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I first started TPL way back in June 2006 and it had a little run until I started teaching for the first time in September of 2006. I thought I was done with it forever but the bug got back to me around April of 2007 and I started it up again. This time it has run every week with very little delay and I am pretty proud of that. I thought that I would reminisce a bit and take a look back at 2007. I read a whopping 729 comics over the course of the 8 months, not to mention all the Comic Book Catch-Up Titles I picked up as well. For a more manageable time, only title from TPL will be listed here.
-Best Writer- I think there can be only one guy who can take this award and that is Ed Brubaker. He writes three of the best Marvel titles out there, Captain America, Criminal and Daredevil. Throw in a massively interesting Uncanny X-Men run and you have a guy who could do no wrong in 2007. Oh yeah, he also killed Captain America.
-Best Single Issue- This was a tough one for me to choose. I looked at the past winners of the Book of the Week and the one that kept jumping out was Sinestro Corps Special #1. This was a perfect kick-off to an awesome event and there was just surprise after surprise, from Prime showing up and The Anti-Monitor being there! I never read or really liked Green Lantern but even this had me pumped for the Sinestro Corps!
-Best Artist- Freddie E. Williams drew three Books of the Week so he deserves an honorable mention but the award has to go to my man Mark Bagley. His legendary run on Ultimate Spider-Man ended this year and just for his sheer consistency, his timeliness, and his ability to make everything look good!
-Best Title- There are very few titles that make it to the top of my list every week but one is always there. You may be able to deduce based on who I thought was the best writer but really, was there any series that could rival Captain America? I don’t think there is. There wasn’t a single bad issue in the run. Sure some titles would be awesome one week but three months later would be crap. Cap provides a rare consistency these days and Bru is a big part of that.
-Best Mini-Series- The best mini-series was an easy pick for me. Now, this doesn’t include any of the mini-series tie-ins, just a mini-series that is completely self-contained and has nothing else connected to it. The only real winner would have to be Darktower. I never read the books by King but this was well-written, well-drawn and really was an amazing story. The work it did for bringing more fans into comicdom cannot be ignored either.
-Best Event- I was really torn between World War Hulk and Sinestro Corps as what the best event was this year and in the end I have to give it to Sinestro Corps for two reasons. A) It lacked a huge amount of tie-ins and was for the most part self-contained. World War Hulk tended to be brought down by some of the title that had little or no relevence while Sinestro Corps did not. The second reason is that Sinestro Corps was just better written in my eyes. It was a perfect 14-part series with no filler going on between the issues. World War Hulk was great, but the payoff to Sinestro Corps was just better.
-Best Cover Artist- This one is no real shock, Arthur Suydam is killing it with his homages to past classic comic covers with his zombie-fied version and he can even draw his own stuff as seen on the Wolverine covers! This guy just kills it.
Of course, those were the highlights. There were some not so memorable things happening in 2007 as well but I tend not to dwell on the low-lights. If I were to pick some things I didn’t care for it would have to include: Jeph Loeb’s run on Wolverine, The Amazons Attack mini, The Wonder Man mini, and more recently, Countdown Arena.
That’s it, your rushed look at 2007 and my time reading all these titles!
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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