by Dave Sim and Gerhard

Fascinating in that it touches on something comics rarely does: personal religious conversion/revelation. However, in this case, the story of Dave Sim’s religious revelation, as told through the character of Cerebus, is too personal and too inaccessible to be interesting. Hundreds of pages of comics commentary on the Torah isn’t for me.

Buy Cerebus Vol. 15 at Amazon.com

Book: 70/52

By Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris

The ongoing exploits of Mitchell Hundred, the ex-superhero mayor of New York. This short volume suffers for a slightly pointless-seeming story about the Pope and less sharp, more stiff art than normal. The final story takes a sharp turn away from superhero/political hybrid comic towards Batman-style superheroics. I’m turning the other way.

Buy Ex Machina Vol. 7 at Amazon.com

Book: 69/52

A book about the many fascinating uses of human cadavers. Packed so full of interesting scientific and historical trivia that even if you only remember half of it, you’ll be the life of dinner parties for years. Not great to read during actual dinners, though – as I learned at my own expense

Buy Stiff at Amazon.com

Book: 68/52

by Dave Sim & Gerhard

Heading towards the end of the 6,000-page graphic novel. Another triumph of draftsmanship, character, and pacing out action. The nearly 100 pages of text at the end about Ernest Hemingway – who, along with wife Mary, is a main character – is a little … intense … but, as usual, the comics are impressive.

Buy Cerebus, Vol. 14: Form and Void at Amazon.com

Book: 67/52

A manga about the mysterious, legendary life of blues musician Robert Johnson. Creepy in places, but not enough happens in these 500 pages to keep me interested. The art’s beautiful, but Hiramoto doesn’t always convey music visually (not an easy thing) well enough to balance the art with the music it’s about.

Buy Me and the Devil Blues at Amazon.com

Book: 66/52

I’m rarely jealous of a book. Admiring, yes; jealous, no. I’m jealous of this one. It not only breaks ground for faux-oral history books about horror, but probably also covers the ground behind it. Anyone working in this direction will inevitably be compared to this book, and probably will come up short.

Buy World War Z at Amazon.com

Book: 65/52

Jackson’s book on the 2004 Lakers, the team he thought would be his last (he’s back now). An interesting take on trying to manage nearly unmanageable personalities. Jackson’s ideas about leadership and teamwork – and the need to subsume the self to a greater collective whole to achieve success – are fascinating and instructive.

Buy the Last Season at Amazon.comn

Book: 63/52

Didion’s memoir about the year her husband died and her daughter almost did. I found her lifestyle a little irritating, but the book is a clinic on writing mechanics. The writing is so spare, so lean, so technically perfect that each sentence compels you to continue and is a deep, intense joy.

Buy The Year of Magical Thinking at Amazon.com

Book: 64/52

Winding towards the end of this saga about crime, ethics, the horrors of the Cold War, sociopathology, and character. This arc introduces some really interesting themes about the importance of names to our identity and sense of self, and includes probably the most chilling and wonderful in-story fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Buy Monster at Amazon.com

Book: 58-62/52

by Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli, Daniel Zezelj, and Nathan Fox

A series of stories focusing on supporting characters. Normally the kind of thing I love, but not dense enough with story for me. I’m losing some interest in DMZ. I’d like less focus on the DMZ and more on the rest of the country, but that violates the premise of the series.

Buy DMZ, vol. 5: The Hidden War at Amazon.com

Book: 57/52

ed. Peter Normanton

An anthology of horror comics since the 1950s, it’s more valuable for the historical comics than for the uneven modern ones. The older ones had more craft, if not always more originality. The book’s historical survey is damaged by lacking the most important horror comics of all time – those from EC Comics.

Buy The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics at Amazon.com

Book: 56/52