As a quick aside, of the comics I was reading around YEBO time last year, I'm only still reading three of them... The Walking Dead, Chew, and Peter Panzerfaust. No more Dark Knight, Aquaman, Saga, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Hawkeye. And Swerve has run its course as well. Let's just say it's been an interesting year of comic self discovery.

5. Chew (Image)
Last year, this title was only an honorable mention simply because I had just discovered it and only read about six of the nearly 25 issues worth that were in print. I am now all caught up and loving it. To recap the series, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has become the most powerful oversight and law enforcement agency in the world as a result of a bird flu pandemic that wiped out 23 million Americans and resulted in all chicken being outlawed. Tony Chu is one of their star agents because he is also one of the world's only cibopaths, a person who can tell you anything about a food by eating it. This includes how it was prepared, grown, caught, killed, anything. The same goes for human body parts. Chu and his partner Colby draw the short straw on some of the most twisted cases you can imagine fueled by John Layman's clearly deranged mind and further enabled by the wicked artistry of Rob Guillory. The series is up to number 37 right now of a total 60-issue run and the first 35 are available in collected volumes.

4. Peter Panzerfaust (Image)
As I recall, this comic was one of my top ones last year because of it being a hybrid of two dearly held loves of mine... Peter Pan and World War II history. I still read it because of those two loves, but it has dropped a little bit. The decline is mostly due to the fact that the frenetic nature of the artwork by Tyler Jenkins sometimes makes it hard to distinguish between characters in a panel and I tend to get the action muddled up a bit in my head as a result. Sure, one could argue that this works perfectly considering it's a wartime serial, but my mind needs to keep things straight. But Kurtis Wiebe's writing is more than compelling enough to keep me going.

3. High Crimes (Monkeybrain)
A pretty interesting concept here, a disgraced former Olympic skier has moved to Kathmandu to escape her past life and now works with another American as a "recovery specialist" of sorts. The two regularly ascend Mount Everest to find lost bodies and cut off their hands to help identify them. Then, upon positive identification, they offer recovery services to the next of kin. However, when one of their bodies turns up as flagged by the CIA, all hell breaks loose. Early on, I almost gave up on the series because it's not as regular a release as I'm normally accustomed to. Sometimes it's monthly, other times there are a few months in between. That and the number of flashbacks for history building seemed to be too much. However, come issues 4 and 5 and it really has kicked into high gear. I highly recommend.

2. Invincible (Image)
I took Dave2's suggestion and began reading this superhero comic from Robert Kirkman in earnest. Truly great stuff that does something that so many of the big hero comics like Superman and Batman can't do and give the story a very regular "human" perspective. The characters are VERY realistic in their portrayal and you can't help but feel for them through thick and thin.

1. Think Tank (Top Cow)
About a month or so ago, I was looking for a new comic book to read and took the question to Twitter. Almost immediately, Geeks of Doom replied with Think Tank. I checked out the first issue, which was a free download, and loved it. Dr. David Loren is a genius who is recruited very early in his life by the U.S. intelligence community to work on new weapons for the government. After a couple decades of this, he's burned out and wants out. Knowing this isn't going to happen easily considering his classification as a "military asset," he strikes back in ways that only a science geek can. I tend to think of this comic as what would have happened to Chris Knight (Val Kilmer) had he not already burned all his bridges prior to graduation in the 80s classic Real Genius. Written by Top Cow Comics chief Matt Hawkins and penned flawlessly by Rahsan Ekedal, this comic is so scary in its portrayal of the military machine that you cannot help but worry that this stuff really does go on. And if Hawkins' educational sections at the back of each issue don't convince you of its validity, nothing will.

Honorable Mentions:
Here are a few comics I love or am quickly learning to love that don't quite fit into my top comics list for whatever reason. The reasons are detailed in the reviews.

Wonder Woman (DC)
This is the DC Comics New 52 spin on Wonder Woman and I gotta say that I love it. I picked up on this due to a recommendation by Claire of TTAT although she's not the first to have recommended it, just the first that actually made me take action. The only reason it's not in the list above is that I'm still more than a year behind on issues. I've only read through the first two volumes, or 12 issues.

Astro City (DC)
Kurt Busiek has revived his tale of classic superhero collective, The Honor Guard, and, since I'd never read any of the old runs, I thought it might not be bad to get some background. Little did I realize how many issues existed. I've only read through the first series from 1995-96 so far and I love it. Each issue tends to focus on a single hero from the Guard and is typically told from the perspective of a citizen experiencing the heroism or the Guard themselves. Having the different perspectives is a really cool touch. Again, not listed because I'm years behind on this title.

Lazarus (Image)
I've actually only read one issue of this and was mightily impressed by the storyline. A future where the 1% of today's wealthy become more like 0.0001% and rule the world. Government means nothing to these families. And each family has a member that serves as their "Lazarus" or protector... a highly trained killing machine that will stop at nothing to defend the family's honor and protect their place in society. It's a very dark idea, but very cool. I'm going to keep reading for now.

What comics were you reading this year?