The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025 (Part One)

The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025 (Part One)

Author: Brad & Lisa Gullickson December 18, 2025 Duration: 1:41:49
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, Global Comix. The all-in-one digital comics platform is currently offfering a great comics bundle when you sign up for their Global Comix 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 S

Ever wonder what keeps Lois Lane and Clark Kent together, or why the Joker and Harley Quinn’s dynamic is so endlessly dissected? That’s the kind of territory you’ll find in Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast. Hosted by real-life married couple Brad and Lisa Gullickson, this isn’t just a rundown of famous pairs. Instead, they use their own relationship as a lens to examine the loves, feuds, and complicated bonds that define our favorite characters. Each episode feels like a lively conversation between two passionate fans who happen to share a life, digging into the psychology, history, and narrative impact of relationships across comic book publishing and wider pop culture. You’ll hear them analyze everything from classic Golden Age partnerships to the messy modern entanglements in contemporary graphic novels, always with a mix of deep knowledge and genuine curiosity. This podcast offers a uniquely personal and thoughtful way to engage with the stories you love, moving beyond powers and plot twists to ask what these fictional connections really say about us. Tune in for a smart, often funny, and always insightful look at the heart of the narratives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Wendy and Richard Pini on Elfquest [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:29:44
Friends, we’ve got a special episode for you today. Comic book icons Wendy Pini and Richard Pini join the podcast for the first time, and they hang out for a lengthy, deep dive conversation into Elfquest’s origins. Their…
Zack Kaplan on Kill All Immortals [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:20
This week, comic shop employees from all over gather in Glendale, California. It’s time for ComicsPRO, the annual event designed to “promote the progress and development of comic book retailers and improve the condition…
Phil Hester on A Quiet Place Storm Warning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:31
The movie-to-comic path doesn’t always work out, but IDW Publishing is quickly proving itself to be the place to run to with your adaptation. Their latest cinematic comic book sidequel, A Quiet Place: Storm Warning, feat…
Stephanie Williams on Street Sharks [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:09
As far as mantras go, Street Sharks have one about as good as they come. They fight. They bite. They stand for everything right. You can read it on the opening page of each issue of the IDW Publishing series, and as we d…
Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips on The Peril of the Brutal Dark [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:14
Those in the know have been (im)patiently waiting for The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery. Of course, no one has been waiting as long as the comic’s creators, Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips. The series or…
Exclusive! Brad Meltzer on Spider-Man/Superman [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:23
Immediately after we recorded our last conversation with Brad Meltzer, we recorded a secret second episode. He was aching to discuss his next project, but he couldn’t quite let the cat out of the bag until Marvel Comics…
Dave Chisholm on Is Ted OK [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:52
No one makes comics like Dave Chisholm, and we don’t allow him to make one without first making a stop at the podcast. His latest, Is Ted OK?, reveals an artist pushing himself to his very limit, built on an incredible r…
Brad Meltzer on The Viper [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:01
When you read The Viper, the new Zig and Nola novel from Brad Meltzer, it doesn’t take long to see how comics inform the author’s creativity. As he says during our conversation, “It’s Superman and Batman. It’s Spider-Man…
The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025 (Part Two) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:10
Welcome back, friend. Our end-of-the-year celebration concludes with The Stampies: Best Comics of 2025 (Part Two). If you missed the Part One party, click here, and discover the comics we considered the saddest of 2025,…