The Year of Comic Books In Review - Final Nominee List

I don't choose to add any of this week's books to the nominee list, although Daisy Kutter and WildGuard were both quite good. So, moving on...

Let's review the titles that are in contention for "Best Comic Book of 2004 according to Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog": Abadazad #1, Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, Aquaman #14, Aquaman #17, Aquaman #18, Aquaman #22, Astonish Comics #1, Astronauts in Trouble: Master Flight Plan, Best of Dork Storm Press #2, Bone Volume Three: Eyes of the Storm, Even More Fund Comics, Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank, Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City, The Golem's Mighty Swing, Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden: Borrowed Magic, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, PS238 #5, PS238 #6, PS238 #7, PS238 #8, PS238 #9, PS238: With Liberty and Recess For All, Safe Area Gorazde, The Tale of One Bad Rat, True Story Swear to God: 100 Stories, True Story Swear To God: Chances Are..., and Ursula.

That's too much to pick from. So the next step is to eliminate some books from the running by giving them "Other Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog Awards".

• "Best Publisher" goes to AiT/Planet Lar, which, in addition to publishing a huge stack of really good books also took the time and effort to introduce comic book bloggers to those books. The AiT/Planet Lar listings have now become a must-read in Previews every month, and a huge number of their books made the nominee list.
  
• "Best Anthology" goes to Even More Fund Comics. Lots of good stories at a good price.
  
• "Best Collection To Reread Many Times In Bed With The Covers Over Your Head And A Flashlight On The Book" goes to Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City. The hardcover is gorgeous, and every time you reread this book you find something new and cool.
  
• "Eleven Is Good" award goes to Steve Lieber for creating the Lieber's Eleven list and getting quite a meme going among the comic book bloggers. Books from his list that made my nominee list were The Golem's Mighty Swing, Safe Area Gorazde, The Tale of One Bad Rat, Persepolis, Bone, and Age of Bronze. Those are just ones I read this year.
  
• "Deeply Missed" goes to Abadazad. It will be coming back, but not the way it was. I only hope it's just as good when it returns.
  
• The "I Wish It Deserved The Highest Honor" award goes to the various issues of Aquaman. Although they were good, none of them were the best.
  
• "Best Collection For Scholars As Well As Fans" goes to Age of Bronze: Sacrifice which is another gorgeous hardcover that collects excellent material.
  
• "Coolest Book I Nearly Didn't Buy" goes to Ursula, whose personalized promotion on this blog convinced me to give it a try, and made me an instant fan of Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. It's a beautiful book that's at once more simple and far more complicated than it seems to be.

And tomorrow I'll reveal the comic book, out of all that I read in 2004, that I thought was the best of the year.