Posted by Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2022! We’ve got over 25 categories to get through, so make sure you’re checking out all of the articles by using our 2022 Year in Review tag.
There was a time when most comics were anthologies. That’s got a lot to do with comics’ relationship with magazines. One of the ways in which a magazine is different from a book is that a magazine often has lots of different stories in it. You’re less likely to find a book like that in 2022, but there are some series still keeping the format alive! Here are our top three anthology comics for 2022.
3.The Nib
If you grew up with your concept of political cartoons being something you only saw in the opinion page of your local newspaper, you’ll want to check out The Nib, when you’ll discover political cartooning is so much more.
Existing both in a daily web form and a monthly print anthology, The NIb uses both its formats to its advantage. The daily web form provides up to the minute commentary on current affairs, allowing cartoonists to seize the moment to make a point. Their print anthology allows for a deeper dive into a particular topic, everything from work to food to medicine to cities. Whether you’re a casual daily reader who wants a good cartoon with your morning coffee or that reader that relishes deep intersectional dives into topics, The Nib has something for you. And that “something for you” isn’t just sequential art – – The Nib also dips itself into political journalism, memoir, and essays.
The creator list also speaks for itself. Nate Powell. Matt Furie. Gemma Correll. Those creators have also racked up honors for The Nib, from Ignatz Awards to the Australian Ledger Cartooning Prize to Eisner Awards to the Transformative Work Award from Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) for changing comics history.
The email newsletter sign up link on The Nib’s home page is titled “Rise and Shine. The World is Doomed.” As long as The Nib is in our lives, I find our world to be anything but doomed. – Kate Kosturski
2. Monkey Meat
Juni Ba makes stylish books, but “Monkey Meat” takes that to the extreme. The stories, all contained on the same island, owned by the same company, with the same shadowy owners, uses its flat baseline to inject an unseen variety of truly inspired characters, creations and crusades. Ba manages to build up a vault of designs and characters in these first five issues, whether or not the book uses them again after an issue is really up to its creator, but the story proves he’s not exactly lacking in new ideas. That’s the magic here, “Monkey Meat” doesn’t grind against its form because it’s seemingly boundless.
“Monkey Meat” is truly eclectic, every story draws you into its narrative purely on novelty, never letting you decide what trope you’re ingesting and instead asking you to digest the fable in front of you. Fable feels like the right word for a book this moralistic, it’s rare to find a comic that wouldn’t grate on you when every issue features the same general antagonist, but when it’s a monopolistic conglomerate as mercurial and indomitable The Monkey Meat Company, you never get sick of its multifaceted malignancy.
Issue #1 succeeds by evoking another great anthological hero from the get-go, Hellboy, who is echoed in the form of Lug, a grizzled explorer who has seen every facet of this world with the bottomless paycheck of colonialist exploitation. With that throughline, Ba gives us three different bildungsroman protagonists in #2-#4. The final issue of this arc manages to condense the series into its best facets however, presenting another perfectly mystical protagonist who crumples to the monolithic nature of corporate power. It’s a five-issue story that extracts everything unique and magical about Ba’s debut, “Djeliya,” while grounding it in a prescience readers are hungry for. It really is a book that builds an appetite, a gluttony that only “Monkey Meat” can sate. – James Dowling
1. Image!
An anthology comic by definition can be hard to quantify. The best ones can be greater than the sum of their parts and Image! does exactly that. This prestige format anthology series brings something for everyone. A celebration of 30 years of Image Comics has shorter serialized stories, longer stories spanning all 12 issues, comedy strips, introductions to new books, and continuations and new stories of existing comics. Image has attracted a Murderers’ Row of fan favorite creators too numerous to list here to contribute the thing we all love: new comics.
Some standout stories include “Kaya” an introduction to a new book from Wes Craig, “Stupid Fresh Mess” a new strip by Skottie Young, a new “Wytches” story from Scott Snyder & Jock, a new Casanova story by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Bá, & Fabio Moon. The talented creators alone are enough to make this book worth looking at, but none of them are phoning it in. These creators are at the top of their game creating some of the best comics of their careers.
One of my favorite touches on this book are the covers. Each with a wildly different style and logo to match. It’s a great way to highlight the diversity of talent and stories presented within.
It’s a true testament to 30 years of Image Comics history while also looking to the future of creator owned comics. Where else can you see a creator owned comic by DC stalwart Geoff Johns paired with Andrea Mutti in the same issue as a three-part serial by Marvel and Image star Kieron Gillen paired with Steve Lieber?
Image! is an anthology comic that ranks with the best of the format. If anthology comics are for you, this is a book you should not miss. – Matthew Vincenty
We are the Multiversity Staff, and we love you very much.
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