Looking Back With Heavy Eyes (because I'm tired)
*Plenty of the overseas artists -
LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:
Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU Vol. 1 (Last Gasp's newest Junko Mizuno release, this time kicking off her first and apparently only attempt at a proper ongoing series, a keen revival of some old school aesthetics in the service of navigating the desires of women)
Plus!
Manga (yeah, that's right - just "Manga," a curious anthology from sometime in the early '80s, prone to flaunting a few specific iterations of the art; this is part one of the essay, the rest will be up in a few days)
At the Savage Critics!
*In case anyone needs a quick 'n dirty illustration of the state of the Direct Market right now, Marvel's list of releases through Diamond this week is 4/5 as long as the section for every comic from the back of Previews due on Wednesday. Can't beat it.
THIS WEEK IN COMICS!
Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #15: Or, as some have taken to calling it, Kramers Ergot 7.5, given the presence of editor Sammy Harkham and the disposition of the art lineup - and it's $120.01 less than that big hardcover ($4.99)! Your 48 big color pages come stuffed with Harkham, Kevin Huizenga, Ben Jones, C.F., Matthew Thurber, Tim Hensley, John Kerschbaum, Jordan Crane, Ted May, Jon Vermilyea, Jeffrey Brown and Will Sweeney. Small preview here. Published by Bongo, although PictureBox will bring a stash to SPX this weekend in anticipation of a Sunday artists' signing.
Dungeon: The Early Years Vol. 2: Innocence Lost: New from NBM, collecting more of this prequel iteration of Joann Sfar's & Lewis Trondheim's expansive, disjointed-as-a-virtue fantasy/humor series (Donjon Potron-Minet). Note that one of the Dungeon series' jumps in continuity (i.e., the story 'skips' a bunch of chapters, which of course have never been made) occurs between the two volumes (tomes 3-4) collected in this 96-page, $12.95 softcover. They're also the final volumes in which artist Christophe Blain (of Gus and His Gang) provides finishes for Trondheim's guides - Christophe Gaultier took over in 2008's tome 5, the most recent thus far.
Eden: It's an Endless World! Vol. 12 (of 18): I'll be getting into the legacy of the gritty action/sci-fi seinen manga stuff that marked a lot of early terrain in North America in the second half of my Manga special later this week, but you might get a flavor for the stuff by checking out this Hiroki Endo global tech adventure; it's almost like a throwback to that serious, 'realistic' feel, and thus kind of scrapes by today, with few totally certain as to when (or if) the next installment will come. This book marks the 2/3 checkpoint. It's a 224-page Dark Horse softcover, $12.95; preview here.
Black Jack Vol. 7 (of 17): And then there's always the older, weirder stuff, care of Vertical; it's Osamu Tezuka's super-doctor and his oft-mad exploits, another 336 pages of it for your $16.95.
Detroit Metal City Vol. 2: Or, y'know, you could go for VIZ's release of Kiminori Wakasugi's ongoing comedy of a meek young man who can't let his night occupation as a sex & violence-crazed guitar demon stay confined to the stage. Vol. 8 is due in Japan next week; U.S. readers will pay $12.99 for these 200 pages.
Sulk Vol. 3: The Kind of Strength That Comes From Madness: The latest in Jeffrey Brown's miniature 'anything goes' series from Top Shelf, compiling 64 pages' worth of monsters and robots and elves and things. It's $6.00.
Things Undone: A new original softcover from NBM and artist Shane White, who previously teamed with the publisher for the book North Country in 2005. This one deals with a video game artist confronting various stresses, professional and personal. With some zombie images, and an introduction by Robert Kirkman. An extensive preview is here; $12.95 for 80 pages.
Golden Age Marvel Comics Omnibus: Look, they're even acknowledging the Golden Age of Reprints in the books' titles now. Isn't that wonderful? Maybe it'll inspire you to drop $125.00 on an 848-page hardcover doorstop collecting issues #1-12 of Marvel [Mystery] Comics, from the Years of Our Lord 1939 and 1940. Note that while the price maight not be peanuts, it's still roughly $35 cheaper than paying cover price for the first three volumes of Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics (2004-08), which is how this content was most recently collected.
Underground #1 (of 4): I hardly know a damn thing about this new Image miniseries -- some action/survival/chase deal set in caves -- but writer Jeff Parker's creator-owned things are typically worth keeping an eye on, and this one teams him with Steve Lieber of Whiteout. In color, $3.50; samples here.
