Best and Worst Books of 2020

Any year where the government literally confirms the existence of UFOs and it barely registers in the collective consciousness tells you just how harrowing the rest of the news must be like. And now monoliths are randomly appearing across the globe…?!

So anyway, fellow terrified/bewildered/fed-up-with-it-all-pass-the-booze-already humans: congratulations on making it through Hell Year aka 2020! I won’t dwell on the events of the year but, speaking for myself, I feel really lucky that none of my friends or family were among the ever-growing number of casualties from the pandemic - and here’s hoping you and yours are safe, and continue to be while we ride out whatever number wave we’re on and however many more there are to come (or before the aliens arrive to reveal that Earth is an intergalactic sitcom for the entertainment of other species and this was the series finale - see ya!).

This is (in theory) a books site, so let’s talk about some durn books, eh? As always, I’ll use this listing to talk about the best and worst books I encountered this year.

I’ll start with the non-pitcher books. I reviewed all of the following separately so if you want to know my thoughts on each, check those out - I’ll just be giving the titles here.

I do my best to read plenty of books published in the same year but unfortunately I didn’t read any published in 2020, both fiction and non-fiction, that I can recommend. So my picks are all for books published prior to this year.

Not that I read a whole lot of non-fiction anyway but I do go through a few and I’m surprised that only one non-fiction book I came across was any good: One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson.

I read a lot of Jonathan Coe novels this year and Number 11 is my favourite novel of the year, with honourable mentions to his other novel Middle England, and Will Wiles’ Plume.

The worst novel of the year, which was also published for the first time (in English) this year was: Spark by Naoki Matayoshi. If you ever wondered why there are no famous Japanese comedians, have a peek at this painful story of two manzai (a wretched form of Japanese comedy) comics and their jaw-droppingly unfunny “jokes”. Amazingly this won an Akutagawa award in Japan. I remain baffled.

Alright: comics!

My 10 Best Comics of 2020 (all published in 2020):

10) Please Don’t Step On My JNCO Jeans by Noah Van Sciver
9) Everything, Vol 1 by Christopher Cantwell and INJ Culbard
8) Giant Days, Vol 12 by John Allison and Max Sarin
7) Pulp by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
6) Batman, Vol. 12: City of Bane, Part 1 by Tom King and a buncha awesome artists
5) The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine
4) Giant Days, Vol 13 by John Allison and Max Sarin
3) COVID Chronicles by Ethan Sacks and Dalibor Talajic
2) Punisher: Soviet by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows
1) Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Honourable mention:
Batman: Three Jokers #2

Also, I loved these comics that were published pre-2020 that I read this year:

Sara by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting
Bad Gateway by Simon Hanselmann
King of King Court by Travis Dandro
Slasher by Charles Forsman
Pandora’s Eyes by Vincenzo Cerami and Milo Manara
A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman and Rafael Alburquerque
Superman: Leviathan Rising Special by Brian Michael Bendis and many great artists

My favourite book out of everything, comics/novels/non-fiction:
Reckless by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Brubaker/Phillips = sheer class. Two great books in one year - a plague year no less? They are unstoppable.

Special mentions and good karma:
Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, for their one-shot Negan Lives! which they produced at their own expense and gave to comics shops to help them stay afloat as the pandemic shut down store after store. Very cool, guys.

Similarly, Mike Mignola drew numerous pencil sketches of Hellboy that he auctioned for charity, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed the poor - what a brilliant dude and I wish I had the money to have bought one! For the rest of us fans wanting to enjoy them, Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook will be published by Dark Horse next year, with all profits going to the same food charity.

And speaking of Dark Horse, both they and Marvel deserve a huge round of applause for giving away so many free comics during the first lockdown. For many of us, we didn’t have access to libraries because they were all closed, so to have so much reading material released, for free, was an amazing gesture. Well done, both - so very much appreciated.

The worst comic of 2020? It was definitely from DC. They put out so much disposable material in 2020 you’d think they were a novelty toilet paper manufacturer. On the garbage heap:

Batman: Creature of the Night
Azzarello’s Birds of Prey
Young Justice, Vol 2: Lost in the Multiverse
Batman: Curse of the White Knight
Wonder Woman: Dead Earth
Joker: Killer Smile
Doomsday Clock
DKR: The Golden Child
Batman: Universe
Harleen
The entire Hill House line

Not that I’m dog-piling on DC - if I’d read more Marvel this year, I’d have a whole list for them too, but they’re publishing so little that grabs my attention that I’m basically ignoring them for now (Empyre? X of Swords? I honestly couldn’t care less).

The biggest stink bomb though was: Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume 1: Millenium
If you’re an indie comics fan and a superhero comics fan tells you they don’t read outside Marvel/DC because indie comics are boring, hand them a copy of Bendis’ Legion - I’ve read menus that were more riveting!

Thanks to everyone who reads my reviews, comments, recs, etc. - I hope I’ve steered you towards some good stuff and helped you avoid some crap, as many of you have done for me too. After everything that’s happened this year, I sincerely hope you all have the most boring, peaceful and relaxed winter break possible, and get in some quality reading time too. And let’s do it all again next year - the peaceful reading part, not the… y’know.

(Deep breath) OK - let’s see what 2021 has in store for us. The only way is up… right?

New mutant strain of COVID-19 appears in the UK… uh huh… Christmas cancelled for millions… hmm… all together now!