The Phantom: 80th Anniversary Special (50)
Strawberry Shortcake (49)
Doctor Who: Four Doctors Special (48)
World's Of Aspen (47)
Lady Mechanika #0 (46)
Z2 Comics Lab (45)
Mooncop: A Tom Gauld Sampler (42)
Help The CBDLF... Defend Comics (40)
2000 AD Special (38)
Grant Morrison's Avatarex: Destroyer Of Darkness (35)
Sanjay & Craig/Harvey Breaks (33)
Hilda & The Stone Forest (31)
Bruce Lee: The Dragon Rises (30)
The Stuff Of Legend (29)
The Tick (6)
Now onto the list!
35. Overstreet Comic Book Marketplace (41)
I probably should've learned after last year ranking this at the bottom of my list but alas it was a situation where I had all the other books on the table so I grabbed this one.
34. Love & Rockets (34)
I was always fascinated by L&R longevity but when reading the synopsis it didn't sound so great but I ranked it up there anyways and despite it being one of the last books I grabbed I look forward to reading it but I now know this world is not for me.
33. Devil's Due/1First Comics Mixtape (42)
Only twice this year did I think "oh god will this ever end!?" the first was Overstreet, the 2nd was Public Relations: How To Dragon Your Train". Luckily the other stories were enough to keep it out of the basement despite the 2nd lowest pre-ranking of the books I got.
32. Rom/Action Man (32)
I will say Action Man was better than ROM but when trying to get people to pick up a new series you need to get them hooked. Neither book did that, mostly act as preludes but I'm not excited for either series.
31. The Pink Panther (10)
It's unfortunate since I was a big fan of The Pink Panther growing up but the modern comic wasn't great and the classic comic was awful (like most classic comics that pop up on FCBD). For that reason The Pink Panther has the biggest fall of all the comics on this list dropping from the Top 10 to #31.
30. Awake #0 (27)
With Awake, less is not more. If it even had some semblance of a coherant story I would've ranked it higher but we barely knew our characters, barely knew what they were doing and why they were doing. Sure the art was nice for an all-ages book but still difficult to gauge an overall story.
29. Science Comics (44)
This was a nice surprise. I ranked it low priority since I don't usually like educational material but that art was fun and the Coral Reefs half was especially enlightening. So despite being at the bottom of my stack it was able to jump over a couple books to place it firmly in the top 30.
28. Spongebob Freestyle Funnies (8)
I usually like the Spongebob FCBD comics but for whatever reason the art on this was awful for every story except the Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy story which was awful in it's own right. It was closer than it shouldn't been since The Pink Panther free-fell one extra spot than Spongebob did vs. their pre-ranking so it doesn't get saddled with that recognition but it was certainly deserving.
27. Junior Braves Of The Apocalypse (16)
The art was in black and white with messy pencils... The cover led me to believe the art style would be passable given the interesting sounding story I thought this would be a winner. Unfortunately I was wrong.
26. Dark Horse All-Ages Special (22)
I might have worded the "dud" strongly but that's what happens when you have a 140 character limit but what I meant was it's a dud considering the fact I really like How To Train Your Dragon and like what I've read from Plants Vs. Zombies and The Legend Of Korra. These were not good though, average or worse.
25. We Can Never Go Home/Young Terrorists (36)
Young Terrorists seemed to be some known events from a 2nd vantage point but again, I'm not even sure. We Can Never Go Home was really fun if not entirely off the wall, but in a good way.
24. Valiant 2016 (23)
Similar to the last entry this book was half good and half... I don't want to say bad but definitely lacking. Valiant gets the nod because Faith and Rai was much stronger than We Can Never Go Home.
23. Bob's Burgers (39)
Started watching the show, thanks to my fiance. But really it's still just average. The comic is funny in parts, like the show so we'll see if it wears down on me.
22. Space Goat Presents: Dark Lily & Friends (25)
Monster Elementary was the star here unfortunately it worked as the back-up to Dark Lily so I would've liked more from it but it is what it is. I'll be keeping my eye out for both those stories.
21. Spectrum (14)
I usually don't go for the sciency comics and that's what this is, it's a hard sci-fi story. Hence my difficulties following along but other than that and the pacing issues it's a solid read. Too bad at times it seems to be too much to overcome.
20. Dark Horse Comics Teen Sampler (24)
So my tweet says it all. Serenity was good but I didn't feel it belonged in the teen sampler, Hellboy was good and Aliens was not so much. But hey it's still a pass and it moved up the rankings, so there's that!
19. Assassin's Creed (15)
Was hoping for more Assassiny goodness and although the first half was super good but the Templar's side hurt the book.
