Best of 2023

Best of 2023

2023 was the year we finally admitted that “normal” is just a setting on washing machines. While some called it the first post-pandemic year, it felt more like switching from one existential crisis playlist to another – now with bonus tracks!

Fall

4 panel comic by War and Peas 1. Witch standing at window looking out. She says: "It has begun. It's fall." 2. Her best friend, a fairy, is sitting on the floor doing her nails. She answers: "It's spring actually." 3. The witch continues to look out of the window: "No, it's fall. I can smell it." 4. She turns around and has clenched a fist: "The fall of the Patriarchy."

Remember when we thought war in Europe would be a one-year special event? Well, surprise: it got renewed for another season. And just when we were getting used to doomscrolling about one conflict, October brought the devastating Hamas attack and its aftermath, proving that humanity’s capacity for both horror and resilience knows no bounds. Meanwhile, Mother Earth kept sending us increasingly heated messages – quite literally – like an ignored parent in a family WhatsApp group.

The Scholar

4 panel comic by War and Peas. 1. Panel: A man sitting in his chair surrounded by books. In fact he's reading a book right now. He says: "Ive read so much." 2. Panel: He looks up from the book and continues: "But lived so little." 3. Panel: He gets up and pulls the curtains open, saying "I bet a world of wonders awaits me outside!" 4. Panel: The man breaks the fourth wall and looks at the reader. Outside of his window there's destruction. UFOs are hovering over the city, a giant atom bomb is exploding, buildings are set in flames and people are running around in panic.

Speaking of messages, trust in media continued its downward spiral faster than our social media engagement on Twitter since Musk took it over. It makes you wonder: have we always been living in time weird times, or are we just better at documenting the chaos? Perhaps our ancestors were too busy surviving plagues and ice ages to write witty year-end reviews?

Mr. Pavlov

Funny 4 panel comic by War and Peas about Ivan Pavlov. 1. Panel: A housekeeper rings a bell and calls out: "Mr. Pavlov, dinner is ready!" 2. Ivan Pavlov jumps out of a door and shouts: "That's great, Irma!" 3. He is sitting at a bare table and realizes: "Wait, Irma, there's no food." 4. Panel: Irma pulls her own head off her shoulders and you can see that it was just a mask. Underneath is a dog that screams angrily: "How the tables have turned, Mr. Pavlov!" Other aggressive dogs surround him. It's their revenge at last.

Our return to Fantasy Basel turned into an unexpected crash course in Swiss customs law – a reminder that even when you’re not trying to be an international smuggler, paperwork can still make you feel like one. It’s fascinating how quickly one can go from “successful comic artists” to “suspicious characters with questionable merchandise documentation” with just one missed form.

Start Over

Then there was LUCCA, oh LUCCA! The comic festival that makes San Diego Comic-Con look like a neighborhood book club. The crowds were so dense, it felt like all of Italy had collectively decided to cosplay as sardines.

Death Flash

4-panel-Comic by War and Peas: 1. Panel: A person is in a hospital bed while another person is sitting by their side. The person in bed says, "... and then Death flashed before my eyes." 2. Panel: Flashback: The Grim Reaper has spread his coat in front of the person from the bed and shows what he has on underneath like an exhibitionist. 3. Panel: The person says: "This is creepy." 4. Panel: Back to the hospital bed. The other person says, "You are so brave."

Our debut book found a publisher in Italian and the French embraced our work with that special je ne sais quoi when they first released “Hi, Earth” which they call “Salut la terre”. Trust the French to make everything feel more sophisticated – even our silly jokes about death and coffee suddenly seemed worthy of philosophical debate.

Perhaps

Looking back, 2023 feels less like a return to normalcy and more like accepting that maybe crisis is our species’ natural habitat. Like that one friend who thrives on drama, humanity seems to be at its most ingenious, resilient, and absurd when everything is falling apart. And perhaps that’s not the worst thing – after all, what better material for comic artists than a world that consistently outdoes our wildest imaginations?

Losersaurus

4-panel-comic: 1. Two dinosaurs bully another dinosaur and say, "Haha, check out the loser!" 2. The bullied dinosaur thinks, "Don'tlisten to them." 3. He looks up to the stars and continues thinking, "One day I'm going to be on display in a museum!" 4. The skeleton of that dinosaur is indeed in a museum. The display reads "Small-brained Losersaurus"

The Office

Thank You

Thank you for surviving this year with us. We’re grateful for your company, your eyeballs, and your tolerance for whatever this year has been. If you want to stick with us into the upcoming years, subscribe to our newsletter. It’s free, algorithm-free, and won’t sell your soul to a tech mogul named like a James Bond villain.

If you’re feeling extra, you can support our quest to heal the world with laughter via Patreon. Every donation, no matter how small, helps keep us afloat – and lets us sleep at night without spiraling into existential dread. We’ll see you in the next year, hopefully with fewer horrors and more enchanted frogs.

Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth and Jonathan

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