Hibbs' crazy week

I know that I am just about the worst owner of a review site, ever, but I honestly, genuinely have a solid plan to get back to regular reviewing once I get all of this Graphic Novel of the Month Club stuff (www.graphicnovelclub.com) squared away, that I think you're going to like a lot. I just want to recap what is likely the craziest seven days I have spent on the earth:

Last Friday morning, on May first, just inches past midnight, I took a major header when getting off the bus, requiring 10 stitches in my head, and five on my hand.  I'm fine, but wow.

This week, I have been featured in BOTH The National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417763/when-minimum-wage-hikes-hit-san-francisco-comic-book-store-ian-tuttle) as well as Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/05/small-businesses-exemptions-minimum-wage) -- all I need now is a Libertarian magazine and an Anarchist one, and I will have completed the political spectrum!

Comix Experience also got a "Best of San Francisco" from the SF Weekly for "Best Response To Rising Minimum Wage" (which makes me so happy because it wasn't prompted on my end like those first two) -- http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/best-response-to-rising-minimum-wage/BestOf?oid=3593624

This week was ALSO Free Comic Book Day, which I spent (other than being in agony from the fall) providing on-street security for Darth Vader (they can't really see in those costumes) -- I love the 501st Legion (http://www.501st.com/) -- it's weird "protecting" The Dark Lord!  The best part is at the Ocean street store, people are stopping, and gawking, and honking horns and being all excited, while on Divisadero with all of the Hipster tech people, like 90% of them strolled past without even looking up or reacting in any visible way.  Hysterical!

Also, I ran downtown to pre-purchase Avengers tickets because I was taking eight sixth-graders to the show. I waited for the subway to take me back home, and one pulled up with half a dozen cops riding on the front half.  I shrugged, got on the second half, and sat down and pulled out a book.  Then I looked up, and realized I was sitting across (on an otherwise passenger-less car) from Ed Lee, the Mayor of San Francisco. I realized this was my one and only chance to get The City to be aware of my situation, and Mayor Lee was extremely gracious to listen to me spin my tale. But, yeah, random private 15 minute meeting with the Mayor on Muni, and The City has already followed up with a few ideas of how they can help.

Then I ended the week yesterday with an appearance on Fox Business News, which you could watch here if you wished to (http://mediaoneservices.com/brian-hibbs-05082015/) (no embed, sorry)

Exactly at the one month mark, the GN club hit halfway to our 334 goal.  Now I'm counting down to hitting 200 exactly -- which we need (right now) 25 more people to hit.  Spread the word about www.graphicnovelclub.com!

And look for a cool new announcement on Monday!

-B

"I Have Got To Be Sure, You Old Poop!" COMICS! Sometimes Democracy Comes Second!

Yes! Beat out that rhythm on a drum! Here's the only comic reviews worth reading on The Internet. No, Not really. No, not really in the mood either but if I don't put something up They come round and stand outside my windows in silent judgement. Hoopla! Also, don't forget to Save The Hibbs - HERE! LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Jaime Hernandez

Anyway, this... GILBERT AND JAIME HERNANDEZ' LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES ISSUE 7 IS “FRISKILY AGAINST THE PRIVATISATION OF THE PENAL SERVICE” IN AN ISSUE WHICH IS “BOUNCY.”

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES #7 Everything by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics, $14.99 (2014) Love And Rockets created by Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez

My LCS always forgets to send me this because, I guess, they are young and they think my aged mind is rotted like the teeth of a candy addicted child, and probably also being like super old and intellectually vulgar I can't appreciate The Good Stuff. That John, they think, he just likes 1970s war comics and Howard Victor Chaykin. He's just not been the same, that John, since his cock left him for the circus, they say opening themselves to a libel suit. Or slander. I'm not the lawyer, that’s the other chap. Either way, you know what I mean. Eventually though I remember to ask for it and they send it and it arrives and I read it. Write what you know, right? Have you seen this stuff? Look, someone in Comics needs to talk to someone in a position of authority pretty damn sharpish before things get out of hand. I'd say send Tom Spurgeon because he is disturbingly level headed about everything but they'd bang him up before he got a word out, what with his not exactly being dissimilar to that rangy dude out of Manhunter.

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Gilbert Hernandez

So, no, don't send him, but someone needs to be sent. Because on the evidence of the last few LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES it's just a matter of time before Gilbert Hernandez flies a dirigible painted to resemble a giant, solitary boob at the Superbowl while spraying jellybeans and blue urine from an intricate system of nozzles and feeder tubes while playing MMMBop! at a volume sufficient to shatter skulls like plates chucked at a fireplace. Gilbert Hernandez' contributions here look like he just got a felt pen and proceeded to set down a bunch of pages so ridiculously bizarre that they threaten at any moment to explode into a nightmarishly profound revelation about the very nature of reality itself. I mean, after the dirigible thing, people are going to ask why no one saw the warning signs, and we're all going to have to hide our copies of LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES and act sheepish until the hullabaloo dies down. Then the other one, that Jaime, he's doing his thing about relationships and the past and learning to live, learning to die and all that, and I realise he is excellent at it but all that? it's just not me but BOOMSHAMALAMABINGBANG! he then only goes and equals the derangement which fists its way through every page of his siblings efforts, and what we have here is a comic so insanely aflame with creative fire that we have to break the Emergency Glass and throw the word ART! at it. No doubt, no doubt at all, The Bros Hernandez are still simply the best; better than all the rest; NA NA NA NA STEAMY WINDOWS! BONUS: KIDS! Can you spot the two Thomas Harris references in the preceding? Bully for you; you'll still get old and hate everything you once held dear! EXCELLENT!

REVIEW: FRACTION, CHAYKIN & BRUZENAK’S SATELLITE SAM #12 WISHES IT “HAD MORE THAN ONE LIFE TO GIVE FOR ITS COUNTRY” WHILE ALSO REGRETTING “TAPING “EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND”.”

SATELLITE SAM #12 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Matt Fraction Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Image Comics, $3.50 (2015) Satellite Sam created by Matt Fraction & HowardVictor Chaykin

Show me the man who has greater love for Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak. (Show me! Show me!) No, that guy doesn’t count he’s just some bum you bribed with a cot and two squares to say that. Me, I’m the real deal; I‘m the original walking bias when it comes to Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak so it pains me to say that this (the twelfth; what will be the first in the third trade paperback; what is already $42.00 in real money) issue of Satellite Sam is the only one so far to actually have worked. A bit. That’s just me though. Matt Fraction described this comic as “the ultimate Howard Chaykin(sic) comic” apparently blind to the arrogant condescension within his glib shilling. (What about all the Howard Victor Chaykin comics Howard Victor Chaykin wrote and drew? What about The Shadow: Blood And Judgement, Blackhawk: Blood and Iron, American Flagg!, Time2, Midnight Men, Black Kiss, Black Kiss2, and all the ones that aren’t as good as those (but are still better than Satellite Sam)? Sweet Mother of Pearl, the unmitigated gall of the man.) Anyway, in this issue characters suddenly realise the series is almost over and stop aimlessly noodling about and start blurting lines more suited to those movies Sally Field and Brian Dennehy are in that only children and people old enough to have varicose veins in their eyes watch, because only they are at home during the day. “I'm just another hole your Daddy left behind that you can't fill!” shrills one character and we all pretend that this isn't just a Empty Bullshit Moment unattached to anything in the preceding issues. It's the pact we make with today's writers. A pact signed in lattes.

SATELLITE SAM by Howard Victor Chaykin, Matt Fraction & Ken Bruzenak

As full of blazingly manipulative yet calorifically negligent emotional bombast as this issue is it's still better than any of the preceding issues. Mainly, it's better because every scene isn't at least a third too long, hanging about like a hammy actor reluctant to leave the stage and Howard Victor Chaykin seems to no longer, apparently, be drawing in a state of arousal so heated he can barely see. Ken Bruzenak remains flawless as ever. When people tell you this comic was mature, provocative and insightful always remember it was dumb enough to have a character blackmail a writer and for that not actually be a joke. As it enters the home stretch it looks like SATELLITE SAM will wind up being a gauche muddle of half-digested research that expects everyone to share its naive shock that in the past there was racism, homophobia and sexual intercourse other than the missionary position. Anyway, this thing is over soon and then we can all concentrate on an actual Ultimate Howard Victor Chaykin Comic. One that will hopefully be better than OKAY!

REVIEW: MAHNKE, ALAMY, IRWIN, CHAMPAGNE, MENDOZA AND MORRISON'S THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 "RESTS ITS BALLS FOURSQUARE ON THE CHIN OF FANDOM."

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy, Nark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Jaime Mendoza Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Gabe Eltaeb, David Baron Lettered by Steve Wands DC Comics, $4.99 (2015) Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

It was VERY GOOD! Because it was smart and entertaining but mostly because Mahnke & a crowded taxicab of inkers' art just plain fit like flesh on a skull. Those dudes are the dreamiest team. I hear inkers are on the outs what with there being no real need to divide the work that way for the hyper streamlined assembly line of 21st comic book production. I hope some teams stay together: this Sunday 5-a-side Team obviously, and Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, John Romita Jnr & Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby & Mike Royer, oh wait...Anyway back at Grant Morrison, we can't talk about the artists more than Grant Morrison now, can we? He'll get in a right snit. So, yeah, really now, can we have a moratorium on whining about Internet criticism within the books themselves. This childishly one sided last-wordism is even more distasteful as it always comes from the writers  criticism can’t touch.  Like Elvis sang, why are writers always first to feel the hurt and always hurt the worst. Or was it children? Is there even a difference? Questions. Anyway, thanks, Elvis; see yourself out. Loves his Mum, you know. Also, for someone so keen to be understood Morrison is remarkably opaque about the nature of his eggy Evil here. It’s the critics; no, wait, it’s the comics companies; no wait, it’s the fans; hang on, it's Terry Blesdoe from next door but one to me Mum; no, wait, it’s poor people; no, wait, it’s rich people; no wait, it’s Alan Moore! (It’s always Alan Moore! That utter, utter shit! Look at him over there apparently minding his own business, but we know he’s really biding his time. Oh, we’ve got your (big) number, Alan Moore!)

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS by Mahnke, Alamy, Irwin, Champagne, Mendoza, Morrison, Eltaeb, Baron & Wands

I think (and I didn’t think too hard) it ended up being just that nasty old Negativity; it’s Bad Thoughts that are Dragging Us All Down, Maaaaan! If You Can’t Saying Anything Nice…Then You’re Evil. Seems fair enough. That’s the world’s problems sorted out then; who’s for a cuppa! Maybe I’m wrong. No doubt a small Commonwealth of vastly more gifted bloggers will shortly refract their own intelligence through the prism of this comic to reveal its hidden intricacies which, naturally, were there all along! It’s a smart book but it's a canny sort of smart; it’s all surface and any depth is dependent on the willingness of the reader to muck in and add it. I mean, seriously, there’s a bit about what’s the difference really between soldiers and murderers (Maaaaan)? #BIKOBAR! So, yeah, everyone just be nice; the Corporations are coming to save us!  Which is about the level of connection with the real world I’d expect from someone who lives in a castle with a medal from the Queen. MULTIVERSITY thus far is a mixed bag; MULTIVERSITY is pastiche, capiche? And Morrison can do pastiche well (Thunderworld) and he can do pastiche badly (Mastermen) so it all tends to even out. Here Grant Morrison's pastiche is of Grant Morrison so, of course , it works really well. When you can no longer impersonate yourself it's time to turn off the lights. It's not that time yet. Despite the niggling sense that behind the wonderful, intentionally slightly off-kilter art someone was throwing their toys out of their pram, this was smart and entertaining; it was VERY GOOD!

REVIEW: BURNHAM & MORRISON'S NAMELESS #3 “PREFERS ‘(NOT ENOUGH) LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING’ TO ‘GYPSIES, TRAMPS AND THIEVES’” LARGELY DUE TO “MISGIVINGS ABOUT FEDORAS FOR PIGS.”

NAMELESS #3 Art by Chris Burnham Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Nathan Fairbairn Lettered by Simon Bowland Logo and Design by Rian Hughes Image Comics, $2.99 (2015) Nameless created by Chris Burnham & Grant Morrison

There are two reasons why this book works as well as it does (and it works very well indeed): Chris and Burnham. If it wasn't for Chris Burnham's Sunday joint textured art I'd have noticed that the first issue was a dense blizzard of folderol designed more to excite than deliver. Were Chris Burnham not so wonderful at imbuing every panel with sneakily discombobulating detail and at setting said panels in slyly unbalanced page designs I'd have maybe thought that the only real development in issue two was the jolly obvious “flu” reveal. And had it not been for Chris Burnham's deftly unsettling scale games in this, the most recent issue, better folk than I would have perhaps suspected that the pace was somewhat, ahem, leisurely and that narratively this should have all happened within the first two issues at most.

NAMELESS by Burnham, Morrison, Fairbairn & Bowland

Luckily though I was aware of none of that so dazzled was I by Chris Burnham's muscularly disturbing performance here. I didn't even notice that for someone so magically special and all that our hero is pretty crap. Even though NAMELESS remains basically Event Horizon - But Not Shit NAMELESS is VERY GOOD! because last time I looked NAMELESS still had Chris Burnham.

NEAL, SCHIGEL, KOCHALKA, WICKS, SIENKIEWICZ, DESTEFNO, DEPORTER, BRUBAKER, WEISER, HI-FI, JIHANIAN, KUBINA AND LEIGH'S SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 BELIEVES IN “FROM EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED” AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE WITH EVEN A SHRED OF GODDAMN HUMAN DECENCY.

SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 Art by Nate Neal, Gregg Schigel, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Bill Sienkiewicz, Stephen DeStefano, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Written by Nate Neal, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Joey Weiser, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Coloured by Hi-Fi, Levan Jihanian, Monica Kubina Lettered by Rob Leigh

This isn't a particularly spectacular issue of SPONGEBOB COMICS; it does remain, however, beautifully illustrated and amusing enough to be a papery riposte to the idea that this kind of thing must needs be crapped out hackery. I mention it not because Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a cover with the titular spongiform loon in his best Wolversponge pose, but because Bill Sienkiewicz also provided a pull out two-page poster of Spongebob as a kind of symbiotic melange of kitchen utensils and undersea cretin. What this means, in effect, for people of a certain age is that Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a poster in a children's comic which readily brings to mind his creator owned '90s epic of child-murder, mental breakdowns, talking birds and general nutjobbery, STRAY TOASTERS. Now, tell me that ain't GOOD!

SPONGEBOB COMICS by DeStefano, Weiser, Jihanian & Leigh

We're having an Election over here but when the dust settles and it's all over no matter who is in charge we'll still have – COMICS!!!

Arriving 5/6/15

This week AFTERLIFE OF ARCHIE returns and Marvel unleashes SECRET WARS on the unsuspecting public!  

Check the cut to see the rest of the comics kicking off May!

AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE #8 ALAMO VALUE PLUS #1 ALL NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA SPECIAL #1 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #18 ANGEL AND FAITH SEASON 10 #14 ANT-MAN #5 ARCADIA #1 ARTIFACTS LOST TALES #1 AVENGERS VS #1 BALTIMORE CULT OF THE RED KING #1 (OF 5) CLUSTER #4 CONVERGENCE #5 (OF 8) CONVERGENCE ATOM #2 CONVERGENCE BATGIRL #2 CONVERGENCE BATMAN & ROBIN #2 CONVERGENCE HARLEY QUINN #2 CONVERGENCE JUSTICE LEAGUE #2 CONVERGENCE NIGHTWING ORACLE #2 CONVERGENCE QUESTION #2 CONVERGENCE SPEED FORCE #2 CONVERGENCE SUPERMAN #2 CONVERGENCE TITANS #2 CROSSED BADLANDS #77 DAY MEN #7 DEAD DROP #1 (OF 4) DEAD LETTERS #9 DESCENDER #3 ELEPHANTMEN #64 FEATHERS #5 FOX (DARK CIRCLE) #2 GEORGE ROMEROS EMPIRE OF DEAD ACT THREE #2 (OF 5) GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS #8 GOD IS DEAD #35 GUARDIANS TEAM-UP #5 HALOGEN #3 (OF 4) HINTERKIND #18 HULK #16 INHUMAN ANNUAL #1 JUPITERS CIRCLE #2 KANAN LAST PADAWAN #2 MENS FEELINGS #1 MINIMUM WAGE SO MANY BAD DECISIONS #1 (OF 6) NAILBITER #12 NAMES #9 (OF 9) NEVERBOY #3 NO MERCY #2 NUTMEG #2 OPERATION SIN #5 (OF 5) ORPHAN BLACK #3 PALMIOTTI BRADY BIG CON JOB #3 (OF 4) PUNISHER #18 RACHEL RISING #33 RAT GOD #4 (OF 5) REGULAR SHOW #23 RETURN OF LIVING DEADPOOL #4 (OF 4) ROCHE LIMIT CLANDESTINY #1 ROCKET GIRL #6 ROCKET RACCOON #11 SAMURAI JACK #19 SAVAGE DRAGON #203 SCOOBY DOO TEAM UP #10 SECRET WARS #1 (OF 8) SPIDER-GWEN #4 SPIDER-WOMAN #7 SWORDS OF SORROW #1 (OF 6) THIEF OF THIEVES #28 TMNT MUTANIMALS #3 (OF 4) UBER #24 UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #5 UNCANNY SEASON 2 #2 (OF 6) WE CAN NEVER GO HOME #2 (OF 5) WICKED & DIVINE #10 WITCHER FOX CHILDREN #2 WOLF MOON #6 (OF 6) WOLVERINES #17 WONDER WOMAN 77 SPECIAL #1 ZERO #16

Books/Mags/Things ALL NEW X-MEN TP VOL 05 ONE DOWN ARCHIE 1000 PAGE COMICS BLOW OUT TP BATMAN EARTH ONE HC VOL 02 BATMAN SUPERMAN TP VOL 02 GAME OVER (N52) BLACK RIVER GN CEREBUS TP VOL 02 HIGH SOCIETY REMASTERED ED CONCRETE PARK HC VOL 02 RESPECT DIAL H DELUXE ED HC (N52) DUNGEONS & DRAGONS LEGENDS OF BALDURS GATE TP VOL 01 EMPIRE TP GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE TP GOD IS DEAD TP VOL 05 GUARDIANS OF GALAXY HC VOL 01 HEAVY METAL #274 IN GOD WE TRUST HC JIM HENSONS STORYTELLER WITCHES HC JOJOS BIZARRE ADV PHANTOM BLOOD HC VOL 02 KNIGHT TAKES QUEEN GN 2ND KNIGHT LIFE COLL LEGEND OF ZELDA LINK TO THE PAST GN MIMI AND THE WOLVES GN VOL 01 RAT QUEENS TP VOL 02 FAR REACHING TENTACLES OF N'RYGOTH SCAFFOLD GN SECRET WARS PRELUDE TP SOUTHERN BASTARDS TP VOL 02 GRIDIRON STAR WARS OGN HC EPISODE IV NEW HOPE STRAIN TP VOL 05 NIGHT ETERNAL USAGI YOJIMBO SENSO HC WOODS TP VOL 02

As always, what do YOU think?

Arriving 4/27/15

Strong week, if still on the small side. BATMAN #40 finally arrives, along side it's other delayed DC brethren, plus new BITCH PLANET, JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS and MULTIVERSITY. Check the cut to see what else is coming!

ALEX + ADA #14 ALL NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA #6 AVENGERS #44 TRO BATMAN #40 (ENDGAME) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SIX #4 (OF 5) BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA #10 BITCH PLANET #4 BRIDES OF HELHEIM #5 BURNING FIELDS #4 CONAN RED SONJA #4 CONAN THE AVENGER #13 CONVERGENCE #4 (OF 8) CONVERGENCE ACTION COMICS #1 CONVERGENCE BLUE BEETLE #1 CONVERGENCE BOOSTER GOLD #1 CONVERGENCE CRIME SYNDICATE #1 CONVERGENCE DETECTIVE COMICS #1 CONVERGENCE INFINITY INC #1 CONVERGENCE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #1 CONVERGENCE PLASTIC MAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS #1 CONVERGENCE SHAZAM #1 CONVERGENCE WORLDS FINEST COMICS #1 CROSSED BADLANDS #76 DAREDEVIL #15 FANTASTIC FOUR #645 FUBAR MOTHER RUSSIA #1 (OF 3) FUSE #12 GARBAGE PAIL KIDS FABLES FANTASY & FARTS (ONE SHOT) GOD IS DEAD #34 GODKILLER WALK AMONG US #4 HAUNTED HORROR #16 HE MAN THE ETERNITY WAR #5 HELLBREAK #2 HIT 1957 #2 (OF 4) INHUMAN #14 INVINCIBLE #119 JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS #2 JOHNNY VIABLE AND HIS TERSE FRIENDS ONE SHOT JUDGE DREDD #29 JUSTICE LEAGUE #40 MARVEL UNIVERSE ULT SPIDER-MAN WEB WARRIORS #6 MAX RIDE FIRST FLIGHT #2 (OF 5) MICE TEMPLAR V NIGHTS END #2 (OF 5) MOON KNIGHT #14 MORNING GLORIES #45 MULTIVERSITY #2 MUNCHKIN #4 MY LITTLE PONY FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #5 QUEEN CHRYSALIS NEW AVENGERS #33 TRO NEW AVENGERS ULTRON FOREVER #1 NOVA #30 ORDER OF THE FORGE #1 (OF 3) OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #8 PASTAWAYS #2 PISCES #1 PLUNDER #3 PRINCELESS PIRATE PRINCESS #4 (OF 4) PRINCESS LEIA #3 (OF 5) QUANTUM & WOODY MUST DIE #4 (OF 4) RED ONE #2 RESIDENT ALIEN SAM HAIN MYSTERY #0 ROCKET SALVAGE #5 RUMBLE #5 SECRET AVENGERS #15 SHIELD #5 SILK #3 SILVER SURFER #11 SONIC BOOM #7 SPIDER-MAN AND X-MEN #6 SPREAD #7 STEVEN UNIVERSE GREG UNIVERSE SPECIAL #1 SUPERIOR IRON MAN #8 SUPERMAN #40 THE DEVILERS #6 (OF 7) THEYRE NOT LIKE US #5 TMNT ONGOING #45 TMNT ONGOING #45 10 COPY INCV TOWER CHRONICLES DREADSTALKER #9 TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE #40 TWILIGHT ZONE S&S #4 (OF 4) VERTIGO QUARTERLY SFX #1 WAR STORIES #8 WAYWARD #7 WITCHBLADE #182 WOLVERINES #16 X-MEN #26

Books/Mags/Things AMAZING SPIDER-MAN EDGE OF SPIDER-VERSE TP AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION BEHOLD VISION TP AVENGERS VISION AND SCARLET WITCH TP NEW PTG AVENGERS WEST COAST VISION QUEST TP NEW PTG BATMAN HC VOL 06 THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT (N52) BATMAN TP VOL 05 ZERO YEAR DARK CITY (N52) DISNEY CINDERELLA CINESTORY TP ELEKTRA TP VOL 02 REVERENCE FABLES TP VOL 21 HAPPILY EVER AFTER GODKILLER TP VOL 01 WALK AMONG US PART 1 GONERS TP VOL 01 WE ALL FALL DOWN GOTHAM CITY SIRENS TP BOOK 02 GREEN ARROW TP VOL 06 BROKEN (N52) HEADSPACE TP ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #47 IRENE GN VOL 04 KURDLES HC MARVEL SH SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK FACSIMILE COLL TP ORIGINAL SIN TP ORIGINAL SINS TP PREVIEWS #320 MAY 2015 REALIST ORIGINAL GN HC SAY I LOVE YOU GN VOL 07 SIXTH GUN DLX HC VOL 02 SIZZLE #65 SPIDER-VERSE HC SUNSTONE OGN VOL 02 SWORDS OF GLASS DLX HC THRONE OF ICE HC WALKING DEAD TP VOL 23 X-FORCE TP VOL 03 ENDS MEANS ZOMBIES THAT ATE THE WORLD HC VOL 03

As always, what do YOU think?

“PREPARU POR LA BATALO!” COMICS! Sometimes They Are Bilingual (But Not Single)!

And now a word from our sponsors: Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Remember: Comics is better with Brian Hibbs in it! So heed the call! Or, y’know, read the linked article, think about it and after a period of sober reflection make a considered decision. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! We now return to our regular programming:

It’s Event Season! And so in the much loved tradition of ignoring what you 'orrible lot want to hear about let’s look at an Event from last year involving a primitive sedentary aquatic invertebrate with a soft porous body clad in a quadrilateral outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles, with a separate part for each leg ,whose name contains the diminutive of Robert. Or: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Anyway, this… SPONGEBOB COMICS #32-36 Showdown at The Shady Shady Shoals Parts 1 - 5 Art by Derek Drymon with Jerry Ordway Written by Derek Drymon Coloured by Hi-Fi Lettered by ComicCraft United Plankton Pictures, $2.99 each (2014) Spongebob Squarepants created by Stephen Hillenburg

The larger corpus collectively titled Showdown at The Shady Shoals is composed of five episodic portions which originally appeared in Spongebob Comics #32 -36 , and occupied one half of each of those issues. The remaining portion of each individual periodical was given over to the regular assortment of short comedic features by a variety of talent including, but by no means limited to, Tony Millionaire.

Image by Drymon, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

In Showdown At The Shady Shoals Spongebob attempts to sew into a friendship belt the statistics of all the battles fought by his idol, Mermaid Man. Spongebob diligently harvests this information from old issues of his Mermaid Man comics but completion of the crafted keepsake is threatened when the finale of Mermaid Man’s first battle with Viro Reganto is found to be missing. Or is not found to be not missing. Look, I don’t have time for this; it isn’t there, basically, Buster. Luckily for our porous pal and his loyal cretin of a chum, Patrick, help is at hand down the road at The Shady Shoals Retirement home, wherein resides the witless old fool which Mermaid Man has become. Is the key to Spongebob’s quest contained within the withered cranium of the aged aquatic ace? Whither Viro Reganto? Has Viro Reganto in fact literally withered, because it’s been a while and, let’s be honest,  Mermaid Man has weathered about as well as an untreated fence. Will we ever know whether Viro’s weathered and withered or whether he’s weathered with vigour?  Can you rely on the memory of someone like Mermaid Man? What if you can’t? Isn’t it sad in that movie when they point out that all we are is our memories, and when we lose them we too are lost? I don't want to lose myself!!! Will Mermaid Man stop shouting? Can a sea cucumber be found who is capable of assessing the karmic balance of events as they unfold? Will the narrative adhere to the device commonly known as Chekov’s Sentient Tidal Wave Trapped In A Decommissioned Submarine (i.e. “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a sentient tidal wave trapped in  decommissioned submarine, before the story closes the sentient tidal wave trapped in a decommissioned submarine must return to menace our porous protagonist and his aged allies. If it’s not going to menace our porous protagonist and his aged allies, it shouldn’t be trapped in there. Also, a submarine is  naval wessel, Captain. Phasers to stun!”)? Is a villain who resembles a cross between a man and a manta ray called Man Ray plain wasted on children? Are they really going to pepper Viro Reganto’s dialogue with Esperanto and provide a key to this real-life “universal language” each issue in various hilarious forms? Will you just go and track these issues down, already!?!

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Basically Showdown at The Shady Shoals is stupid from soup to nuts. It’s stupid nut soup. That doesn’t mean Derek Drymon's script isn’t very clever though. Clever croutons bobbing about in the stupid nut soup. Er. Anyway…The story is split between the “past” and the “present” and, logically enough, so is the art. In the “present” Derek “Double Threat” Drymon draws events in the style of the Spongebob cartoon with a soupçon of his own style to keep it distinctive. So far, so good but also, so far pretty much par for the course for Spongebob Comics (which are never less than GOOD!) The clever bit is having the “past” sequences drawn by Jerry “My Way or The“ Ordway. This is just a fantastically apt choice because the “past” isn’t the “past”, see, it’s actually Spongebob’s old Mermaid Man comics, and Mermaid Man is very much a ridiculous riff on Nick Cardy/Ramona Fradon-era Aquaman. Last I heard Jerry Ordway was bemoaning being out of vogue and light on work, so it’s kind of nice his  getting a payday out of hamming up the datedness others saw as a lack in his work. I say others because I, that is me, don’t think classy action dynamics ever dates and Jerry Ordway is all about classy action dynamics. So: Jerry Ordway never dates, you feel me. And before you start thinking that self-satirising is all someone as old as Jerry Ordway’s fit for, I’ll just point out he’s doing a bang up job on Semiautomagic in Dark Horse Presents for Alex De Campi. And that one’s nothing like Spongebob Squarepants. And another thing about Jerry Ordway is…no, just joking, I’m done. Just spreading the Jerry Love is all.

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

There’s a lot of cleverness in the unobtrusive way Drymon makes hay with the uh, elastic setup of Spongebob’s universe. It’s set underwater but this impacts so rarely on anything that it’s easily forgotten, so you don’t actually get the joke about rescuing people from drowning until a character points out the stupidity of this. In fact so easily forgotten is the undersea setting that this trick is pulled more than once with equal success.  Or it might be that my memory’s not so hot either. And here's another illustration of the good use the strip puts the, uh, mutable milieu of Spongebob to: well, I mean, back there it all  got a bit confusing didn’t it? With the “past” and “present”, but the “past” isn’t even the past it’s actually the comics so in effect the comics Spongebob owns are taken as historical documentation of actual events. And you don’t blink at that because, why not?

