It's still the 11th at Diamond. Well, not anymore if you're just reading this now.
*Curse our futurist flaw.
LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:
Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories
God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick (not a comic but a documentary film on the infamous despoiler of park benches and lunch counters)
Plus!
B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #1
At The Savage Critics!
*Sadly, it looks like Diamond is way too cool to post this week's confirmed shipping list at the stated time, so I'm going off the Midtown Comics list this week - take everything here with an extra pinch of salt, although I expect all of the front-of-Previews stuff will actually show. I might not even know for myself on Wednesday, since my vehicle's in the shop and I don't know when I'll get it back. Or how much I'll have to pay for the pleasure. Guess it's finally time to cash in those Comics' Greatest World pogs...
THIS WEEK IN COMICS!
(UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM)
Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories: In which Fantagraphics collects all remaining back-catalog books by the ever-fine Jason, including some unseen humanity. Review here.
Cat Eyed Boy Vol. 1 (of 2): New Kazuo Umezu! Little more needs be said! And VIZ isn't fucking around - $24.99 will get you 544 pages of mid-'60s horror tales, all of them somehow featuring a little monster child that straddles the worlds of demons and humans. I do believe the second book is due out later this month, so prepare yourself for burial. In other manga updates, Naoki Urasawa's Monster creeps toward a climax with Vol. 15 (of 18), and I continue to be hopelessly behind.
Ordinary Victories: What is Precious: Being the second and final collection of Manu Larcenet's much-admired series about "small things, rare moments, banal sadness and an ordinary guy who’s just trying to live the best way he can." It's 128 pages, and $15.95. From NBM, which also has a collected hardcover for Rob Vollmar's & Pablo Callejo's Bluesman, weighing in at 224 pages for $24.95. Exciting video preview here, although you can look at many pictures too.
Yoshitaka Amano’s Mateki: The Magic Flute: I think this is the first bookshelf-ready release of Radical Publishing, a 128-page, $29.95 hardcover in which the popular illustrator gives his visual interpretation of Mozart's classic; as always, anything Amano does is at least worth flipping through. Apparently there's already an anime adaptation in the pipeline, bringing the circle just a little farther around.
Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: This is First Second's contribution to the How to Make Comics genre of books on the form, a chunky, 304-page landscape-format softcover, priced at $29.95 and significant for being authored by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden. It's structured as a full-scale educational course on comics creation, and therefore begs some comparison to Ivan Brunetti's 2007 Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice (which came bundled in with Comic Art #9). The latter is a more personable, individual work, while the First Second book has a lot more room for illustration, detail and digression. It's certainly a very thorough thing, although maybe best used as part of an enthusiastic teacher's sit-down class, where the best bits can be isolated and emphasized. Read some of it here.
Sardine in Outer Space Vol. 5: Also from First Second, another 112 pages of all-ages exploits. This time the young cast discovers My Cousin Manga, which has to turn out better than Asterix's encounter, right? Note that this volume follows the departure of co-creator Joann Sfar, leaving Emmanuel Guibert as sole writer/artist. Read a full story here.
Postage Stamp Funnies: Being a deluxe slipcased set of three hardcover volumes collecting Shannon Wheeler's gag panels from The Onion and elsewhere. But Dark Horse also respects the premium so many of us have on space these days -- I'm almost down to keeping books in the fridge, a la Schizo #3 -- so it's a 3 1/2" x 2" deluxe slipcased set, retailing for $9.95. Samples.
RASL #2: More of Jeff Smith's sci-fi/action series, if it actually shows - Smith's site has it pegged for next week.
My Inner Bimbo #5 (of 5): Yep, it may have taken more than two years and the addition of multiple co-artists, but here's the conclusion to Sam Kieth's (and Josh Hagler's) (and Leigh Dragoon's) miniseries from Oni. Can anything be sorted out? Time will tell, dear reader.
World's Finest Deluxe Edition: I don't see any terribly noteworthy pamphlets from DC at all this week, but there is this $29.99 hardcover collection of a 1990 miniseries from writer Dave Gibbons and artist Steve Rude, one of many comics series I'd totally forgotten existed. Bound to look nice. And I'm sure there'll be some interest in Y: The Last Man Vol. 10: Whys and Wherefores, the final collection of that popular Vertigo series.
