The Picks of the Week of 2011 – By The Numbers!

Before 2011 becomes too much of a distant memory it’s time for my annual look at a year’s worth of Picks of the Week!

Let’s get started!

The Numbers

There are 52 weeks in a year and, as always, there were 52 Picks of the Week in 2011.

Here is how the Picks of the Week (POWs) broke down. You will find the number followed by the percent of the total (rounded off).

Total POWs: 52

by Conor: 18 (34.6%)
by Josh: 17 (32.7%)
by Ron: 17 (32.7%)

This year was pretty well balanced. I don’t remember anyone needing to sub out a week and I don’t remember having to juggle the schedule. That might be a first for these lists.

People who are particularly partisan about their comic book purchases are always complaining that their preferred company isn’t getting enough Pick of the Week attention. It’s an inevitable and lamentable fact of life. This year, with the turmoil around Fear Itself and DC’s New 52 there was more than enough partisan turmoil to go around. But we got a lot fewer emails about it this year, so that’s a win in my book.

How did the Picks of the Week break down by company? Thusly:

DC Comics – 21 (40.4%)
Marvel Comics – 19 (36.5%)
Image Comics – 6 (11.5%)
Dark Horse Comics – 2 (3.8%)
BOOM! Studios – 1 (1.9%)
Evil Twin Comics – 1 (1.9%)
IDW Publishing – 1 (1.9%)
Oni Press – 1 (1.9%)

For the fourth year in a row, DC books were selected as Pick of the Week more than any other company but Marvel was still a close number two. In fact, they were separated by the same number of percentage points as last year. The big change this year was in the independent Picks of the Week, which had a good year. The number of non-Marvel or DC Picks doubled from 6 in 2010 to 12 this year. This year also saw the number of publishers who received Picks of the Week raise back up to 8 after dipping down to 5 last year.

When people like to describe the iFanboys in a lazy shorthand they say that I am the “DC Guy”, Ron is the “Marvel Zombie” and Josh is the “Indie Guy.” Did our POWs prove those labels correct?

Conor
DC Comics – 8 (44.4%)
Marvel Comics – 7 (38.8%)
Image Comics – 1 (5.5%)
IDW Publishing – 1 (5.5%)
BOOM! Studios – 1 (5.5%)

Ron
Marvel Comics – 10 (58.8%)
DC Comics – 5 (29.4%)
Image Comics – 2 (11.7%)

Josh
DC Comics – 8 (47%)
Image Comics – 3 (17.6%)
Dark Horse Comics – 2 (11.7%)
Marvel Comics – 2 (11.7%)
Oni Press – 1 (5.8%)
Evil Twin Comics – 1 (5.8%)

The big number to note is that for the first time since 2009, both Marvel and DC did not hold the top two slots for all three of us, with Josh only selecting two Marvel Picks of the Week this past year. It’s not a complete surprise since Josh is down to reading only 4 books from Marvel Comics. We’ve all been down on Marvel Comics this year, especially since Fear Itself, but regardless — Ron, as always, remains a stalwart Marvel Zombie. As far as imprints go, of the above Picks of the Week, 6 were from the DC’s Vertigo line (4 were by Josh and 1 each by Ron and I) and one was from Marvel’s Icon (by me).

The Writers

Despite a strong push from artists this year, comic books remain a primarily writer-driven medium and while we here at iFanboy love good art, we usually look for a good story more than anything else. Which writers received the high honor of Pick of the Week most often — either on their own or part of a writing team?

Scott Snyder – 7
Jason Aaron– 5
Brian Michael Bendis / Jonathan Hickman – 4
Mark Waid / Rick Remender – 3

These six writers accounted for 50% of all of the Picks of the Week in 2011.

