The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025 (Part One)

With a little help from our friends, we celebrate the Best Comics of 2025, and there were too many good comics for just one episode. Welcome to The Stampies (Part One).

Friends, let’s celebrate. We’ve made it through another year, and no matter how you felt about the world outside your local comic book shop, you certainly read some great comics. Welcome to our annual award show, The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025. Part One.

Every year is a good year for comics. You just have to go out and read them. That’s the secret. We try not to imprison ourselves with characters, genres, publishers, or even our preferred tastes. As long as you’re only interested in good comics, you’ll find them if you read enough, and the brilliant thing about 2025 is that we read a lot and found so many great comics, but we still didn’t read enough to read all the great comics.

Thankfully, we sent out the Comic Book Couples Counseling distress call, and a bunch of our friends from across the industry answered. Peppered throughout our Stampies ceremony are our podcaster, journalist, publicist, and creator friends, each offering their favorite comics from 2025. See a list of them below, and make sure you support their work and follow them on socials.

As we do every year, we select our favorite comics and then create the Stampies around them. This two-part episode reflects our weird, collective tastes as a couple. Listeners will recognize several of the titles, but hopefully, we’ve thrown in several surprises, too. You can also find the award categories and (SPOILERS) winners below, listed alongside their timestamps in case you want to hop around or revisit later.

For the first time ever, we’ve created physical Stampy Awards to be delivered to the creators. We’re only able to do this thanks to our new sponsor, GlobalComix. The all-in-one digital comics platform is currently offfering a great comics bundle when you sign up for their GlobalComix Gold program. Make sure you give them a click (more details below), then start browsing their incredible digital comics library.

The Best Comics of 2025 Part One Guest-Stars:

• Lance (Bluesky) and Jeremy (Bluesky) of Comic Book Keepers.

• Eamon Winkle (Instagram): The Principles of Necromancy, Geiger, etc.

• Jenna Anderson (Bluesky) of Phase Hero and Go Read Some Comics.

• Chris Hacker (Bluesky) and Aaron Knowles (BlueSky) of The Oblivion Bar Podcast.

• Ollie Kaplan (Bluesky) of Comics Beat, Prism Comics, etc.

• Barbra Dillon (Bluesky): Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Fanbase Press.

• David Harper (Bluesky) of SKTCHD and Off Panel.

• Patrick Horvath (Bluesky): Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees.

• Badr Milligan (Bluesky) of The Short Box Podcast.

This Week's Sponsors

GlobalComix is the all-in-one digital comics platform offering unlimited reading of thousands of titles from top publishers, indie creators, across comics, manga, and toons. With GlobalComix Gold, members unlock access to more than 100,000 books and genres - superheroes, horror, sci-fi, manga, fantasy, romance, and more. Right now, GlobalComix is running a special Holiday Gold promotion: when you sign up for a year of GlobalComix Gold for $69, you'll get a bonus premium comics bundle from Dark Horse, DC, Kodansha, and Marvel - included for free. This bundle is valued at $67, making the annual plan essentially pay for itself with the bonus alone. How to Redeem: Use the link https://globalcomix.com/holiday-bundle-2025 to sign up. The offer is live now and available for a limited time (through January 4, 2026). Once subscribed, the bonus bundle will be added to your GlobalComix library.

This Winter, from IDW Publishing, the Heroes in a Half-Shell take on the King of the Monsters! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Godzilla #1 crashes into comic shops on November 12th. Written by Godzilla Kei-Sei Scribe Tim Seeley and illustrated by the brilliant Turtle artist behind the Nightwatcher series, as well as the Stranger Things/TMNT crossover, Fero Pe, this new series finally brings two of our favorite franchises together. How can this reptilian miracle be?  Long before the organization was corrupted by Shredder, the Foot Clan’s original purpose was to save Japan from Kaiju! Now, in the present day, Godzilla and its fellow monsters have reappeared. Not only is the Foot not prepared to stop them…it would seem Shredder himself is behind the attacks! The Turtles are always crossing over into rad nerd realms, but this one might be the king crossover of them all. 

Are you ready to face the future? Look no further than 2000 AD – it’s the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic! Every week 2000 AD brings the best in sci-fi and horror, featuring characters like Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and more! Get a print subscription to 2000 AD, and it’ll arrive at your mailbox every week, and your first issue is free. You’ll also receive the HUNDRED PAGE 2000 AD Christmas Special this December at no extra cost! Or, subscribe digitally, and you can download DRM-free copies of each issue for only $9 a month. That’s 128 pages of incredible comics every month for less than $10! Head to 2000AD.com and click on ‘subscribe’ now – or download the 2000 AD app and start reading today!

The Best Comics of 2025 Part One Category Timestamps:

• Intro (The Year that Was) - 3:51

• Global Comix Gold Bundle - 14:04

• The Style is the Substance Award - 22:15 - WINNER: News from the Fallout (Image Comics)

• Best Genre Mashup - 30:38 - WINNER: Absolute Martian Manhunter (DC Comics)

• Saddest Comic of the Year - 40:00 - WINNER: Everything Dead and Dying (Image Comics)

• Best All-Ages Comic - 49:29 - WINNER: The Cartoonists Club (Scholastic)

• Best Young Adult Comic - 55:17 - WINNER: Clementine Book Three (Skybound/Image Comics)

• Best Nonfiction Comic - 1:06:23 - WINNER: "Dr. Werthless" (Dark Horse Comics)

• Best Crime Comic - 1:17:49 - WINNER: Out of Alcatraz (Oni Press)

• Best Short Story - 1:27:40 - WINNER: "Untitled" from Absolute Batman Annual #1 (DC Comics)

Final Round of Plugs (PHEW):

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Podcast logo by Jesse Lonergan and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.