Still broken, still not much to say.

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Biomega Vol. 1 (of 6) & All My Darling Daughters (two recent Viz releases, unabashed sci-fi/horror action and unabashed relationship drama from the abashment-scarce world of mature audiences manga)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

(well, Diamond's site is still mostly down, so once again I'm going by Midtown Comics' listings, which do not necessarily reflect everything Diamond is actually going to release this week, and indeed may reflect books distributed to Midtown Comics by other means - for example, Comix Experience is apparently getting in the ten-years-in-the-making color print edition of Jason Shiga's Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities -- an insane comics take on the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, $15.95 from Abrams, original webcomic here -- as well as Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys vol. 7, while Midtown is getting the new Dark Horse edition of Mesmo Delivery, and ne'er the twain shall meet, so keep your eyes peeled)

Almost Silent: In which Fantagraphics goes about compiling some of its many albums by the ever-prolific, Norwegian-born Jason into the same fatter, squatter $24.99 hardcover format as the artist's recent story collection Low Moon. 'Not Much Talking' seems to be the theme of its 304 (mostly b&w) pages, featuring the artist's wacky shorts collection Meow, Baby!, the interesting silent comedy-as-suspense thriller fusion experiment Tell Me Something (a model for his future genre-bending albums), the not-as-interesting zombie romance The Living and the Dead, and his secret masterpiece, You Can't Get There From Here, a beautifully paced, quietly experimental slash of emotional agony by way of vintage Frankenstein imagery, and my choice for best comic of 2004, back when I'd just starting doing this internet deal.

A good overall sampler of an excellent stylist in the mature form that's, sadly, never quite attracted the critical hosannas which accompanied his aberrational 2001 agony-of-ruined-expectations funny animal lit comics breakthrough Hey, Wait..., the agony (and the funny animals) having mixed with a restless desire to explore the absurd melodrama and heartbroken comedy of generic forms as half-recalled, a subjective popular library. Of course, 2001 was almost a very long decade ago. Many samples here.

Bone Handbook: Celebrating the completion of the new colorized iteration of Jeff Smith's enduringly popular series with something that might even catch the eye of folks who've yet to upgrade from their b&w Cartoon Books trades - a 128-page Official Guide, crammed with character bios, a timeline of events, cover art, process info, interviews and more. From Scholastic.

Starman Omnibus Vol. 4: Another $49.99 nets you issues #39-46 of the James Robinson/Tony Harris opus -- including a pair of Jerry Ordway-written crossover issues of The Power of Shazam! (#35-36) and a quite a few guest artists, Gene Ha among them -- but I suspect the real item of interest here will probably be 1999's Batman/Hellboy/Starman miniseries, drawn by no less than Mike Mignola himself and, unless I'm totally mistaken, never before collected in North America. Also rescued: the 1998 one-off Starman: The Mist and the 1999 Starman 80-Page Giant.

DC Universe Origins: This might be fun - a $14.99 collection of all those little origin summaries DC stuck in the back of 52 and Countdown, mostly written by Mark Waid or Scott Beatty, and drawn by a whole lot of people. Brian Bolland, Kevin Nowlan, Adam Hughes, Howard Chaykin - many more.

Joe the Barbarian #2 (of 8): Man, could you believe last issue? Where the hell does Vertigo get off in couching all those visually dominant opening pages in the context of a $1.00 introductory issue?! It's like they expect controversy or something over a perfectly evocative prelude, and feel the need to circumvent prospective trouble by lowering the price! What the fuck do they take us for?? Well, I'm not going to stand for these insults, although I am going to buy this $2.99 second issue from Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy.

Simpsons Comics #163: Being an all-Aragonés, Sergio special, which automatically makes it worth a flip. It's $2.99.

Hellblazer #264: In which Peter Milligan wraps up the Indian storyline with primary artists Giuseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini. Primary secondary artist (and cover illustrator) Simon Bisley returns for another two issues starting next month.

Garth Ennis' Battlefields: Happy Valley #3 (of 3): Another air campaign concludes, like so. After this comes a first for Ennis' war stories: a sequel, following up on line standout The Tankies, with artist Carlos Ezquerra riding along once more.

The Mighty Thor by Dan Jurgens & John Romita, Jr Vol. 2: Sure, you could buy that deluxe $24.99 Kick-Ass hardcover out this week, but know that Marvel has seen fit to provide a more traditional superhero alternative, in the form of this new (also $24.99) softcover collection of late '90s JRJR, along with guest art by John Buscema & Jerry Ordway and writer Dan Jurgens himself. Collects issues #9-13 and Annual 1999 of the pertinent series.

