Because its been a while since a book captured both child-like curiosity and mature terror.
Truth time. I've been meaning to review several graphic novels and trades since The Brog's inception. Let this year-end award to Joe Hill's Locke & Key: Crown Of Shadows be a step in a brighter direction for trades and collection coverage on this site. The funny thing about this year's collection of comics I read was that all left varying magnitudes of impressions. However, the third book in the Locke & Key series really, took me. It's rare that I'm taken by anything.
Asterios Polyp was an adventure against what conventions I think of as far as form and function of comics go. The sixth book of Walking Dead is great, but it feels as if I'm reading the series almost out of habit as opposed to deeply engrossing entertainment. Brubaker's Criminal and William's Batwoman struck me as something that will make long-term impressions, but nothing immediately gasp-worthy. Hill's Crown of Shadows is my least liked of the three books in the series. It left me frustrated, I've been wanting the series to move faster than it has been. Gone are the horror-filled, bloody massacres found in the first book. The child-like horror found in book two seemed to be venturing into young-adult angst. Yet, the book punctuates, with every page, "You need to keep reading."
Honorable Mention: Walking Dead Book 6, Criminal: The Sinners, Asterios Polyp, Batwoman: Elegy