Something that always seems to get lost in year-end lists is that no one experiences just new things. You always have a mix of new and old and the old always get lost. So, mixed in with my top ten comics of 2012, I will discuss five comics (in alphabetical order) that are from before 2012 that I read in 2012 and loved. We continue with... CRÉCY BY WARREN ELLIS AND RAULO CACERES!

I missed this when it came out for whatever reason or other. Ordered it when I pre-ordered Gun Machine by Ellis to reach the $25 free shipping mark. I had heard good things and I enjoyed this. I like the idea of an essay/long talk used in comics like this. Basically, a single character talking us through a situation above and beyond his station in a sense. Ellis used that technique again in Supergod and I would like to see more of it. It's similar to Harvey Pekar's approach to writing comics -- or something like Alice in Sunderland. But bigger than Pekar's comics and narrower than Talbot's. Somewhere in the middle. Crécy made me wonder if Ellis could pull this off at Marvel or DC with one of their superheroes. Not even would they let him try, but could he actually make it work. I don't know. I'd like to see him try. And have it not turn into some extended history lesson on the character in question. An issue-long recap. Fuck me.

No, could this form be used to tell an engaging story? It does here. There's warmth and humour and drama within this narrative -- and there's information. It's more than a simple lecture on what's going on at Crécy. The same thing happened with Supergod, except Ellis allowed himself to fall into the narrative a bit more there, if I recall correctly.

This comic gets a mention because it makes me wonder about stuff like this. Not many other comics did that this past year. Everyone do better.

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