With 2009 coming to a close, the challenge was to pick and rank the 10 best comics from the entire year. I’ve estimated reading approximately 1,500+ issues over that time frame, so obviously it wasn’t the easiest task to complete. Still, after much deliberation, these are my picks for the 10 best comics of 2009.

1. Jonah Hex #50
DC Comics
Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Darwyn Cooke
Originally reviewed on December 3, 2009

Perfection. Defined as the highest degree of proficiency, skill or excellence, perfection is near impossible to achieve, especially when every comic ever printed is subjective in nature. You know, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and all that jazz. Still, when I thought about all the comics I’ve read this past year, this issue of Jonah Hex kept coming back to me. While not perfect (frankly, what is?), it’s pretty close.

A wonderful done-in-one tale following our “hero” as he diligently goes about his day job, in this specific case while hunting down 50 various bad guys who had it coming to them. A fine story on it’s own. Now add a dash of romance – or the bounty hunter’s version of it – to the mix, sprinkle in a little personal vengeance, and top it off with a jolting reminder of how cruel life can be, and you’re left with a portrait of a man who makes no excuses for who he is or what he does, life expectations be damned.

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For the past four years, Spike TV has been on the map of cable TV award shows with their annual Scream Awards, giving notice to genres and categories that all other award shows overlook. From comic books to horror films, the Scream Awards have made basic cable award shows fun for the rest of us.

The network just released their list of nominees for this year’s show, which have been chosen by their Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders. On the board are known genre names such as Tim Burton, Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth, Zack Snyder, and more.

The voting begins today at Scream.Spike.com so check out the list after the jump. Be sure to tune into Spike TV on Tuesday, October 27 (10 PM-Midnight ET/PT) for the 2009 Scream Awards.

THE ULTIMATE SCREAM
-“Drag Me to Hell”
-“Let the Right One In”
-“Star Trek”
-“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
-“Twilight”
-“Up”

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The colossal and beautiful Wednesday Comics hits stands this week for its first installment of twelve weekly issues. I shouldn’t really explain to you why you should buy this comic, but does Paul Pope doing an Adam Strange story do it for you? No? How about the 100 Bullets team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso doing Batman? Or Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred doing Metamorpho? I’ll stop.  For $3.99 you’ll get a newspaper sized issue full of great comics.

We’re big fans of Chuck here at The Flickcast. Especially me, I’ve been waiting for this collection for what seems like months. Written by series writers Peter Johnson and Zev Borow, it seems like this series was the first phase of trying out TV series as comics if that series would end up getting canceled. Thankfully, Chuck was not canceled and we still have this fun comic.

My final recommendation is Jeff Lemire’s The Nobody, published by Vertigo Comics and inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. I hear nothing but wonderful things about his Essex County trilogy and just as many wonderful things about this book.

As always we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, and if these don’t get you going, Midtown Comics has an excellent list of this week’s listings.  So, tell us what you liked this week in the comments section. Happy reading!