Avast, ye new funny books!
Here’s a brief round-up of some of last Wednesday’s new comic arrivals, some of which I bought, some of which I only looked at long enough to mock (SPOILER WARNING, as usual):
Cholly and Flytrap #1 – this Image mini-series is a reprint of the Arthur Suydam Marvel/Epic series from several years ago…disappointing, as I was hoping for some new Cholly and Flytrap material. To be honest, though, the characters work better in the insanely chaotic shorts that ran in Epic Illustrated rather than in an extended narrative. This story isn’t bad, but try to find the Epic graphic novel The Original Adventures of Cholly and Flytrap from 1991, which reprints all the short stories, for the best stuff.
Simpsons Comics #100 – mostly reprints, with some new framing sequences, but just about worth the cover price for two page spread by Sergio Aragones, featuring darn near every Simpsons character in his own inimitable style. Thank God the decision was made to run it in black and white, since 1) that’s one less colorist driven insane by the task of coloring Aragones’ work, and 2) it makes it look more like it was ripped right out of a Mad Magazine, which I’m sure was the intention.
Too Much Coffee Man Magazine #21 has an interview with Mystery Science Theatre 3000 alumnus Kevin Murphy, if you’re interested, and since MST3K was the Greatest TV Show Ever, surely you must be interested.
Frank Ironwine #1 – what’s this? A new Warren Ellis comic starring a tough-talking bastard who’s constantly showing up the idiots and no-nothing authority figures with his quick wit, and takes no crap from anyone? The devil, you say! …Oh, don’t look at me like that. Ellis excels at this sort of thing, so, yeah, while this protagonist of his may be a bit on the familiar side, Ellis does it so well, you really don’t care.
Adam Strange #3 – this is a fine darn series, completely unpretentious and beautifully illustrated, focused only on telling a rollicking space adventure. It reminds me a bit of the old Flash Gordon serials, complete with cliffhangers. Very highly recommended.
Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales #12 is apparently the last issue of this anthology series, which is a shame. The opening story, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Peter Bagge, is a shameless parody of Tom Strong…nasty, brutal, and wholly entertaining, and even contains an amusing call-back to Moore and Bagge’s previous collaboration in Hate #30. It’s too bad Art Adams couldn’t provide the art chores on this issue’s installment of “Jonni Future” (though he still did the cover), but Chris Weston did a great job filling in.
Green Lantern Rebirth #2 – late 1980s, ahoy, as the process of rolling everything back a decade and a half continues. It very much looks like Hal Jordan’s murderous rampage is going to be explained as “well, it wasn’t really Hal,” or, at the very least, “it wasn’t Hal’s fault he went insane” – which is probably the only way to bring the character back as the untarnished hero everyone apparently wants. That said, I am enjoying this series, partially for the art, partially because I happen to enjoy Green Lantern comics, but mostly because I’m enjoying the sheer blatantcy of resetting the status quo.
Flash #216 ties into Identity Crisis…apparently we’re being set up for the eventual un-reforming for some former Flash villains as a result of this issue. I’ve always enjoyed the Rogues Gallery, but I fear that making the reformation of some of the rogues be a result of some kind of mental tampering undermines the individuality and uniqueness of this particular group of ne’er-do-wells.
And this isn’t a new release, by any means, but I did receive a reorder of Watchmen this week. I reorder copies of this book for the store at least every couple of weeks. This graphic novel is, what, 16 years old now? Absolutely amazing.
Also, I picked up another single HeroClix figure on Wednesday…this time, it was Man-Thing in a nicely-done sculpt. Painted all green and black, with the exception of two red eyes, it’s actually quite imposing.
That’s it for now…I actually have a few more things to say about The Best of Legion Outpost, but I’m off to the comic shoppe for what could very well be an insanely busy day of work. Normally, our Friday-after-Thanksgiving business isn’t extremely overwhelming, since everyone’s at the malls, saving their shopping for the small businesses for a little later in the season. But, our store was packed with shoppers all day Wednesday, so we’ll see how today goes.