18. DC Superhero Girls (21)
Pretty much what I expected. Good read, obviously I'm not the target audience but that speaks to the book's strength.
17. Street Fighter V (18)
Again, Street Fighter V was good for what it was but it kinda went all over the place tone-wise, one story is action-packed, the next was comedic it was hard to know what was coming and the back section was really weird newspaper cartoon-strip style jokes... Strange ending.
16. Bongo Free-For-All (7)
Simpsons Comics are usually a highlight for FCBD which is why it has usually climbed it's way up the pre-rankings, hitting #7 this year but this was an odd misstep that caused it to fall down. The main story was solid as usual but the back ups were hurting when it came to quality.
15. Pokemon (12)
So I was stuck in this weird predicament. A couple years ago Pokemon put out a very bad FCBD offering and then a Halloween ComicFest Pokemon book came out and it was really good... So what were we gonna get? Turns out a hybrid of the two but it could always be worse but also better.
14. Boom! Summer Blast 2016 (13)
Usually Mouse Guard is the highlight of the Boom Studios book but it's really sad to get that dissapointed by something I've grown to love. Usually Boom is propped up by a couple good series to outweigh the bad. But this balances the scales a little bit. Thank God for Adventure Time and Lumberjanes or this could've been a wreck.
13. Civil War II/Avengers (1)
I can honestly say I'm completely shocked by this, even writing it down I'm taken aback. But the reality is The Avengers story was just soooo disappointing that even Civil War couldn't save it.
12. Graphix Spotlight: Dream Jumper Book One: Nightmare Escape (26)
Really enjoyed Dream Jumper, if you have a young one at home or enjoy imaginative storytelling this is a book for you. Too bad it was beat out for highest jump!
11. Attack On Titan Anthology (11)
This is still a good book, my disappointment mostly stemmed from wanting to learn about this world as I have a passing interest in it but I did not get that. I'm still excited to learn about the AoT world though.
10. Oddly Normal (19)
We made it to the top 10! Oddly Normal hooked me despite not having a whole lot in there. Can't wait to hunt down the books and give them a good read through. This is what a good all-ages book should do.
9. Sonic Sampler (5)
I really miss the Megaman/Sonic flipbooks... But I suppose all said and done, this isn't that much of a drop off. Still pretty significant though.
8. Howard Lovecraft And The Frozen Kingdom/Stan Lee's The Unknowns (37)
Here's the biggest jumper! Can't get over how impressed I was with this book especially since last time Stan Lee premiered a book on FCBD (Chakra) I was left with a really bad taste. This book will get me to watch the Frozen Kingdom movie and I may try to hunt down some of The Unknowns stuff too!
7. Grumpy Cat And Pokey! (26)
Another big jump here. I loved the BvS spoof so from the first page I was hooked. I have a couple Grumpy Cat comics kicking around (my fiances I swear!) so I might have to check them out to see if this was a one time deal or if I generally just like the comics!
6. One-Punch Man/My Hero Academia (20)
I've long been picking up the anime books at FCBD, usually they draw me in with a series I like (Dragonball, Yu-Gi-Oh) but usually I still end up dissappointed. That was obviously not the case this year as we have our first non-all-ages book in the top 10! And look at that, it's the 4th book in the top ten to jump 9+ spaces. Lots of Cinderella stories this FCBD!
5. Captain America/Spider-Man (4)
Solid book here from Marvel. Didn't expect it to beat out Civil War II/Avengers in pre-rankings but it earns itself a spot in the top 10. I'm still iffy on Cap's new Shield but I'm fine with everything else... Yes, even that!
4. March Trilogy (17)
Here's our last big jumper as March, which samples the first chapters of all three volumes, skyrocketed 13 spots into the top five. In hindsight I probably pre-ranked this one too low since I'm very interested in the civil rights movement but Top Shelf doesn't have the best rep to me.
3. Camp Midnight (9)
This was the highest pre-ranked original title (not Archie, DC, Marvel or traditional FCBD books (Spongebob, Bongo, Tick, etc.)) so I was obviously excited and it delivered! Pumped to grab this novel this summer and find out all about our hero's adventures at Camp Midnight.
2. Suicide Squad (2)
In preparation of the movie, DC released the New 52 Suicide Squad #1 for free. I already read it so I knew what I was getting and ranked it #2 where it ended up, little did I know the #1 book wouldn't be Civil War...
1. Archie/Jughead (3)
There is just too much to like about this book. Mark Waid is one of the best writers in comics today so of course despite not being an Archie fan (other than the horror and video game stuff) I new I still had to read this. A Jughead backup written by Chip Zdarsky (a favourite of mine) was not something I was aware of but it was just as good if not better! Looks like I'm becoming an Archie fan!
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