Top Ten Hardcovers For This Christmas Season

With DC Comics running a series of “holiday gift guides” on their blog The Source, it seemed as good a time as any to take stock of the ample crop of deluxe hardcovers hitting the market from various publishers this month, and talk about which of them would be the best gifts for the holiday season. This isn’t a list that’s in any particular order, as of course what makes a good gift varies widely from person to person, but it’s a good starting point for that hardcore comics fan on your list.A caveat – we’re going to pretend that you’re buying for others here, and have little or no knowledge of what they’ve got in their collection. So for the purposes of this list we’re including only standalone stories, or stories which are the first volume in a story. Things like the terrific Chew Omnivore Edition Vol. 2 are out only because they require a previous purchase to make sense of them.I’ll also allow a little give on the opening end of December, going back as far as some mid-November releases in order to make for more variety, but since Christmas falls on the 25th, certain books–no matter how tempting they might be, and I’m looking at YOU, Madman 20th Anniversary Monster–are off the table because they just ship too late to be a Christmas gift.