At the start of the new year, we look back on the previous, and as usual, I do this by handing out Golden Typewriter Monkeys - nothing more than bragging rights, physical copies do not exist! Fake news! Fake news!! - for excellence in what I've read or seen during the year (regardless of when it was originally released, unless I decide it's important). As usual, only newly experienced material will be up for consideration (no old favorites!). For television episodes, no more than one per show can be put up for nomination. Other limits may apply. In any case, your write-in votes and anti-votes should go in the comments section.
Best Book of 2025 - The runners up are...
5. Outside In Can Live With It, Stacy Smith?, ed.
4. The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville
3. Doctor Who: The Banquo Legacy by Andy Lane and Justin Richards
2. Doctor Who: The Gunfighters by Donald Cotton
...and the Siskoid goes to: Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield. I admit this was a tough year in terms of giving awards, because while I read a LOT of books, many of them were Doctor Who Target novelizations, which I wouldn't consider in the running for this kind of thing (Donald Cotton's are very much an exception), so it's oddly (for me) a non-fiction book that wins this year. Here's my original review: "Simon Garfield wrote a book about fonts and typography, and Just My Type is apparently, yes, just my type of non-fiction book. It could have been a dry subject, but Garfield's prose is light and fun, and he knows how to describe a font so as to reveal its character. If we hate Comic Sans, what gave rise to it? How did ubiquitous fonts like Helvetica evolve? Is there tea to be spilled about font designers' private lives? The non-linear history of typography is broken up by spotlights on certain important fonts, and most usefully, each font is usually written in its own style, so the examples literally write themselves (give or take some exclusives Garfield couldn't get the rights to). It's the kind of book that changes how your brain is wired, and I'll be distracted by fonts for at least a few weeks. I've already started dreaming about them, waking up with cold sweats because of some terrifying Garamond or other, and having aggressive arguments with friends about the virtue of Calibri over Times New Roman."
Best Film of 2025 (in theaters and streaming) - The runners up are...
5. Marty Supreme
4. Wake Up Dead Man
3. Frankenstein
2. Sinners
...and the Siskoid goes to: The Fantastic 4: First Steps. I fully admit that it is not the BEST movie out this year, but for very personal reasons related to my fandom, it was my FAVORITE movie out this year. Here's what I said the week of: "Two weeks after Superman, the more emotional Fantastic Four: First Steps ALSO nails its refresher on a long-mishandled comic book franchise, and dare I say it, cinematic franchise altogether. One of the best things this FF movie does is to forego all the cross-continuity hullabaloo that has stricken the MCU, creating its own very cool, lived in, retro-future world, efficiently filling us in on what has gone before, with no head-scratching appearances by characters from TV series, etc. (It's really too bad, they'll connect to the MCU after this.) After that whirlwind opening montage, I found myself entirely invested in Marvel's First Family thanks to unashamed comics accuracy and great casting and portrayals - Reed as a man who can do anything and therefore feels great guilt about not doing EVERYthing, Sue correctly portrayed as the leader AND the most powerful member of the team, the Torch being smarter than he's ever given credit for, and the Thing... well, let me tell you about the Thing. If the movie verklempt me as often as it did, it's that it was essentially this giant love letter to Jack Kirby (this, despite the world's essential design not being overly Kirbyesque). Stan and Jack have a cameo as "Timely Employees", but that's not what I'm talking about. Rather, it's that Ben Grimm, one of the King's most crucial self-inserts, is most definitely portrayed as a Kirby persona. The film's final epigram confirms it, but who is Rachel Rozman, if not a similar stand-in for Roz Kirby? I was moved by the homage, by the family dynamic (a universal theme realized well), and hell, by one of my favorite comics series done right, for a change. I was afraid the Surfer would be too reflective (as in Rise), but they made her more gunmetal gray and fixed it for me (great surfing sequences, too). I've read many Galactus stories, and they still managed to surprise me, not going for a straight adaptation of any of his comics appearances. Big Phase I vibes, and I, for one, think it was fantastic." For those keeping score of superhero movies, Superman was #6.
Best Film of 2025 (at home, not actually from 2025) - The runners up are...
5. Monsieur Lazhar (2011)
4. Asako I & II (2018)
3. Little Darlings (1980)
2. Universal Language (2024)
...and the Siskoid goes to: This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019). It's the movie film I watched for my World Cinema Project, marked as being partly produced by Lesotho, and then I had to find some other film from that country because someone changed the meta-data on it. Well, it's still the most powerful film I saw this year. As I said then: "As one might imagine from the title, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is a fairly lyrical film, beautifully shot and exploring heady themes through its sinister, but mythic, narration. However, it's also got a straightforward enough plot, about an old woman who, having outlived her entire family, starts to lose her faith and will to live, embracing nihilism while her village is set to be displaced by the construction of a dam. Will the Grim Reaper have its laugh and keep her alive too long for her to be buried with her own? Mary Twala is absolutely incredible in the role - what a face! - and the theme of impermanence is deployed in brutal fashion. All things end, including cultures on the altar of destructive progress, even Gods, we're told, justifying some of the film's thoughtful Biblical allusions. Beyond its specifics, This Is Not a Burial is about humanity's end, or multiple ends, and whether we can stop of the wheel of time from turning or let it take us underwater and drown us."