It’s Spongebob’s show, but Mermaid Man’s the star. I like Mermaid Man right from the name down. I particularly like his name because it reminds me of that time I was a young man and I had nothing in the house except some rice and marmalade. So I concocted what I dubbed Marmarice. Mermaid Man, Marmarice? Really, John? Hey, similar enough for government work, pal. Sure, I like Mermaid Man more on the cartoon show because he was voiced by the late and very great Ernest Borgnine (who I believe wiser minds have dubbed “the dreamiest”) but his paper incarnation retains the cadences of the character’s speech so well you can hear a ghostly overlay of Borgnine’s gruff blustering as you read every buffoonery filled bubble. Drymon's ability to conjure the characters' vocal counterparts isn’t limited to Mermaid Man though. Everyone sounds right and I guess that’s down to the writing. Although, on reflection the fact that I’m looking at a sponge with a face probably cues my brain in on which “voice” to “hear” with my “mind-ears”. Of course, in the case of new characters like Viro Reganto I don’t have a voice pre-loaded but thanks to the preening machismo of his dialogue and posture it’s not hard to pull a suitable voice from the memory library. (Personally, I plumped for Ricardo Montalban’s Khan.)

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Because I live in deadly fear of actually improving at this writing nonsense I’ve almost forgotten to mention what might be the most important fact about Showdown at The Shady Shoals – it’s very funny. I have quite purposefully not used any of the jokes (altho' I have shown some; there was no way round that) because while you can spoil the plot of something if it’s well written there’s still pleasure to be had (I don’t re-read Watchmen every two years because I forgot what happens, you know?) but jokes? Good jokes are hard and there’s plenty of them here and I thought it would be poor show to ruin them. All the humour is kid friendly, but no less funny for that. There’s a range of humour from ridiculous conceits, deadpan mocking of capes conventions, slapstick, wordplay and a hilarious answer to what would happen if superheroes existed in the real world. Since this is Spongebob rather than, say, Miracleman’s flesh flapping on barbed wire and subsequent icily dehumanised paradise we get sink fixing and stairwell painting. It’s funny stuff; it's fit for ll ages. Although I do realise humour is personal so you may disagree, in which case you’re wrong.

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Yes, I did consider writing this in Esperanto but then I thought about the shape your face would take in response and thought better of it. Also, that's a lot of work but I did think about it. It might even have been worth the effort because Showdown At The Shady Shoals (Spongebob Comics#32-36) is VERY GOOD!

Postscript:

Ernest Borgnine died in 2012.

Marmarice tastes like the devil’s shit. John went hungry that night. He likes to believe he is now a much better person.

Jerry Ordway remains at large.

Hey, Kids! COMICS!!!

Arriving 4/22/15

Smaller week than some but still some top shelf work is on the way. New DEADLY CLASS, SQUIRREL GIRL, STAR WARS and the debuts of KAPTARA (Chip Zdarsky) and INFINITE LOOP.  

Check the cut for more!

ADVENTURE TIME #39 ALL NEW X-MEN #40 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #17.1 AMAZING X-MEN #19 ANGRY BIRDS #10 AVENGERS MILLENNIUM #4 (OF 4) AVENGERS OPERATION HYDRA #1 AVENGERS WORLD #20 TRO BATMAN 66 #22 BEYOND BELIEF #1 BLACK HOOD #3 BLACK WIDOW #17 BTVS SEASON 10 #14 CHEW #48 CLIVE BARKERS NIGHTBREED #12 CONVERGENCE #3 (OF 8) CONVERGENCE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #1 CONVERGENCE BATMAN & THE OUTSIDERS #1 CONVERGENCE FLASH #1 CONVERGENCE GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1 CONVERGENCE HAWKMAN #1 CONVERGENCE JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #1 CONVERGENCE NEW TEEN TITANS #1 CONVERGENCE SUPERBOY & THE LEGION #1 CONVERGENCE SWAMP THING #1 CONVERGENCE WONDER WOMAN #1 CREEPY COMICS #20 CURB STOMP #3 DAWN OF PLANET OF APES #6 DEADLY CLASS #12 DIVINITY #3 (OF 4) DRONES #1 (OF 5) EDWARD SCISSORHANDS #7 WHOLE AGAIN EMPIRE UPRISING #1 EMPTY #3 FRANKENSTEIN UNDERGROUND #2 (OF 5) GOD IS DEAD #33 GOTG AND X-MEN BLACK VORTEX OMEGA #1 BV GRINDHOUSE DRIVE IN BLEED OUT #4 (OF 8) GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #26 HULK #15 INFINITE LOOP #1 (OF 6) INHUMAN SPECIAL #1 INTERSECT #6 INVISIBLE REPUBLIC #2 KAPTARA #1 KING FLASH GORDON #3 (OF 4) LADY MECHANIKA TABLET OF DESTINIES #1 (OF 6) LAZARUS #16 LEGENDERRY RED SONJA #3 (OF 5) LIFE AFTER #9 (MR) LITTLEST PET SHOP SPRING CLEANING (ONE SHOT) MANIFEST DESTINY #14 MARVEL UNIVERSE GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #3 (OF 4) MAXX MAXXIMIZED #18 MIAMI VICE REMIX #2 (OF 5) MIND MGMT #32 MISTER X RAZED #3 (OF 4) MONO V2 #1 MY LITTLE PONY FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #4 NIGHTMARE MOON NINJAK #2 POSTAL #3 POWERPUFF GIRLS SUPER SMASH-UP #4 (OF 6) ROBERT HEINLEINS CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY #3 (OF 3) SATELLITE SAM #13 SKYLANDERS #8 RTN OF DRAGON KING SONIC UNIVERSE #75 STAR WARS #4 SUICIDE RISK #24 SUICIDERS #3 TOMB RAIDER #15 TRANSFORMERS WINDBLADE COMBINER WARS #2 UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #4 UNCLE SCROOGE #1 VELVET #10 WOLVERINES #15 ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS #4

Books/Mags/Things 2000 AD PACK MAR 2015 ALTER EGO #132 BACK ISSUE #80 BALLISTIC TP VOL 01 BART SIMPSON BLASTOFF TP BEST OF EC ARTIST ED HC VOL 02 BLEEDING COOL MAGAZINE #16 CAPTAIN KEN GN VOL 01 CRIMINAL TP VOL 04 BAD NIGHT DRAW #30 EVIL EMPIRE TP VOL 01 HAUNTER GN HULK FUTURE IMPERFECT TP NEW PTG LOKI AGENT OF ASGARD TP VOL 02 I CANNOT TELL A LIE MAD MAGAZINE #533 MPH TP REALIST ORIGINAL GN HC RED SONJA TRAVELS TP VOL 02 ROT & RUIN TP WARRIOR SMART SCOTT PILGRIM COLOR HC VOL 06 (OF 6) VISION YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW TP NEW PTG WILD BLUE YONDER HC WINTERWORLD TP VOL 02 STRANDED WITCHFINDER TP VOL 03 MYSTERIES OF UNLAND WOODLAND WELFARE MANIFESTO GN WORMWOOD GENTLEMAN CORPSE HC THE FIRST FEW PINTS

As always, what do YOU think?

"In This Issue: EVERYONE DIES!" Sometimes It's Not Just The G.I. Who is Immortal!

Being a gallery of comics covers featuring The Unknown Soldier, drawn mostly by Joe Kubert (1926-2012). Yes, okay, a cursory bit of staid analysis and a little tearful nostalgia too, but mostly some timelessly exciting imagery. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did (and continue to). Art by Gerry Talaoc

Anyway, this... It will be readily apparent to even the most bleary of eyes that the majority of the covers below are by Joe Kubert. The rare exceptions are by Ernie Chua (Ernie Chan) and Al Milgrom. The difference is striking. Noting that difference is certainly no slur on either man as Joe Kubert had few equals when it came to cover art and design, and even fewer equals when it came to war comic cover design.

Because Kubert provide covers for the majority of the Faceless G.I.'s escapades this gallery, incomplete as it may be, highlights several aspects of Kubert's cover art. There's no escaping Kubert's fondness for the cover delivering the chilly thrill equvalent to the "He's Behind You!" of children's pantomimes. (e.g. #166,#174, #181 etc) Joe Kubert would never get tired of this device and because Joe Kubert was an amazing talent it never got old. So amazingly talented was Joe Kubert that he could produce covers which could still capture the eye despite teetering dangerously close to the generic. (e.g. #185, #192,#193 etc) Back then it was not uncommon for covers to be held on file for use in the event of a deadline chrunch, so this explains the lack of specificity here rather than any disinterest on Kubert's part. Those are the least of these covers, and they are also the fewest. (They are still good though.) Outnumbering them by far are images so pulpily explosive I want to go and find out what's going on inside that comic right now. And I already know!

And just as I can recall the exact page of Gullivar Jones: Warrior of Mars where I fell in love with Gil Kane's work, so I can remember exactly which comic cover sold me on Joe Kubert for life. It's #195. An American relative visited us when I was under 10 and brought with them a pile of comics. Yes, even then everyone knew no good would come of me. I can't remember any of the other comics but I remember that one. I remember that one because the charge of violent menace coming off it was almost palpable. I recall that for several months I kept it beneath my bed and, when feeling brave, would lean over and inch it out with my finger until I could take its horrid promise no more and scoot it hurriedly back into the darkness. Brrrr!

Sometimes I think The Unknown Soldier is in danger of being forgotten by Comics, but I shouldn't worry because Comics will never forget Joe Kubert and their legends are entwined. He co-created him after all.

Enjoy!

The Unknown Soldier was created by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

So, no, I don't have the final issue. Humph!

You know what those were right? COMICS!!!

"Plus, I Was HIGH As F***ing S***." COMICS! Sometimes Justice Is Like A Cop Who Gets Shot In The Face, It Must Go Hooded!"

Half-term's over! So, at the risk of sounding like I’m the kind of guy who smells like wet newspaper and breathes like his nose doesn’t work, I took a look into Archie’s Dark Circle. Putting my trademark amusingly poor intimations that I am talking about peering up a man called Archie’s arse aside for the moment let's consider that Black Mask comic that came out not an incredibly long time ago. THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Anyway, this... REVIEW: SWIERCYZNSKI & GAYDOS’ BLACK MASK IS “NOT GUILTY OF ANY CRIMES INVOLVING CONGESS WITH DOMESTICATED FOWL ,AS FAR AS WE CAN TELL”: THREE STARS!!!!

BLACK MASK #1-2 Art by Michael “Gay Deer” Gaydos Written by Duane “Scrabble” Swierczynski Lettered by Rachel “One Shot” Deering Coloured by Kelly “Irish Pants” FitzPatrick Cover by Howard Victor “Flashdance” Chaykin and Jesus “Wept” Arbuto Archie Comic publications, $3.99 each (2015) Black Hood created by Harry “Mama's Little Baby Loves” Shorten in Nineteen Goddamn Forty

I guess my LCS sent this because Howard Victor Chaykin did the covers; it certainly isn’t because I’m a fan of Archie Comics.  In fact I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about Archie Comics and, frankly, while I am paid a King’s ransom (a really unpopular king judging by the ransom) to do this I’m not paid enough for me to bother doing any research. It seems though that until recently Archie Comics survived far longer than anyone had any right to expect by producing amiable exercises in non-threatening nostalgia. This nostalgia was of a very American stripe and centred largely around milkshakes, paper crowns and perpetually deferred troilism. However, a few years back someone at Archie (hopefully someone actually called “Archie”.) realised Eisenhower was dead, Korea was never going to actually officially surrender and people of all colours could now use the drinking fountains. Basically, it was time to move with the times and, without ever actually having read any of their stuff, it seems they’ve done a pretty decent job. Archie Comics proper continue on but now with gay people and gun crime, and for the teen crowd there’s Archie versus zombies (with added patricide and pet sadness) and Sabrina versus Leatherface, Pumpkinhead and Cthulhu.  Well, maybe something like that, because as I say I haven’t actually bothered to read any of that stuff. Despite Archie Comics taking the absurd approach of putting some thought into what they’ve done and employing talented, creative people this seems to have paid off for them with success both in sales terms and critical reception. I certainly hope no one learns from their example!

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

So, Black Mask is produced under Archie’s Dark Circle imprint. Archie’s Dark Circle is, as I just said, part of Archie Comics’ ongoing revelation that  Zap! Pap! Pap! comics aren’t just for people who eat mashed beets anymore! Yeah! Fuck the fucking fuck off, Pops, because Dark Circle is for slightly older teens - being basically Archie’s version of Marvel’s MAX. Here, within Archie’s Dark Circle (hurr!), people are free to do what they want to do; provided what people want to do is say “fuck a doodle doo” and get shot in the face. Black Mask is a character I have no history with (e.g. I was unaware until 30 seconds ago that Rick Burchett did some pretty sweet work on the character back in the ‘90s) so I just read this comic like any other jackass. Is it true to the character? I don’t know. There it is -the kind of quality reviewing that keeps you coming back.

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Physically these issues are pretty unpleasant things with the cover stock being disagreeably tactile; like the scratch pad on the side of a box of matches. Ugh! Nice art though by Howard Victor Chaykin on my covers. Inside it’s Michael Gaydos doing his very best “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Alex Maleev…!” In fact someone should go check on Alex Maleev to see if he's okay. Michael Gaydos' art here is so much “Alex Maleev” it's not entirely beyond possibility that he fried Maleev up with some onions to ingest his essence. Y'know, like they used to do in primitive cultures, mostly around Brighouse. Look, cards, table and all that; Gaydos’ art isn’t a style I like, which doesn’t mean it isn’t any good, it just means I don’t like it. Here it’s basically the same style as Alex Maleev - all photo references and digital manipulation. To my eyes it all looks like a collage where the elements don’t sit quite right, locations are sparsely peopled, the acting veers from corpse-like to boggle eyed mania and inertia constantly presses a pillow over the face of any sense of motion. It's kind of like fumetti but with scribbling on top. (In Italy (Ay! Caramba!) I hear fumetti means all comics but I’m not in Italy, so here I just mean photographic comics. I’m very popular in Italy so I wanted to avoid any confusion amongst my Italian fans. Auf Wiedersehen, mes amis!) Unluckily for Gaydos I was reared on the revived Eagle with its Doomlord fumetti and, y’know, Alex Maleev & Michael Gaydos aren’t fit to touch the hem of Doomlord’s spangly space gown. Scribble on Doomlord and he'd take you down with a hot blast from his ring. Honestly, the art’s fine; I’m just old. Sometimes you’re just old, and shouting “Just try fucking drawing!” says more about your ossified tastes than the work at hand, so you're probably as well just waving it through and keeping schtumm. The style wasn't to my taste but it was well executed. Man, this is some even handed shit I’m doling out today. Take a picture!