The Punisher MAX #58: Third-to-last. Note that writer Garth Ennis also has War is Hell: First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #4 (of 5) out this week, as well as Streets of Glory #5 (of 6) from Avatar and Dan Dare Oversized UK Edition Vol. 1 from Virgin (collecting issues #1-3 in what should approximate a European album format). Somehow I suspect that more attention will be paid to Wolverine #66, reuniting the Civil War team of writer Mark Millar and penciller Steve McNiven for the start of an eight-part tale of Wolverine in a dark future where Evil Has Won; Marvel assures me it's "the most important WOLVERINE story of the 21st Century," which doesn't sound like a vote of confidence for the next 90+ years of Wolverine comics. Also out: a $24.99 softcover edition for Neil Gaiman's & John Romita Jr.'s Eternals.
Kick-Ass Director's Cut #1: Not to put too fine a point on it, but whenever I see a comic book proclaiming itself a "Director's Cut" when there's no director, nothing to cut, and no changes made to the content of the core work so as to analogize the effort to a movie-style Director's Cut, I just mentally substitute "Director's Cut" with "OH PLEASE GOD WE WISH WE WERE WORKING IN A DIFFERENT MEDIUM WE WISH WE WISH WE WISH." That doesn't leave a lot of room for the cover art though. Anyhow, this looks to be issue #1 of Kick-Ass with Mark Millar's script and various bits of John Romita Jr.'s un-inked and preliminary art in the back. It's $3.99. If they'd gone all the way and reprinted the whole thing in JRJR pencil format (like DC did with Jim Lee for issue #1 of All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder) they might have had me...
**UPDATE 6/17: Ok, Diamond's list is out now and there's only a few noteworthy changes. First, both volumes 1 and 2 of Cat Eyed Boy are out this week, presumably because VIZ wants Umezu out of their warehouse. Dark Horse has the collected $17.95 softcover for The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, the popular superhero thing created by Gerard Way. Simon & Schuster has both hardcover and softcover editions of Hope Larson's anticipated Chiggers ($17.99 and $9.99, respectively). And RASL #2 is actually coming out (preview here), as is everything else I listed above. NOW YOU KNOW.
LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:
Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories
God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick (not a comic but a documentary film on the infamous despoiler of park benches and lunch counters)
Plus!
B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #1
At The Savage Critics!
*Sadly, it looks like Diamond is way too cool to post this week's confirmed shipping list at the stated time, so I'm going off the Midtown Comics list this week - take everything here with an extra pinch of salt, although I expect all of the front-of-Previews stuff will actually show. I might not even know for myself on Wednesday, since my vehicle's in the shop and I don't know when I'll get it back. Or how much I'll have to pay for the pleasure. Guess it's finally time to cash in those Comics' Greatest World pogs...
THIS WEEK IN COMICS!
(UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM)
Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories: In which Fantagraphics collects all remaining back-catalog books by the ever-fine Jason, including some unseen humanity. Review here.
Cat Eyed Boy Vol. 1 (of 2): New Kazuo Umezu! Little more needs be said! And VIZ isn't fucking around - $24.99 will get you 544 pages of mid-'60s horror tales, all of them somehow featuring a little monster child that straddles the worlds of demons and humans. I do believe the second book is due out later this month, so prepare yourself for burial. In other manga updates, Naoki Urasawa's Monster creeps toward a climax with Vol. 15 (of 18), and I continue to be hopelessly behind.
Ordinary Victories: What is Precious: Being the second and final collection of Manu Larcenet's much-admired series about "small things, rare moments, banal sadness and an ordinary guy who’s just trying to live the best way he can." It's 128 pages, and $15.95. From NBM, which also has a collected hardcover for Rob Vollmar's & Pablo Callejo's Bluesman, weighing in at 224 pages for $24.95. Exciting video preview here, although you can look at many pictures too.
Yoshitaka Amano’s Mateki: The Magic Flute: I think this is the first bookshelf-ready release of Radical Publishing, a 128-page, $29.95 hardcover in which the popular illustrator gives his visual interpretation of Mozart's classic; as always, anything Amano does is at least worth flipping through. Apparently there's already an anime adaptation in the pipeline, bringing the circle just a little farther around.
Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: This is First Second's contribution to the How to Make Comics genre of books on the form, a chunky, 304-page landscape-format softcover, priced at $29.95 and significant for being authored by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden. It's structured as a full-scale educational course on comics creation, and therefore begs some comparison to Ivan Brunetti's 2007 Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice (which came bundled in with Comic Art #9). The latter is a more personable, individual work, while the First Second book has a lot more room for illustration, detail and digression. It's certainly a very thorough thing, although maybe best used as part of an enthusiastic teacher's sit-down class, where the best bits can be isolated and emphasized. Read some of it here.
Sardine in Outer Space Vol. 5: Also from First Second, another 112 pages of all-ages exploits. This time the young cast discovers My Cousin Manga, which has to turn out better than Asterix's encounter, right? Note that this volume follows the departure of co-creator Joann Sfar, leaving Emmanuel Guibert as sole writer/artist. Read a full story here.
Postage Stamp Funnies: Being a deluxe slipcased set of three hardcover volumes collecting Shannon Wheeler's gag panels from The Onion and elsewhere. But Dark Horse also respects the premium so many of us have on space these days -- I'm almost down to keeping books in the fridge, a la Schizo #3 -- so it's a 3 1/2" x 2" deluxe slipcased set, retailing for $9.95. Samples.
RASL #2: More of Jeff Smith's sci-fi/action series, if it actually shows - Smith's site has it pegged for next week.
My Inner Bimbo #5 (of 5): Yep, it may have taken more than two years and the addition of multiple co-artists, but here's the conclusion to Sam Kieth's (and Josh Hagler's) (and Leigh Dragoon's) miniseries from Oni. Can anything be sorted out? Time will tell, dear reader.
World's Finest Deluxe Edition: I don't see any terribly noteworthy pamphlets from DC at all this week, but there is this $29.99 hardcover collection of a 1990 miniseries from writer Dave Gibbons and artist Steve Rude, one of many comics series I'd totally forgotten existed. Bound to look nice. And I'm sure there'll be some interest in Y: The Last Man Vol. 10: Whys and Wherefores, the final collection of that popular Vertigo series.
The Punisher MAX #58: Third-to-last. Note that writer Garth Ennis also has War is Hell: First Flight of the Phantom Eagle #4 (of 5) out this week, as well as Streets of Glory #5 (of 6) from Avatar and Dan Dare Oversized UK Edition Vol. 1 from Virgin (collecting issues #1-3 in what should approximate a European album format). Somehow I suspect that more attention will be paid to Wolverine #66, reuniting the Civil War team of writer Mark Millar and penciller Steve McNiven for the start of an eight-part tale of Wolverine in a dark future where Evil Has Won; Marvel assures me it's "the most important WOLVERINE story of the 21st Century," which doesn't sound like a vote of confidence for the next 90+ years of Wolverine comics. Also out: a $24.99 softcover edition for Neil Gaiman's & John Romita Jr.'s Eternals.
Kick-Ass Director's Cut #1: Not to put too fine a point on it, but whenever I see a comic book proclaiming itself a "Director's Cut" when there's no director, nothing to cut, and no changes made to the content of the core work so as to analogize the effort to a movie-style Director's Cut, I just mentally substitute "Director's Cut" with "OH PLEASE GOD WE WISH WE WERE WORKING IN A DIFFERENT MEDIUM WE WISH WE WISH WE WISH." That doesn't leave a lot of room for the cover art though. Anyhow, this looks to be issue #1 of Kick-Ass with Mark Millar's script and various bits of John Romita Jr.'s un-inked and preliminary art in the back. It's $3.99. If they'd gone all the way and reprinted the whole thing in JRJR pencil format (like DC did with Jim Lee for issue #1 of All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder) they might have had me...
**UPDATE 6/17: Ok, Diamond's list is out now and there's only a few noteworthy changes. First, both volumes 1 and 2 of Cat Eyed Boy are out this week, presumably because VIZ wants Umezu out of their warehouse. Dark Horse has the collected $17.95 softcover for The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, the popular superhero thing created by Gerard Way. Simon & Schuster has both hardcover and softcover editions of Hope Larson's anticipated Chiggers ($17.99 and $9.99, respectively). And RASL #2 is actually coming out (preview here), as is everything else I listed above. NOW YOU KNOW.
Labels: this week in comics
posted by Jog at 10:00 PM
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