Best TV Series of 2025 - The runners up are...
5. nope
4. Taskmaster Seasons 1-20
3. Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5
2. Poker Face Season 2
...and the Siskoid goes to: Lupin Seasons 1-3. Only four runners up? Yeah, I mostly abandoned television shows this year in favor of movies. Seems I have little patience for the way shows unfold (slowly, with news seasons usually coming out after I've forgotten everything about the previous) and even the ones I HAVE to watch because I review them often disappointed me. But I do want the celebrate the 4 nominees and in particular the French show Lupin, of which I said: "I've liked Omar Sy in other things (most recently in 2024 The Killer), so I was perhaps an easy mark for Lupin. He plays a modern-day gentleman thief who bases his crimes and methods on the famous 19th-Century character of that name, effortlessly slick, cool and always (it seems) one step ahead of the game. And if this were a show about the con/heist of the week, I would have been happy enough. It's the better for telling a single story (at least through its first two short seasons) in the style of Revenge or Arrow. When he was a boy, his father was framed for a theft he didn't commit, and now he's trying to find out what really happened and punish those responsible. Indeed, like the other shows I mentioned, there are flashbacks to the character's youth - and boy, the kids playing all the particulars are IMPECCABLY cast, both for looks and talent - a big part of why the story works. It's such a contained story, I was worried about giving it a third season, and it may strain credulity that there's another menace from the past and another mystery surrounding a family member, but it's fun too, and actually does manage some unconnected cons/heists, which makes me happy."
Best TV Episode of 2025 - The runners up are...
5. nope
4. "The Story and the Engine" (D+ Doctor Who S2)
3. "Fissure Quest" (ST Lower Decks S5)
2. "Terrarium" (ST Strange New Worlds S3)
...and the Siskoid goes to: "Sloppy Joseph" (Poker Face S2). This is the one where Charlie works in an elementary school and the villain is a little girl. And she's pure evil. Poker Face didn't treat is status quo with kid gloves in its second year, and it brought us a bunch of episodes that broke the mold established in Season 1 and that's for the good. This one was a stand-out, both in terms of the type of crime and obviously, who the villain was. And you could almost imagine a Poker Face movie in the future where older Charlie is being hounded by this kid, all grown up. Brrr. Of course, it seems Rian Johnson has parted ways with Natasha Lyonne over her generative A.I. deal, and the show might only return with a new lead (Peter Dinklage? I'm up for it). Well, I respect Johnson a lot for taking a stand, and it's sad that Lyonne has fallen to the dark side on this. But that's the future, let's keeping looking back...
Best Comic of 2025 (and this year, I'm splitting graphic novels and monthlies up, because I've really been reading a lot of monthlies) - The runners up are...
5. Babs
4. The Little Devils
3. Supergirl
2. Orla!
... and the Siskoid goes to: Assorted Crisis Events. This Image series by Denis Camp and Eric Zawadski, with colors by Jordie Bellaire obviously spoofs, to a point, DC Comics' love affair with multiversal crises, grounding such an event in our world and showing what effects it would have on normal people. The twist is that it's an anthology series, each issue exploring a different character, temporal anomaly, and strange effect. I'm still waiting for the book to run out of idea given how specific its mandate is, but it hasn't happened yet. The stories are clever and terrifying "Twilight Zone" tales and most importantly, perhaps, the art is doubly clever in its layouts, finding new and interesting ways to incorporate the "Crisis". Folks, it's essentially Zero Hour done well, so you know why I would plug this into my veins. A first collection is out, and Camp and Zawadski are on their second cycle.
Best Comic (Graphic Novel or Collection) of 2025 - The runners up are...
5. Johnny Canuck
4. Alone
3. The Great British Bump-Off
2. Beasts of Burden Omnibus
... and the Siskoid goes to: The Longest Day in the Future. Of this book, I said: "Artist Lucas Varela's debut graphic novel (debut? is that right?), The Longest Day of the Future, looks, on the surface, like a science-fiction utopia in the mold of the Jetsons or Futurama, but the more he scratches at the surface, the more dystopian ugliness is revealed. This is really a world of duelling corporations and deep repression. The twin hearts of the story are a wage slave who buys the wrong coffee and is sent on a mission to infiltrate the other side as punishment, and a sweet servitor robot who likewise lands itself in a similar, but reversed, position. And these flies in the proverbial ointment might topple the whole world down. And though I used the verb "scratched", above, there's nothing scratchy about Varela's work. Rather, it's geometrically and graphically precise, the closest comparison I might make perhaps being Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library. Though the book was first published in French, it hardly matters since it's all told without dialog, and the detailed art is more than up to the challenge."
Let us know what YOUR picks would have been in all categories. And the day after tomorrow (why wait?): The Technical Awards as given in a ceremony prior to this one, just like with the Oscars (but more entertaining).
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