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Really, old man carping aside, the photographic realism underlaying it all is a good choice because I get what they are after. Yeah, I get what they are after; they are after communicating a real sense of place, that place being Philadelphia. Grounding the somewhat outré events in a hyper mundane setting isn’t a bad idea at all. Because these are some seriously outré (French for “out there”) events. Usually I get my wattles flapping over the, uh, “languorous” pacing of modern comics but here I think maybe Black Mask goes a bit too fast. Sure the hustle helps you crest the speed bumps of disbelief but the brisk pace tends to rush past stuff better dwelt on. It feels like Swierczynski is trying to get to a place where he can start his story proper, but I think he’s got enough of a proper story here already.  Hopefully he’ll develop some of the stuff he’s touched on because faceache’s partner is just there, the lady is too nice, faceache’s back at work a bit quick (would you even go back to work in that state?), the drug habit is a bit “comic booky” (it only has consequences when narratively required) but, but, but, you know, shit’s happening. I mean, we’re two  issues in and more has happened than in a year of most books. In the second issue the bad guys have already framed our protagonist with a combination of cat burglary and Unknown Soldier level mimicry. These pivotal bad guys just appear and do their job and while I don't want to see them quipping at each other for six bloody issues before they actually do something it's all, y'know, a bit sudden. The book goes for an odd tone – a little bit grounded but with plenty of pulp daftness. Our hero is one unlucky sumbitch and while I'm not going into it much to avoid spoilers, well, I’m not saying they lay it on a bit thick but I was waiting for a scene where he caught his balls in a drawer while looking for his socks. And it...works. I'll give it that. Beyond his plotting and tone (which is due to Gaydos in great part) I liked Swierczynski's writing. By which I mean his writing writing – the words. Not so much the dialogue, which is okay in that real-people-don't-talk-like-this-except-in-movies-but-let's-pretend-they-do way, but rather the narration. This is in that flat style crime books favour but Swierczynski doesn’t pare it back so much it’s like the narrator’s got neurological damage (“I pulled the trigger. And I didn’t stop until the fast things stopped coming out. My shoes are brown. Cake is nice.” (Brubaking as it’s called; it’s a joke! Lighten up, or you’ll get lines on your face!)) (Hard) boiled down as it is Swiercynski, retains a sense of character, and that's no small writing trick to pull.

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Oh yeah, so going back a bit, the creators are clearly all about a convincing real world setting. Philadelphia is, apparently, real. (I know! You come for the scans but you stay for the facts!) In the letters column Duane Swierczynski says that apparently some people call it ‘Killadelphia’. Having endured certain other people’s backmatter in the past I suspected a bit of, um,over dramatizing there but, because I am a fair man, I googled it and, yes, Philadelphia is apparently “the murder capital of the USA”, which is some kind of achievement. With, no doubt, a heavy heart indeed Duane Swierczynski makes the place look even worse. People love that don’t they? There are going to be letters galore for this book, and I bet you a night down the Bingo not one (Not. A. Single. Solitary. One.) will say “Actually, there are some very nice bits of Philadelphia, and to be honest I don’t think you’re doing the place any favours at all.” No, it’ll all be about how the letter writer had to kick their way through piles of burning dogs to get to their LCS and how they were stabbed ninety seven times just cleaning the oven and ,damn, if Black Hood hasn’t just captured to a tee the filthy depravity that is every square Hellish inch of Philadelphia (motto: “Stay the fuck away!”) Bunch of lightweights, I say. Check Basingstoke out sometime: everyone there uses each others faces as toilets – out of choice! So, yeah, people are weird; people’s pride manifests in strange ways, but it always manifests in some way. I think it would be a mite healthier if the creatives involved took pride in having made an enjoyable and decent comic. If you enjoyed Alex Maleev’s work on Daredevil but wished it was better written Black Mask might well be the book for you. Black Mask is GOOD! I'll probably keep getting it – result!

Arriving 4/15/15

New comics are on their way! Are you excited for CHRONONAUTS, GIANT DAYS, LUMBERJANES, STARY BULLETS and THOR! Plus the long awaited SABRINA #2!  

Plus much more under the cut!

AMERICAN VAMPIRE SECOND CYCLE #7 AQUILA #1 (OF 5) ARCHIE JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #260 ARCHIE VS PREDATOR #1 AVENGERS MILLENNIUM #3 (OF 4) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SIX #3 (OF 5) BETTY & VERONICA #275 BLOODSHOT REBORN #1 BPRD HELL ON EARTH #130 CAPTAIN AMERICA AND MIGHTY AVENGERS #7 CAPTURE CREATURES #3 MAIN CVRS CHRONONAUTS #2 (MR) CONVERGENCE #2 (OF 8) CONVERGENCE AQUAMAN #1 CONVERGENCE BATMAN SHADOW OF THE BAT #1 CONVERGENCE CATWOMAN #1 CONVERGENCE GREEN ARROW #1 CONVERGENCE GREEN LANTERN PARALLAX #1 CONVERGENCE HARLEY QUINN #1 CONVERGENCE JUSTICE LEAGUE INTL #1 CONVERGENCE SUICIDE SQUAD #1 CONVERGENCE SUPERBOY #1 CONVERGENCE SUPERGIRL MATRIX #1 CONVERGENCE SUPERMAN MAN OF STEEL #1 CROSSED BADLANDS #75 CROSSED PLUS 100 #4 D4VE #3 (OF 5) DARK HORSE PRESENTS 2014 #9 DEATHLOK #7 DJANGO ZORRO #6 (OF 7) DOCTOR WHO 10TH #9 DOCTOR WHO 11TH #11 DOCTOR WHO 12TH #7 EI8HT #3 (OF 5) ETERNAL #4 FADE OUT #5 FOX (DARK CIRCLE) #1 GHOSTED #19 GIANT DAYS #2 GOD IS DEAD #32 GRIEVOUS JOURNEY OF ICHABOD AZRAEL #2 (OF 6) GROO FRIENDS AND FOES #4 HEXED #9 JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS DARK JUDGES #4 (OF 5) KITCHEN #6 (OF 8) KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #219 LEGENDARY STAR LORD #11 BV LETTER 44 #15 LOKI AGENT OF ASGARD #13 LUMBERJANES #13 MAGNETO #17 MEGA MAN #48 MILLENNIUM #4 (OF 5) MS MARVEL #14 MY LITTLE PONY FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #3 SIRENS NOVA #29 NUTMEG #1 OCTOBER FACTION #6 PEANUTS VOL 2 #27 PRINCELESS PIRATE PRINCESS #3 (OF 4) REGULAR SHOW #22 REVIVAL #29 RUNLOVEKILL #1 SABRINA #2 SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN #9 SHAFT #5 SHUTTER #11 SIMPSONS COMICS #220 SIXTH GUN DUST TO DUST #2 SONS OF ANARCHY #20 SPAWN #251 SPIDER-MAN AND X-MEN #5 STAR TREK ONGOING #44 STRANGE SPORTS STORIES #2 (OF 4) STRAY BULLETS SUNSHINE & ROSES #3 SUPERIOR IRON MAN #7 TEEN TITANS GO #9 THOR #7 TITHE #1 TRANSFORMERS #40 COMBINER WARS UNCANNY X-MEN #33 UNITY #17 WOLVERINES #14 X-FILES SEASON 10 #23

Books/Mags/Things 100 BULLETS TP BOOK 02 ARES & APHRODITE GN ARMY OF DOCTOR MOREAU TP ASTRO CITY DARK AGE TP VOL 01 BROTHERS & OTHER STRANGERS BANDETTE HC VOL 02 STEALERS KEEPERS BATMAN ADVENTURES MAD LOVE DELUXE ED HC BEE AND PUPPYCAT TP VOL 01 BTVS SEASON 10 TP VOL 02 I WISH CROGAN ADVENTURES COLOR GN CATFOOTS VENGEANCE DEADPOOL CLASSIC COMPANION TP EARTH 2 TP VOL 04 THE DARK AGE (N52) FILTH DELUXE EDITION HC GODZILLA RULERS OF EARTH TP VOL 05 GUNNERKRIGG COURT TP VOL 01 HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH COMICS MASTER EDITION INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR 2 TP VOL 01 LEGEND OF THE SCARLET BLADES HC MARVEL UNIVERSE ALL NEW AVENGERS ASSEMBLE DIGEST TP VOL 01 MEN OF WRATH TP MONSTER TP VOL 04 PERFECT ED URASAWA MOON KNIGHT TP VOL 02 DEAD WILL RISE NOVA TP VOL 05 AXIS POWERPUFF GIRLS CLASSICS TP VOL 05 BLESS THIS MESS PROMETHEUS FIRE & STONE TP PUNKS THE COMIC TP VOL 01 NUTPUNCHER SHAZAM A CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS HC SPREAD TP VOL 01 NO HOPE STUMPTOWN HC VOL 03 SUPERANNUATED MAN TP TOP 10 TP

As always, what do YOU think?

Arriving 4/8/15

Business as usual, right? Lots of comics this week, especially this SAGA book we have been hearing about. Those two are going places. More under the cut!

ABE SAPIEN #22 ADVENTURE TIME MARCELINE GONE ADRIFT #4 ALL NEW HAWKEYE #2 ANGELA ASGARDS ASSASSIN #5 ANT-MAN #4 ASTRO CITY #22 AVENGERS MILLENNIUM #2 (OF 4) AVENGERS WORLD #19 TRO BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SIX #2 (OF 5) BEE AND PUPPYCAT #8 BIG MAN PLANS #2 (OF 4) BILL & TED MOST TRIUMPHANT RETURN #2 (OF 6) BIRTHRIGHT #6 BRAVEST WARRIORS #31 BUCKY BARNES WINTER SOLDIER #7 CAPTAIN MARVEL #14 BV COFFIN HILL #17 CONVERGENCE #1 (OF 8) CONVERGENCE ATOM #1 CONVERGENCE BATGIRL #1 CONVERGENCE BATMAN & ROBIN #1 CONVERGENCE HARLEY QUINN #1 CONVERGENCE JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 CONVERGENCE NIGHTWING ORACLE #1 CONVERGENCE QUESTION #1 CONVERGENCE SPEED FORCE #1 CONVERGENCE SUPERMAN #1 CONVERGENCE TITANS #1 COPPERHEAD #6 DANGER CLUB #8 DARTH VADER #4 DEADPOOL #45 (250TH ISSUE) DEEP STATE #5 DESCENDER #2 EDWARD SCISSORHANDS #6 WHOLE AGAIN ELEPHANTMEN #63 ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK #5 EVIL EMPIRE #12 FABLES THE WOLF AMONG US #4 FIVE GHOSTS #16 GUARDIANS 3000 #7 HELP US GREAT WARRIOR #3 HOWARD THE DUCK #2 HULK #14 JUPITERS CIRCLE #1 KAIJUMAX #1 LEGACY OF LUTHER STRODE #1 LOLA XOXO WASTELAND MADAM #1 MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS ASSEMBLE SEASON TWO #6 MAX RIDE FIRST FLIGHT #1 (OF 5) MILES MORALES ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #12 MOUSE GUARD LEGENDS OF GUARD VOL 03 #2 (OF 4) MY LITTLE PONY FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #2 TIREK NAMELESS #3 NEW VAMPIRELLA #11 ODYC #4 ONE HIT WONDER #5 (OF 5) RAI #8 RAT QUEENS #10 REBELS #1 RED SONJA VULTURES CIRCLE #4 ROBOCOP 2014 #10 SAGA #27 SAVIOR #1 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #56 SHIELD #4 SLEEPY HOLLOW ORIGINS #1 SONIC BOOM #6 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #271 SOUTHERN CROSS #2 SPIDER-MAN 2099 #11 SPIDER-WOMAN #6 SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 STAR TREK PLANET OF THE APES #5 (OF 5) STORM #10 SURFACE #2 TEEN DOG #8 TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE #39 RTN OF DECEPTICON JUSTI TRANSFORMERS VS GI JOE #6 WALKING DEAD #140 WASTELAND #60 X #24

Books/Mags/Things ASTRO CITY FAMILY ALBUM TP NEW ED AVENGERS BY JONATHAN HICKMAN HC VOL 01 BACK ISSUE #79 CAPTAIN AMERICA TP VOL 04 IRON NAIL CAPTAIN MARVEL TP VOL 02 STAY FLY CEREBUS HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DVD CROSSED TP VOL 12 DEATHSTROKE THE TERMINATOR TP VOL 01 ASSASSINS FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #279 HARLEY QUINN HC VOL 02 POWER OUTAGE (N52) HARLEY QUINN TP VOL 01 HOT IN THE CITY (N52) JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #358 JUPITERS LEGACY TP VOL 01 MILT GROSS NEW YORK HC MIRACLEMAN PREM HC BOOK 03 OLYMPUS MORTAL KOMBAT X TP VOL 01 NEW AVENGERS BY JONATHAN HICKMAN HC VOL 01 SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 01 SHELTERED TP VOL 03 SKULL SLAYER TP STAR TREK ONGOING TP VOL 09 Q GAMBIT STAR WARS LEGENDS EPIC COLLECTION TP VOL 01 EMPIRE THUNDER AGENTS CLASSICS TP VOL 05 TMNT GHOSTBUSTERS TP TRANSLUCID TP

As always, what do YOU think?

Help Keep Comix Experience Alive!

HELP KEEP COMIX EXPERIENCE ALIVE!  

San Francisco is about to raise minimum wage to the nation’s highest at $15/hour over the next three years – a 43% hike. While we at Comix Experience absolutely support a living wage, this unprecedented increase will put a huge pressure on small businesses like ours. To put it into raw numbers, given our current staffing (and we run very tight), we will soon have to generate an additional $80,000 a year in sales just to meet the rise.

Absorbing that kind of wage hike on our single biggest business cost (our talented people) is going to be a challenge. Historical rates of growth and the nature of selling comics (what we sell has a fixed cover price set by the publishers, therefore we can’t raise prices) means that it will be virtually impossible to raise that additional income organically.

Comix Experience is a healthy business, and has consistently been that way for all of the 26 years of its existence. However, like most small retail businesses, every dollar that is earned is invested directly back into the business. That means we will have to do something radical to generate the additional $80,000 in annual sales to meet this payroll mandate.

A Solution that Reflects our Core Values

Many other stores in San Francisco are obviously faced with the same issue, and each are approaching it in a manner that works for them. Some stores may choose to downsize, or cut staffing or even close all together. Others, like our compatriots at Borderlands Books, have turned to sponsorship to alleviate their issues.

When deciding what path to take to increase sales to meet the new wage requirements, we kept a few of our guiding principles in mind.

