CBR's Top 100 Comics of 2013 - The Master List

by Kiel Phegley
– on Jan 01, 2014
in Comics, Comic News

2013 is one for the books, and with the world getting off to a sluggish start to 2014 after last night's revelry, why not look back at some of the best comics that hit over the past 12 months? Below, we present links to all the reviews our staff contributed to CBR's massive Top 100 Comics of 2013 countdown!

This year, while the comics industry continued its strong swing of sales and critical love, the prevailing sentiment amongst the staff was that there were few undeniable breakout comics published of late. That's not to say there weren't many amazing and entertaining books written, drawn and released in 2013, but while past years have had obvious hot ticket favorites amongst readers, this year was more of a wide open field.

And what that meant was the occasional shake-up in the numbers represented. For example, the company with the most comics on the list this year was a tie between Image Comics and Marvel Comics as both the powerhouse of the creator-owned world and the superhero genre ranked in with 16 books on the list. Close behind was DC Comics with 11 favored comics, including four entries from their Vertigo imprint, and Dark Horse who nabbed 9 spots on the countdown. Beyond that, First Second Books had an impressive showing of 6 titles -- including two in the Top 10 -- while alternative favorites Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly each had 4. Rounding out the multiple vote getters were Archie Comics, BOOM! Studios, IDW, Monkeybrain and Valiant with 2 entires a piece. And beyond that, there were another 22 publishers, imprints, web comics and industrious self-publishing creators who impressed the CBR staff last year.

As in previous years, the Top 100 was compiled thanks to the tireless work of a range of CBR's contributors who sent in their own ranked Top Ten lists to me (News Editor Kiel Phegley, who is ignoring the comments thread to watch the Rose Bowl today) with point values being associated to each book which I later edited down to a Top 100 I felt best reflected the vote of the staff. Contributing lists this year was the biggest, raddest bunch of staffers, reviewers and freelancers CBR has ever had including:

CBR News Team members and contributors Josie Campbell, Alex Dueben, TJ Dietsch, Casey Gilly, Ryan Ingram, Karl Keily, Shaun Manning, Steve Morris, Jeffrey Renaud, Dave Richards, Steve Sunu and Jason Tabrys; CBR Columnists John Mayo, Hannibal Tabu and Brett White; CBR Reviewers Ryan Burton, Greg Hatcher, Jim Johnson, Ryan K. Lindsay, Matt Little, Greg McElhatton, Kelly Thompson and Doug Zawisza; Comics Should Be Good bloggers Alec Berry, Greg Burgas, Brian Cronin, Ken Haley, Sonia Harris and Chad Nevett; Robot 6 bloggers Brigid Alverson, Corey Blake, Michael May, JK Parkin and Tim O'Shea. And last but never least, senior staffers including Senior Editors Albert Ching and Stephen Gerding and Executive Producer Jonah Weiland joined in the fun.

This is going to be my last year putting this massive list together, and while I'm very happy to no longer be looking at a holiday season with hours of cutting, pasting and (shiver) math ahead of me, I will miss being constantly surprised and delighted at the depth our staff shows in their taste and the depth comics as a medium and industry show in scads of amazing releases (many of which earn votes but not quite a rank on our Top 100).

So Happy New Year, and read on for one last look at the best of what's been before we all start to focus on the best of what's to come!

Tags: marvel comics, dc comics, image comics, archie comics, drawn and quarterly, boom! studios, idw publishing, vertigo, first second, fantagraphics, dark horse comics, valiant entertainment, monkeybrain comics, top 100 comics of 2013

Visit CBR.com

More in Comics

Assassin Nation #1 is a Fun But Flawed Debut Issue

Scott Snyder Reveals When American Vampire, Wytches Will Return

DC Cancels One More Age of Heroes Series