My 13 Favorite Things of 2008

Early next week I’ll be posting my “best of” list for 2008. This year’s wrap up has changed significantly. In previous years, I created “top 10” lists for the best (and sometimes, the worst) ongoing series, mini-series, and graphic novels of the year. Honestly, a couple things have always bothered me about that approach.

One, I usually just don’t like that many books; it was getting increasingly difficult to fill the categories and I found myself scrambling to find respectable choices to reward that I wasn’t always 100% passionate about – and I’m really not that interested in recognizing mediocrity just for the sake of making a list look superficially complete.

Two, I can’t read everything, so how can I possibly determine what the “best” is? Even if I do read everything, my arcane criteria would surely be unique from anyone else’s. Sure, a lot of this is inherent to the review and critique business, but hey… I thought going with “favorite” would rightly imply total personal subjectivity, not the pseudo-objectivity that terms like “best” or “top” do.

In addition to refining and condensing the list down to the items I truly loved, it also allowed me more flexibility to include anything I wanted on the list. Thus, the items you’ll see might be favorite ongoing series, mini-series, TPBs, OGNs, publishers, creators, moments, or even singular lines of dialogue. They can really be anything. They’re in no particular order. I also included five runners-up, simply because that felt about right.

See you soon!