1. Comix Experience would strongly prefer to figure out a way to let the market solve the problem rather than raw patronage. While we have no problem with a fund-raising type approach, for us creating a way to generate new customers and provide our loyal patrons with added value is better.
2. Our solution would need to reflect the passion and curation we offer to you every single day. We don’t sell comics merely to make money from them – we sell comics because we literally can’t think of a better way to spend our days than communicating the boundless love we feel for great comics and their amazing creators! And we don’t just love comics – we really know them as well; we get the secret alchemy that makes the best comics so. Every member of our staff feels just the same way: We burn for comics, and we want to ignite your passion for the best that our medium has to offer!
3. We want to build on our efforts to foster a build community through our stores. We seek to build a safe space so that regardless of your circumstance, regardless of your race, gender or creed, you’re welcome and participatory in your own fandom.

Therefore the path we’ve hit upon to try and save Comix Experience is this:

Comix Experience’s Curated Graphic Novel of the Month Club

Beginning in July 2015, every month the staff and I will use our passion and experience to choose the single best brand new graphic novel to give you. This book will always be either a stand-alone experience, or the first volume of a new series. As a member of the club, you’ll also be entitled to unique benefits that won’t be offered to anyone else:

• A curated selection of the best new graphic novel each month
• An invitation to a monthly live book club meeting and social event to discuss that book. We will record and stream the in-store meeting so club members all over the world can also participate.
• We will regularly have the writers and artists of each of our picks participate in our monthly club meetings, (e.g. in person, speaking and doing a live event, or a video chat to answer questions).
• For select in-person appearances at the store, you’ll receive an exclusive club-only invitation to attend a private after-hours event with the guest.
• We will create a social media group for members to discuss the book internationally
• Finally, we will provide you with nice swag (like posters or bookmarks) for the selected book wherever possible

Ways to Join the Club

• Month-to-Month: If you would prefer to take it one month at a time, the price will be $25 a month, a tremendous value considering all the benefits we are offering.
• Annual: If you are willing to commit to a full year, the price drops to just $20 a month! You can quit at any time for a full refund on your unused balance.

You can sign up today at www.graphicnovelclub.com or by calling either of our stores:

• Comix Experience on Divisadero St. at (415) 863-9258
• Comix Experience Outpost on Ocean Ave. at (415) 239-2669

Club FAQs

1. When does the club start?
2. We’re launching this today in order to start monthly shipping of books for July – the month that the first (and largest) of the mandated wage hikes kicks in.

1. What books will I get?
2. Some months we might send you a more expensive book (If we had started this in February, the pick would have been Scott McCloud’s excellent “The Sculptor," which is $29.95), while some months it may be something less expensive – but every month you’ll get an accessible, compelling, and thoughtful piece of graphic fiction, and the value will be equivalent to the average price of a graphic novel over the course of the yearly plan.

1. What if I don’t live in the Bay Area – can I still join?
2. Yes, absolutely! We’ll just have to add $6 a month for shipping and handling for domestic US priority mail. We haven’t yet figured out a “one size fits all” solution for international shipping, but if you’re outside the US and you want to participate, call or e-mail, and we’ll work out an individual shipping solution for you.

1. What if I can’t make it to a meeting or I live out of town?
2. We will also record all club meetings so if you’re out of town you’ll still be able to enjoy that benefit.

1. What happens if you sell more memberships than you need to meet the wage increase?
2. In order to fully cover the shortfall, we need to sell 334 memberships at the yearly rate. If we beat that goal then we will use it to pay our excellent staff more than the minimum wage hike requires. This means we could really use your participation.

Looking Forward to Having You as Part of the Comix Experience Family

Our belief is that there are a lot of people who like comics, like the store, or simply want to help keep San Francisco iconoclastic and support small business. Perhaps you just don’t have the time to get into a comic store every month to stay on top of new releases.

The comics medium is truly in a second Golden Age right now, but with so much top notch, innovative work being released, how can you tell which new releases are the best? We are going to provide that curated experience for you.

I urge you to join us. If you know someone else who would like to subscribe, I also urge you tell them about this service (or give them a gift subscription). Please help us spread the word! Each and every person truly matters in reaching our goal, and keeping Comix Experience alive to continue to take comics into a better place well into the future. On behalf of myself and the staff of Comix Experience, thank you so much for your support!

If you have any questions, please feel free to call either store, or reach out to me directly.

Brian Hibbs, Head Cheese, brian@comixexperience.com

"...A Fish Pedicure, Whatever That Was..." COMICS! Sometimes I Skull The Future Is Going To Brown In All Our Mouths, Hurrrm!

Okay, hurrmmm, I spent a lot of time writing a lot of words about some recent comics, but something happened there that means they won't be appearing. Bit unexpected that was, and it left me on the back foot. I've cobbled together a piece on Crossed Plus 100 which will, I hope, achieve several aims: 1) stop the site looking cobwebby over Easter, 2) bring attention to one of the many good books everyone doesn't talk enough about and 3) burn up any goodwill I've earned with you. I'm sure there's something wrong with that list but I can't quite put my finger on it. Anyway, I'm going to post this – what could go wrong?

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

Anyway, this... CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED #1 & #2 Art by Gabriel Andrade Story by Alan Moore Coloured by Digikore Studios Lettered by Jaymes Reed Avatar, $3.99 each (2014) Crossed created by Garth Ennis & Jacen Burrows

In which the fascinating human being and talented author Alan Moore takes the reins of the less fascinating, but still very talented, Garth Ennis’ Crossed franchise and spurs it so hard it leaps one hundred years into the future. The book follow a group of scavengers as they attempt to avoid the titular scarred sadists in a bid to harvest knowledge and resources from the disaster site that was once civilisation. A sense of dread begins to creep in as The Crossed turn out to be not quite as nearly extinct as previously believed and a mystery involving pictures of serial killers, Jesus Christ, and offerings of salt begins to take shape. The clock is ticking until unutterable terror explodes all over our hapless protag...what? Can I help you? I'm trying to..yes, Alan Moore wrote this comic and I’d like to tell you about what a swell job he did , but I see it doesn’t work like that with Alan Moore. First I have to declare a bias – I once said (out loud) to my LCS owner that I felt “privileged to be alive and reading comics at a time when Alan Moore was producing them.” He just looked at me like I had said my bum was haunted, because for a long time now Comics has been treating Alan Moore like he was their own 'Trotsky in Mexico' or something. Folk have all kinds of reasons for this, the reasons vary depending on how seriously they want to be taken, but, really, let’s face it, it’s because Alan Moore upset a lot of comics fans a while back by saying he thought their entertainment choices erred on the juvenile. I don’t really know why there was an ocean of outrage in response to that. Alan Moore isn’t me and he isn’t you so, you know, sometimes all of our opinions on things are going to be a bit out of synch.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

Fundamentally, Alan Moore’s big sin was to forget that comic creators are required to pretend that they are just like us and share our hopes, wants, dreams and (crucial this one) entertainment choices, but with an understanding by all that parties that when it comes to the crunch they are better than us because writing corporate Trex and high concept TV auditions is a lot tougher and more worthwhile than whatever paltry shit you occupy your life with, you uncreative drone; and all done in that strange way that is both patronising and demeaning to all parties simultaneously. Seriously, I like Alan Moore a bunch but I could give one rich shit if Alan Moore enjoyed The Lego Movie as much as I did. Mind you, I can’t help thinking that if Alan Moore wore a t-shirt and jeans and pretended the children’s entertainment Star Wars was a fit use of a grown man’s mind he’d get a lot less stick.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

Meanwhile, back at the comics - Crossed +100 is work-for-hire which means rather than tell you how enjoyably unshowy and just plain solid it felt as a reading experience we have to go through the whole Alan Moore Work-For-Hire rigmarole. Alan Moore doesn’t mind Work-For-Hire as long as everyone understands that everyone is doing Work-For-Hire. He bangs on about Watchmen because he clearly believes there was some bad faith in there. He doesn’t bang on about John Constantine or the ABC Comics characters because they were all Work-For-Hire (LoEG excepted, natch) and everybody was super-clear about that. E.g. Apres Alan Moore the Tom Strong series has intermittently continued under Peter Hogan - with Moore’s blessing (so I understand). Nor did the The Top 10 stuff after he left elicit nary a peep from the disgruntled Magus. Look, just because he worships a sock doesn’t make him unreasonable.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

I am in fact quite chuffed Alan Moore is doing W-F-H in this case as Crossed is Garth Ennis' crazy baby and Garth Ennis is, rumour has it, a Comics Creator. The past couple of years have seen comics creators en-mass treat Moore with all the dignity and respect a crowd of teenage afternoon drinkers accord a Big Issue seller. (“Lookarrisbeerd! Pooshimovah! Oldcantoldcantcrazyoldstinkycantyman!”) Lest we forget Comics creators are perfectly content to turn a blind eye to all kinds of shenanigans on the part of their dreamweaving sect including, but I imagine by no means limited to, sexual predation. Ironically though they fail to bring this very united front to face towards bettering conditions for their vocation as a whole. But then why would you when you can take the Before Watchmen money and run? So, yeah, Crossed Plus 100...Despite being continually painted as a humourless curmudgeon Alan Moore possesses enough of a sense of humour to slip some pretty good jokes into what is in essence a comic about humanity staring down the deepest darkest anus of hopelessness yet imagined. His characters spend their time foraging for knowledge in libraries; the joke here being that the libraries are remarkably (but not totally) unscathed due to their having little appeal to the either the Crossed or other survivors (or even people before The Crossing). As we all know Alan Moore has publicly and vociferously campaigned on the behalf of libraries in real life. Actually, you might not know that because it’s possible that this and his other attempts to effect material change for the better in the real world (food hampers for the needy, benefit appearances, de-icing the walkways at old people’s flats, burning money on Dodgem Logic so that there was (briefly) an intelligent magazine out there) didn’t receive as much play in the comic press as someone getting a TV contract or piggybacking on the social concerns of the moment to raise their profile. But, yeah, Crossed Plus 100 is a pretty funny comic. Moore also has his band of survivors harvest old tech for video clips of The Oldy Times and we find that in the middle of an explosion of barbaric obscenity people will still pause to film someone having their cock torn off and fed to a snarling barista.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore There are other jokes (Elvis' paean to tat, Gracelands, is admiringly described as “fuck class for definite.”) As you can see by that bit in brackets, Moore has even come up with a new Futcha-spikky, Which was a nice touch because language does evolve and Moore gets to build in some good jokes there too. Something of visual interest in real life is called “movie” and there’s a tiny sense of satisfaction which sparks when some of the more obtuse meanings click home. Although, none of it is too obtuse (that would be counter-productive) but I read my comics when I'm tired and it took me a full issue to figure out AFAWK was not a parrot like exclamation ,but the popular acronym. It's smart, inventive stuff and for a comic so soaked in a sense of impending doom I spent quite a lot of time laughing. This will surprise no one who has met me.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

But Moore's best joke (his towering edifice of hilarity) is an invisible one; it takes the form of an absence. The joke is that for a comic spent in such a degraded universe there's precious little sexual violence. There's some; there's a bit, but you have to really peer hard to find it. Which just isn't on. Where's my sexual violence? I demand some sexual violence? You know, the sexual violence about which we never speak, as there is a Conspiracy of Silence about this sexual violence. Except, obviously when we do speak of the sexual violence in Alan Moore’s work, which is every time there is sexual violence in Alan Moore’s work, which is quite a lot of the time, hence the discussion. On reflection as Conspiracies of Silence go, I have to say, it needs work. On the Silence bit anyway. This time out the silence surrounding sexual violence is the result of there being no sexual violence here, which beggars belief really. He can't not be taking the piss. Also, I'm afraid anyone holding out for a juicy bit of racism to get stuck into is going hungry tonight. I do share your trepidation, because thanks to Alan Moore’s relentless and, frankly, inexplicable attempts to reposition the racist marmalade totem of my youth I read this one with my face tensed as if for a slap. However, everybody braced for racism can stand down because this group of doomed fuckers contains only one clearly Caucasian male so, I think we can put our rocks back down on that one.

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Reed & Digikore

An apology is due here. And I apologise unreservedly and wholeheartedly; I apologise sincerely and repeatedly. And I apologise to Gabriel Andrade. Because Gabriel Andrade draws Crossed Plus 100 and he hasn't had a sniff yet. Which is a shame because his work on Crossed Plus 100 is extraordinarily decent. His world is convincingly overgrown and decayed in equal measure; the rampant foliage spattered with the flaky remains of our white goods and furnishings. The Eden we built is replaced on these pages by The Eden of Nature, and it's clear who's getting the last laugh. Sometimes the overly lush colours swamp the art and confuse the perspective, but that's just a carp to show I was awake. Art wise Andrade takes Moore's script and puts it on the page with enough skill to ensure his own style is not swamped by that of The Moore. I particularly enjoyed the way the train our crew pootle about in looked like something from a fanciful children’s book but, ew, stuck in a world entirely the fault of adults.

Then, in issue #1, there's some backmatter. In this backmatter (“backmatter” being a comics term which I am beginning to think means it’s in the back and it doesn’t matter) Comics Softest Hearted Big Man Garth Ennis (who should never be described as Comics Biggest Hearted Soft Man) puts his metaphorical cap on the floor and starts playing the verbal spoons to drum up interest in either his Crossed webisodes (which is a word which should be stricken from the human record), a new Crossed series by Alan Moore (which is this comic) and one by Kieron Gillen (about how Bogshed fare in the Crossed world: Crossed C86), or an attempt to get Crossed on television because as any fule kno Television is the apex of human achievement. Oh, okay, I couldn’t really tell what he was trying to get me to invest in because the interview is conducted by Hannah Means Shannon (which apparently is a name and not the key to a particularly humdrum code) and contains sentences which actively repelled my interest. Speckling the thickets of time-share speak are the odd blooms of interest where burly Garth Ennis tells us what Crossed is about thematically (“how do you take charge of pure chaos..” Badly, I'm guessing, Garth.) Ultimately the world of Crossed is all a bit much for this tired old man who needs his illusions of decency and sanity just to make it through to his next biscuit, but when I was young I'd have snarfed this stuff down. So, yeah, I came for Alan Moore and that's what I got. Don't get me wrong, he's not perfect; he's just human but he does extend you the rare courtesy of not hiding that. He's Alan Moore, he writes comics and this one was VERY GOOD! But then again, like I said, I'm biaised.

Alan Moore is many things to many people but to me he's mostly - COMICS!!!

Arriving 4/1/15

April begins with an ending. The final week of the New52 and the beginning of Convergence. Plus SOUTHERN BASTARDS and DYING THE DEAD.  

