By Zack Quaintance — Look, I know I’ve been posting list after list after list of favorite comics things for 2019 since basically Christmas, and thank you all so much for indulging me with all of that. Picking favorite books over the past 12 months and articulating why I found them to be so successful is one of my favorite parts of running a comics blog. Today, however, I am not here to talk comics.

There were many things outside of comics that I also liked  in 2019, and that’s what I’m here to talk about today. Now, some of these things have a comics connection and others I like for reasons similar to why I like some of my favorite comics. So, I can justify posting this list on the site that way. Moreover, I think the other media I enjoyed this past year really paints a full a picture of what was happening in comics as well. Meaning that I can’t entirely articulate the experience I had with comics this year without also talking about the novels, TV, movies and music I was also consuming.

That’s all very solipsistic, I admit, but nonetheless! I hope you enjoy this list, which follows in utterly random order…

Ten Non-Comics Things I Liked in 2019

Television
Watchmen. One of our other major TV fascinations this past year was Watchmen. In my house, we were also big fans of The Leftovers, which was the previous work by showrunner Damon Lindelof, so watching this was a no-brainer, especially for me who has read the graphic novel like three times. And we weren’t let down. To me, Watchmen felt like a new type of storytelling we’re likely to see more of it.

It was a puzzle box show that was built in such a way that each new episode entirely recontextualized everything we knew about those that came before it. What this did was make it nigh-impossible for Reddit sleuths to accurately theorize about what was about to happen (an annoyance for many major shows these days). All the information was there, but each week, Watchmen reframed things in a way that through the audience off the trail. It was, in a way, spoiler proof, and I loved it. Also, the subject matter was timely, and the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross was a total banger, especially the track, NUN WITH A MOTHERF*&*ING Gun. 

Movie
Peanut Butter Falcon. A few years ago, I was one of these film people. I was living in Austin, Texas, where there was a giant thriving community of film people, spearheaded by Richard Linklater and the film people group he’d founded there, The Austin Film Society. I was easily watching 100 movies a year, often taking in two or three new releases in the same weekend. I’m done with that, because I felt like it was limiting my creativity, with the visual impassive medium putting me squarely in other visions when I wanted to be having my own.

Anyway, all that is a way to say I watch much fewer movies these days, and I generally avoid stuff that feels like homework (which, to be frank, is a large portion of modern cinema). Peanut Butter Falcon was a light feel good flick all the way. In fact, I might even say it was the feeling goodest (sorry!) flick I’ve seen in a decade. And it somehow also wasn’t maudlin and didn’t pander. It’s the type of movie that just makes you feel good, an empowerment story about a boy with down’s syndrome and a group of folks he befriends by questing relentless toward a single goal. I loved it.

Book
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein. The most reductive way to describe this book is to call it a refutation of the Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers, which posits that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to really master something. That theory essentially suggests that if you don’t start trying to heavily specialize in something at a young age, you’ll never be great at it. What Epstein does in Range is go wildly the other direction. This book incorporates a series of anecdotes and research showing the value in being a generalist, up to a certain point.

There is, Epstein writes, perhaps greater value in dabbling in many things with a free and creative attitude that allows one to find work they are truly suited for, while at the same time accumulating skills that can be used to take new and innovative approaches to everything from rocket science to tennis. There are, of course, exceptions, but the end result for me was one of deep encouragement, reorienting my thinking in a way that helps me remember my own false starts and interest shifts as valuable rather than a waste. 

Sweet Child O Mine
Baby Yoda, a.k.a. my special little guy, was a bonafide cultural phenomenon that basically came out of nowhere to salvage a rough year during the last two months. I know my house certainly flipped for it. Why? Look, my wife and I graduated college during the recession. We’re a millennial couple who’ve had our finances stunted. We are deeply committed to talking about getting a dog, but we don’t have any kids in part because it’s expensive.

But we could swoon at Baby Yoda’s cooing, watch The Mandalorian engage in seedy space hijinx, and and move on short a monthly fee of $6.99, without crushing fears about college tuition. It was a nice. Plus, the score for the show by Ludwig Göransson kicks all kinds of ass. All kinds.

Television
Succession. I don’t know where to start, really, with Succession, which is basically King Lear if it were played out in our current income inequality riven American, among the highest levels of a vast media empire. Technically, this show debuted in 2018, but I didn’t catch up with either of its two seasons until 2019, and you know what? I absolutely loved it. Granted, my wife and I are both employed by media organizations (hers large and mine smaller), so there is some topical overlap with our actual lives.

Still, I think this show should be considered a must-watch for anyone with series interest in the news, out of control wealth, the state of our democracy, or really smart tragicomedy. There are big laughs in this show (see Cousin Greg), Shakespearen intrigue (see Kendall’s arc in Season 2), and affluence porn visuals of the highest order (see the many sweeping shots of yachts or helicopters or whatever else as they come into New York City). What else could the discerning TV viewer want in 2019? 

