Comicon’s Most Progressive Comics Of 2023

Welcome to Comicon.com’s Best of the Year Awards, gathering the best comics and comics talent of the strange year that was 2021. This year we will be awarding in the following categories: Best Original Graphic Novels, Best Comic Series, Best Single Comic Issues, Best Writers, Best Artists, Best Cover Artists, Best Colorists, Best Letterers, Best Digital/Webcomics, and Most Progressive Comics.

Contributors to Comicon’s Best of the Year Awards this year include: Rachel Bellwoar, Richard Bruton, Scott Redmond, Tito James, Tom Smithyman, and Tony Thornley.

The following are Comicon’s Most Progressive Comics (Fiction) of 2023.

5. Static: Shadows Of Dakota, published by DC Comics; written by Nikolas Draper-Ivey & Vita Ayala, drawn and colored by Draper-Ivey, and lettered by Andworld Design

Superhero books have a history with dealing with current events and overall societal feelings. Some do it better than others. This is a series that does it so well on so many levels. Across the seven issues they address problems with police in marginalized communities, experimentation on marginalized groups, the rage that many feel against the system, those that want to change it but do it in a better way, and more. It’s not just a situation where it’s Black vs White either. The overall antagonist and the later-introduced true antagonist are people of color themselves, just like the hero. This is a series that hits hard issue after issue. It’s loaded with character moments, powerful emotional beats, striking commentary, and more. Comics needs more stories like this on the shelves, not less.

— Scott Redmond

4. Cosmoknights Book Two, published by IDW; written, drawn, colored, and lettered by Hannah Templer

Whether in webcomic form or in the collected versions from Top Shelf, Templar’s tale of queer space opera has been enchanting readers for a long time now. Book Two took all the build-up of the debut volume and launched it skyward, with Templar’s lush artwork and intense worldbuilding giving all its readers a thriller of a tale.

After escaping her dead-end planet, Pan’s now gathered a new found family and become part of a rebellion against the old, patriarchal ideas of her world as Book Two takes us further, faster, and even more fabulously into Templar’s wonderful world with a tale that’s all about finding identity, friendship, family, and romance, all of it set against fabulous mech battles against the patriarchy in a neo-medieval world. This is an absolute blast of a comic, fast-paced and gorgeous to look at, a perfect feminist space romp that your life will be that much better for reading.

— Richard Bruton

3. Poison Ivy, published by DC Comics; written by G. Willow Wilson, drawn by Marcio Takara, colored by Arif Prianto, and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

It’s easy to just point at the messages about corporations and nature as the most progressive things about this series. Even the now fully stated. out-in-the-open, no-more-beating-around-the-bush relationship of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy would be fair game. What makes it truly fitting in this space, though, is how it does all that and more without having to explicitly state that is what it is doing. Our duo’s relationship is never questioned on page (even when throwing in HR Janet’s triangle status). Sure Poison Ivy’s motives are questioned, but those who push back on the narrative about corporations and nature are generally the bad guys — and mostly not in over the top ways! Essentially, the series stands as a mirror of the world as it is (pointing at the problems) while also playing within the space of the world we wish could inhabit.

— Scott Redmond

2. Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant, published by Marvel Comics; written by Sabir Pirzada & Iman Vellani, drawn by Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham, colored by Erick Arciniega, and lettered by Joe Caramagna

Kamala Khan has been one of Marvel’s most progressive characters since her debut nearly a decade ago. Unfortunately for the last three or so years, she’s suffered a few setbacks: mostly only being featured in guest starring roles and leading only a few one-shots and limited series. In June, she suffered the biggest setback of all when the character was killed in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man. It looked like a tough time for one of Marvel’s most promising young characters.

Though the reveal that she was actually a mutant seemed to be a cop-out, enabling her resurrection almost immediately, the series that followed was anything but — easily becoming the standout of the Fall of X initiative. Kamala was written by two non-white writers, one of whom was actually playing her on TV. She was facing real problems just as much as she was facing Sentinels. And the antagonists she took on were just as diverse as her world has always been. It’s easy to see why fans want more; it’s a great damn comic, and it’s effortlessly diverse to the point that many may miss it.

— Tony Thornley

1. The Neighbors, published by BOOM! Studios; written by Jude Ellison S. Doyle, drawn by Letizia Cadonici, colored by Alessandro Santoro, and lettered by Becca Carey

On the surface, and even beneath, this was a typical horror story. One about a family in a home that comes across local supernatural darkness. Within that space, though, was a place to make things unique. Not only is it a story about family and what we do for them, but it speaks to gender and sexuality and the fears and hopes that come in the world. Its central family is blended and diverse with a black transgender man and an older white woman who left her former wife for her new husband before his transition. They share a toddler daughter and a teenager from the mother’s previous relationship. It shifts the focus from the types of people these stories normally follow, and normalizes it while keeping to the types of feelings and goals that come with horror.

— Scott Redmond

And the Most Progressive Comics (Non-Fiction) of 2023.

2. Glass Half Empty, published by Icon Books; written, drawn, colored and lettered by Rachael Smith

This is the second entry for Smith in my best of 2023 selections along with her webcomic Nap Comix. And it was nailed on to my best of list from the moment I opened the book.

In Glass Half Empty, Smith continues her powerfully and emotional personal autobiog comics previously seen in both Wired Up Wrong and Stand In Your Power. This time, she deals with alcohol and its effects, both on herself and on her alcoholic dad. This is a graphic memoir that hits so hard but, thanks to Smith’s skills as a comic maker and storyteller, one that will find you laughing through the tears.

It’s so affecting, particularly to anyone who’s ever had to deal with any form of addiction in their lives, whether directly or indirectly — which is most of us really. And, like me, you’ll be brought up and brought down, crying and laughing at the same time, such is the power and honesty and greatness of what Smith does here.

Bold, raw, honest, so powerful, Smith goes from strength to strength with everything she does, digging deep to give us universal truths, yet with the comedic and storytelling abilities to show us heartbreak and then raise us up with laughter and hope. Long may she continue giving us these magnificent comics.

— Richard Bruton

1. Transitions, published by Top Shelf; written, drawn, colored, and lettered by Elodie Durand; translated into English by Evan McGorray

An unflinchingly open and honest true tale, Transitions explores a mother’s love for, and her complex emotions in dealing with, her trans child. It’s as powerful and emotional a book as you’ll read all year.

Subtitled ‘A Mother’s Journey’, Transitions is all that and more, with Durand detailing her experiences in understanding and accepting that the 19-year-old that she raised as ‘Lucie’ is now a transgender man named Alex.

In a world where trans issues are met with increasing hatred and ignorance rather than the understanding, love, and acceptance they should be, Transitions is a mother’s honest memoir that gives us all hope for a better future, whilst never shying away from the complex emotions and difficulties in getting to a place of simple love and pure acceptance.

In this world where we seem ever more divided and where it’s our children who suffer, Transitions is vitally important in showing us understanding and acceptance and how to make the world better for us all, no matter who we are.

— Richard Bruton