By Dustin Cabeal

If you read Paul Dini’s autobiographical Dark Night: A True Batman Story, then you already know why this is on my list. In fact, it was the only thing on my list for the longest time. For the last few months Dark Night and Tetris have been battling back and forth in my head for first place, and it’s been brutal. Thankfully, I changed shit up, and now they can both wear a crown that they deserve.

This story… is incredible. Not only is it very personal and profound on an emotional level, but it gives insight into the world of animation at the time of Batman: The Animated Series. I know that’s not the point of the story, but fuck me was I interested. I have to assume that this was a difficult story for Dini to write, it’s about himself, about his self-harm and a genuinely scary moment in his life. A moment that forever changed his life. But it also shows just how incredible of a storyteller he is that he was able to tell this story and make it so fantastic.

Credit also goes to Eduardo Risso for bringing Dini’s mind to life on the pages of this book. The artistic undertaking is a feather in Risso’s already full cap. These two creators came together and made something that’s worth reading for the ages, not just 2016.