Near Death Highway Star

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

(Note that while Diamond's site is sort of up now, kinda, their new release list apparently isn't, so I'm going by Midtown Comics' list, which is generally near-complete, although it really only guarantees that the items in question will show up at Midtown Comics, which, close as it gets, does not equate to every Diamond-serviced shop, not that all of them will even be open and/or receive their books tomorrow, what with the east coast of the United States getting shit on by a beatific polar ass aimed terrestrially. I didn't break anything driving home.)

Barron Storey: The Marat/Sade Journals: Robot 6 says Drawn and Quarterly is supposed to have their new edition of Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville out this week, while Dark Horse should manage their snazzy printing of Rafael Grampá's Mesmo Delivery. The former is quite possibly the least-actually-read of the acknowledged 'literary' comics landmarks of the past 15 years, while the latter is a fairly recent art showcase action-horror thingy enjoying a larger post-buzz print run. Neither are on Midtown's list for the week, nor is Little Nothings Vol. 3: Uneasy Happiness, NBM's promised third volume of Lewis Trondheim's autobiographical webcomic series, so... I dunno, keep your eyes open?

As such, the 'available again' crown for the week of 2/10 in comic book stores can therefore only go to this elusive 1993 Tundra Press commission, a selection of journal images from the influential illustrator Barron Storey, related by citation to Peter Weiss' 1963 play and consumed with the theme of broke-down love. Publisher Graphic Novel Art promises a deluxe presentation more in line with Storey's actual journals, plus a David Mack introduction, a bonus Dave McKean drawing, and a new afterword by Storey. It's a 136-page color hardcover, priced at $39.00.

King - A Comics Biography: The Special Edition: In which Fantagraphics again collects Ho Che Anderson's 1993-2002 chronicle of Martin Luther King, Jr. (last published in '05), this time with over 70 pages of supplements, ranging from an essay to notes to preliminary art to a shorter comics story. Big preview here.

Newave: Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s: Because the Golden Age of Reprints assures that no comic shall be left behind, we're now into compiling minicomics from the alternative comics era. An eye-watering 892 pages of them, at a winsomely appropriate 5" x 6.25" size. And while you'll certainly find Gary Panter, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Mary Fleener, Rick Geary, Fred Hembeck, Mack White, J.R. Williams, Hilary Barta, Sam Henderson and other recognizable names tucked away in there, the real fun will likely be in editor Michael Dowers' selection -- honed in on life signs of the older 'underground' period -- of now-obscure period talents with access to pens, paper and photocopying, with a few pertinent interviews thrown in as well. Full table of contents here, historical introduction here, samples here, Tom Spurgeon review here. A Fantagraphics hardcover, only $24.99.

Hellblazer: Pandemonium: Being the gala return of originating series writer Jamie Delano to a longform John Constantine story, in the form of a 128-page hardcover original seeing Our Man off to Iraq, presumably for a taste of the no quarter relevancy horror upon which this house was built. Art by Jock; the price is $24.99. Vertigo also has vol. 2 of its hardcover reissue of Preacher this week -- collecting issues #13-26 -- while Vertigo's own Grant Morrison enjoys the actually-not-from-Vertigo-at-all vol. 2 softcover release of All Star Superman.

Choker #1 (of 6): A new sci-fi noir series from Image, written by Ben McCool with art by the always-welcome Ben Templesmith. Sneak peek.

Phonogram 2: The Singles Club #7 (of 7): Ending Kieron Gillen's & Jamie McKelvie's music-as-magic project overall, for the immediate future. One last look.

The Muppet Show Comic Book Vol. 2 #2: Langridge, ongoing.

Daytripper #3 (of 10): Moon, Bá, continuing.

Starstruck #6 (of 13): Lee, Kaluta, revised.

PunisherMax #4: Aaron, Dillon, shootings, preview.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #2 (of 5): Mignola, Arcudi, Davis, preview.

Batman and Robin #8: Morrison, Stewart, Lazarus, preview.

Groo: The Hogs of Horder #3 (of 4): Evanier, Aragonés, financial crises, preview.

World War 3 Illustrated #40: Bipartisanship.