SO much more under the cut!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #17 ANGEL AND FAITH SEASON 10 #13 ARKHAM MANOR ENDGAME #1 AVENGERS #43 TRO AVENGERS MILLENNIUM #1 (OF 4) AVENGERS ULTRON FOREVER #1 BATMAN AND ROBIN ANNUAL #3 BATMAN ETERNAL #52 BATMAN SUPERMAN ANNUAL #2 BATWOMAN ANNUAL #2 BLACK SCIENCE #13 CLUSTER #3 CONVERGENCE #0 CYCLOPS #12 BV DARK TOWER DRAWING THREE HOUSE CARDS #2 (OF 5) DOCTOR WHO 9TH #1 (OF 5) DYING AND THE DEAD #2 EARTH 2 WORLDS END #26 EGOS #7 FEATHERS #4 GARFIELD #36 NINE LIVES PT 4 GEORGE ROMEROS EMPIRE OF DEAD ACT THREE #1 Of(5) GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS #7 GOTHAM ACADEMY ENDGAME #1 GRAVEYARD SHIFT #4 (OF 4) GUARDIANS OF GALAXY BEST STORY EVER #1 GUARDIANS TEAM-UP #4 HALOGEN #2 (OF 4) HARLEY QUINN #16 HELLBOY AND THE BPRD #5 (OF 5) 1952 HINTERKIND #17 IRON FIST LIVING WEAPON #11 KANAN LAST PADAWAN #1 LADY KILLER #4 LOOKING FOR GROUP #1 LOONEY TUNES #224 MAXX MAXXIMIZED #17 MILLENNIUM #3 (OF 5) MY LITTLE PONY FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #1 SOMBRA NAILBITER #11 NAMES #8 (OF 9) NEVERBOY #2 NEW 52 FUTURES END #48 (WEEKLY) NO MERCY #1 OPERATION SIN #4 (OF 5) PALMIOTTI BRADY BIG CON JOB #2 (OF 4) PATHFINDER ORIGINS #3 (OF 6) PENNY DORA & THE WISHING BOX #4 (OF 5) POET ANDERSON DREAM WALKER #1 (OF 3) PS BLACKCROSS #2 (OF 6) PUNISHER #17 RAT GOD #3 (OF 5) RETURN OF LIVING DEADPOOL #3 (OF 4) RICK & MORTY #1 ROBERT E HOWARDS SAVAGE SWORD #10 ROBERT HEINLEINS CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY #2 (OF 3) ROCKET RACCOON #10 SHADOW SHOW #5 (OF 5) SIMPSONS ILLUSTRATED #16 SINESTRO ANNUAL #1 SOUTHERN BASTARDS #8 SPIDER-GWEN #3 SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN #17 TALES FROM THE CON YEAR TWO TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1 UFOLOGY #1 UNCANNY AVENGERS #3 UNCANNY INHUMANS #0 UNCANNY SEASON 2 #1 (OF 6) WAR STORIES #7 WEIRD LOVE #6 WITCHER FOX CHILDREN #1 WOLF MOON #5 (OF 6) WOLVERINES #13 WONDER WOMAN #40 WOODS #12 X-FILES SEASON 10 #22 X-O MANOWAR #35

Books/Mags/Things ADVENTURE TIME ORIGINAL GN VOL 05 GRAYBLES SCHMAYBLES ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM GN VOL 03 AVENGERS RAGE OF ULTRON OGN HC AVENGERS SCARLET WITCH BY ABNETT AND LANNING TP BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL TP VOL 31 FINAL CURTAIN BPRD PLAGUE OF FROGS TP VOL 03 CASANOVA COMPLETE ED HC VOL 03 AVARITIA DARK AGES TP DEEP STATE TP VOL 01 DEMO TP ELEPHANTMEN 2260 TP BOOK 02 ELFQUEST FINAL QUEST TP VOL 01 EMPOWERED UNCHAINED TP VOL 01 FLASH A CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS HC GIRLFIEND TP GOON TP VOL 14 OCCASION OF REVENGE GROO VS CONAN TP GYO 2IN1 DLX ED HC JOHN ROMITA AMAZING SPIDER MAN ARTIFACT ED HC LONE WOLF & CUB OMNIBUS TP VOL 08 LUMBERJANES TP VOL 01 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDS FOREVER TP VOL 03 NEW TEEN TITANS TP VOL 02 POP TP WEIRDWORLD TP WARRIORS OF SHADOW REALM WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 05 FLESH (N52) WORLD TRIGGER GN VOL 05

"I'm Starting To Miss My Trolley." COMICS! Sometimes I Purr Like A Kitten!

Alright, let’s try that capsule business again. Took a little bit of the wormwood out this time around and drizzled it with some milk of human kindness. Serves two. Should be plenty of leftovers then. By Scioli and Barber

Anyway, this… NAMELESS #1 Art by Chris Burnham Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Nathan Fairbairn Lettered by Simon Bowland Logo And Design by Rian Hughes Image, $2.99 (2015) Nameless created by Chris Burnham & Grant Morrison

Nameless stands in stark contrast to the two Multiversity comics I so hostilely (unfairly so? No.) assessed yesterday. It does this by practically vibrating with vim, vigour and vitality; sure, this is due largely to the Viagra of Chris Burnside (with Nathan Fairbairn)’s art, but the efforts of Grant Morrison certainly play a part. Fair’s fair and all that, Morrison’s performance here is farcically dark with fractured shards of gross atrocities (courtesy of Burnham), plunging towards your eyes while (courtesy of Morrison) elliptical whispers hissing of yet grosser atrocities to come caress your mind. Although it’s all delivered in a distorted and fragmentary way, a stark sense of claustrophobic threat stabs cleanly through it all; which is no mean feat as the threat turns out to be star borne and earth bound. Yes, space is big and so not terribly claustrophobic but it is also dark and it’s the darkness that wins out here. Morrison’s an old hand at this whole flinging of black glitter in the reader’s face and the practice has paid off with a fine balancing act between unsettling suggestion and the overtly gross. Sure, at root this comic has the same generic skeleton of a bullshity flatterpants plot shared by a multitude of entertainments. It’s the one about how you are secretly special and one day someone will knock on your door and beg you to save the world because only you can, and despite your huge personal sadness which you stoically bear, you will agree because you aren’t just special  - you are awesome too. (If that ever does happen, if someone does ever knock on your door and tells you you’re special my advice is to shut that door and ring the police. Real life and comics are very different beasts, me old plumduffs) But that’s okay, because the familiar “special you!” plot is just the skeleton and it’s how you flesh it out that counts. And here Morrison fleshes it out just fine. No, he isn’t doing anything new here, but he’s doing everything well here. That matters.

By Burnham, Fairbairn, Morrison & Bowland

And rippling under the flesh there’s Chris Burnham’s artistic muscle and Chris Burnham’s artistic muscle is ripped. Go on, touch it, he won’t bite; see, like boulders. So good, Burnham’s stuff here; just so , so good. But dark and nasty too, as befits Nameless’s disposition. It's great reading just on its own visual merits, this art; noticing how Burnham plays with page layouts so that they are paced just so and being giddily inventive and never succumbing to empty showmanship. And then there’s the crazy level of visual interest thanks to his detail crammed panels, all of which is done, and it’s a neat trick this, without clogging the narrative flow. And it’s all just ‘off’ by enough, with its obtrusively, and troublingly, textured look. It’s like everything is coated or speckled with blackened crackling from a burnt Sunday joint. In brilliant contrast Burnham has everything coated in this roasted, pitted shell bouncing about with a cartoony exuberance. Sure, the stuff on these pages is intentionally ugly but the skill swimming beneath is beautiful. Never tripping once over Nameless’ outlandish tone Burnham’s work is simultaneously menacing and amusing. Chris Burnham, you suspect, could turn a bus timetable into an oddly comical frenzy of meat and fear. A talent as mighty as this allied with one of Morrison’s better scripts means Nameless is VERY GOOD!

TRANSFORMERS VS G.I. JOE #5 Art by Tom Scioli Written by Tom Scioli & John Barber Coloured by Tom Scioli Lettered by Tom Scioli IDW, $3.99 (2014)

Man alive, this book; this crazy, hectic, dazzling piece of concentrated genius given paper form! The only thing low-key about this comic is the critical reception. Where’s the tickertape parade? Where are the interviews with the creators? Whither the in-depth, humorously toned, lightly ironic retrospectives on these toys - you know The G.I. Robots, The Transvestite Joes; whatever the Hell they are? Look, I won’t lie to you (there’s nothing in it for me) I don’t care about the toys (the Twinfarter G.I.s, The Rowboat Josephs?) but I care about this comic. When you get old everything’s usually just, truly, basically a fiasco, and increasingly so and then you die; but the upside is that you can read comics for what they do rather than the IP properties they contain. Scioli and Barber love these toys (the little men and lady ones, the big robot ones) enough for all mankind. But better yet they love comics enough to just make each issue a Hell for leather, go-for-broke visual symphony in zesty bombast. Every page is a delight. Stylistically, formally or just in its basic joie de vivre every page of this comic is a delight. Every. Single. Page. There isn’t a page in any one of the issues of this comic so far that has not made me laugh, applaud, or just boggle in stupefied silence.

By Scioli & Barber

But I guess Comic News is so exciting that there’s no room to ballyhoo the most formally inventive (as in invention with the form of comics, rather than deciding to occlude your speech bubbles while sporting a top hat and tux) and volcanically joyous comic since Jack Kirby’s O.M.A.C.. No, it’s far more important that we hear how - Eric Estrada Reveals He Is Willing To Helm Marvel’s Next Blockbuster! Why Marvel’s Secret Wars Is Guaranteed To Tie A knot In Your Urethra! Hear How Scarlett Johannsen Admits She Saw A Comic Once And It Didn’t Make Her Throw Her Lovely Guts Up! How DC’s Convergence Can Feed Three For Under Twenty Dollars! Bob Hoskins Says Even Death Won’t Keep Him From Playing Turner D Century! How Starsky & Hutch by Matt Fraction and Some Artist Or Other Will Make Knitwear Sexy Again! Fifty Things Marvel Need To Do To Get Turner D Century On The Screen! Comic Creator Declares Evil is “Kinda Like Not the Best Thing, Yeah?”! Nuuuh. Nuuuuh. Tear yourself away from all that essential noise and pick up a copy of Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe and discover a reason to love comics on every page. “Nice Try at a pull quote, John, you transparent bastard,” you say,” but what’s it about, John? This “review” is awful, John, you haven’t told us the first thing about this book! This review is more awful, John, than those where you think you are being funny but you just come off as a nasty, nasty, bitter, twisted little man. John. Yes, you, John. It’s as though you’ve written this review to alleviate the soul-numb that comes from being away from home for work, John. In fact, John, we strongly suspect you are without even a copy of the actual bloody comic within sixty miles of you! You are fooling no one, John!” Lies and slurs atop lies, I say. Yet if (if!) I were to spend my few stale hours of respite from selling chicken muzzles holed up in a Travelodge writing about this comic while face first in the mini-bar wouldn’t that speak volumes about the quality of this book? The answer is , yes. Look, I was right about Shaolin Cowboy and I’m right about Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe. It’s EXCELLENT!

Actually, that was a literary conceit back there as I don’t work away from home, but I do love – COMICS!!!

Arriving 3/25/15

This week as absolutely filled to the brim with new comics! So many comics. New AUTUMNLANDS, GOTHAM ACADEMY, WALKING DEAD and MULTIVERSITY. Plus IDW debuts JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS and Black Mask releases the promising WE CAN NEVER GO HOME AGAIN. Check the cut for the rest of the hot comics action for this, the last week of March!

13 COINS #6 (OF 6) ABIGAIL AND THE SNOWMAN #4 ADVENTURE TIME #38 ALL NEW GHOST RIDER #12 ALL NEW X-MEN #37 ALTERED STATES THE SHADOW ONE SHOT AMAZING X-MEN #18 ANGRY BIRDS #9 AQUAMAN #40 ARKHAM MANOR #6 AUTUMNLANDS TOOTH & CLAW #5 BART SIMPSON COMICS #95 BATMAN 66 #21 BATMAN AND ROBIN #40 BATMAN ETERNAL #51 BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN RAILROAD #1 (OF 5) BLACK HOOD #2 BUNKER #10 CAPT VICTORY & GALACTIC RANGERS #6 (OF 6) CATWOMAN #40 CHEW #47 CLIVE BARKERS NIGHTBREED #11 CONAN RED SONJA #3 CONAN THE AVENGER #12 CROSSED BADLANDS #74 CURB STOMP #2 D4VE #2 (OF 5) DAREDEVIL #14 DARK TOWER DRAWING THREE HOUSE CARDS #1 (OF 5) DARTH VADER #3 DAWN OF PLANET OF APES #5 DEADPOOL #44 DEATHLOK #6 DEATHSTROKE #6 DJANGO ZORRO #5 (OF 6) DOCTOR WHO 11TH #10 DREAM POLICE #6 DRIFTER #5 EARTH 2 WORLDS END #25 EDWARD SCISSORHANDS #5 (OF 5) EFFIGY #3 ELEKTRA #11 ELFQUEST FINAL QUEST #8 EMPTY #2 FABLES THE WOLF AMONG US #3 FANTASTIC FOUR #644 FLASH #40 FLASH #40 MOVIE POSTER VAR ED FUSE #11 FUTURE PROOF #4 GOD IS DEAD #31 GONERS #6 GOON ONCE UPON A HARD TIME #2 (OF 4) GOTHAM ACADEMY #6 GOTHAM BY MIDNIGHT #5 GRAYSON #5 GRINDHOUSE DRIVE IN BLEED OUT #3 (OF 8) GUARDIANS 3000 #6 GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #25 BV HE MAN THE ETERNITY WAR #4 HIT 1957 #1 (OF 4) INFINITY MAN AND THE FOREVER PEOPLE #9 INHUMAN #13 INTERSECT #5 INVINCIBLE #118 JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS #1 JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS DARK JUDGES #3 (OF 5) JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #40 KING JUNGLE JIM #2 (OF 4) KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #218 LADY MECHANIKA #5 (OF 5) LEGENDARY STAR LORD #10 BV LIFE AFTER #8 LUMBERJANES #10 MARVEL UNIVERSE ULT SPIDER-MAN WEB WARRIORS #5 MEGA MAN #47 MIAMI VICE REMIX #1 (OF 5) MISTER X RAZED #2 (OF 4) MONO #4 (OF 4) MORNING GLORIES #44 MS MARVEL #10 MULTIVERSITY ULTRA COMICS #1 MUNCHKIN #3 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDS FOREVER #15 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #29 NEW 52 FUTURES END #47 (WEEKLY) NEW AVENGERS #32 TRO NIGHTCRAWLER #12 NOVA #28 BV OCTOBER FACTION #5 PASTAWAYS #1 POWERS #2 QUANTUM & WOODY MUST DIE #3 (OF 4) RED LANTERNS #40 RED SONJA #15 RISE #1 COMICS AGAINST BULLYING RUMBLE #4 SECRET AVENGERS #14 SECRET ORIGINS #11 SEX CRIMINALS #10 (MR) SINESTRO #11 SINESTRO #11 MOVIE POSTER VAR ED SIXTH GUN #47 SKULLKICKERS #31 SKYLANDERS #7 RTN OF DRAGON KING SONIC UNIVERSE #74 STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES GI ZOMBIE #8 SUICIDE RISK #23 SUICIDERS #2 TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #91 THANOS VS HULK #4 (OF 4) THE VALIANT #3 (OF 4) THEYRE NOT LIKE US #4 THIEF OF THIEVES #27 TMNT MUTANIMALS #2 (OF 4) TOMB RAIDER #14 TOWER CHRONICLES DREADSTALKER #8 TRANSFORMERS WINDBLADE COMBINER WARS #1 TWILIGHT ZONE S&S #3 (OF 4) UNCANNY X-MEN #32 V-WARS #11 WALKING DEAD #139 WAYWARD #6 WE CAN NEVER GO HOME #1 (OF 5) WICKED & DIVINE #9 WOLVERINES #12 WYTCHES #5 ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS #3

Books/Mags/Things 2000 AD PACK FEB 2015 ALL NEW X-FACTOR TP VOL 03 AXIS ANTI HERO TP BATMAN 66 MEETS THE GREEN HORNET HC BIG HARD SEX CRIMINALS HC BOUNCER BLACK HEARTS HC CRIMINAL TP VOL 03 THE DEAD AND THE DYING HAWKEYE TP AVENGING ARCHER INHUMAN TP VOL 02 AXIS LETTER 44 TP VOL 02 LOW TP VOL 01 THE DELIRIUM OF HOPE MARCH OF THE CRABS HC VOL 01 MORNING GLORIES TP VOL 08 MU ULT SPIDER-MAN WEB WARRIORS DIGEST TP VOL 01 MURDER BOOK TP NEMO RIVER OF GHOSTS HC PART TIME PRINCESSES GN PREVIEWS #319 APRIL 2015 ROCHE LIMIT TP VOL 01 RUNAWAYS COMPLETE COLLECTION TP VOL 03 SECRET AVENGERS TP VOL 02 LABYRINTH SEX TP VOL 03 BROKEN TOYS SHE-HULK TP VOL 02 DISORDERLY CONDUCT SKYLANDERS CHAMPIONS HC UNCANNY X-MEN PREM HC VOL 05 OMEGA MUTANT WAYWARD TP VOL 01 STRING THEORY WEIRD LOVE YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT HC WOLVERINE ORIGIN II TP

As always, what do YOU think?

