Coming back, the work is double.

*Everything here got set back by Labor Day. Upcoming comics, which don't ship until Thursday. My column, which admittedly hasn't been up until late Wednesday/early Thursday for the last two weeks in a row so I might as well make it a hat trick. And my usual features on this here website...

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

MOME 9: Fall 2007

Uptight #2 (new Jordan Crane; very nice)

Plus!

Column #7 (starring the second volume of the infamous horror anthology Taboo)

Batman Annual #26

Angry Youth Comix #13

All at The Savage Critics!

*Remember - Thursday.

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Laika: New from First Second, although it's actually among the first original projects they announced, back in the day. From writer/artist Nick Abadzis (read his interview with Tom Spurgeon), it's the fictionalized story of a dog that got shot into space with Sputnik 2. Full-color, $17.95. Typical large First Second preview here. I'll have a review later this week.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 2 (of 4): Shit, I haven't even finished reading the first one. Ah well, I'll need to save up the $49.99 anyway. Another 396 pages of New Gods madness, straight from the source.

Process Recess 2: Portfolio: The sequel to AdHouse Books' James Jean art collection, this one growing to a huge 15" x 11" for 64 pages of pretty. It's $29.95, with annotations and the like.

Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm: A 128-page b&w hardcover autobiographical piece from Vertigo, written by underground rapper Percy Carey, covering his rise to musical notice and his fight against violent injury. I saw a preview of this at MoCCA; artist Ronald Wimberly manages some striking visuals and what seems to be a fair balance of moods. Worth looking at.

Batman: Gothic: A fresh printing of Grant Morrison's and Klaus Janson's 1990 Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight storyline, involving devilish pacts, wicked
architectures, and old-fashioned supervillain mousetraps teamed with older-fashioned plague. Good fun, and well worth your attention if you haven't already seen it.

Infinity Inc. #1: Another ongoing 52 spinoff, this time from writer Peter Milligan, a man who knows his way around superheroes in (and pining for) the limelight, although this one looks to follow ex-superheroes coping poorly with life away from the Life. Here's a good look at Max Fiumara's art, which seems perched somewhat uneasily between his horror-heavy work at Avatar and faded superhero gloss (I think it's all those flares in the coloring). In case you were wondering what happened to brother Sebastian, he's off at Marvel now, working on the upcoming Marvel Illustrated: Picture of Dorian Gray adaptation. And speaking of horror content formerly of Avatar, Milligan is also involved with Wildstorm's debut of the week, New Line Cinema's House of Horrors #1, a pamphlet-format anthology attempt to get some use out of this license.

Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus #1 (of 5): Hell, if two work, why not three? Yep, we are now up to the third concurrently running Hellboy miniseries, this one focusing on the two-fisted, pre-WWII adventures of the world's finest costumed man of action with a lobster claw on his chest. A crowded field, but he excels. Written by creator Mike Mignola, with nice-looking art from Jason Armstrong. With luck, it'll follow B.P.R.D. in striking its own unique tone.

MPD-Psycho Vol. 2: Also from Dark Horse this week, another installment of this good-natured charmer about horrible bloody death.

Wolverine #57: Jesus Christ, already? Anyhow, this is the issue where the creative team from Blade reunite. I note with amusement that Marvel's online solicitation for the issue is still beaming over the presence of now-departed artist Scott Kolins and his "groundbreaking new style," which is apparently so new that it's literally transformed him into Howard Chaykin. Now that's what I call groundbreaking!

Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin #1 (of 6): I do believe that this is one of those miniseries that tend to wander out onto shelves when a superhero movie is coming up, but it's worth highlighting in that writer Joe Casey previously did very nice work in the underread Iron Man: The Inevitable miniseries from a while back. This one features art by Eric Canete, which you can glimpse here. Also from Marvel this week: the debut of Captain America: The Chosen, a six-issue alternate future thingy from writer David Morrell, the man who created Rambo.

The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair: Your oddity of the week - an English-language edition of a 1980 Japanese sci-fi prose novel (serialized in 1979) from Haruka Takachiho, co-founder of the famed Studio Nue animation/design outfit (most often associated with the Super Dimensional Fortress Macross franchise). This particular project, however, was the first to star Kei and Yuri, the Lovely Angels, scantly-clad intergalactic trouble consultants that leave a path of high destruction in their wake. You might remember Adam Warren's Dirty Pair comics from back in the day. Or perhaps the various anime incarnations from 1985 through 1996. But this is where it all started, with illustrations from Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, character designer for Mobile Suit Gundam, creator of The Venus Wars, and director of the 1983 anime movie Crusher Joe, which was also based on prose work by Takachiho, and featured the first ever anime footage of... the Dirty Pair. Small world, all.