the 2026 Grantie™ Awards!

I won’t lie – being a comic book fan in this day and age sucks.

It’s not because of the lack of interesting books – if anything there’s MORE interesting stories being told now than there ever have been before, both in mainstream and indie comics. Hell, crowdfunding and word of mouth have revolutionized how accessible these comics have become, and it’s wonderful! There’s this glut of imaginative creators who are crafting stories that blow most 90’s stories out of the water (believe me, I collected in the 90’s…). It’s a Golden Age of sequential!

However, we have a true sociopath in the highest office in America, and that orange fuck has ruined just about everything in the production, promotion, and acquisition of comics. Tariffs have fucked things up so badly between the US and Canada, thus directly affecting a lot of the printing and distribution. Billionaire cronies have cocked up social media so greatly that it’s nearly impossible to get word out to a larger audience (*pours one out for old Twitter). And goddamn, between the sheer number of apps that carry comics and then the infiltration of AI into e v e r y t h i n g and all the bullshit…well, it’s really hard to find time and money to invest in comics.

But, this last year has been good. Really goddamn good. So good, in fact, that I wanted to bring back the Only Comic Award that Matters™ to honor these books. In the last calendar year I moved to California and begin working at a new arts school, not to mention I have a teen and pre-teen that require a lot of my bandwidth. And a puppy. A puppy the size of a mule. But! I fell so in love with these comics that I wanted to say publicly that I love them and the people who made them are deserving of awards, imaginary or otherwise.

So! If you’ve followed the Granties™ in the past (you poor fool) you’ll notice that individual awards are missing, as are Webcomics, websites, or podcasts (not that there aren't certain ones I enjoyed...). The reason? Shit man, depression, anxiety, and ADHD – they do a number on ya when your life gets uprooted! YET, like I said, goddamn great books this year.

These Granties™ are lean and mean, so if you’re on one of these books then by god you’re a Grantie™ medalist! If you ain’t on the books, sorry, I wish I had a better ability to read everything, I bet your books are great. If you’re feeling snubbed, well, go start your own awards, bucko!

BOOKS I LIKED IN 2025-26 THAT I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE TO BRUNCH

BIG TWO BOOKS I LIKED:

Absolute Wonder Woman (DC)

Absolute Martian Manhunter (DC)

The Ultimates (Marvel)

Supergirl (DC)

Uncanny X-Men (Marvel)

Green Lantern Dark (DC)

HUMOR BOOKS I LIKED

FUNeral Home

Money Shot (Vault)

HORROR BOOKS I LIKED

Pale Horse (Tomb Series)

The Matron

Frankenstein the Unconquered

Stash Box

Evie and the Helsings

Slight Return

Corpse Knight (Image)

Morningstar (Mad Cave)

Dreamcatchers

Carmen Red Claw (Dark Horse)

ANTHOLOGIES I LIKED

Saga of the Shield Maiden v5

CRIME BOOKS I LIKED

Black Jewels

Who Killed Sarah Shaw?

Sink to the Top

One True Love

ALL AGES BOOKS I LIKED

Penny and the Yeti (Papercutz)

FANTASY/SCI FI BOOKS I LIKED

Tyrant Fall

Babs (Ahoy)

No More Blades in Yucatán

Skinbreaker (Image)

Ghost Pepper (Image)

Ferocious (Mad Cave)

Rook (Image)

Hans Vogel is Dead (Dark Horse)

SIR (Boom Studios)

My Neighbor Necromancer

Living Hell (Dark Horse)

In mainstream sequentials Absolute Wonder Woman was my book of the year, to be honest. I thought it was so much better than other already-impressive Absolute books due to its kindness, hope, and empathy shining so brightly. It was the type of book that would constantly break my heart and then fix it again, all while burning my eyeballs with its glorious art.

I also finally (FINALLY) got caught up with manga Hall of Fame book Berserk, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's a bleak, brutal read that just...goddamn, dude, I think I'm only going to read it once in my life because THAT'S ALL YOU'D NEED TO. It will shatter you emotionally, frighten you, and capitvate you, but so help me I couldn't stop tearing through it. I hate to put it in these terms, but you understand why the great Kentaro Miura worked himself to death due to its scope and detail - this is a book that is, essentially, genre-defining.

It's also noteworthy to me that I had trouble finding quality humor books and anthologies. These two genres are very hard to pull off well, and there are quite a few big-time publishers who fail miserably at them. Indie creators tackle the two as best they can and sometimes they produce quality stories, but again, they are REALLY hard to achieve. Hell, making Yule all those years ago was one of the most difficult things I've ever done creatively, so I understand how tough it is to put out an anthology worthy of people's time. And humor books, well, they're so tough to put together because humor is SO subjective, and having a humor book rise to the top while being both a good story and, well, funny, is a really tough ask.

All that to say: I know there are a lot of humor books and anthologies that were worthy of my time and money, but I just wasn't able to unearth them. Whether that's due to money, marketing, or whatever, I wish I could've found them. I deeply apologize if I didn't give your book attention simply because I couldn't find it or it missed my attention. Maybe, if I do this again, I'll have stables full of these I can proudly point to, but you gotta remember that I'm just a single dumb dope who tried his best to read a bunch of books & stories - I wish I had more time and money and attention to get to all the great books not on my radar! (Shit, send me your books to read at officialgranties@gmail.com) Just because they didn't make my lists doesn't mean they're not worthy of your time and money.

So, to close, find those books. Tell people about them. Praise creators you love, praise their works and recommend them. Support webcomic creators bc they work so fucking hard and most of the time they make their comics available FOR FREE. Respect Editors for the work they do, because they make good books great.

And lastly, fuck AI. Fuck it with a flaming cactus into a black hole. There is no substitute for human creativity and pure, beautiful collaboration. If you think you can't create without it, I assure you that you can. Just create, believe in yourself because you are so much better than whatever a lifeless computer program can cobble together. You don't need it. None of us need it.

And the second ever Grantie Lifetime Achievement award goes to two creators: Jack Foster and the Racicots (Alaire & Toben count as one unit, so sue me). I love them all and I love their work; they inspire me with their beautiful, engaging comics, and I'm truly blessed to not just work with them regularly, but to consider them friends.

Congrats to all medalists, I hope you enjoy reward jpegs!