It's like the Oscars, if... oh you should probably just watch the Oscars

Oh man, you guys. We were SO CLOSE. We got most of our comics read, almost finished our lists, were totally like "what better night to bring the show back than actual Oscar night!" We really had it all sewn up. And then Aaron got sick, and my show prep got interrupted by baby duty, and GOD I HAVEN'T EVEN HAD A HAIRCUT SINCE AUGUST. Anyway, we are going to try really, really hard to at least finish prep at some point tonight and then record tomorrow night. If we all work together, dreams can come true!

Thank you, as always, for your undying loyalty and patience. At least those of you who are still loyal and patient.

UPDATE: And now Aaron has Conjunctivitis. So maybe not.

At the risk of ubernerding this place all up

We're not dead yet.

2011 ABCP YEAR-IN-REVIEW

It seems like just last year we didn't put our year-end show up until several days after the year was over! And it was! And now it is again! And again it shall be next year! But from now on, we shall have an always-valid excuse for being late with anything and everything, which is this:

(With a ridiculously huge thanks to listener JR Jenks for the onesie!)

Yes, everyone welcome little May to the world of Awesomed By Comics, joining the cats, our dryer, and our singing Pokemon clock in the ranks of "noisy things we have that interrupt the show". Except it's a lot harder (and far more irritating to the neighbors) to ignore this one. May is celebrating her three-week birthday today the same way she has celebrated every other day so far, and the same way we assume she will continue to celebrate every day for the foreseeable future; eat, defecate, sleep, repeat.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and please always remember that you are more than welcome to list your own winners for our categories in the comments.

As always with these year-end shows, we've got a list of nominee-nominees ... that is to say, things we thought were among the best the year had to offer and were deserving of mention. Of these lists, we've narrowed down each category to five or so nominees, about which we talk at some length, and then from those nominees we pick winners. Some were tough to narrow down (we could have had 10 writer nominees easily) and some were tough to pick enough nominees from to fill out a segment (rough year for compelling villains overall) but here you go.

PRESENTING: The Nominee-Nominees for this year's ABCP Year-End Spectacular!

Hero of the Year:

Tom Taylor (the Unwritten)

Ultimate Spider-Man (Peter Parker and Miles Morales)

Gus (Sweet Tooth)

Stephanie Brown (Batgirl)

Johnny Storm (FF)

Rocket Raccoon (Annihilators backups)

Red Hulk (Hulk, Avengers)

Horny Namor (various)

Power Girl (Power Girl)

Superman (Action Comics)

Cupcake (Bake Sale)

Villain of the Year:

Loki (various)

The Homelander (The Boys)

Bane (Secret Six)

Poker Face (Power Man and Iron Fist)

Satana (Thunderbolts)

The Plutonian (Irredeemable, Incorruptible)

Red Skull (Red Skull Incarnate)

Spider Queen (Spider Island)

The Cabal (Unwritten)

Dan DiDio (SDCC)

Writer of the Year:

Mike Carey (The Unwritten)

Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Animal Man)

Jeff Parker (Thunderbolts, Hulk)

Greg Pak (Hercules, Alpha Flight; Silver Surfer, Red Skull)

Fred Van Lente (Hercules, Alpha Flight; Power Man and Iron Fist)

Gail Simone (Secret Six)

Garth Ennis (The Boys)

Bryan Q. Miller (Batgirl)

Kieron Gillen (Journey Into Mystery, Generation Hope, Uncanny)

Peter David (X-Factor)

Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man, Moon Knight)

Nick Spencer (Morning Glories, Infinite Vacation, Ultimate X-Men; Cloak &

Dagger)

Abnett & Lanning (Annihilators; Heroes for Hire)

Mark Waid (Incorruptible, Irredeemable, Daredevil)

Charlie Huston (Wolverine: The Best There Is)

Artist of the Year:

Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth)

Peter Gross (The Unwritten)

Sara Pichelli (Ultimate Spider-Man)

Yuko Shimizu (Unwritten covers)

J. Calafiore (Secret Six)

Andres Guinaldo (Gotham City Sirens)

Timothy Green II (Rocket Raccoon and Groot backup)

Juan Jose Ryp (Wolverine: The Best There Is)

David Hahn (All-Nighter)

Emma Rios (Cloak & Dagger)

Travel Foreman (Animal Man)

JH Williams III (Batwoman)

Paolo Rivera/Marcos Martin (Daredevil)

Crap of the Year:

Smallville

Prelude to Schism

Bendis' interview trope

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Fear Itself

Secret Six ending

Treatment of women by DC in the relaunch

Detective #1

Comic-related non-comic Item of the Year:

