Follow-ups, mess-ups, and, um, comic-ups.
Two follow-ups from previous posts:
If you want to see actual photos of the Marvel mood rings shown in the advertisement I posted yesterday, hie thee hither to This Is Pop and drink in the beauty.
And the episode of Bones I talked about a week ago aired last night…didn’t see it, alas, but House of L did. Anyone else catch it?
New comics day…and guess whose store was shorted all their copies of Star Wars Empire, Ghost Rider, Teen Titans, Jeremiah Harm, JSA, Blade of the Immortal, Casefiles Sam and Twitch, and Invincible? Why, that would be our store! Yay! Fortunately, Diamond is sending out replacement copies for all these (well, except Jeremiah Harm, which went to back order) in an emergency shipment that hopefully will be at the store today, but more likely will be here on Friday.
Grrr…that really cheeses my crackers, I’ll tell you what.
Anyway, let’s talk about the new books that did arrive, and maybe quell my raging anger:
Hey, if you’re at your local comicks shoppe and you see someone buying all nineteen X-Men titles that came out this week, pull ’em aside and tell him or her (ha, just kidding, it’ll be a “him”) to put a couple back and buy something good for once. And that “something good?” Why, that would be Tales Designed to Thrizzle #2, of course. Take a gander at the cover here. Now I’ve been trying to come up with some kind of pithy description of the book to entice you into buying it (“an extended-narrative Far Side,” “retro-weirdo comics…from the future“) but as you can tell from my examples, I suck at it. It’s just plain weird, imaginative, and puzzling fun. And you’re not going to experience a phrase like “we’ve had to move out of our house because of Baby Poop ‘n’ Tell” in that new issue of X-Men Unlimited, I bet.
Little Lulu Vol. 8: Late for School – I can’t believe we’re already up to eight volumes in this series. And, no, I haven’t read it yet, but the past seven have been nothing short of excellent, and I have no reason to believe this new volume won’t measure up. This is 250 pages of classic cartooning for a bargain price, and if you don’t like Little Lulu, you can’t be my friend. So there.
Fables #46 – Now, I loves me the Fables…myths, fairy tales, folklore, that’s all stuff I’ve had a lifelong interest in, and having a comic book based around these subjects is right up my alley. Fables is one of those comics I look forward to the most each month. Aaaaand if you’re waiting for a “but” to pop up in this paragraph, here it is: but, I really really really hate it when they use the “cursive” or “handwriting” font in the captions. Now I know Fables isn’t the only book to use this font…I think it just annoys me more when Fables does it because I like the book so much, but I don’t want to try to read that horrible typeface. Feh. (Yeah, I know, “boo hoo, Mike’s aging eyes can’t read a comic book caption.”)
Spike: Old Wounds – Um, yeah, I like the Spike character and all, and his appearances in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel shows are usually the best parts of those series…but this comic isn’t really all that great. The art is by the same artist that worked on the previous Spike: Old Times one-shot (which I spoke about way back when), and, like I said then, the panels seem sparse and empty, and anything that isn’t a photo reference (actors’ faces, or backgrounds, or cars) looks amateurish. In fact, in some of the panels it almost looks like photostats of the actors’ faces are just pasted onto the artwork, and the disparity between the detail on the face and the lack of detail everywhere else is distracting. I mean, it’s not all bad…the story, involving Spike’s possible involvement in the murder of the Black Dahlia back in the ’40s, gives us a nice look at Spike’s past, and the artist does have moments when he can manage to make the photo references of the actors look natural, which is admittedly tricky. And the cover is nice. Overall, though…probably best for hardcore Buffyverse fans, though I don’t know who else would be buying it anyway.
Jeremiah Harm #1 – I realize I said we didn’t get ’em yet, but it just so happens I have a review copy here…the art by Rael Lyra is very detailed and nicely done (see it here), and, along with writers Alan Grant and Keith Giffen, does a good job in presenting an alien society that feels weird and “alien-y,” while still keeping grounded enough for we humans to relate to the situation. And that situation, in a nutshell…a group of bad aliens bust out of space prison, the the only way to get ’em back is to set free an even badder prisoner…the titular Jeremiah Harm, bounty hunter…from Earth. To be honest, aside from the excellent art, the story didn’t grab me at first, and I began to see Harm as a “Lobo-lite” — only natural, given Giffen and Grant’s involvement — but once I read Harm’s dark-humored exchange with an informant at the end of the book (which, I guess, is sorta Lobo-like anyway), and given the interesting conflict Harm finds himself with regarding where the escapees end up, I find myself looking forward to the next installment.
Incredible Hulk #92 – Holy frijole, this “Planet Hulk” storyline is going to take a year? (And is anyone else reminded slightly of the “let’s dump the Hulk at the interdimensional crossroads where he can’t hurt anybody” storyline from about twenty years ago?) An interesting bit of business that I didn’t realize…a forthcoming Giant-Size Hulk comic, while tying into the “Planet Hulk” stuff with a new story, will also contain a full reprint of the sold-out and still in demand Peter David/Dale Keown Hulk: The End. Wow, it’s about damned time.
Showcase Presents House of Mystery TPB – Several hundred pages of horror comics by Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Aragones, Neal Adams…if you like comic book art at all, you need to have this book. And the first person to complain “b-b-but it’s in black and white” is going to get such a pinch.
Supergirl #4 – I’m still not buying this title after being burned by the extremely poor first issue, though a quick glance through this new issue seems to show some improvement. However, I am enjoying these Silver Age tribute covers (you can see the Supergirl one here, though the final printed version has Supergirl in all black with silver highlights). If only the inside of the book were more like that.
Conan Limited Variant Cover #24 – This is the one where the lady that was wearing the bikini top on the regular cover is now, gasp, topless. Oh, look, nipples. How shocking…will the Union stand?
