Matt Price’s best comic-book series of 2009

The split between periodical comics and graphic novels is becoming more like the gap between TV and film. Most comic books are being collected in book-length editions, just as episodic TV is being gathered in box sets for DVD. Monthly comic books still lean toward superheroes, influencing the lion’s share of sales in many comic stores. The following are 2009′s best 10 periodical comic books.

1.“Unwritten”: Mike Carey and Peter Gross create the story of Tom Taylor, whose father created the popular Tommy Taylor novels about a boy wizard. After his father’s disappearance, Tom becomes a low-level celebrity, signing the books that star the character named after him. But one day he discovers his father’s stories may be more real than he knew.

2.“Irredeemable”: Mark Waid (“Fantastic Four”) and Peter Krause (“Power of Shazam”) create a story in which the world’s greatest hero goes bad. Explaining why and how superhero The Plutonian turned to the dark side has been one of 2009′s best comics.

3.“Superman Secret Origin”: Writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank

4.“Chew”: Cibopathic detective Tony Chu gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. This has led to a vegetarian lifestyle, but when he chomps on a suspect to find out the whereabouts of the victim, he attracts the attention of the Special Crimes Division of the Food and Drug Administration.

5.“Supergirl”: Writer Sterling Gates, a Tulsa native, and artist Jamal Igle kept the mystery cooking of who the seemingly super-powered Superwoman was for much of 2009 in the pages