of variety there to choose from.

Olivia Sava lists the following:

-My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (published by Fantagraphics)-the art was created with ballpoint pen in lined notebook paper, so this is about as close to a garage band comic as you can get.
-Spinning by Tillie Walden (published by FirstSecond)
-Shade the Changing Girl form DC's Young Animal line, one of the few on these lists I have read this year.
-Crawl space (Koyama Press)
-Tenements, Towers & Trash by Julia Wertz (from Black Dog & Leventhal)is a mixture or prose, illustrations and short comics forming an unconventional history of New York City. I haven't seen this, but the write up invoked the spectre of Will Eisner's tenement stores like Dropsie Ave when I read it.
-Giant Days (from BOOM!)
-Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson (from Marvel)
-Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Erica Henderson (from Marvel)
-Deathstroke by Christopher Priest (from DC)
-Extremity (from Image)
-Old Guard (from Image) this is a Greg Rucka title I have been meaning to check out, this might finally spur me to do it
-Beowulf (from Image) by Santaigo Garcia and David Rubin

Caitlin Rosberg lists the following:

-All Star Batman by Scott Snyder (from DC)
-Batman/The Shadow by Snyder/Orlando & Rossimo (from DC/Dynamite)
-Batman and Mister Miracle by Tom King (both from DC)
-Shipwreck by Warren Ellis and PhilHester (from Aftershock) another book I have been meaning to check out but haven't gotten around to
-Redlands by Vanessa Del Rey & Jordie Bellaire (from Image) I like Del Rey and Bellaire's work a lot, so I need to pick this one up
-Not Drunk Enough by Tess Stone (from Oni)
-Wilde Life by Pascal Lepas (a web comic)
-Letters for Lucardo (Iron Circus), this is an erotic comic so may not be for everyone
-Dinosaur Empire: Earth Before Us by Abby Howard (from Amulet Books) part comic part educational children's book

Shea Hennum lists (easily the least mainstream of the 3 lists):

-Pretending is Lying by Dominique Goblet & Sophie Yanow (from New York Review Comics) a memoir comic
-The Best We Could Do (from Abrams) another memoir comic by Thi Bui
-Iceland by Yuichi Yokoyama (from Retrofit)
-Zonzo by Joan Cornella (from Fantagraphics)
-Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero by Michael DeForge (from Drawn & Quarterly)
-Mirror Mirror II edited by Sean T. Collins & Julia Gfrorer (from 2d Cloud) an anthology project
-Anti-Gone by Connor Willumsen (from Koyama Press)
-Language Barrier by Hannah K. Lee (from Koyama)

an interesting set of lists. The comments on the article offer suggestions form other folks to, so there is more to mine if you are looking for intersesting reads that came out last year.

-M