Heeb

Your calendar for 5769 may already be posted on your wall, but let’s not forget that 5768 wasn’t too shabby in its own right. In honor of the beginning of the Jewish new year, our editors once again gaze backwards to give you the best in arts and culture of the past lunar year. Below, check out the best comics.

1. Nat Turner by Kyle Baker (Abrams)

With brutal attention to historical detail, writer/artist/animator Kyle Baker draws the story of Nat Turner and his 1831 slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia . This punch-you-in-the-soul charcoalishly-illustrated nearly-silent graphic novel doesn’t glamorize, heroicize, politicize, or judge what some deem a killing spree, and others, the beginning of the civil rights movement / resistance; it just shows it—packing a visceral and emotional whoomph. In fact, much of the material was adapted directly from Turner’s matter-of-fact prison diary. One for the libraries. JEFF NEWELT

2. Army@Love: Generation Pwned by Rick Veitch (Vertigo/DC)

3. Skyscrapers of the Midwest by Joshua Cotter (Adhouse)

4. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby (DC Comics)

5. A.D.: New Orleans After The Deluge by Josh Neufeld (SMITH)

6. Billy Dogma: Fear My Dear by Dean Haspiel (ACT-I-VATE)

7. Inkweed by Chris Wright (Sparkplug)

8. Cat Eyed Boy by Kazuo Imezu (VIZ)

9. The Explainers by Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics)

10. MADMAN Atomic Comics by Mike Allred (Image)

For Heeb‘s best comics of 5767, click here.