"I Was Gone For Only THREE YEARS." COMICS! Sometimes A Bit More Thought Wouldn't Go Amiss!

Okay, here are some words about some (near)recent comics. I guess they are capsules, relatively speaking that is. Although, after this one some of my relatives won't be speaking to me, particularly the Morrison branch.

Anyway, this... AXIS: REVOLUTIONS #4 Art by Gullermo Mogorron & Felix Ruiz, Howard Victor Chaykin Written by John Barber, Howard Victor Chaykin Coloured by Rachelle Rosenberg Lettered by VC's Travis Lanham Marvel,$3.99 (2015) Ice Man created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee Doctor Doom created by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee

You could be forgiven for thinking that this comic has little reason to exist, being as it is one of those inessential spin-off things  barely connected to the latest Godawful Event comic to clog up the rapidly thickening arteries of the Direct Market. And yet, there are many reasons for this comic to exist (beyond Marvel's contractually stipulated page quota with the printing company). Firstly, it allows John Barber to introduce himself to me with a comical study of overweening youthful angst most familiar to those who inhabited the 1980s, as represented by Ice Man (who is a lot pointier than I recall), versus the more incurious, practical and contented youth of the noughties, represented by a young lady who probably has an App to handle all that emotional crap. Secondly, I get to see the art of Guillermo Mogorron & Felix Ruiz; art which reminds me of the work of Phil Hester ovelaid with the signature urgent scribbliness of Bill Sienkiewicz; it doesn't work as such, but it's still fun to look at.

Third, I get to imagine Howard Victor Chaykin's little face as he listened to the premise of the Axis "concept" and also get to wonder where exactly his pragmatism kicked in and he said "sure.", because it never hurts to keep a door open to Marvel, and even Living Comic Book Legends have bills to pay. Fourth, Howard Victor Chaykin gets to demonstrate that no matter what nonsensical shit he's handed he can sculpt it into a passingly convincing simulacrum of a decent story. Despite at no point ever suggesting he was in any danger of spending more than a morning on it, his part of the book is a surprisingly taut and suspenseful look at conflicting loyalties centred around the world's most dangerous (and ghastliest patterned) waistcoat. It's all particularly effective since it is set in Latveria, a country which resembles a never ending beer festival held inside a cuckoo clock.  Necessary or no, this was OKAY!

THE MULTIVERSITY: MASTERMEN #1 Art by Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Mark Irwin, Jonathan Glapion Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Alex Sinclair, Jeromy Cox Lettered by Rob Leigh DC Comics, $4.99 (2015) Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

I recall in 1991 (I know!) being tickled by the televisual sight of the poet Tom Paulin splutteringly declaring Martin Amis' Times Arrow to be "boneheaded!". Time's Arrow, you need not be reminded, is the one where Amis fils runs the Holocaust backwards like that one Dresden bombing chapter in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. "Boneheaded!" or not Time's Arrow does at least have the decency to include an attempt at suggesting the indecency of the Holocaust in its backwards pelt through Nazi Germany. Which is more than Grant Morrison can be bothered to do here.

I started high on the cultural scale there because, for some reason, in comics Grant Morrison is held up as beacon of intellectual dynamism. Having characters in panels directly address the reader is apparently world shakingly profound in its inventiveness, despite being a device used approximatively five minutes into the Golden Age and ever since. Wait! What's this! You can hear my voice in your head! Yet I am not in the room! Is it some form of Shamanic magic! Or is it just how writing has worked ever since its invention millennia ago, and to pretend to be surprised that words on paper become thoughts in your head is the behaviour of a poltroon! Perhaps! Your world is dying! Now read on! Also, a belief in the possibility of fictional super hero universes achieving independent and pulsatingly active existence is a great idea, but only if you are 8 years old. These are all the things I am repeatedly told are fascinating about Grant Morrison's work but none of them are as fascinating to me as the fact that his work's total retreat from the real world has resulted in his apparent inability to write comics about anything other than other comics. Obviously, this is not without entertainment value and to pretend otherwise would be unfair in the extreme. However, to produce a (skeletally illustrated by Jim Lee) comic about a world in which Nazi Germany won in which the Nazis are portrayed as just another bunch of bad guys and the Holocaust is treated like a larger scale version of The Joker poisoning a reservoir is...(words fail me). I wonder what Tom Paulin would make of a comic where The Holocaust was given the same weight as Mr. Mxyzptlk turning all the cars in Metropolis to ice cream. I don't think boneheaded! would be enough, I think he'd go straight for CRAP!

THE MULTIVERSITY GUIDEBOOK #1 Art by Marcus To, Paolo Siqueira, Brett Booth, Norm Rapamund, Gary Frank, Nicola Scott, Trevor Scott, David Finch, Juan Jose Ryp, Cameron Stewart, Marcus To, Joe Prado, Bryan Hitch, Dan Jurgens, Mike Hawthorne, Emanuela Lupacchino, Jake Wyatt, Jae Lee, Prado, Ben Oliver, Kalman Andrasofszky, Andrew Robinson, Giusepe Camuncoli, Richard Friend, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Darwyn Cooke, Yildiray Cinar, Gene Ha, Chris Burnham, Declan Shalvey, Todd Nauck, Jeff Johnson, Evan Shaner, Jed Dougherty, Jon Bogdanove, Kelley Jones, Duncan Rouleau, Andy McDonald, Scott Hepburn, Paolo Siqueira, Rian Hughes Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Dave McCaig, Hi-Fi, Nathan Fairbarn, Pete Pantazis, Sonia Oback, Tomeu Morey, Marcelo Maiolo, Alex Sinclair, June Chung, Jake Wyatt, Gabe Eltaeb, Dave McCaig, Jordie Bellaire Lettered by Todd Klein DC Comics, $7.99 (2015) Superman crated by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

The pages of this book which are actually comics are pretty good. There's a section involving the brutal murder of child-like versions of DC heroes, and one involving 1970 Jack Kirby's DC creations. There are no prizes awarded today for guessing which section I liked most. And I did like the comic booky bits even though, as ever, Grant Morrison soars above the base need to actually provide a proper comic. And so this is just te usual Late (how late it is, eh?) Morrison-ian explosive entrances, gnomic asides, exclamatory burst of bombastic exposition and grand hints at great developments which will not disappoint on their arrival (honest, guv!), and all this in a fashion so disjointed and cursory it must be really, really clever. I don't know if it's all that clever but it isn't unentertaining. Unfortunately most of the (SEVEN! DOLLARS! AND! NINETY! NINE! CENTS!) book is padded out with one paragraph summations of alternate Earths accompanied by a little picture of the main capes domiciled thereupon. Even as someone who actually spent some of his youth reading RPG manuals for fun I found this a bit lacking. If that's all it takes to float your boat here's one for free: On Earth-74 Batman wees from his ears, Superman poos from his nose and Wonder Woman is made of burlap sacks. Get Frank Quitely to waste his time illustrating that and we're off! EH!

Speaking of off, so am I. But there's still - COMICS!!!

Tilting #241 is up!

I am the worst self-promter ever, as I am almost 24 hours behind telling you this!  

http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/tilting-at-windmills-chaos-in-the-multiverse

Always interested in your thoughts...

-B

"SHAL TO'RE AMZI!" COMICS! Sometimes You Find The Newstand Is Still There!

I don’t know if you noticed but I spent much of the first part of this magical year telling you how Marvel©™ chose to present and package their comics in the United Kingdom during the 1970s. Through the somewhat cumbersome time travel device of being old I am now in a position to tell you how Marvel©™ present and package their comics in the United Kingdom in the science fictional sounding year of 2015. Captain America by Romita Jnr, Janson, White, Remender & Caramagna

Anyway, this... MARVEL LEGENDS Vol.2 #1 Captain America:Castaway in Dimension Z Part One & Part Two Art by John Romita Jnr & Klaus Janson Written by Rick Remender Lettered by VC's Joe Caramagna Iron Man: Believe Part One: Demons and Genies Art by Greg Land & Jay Leisten Written by Kieron Gillen Coloured by GURU EFX Lettered by Joe Caramagna Thor: The God Butcher Part One: A World Without Gods Art by Esad Ribic Written by Jason Aaron Coloured by Dean White Lettered by VC's Joe Sabino Captain America created Jack Kirby & Joe Simon Iron Man created by Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Larry Lieber & Stan Lee Thor created by Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber & Stan Lee and the people of Norway Collects material first published in Captain America #1 and #2, Iron Man#1 and Thor, God of Thunder #1 Marvel/Panini UK, £3.50 (2014)

Marvel©™ comics are packaged over here by Panini, who also provide the children of Albion with DC Entertainment©™ comics content in a similar fashion. This fashion being to take material which first ran in the Americas in single issue form and then package (usually) three of these issues between two stiff covers under a thematically unifying title, and publish it monthly all for roughly the cost of one of the original American issues. The only drawback is that the most recent comics printed are around a year old(?). So you can get a chunk of cheap Marvel©™ product but you miss out on the real time bitching about whether Turner D. Century was written in character. For example there’s Essential X-Men which contains three issues of Brian Bendis’ X-Men for £3.50 rather than the near tenner it would have originally gouged you for. Since it’s Brian Bendis that’s still remarkably poor value for money so that didn’t get chosen. Other titles were disqualified from purchase for various reasons including that they were well into their runs, I just had no interest in their contents (the DC ones) or Brian Bendis had leaked out of the cordon sanitaire around his X-Men books onto the pages of another luckless book. In the end, then, I went with Marvel Legends, because it was #1 and everybody involved had made at least some comics I hadn’t despised out of all proportion.

Thor by Ribic, White, Aaron, & Sabino Marvel Legends features Captain America, Iron Man and Thor; a character roster clearly influenced by the success of the Marvel©™ movies, which makes a lot of sense. After all in the land of Good Queen Bess these books are potentially available to a less comics savvy audience than usual. Over here Panini books are not kept in controlled environments designed to mimic their original environs (i.e. specialist comic book stores) but instead are allowed to roam hither and yon across the newsagents of this United Kingdom. Every month I walk down to the newsagents next to the bridge and purchase my copy of Marvel Legends. I enjoy the ritual more than the comic, I suspect. Truly, I believe the measure of a country can be marked by the ease with which comics may be purchased. Sure, also little things like socialised Health Care, the care and protection of the vulnerable in society, not burning people who are a bit different, etc. but mostly it’s the whole being able to buy comics easily thing that matters. And here, despite The Tory beasts, you still can. But they are a bit out of date. This issue of Marvel Legends reprints the first Marvel©™NOW! issues of Captain America (and #2 as a BONUS!), Iron Man and Thor. Of course Marvel©™NOW! was not only a meaningless piece of brand trumpeting but also quite a while ago now (THEN! if you must). Usually I’d just look up what number those series were currently on and divide it by twelve (I know! I'm a human Enigma Machine! I impress myself sometimes.) but thanks to Marvel©™'s fetish for renumbering and double shipping I have no clue how long ago these issues were originally published. Unless I check my review of Thor, God of Thunder #1 from 2012 (see later). There you go then; a bit out of date this stuff but then that’s the story of my life, so who am I to carp. Physically the Panini books are quite appealing. The paper inside is matt and I like that and the covers are card because conditions in newsagents are hard. Flimsy paper covers are okay in the hot house environment of the specialist comic shop with its bags and boards, and respectful avoidance of spine bend and corner crumple. But after ten minutes in a British newsagent these delicate things’d look like they were praying for death. Kids go in newsagents and kids have hands and those hands are laden with germs and disrespect for the physical integrity of comic books. It’s okay I’ll go on about the contents now.

Iron Man by Land, Leisten, Gillen, EFX, & Caramagna

First up in the front of the book is Captain America. Here Panini made the bizarre decision to reprint an issue of Frank Miller & Klaus Janson’s 1980s Captain America from an alternate dimension where that actually happened but, crucially, it was also a dimension where Frank Miller couldn’t write very well. I am having a little joke there with you. Surprisingly, since I am forever being told about how sophisticated comics are these days in comparison to their aged forbears; Rick Remender has chosen to spend the two issues of Captain America (re)presented herein doing a really quite poor impression of Frank Miller comics from the 1980s. I’m not just saying that because I am old and can’t be arsed updating my frames of reference anymore (although that is true), no, I’m saying it because it is ridiculously obvious. What’s also ridiculous is how badly Rick Remender misses the mark. Everybody thinks 1980s Frank Miller comics are easy to write even though no one has ever managed it except 1980s Frank Miller. Even 1990s Frank Miller wobbled a bit and 2000s Frank Miller clearly has health issues so, hey, ease off the guy.

