Luke Surl Comics

**Comic is on Christmas vacation, returns Friday 30th December***

Howdy,

For the last couple of years at about this time I did a bit of a webcomics review of the year through the medium of discussing my nominations for the Webcomics List awards (2009, 2010). AFAIK, these aren’t happening for 2011; nevertheless, I’ll have a go at doing a roundup of the best comics I’ve seen on the ‘net these last twelve months.

I make no apologies that these thoughts are entirely subjective on my part.

Starting off, 2011 saw the conclusion of Warren Ellis’ Freakangels. In the largely amateur world of webcomics, satisfactory and structured endings are something of a rarity, with comics often petering out or halting updates abruptly (“indefinite hiatus”). Freakangels was always very much a professional enterprise however, and concluded with all of the finesse it showed during its run.

For the funnies, Bug has maintained a consistently high standard through the year and has been a highlight of my RSS reader. From an entirely personal perspective, now that I’ve started a PhD, I’ve found the well-titled PhD comics (which I’ve been reading for years) to be excellent observational comedy.

If I were to do an award for best single moment in webcomics 2011, it would be the “SPKOW!” strip of Dumbing of Age. The particular storyline (link to the beginning of the arc), was intensely gripping - much plaudits need to go to Willis for creating palpable threat, tension and a character that one genuinely is concerned for.

Centering on relgion and myth, belief and believers, Everything Dies is some of the best non-fiction comic work out there right now. Creating an engaging narrative from historical events and popular myths (I’ll leave it to you to decide which myths also fit into the first category!) requires a very particular skill, and Box Brown has that in spades.

Let’s finish off with my “comic of the year”. I’m going for Sinfest, a comic which in 2011 has found an exquisite blend of humor and pathos. Its probably not for everyone, in some ways Sinfest is a bit like an Escher painting, with a continual, upward, unending climb of character development across the cast. For me this is a big plus, I like to think that this time in 2012 the characters will have grown and evolved further, and I’m looking forward to seeing them through this path. Sinfest‘s greatest strength however is its full-page colour Sunday strips. Often wordless, they are a masterclass in how to write comics.

Well, that’s all from me. Got any comic highlights of 2011 you want to share? Why not post some links in the comments?

Cya,
L