Batman, BWS, Comic Books, and You.
One of my favorite parts of the ’60s Batman was when the Dynamic Duo enlisted poor Alfred to take a more active part in their crime-fighting. Please note that Alfred is wearing his glasses over his mask. Combined with the hat and tie, that’s one natty crime fighter…kinda like an older version of this fella.
Comic Book Galaxy has an exclusive preview of Barry Windsor-Smith’s long-awaited Thing graphic novel. The preview is a multi-page extravaganza, with art a’plenty (including some heretofore unseen pieces) and several appreciations of BWS and Ben Grimm by such writers as Steve Bissette, Jog, and somehow I managed to sneak one of my own in too. Go, check it out, demand its release.
New comics day:
Astonishing X-Men Saga – Oh, look, it’s Marvel Saga, with pasted-up excerpted panels and text summaries. Who is this aimed at, exactly? Most X-fans will already have it, and those who don’t would probably just buy the trade paperbacks. For completists, and X-fans who don’t look closely at what they’re buying, only.
So the new issue of Witchblade (#93) has a great quote on the cover: “Yes, this is an ‘A+’ comic. It has it all and then some.” It has it all…everything you could ever possibly need, it’s in each and every issue of Witchblade. I guess I should have bought it, then.
When pal Dorian dropped by the store to pick up his weekly funnybooks, he started poking through the new Teen Titans (#31), and wanted to talk to me about a certain plot point in the story. I said sure, go ahead, which is unusual since I prefer to avoid any spoilers until I go home that evening and read the comic myself. However, when Dor starting laughing at something in the Captain Carrot pages in that same comic, I refused to ask what he was laughing at. I took the spoiler on the main story, avoided the spoiler on the Captain Carrot story…kinda tells me something about how I’m feeling about this comic, I think.
Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli, from Fantagraphics, features a ghostly rabbit floating through an apartment building, observing and commenting on the lives of the people who live there. It’s moody, and spooky, and it’s the beginning of an ongoing series, apparently, though it works as a stand-alone graphic novel as well. It’s an impressive physical object as well…it’s a staplebound magazine, printed on very heavy stock (with a dustjacket!) for $7.95, easily half the price of what it would have been had it been released as a squarebound book, I think. That low price point will make me more likely to follow the series, which is good as this opening has me intrigued.
Looney Tunes #134: Naked Tweety…I may never recover.
