Cocktail Of The Year 2011

Yes, it's that slightly embarrassing, self-concious moment once again when I tally up which comics have made me the happiest throughout the year.

As regular readers know, each week I get my comics and run through them, posting a short review and what I did or didn't like about them. At the end of each week's reviews, I post a panel that, quite simply, made me smile that week and it's those panels that earn their respective titles the Cocktail for that week. I've gone through the 2011 Cocktail posts and using a hideously complicated process that I'm not going to bore you with worked out who gets the awards.

It took me a while to warm to Marc Guggenheim's work on Justice Society of America but I did eventually and he made a surprising appearance near the top of the list, along with Gail Simone for her work on Secret Six which, if it hadn't been cancelled by Flashpoint would almost certainly have won. As it was, Flashpoint gave me the last minute winner of Jeff Lemire whose work first on Flashpoint: Frankenstein and then Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. has come out on top.

Zatanna's series was consistently good fun whether by Paul Dini or the guest writers that finished the series off prior to Flashpoint claiming it as yet another casualty and, as I mentioned above, Justice Society of America grew on me as the run went on, despite getting off to a shaky start. But, and there's little surprise here, it was Secret Six that month after month made me smile the most. As much as I like big events or violent comics labelled for mature readers, it's the fun, entertaining comics that keep me reading these darn things.

So there you go, a quick summary of what I enjoyed most in 2011's comics.

As they sort of say on aeroplanes, I know you have a choice of comic blogs to read and I appreciate each of you that spends a little time here and my thanks to those who leave comments.

Have a great New Year's Eve however you're celebrating it and I'll see you in 2012.