Ongoing Adventures

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Captain Hadacol (NEW AND EXPANDED!! MORE PICTURES! MORE VITAMINS! Presenting the story of the first-ever patent medicine superhero, powered-up on a 24 proof dietary supplement YOU can buy at home, provided it's 1951! Also: songs, cartoons, testimonials, and a special plea. Don't leave me hanging.)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Demo Vol. 2 #1 (of 6): Aaaah, you know what that is, reader? Nostalgia. And don't you tell me it's too early for '00s nostalgia - we're an entire month into 2010 now, long enough for a man to starve.

And Demo truly was a product of its time, primordially steeped in the millennial Jemas era of Marvel -- wherein writer Brian Wood formulated a number of 'street-level' mutant ideas for use in Joe Quesada's NYX project, which was originally intended to be a MAX line launch title drawn by David Choe, who split with Marvel acrimoniously and I think later presented some of the visual concepts in his 2002 collection Bruised Fruit -- then realized in 2003 as a 12-issue suite of self-contained young-people-with-strange-powers comics from AiT/Planet Lar.

If you were around then, swimming in internet rhetoric, you'll immediately recall what it meant for that publisher to release non-bookshelf comics, the whole slew of period funnybook politicking behind the format. It was a talked-about series, one of the inescapable 'blogosphere favorites' from back when comics blogs were scant enough that favorites could emerge in a way that some commentary on them seemed nearly compulsory to remain current in thinking; Scott Pilgrim was another one, maybe the one that broke wide away from the public readership ricochet chamber. To have been there at the time -- and I was reading blog posts before I was writing 'em -- is to render Demo inseparable from the looming mutation of online writing-on-comics, which soon after the series' 2005 collection found itself unable to keep up the pretense of holding the whole world in its palms.

Demo underwent its own transformation over those original 12 issues - dual transformations, actually, relating to both principals of the creative team. First was artist Becky Cloonan restlessly sprinting through a dozen variations on a visual style, like a one-woman demonstration of the multitudes within the broad idea of 'manga' influence, there within the first heat rush of the Japanese comics boom. Then there was Wood, working his way through some occasionally painful on-the-nose mutant youth scenarios in early issues to develop increasingly roundabout and expressive takes on a 'weird powers' premise that finally seemed to dissolve like a pill having performed its duty, and effected some desired change in the body.

Ironists in the crowd likely grinned at the completed series' 2008 republication by Vertigo, both an imprint of Marvel's longtime rival and itself representative of superhero concepts swallowed up and dispersed. They're the homebase for this new sequence of $2.99 Wood/Cloonan stories, which the writer has mentioned as delving more into the "supernatural" than the super-powered. I wonder how it'll manifest, being the work of far more seasoned creators; the title Demo always denotes some vulnerable run-through, and oh was that accomplished back then, from back to front. Preview.

Smile (A Dental Drama): Being a newly colorized and expanded 224-page Scholastic edition of artist Raina Telgemeier's autobiographical webcomic about tooth-related calamity in the sixth grade. Available as a $21.99 hardcover and a $10.99 softcover. It looks really cute.

Ultimo Vol. 1: I can imagine few more wonderful possibilities in this world than Stan Lee riffing like a madman over otherwise completed manga pages he's never before laid eyes on, so hope burns eternal for this East-West collaboration with Shaman King creator Hiroyuki Takei, filling out comics pages from a concept by Stan the Man, who's supposedly playing a role in the English localization, although I don't think it's the all-out Marvel Method mania I crave. Katherine Dacey deems it "competently executed but utterly forgettable," and I can see that possibility cropping up as well. From Viz; $9.99 for 216 pages.

Slam Dunk Vol. 8 (of 31): Also Viz; more from Takehiko Inoue's breakthrough.

Knights of the Zodiac Vol. 28 (of 28): And also a long-coming grand finale to one of the past decade's seemingly doomed attempts at bringing over 'classic' shonen manga - but somehow, Masami Kurumada's big '80s Greek myth fighting team super smash Saint Seiya has persevered since 2003, shining the light of hope on all of us fretting over the prospects of some fellow golden-oldie-as-far-as-manga-in-North-America-goes, like... Slam Dunk, for instance. Anyway, I don't know what the fuck is supposed to happen here, but Shaenon Garrity says all the series' dead characters come back evil like in Blackest Night, and that sounds neat. Again, $9.99, 216 pages.

Berserk Vol. 33: This, however, is from Dark Horse, and it feels like it comes out biweekly. Actually, life is just passing me by! Up to vol. 34 in Japan, $14.99 in English. Hats! Scarves!

