Welcome back to our end of the year round-up! The categories haven't changed, but we are giving out something a little different this year to our winners... cuts. That's right, we're jumping you into the Comic Bastards winner circle! You can also listen to the "Best of 2014" podcast episode which is posted at the bottom to hear the entire list, otherwise check back for the next category. Now let's get going with our next category: Best Comic Related Thing Outside of Comics aka Movies, Games, TV Shows.
Andre - Alison Bechdel awarded Macarthur Genius Grant
A win for the LGBT community, the comic books ARE art argument, and one of my favorite graphic memoirist. How can you not be happy about this?
Nick - The Deluxe edition of THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER by Junot Diaz, w/ illustrations by Jaime Hernandez
If you're sleeping on Junot Diaz, you're missing one of the best novelists of the last twenty years, and THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER was stellar to begin with; add in one of Los Bros Hernandez, and it's already a masterpiece.
Steve - Guardians of the Galaxy
I don't want to say it's the best Marvel movie to date, but hot damn is it close! It redefines "something for everyone," at least in the way superhero movies can achieve it.
Allen - Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians has been such a giant hit that is wins hands down. Even though I think it and Captain America 2 fight for the best Marvel movie to date for me. The amount of Star Lord and Groot costumes I saw at Dragon Con was astounding.
Dustin - Guardians of the Galaxy
Yeah I'm going with this one. It's still one of the few movies that I look at fondly and can't wait to see again. It didn't end up feeling over-killed by the studio or the audience and so I'm looking forward to it.
Jeff - The Title Sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy
The rest of it was great too, but it was kind of the moment that all the waiting and worrying fell away and I felt like 'okay, they actually did it'.
James - Disney Infinity Game with the Marvel Superheroes
Admit it. You have always wanted to go tear assing around in an unlimited realm as The Hulk. ROAR!!!
David - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
You can shoot me down if you want, but I wasn't totally sold on Guardians of the Galaxy. I thought it was good and that it had some fun moments, but I wasn't really blown away by it in the same way that everyone else seemingly was. For me, the best comic-book movie of the year has to be Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The story is great, it sneaks in some nice social commentary, and the action scenes are brilliantly choreographed - everything from Fury's car chase to Cap, Black Widow, and Falcon's confrontation with the Winter Soldier and his goons. Just a fantastic movie. Honourable mention: X-Men Days of Future Past which was a lot of fun, and really did heal a lot of the wounds that the film series has endured over the years.
Neil - Captain America: The Winter Solider
I was very leery of the Capt. America franchise since the first movie was very lackluster. Winter Solider totally redeem itself and the franchise. If it wasn't for Guardians being so good, the Winter Solider would easily be the best comic book movie this year.
Austin - The End of Naruto
Okay, so it's not TECHNICALLY outside of comics, because manga are pretty much just Japanese comics, but I want an excuse to talk about Naruto, damnit. Kishimoto wrote and drew seven-hundred damn chapters of this monster over fifteen years, and the ending was satisfying and kept true to what the series has been since day one. That's awesome.
Samantha - How to Train your Dragon 2
As good as the first. Thank you.