With the year quickly winding down, it’s time to look back on the year and choose some of our favorites from the past twelve months including. From the writers and artists to the characters and storylines themselves, 2010 was piled high with more action, suspense and over-the-top crossover events that many of us can shake a stick at. Here’s some of the POA gang to bring you some of their own personal favorites of 2010.

Best Writer

Mike: Brian Michael Bendis has had a pretty good year both with his Marvel comics and his own titles as well. Between Ultimate Spider-Man, New Avengers and Scarlet he’s done a great job delivering content of all kinds for the readers.

Tim: At a time when I’ve had to cut my comic purchasing to its lowest point in years, X-Factor is one of the few books I’m still buying. Since the title was brought back in 2005 in… the wake of House of M, it has been the book I’ve constantly looked forward to on my trips for comics thanks to the writing of Peter David.

Lee: Bryan Lee O’Malley. I have to throw our boy, Bryan, a bone here. He wrote one of my favorite books and, by extension, movies of the year! Scott Pilgrim came to an end this summer with the sixth and final volume. Remember when the academy had to wait until Peter Jackson finished Return of the King to give him accolades? Same deal here. Bryan, I’m in lesbians with you.

Best Artist

Tim: Though I’m mostly familiar with his work on X-Force and X-23, he has also done some work on Top Cow comics like Witchblade and The Darkness. However, no matter where he is, Mike Choi always impresses me with his attention to detail and how absolutely breathtaking his art is.

Lee: David Finch. While most of the work I’ve seen of his this year is in the form of comic covers (specifically Brightest Day), he’s simply one of the best.

Rob: Francis Manaphul. Flash. ‘Nuff said.

Mike: I have to agree with Rob on this one. Flash has been a consistently entertaining to read and extremely easy on the eyes thanks to Francis’ unique style.

Best Creative Team

Mike: This one’s probably the toughest choice of all so I’m picking two. First is the original team for Power Girl from earlier this year. Jimmy Palmiotti, Just Gray and Amanda Conner helped relaunch the character in grand fashion and quickly became the best book I was picking up each month.

As far as current creative teams go, Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque’s work on American Vampire stands out to me as being some of the best. Great dark, disturbing art by Albuquerque and a wonderful vampire story by Snyder. This is vampires done right.

Lee: Brian Micahel Bendis & Alex Maleev. The fine tuned dialogue of Bendis when he’s on his game can not be beat and Maleev is probably one of if not my favorite comic book artist. Their breakout hit “Scarlet” this year is a must read! I loved their work on Daredevil and look forward to their Moon Knight run coming early 2011!

Best Publisher

Mike: Image, in my opinion, has had one heck of a year. Between Robert Kirkman’s Invincible, Haunt and Walking Dead to Morning Glories, Spawn, Chew and Nancy in Hell, there’s been plenty of great books on the shelf for Image fans to enjoy over the past 12 months.

Lee: Marvel. While I agree that publishers like Avatar and Image have had a handful of consistently incredible books over the course of 2010, it’s Marvel’s pure volume of satisfactory to great books that make a fanboy like myself buy five to ten different comics with the big “M” on them every week. With team-up books of every flavor (5 different avengers teams for Christ’s sake), it’s easy to find yourself reading three books a week featuring your favorite characters and while events this year have been rather weak (I’m looking at you Shadowland and Chaos War) Marvel continues to lead the pack.

Tim: As someone who grew up on super hero books, Vertigo adds a breath of fresh air to the world of comics. Their focus has never been on characters who are perfect and larger than life, but people who are deeply flawed, who struggle to make it in the world, thus, making the characters much easier to identify with than, say, some genius who was bit by a radioactive spider.

Best New Book (2010 Debut)

Mike: Morning Glories has been consistently entertaining from the beginning of of the very first issue. It’ll be interesting to see which way writer Nick Spencer and artist Joe Eisma take the book in 2011. If you haven’t checked out the critically acclaimed series yet… what are you waiting for?

Lee: It’s a three way tie for me between three very @#$%ed up books. Jason Aaron’s PunisherMAX run, Alan Moore’s Neonomicon, and Nick Spencer’s Morning Glories. Any comic that makes you feel physically uncomfortable to read is a winner in my books. Pun intended.

Best Comic Series of the Year

Mike: Amazing Spider-Man has been a wonderful read for me all year long. I know there are plenty of people out there that are still on the fence about this title since the events of One More Day but the entire team that has worked on the book over the past year has brought some really fun, entertaining stories to the table. It’s been a great year to be a Spider-Man fan.

Lee: I have to agree with fellow webhead Mike on this one. Since I’ve gotten back into comics (around the end of “The Gauntlet”). Amazing Spider-Man has been stellar, surviving many writer and artist changes to come out on top with the super exciting “Big Time”. Looking forward to 2011!

Tim: Fables is a book that I’ve never been disappointed with, and when I’m done reading it, I’m immediately looking into when I can read more of it. For a series with such a huge cast of characters, no one really seems to get left out. The artwork is always good (Though, as many friends of mine say, the cover art is really astonishing.) On top of all this, the characters can be very easy to identify with, in spite of their magical nature and fairy tale status. Fables is a must read for everyone.

So, that’s it from us. We hope that 2010 has been a good year for you and wish you all the best for 2011. Thanks for checking out our list and visiting Panels of Awesome throughout 2010. We look forward to seeing you back here in 2011!

Have some 2010 picks of your own? Let’s hear them! What books, creative teams and publishers were some of your favorites from this past year? Toss us a comment and let us know!

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