Best Comic Book of 2013: SAGA

For the second year in a row, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staple's sci-fi/fantasy/romance comic book is the best book of the year. One of the reasons is the fact that it has everything and can't really be labeled. It has emotion, romance, action, humor, comedy, heroes, villains. It's totally bizarre, too. There's a lying cat, royal family members with talking heads, a one-eyed author, a cut-in-half ghost nanny. This book is insane but beautiful, highly entertaining, pretty to look at, funny, engrossing, hard to put down, easy to jump into. This is a masterpiece in the making.

Best Cover: HAWKEYE #8

David Aja is just killing it on the artwork for Hawkeye. There's not much to say about this killer cover except that the point of a good cover is to get your attention. THIS will get your attention. I love everything about this cover: the colors, the frayed edges making it look like an old-school, 70's porn mag, the image that makes you dying to know what's inside. Perfection.

Best Writer of 2013: BRIAN K. VAUGHAN

Saga is, quite basically, Romeo & Juliet in Space, and his "hero", Marko, is, more or less, Yorick from Y: the Last Man. But Vaughan still continuously surprises, excites, and entertains. His whip-smart quips and colorful characters are not all that he's good for; this book has a deep well of emotion running through it. The best scene from Saga was a simple scene when Marko is reminiscing about his now-dead father, remembering when he taught Marko how to fly an alien-creature (you know...like riding a bike). Just a perfectly written sequence.
Besides Saga, Vaughan launched a new book, The Private Eye, that takes place in a future where people wear masks and the internet is dead and gone for good reasons.
Everything Vaughan writes is super entertaining, emotional, humorous, action-packed, visceral, engaging, and fun. Hell, he even writes one of the best letters columns in the business.

Best Artist of 2013: ESAD RIBIC

Jason Aaron writing Thor: God of Thunder probably would have been enough, but my God, the glorious, beautiful, epic art work of Esad Ribic. Panels that look like famous paintings, covers that look just as bad-ass as they do enthralling. The artwork on this book was simply put, legendary.

Best Issue of 2013: AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE #1

I suppose you could be sick of zombies by now...but when a zombie book/film/show is done right, it can be insanely creepy and totally entertaining. This issue was both. The reason it was creepy and unsettling in a sense is because Archie and Jughead and Betty and Veronica and the crew from Riverdale are as innocent and carefree as can be. "Let's fuck up their world!" is not really something anyone has probably ever said (unless you're, like, evil). When a zombie outbreak occurs in their world it's not just a gimmick, it's something fresh and new. Writer Roberto Aguire-Sacasa (a play write and Glee writer) does a terrific job at creating a realistic way that a zombie outbreak would happen in this world (how many zombie movies or TV shows or comic books give a reason for the outbreak? NONE!). And the way he writes all of the characters makes it feel like a typical, gee-shucks Archie book except there's a sadistic undercurrent that bubbles up towards the end. The art, by Francesco Francavilla, is super-spooky and perfectly atmospheric. It's such a cool concept that it's almost a shock that it turned out as great as anyone thought it could've-should've-would've been.