Detective Comics #857: Meanwhile, the other half of Whiteout, Greg Rucka, wraps up the first storyline in this extended run with artist J.H. Williams III. Next up's an origin saga, I believe. Cully Hamner continues on with the Question too.
Hellblazer #259: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini will be returning with #261, but for now Peter Milligan is joined by no less than Simon Bisley, a rare enough sight inside a comic without restricting your search to the front of Previews.
The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #3 (of 4): More Roger Langridge, and more to come. Look see.
Madame Xanadu #15: Kicking off a whole line of finales with this last issue by artist Michael Wm. Kaluta; Matt Wagner remains to re-team with artist Amy Reeder Hadley next.
Madman Atomic Comics #17: Wrapping up this Image run for Mike Allred's creation, an often disquietingly odd stretch of work that saw the artist return to the heavy philosophical and spiritual concerns that marked his earliest work. There could either be plenty of that in this final chapter or none at all, since the focus is on bringing Allred's Red Rocket 7 concepts into the Madman universe proper. Several big guests will be present for bonus art, like Craig Thompson, Dave Cooper(!!), Dave Johnson and others. Still only $3.50. See here.
No Hero #7 (of 7): And hailing from the direct opposite side of the superhero globe, Avatar brings this conclusion to Warren Ellis' & Juan Jose Ryp's tongue-in-cheek 'superhero origin story as body horror' project, the one which left off last issue with a guy tying a fallen opponent's vertebral column to his waist to wear as a substitute penis. Who knows what hi-jinx could ensue this time? Search for clues here.
Wednesday Comics #12 (of 12): Didn't it feel like a few of these stories ended last week? Eh, a few of them haven't seemed active for longer than that, although they're always at least present. This is the proper send-off, wherein I'll expect the amusing to stay that way, the dull to fail to improve, Karl Kerschl to count is new admirers and that Wonder Woman story to keep on keepin' on. I'm rooting for you, blips of format ingenuity; by the end, the writing and the art alone wasn't enough to keep it up, though its hard not to feel for the latter in a place like this.
LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:
Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU Vol. 1 (Last Gasp's newest Junko Mizuno release, this time kicking off her first and apparently only attempt at a proper ongoing series, a keen revival of some old school aesthetics in the service of navigating the desires of women)
Plus!
Manga (yeah, that's right - just "Manga," a curious anthology from sometime in the early '80s, prone to flaunting a few specific iterations of the art; this is part one of the essay, the rest will be up in a few days)
At the Savage Critics!
*In case anyone needs a quick 'n dirty illustration of the state of the Direct Market right now, Marvel's list of releases through Diamond this week is 4/5 as long as the section for every comic from the back of Previews due on Wednesday. Can't beat it.
THIS WEEK IN COMICS!
Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #15: Or, as some have taken to calling it, Kramers Ergot 7.5, given the presence of editor Sammy Harkham and the disposition of the art lineup - and it's $120.01 less than that big hardcover ($4.99)! Your 48 big color pages come stuffed with Harkham, Kevin Huizenga, Ben Jones, C.F., Matthew Thurber, Tim Hensley, John Kerschbaum, Jordan Crane, Ted May, Jon Vermilyea, Jeffrey Brown and Will Sweeney. Small preview here. Published by Bongo, although PictureBox will bring a stash to SPX this weekend in anticipation of a Sunday artists' signing.
Dungeon: The Early Years Vol. 2: Innocence Lost: New from NBM, collecting more of this prequel iteration of Joann Sfar's & Lewis Trondheim's expansive, disjointed-as-a-virtue fantasy/humor series (Donjon Potron-Minet). Note that one of the Dungeon series' jumps in continuity (i.e., the story 'skips' a bunch of chapters, which of course have never been made) occurs between the two volumes (tomes 3-4) collected in this 96-page, $12.95 softcover. They're also the final volumes in which artist Christophe Blain (of Gus and His Gang) provides finishes for Trondheim's guides - Christophe Gaultier took over in 2008's tome 5, the most recent thus far.