Captain America by Romita Jnr, Janson, White, Remender & Caramagna

I mean, you’d think the concept of the 1980s Frank Miller Internal Monologue would be simple enough to grasp but Remender demonstrates repeatedly that even that’s beyond him. Blunt simplicity is key with a 1980s Frank Miller Internal Dialogue and Remender constantly fumbles this with poor word choices and a lack of clarity. Basically, if I have to pause to puzzle out the meaning of your 1980s Frank Miller Internal Dialogue then, my friend, your 1980s Frank Miller Internal Dialogue has failed. Which it often does here. It isn’t the only failure; there’s a , ahem, comedy villain at the start (he’s a tree hugger but he’s violent, LOL!) whose dialogue is supposed to be amusing in an explicitly overblown and (Nudge! Nudge!) comic booky way, but while you know what effect Remender’s after you also know that it’s an effect he’s missed. That is, he’s going for that ‘70s/’80s Kirby bombast and, again, everybody thinks that’s easy but no one else’s ever managed it.

Captain America by Romita Jnr, Janson, White, Remender & Caramagna

Remender further attempts to cuddle up to Kirby by having flashbacks set in the ‘20s and Romita Jnr/Janson’s art (I think, but I’m not psychic so maybe not) wilfully evokes Kirby’s Street Code Strip from the Streetwise anthology. It’s in these flashbacks that Remender attempts to beefs up his antic larks in the main narrative. It doesn’t work. I’m not going to get upset that Captain America’s dad is a wife beater and a (it’s implied so lightly I may be mistaken) suicide but I will point out it’s poorly done. Remender brings the same level of nuance and sensitivity to the scenes of domestic abuse (and, later, child bullying) that he brings to a B52 hurtling out of the sky; that is to say, none. The art here doesn’t help as Cap’s dad smack’s Cap’s Mom right in the kisser and Romita Jnr/Janson retain every ounce of thuggery in their line. The same force is brought to a man smacking a woman as would be used with the Hulk smashing a tree. Sure, it communicates the ugly brutality of the act but undermines it at the same time with the air of unreality. None of this is to diminish the seriousness of addressing these issues. In the ‘Gents’ at my workplace (I can’t speak as to the ‘Ladies’ as we aren’t that swinging in Britain) there’s a poster about domestic abuse. Apparently people need to be told that “No matter how badly a woman has behaved she does not deserve to be beaten.” Is that news to you? If it is, drop me a line as I’m interested in what the fuck you think you’re playing at. Or I can at least send you a poster. Lightening the mood of micturatory visits there is also a colour chart against which you can check your urine to make sure you aren’t dehydrated. Admittedly this isn’t really where I saw myself ending up; surrounded by dehydrated wife beaters but there you go. Little glimpse into my life there for you; every day an adventure! Anyway, as ever with genre comics they get the cheap heat for bringing a touchy subject up but nil points for developing or addressing it.

Captain America by Romita Jnr, Janson, White, Remender & Caramagna

Ultimately the Cap stuff is carried by the strength of the art. Because, let me tell you, I am all over a John Romita Jnr/Klaus Janson joint. I see a lot of mithering over this duo’s stylings on-line but I don’t get it (the mithering). These guys are rock solid. John Romita Jnr brings bulk and solidity to anchor every ridiculous visual conceit while Janson’s frenetic scribbliness lightens it all enough to bring some fizz and pop to combat the threatened visual inertia. It doesn't hurt that the pair have chosen to channel DKSA Frank Miller, a choice I can only applaud. As a result John Romita Jnr and Klaus Janson’s images have a power so great they can only be measured in “Kirbys”. Sure the kids look like bobble heads and the minimalism can slip into incoherence but that’s part of the style. And their style is so brash and unapologetic it just tucks me under its arm as it rushes past without pausing for breath. Romita Jnr and Klaus Janson’s art is The Stuff and that would be enough, but here they also have Dean White’s colours. Dean White’s colours are glorious. And that Dean White’s got some chutzpah, I tell you. His colours are actually laid over the art, as thickly glutinous as oil paints, at times obscuring the lines beneath as though he thinks the final image should read as a synthesis of pencils, ink and, the hell you say, colour. The enormous coconuts of the man to think he shouldn’t just colour inbetween the lines and keep his head down whenever the writer enters the room. This dude thinks he’s an essential part of the team. Sonofabitch isn’t wrong either. Damn. Reading this comic is OKAY! but looking at it is VERY GOOD!

Captain America by Romita Jnr, Janson, White, Remender & Caramagna

Next up is Iron Man. This is written by Kieron Gillen who is a very talented writer, I believe. I liked that Journey into Mystery stuff he did, but otherwise I’m not overly familiar with his work. This is because I’m not in my ‘20s and don’t give a shit if anyone shares my musical taste. I didn’t think this was a very good comic mainly because it strains too hard to achieve aims I wasn’t in sympathy with. The story opens with two visually dull pages of Iron Man flying high in the sky while babbling in his head about how he’s so smart he can see everything but himself (#SADINSIDE). I guess this is so that when he acts like an overbearing prick for the rest of the book we can remember he is #SADINSIDE and maybe not find him quite so hateful. (I did remember, but I still hated him.) Then, to allay any fears about anything happening too quickly, we have more pages than any reasonable human needs devoted to Tony trying to get his tinkler milked by a lady in a bar. (The lady is in the bar, she isn’t going to actually milk his tinkler in the bar; I don’t know what bars you frequent, cochise) Big prizes are awarded here for getting Tony’s alcoholism mentioned early; as ever it has sweet fuck all to do with anything that happens in the comic but, y’know, #SADINSIDE. I hated this scene because it is so scared of offending anyone that it practically offers up its belly like a craven hound, so determined is it that we know no one was being taken advantage of. Ugh. And just to rub the pointlessness of it all in my daft face Tony doesn’t even have chance to get Lil Tony out before he’s Iron Manning about. Now, not only is Tony #SADINSIDE but he’s also #BLUEBALLS, and even I’m starting to feel sorry for him. But not for long because he’s up against Extremis.

Iron Man by Land, Leisten, Gillen, EFX, & Caramagna

Let's not dance around; Extremis is rubbish. It’s one of those Warren Ellis things where he magnanimously showed up for six issues to redefine a character for other, lesser hands. As ever, being Warren Ellis, he dispensed with silly things like characterisation or entertainment and just really slowly placed some concepts in front of the reader and then quickly stepped backwards out of the room making Ta-Daa! hands. Sure, Adi Granov’s art was nice if more than a little inert, but, c'mon, I do recall there being more than one thrilling page of people in a room looking at a phone while someone spoke out of it. Extremis, my arse. And here it is again in the hands of AIM (Extremis that is, not my arse; no strange hands on my arse, thanks. I don't frequent those clubs; we've covered that.) There’s an auction, Tony turns up, Tony kicks ass and decides to go track down the other bits of Extremis which are still out there. Personally, all these bits (the bits where things happened) could have done with stealing some of the real estate wasted on Tony’s floating regret and his futile attempt to get his end away. But then I’m old, so it’s probably that isn’t it? I didn’t like this issue of Iron Man but that’s fine. I don’t think I like Tony Stark who apparently just talks about how smart he is without ever demonstrating it and is a real asshole. Frankly, I’m not sure where Tony's appeal lies and in the pages here Kieron Gillen is unable to show me. The obvious intention of it all is that it resemble the movie(s) in feel and tone; it succeeds a bit, but succeeds more in revealing how bad those movies would be without Robert Downey Jnr.

Iron Man by Land, Leisten, Gillen, EFX, & Caramagna

Maybe with better art Gillen’ movie-centric remit would have worked better but here he’s saddled with Greg Land. So, you know how that goes - all the woman look like soulless teeth demons, visual inconsistency gives everyone and everything a woozy feel, the men are vapidity incarnate and it’s just really impressive how consistently sterile and bland it all is. Greg Land is like the rice cakes of comic art. Rice cakes with pictures from porno wrestling lightboxed on them. Sorry, but this comic is like the Iron Man movie had been made by the cast and crew of one of those End of Life Care infomercials broadcast when everyone normal is asleep. EH!

Thor rounds out the issue. Since these are reprints I thought I'd reprint my review of this very issue from way back on December 8th 2012. Don't think of it so much as my having misjudged my time tonight, rather think of it as some excruciatingly hilarious piece of meta-wit. And so from way back, before Jason Aaron had worn out my Christ-like patience with his recent weirdly insecure creator owned macho nonsense, we have...

"It’s not a bad idea to relocate Thor as a serial killer thriller narrative. It’s certainly better than the previous writer’s decision to give priority to trying on trendy hats and alphabetising his coloured vinyl 7″ single collection while letting his artists to do all the work. It’s fine, no problems really. Aaron even seeds possible future stories with the introduction of a new pantheon of Gods here represented by The God Butcher. Consequently later stories will no doubt focus on such dastardly deities as The God Baker and The God Candlestick Maker. The whole thing is a kind of watered down Heavy Metal strip the success is which is due mostly to Ribic and White’s work which lends the whole derivative but enjoyable thing a grandeur and scale it probably doesn’t really merit...GOOD!"

Thor by Ribic, White, Aaron, & Sabino

For £3.50 Marvel Legends is not a bad package, in fact it's GOOD!

It's certainly - COMICS!!!

CEO: Welcome to Wednesday 3/18/2015

I won't be linking to this each and every week (go ahead and subscribe on the page there!), but, since I lost last week's due to User Error (mine!), I figured I would remind you this is a weekly thing.  Should be considerably more smooth this week....  

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7budZ3KuxHA[/embed]

Praise or brickbats, all is welcome!

-B

Arriving 3/18/15

Slower week leading to the end of the month, but still lots of solid comic bookery to be had. Two different BATGIRL comics, both written by Cameron Stewart and Brendan Flecher, #40 with the always spectacular Babs Tarr on art and the ENDGAME special featuring guest art from the legendary Bengal. Also Mark Millar and Sean Murphey launch CHRONONAUTS and the new DEADLY CLASS collection is released this week.  

Check the cut for the rest of the new comics for this week!

ALEX + ADA #13 ALL NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 ALL NEW X-MEN #39 BV ALTERED STATES DOC SAVAGE ONE SHOT AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #16.1 BATGIRL #40 BATGIRL ENDGAME #1 BATMAN ETERNAL #50 BATMAN SUPERMAN #20 BATWOMAN #40 BLACK WIDOW #16 BPRD HELL ON EARTH #129 BTVS SEASON 10 #13 BUCKY BARNES WINTER SOLDIER #6 BURNING FIELDS #3 CAPTAIN AMERICA AND MIGHTY AVENGERS #6 CHRONONAUTS #1 COWL #9 CYCLOPS #11 DARK HORSE PRESENTS 2014 #8 DIVINITY #2 (OF 4) DOCTOR WHO 12TH #6 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS LEGENDS OF BALDURS GATE #5 EARTH 2 WORLDS END #24 EI8HT #2 (OF 5) ETERNAL #3 FLY OUTBREAK #1 (OF 5) FRANKENSTEIN UNDERGROUND #1 (OF 5) GIANT DAYS #1 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #40 GRIEVOUS JOURNEY OF ICHABOD AZRAEL #1 (OF 6) GROO FRIENDS AND FOES #3 GUARDIANS TEAM-UP #3 BV HULK #13 INVISIBLE REPUBLIC #1 IVAR TIMEWALKER #3 JUDGE DREDD #28 KITCHEN #5 (OF 8) LEGENDERRY RED SONJA #2 (OF 5) LITTLE NEMO RETURN TO SLUMBERLAND #4 LOKI AGENT OF ASGARD #12 LUMBERJANES #12 MAGNETO #16 MANHATTAN PROJECTS SUN BEYOND THE STARS #1 MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS ASSEMBLE SEASON TWO #5 MARVEL UNIVERSE GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #2 (OF 4) MILLENNIUM #2 (OF 5) MIND MGMT #31 MOON KNIGHT #13 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #28 NEW 52 FUTURES END #46 (WEEKLY) ORPHAN BLACK #2 ORPHAN BLACK #2 10 COPY INCV OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #7 PEANUTS VOL 2 #26 PLUNDER #2 POLITICALLY INQUEERECT OLD GHOSTS ONE SHOT POWERPUFF GIRLS SUPER SMASH-UP #3 (OF 6) PRINCESS LEIA #2 (OF 5) PRINCESS UGG #8 PUNISHER #16 PUNKS THE COMIC #5 RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #40 RED ONE #1 RED SONJA VULTURES CIRCLE #3 REGULAR SHOW #21 REYN #3 ROCKET SALVAGE #4 SATELLITE SAM #12 SECRET IDENTITIES #2 SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN #8 SILK #2 SIMPSONS COMICS #219 SONS OF ANARCHY #19 (MR) SPARKS NEVADA MARSHAL ON MARS #2 (OF 4) SPREAD #6 (MR) STAR TREK NEW VISIONS A SCENT OF GHOSTS STAR TREK PLANET OF THE APES #4 (OF 5) STORM #9 STRANGE SPORTS STORIES #1 (OF 4) STRAY BULLETS SUNSHINE & ROSES #2 SUPERGIRL #40 SUPERMAN #39 TEEN TITANS #8 TMNT ONGOING #44 TRANSFORMERS #39 COMBINER WARS OPENING SALVO TRINITY OF SIN #6 TUKI SAVE THE HUMANS #3 UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #3 WITCHBLADE #181 WOLVERINES #11 X-FILES SEASON 10 #21 ZERO #15

Books/Mags/Things ALL NEW X-MEN PREM HC VOL 06 ULTIMATE ADVENTURE BALTIMORE HC VOL 05 APOSTLE & WITCH OF HARJU BOBS BURGERS TP VOL 01 BPRD HELL ON EARTH TP VOL 10 DEVILS WINGS CHRONICLES OF CONAN TP VOL 29 SHAPE IN THE SHADOW CHRONICLES OF KING CONAN TP VOL 10 WARLORD OF KOTH COURAGEOUS PRINCESS HC VOL 01 BEYOND HUNDRED KINGDOMS COURTNEY CRUMRIN SPEC ED HC VOL 07 DEADLY CLASS TP VOL 02 KIDS OF THE BLACK HOLE DEADPOOLS ART OF WAR TP DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES TP VOL 01 DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT JACK KIRBY MISTER MIRACLE ARTIST ED HC KOKORO CONNECT GN VOL 03 LAZARUS TP VOL 03 CONCLAVE MASTER KEATON GN VOL 02 MS MARVEL TP VOL 02 GENERATION WHY NIXONS PALS HC OCEAN ORBITER DELUXE ED HC OINK HEAVENS BUTCHER TP PROPHET TP VOL 04 JOINING REVENGE TP ROCKETEER THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES TP SEXCASTLE OGN SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN HC VOL 02 WAR AND PEACE (N52) SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 01 POWER COUPLE (N52) TEX THE LONESOME RIDER HC UNITED STATES OF MURDER INC PREM HC VOL 01 TRUTH USAGI YOJIMBO SAGA TP VOL 02

As always, what do YOU think?