12/04/2006

Who'd have guessed that the weeks before the holidays would involve stress?

*Caught me unawares.

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Batman/The Spirit #1, Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage #1 (of 2)

Zombies Vs. Robots #1 (of 2)

Action Comics #845

I really hope all this crap going on is solved by tomorrow...

*But, no sense in dwelling.

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

New Tales of Old Palomar #1 (of 3): Ah, the Ignatz format. Why should pamphlets get scared, when they can get bigger? What lovely objects these 8 ½” x 11” books are - if you peek under the dustcovers, you’ll notice that each participant has drawn their own unique Ignatz logo, just like they used to do with Dark Horse’s Maverick line (not the Legends line, which is totally not what this post read for 14 hours while I was at work; also, there were no spelling errors in the title). This is Gilbert Hernandez’s contribution, a trio of new tales set in old Palomar, just like it says on the front. I bought this at SPX, and liked it a good deal; the story concerns the extremely fast Pipo, and the discovery of a pair of equally speedy young children who’ve been stealing food from around town. You don’t need to have read any of Hernandez’s prior (and extensive!) Palomar works to enjoy this; it’s actually a pretty decent sampler with which to judge your taste for that big ol’ hardcover. Recommended. An Ignatz never shows up alone to a party, so this week also sees issue #1 of the new Richards Sala series, Delphine, plus there’s issue #2 of Gabriella Giandelli’s Interiorae.

Winsor McCay: Editorial Works Vol. 1: Checker’s miscellaneous McCay series, Windor McCay Early Works, has gotten more and more editorial-heavy as time has passed, which is probably inevitable with McCay, since a huge portion of his career was spent on cartoon accompaniment to essays and such. That's about all it was by the end (never mind the 'Early Works' label). This new book is an all-editorial special, focusing on the years 1913-1917, presented in the same hardcover landscape format as Checker’s Flash Gordon reprints, which will no doubt serve the material a lot better than typical trade paperback dimensions. I’m not sure if it’s reprinting material already seen in the other McCay series or presenting new material, so give it a flip first. It’s 114 pages, 9” x 12”, $19.95.

Sachs and Violens: I’ll cop to not remembering a single blessed thing about this book, a 1993-94 miniseries from Epic, written by Peter David with art by George Pérez, save for the fact that it had a bunch of fans and my 12-year old mind somehow had a difficult time grasping the obvious title pun. Anyway, now DC is putting it out in handy trade form for $14.99.

George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead: The Beginning #1 (of 3): You know it’s a big rollout for Avatar when there’s seven covers coming your way this week, including work from the likes of Tim Vigil and Matt Busch, beyond the usual Avatar crew. I don’t think even Dynamite Entertainment can quite match that enthusiasm. This is Avatar’s prettiest new horror license, an official prequel miniseries to the iconic zombie film, written by movie co-writer John Russo and approved by director Romero. Sebastian Fiumara provides the art, in contrast to his brother Max, who’s doing the art for Warren Ellis’ Avatar zombie book Blackgas.

Escape of the Living Dead: Airborne #3 (of 3): Also from Russo (and sequential adaptor Mike Wolfer), the conclusion of the latest juncture of his own Living Dead spin-off material, with Dheeraj Verma on art. Don’t worry, fans - Plague of the Living Dead is already on its way from the same team. Tangentially connected to all of this, I suppose, Wildstorm (who got the New Line horror licenses after Avatar had their way with them) is also launching their new Friday the 13th series this week, from writers Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, and artists Adam Archer & Peter Guzman. It looks like this.

American Splendor #4 (of 4): Is this out already? Gilbert Hernandez, as seen above, provides art for this final issue of the latest incarnation of the Harvey Pekar series, with Dean Haspiel and Hilary Barta also onboard.

newuniversal #1: When the revolution comes, nobody will need capitalization for their relaunches. Riding at the head of the future are Warren Ellis and Salvador Larroca, bringing back the New Universe at Marvel as a single, unified series. Looks like lots of large-scale planetary happenings, from the preview. In case your tastes run a little more classic, this week also sees the release of Star Brand Classic Vol. 1, compiling the first seven issues of the Jim Shooter/John Romita Jr. original, which I believe is everything by that initial creative team.

Batman Confidential #1: I was hoping to reveal to you all how this title is actually not just a relaunch of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight with a sales-grabbing #1 and a gloss of line-wide cohesion with a similar Superman book, but it turns out the reasons are confidential! Who’d have guessed?? Writer Andy Diggle and penciller Whilce Portacio do the honors for the first six issues. Here’s a preview, featuring many grimaces from our hero.

Superman Confidential #2: Meanwhile, over in the Superman wing, I’ll be expecting more eloquent words about the poignant travels of rocks through space, and possibly a scratch 'n sniff card to go with last issue's 3-D glasses. Smells like heroism!

The Other Side #3 (of 5): Miniseries.

The Cross Bronx #4 (of 4): They come out.

Desolation Jones #8: So do ongoing series I don’t have much to say about today.

52 #31 (of 52): At this point the backup features are so out of synch that I’m genuinely unsure of what’s going to show up; they might move up Cully Hamner's Blue Beetle thing, though I wouldn’t count out that Brian Bolland Joker short.