Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye (to 2025)-- Comic Bookmarks for January 4, 2026

There's a lot of ways that 2025 wasn't the year that I wanted it to be and one of them is what we had up on the site this year. I'm still proud of it and reviewing the list below, I think there's a good range of comics covered but it's a thing of my hopes and aspirations for From Cover to Cover not being met by what actually gets accomplished. A large part of that is that there are personal things that happened in the second half of the year that took up a lot of my time and attention so I just didn't have the attention span to be reading or thinking about comics. And even as I type that, about half of my writing below was done during or after July.

So here's the 2025 that was over here at From Cover to Cover. I'm looking over this list with a mix of feelings as I'm trying to figure out what, if anything, this list of comics says about the year. It's a mixed list of books that weirdly I don't feel good about and maybe that says that 2025 wasn't a great year for comics, or at least the ones that I read. I look at our favorites of 2024 and I don't know if I connected with any book this year the way that I did with Emma Rios' Anzuelo or Charles Burns' Final Cut or Ram V and Filipe Andrade's Rare Flavours. While there are some really good books in 2025, are there lasting ones?

If I had to pick a book from the list below for some coveted Book of the Year, I'd probably have to go with Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt, Henry Flint, Jake Lynch, and Boo Cook's Judge Dredd: A Better World. After all, I called it "the perfect comic that we need in 2025" and I think that still holds up. But that probably says as much or more about 2025 as it does that comic.

A Look Back at 2025- The Criticism

Imaging Space and Silence in Oscar Zarate’s Thomas Girtin: The Forgotten Painter

“Oscar Zarate is telling a story about art and the ways that it’s a life choice by making these characters face several other choices that may or may not be related to art. But with every challenge faced, with every decision made, it always comes back to Art.“

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Taking the Plunge into Paul Chadwick’s Concrete: Depth

The story of a man whose brain has been put into an alien body is the stuff of B-level science fiction, the b/w movies that we used to be able to watch on Saturday afternoons. And there’s plenty of that in Concrete: Depth but it’s not the only type of story that Paul Chadwick wants to tell.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

“The music of the future needs a future to exist in.”— Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard’s The Power Fantasy Volume One: The Superpowers

The question in The Power Fantasy isn’t if the world is going to end but how is it going to end?

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Ram V, Riccardo Federici, and Evan Cagle Build On Jack Kirby in The New Gods #3

Ram V, Riccardo Federici, and Evan Cagle’s The New Gods #3 is another attempt to go back to Kirby, firmly planted in the original source, being true to it while pushing in new directions.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Back in the Day, We Used To Be Punk — on Jaime Hernandez’s Life Drawings

Is this Love and Rockets: The Next Generation or the continuation of an ongoing story that started over 40 years ago?

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

It’s Time to Wake Up- Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 by Deniz Camp & Javier Rodriguez

DC’s Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 delivers a radical reimagining with Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez creating a mind-bending sensory experience that transcends traditional superhero storytelling.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Trying to Escape the Past in Christopher Cantwell and Tyler Crook‘s Out of Alcatraz

It’s the American dream told through the dream of freedom but struggling through the morals of its time.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Big Tease That Is Summer of Superman Special #1

Sometimes, you just want to read a Superman comic. It’s a bit surprising how hard that is to do without getting pulled into all kinds of other drama.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Living Outside of the Law in Inio Asano’s Mujina Into the Deep Volume 1

The opening is action-packed, a thrill ride that gets us into Inio Asano’s book but it’s not the story that Asano is telling.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Superheroes, Aliens, and Cartoons, Oh My!!! - a review of Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, and Chris Weston’s Paranoid Gardens

Gerard Way and Shawn Simon doing their obscure Vertigo book, just for Dark Horse. So who better to get to draw than Chris Weston?

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

More Than Just Another Crisis— a look at Deniz Camp and Eric Zawadzki’s Assorted Crisis Events #3

This comic is not apologetic about being a bit preachy.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Tease and the Promise of Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun: Road to the Six #0

Sometimes a tease is all you need.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá Expand the Family Tree in The Umbrella Academy: Plan B #1

The Umbrella Academy has been a family story from the start, using the language of superheroes to explore family dynamics.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Review: I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop

This forms the space for Vellekoop to dig into these different relationships in his life, some of which are deep-rooted while others are fleeting connections that are more building blocks for Maurice to learn about himself.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Review— Kevin Smith Presents: Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob

Why does this comic exist?

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

We Don’t Need No Education- A Look at Judge Dredd: A Better World

The perfect comic that we need in 2025.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Kids Aren’t Alright-- Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman Volume One: The Zoo

Nick Dragotta jumps between the child-like innocence of childhood to the darkness of modern existence where it seems like nothing means anything anymore.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Loving the Grid in Giovanna Fabi’s Perfect Love (mini kuš! #133)

Giovanna Fabi uses her artwork to evoke so many feelings out of the reader.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Kids Aren’t Alright Part 2-- Jason Aaron & Rafa Sandoval’s Absolute Superman: Last Dust of Krypton

So what does the story of an alien boy, saved from a dying world by his parents and sent to Earth, look like in 2025 when “alien” is an extremely loaded and fraught word?

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Off to College in Caroline Cash’s Adventure Time Alternate Universe Story

So if we know that the story is a meet-cute story, that allows Cash to focus on how we move through this story.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Rebellious Comics in Jason’s Death In Trieste

Jason doesn’t give you any more than he has to and that’s often less than you think you need.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Die Loaded #1 by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans— The Bones Continue to Roll

Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans remind us that some stories just don’t end.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

Charles Soule and Steve McNiven Explore Ghosts in Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell

Frank Miller casts a long shadow over this story and Charles Soule and Steve McNiven know it.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

The Life and Times of Ricky Lawless— Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips Giant Size Criminal #1

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip explore the tragedy of living under the sins of our fathers.

From Cover to CoverScott Cederlund

A Look Forward to 2026

So I've got plans for 2026, the beginnings of a schedule that would nearly double the output of reviews and essays compared to 2025. But even saying that feels like showing my cards a bit too much just in terms of not knowing how 2026 could blow up any plans. In November, we'll be celebrating the 5th anniversary of the site. And by "celebrating," I more mean that we'll be hitting the 5 year mark of this site being up and running. I hope that this year is the year that this site can become something like I imagine it could be.