Eden: It's an Endless World! Vol. 12 (of 18): I'll be getting into the legacy of the gritty action/sci-fi seinen manga stuff that marked a lot of early terrain in North America in the second half of my Manga special later this week, but you might get a flavor for the stuff by checking out this Hiroki Endo global tech adventure; it's almost like a throwback to that serious, 'realistic' feel, and thus kind of scrapes by today, with few totally certain as to when (or if) the next installment will come. This book marks the 2/3 checkpoint. It's a 224-page Dark Horse softcover, $12.95; preview here.
Black Jack Vol. 7 (of 17): And then there's always the older, weirder stuff, care of Vertical; it's Osamu Tezuka's super-doctor and his oft-mad exploits, another 336 pages of it for your $16.95.
Detroit Metal City Vol. 2: Or, y'know, you could go for VIZ's release of Kiminori Wakasugi's ongoing comedy of a meek young man who can't let his night occupation as a sex & violence-crazed guitar demon stay confined to the stage. Vol. 8 is due in Japan next week; U.S. readers will pay $12.99 for these 200 pages.
Sulk Vol. 3: The Kind of Strength That Comes From Madness: The latest in Jeffrey Brown's miniature 'anything goes' series from Top Shelf, compiling 64 pages' worth of monsters and robots and elves and things. It's $6.00.
Things Undone: A new original softcover from NBM and artist Shane White, who previously teamed with the publisher for the book North Country in 2005. This one deals with a video game artist confronting various stresses, professional and personal. With some zombie images, and an introduction by Robert Kirkman. An extensive preview is here; $12.95 for 80 pages.
Golden Age Marvel Comics Omnibus: Look, they're even acknowledging the Golden Age of Reprints in the books' titles now. Isn't that wonderful? Maybe it'll inspire you to drop $125.00 on an 848-page hardcover doorstop collecting issues #1-12 of Marvel [Mystery] Comics, from the Years of Our Lord 1939 and 1940. Note that while the price maight not be peanuts, it's still roughly $35 cheaper than paying cover price for the first three volumes of Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics (2004-08), which is how this content was most recently collected.
Underground #1 (of 4): I hardly know a damn thing about this new Image miniseries -- some action/survival/chase deal set in caves -- but writer Jeff Parker's creator-owned things are typically worth keeping an eye on, and this one teams him with Steve Lieber of Whiteout. In color, $3.50; samples here.
Detective Comics #857: Meanwhile, the other half of Whiteout, Greg Rucka, wraps up the first storyline in this extended run with artist J.H. Williams III. Next up's an origin saga, I believe. Cully Hamner continues on with the Question too.
Hellblazer #259: Giuseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini will be returning with #261, but for now Peter Milligan is joined by no less than Simon Bisley, a rare enough sight inside a comic without restricting your search to the front of Previews.
The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #3 (of 4): More Roger Langridge, and more to come. Look see.
Madame Xanadu #15: Kicking off a whole line of finales with this last issue by artist Michael Wm. Kaluta; Matt Wagner remains to re-team with artist Amy Reeder Hadley next.
Madman Atomic Comics #17: Wrapping up this Image run for Mike Allred's creation, an often disquietingly odd stretch of work that saw the artist return to the heavy philosophical and spiritual concerns that marked his earliest work. There could either be plenty of that in this final chapter or none at all, since the focus is on bringing Allred's Red Rocket 7 concepts into the Madman universe proper. Several big guests will be present for bonus art, like Craig Thompson, Dave Cooper(!!), Dave Johnson and others. Still only $3.50. See here.
No Hero #7 (of 7): And hailing from the direct opposite side of the superhero globe, Avatar brings this conclusion to Warren Ellis' & Juan Jose Ryp's tongue-in-cheek 'superhero origin story as body horror' project, the one which left off last issue with a guy tying a fallen opponent's vertebral column to his waist to wear as a substitute penis. Who knows what hi-jinx could ensue this time? Search for clues here.
Wednesday Comics #12 (of 12): Didn't it feel like a few of these stories ended last week? Eh, a few of them haven't seemed active for longer than that, although they're always at least present. This is the proper send-off, wherein I'll expect the amusing to stay that way, the dull to fail to improve, Karl Kerschl to count is new admirers and that Wonder Woman story to keep on keepin' on. I'm rooting for you, blips of format ingenuity; by the end, the writing and the art alone wasn't enough to keep it up, though its hard not to feel for the latter in a place like this.
Labels: this week in comics
posted by Jog at 10:00 PM
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