Movies
Little Women. While I may not be as interested in movies as I once was, I am absolutely enamored with the work of Greta Gerwig, who made her directorial debut in 2017 with the film Ladybird, which is about my beloved former home of Sacramento, California (go Kaaaaangs!). Gerwig was nominated for an Oscar for that film, which was almost unanimously praised by critics (almost), and so she had pretty much carte blanche to pick her next project. What Gerwig settled on was a mostly straightforward adaptation of classic literature set in the Victorian Age.

The success of such a movie is not exactly a no-brainer, especially given that the adapted script this one works from is cut up in a way that sends the audience jumping through time. Mixed up time + Victorian literature...that’s not exactly an equation for a work I’m bound to appreciate. Yet, this movie is so charming, so well-acted, and just so damn well-told that by the end I was entirely immersed, already wondering when I would have a chance to watch this one a second time.

Book
Arabia Felix, The Danish Expedition of 1761 - 1767. Speaking of works that outwardly seem really unlikely to be entertaining, the next non-comics thing I liked in 2019 was a book called Arabia Felix, The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767 by Thorkild Hansen. This book is a work of non-fiction, and it traces an actual expedition to what is now Yemen that was sponsored by the King of Denmark before America was even a country, doing so by drawing from diaries, letters and other historical records. Yaaaawn, right?

Yaaaawn, no! The thing about that expedition is it was actually a comedy of errors, featuring as it did six mostly-grumpy men who didn’t communicate or talk to each other, who bungled some objectives and argued their way through others, who at one point plotted to kill each other, and who mostly died along the way. It’s a fascinating look at group dynamics, history, and perseverance. Oh, and if you need an even better hook — only one of the six men makes it back to Denmark alive! 

Music
Old Town Road (Remix) by Lil Nas X. Speaking yet again of things that don’t seem like something I like, next up on this list is the song Old Town Road (Remix) by Lil Nas X, which is probably the track I listened to the most in 2019 (excepting any and all things by my current favorite musician, Frank Ocean). This song is listed by Wikipeida as being part of a genre called country rap. I’m a long time hip hop fan, and I’ve dabbled in really old country, specifically stuff like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson. It has never, however, occured to me that someone should combine those two.

Now, apparently, it’s the best thing ever? Or, at least this song is anyway. It’s such a good song that I’ve gotten to the point with it where I regularly sing it at the top of my lungs in the car while doing a set of hand gestures I have developed just for this. That’s probably too much information...anyway, the point is this song is great and I loved it in 2019. Just writing this, the song is stuck in my head yet again.

Movies
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a fine movie, although I’m personally not all that keen on any stories that use violence as a sort of catharsis (tbf, I knew what I was getting into with this one). Anyway, the thing I liked most about it was Leonardo Dicaprio’s semi-washed up actor performance. What’s the opposite of swagger? Because that’s what he deployed here and it was perfect.

What DiCaprio did in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was encapsulate the feeling of being a ridiculous man who is getting older, rolling up all the ego, insecurity, fading profile, and bad choices inherent to the process. He entirely removed pride from the equation to plumb the depths of his own insecurities and come back up with one of the most-entertaining and least-self aware characters I’ve been delighted to follow throughout an entire movie. 

Sports
The Beautiful Simplicity of NBA Basketball/Podcasts/Discourse. Thinking big thoughts and having deep arguments/discussions that makes throwaway entertainment feel more important than it actual is will hopefully end up being the defining flaw of our generation (I say hopefully because the alternative is the defining flaw being the creation of the social media platforms that wrecked democracy). We have rush headlong into this world where people are having hate-filled, super-personal back-and-forths about Star Wars or Batman or any other number of largely inane things that are supposed to be fun pretty much daily. Why are we doing this? It’s all subjective, and there’s no winner in any of these arguments. 

You know what’s not subjective? Basketball. There’s a winner and a loser after every game, and the sport has recently embraced cold analytics that go a long way to explaining exactly why. The result is that to me there is a beautiful simplicity to NBA basketball and podcasts and discourse that I don’t find in my travels on social media channels devoted to comics, TV, and movies. I’ve had the experience of watching a TV or movie, and thinking as soon as it was over, is it going to be okay to like this or is there going to be a prolonged discourse war launched around the 90 minutes I just took in for the next year? I don’t have to deal with that with basketball. A game ends, a team wins, and we can talk about the numbers, what actually happened, and argue (maybe) about how it could have gone better. It’s wonderful and freeing. The ball goes in or it doesn’t; you can’t spend a year dying on the killing fields of whatever rando character arc in The Last Jedi. Plus, basketball is the only game aside from soccer where no two players approach it a like, and the creativity of how the fast-paced game is navigated is on display at pretty much all times. I love it.

Check out our other Best of 2019 lists, including Best Single Issues of 2019, Best Superhero Makeovers, and Best Comics of 2019: Contributor Picks.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.