Comics Stuff - Monthly Update for October
This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, listing my Current Favorite Monthly Titles, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my five favorite first issues of the month and my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.

A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. I've narrowed it down to five or ten, beyond that is further narrowing of which one I liked best than I want to do on a monthly basis, at least right now. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And thirdly, I was relatively strict on the monthly series, in that it has to be a series that is solicited and actually printed monthly (for the most part, at least), and it has to be either ongoing or a long ongoing (at least 30 issues) instead of a limited series. This is primarily why, for example, Age of Bronze (irregular schedule), True Story Swear to God (irregular schedule) and Banana Sundays (limited series) didn't make the list. Of course, both The Goon and Walking Dead are not really as monthly as they mean to be, but hey, my blog, my rules.

In each case, I've provided a link for the listing, usually to one of my reviews (for further info on my opinion), but in the case of the monthly books and books I haven't reviewed, I've provided links to official publisher or creator sites or the best source of info I could find relatively easily. Oh, and the numbers in parentheses on the monthly titles is their latest ranking on the Diamond Top 300. Usually that's for the September Top 300, but some books (like Ex Machina) didn't have a new issue in that month, so the rating is a month old. In the best example of how pushing out biweekly pop comics kills the market for lower-rated comics, most of the series I follow jumped up about six or more slots this month, because there weren't two issues of House of M taking up two spaces on the charts... just two issues of Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers. Damn you, Bendis, you prolific, talented bastard! ;)

Finally, the updates are for the month of October... November just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.