Writers who scored Pick of the Week honors twice:

Bryan Q. Miller, Geoff Johns, James Robinson, Kieron Gillen, Paul Cornell, Robert Kirkman

And those writers with one Pick of the Week award for 2011:

Brian Azzarello, Brian Buccellato, Brian Wood, Corrina Bechko, Cullen Bunn, Dan Didio, Darwyn Cooke, Ed Brubaker, Francis Manapul, Fred Van Lente, Gabriel Hardman, Jay Faerber, Jeff Lemire, John Layman, Judd Winick, Keith Giffen, Lowell Francis, Peter J. Tomasi, Malachai Nicolle, Peter Milligan

The Artists

But let’s not forget the artists. Without them it’s not comics, it’s prose! 2011 was a GREAT year for art in comic books, one of the best in recent memory. We talked about art more this year, probably, than any other since 2007. But, as with last year, no one single artist received the high honor of Pick of the Week more often than any other. So which artist scored two honors — either on their own or part of an art team?

Alex Maleev, Attila Futaki, Chris Bachalo, Paolo Rivera, Pere Perez, Sean Murphy, Steve Epting, Tony Moore

And those artists with one Pick of the Week award for 2011:

Brett Booth, Brian Hurtt, Carlos Pacheco, Charlie Adlard, Chris Samnee, Chris Weston, Cliff Chiang, Daniel Acuna, Darwyn Cooke, Diogenes Neves, Dustin Weaver, Ethan Nicolle, Francesco Francavilla, Francis Manapul, Gabriel Hardman, Gene Ha, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Greg Capullo, Greg Land, Ivan Reis, Javi Fernandez, Jerome Opena, Jim Lee, Jimmy Broxton, Jock, Joe Prado, Keith Giffen, Marcos Martin, Mark Brooks, Mike Hawthorne, Nick Dragotta, R.M. Guera, Rafael Albuquerque, Renato Guedes, Rob Guillory, Ryan Dunleavy, Ryan Kelly, Ryan Ottley, Sami Basri, Sean Phillips, Simone Guglielmini, Steve Dillon, Tom Fowler, Tony Moore, Travel Foreman

The Number Ones

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again and again (and again): we here at iFanboy love number one issues. This year we chose 14 number one issues as Pick of the Week, which is up from 10 in 2011. That’s a nice increase and more in line with the numbers from previous years. Which ones were chosen?

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #1
Animal Man #1
Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1
Criminal: The Last of the Innocent #1
Daredevil #1
Demon Knights #1
FF #1
The Flash #1
Justice League #1
Moon Knight #1
Severed #1
Starman/Congorilla #1
Wolverine and the X-Men #1
Wonder Woman #1

One of the above was a special, but it was listed as number one so we’re counting it.

The Series

When you do the Pick of the Week every week for nearly 11 years you worry about choosing the same books over and over. Perhaps not consciously, but in the back of your mind. You don’t want to become stagnant as a reviewer and you don’t want to bore your audience. You never want to get to the point where the audience can predict the Pick of the Week before it is chosen, but at the same time when your mandate is to choose the best book that you read that week you have to stick by that, no matter what. You can’t think about how many times a book or a creative team has been chosen in the past, you just have to go with what you liked the best that week. I take that responsibility very seriously and I know that Ron and Josh do too. And that is why I always find the following statistic to be the most interesting:

Out of 52 Pick of the Weeks, there were 44 separate titles chosen, down one from 45 in 2010. There weren’t very many repeat Picks. There being so few repeat Picks of the Week will explain the following statistic:

We had an EIGHT way tie for the book that was chosen most often in 2011 as the Pick of the Week, each one was selected twice:

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest
Batgirl
Daredevil
Fantastic Four
Moon Knight
Severed
Uncanny X-Men
Wolverine

With no one book coming out on top, I’m handing out trophies to all of you! It’s like an 8 year old AYSO soccer league! Everyone’s a winner!

And there you have it — the Picks of the Week of 2011 by the numbers. I hope you found this all as interesting as I did.

See you back here in a year for 2012!

 

For a full list of all of the Picks of the Week click here.