Quicker than ever.

*Speed is important.

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

The Brave and the Bold #1

Hunter & Painter, D'Airain Aventure #1

The Living and the Dead (new from Jason!)

*Speed speed speed. Please excuse the lack of comment.

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

The Living and the Dead: Just reviewed the other day. As said above, it's from the great Jason, even if it's not really great itself.

Essex County Vol. 1 (of 3): Tales from the Farm: From Top Shelf and Jeff Lemire. Review later this week.

Feeble Attempts: Small collection of anthology and minicomic work by Jeffrey Brown. Review later this week also.

Death Note Vol. 10 (of 13, I really think so): Class is back in session for this object lesson in how to make talking look so achingly dynamic. Also: people collapse.

1-800-MICE #1: Ah, you see? I told you last week's list might not synch up with Diamond's. So here's another listing for Matthew Thurber's new series from PictureBox.

Nat Turner Book 2 (of 2): Revolution: Concluding Kyle Baker's tale of the famous slave rebellion, which used to be a four-issue miniseries but is now being polished off in one book from Image.

EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales Vol. 1: Oh gosh, if you've got the $49.95 to spare, here's the first big color collection of Harvey Kurtzman's famed showcase series, which started out as adventure and transformed into one of the era's most visually deft, narratively haunting depiction of war in American comics.

Criminal #5: Also ending - the first storyline in Ed Brubaker's and Sean Phillips' fine Icon series. Reliably strong storytelling here.

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #2 (of 4): Rolling along nicely, since it's already done and all.

Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #2 (of 7): I'd like to say 'ditto' but I'm not sure this is completely done yet. It's certainly far along. Oh, and I know there initially seemed to be more posts around the internet about how people weren't buying into the massive hype surrounding the book than actual reviews of the initial issue, but believe me in that it really was a nice, decent comic last time around, considering I've never read any of this stuff ever.

Fantastic Four #543: The 64-page 45th Anniversary issue, featuring many special guests, including Paul Pope, which is the reason I'm listing this.

The Punisher MAX #45: Just when I think 'this ought to be coming out soon,' it always actually is.

Garth Ennis' 303: Meanwhile, I had no idea Ennis' Avatar series with Jacen Burrows hadn't been collected into trade form yet, but here it is now. Easily one of Ennis' better recent works, a sometimes shrill, sometimes vivid little smash-up of Punisher-like superkiller thrills and polemic against the problems facing America and home and abroad. Loud, bloody, very mad, genuinely distressing in its 'anything can happen' atmosphere. Maybe the best exploitation of Avatar's anything goes policy by one of their occasional 'name' writers. Look at it.

52 #44 (of 52): See whose belly is gulped down this week!

Midnighter #5: End of the initial storyline, and the end of penciller Chris Sprouse's involvement with the book for the near future - issue #6 sees Glenn Fabry of writer Garth Ennis' early Kev books step in, then issue #7 has Brian K. Vaughan filling in as writer with Darick Robertson (of Ennis' The Boys) handling the pencils. And speaking of former ABC artists...

The Authority #2: As artist Gene Ha said on his website, "It's appallingly late, because of the combination of a slow writer with slow artist." And it's only gonna get slower - the title is now going "on hiatus" to the extent where Ha is now working on issue #11 of Justice League of America. He's off The Authority after issue #4 anyway. I am still kind of interested to see where this relaunch plans to go, but don't you need to actually get up in the air to 'launch' to any extent?