Best Image Comics of 2020 (So Far)
By Zack Quaintance — When I started doing this set of way too early Best Comics of 2020 recommendations three weeks ago, it was a way to kill time while cooped up in the house. Things, of course, have steadily worsened in the world, with the coronavirus death toll and related unemployment claims soaring. As such, the new flow of comics has shut down, and this list is turning into more of a guide to read books that may have fallen through the cracks for some folks.
That’s definitely the approach I’ve taken here today withe list of Best Image Comics of 2020 (So Far). It’s also true that over the last year to 18 months, some of the titles associated with Image’s 2010s creator-owned renaissance have gone on hiatus or ended all together, thinking specifically here of Saga (hiatus), The Walking Dead (surprisingly ended), and The Wicked + The Divine (ended as planned). That’s all why this list is more of a guide to the books you should be reading (and probably aren’t) versus an exercise in rankings.
Here’s hoping you and yours are safe in these trying times, and that this list helps you find something new and distracting to read!
Best Image Comics of 2020 (So Far)
1. Lazarus
Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Michael Lark
Colorist: Santi Arcas
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Why This Is So Good: Lazarus is probably my favorite comic that I feel like enough people don’t talk about. There is definitely a really passionate and dedicated group of fans for this book and the world within it — so much so that there is a Lazarus table-top RPG as well as a Discord channel dedicated to discussing it (one writer Greg Rucka is quite active on, from what I understand), but to my mind, Lazarus is every bit as good (if not better) than the more heralded Image comics of the last decade, like Saga or The Walking Dead. The reason this book is so good is that it accomplishes an always-difficult double task within comics: it’s world feels 100 percent realistic in pretty much every way, even though it involves action sequences and elements of near-future science fiction. Lazarus has accomplished this by being eerily prescient, envisioning tragic turns for the world that have slowly started to come to pass since the book’s first issue debuted back in 2013. Everything from nepotistic ruling autocratic oligarchs seizing power across the globe to our current pandemic makes an appearance in Lazarus in some way, shape, or form. It’s really stunning stuff, immersive and rendered to perfection, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Easiest Way to Read It: There are three Books of Lazarus currently available in hardcover format, that will take you all the way through Lazarus #26 and the Lazarus X+66 miniseries that is required reading. A Lazarus Vol. 6 Trade collection is also available now, collecting the book over the past year. Finally, Lazarus: Risen #4 is the most recent issue (not yet collected), and you should be able to get it from your local shop.
2. Ice Cream Man
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colorist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Good Old Neon
Why This Is So Good: Ice Cream Man was our Best Comic of 2019, and it has remained unbelievably strong in the New Year. Here’s what I wrote last year that still holds true: The range of what the creators are doing with this book is just absurd. It’s an anthology series, so every issue is wholly singular, but since this book first launched back in 2018, the creative team has pushed it past that even, often jumping through time, consistently toying with the medium’s structure, and always telling stories that blend painful life contemplations with a narrative fearlessness. In 2019, we got an issue that tied together a background through-line from the past eight installments, we got an issue that felt like Cormac McCarthy by way of Stephen King with a strong majority of dialogue in Spanish, and we got an issue that functioned as a palindrome in that it could be read backwards or forwards. No other book is using the comics medium as well as this one. Every new issue of Ice Cream Man feels like an event. These books are conversation pieces for aspiring creators, horror fans, young parents, aging suburbanites…you name it. The best art to me feels like a gift that the creator had to put into the world because to hold it back would be too painful, and that’s exactly what Ice Cream Man feels like.
Easiest Way to Read It: There are four collected volumes of Ice Cream Man currently available online or through your LCS, with a fifth due this summer provided that regular publishing and distribution eventually resumes.
3. Monstress
Writer: Marjorie Liu
Artist: Sana Takeda
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Why This Is So Good: Monstress is a true fantasy epic, with a compelling band of characters, complex motivations, unparalleled artistic designs that make it perfectly-suited to comics, and a scope that isn’t matched by any other book in the genre. This book has been a simmering must-read comic since it’s launch in 2015, and since then, writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda have evolved both the story and the aesthetic that made it so compelling at its start. I’ve said this before, but this comic feels like the greatest Final Fantasy game that was never made, mixed with something wholly new in terms of what sort of characters are given the most power and agency. There are questions about power structures, nation-states, races turning against each other, exploitation, and so much more. I can hardly think of a better world to get totally swallowed by in these harrowing times.
Easiest Way to Read It: There are currently four collecting trade paperback editions (available online or at your local shop) that will take you all the way up through Monstress #24. Since then, three individual issues have also been released.