Little Lulu Vol. 22: The Big Dipper Club and Other Stories: Nothing beats it.

Fall Out Toy Works #3 (of 5): Brett Lewis of The Winter Men - his current series, from Image.

Criminal: The Sinners #4 (of 5): Brubaker, Phillips. Have a look.

The Boys #39: Ennis, Robertson. Preview.

Batman Confidential #41: Part 2 of 4 for Sam Kieth, cultivating an unnervingly regular presence of late.

Greek Street #8: And here's your Peter Milligan of the week.

Ultimate Comics X #1: In contrast to all that, here's what's intended to be an ongoing superhero presence for the considerably elusive, influential Art Adams - a new bimonthly Ultimate series from writer Jeph Loeb, poised to introduce some crucial new character to the mix. Still, yeah: Art Adams.

Indomitable Iron Man: This is one of two $3.99, four-story anthologies Marvel is putting out this week, although it doesn't appear to have the holiday tie-in of Marvel Heartbreakers - and believe me, I've been trying to think up a Groundhog Day joke for hours. It instead appears to be a throwback to the b&w Marvel magazines of yore, albeit in typical Marvel comic book size and almost certainly without the gratuitous nudity (otherwise they'd be charging more). The highlight will probably be whatever writer/artist Howard Chaykin comes up with, in that he knows the terrain damn well. Preview.

Dominic Fortune: It Can Happen Here and Now: And just to mark the occasion, Marvel is also releasing this $19.99 softcover devoted to Chaykin's swashbuckling rogue-for-hire, including an actual b&w piece of the type, from 1975's Marvel Preview #2, plus 1980's patchy color Fortune tale from Marvel Premiere #56 -- plotted by Chaykin & Len Wein, scripted by David Michelinie, laid out by Chaykin and finished by Terry Austin -- along with Chaykin's very fine 2009 MAX miniseries and a Dean Motter/Greg Scott story originally published as an online serial.

Komiks: Comic Art in Russia: And finally, here's a really interesting-looking new study from José Alaniz of the University of Washington, Seattle, burrowing into a uniquely troubled comics tradition having "borne the brunt of ideological change--thriving in summers of relative freedom, freezing in hard winters of official disdain." It nonetheless endures. From the University Press of Mississippi; 288 pages for $38.00.

We start with the ending.

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Barefoot Gen Vol. 9 (of 10): Breaking Down Borders & Barefoot Gen Vol. 10 (of 10): Never Give Up: Being the long, long-awaited release of the final 270-page volumes of Keiji Nakazawa's 1972-73 boys' comics saga of the Hiroshima bombing and its extended aftermath, a richly symbolic moment for manga in United States, in that the initial volume of Gen was the first Japanese comic ever translated to English for release in book form, all the way back in 1978. These books see young Gen becoming considerably less young, as the story advances to 1953 and the budding artist encounters romance, drugs and a personal ambition that'll take him far away from the scene of the tragedy, though it naturally can't ever leave him - that Gen is more-or-less Nakazawa himself perhaps needn't even be stated by now. From Last Gasp, $14.95 each.

Afrodisiac: In which Brian Maruca & Jim Rugg -- creators of the admired surreal action comic Street Angel -- present a conceptual AdHouse art book supposedly not unlike Al Columbia's recent Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, but devoted entirely to semi-simulated '70s comic book tales and franchise fragments starring a most pliable blaxploitation-style title character. Sean Collins recently read the whole thing as a commentary on the aesthetically insular world of early Bronze Age comic books attempting to interface with a super-cool, much more complicated minority culture by basically imposing its goofy tropes on the most sensational pop-visible aspects of said culture, to comedic (and perhaps disturbing) effect. I know I'd want to give it a flip right away. It's $14.95; video trailer here, sample pages here.

The Vermont Monster Guide: What's always worth noting? A new project from Stephen R. Bissette, here illustrating a Joseph A. Citro field manual to legendary beasts of the green mountain state; several making of videos are online. From the University Press of New England; $18.95 for 128 pages. Note that Bissette also has a new webcomic going right now, King of Monster Isle.

Hotwire Comics Vol. 3: The newest 138-page installment of editor Glenn Head's odd, oversized Fantagraphics anthology, a distinctly old-fashioned scattershot alternative comics production with a crew drawn heavily from Monte Beauchamp's old Blab! anthologies and Head's own shorter-lived Snake Eyes. Basically, it's a louder, more comedic, more visually-driven, and frankly more uneven sibling rival to MOME, although the promise of new Mack White, Mary Fleener and Rick Altergott comics is fine with me. Also featuring Michael Kupperman, Johnny Ryan, R. Sikoryak, David Sandlin, Tim Lane -- who seems to have been otherwise quiet since his intriguing 2008 debut collection Abandoned Cars -- Sam Henderson, Max Andersson, Doug Allen, Danny Hellman, Stephane Blanquet and more. It's $22.99; preview here.

Dirty Dishes: Your latest 96-page item in Drawn and Quarterly's petit livre series of small art books, this time a $14.95 platform for Canadian artist and animator Amy Lockhart, also of anthologies like PictureBox's The Ganzfeld and Conundrum Press' Nog A Dod. The publisher has samples.

Remember: I can't say I adored Orange, Tokyopop's North American debut release for Chinese manhua artist Benjamin (Zhang Bin), but I'll give it this - while many teen angst comics betray the hand of a looming adult artist presence relaying a story they think young people might relate to, Benjamin's work lacked any such evident filter, behaving in the capricious, ponderous, entirely self-absorbed manner of an actual moody teenager, exactly as I remember it, in spite of a nearly toxic application of mad color gloss to every damn page. This is a 2004 story suite, 144 color pages for $14.99, purportedly obsessed with doomed love, ruined ambitions and comics creation; preview here.

Sayonara, Zetsubo-Sensei Vol. 5: But if it's the lighter side of suicidal despair you crave, here's another $10.99 package of Koji Kumeta's wide-ranging Japanese cultural satire by way of high school girl ensemble comedy, now up to vol. 19 at home. Buckle up for translation notes!

Tank Girl Remastered Vol. 5: Apocalypse: It had to happen - the first of these Titan Books collections of the Alan Martin/Jamie Hewlett creation to feature neither Alan Martin nor Jamie Hewlett as primary participants. Still, it does have artists Andy Pritchett & Philip Bond, working with Phil Gascoine from an Alan Grant script about the imminent end of the world and Our Heroine's sudden pregnancy, as initially released by Vertigo, 1995-96. The fee is $14.95 for 112 pages.

The Complete World War Robot: On its way to being a movie, I believe, but the appeal is naturally the 96 square pages of Ashley Wood illustrations depicting small med and hulking round machines. Text by T.P. Louise (of course), published by IDW (as usual), priced at $29.99 in hardcover format. Simulated flip-through here.

Alias: Ultimate Collection Book 2 (of 2): In case you missed one of Brian Michael Bendis' signature works from earlier in the decade (2001-04), this $34.99 softcover rounds out the run with issues #16-28.

Batman and Robin #7: Meanwhile, on the other end of the superhero continent, Grant Morrison reunites with Seaguy/Seven Soldiers cohort Cameron Stewart for a sorta post-Blackest Night-related storyline that also figures in with the eventual return of Bruce Wayne, maybe, but certainly features fan-favorite Morrison stock players Knight and Squire, plus temporary sister title protagonist Batwoman. Inky preview here.

Detective Comics #861: Speaking of which, here's the start of what's probably the last Batwoman storyline in this title, after which the character moves to her own series later this year. Three issues for now, written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Jock. Have a look.

Frank Frazetta's Dark Kingdom #4 (of 4): When I was a child, I had a dream that an angel handed me a color prayer postcard of a saint, the identity of whom I cannot remember, and told me that I was to tear it up and scatter it on the street in front of my aunt's house. However, hoping it would grow, I instead buried the fragments in the dirt in the back yard, and all that happened was the readymade corpus became filthy. So I asked for penance, all teary and small, and I was told to wait 20 years and then identify the week of release of every new Tim Vigil release on my internet comic book site. Dear readers, the night of that dream was the night before Grips #1 hit the stands, and these days I'm sure it was really the devil I spoke to, but a deal's a deal; $3.99.

Kick-Ass #8 (of 8): This ain't the devil, though; it's just genre and fandom, and little incursions on taste reinforcing the pleasure of fantasies delayed & delivered. Kick-Ass was never realistic, it was about how realism is like fasting, and how fasting itself can function as not so much a virtue as a means of having food taste richer when you finally stop. Millar's kitchen is no less loving than Mark Waid's, or Grant Morrison's, but he's long ago understood that the real, mild spice is the most widely appetizing, and every roar in the theater at every little girl cuss and every bloody plunging sword is another growling belly; this is fast food, this is broad superheroes, this is creator-owned franchising beyond the medium's ratty county line. Me, I'm stuffed on fluff, and I'm local as shit, so let me break metaphor while I ready my bed: the problem with new superhero comics isn't that they're decadent, it's that they're not decadent enough.

