Continuing our annual seasonal tradition of daily guest Best of the Year posts during December, today the excellent Brendan McCarthy shares some of his selections with us:
FPI: Can you pick three comics/webcomics/graphic novels which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?
Brendan: Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon was superb. Great to see Glyn deliver what we always knew he could do. I love the watercolour feel, making the book’s tone a bit more personal.
Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Even though Grant swiped the ‘suicide over the phone’ narrator from Rogan Gosh, I forgive him… And I really enjoyed seeing this great little series again. Comics have changed a lot since my earlier heyday and these kinds of semi-autobiographical “indy” Vertigo strips have a lovely feeling to them. I particularly enjoyed Mr Quitely’s art here.
2000AD seems to have recovered again this year… John Smith’s Indigo Prime was great with some terrific artwork.
FPI: Can you pick three TV shows and/or movies which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?
Brendan: Like everbody says, ‘Breaking Bad’ has been great, ditto ‘Walking Dead’ (in spite of its early second season slump).
Curiosly, Mad Men seems to have ‘jumped the shark’ and gone off the boil. I liked The Guard as well, a hilarious little Irish film starring Brendan Gleeson as a dodgy cop.
FPI: How did 2012 go for you as a creator? Are you happy with the way you got your work out this year?
Brendan: Well, having Mad Max Fury Road finally go into production was a great boost… I never thought I’d see the day! The Zaucer of Zilk had a rocky reception in 2000AD as the hard core sci-fi fanboys got all hot and bothered — it split reaction down the middle… But it has emerged triumphantly in the American marketplace, courtesy of IDW.
FPI: What can we look forward to from you in 2013?
Brendan: Maybe some Mad Max-related work and a brand new graphic novel… It depends. Also, a big collection of my 80s comics should be released, if all goes well; The Best of Milligan & McCarthy.
(promo material for Rogan Gosh in Revolver, by and (c) Milligan & McCarthy – just in the last few days stories have been surfacing about a Best of Milligan & McCarthy as Brendan has just intimated here, fingers crossed we get an official announcement soon because this is something we really want!)
Sun, Dec 2, 2012
Best of the Year 2012, Comics and cartoons