4. Crowded
Writer: Christopher Sebela
Artist: Ro Stein & Ted Brandt
Colorist: Triona Farrell
Letterer: Cardinal Rae
Why This Is So Good: A lot of comics have tackled near-future dystopian ideas by extrapolating extreme capitalism. Some other comics have done so by pushing the gig economy to scary extremes. Crowded, however, has done all of that at once together, better than any other book coming out today. It’s also done it with an airtight and exciting plot around a hectic chase (the main character has a massive crowdsourced bounty on her head that basically everyone in the world is chasing), as well as a love story between its two leads. I absolutely love Crowded, which has just wrapped up its second arc, and I think it’s also part of a tradition of recent Image Comics in that it has a story that will appeal to people who maybe aren’t as immersed in the industry as people like myself and the regular readers of this website. In other words, it’s got a universality to it that really works in its favor.
Easiest Way to Read It: The Crowded Vol. 1 trade paperback is out now with Crowded Vol. 2 due out in May.
5. Copra
Writer/Artist: Michel Fiffe
Why This Is So Good: I was late to the party on Copra, although I’d been told I should read it for years. And you know what? Now that I’ve finally arrived at this party, I sure am glad I’m here. Copra is a rare thing for this era of comics — it’s a superhero story that presents a singular vision of one creator, featuring a cast of original characters rendered by writer/artist Michel Fiffe’s ample talent and love of the medium. On its surface, Copra reads like an abstract homage to Suicide Squad books of old, but by the third volume, it blossoms into entirely its own thing, driven in equal parts by complex characters and almost avant-garde comic book imagery that takes inspiration from far more than just old superhero stories. It’s a great work, and it’s a blessing for the entire industry that it landed at Image late last year and has continued into this one, with a new miniseries being recently announced before the world went crazy.
Easiest Way to Read It: The first five volumes of Copra are available now either online or at your local comic shop, with a sixth volume scheduled to land in early May, provided shipping schedules have normalized by then.
6. Gideon Falls
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Andrea Sorrentino
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Steve Wands
Why This Is So Good: Competition is fierce, but Gideon Falls might just have the best horror imagery in all of comics, with writer Jeff Lemire creating a Twin Peaks-influenced story (although that’s a bit reductive) that allows visionary artist Andrea Sorrentino to really stretch his visual acumen, delivering a reading experience that oscillates from chilling to existential and psychedelic. This is a slow-burner of a comic that keeps readers scared with a series of unexplained mysteries and twists that slowly contact in on each other, making it feel as if the characters as well as the reader are part of some terrifying web.
Easiest Way to Read It: Gideon Falls is available in four trade paperback collections that contain every issue released to date.
7. Undiscovered Country
Writers: Charles Soule & Scott Snyder
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Daniele Orlandini
Finishes: Daniele Orlandidni & Leonardo Marcello Grassi
Colorist: Matt Wilson
Letterer: Crank!
Why This Is So Good: Undiscovered Country is yet another book that seems to have accurately predicted a lot of the horror of our current times, doing so with a plotline that involves both a resurgence in American isolationism as an overreaction to globalization as well as a global pandemic. I just let out a big sigh. So, this one is maybe not the best choice for escape, but if you’re looking to meet the fears of the dead head on, there is no better way to do it than through a book like this, which combines those ideas mentioned above with stunning character designs and world building.
Easiest Way to Read It: The first five issues are out now online and at your local retailer, with the sixth previously due in late April and a first collected trade paperback to follow in June.
8. Tartarus
Writer: Johnnie Christmas
Artist: Jack T. Cole
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Why This Is So Good: Speaking of stunning character designs and world building, the last comic on our list of Best Image Comics of 2020 (So Far!) is Tartarus, which is so well-executed that it feels a bit like a masterclass in comics craftmanship. There have only been two issues of this excellent book, both of which were nigh-perfect, featuring imaginative sci-fi designs, a compelling protagonist with a well-realized generational backstory, and all kinds of tense and fast-paced action. If you’re looking for something new and unlike anything you’ve ever read before, this is your book.
Easiest Way to Read It: The first two issues are available now, either through your local comic shop (if that’s still an option) or online.
Honorable Mentions: Ascender, Bitter Root, Die! Die! Die!, Family Tree, Isola, Middlewest, Old Guard, Sex Criminals, SFSX (Safe Sex), and Stealth.
Best Image Trade Collections and Graphic Novels for 2020
Coffin Bound, Vol. 1: Happy Ashes TPClick here for more info!
Pretty Deadly, Vol. 3Click here for more info!
November, Vol. 1Click here for more info!
Little Bird HCClick here for more info!
Gogor CollectedClick here for more info!
Check out other Best Comics of 2020 (So Far) Lists Now:
Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.