It’s that time of the year when we begin to look back on some of the amazing comics which have come our way in 2021 and bring you the annual tradition of the Pipedream Top 50 small press and indie comics of the year!

It’s been an another strong year this year, thanks to the continued influence of crowd funding site like Kickstarter and digital platforms like Patreon and Indiegogo. But perhaps the most important source of new comics this year has been the return of comic conventions – especially Thought Bubble in November – which has allowed creators to get back to meeting and greeting their fans as well as giving their work a focus for releases.

However the legacy of the pandemic is still being felt, both in terms of the production and promotion of comics, but also in the content as we see creators influenced by the unprecedented period of change which we are living through, as well as the prolonged periods of isolation.

This year has also see us add two new regular members to our reviews team – Mike Powell, out resident expert on British comics, and Lydia Turner our small press and graphic novel specialist. As such we have decided to do things a bit differently for our rundown. Alongside our stalwart senior reviewer James Blundell and Editor Alex Thomas, the team have each nominated 10 comics to include in our best of the year list. These are made up of books that have been released in 2021 and have reviewed on the site already. (While there is still time to sneak in a last minute offering, you will have to be quick!!)

This rundown will begin on December 27th and culminate in a top 10 comics of 2021 being revealed on December 31st.

In previous years we have then held a poll to choose an overall winner, however because of the new selection process we have decided to move on from that process and instead celebrate the top 10 as joint winners. We have been able to cover such an eclectic and diverse range of titles this year that picking just one comics seemed unfair and we hope that whatever your taste in indie and small press comics that you can find some fantastic new reads on this list as a result.