“But what if I haven’t read ‘Mullet Force’ 1-5?” is your hacky joke of the day.

§ January 6th, 2005 § Filed under this week's comics Comments Off on “But what if I haven’t read ‘Mullet Force’ 1-5?” is your hacky joke of the day.

It was new comics day…







…and this was The Book of The Week, my friends. Not perfect, the weirdness was a little forced in places, but I’m willing to overlook its flaws just for having this old friend back on the stands.

Bob Burden also plugs another couple of his projects in the back pages…Mullet Force 6 and Dynamite Girl, to which I say…um…hey, Flaming Carrot’s back!

Other books out this week:

Superman: Strength #1 – the first part of Scott McCloud‘s prestige format series has come out, and it’s a lot of fun…the art by Aluir Amancio and Terry Austin took a while for me to get used to, but it did grow on me as I read though this issue. The art is over breakdowns by McCloud, and if you look at the first panel on page 5 (the “My God he’s fast!” panel), that’s pure McCloud layout if ever I’ve seen it. The story itself has Supes facing a group of villains in Metropolis, as Pa Kent is relating a story of Clark’s youth to Lois, and I’ll say that the flashback story is the more interesting of the two, so far.

Peter David‘s long-awaited return to the Incredible Hulk has arrived, and after years of either “Hulk smash,” various writers trying to emulate David’s approach to the character, and Bruce Jones’ non-Hulk Hulk run, here’s hoping David will bring back some freshness to the character. He manages to give the Hulk a new ability, as well as flashing back to Bruce Banner’s high school days (a period I don’t think has been covered much in prior Hulks). It’s all set-up, but it’s interesting set-up, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

In case you all thought you were finished with Identity Crisis, Flash #217 continues the crossing-over action, as the Rogues Gallery hold a funeral for their fallen comrade. Whatever you though of IC, at least Geoff Johns seems to be following through on that series’ implications very nicely.

Swamp Thing #11 – you know, every single issue of this comic could just be Swamp Thing fighting Arcane while zombies wander around Houma, like this issue is, and I’d be perfectly happy.

Other new releases:

DC Horizon is a freebie item that your local funnybook purveyor should have available, and this new edition is all about Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory project. You know, if anyone else claimed that they’d be doing a 30-something issue series (in the form of multiple mini-series) featuring secondary DC characters, I’d wonder what they were smoking. But Grant Morrison? I know he loves this stuff, and after reading the preview, it’s going to be brilliant. (But I’m still wondering what he’s smoking.)

Girl Genius Vol. 3 hardcover – I already have this material, but this is a high-quality package. It has puffy hard covers! Pick it up and squeeze it…it’s downright huggable!

There are far too many Elektra books out this week. It’s almost as if Marvel expects the movie to do well.

The Constantine movie adaptation is here…the art, by Ron Randall, is actually pretty good. I don’t know about the story…I flipped through it, and if it’s any reflection of the actual film, apparently we’re going to be told over and over and over and over and over and over again that Constantine is “damned.” “Hey, is that John Constantine?” “Yeah, he’s damned.” “Hi John, howya doin’?” “Oh, I’m damned. You?” Also, I really hope Garth Ennis is getting some money from this film.

The Constantine movie trade paperback is out as well, reprinting the adaptation as well as some select stories from the Hellblazer run. I swear to you, the Garth Ennis story is part one of his first storyline on the title, and it ends with a caption that says “read the rest of this story in the Dangerous Habits trade paperback!” Those bastards!

The Doctor Solar Man of the Atom hardcover from Dark Horse appears to be shot from the original printed pages of the Gold Key series, but it actually looks nice, I think. If only that Battle of the Planets Gold Key reprint book could have done the same, instead of featuring low quality black and white scans; maybe we could have sold a couple copies, back when anyone cared.

Your “too late for Christmas” Christmas covers for the week: PVP #13 and Strangers in Paradise #70. Eh, maybe they’re just early for this coming Christmas. Same with our much-delayed free Cerebus autographed Christmas cards. Sigh.

Youngblood Imperial #1 prominently features Alan Moore’s creation Doc Rocket on the cover, notable for being one of the few female superheroes to be referred to as “Doc” or “Doctor,” as far as I can recall. (Here’s another.) I liked the character during Moore’s all too brief run on Youngblood, but, um, I’ll pass this time.

Belly Button #2 – I only took a brief look through it, but it doesn’t look like the name “CRUMB” appears anywhere on it. I mean, I understand and all, that Sophie doesn’t want to look like she’s riding on Pop’s coattails…but wouldn’t most people interested in this book already know she’s R.’s daughter? Losing the last name would seem a little disingenuous…unless it’s an intentional meta-joke of some kind. (Of course, if her full name is in the book and I missed it…well, never mind.)

I’m sorry I don’t talk enough about the manga that comes in, since, while I am familiar enough with it to note what’s selling and what isn’t, I really am not enough of an aficionado to really go into details on individual books. Hey, but we do carry a lot of them…still friends? I will note that $24.95 for the new digest-sized Ghost in The Shell book seems a little excessive. I’m sure it’s necessitated by production costs and licensing fees and whatever, but that price point guarantees that it’ll be going into the hands of hardcore manga fans and not to casual readers who may have seen the movie on cable.

Oh, and did I mention that Proof of Concept is out? Proof of Concept is out. Here’s my review, and here’s Pal Dorian’s.

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