Cocktail Of The Year 2013

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 2013 Cocktail posts and using a hideously complicated process that I'm not going to bore you with worked out who gets the awards.

Taking over from Paul Cornell on Demon Knights was, in my opinion a hard act to follow but Robert Venditti managed it; he did the same picking up the reins from Geoff Johns on Green Lantern as well. The team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are consistently good on All Star Western which is a delight to read month in, month out.

However, it's Geoff Johns who with his work on Justice League, Justice League of America, Green Lantern and even Forever Evil that gave me something to smile about the most this year.

Johns's work on Justice League of America helped it make a good run for the top three and, as mentioned above, All Star Western is still one of the best comics around - each month in terms of writing and art it's consistently excellent.

That said, though, with writing duties being split between Geoff Johns, Robert Venditti and a splendid one-shot contribution from Charles Soule, it's Green Lantern that takes the top spot this year.

Thanks very much for reading Crisis on Earth-Prime whether you do it regularly or have come here looking for some very specific things - there's a lot of comic blogs on the net and it's appreciated that you spend some time here. Even more so if you choose to leave a comment! :)

Have yourselves a great New Year whatever you're doing and see you in 2014.

Monday Memories #52 - Young Justice #31

Each Monday this past year I've been taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics were chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I didn't know what I'd be looking at in the weeks ahead!

And now here we are, number 52, one entire year's worth of posts completed. What am I going to do on a Monday now . . . ?

Christmas Comic Books

The lovely Mrs Earth-Prime bought me two comic-related books for Christmas this year: Mail-Order Mysteries by Kirk DeMarais looking at all the old stuff that used to get advertised in comics in the 50's to 70's:

and The Horror! The Horror! by Jim Trobetta which discusses and reprints a whole host of old horror comics that fell victim to the US Congress censorship mania in the 50's:

That's my reading matter sorted for the next couple of weeks!

Hope you al had a good Christmas, folks.

Merry Christmas!

Judge Dredd by Carlos Ezquerra - does it get much better?

Have a good Christmas everyone!

(I told you this was coming months ago...)

Monday Memories #51 - Eclipso #5

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

No Cocktail Today

A combination of being busy in the run-up to Christmas and a couple of other things meant that I didn't get to pick up my last delivery before Christmas hits in a few days; not a massive worry as there was only three comics this week.

With the exception of a couple of pre-planned posts I'm probably not going to be around much this week so will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Earth-Prime - have fun however you're celebrating (or not!) and be nice to each other.

See you in a week or so!

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Trailer

I thoroughly enjoyed the Rise of The Planet of The Apes from a couple of years back - for all my bitching a few days ago about reboots and remakes, that was one that worked. It took the original story and built something new from it rather than simply hitting reset and remaking the same thing again.

With that in mind, I will definitely be watching the sequel: