New comic day!
Due to the vagaries of shipping company holidays, the High Holy New Comics Wednesday is Friday this week…not much came out, but we still got some fun stuff, like another non-Moore Tom Strong and the new Smax.
The choice item this week, though, was the absolutely gorgeous Young Gods & Friends hardcover by Barry Windsor-Smith, published by Fantagraphics. In addition to seeing material that never made it into the sadly-aborted Storyteller series, we get plenty of behind-the-scenes notes from Windsor-Smith himself about the collapse of the project with the original publisher. It’s very depressing and telling stuff about the comics market. The comics themselves are fluff…that’s not a criticism, as it’s very entertaining and funny fluff that takes itself about as seriously as it deserves, and the fact that it’s beautifully illustrated doesn’t hurt. It’s Kirby’s New Gods with a little more self-awareness and a lot more irreverence.