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[BEST & WORST ’12] Jorge Solis’ List of the Best Comics 2012!

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It’s usually difficult to buy comic book issues every month. Most likely, I’ll wait till the issues are collected and buy the trade paperback. It’s easier for me to see how the story arc comes full circle. But often, the best comics are the ones I buy in single issues and still get the trade paperback as well. Here is my list of the best trade paperbacks to come out of 2012.

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JORGE SOLIS’S TOP 10 COMICS OF 2012

10. Green Wake Vol. 2: Lost Children (Image Comics)

Though the series ended too soon, Kurtis J. Wiebe delivers a satisfying finale to the mysterious town and inhabitants of Green Wake. Wiebe provides explanations on the history of Green Wake and his final thoughts on the series. Riley Rossmo offers unused covers and sketches of a few panels.

9. Witchblade: Rebirth, Vol. 1: Unbalanced Pieces (Top Cow Productions)

During Top Cow’s Rebirth, Tim Seeley starts off with a fresh take, relocating Sara Pezzini, wielder of the Witchblade artifact, to the mean streets of Chicago. Artist Diego Bernard captures the snowy and icy weather, which represents Sara’s moody personality. Bernard includes a cover gallery in the bonus content.

8. Hoax Hunters Vol. 1: Murder, Death, and The Devil (Image Comics)

Michael Moreci and Steve Seeley play around with the reality TV concept, where paranormal investigators disprove actual supernatural events to the public. Artist Axel Medellin focuses on the atmosphere and character dynamics in his moody illustrations. This collection also features Issue #0, the back-up tales originally found in “Hack/Slash.”

7. Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Raise Them Bones (DC Comics)

Scott Snyder delivers a suspenseful origin tale as Dr. Alec Holland is called upon once again to become Swamp Thing. Artist Yanick Paquette delivers the gruesome imagery of The Rot and its zombie army. Paquette also offers sketches and early concepts of the cover layouts.

6. Rebel Blood (Image Comics)

Alex Link and Riley Rossmo craft an action-packed thriller about a young man, Chuck Neville, discovering the animals in the woods have turned into zombies. With no dialogue in the panels, Rossmo illustrates eerie and frightening sequences where Chuck is being chased by the infected animals. Rossmo provides early covers and concept art of the zombie animals.

5. Crawl To Me: Evil Edgar Edition (IDW Publishing)

Writer/artist Alan Robert delivers an intense psychological thriller about a married couple trapped in their house by a menacing evil spirit. The “Evil Edgar Edition” contains an introduction by comics legend Walt Simonson and a painted cover by Menton3.

4. American Vampire Vol. 4 HC (Vertigo Comics)

In “Death Race,” Scott Snyder introduces Travis Kidd, a young hunter with his own style of killing bloodsuckers. With a pair of wooden teeth, Kidd bites back and rips the throat of a vampire. Artist Rafael Albuquerque delivers a breathtaking car chase as Kidd and Skinner Sweet fight on top of his Thunderbird’s hood. Albuquerque provides a sketchbook containing character designs of Kidd and loosely drawn “American Vampire” covers.

3. The Strain Vol. 1 (Dark Horse Comics)

In this adaptation, David Lapham tightens the dialogue, focusing on the police procedural aspect as Ephraim and Nora, the disease detectives, investigate their case. Aimed at shock value, Mike Huddleston depicts the violent aftermath of the vampire attacks, where heads are squashed and brains pop out.. Also included, there is a foreword by ” The Strain” creators, Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

2. Monocyte – Black Label Menton3 Edition (IDW Publishing)

Kasra Ghanbari and Menton3 deliver a highly imaginative apocalypse with provocative and fashionable character designs. In Menton3’s artwork, primary colors are washed away, bringing only gray and black tones to the forefront. In this edition, Menton3 offers new end pages and a custom cloth cover.

1. Severed HC (Image Comics)

Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft deliver a heart-wrenching coming-of-age tale about a lost runaway searching for his missing father, while crossing paths with a demonic serial killer known as The Salesman. Attila Futaki recreates the look and feel of America in the 1900s with his beautifully-rendered illustrations. Readers are given an inside look at the artistic process as Futaki provides a cover gallery, character sketches, and photo references.

Honorable Mentions:
“Hellboy Vol. 12: The Storm And The Fury”, “The Darkness: Rebirth” Vol. 1, and “’68 Vol.1: Better Run Through The Jungle”.

By – Jorge Solis

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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