Cartoonist Lucie Bryon joins the show to talk about her career in comics and her ShortBox Comics Fair comic (and my comic of the year), Ocean. Bryon discusses her recent trip to Japan, France's relationship with comics, her gateway into comics, why manga works so well for her, her art school experience, expressing herself through comics, learning from her own work, the origins of Ocean, finding the universal in specificity, the colors of the comic, finding answers in the work, the book's leads, bending archetypes, her comic making process, the future of Ocean, what she wants from comics, and more.

In a special, year-end episode of Off Panel, friend of the show Brandon Burpee returns to chat about the year in comics before we count down our 20 favorite comics of the year. We discuss the year in comics, Brandon's disconnect from the larger conversation, the perils of being overinformed, deciding what to read, how the Big Two are doing, the end of Krakoa, the Ultimate Universe's return, honorable mentions for our faves of the year, our top 20 comics of the year, and more.

Bonus! By popular demand, our lists in full can be found below.

David Harper

1. Ocean by Lucie Bryon
2. Damn Them All by Si Spurrier, Charlie Adlard, Sofie Dodgson, and Jim Campbell
3. Wild’s End by Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard
4. Impossible People by Julia Wertz
5. Monica by Daniel Clowes
6. Why Don’t You Love Me? By Paul B. Rainey
7. Kaya by Wes Craig, Jason Wordie, and AndWorld Design
8. Now Let Me Fly by Ronald Wimberly and Brahm Revel
9. Danger and Other Unknown Risks by Erica Henderson and Ryan North
10. A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll
11. Time Before Time by Declan Shalvey, Rory McConnville, Geoffo, Joe Palmer, Chris O’Halloran, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
12. Peacemaker Tries Hard! by Kyle Starks, Steve Pugh, Jordie Bellaire, and Becca Carey
13. Night Fever by Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Jacob Phillips
14. Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy by Faith Erin Hicks
15. Clementine Book Two by Tillie Walden
16. Lights by Brenna Thummler
17. Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
18. w0rldtr33 by James Tynion IV, Fernando Blanco, Jordie Bellaire, and Aditya Bidikar
19. Mobilis by Juni Ba
20. X-Men Red/Immortal X-Men by Al Ewing, Yildiray Cinar, Kieron Gillen, Lucas Werneck, and more

Brandon Burpee

1. World’s Finest – Waid, Mora, and Bonvillain
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Campbell, Smith, Federici, and more
3. Darth Vader – Pak, Roberson, and Gorham
4. X-Men – Duggan, Cassara, Caselli, and more
5. Local Man – Fleecs, Seeley, Simpson, and Sobreiro
6. Daredevil – Zdarsky, Checchetto, and De La Torre
7. Peacemaker Tries Hard! – Starks, Pugh, and Bellaire
8. Ambassadors – Millar, Charest, Quitely, Kerschl, Coipel, etc.
9. Radiant Black – Higgins and Carlos
10. World’s Finest: Teen Titans – Waid, Lupacchino, and Bellaire
11. Superman – Williamson, Campbell, Dragotta, and more
12. Void Rivals – Kirkman and De Felici
13. Immortal X-Men – Gillen, Werneck, and Ryp
14. Adventures of Superman – Taylor and Henry
15. Nightwing – Taylor, Redondo, and Byrne
16. Dark X-Men – Foxe and Scharf
17. Titans – Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott
18. The X-Cellent – Milligan and Allred
19. Jean Grey – Simonson and Chang
20. Batman – Zdarsky and Jimenez

In a special year end episode of Off Panel, we look at the defining themes of 2023 in comics with the help of Books with Pictures' Katie Pryde, The Beat's Heidi MacDonald, and writer/artist Jamal Igle. Up first is Pryde (1:10), who talks about this unusual time in comics retail, what started us on this path, the exhaustion in the space, where it's manifesting itself, the metadata situation, how Books with Pictures is adjusting to it, and more. After that is MacDonald (30:01), who discusses the world of comics marketing, how the current state of social media and comic sites is affecting things, the unseen work of marketing, fitting within the distribution system, its impact, and more. And to close is Igle (1:02:15), who talks about the overwhelming fear of the unknown in comics, where and how it manifests, how it impacts things, the path forward, and more.

Writer Si Spurrier joins the show to talk about his dense workload of late on comics like The Flash, the Uncanny Spider-Man, Damn Them All, and more. Spurrier discusses this busy stretch, testing boundaries, the yes/no conundrum, balance within the chaos, finding his way into superheroes, delivering the necessary story, his contrarian nature, tie-ins, the X-Office, jumping on points, how his different flavors of writing impact each other, data pages, the difficulty of Damn Them All, the bad/good of that book, what he wants from comics, and more.