Inside the Arctic Base, the men from the website peered nervously out as SHAKO paced the snow. The giant bear showed no signs of tiring. But what could it want? All they had were the Freaky Trigger Comics Poll Results. What use could a polar bear have for a rundown of the top comics of 2014? Outside, Shako waited. Like all polar bears, Shako could be… patient when it came to his prey. This was just like the fishing hole, where he waited for a seal. His instincts told him the humans would soon be exhausted… ready to… PLAY WITH SHAKO. Shako could smell the meat of analysis and vote totals. Very soon now, it would be his.
Ahem. Yes, thankyou Shako, and thankyou those readers who voted in the first annual FT Comics Poll for the best titles of 2014. We’ll get into your Top 25 comics of the year in other posts, but here, first of all, are the titles that ranked (i.e. got more than 1 vote) but placed outside the final 25.
38. BITCH PLANET (DeConnick/De Landro/Peter/Cowles, Image Comics)
With only one issue, which came out after the poll was announced, it’s a sign of the brutal quality of Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro’s feminist space prison saga that it snuck on the end of a couple of ballots anyhow.
37. ROCKET GIRL (Montclare/Reeder, Image Comics)
Zesty sci-fi about a time-jumping future cop in an alternate 80s New York. A lot of buzz around this comic at the start of last year, though it’s in between-arcs hiatus now.
36. UMBRAL (Johnston/Mitten, Image Comics)
Image had a bunch of epic or dark fantasy comics launch this year – it’s not a genre that does much for me, but Umbral was definitely the best I looked at, and probably the nastiest.
35. SECONDS (Byron Lee O’Malley, Ballantine Books)
I suspect there is nothing that more precisely dates me as a comics fan than my not really ‘getting’ Scott Pilgrim. The fault is plainly in me not it – that comic was a touchstone for a bunch of fans a few years younger than me, and Seconds is a chance for them to see its creator tackle hitting your thirties.
34. PROPHET (Brandon Graham and many more, Image Comics)
Brandon Graham’s sci-fi epic is finishing up next year – special bonus in 2014 for putting out the bizarre and fascinating Prophet:Strikefile, a mind-expanding guide to the series and the first comic called “Strikefile” since 1993.
33. CAPTAIN MARVEL (DeConnick/Lopez/Loughridge, Marvel Comics)
Another relaunch for Carol Danvers’ solo comic sent her up into space for a smart sci-fi adventure.
32. ODY-C (Fraction/Ward, Image Comics)
Another one-issue wonder, though it was out for a bit longer when voting came round. A psychedelic gender-swapped Odyssey in space, and a showcase for the power of digital colours.
30=. TREES (Ellis/Howard, Image Comics)
Even more Image Comics sci-fi – this one is a series of character pieces by Warren Ellis, united by a setting in which Earth has been colonised by enormous, unresponsive, alien structures.
30=. COSPLAYERS (Dash Shaw, Fantagraphics)
Contra the title, there’s not that much cosplay in the main storyline in Cosplayers #1, a charming story about online creativity and its intersection with real life.
29. THE MIDAS FLESH (North/Paroline/Lamb, Boom! Studios)
King Midas’ golden touch reimagined as a hard SF story which turns back into one about consequences – the breezy Ryan North style keeps things deceptively delightful.
28. THREE (Gillen/Kelly/Bellaire, Image Comics)
A sword-and-sandal epic about slaves on the run that’s also Kieron Gillen’s barbed comment on historical mythmaking in general and Frank Millers 300 in particular.
27. THE WALKING DEAD (Kirkman/Adlard/Gaudiano/Rathburn, Image Comics)
Image’s best-selling title which I have never…. actually… read…. but it’s about zombies, that much I know! And clearly had a strong year.
26. BLACK WIDOW (Edmondson/Noto, Marvel Comics)
Natasha Romanova gets a spotlight – Nathan Edmondson writes a clipped, atmospheric spy drama, turned thoughtful and melancholy by Phil Noto’s art (colouring in particular)
Check back in a couple of days for #25-11 – if we can escape the jaws of Shako, obviously…