The news is out: I am now working at Image Comics as their PR and Marketing Coordinator. Today was my first day and it was a whirlwind.

Please note that Sarah deLaine, who previously held that title is still here — she is now the Event Coordinator and focusing on conventions, trade shows, and other events. She has her hands full with Image Expo only five weeks away! We’ll be coordinating our efforts — I’m handling press and media leading up to the convention, while she is taking care of in-convention matters.

I am very tired and need to go to bed, but before I do, I have to thank everyone who has congratulated me, wished me well, and told me they enjoyed working with me at SLG.

I had a hard time at the start of the day, thinking about the place where I started my career and my ten great years there, and then trying to cope with being apart from my son, who is two and going into daycare for the first time. However, the support the comics community has given me has helped so much and made me very grateful I am part of this industry.

I also need to thank SLG’s Supreme Commander Dan Vado, who hired me and mentored me through all the intricacies of the comics world. When I took a job as a production assistant to help me pay my university tuition, I never thought I would be Editor in Chief in a year and a half. But Dan believed in me and entrusted many aspects of his life’s work to me, which gave me the opportunity to learn and gain confidence. His flexibility and understanding allowed me to earn my master’s degree while I worked and to take on limited responsibilities while I cared for my son. He inspired me to do my best for the creators we published, and I hope I did as much good as I was capable of. I can sincerely say I would not be in the position I am now if it were not for him.

Dan isn’t my boss anymore, but I hope he, and everyone else at SLG will always be my friend.

I’m always hesitant to participate in “Best of” year-end lists because I don’t ever feel like I’ve read enough to declare anything the best. I don’t get around to reading a lot of important works until well after they’re published, and this year is no different.

Instead, I’ll make a list of comics and graphic novels that were published in 2011 that I especially enjoyed.

Blabber Blabber Blabber: Everything Volume One by Lynda Barry (Drawn and Quarterly)
Lynda Barry is a singular voice in comics. No one else is even close to being like her. This first volume of an omnibus of her work collects her early comics, with her commentary. Nothing is more helpful to aspiring writers and artists than an insightful master’s examination of her craft’s development. Barry encourages copying drawings the artist admires, the kind of exercise that used to be part of an artist’s apprenticeship but now are often avoided in an age when individual expression is supposed to be the purpose of art. She’s famous as a teacher who helps people develop their creativity now, a pedagogical impulse that is apparent very early on in her career, as many strips encourage readers to try their hand at drawing. (Publishers Weekly review here.)

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (Drawn and Quarterly)
I’m one of those Beatonites who has been reading this strip online for the last few years. Tech geeks may rule the school now, but Beaton gives us history and literary nerds something to snicker about as we revel in both her cleverness and our own. Her way of giving historical figures contemporary attitudes and vocabularies to make the past seem present is key to her work’s charm, as is that expression of crazed determination she’s so good at drawing.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, adapted by Peter Gillis, art by Renae deLiz (inks and colors by Ray Dillon) (IDW)
The individual issues were published in 2011, but the collection was published in January of 2011. Like so many women my age, I loved the animated The Last Unicorn as a child. This beautiful adaptation brings in a little more of the prose style of the novel and just makes me happy.

Marzi by Marzi Sowa and Syvlain Savoia (Vertigo)
This is an engrossing and affecting memoir that offers insight both into a young girl’s perspective and life in Communist Poland on the cusp of revolution. (Publishers Weekly review here.)

The Royal Historian of Oz by Tommy Kovac and Andy Hirsch (SLG)
Though willing to have a sense of humor about Oz fandom, this story still shines with love for L. Frank Baum’s creation. It’s set in a run-down future, with a man who longs for escape and wonder and his down-to-earth teenage son as its main characters who find themselves running smack into the reality of Oz. This was produced while I worked at SLG, but it really was midwifed (so to speak) by the company’s president, Dan Vado. I just did production work on it, though I had the advantage of being able to read Tommy’s delightful scripts and see the process of Andy bringing it to life with his art.

Sergio Aragonés’ Funnies by Sergio Aragones (Bongo)
I was a fan of Sergio Aragonés before I even knew who he was. As a kid, I used to hang out with my cousin Greg and read MAD, and I loved his pantomime “A MAD Look at..” This monthly comic has some of those great wordless strips, but my favorite feature is the biographical story in every issue. Aragonés tells stories about his childhood in Mexico with great warmth and recounts the innocent exploits of his youth with humor.

Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang (DC)
This is the book that got me, for the first time ever, to buy a monthly comic published by one of the Big Two. Its mythic take on the iconic character reminds me of something Vertigo would have produced at its apex. It’s smart and it trusts its readers to be smart, too. The art is stupendous, and Diana has the right air of almost haughty distance that befits an immortal Amazon (and, as it turns out… well, SPOILER). I hate the damned choker, though.