The best comics of 2019: a meta list

[UPDATE: added 8 more lists – AiPT, Broken Frontier, ComFor (German), Comic.de (German, multiple mentions only), Comicgate (German, unranked), Diamond via The Beat (comics + GNs), Tor Online (German). Arrows next to entries indicate that their rank went up or down compared to the previous version.]

Once more I compiled a little ‘master list’ out of some best-of-2019 lists on the Internet. Each title was assigned between 1 and 30 points, depending on either its rank, or on the number of titles in an unranked list (full explanation here).

THE TOP 25 COMICS OF 2019:

1. House of X / Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva (207 points)
2. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (171) ⇩
3. Die by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans (120) ⇧
4. Rusty Brown by Chris Ware (110)
5. The Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett (106) ⇧
6. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei et al. (102) ⇩
7. Clyde Fans by Seth ⇩, tied with
   Daredevil by Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto ⇧ (95)
8. –
9. Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen by Matt Fraction and Steve Lieber (92) ⇩
10. The Hard Tomorrow by Eleanor Davis (88) ⇩
11. Mister Miracle by Tom King and Mitch Gerads (87) ⇧
12. Spider-Man: Life Story by Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley ⇧, tied with
    The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard ⇧ (82)
13. –
14. These Savage Shores by Ram V and Sumit Kumar (79) ⇧
15. Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh (75) ⇩
16. When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll (74) ⇧
17. Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama (70) ⇩
18. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Renée Nault (66) ⇧
19. Hot Comb by Ebony Flowers (61) ⇩
20. DCeased by Tom Taylor and Trevor Hairsine (60) ⇧
21. Bitter Root by David Walker, Chuck Brown and Sanford Greene (59) ⇩
22. Good Talk by Mira Jacob ⇩, tied with
    George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. The Complete Color Sundays 1935–1944 ⇧ (57)
23. –
24. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotōge ⇩, tied with
    Sabrina by Nick Drnaso ⇧ (55)
25. –

Given the usual dominance of Anglo-American list sources, it is almost a pleasant surprise to see as many as two manga within the top 25. As for European comics… Alice Oseman is British, does that count? [Update: Oseman’s Heartstopper dropped out of the top 25 to 28th place. It’s still the highest-ranking European comic.]

The following lists were evaluated: A.V. Club, Adventures in Poor Taste, Book Riot, Broken Frontier, CBC, Chicago Public Library, ComFor (German), Comic.de (German, multiple mentions only), Comicgate (German, unranked), Comickunst (German), Diamond via The Beat (comics + GNs), Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, GameSpot, Goodreads, Gosh (adult, kids), The Guardian (Rachel Cooke, James Smart), io9, Kono Manga ga Sugoi! via Anime News Network, Oricon Top-Selling Manga in Japan by Series via Anime News Network, Paste, Publishers Weekly Critics Poll, Readings, School Library Journal, Spiegel Online (German), SyFy Wire (Best New Comic Books, Fangrrl), Tagesspiegel (German), Tor Online (German), What Culture, YALSA.

---