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 previous installments of Dave’s Weekly Comic Book Recommendations, go here.

Slim pickings yet again this week. From DC Comics, we have the entire Blackest Night Tales from the Corps for $7.99, and the final issue of the exceptionally wonderful Wednesday Comics.

From Marvel we have the third issue of the exceptionally fun Immortal Weapons, and the first issue of Spider-Woman #1 comes out. If you haven’t been watching the “motion comic,” via the iTunes download, then get the series in this more traditional format. Its a lot better. Especially with the former Daredevil team Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev at the helm.

From last week, the softcover of Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s The Alcoholic came out from Vertigo. For those of you who caught the new HBO series Bored to Death and are interested in Jason Schwartzman’s character’s work in graphic novel form, you ought to pick that up.

And well, to be honest, there isn’t anything else that interests me this week so that’s about it. As always, we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, so leave us a comment and let us know what you liked/didn’t like from this week’s comics. For a more complete list of what comes out this week, check out the one at Midtown Comics.

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!