Doctor Who

Adam Warrock

Harry Potter 7: Pt. 2

Smallville

Pokemon Black and White

Looking back at the career of Dwayne McDuffie

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

X-Men First Class

Iron Man Armored Adventures

Yu-Gi-Oh 3D: Bonds Beyond Time debacle

Captain America

Thor

Best New Series:

Power Man and Iron Fist

Annihilators/Rocket Raccoon and Groot

FF

Journey Into Mystery

Moon Knight

15 Love

All Nighter

Daredevil

Rachel Rising

Punisher

Animal Man

Action Comics

Ultimate Spider-Man

Story of the Year:

The Unwritten: Leviathan, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Sweet Tooth: The Further Adventures of the Boy and the Big Man, by Jeff Lemire

The Boys: Proper Preparation and Planning, by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun - Evie

Ultimate Spider-Man: The Death of Spider-Man, by Brian Michael Bendis, Sarah Pichelli, and Mark Bagley

Secret Six: Infernal Affairs, by Gail Simone and J. Calafiore

Wolverine: The Best There is: Broken Quarantine, by Charlie Huston and Juan Jose Ryp

Bake Sale (Original Graphic Novel) by Sarah Varon

Awesomed By Comics Podcast Episode #159

CONTEST TIME! (<-- Download the show here!!)

This very special comic-related non-comic episode of the ABC Podcast is brought to you by the fact that it's CONTEST TIME! We go through about three dozen entries into our 30-word, juggling-inclusive, non-pandering, bananarama fanfiction challenge and eventually walk away with a winner! Who is it? YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO LISTEN TO FIND OUT unless we already emailed you by the time you're listening to this, in which case you already know it's you. If, in fact, it's you who's reading this right now. It might not be you. It might be someone else. If someone else is reading this, then you'll only find out who won by listening. But if YOU are reading this, you, our winner, whoever you are, then YOU might actually know who the winner is before listening to the episode, but you should listen anyway because you won. And also I used high-tech computer analysis tools on a cat chirp.

A sincere thank you to all of you who entered - seriously every single one of your entries was fantastic, even those of you who sorta didn't follow directions, or who did follow directions but did so too obscurely for us to know.

We had so much fun doing this, and it was a bright spot in what has otherwise been a relatively rough few days, so guaranteed we'll be doing another contest sometime soon. And don't be alarmed if you don't hear from us for a while, because we're getting awfully close to babytime. But stay tuned and follow us on twitter and stuff and you'll be among the first to know what's happening and when we're coming back. :)

Awesomed By Comics Podcast Episode #158

Aw yeah, ABCP is back with about 20 minutes of Evie, and almost two hours of Aaron and guest-host Chris Sims. We make a pretty awesomed announcement for us, which will result in a few weeks without shows for you, but it's pretty important. SMILEYFACE :) Aaron and Chris agree on Batman, Mudman, Cartoon Batman, Geoff Johns, and some other stuff. Big wins for all that stuff, except Geoff Johns, plus some Atomic Robo talk, some The Boys talk, some Jem talk, and nobody at Marvel noticed that the Bendis record is skipping.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and please always remember that you are more than welcome to list your own winners for our categories in the comments. Hell, you can list your own categories for our winners, for all we care. Or list your own winners for your own categories, from your own books. Whatever you want to do.

AND IF YOU WANT TO DONATE TO THE ABCP BABY SHOWER YOU CAN DO THAT OVER THERE --->

No show this week sorryyy :(

We've had a bit of medical drama over here at Chez ABCP, so there unfortunately won't be a podcast this week. Don't worry everyone's ok, but I'm under strict doctor's orders not to get riled up about narrative inconsistency and lazy art. Hopefully we'll be up and running for next week, but your patience during this period is much appreciated.

Awesomed By Comics Podcast Episode #157

This episode of the Awesomed By Comics Podcast is brought to you by the third week of our 30-word, non-pandering, juggling-inclusive, bananarama fanfiction challenge, AND War Rocket Ajax, AND Copernicus Jones, AND a book that comes out in April - those last three courtesy of our guest host, the always high-minded Matt Wilson. Amazing week for Jeff Lemire on both Sweet Tooth and Animal Man, some ridiculously fun ideas being thrown around in Infinite Vacation, some joyful X-Universe images, and some good words for Heart and Luther Strode. Also our kitten Bo sings a song with some shitty slap bass at the end.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, and please always remember that you are more than welcome to list your own winners for our categories in the comments. Hell, you can list your own categories for our winners, for all we care. Or list your own winners for your own categories, from your own books. Whatever you want to do. And if you feel like donating, there's a button over there with which you can do just that!

Curvurz: