Local was my favorite thing I read all year long, period.  

Bryan Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) used the comic medium to tell the personal and realistic story of a young woman growing up.  Each issue we're given a snapshot of a young woman, Megan McKeenan, every few years moving from city to city and taking on different jobs, meeting people, losing loved ones, and learning some really tough life lessons.  It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

I read this book cover to cover in one evening, and at the end of each issue I had to put the book down to let what I had just read sink in.  The book is absolutely filled with heartbreaking moments and some of the best storytelling I've ever seen in comics.  It's a total indie-rock book and every issue includes a track list of songs Brian Wood listened to while writing and it helps give a CW soundtrack to a book that begs to be heard.  I should also mention that each issue is drawn in beautiful inky black-and-white by Ryan Kelly.  Brian Wood wrote a great story but Ryan Kelly's stunning artwork brings a style and look to the book that makes the hardcover volume what it is.  Every once in a while a writer meets an artist and it's pure magic.  Look no further.

I love Marvel and DC with all my heart, but nothing I've read from the big 2 companies has ever effected my the way reading Local has.  This is the kind of book I can put in the hands of anyone and it would convey that comics aren't just super heroes and that you can tell some really powerful and beautiful stories using panels and word balloons.  If super heroes aren't your thing and you'd like a great read in the tradition of Ghost World or anything by Adrian Tomine, pick this up.

I had a strange revelation this year.  I love Superman.  I never thought I did, but between All Star Superman and Geoff Jonhs' work on Action Comics, I've found myself warming up to the man of steel.  He isn't the boring boy scout I once thought he was.  This year All Star Superman came to an end and I will miss it very, very much.

I was confused by All Star Superman when I first started reading it.  The campy and techno tone to the series was strange to me at first but the further I read, and the more the story began to click, I realized I was reading something special.  Grant Morrison isn't always my favorite writer, but he absolutely nailed this series.  There is so much fun to be had in his kooky surreal world, but more so, there is a great deal of sadness underlying the entire series which sets it apart from most super hero work.  Superman realizes his death is near and begins to get everything in order for the day that he will eventually pass.  The final issue had me choked up a couple times and it was the first time (not including Smallville) that I finally understood the power that you can convey with a Superman story and the amount of respect a classic character like this deserves.  All of this comes to life from Frank Quitely's absurdly detailed artwork and the inspired craziness that you can only get from Grant Morrison.  A+ work.

Every Tuesday morning when I sit down to write the top 3, I look through the comics shipping list, and every single time I see Scalped on the list I know that I'll have a good Wednesday.  The realistic crime stories on an Indian reservation doesn't necessarily sound like something I'd instantly love, but when you have characterizations like the ones Jason Aaron writes, it's impossible not to become completely engulfed by the dirty world the book inhabits.  R.M. Guera's artwork while rough at first, only gets better and better and is the only artist with the ability to bring these morally ambiguous stories of drugs, violence and Native American tradition to life.  I feel lucky to be reading this series because I know that someday people will look back on this series the way they look at Y: The Last Man, Preacher, or Transmetropolitan.  It's just great comics.  Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera, I salute you.

The dedication page reads: For the loners, losers, and outcasts.  May you show them all someday.

That page alone could've made me adore this book.

Alex Robinson this year gave us another black-and-white indie classic, Too Cool to be Forgotten, a simple story about a man who tries to quit smoking through hypnosis, and instead wakes up back in high school.  It's not the 400 page every-day-life-epic that Box Office Poison was (one of my favorite graphic novels) but that doesn't mean this book isn't great.  It's really great.

I'm a sucker for great high school stories and this is definitely fits the bill.  Doesn't everyone wish they could go back to high school knowing what they know now?  I'm not even 21 and I know that I'd do lots of things differently.  All of Too Cool to be Forgotten leads up to a tearful finale that I should've seen coming from a mile away.  All the signs are there but Robinson does some brilliant pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain trickery to keep us looking elsewhere.

Alex Robinson also cartoons his face off and makes it look easy.  I read an interview where he said that if "cartoonist," is a good enough title for Charles Schultz, than it's good enough for him.  Alex Robinson is one of the few cartoonists who merits being discussed in the same category as the genius behind the Peanuts.  Thank you for making comics, Alex Robinson.