I'm even more behind than usual so this is gonna be quick.

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

almost every comic I bought last week (including Orc Stain #1, Army of Two #1, Neonomicon Hornbook, Starstruck #5 and PunisherMax #3)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

not simple: Being the start of Viz's major 2010 effort to launch mangaka Natsume Ono on the North American scene. I mentioned her a little bit last summer when I picked up her Japanese-only story collection Tesoro; I really like her art, a pliable series of variations on squat cartoon forms that absolutely radiate tenderness and vulnerability, two traits probably in generous supply in this all-in-one collection of a 2004-05 webmagazine series following a young man's search for his sister, the only bright point in all his existence. A big 320 pages for $14.99. Free chapter here; overview by David Welsh here.

Joe the Barbarian #1 (of 8): You might have heard of this one - the big new Grant Morrison project from Vertigo, with art by the wonderfully vocal Sean Murphy. A troubled boy is whisked away in an ill delirium to save the world of his toys from a terrible disaster. Preview.

The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives Vol. 1 (of 2): Hmm, can it be called a product of the Golden Age of Reprints if it's collecting prior reprints into a handier form? I dunno -- and I bet a cleaner example will present itself shortly -- but if for some reason you don't have Windsor-Smith's Conan comics on hand, here's the 200-page first half of Dark Horse's artist-specific hardcover project, with 'remastered' coloring I'm not sure about. Written by Roy Thomas, priced at $49.99.

Loverboy: This appears to be a new 128-page Vanguard Productions semi-autobiographical graphic novel about a small man on the prowl for the tall women he craves, written and drawn by 91-year old Dondi (and Wildcat) co-creator Irwin Hasen. Yes, that does automatically make it worth a flip-through, and there's both a $19.95 softcover and a $29.95 hardcover available if you're up for buying.

Thirteen Going on Eighteen: Now here's the Golden Age I know, hauling in a big (7.75" x 11") fat (336-page) entry in Drawn and Quarterly's John Stanley Library, this time covering a '60s teen humor series about girls as friends and rivals, with Stanley as writer/artist. I've read samples from this around, and it's pretty damn funny. It's $39.95.

Oishinbo Vol. 7: Izakaya: Pub Food: Say goodbye for now to cocky eating master Yamaoka with one more edutaining 276-page dose of hooray-for-Japan food power; you'll never eat half of this, ha ha ha! This time: casual eats. It's $12.99.

Pluto Vol. 7 (of 8): Woah, look what's almost done! Osamu Tezuka by way of Naoki Urasawa, screaming towards the penultimate. From Viz, $12.99.

Black Jack Vol. 9 (of 17): But if it's uncut Tezuka you crave, Vertical's got you covered with 320 more pages of $16.95 super-medicine. My god, when will the healing end?!

Vagabond VizBig Edition Vol. 6: We do know when this is going to end - later this year, as artist Takehiko Inoue has recently stated. That'll put the final tally of these three-in-one bricks at 11 or 12, depending on exactly when the swordsman series concludes. For now, $19.99 nets you vols. 16-18 of the regular run. Note that Inoue and Viz also have REAL vol. 7 this week (in Japan it's up to vol. 9), and I wonder if that irregular ongoing basketball drama won't be getting its creator's fuller attention by 2011.

All My Darling Daughters: And finally in Japanese comics, Viz presents a $12.99, 208-page suite of five short stories brushing on a thirtysomething woman's difficult personal situation after her mother (whom she still lives with) decides to marry a much younger man. From the widely respected Fumi Yoshinaga, of Antique Bakery and Ôoku: The Inner Chambers.

RASL #6: More of Jeff Smith and dimension-hopping desert sci-fi.

Garth Ennis' Battlefields: Happy Valley #2 (of 3): More of Ennis-written combat sagas. Preview.

Hellblazer #263: Your Peter Milligan of the week, continuing Constantine's India.

glamourpuss #11: Dave Sim keeps it photo-real.

The Zombies That Ate the World #8 (of 8): And finally, the end of this Guy Davis-drawn saga of undead co-existence with the urban American future. I think this also wraps up the DDP/Humanoids alliance for now, in that I'm unaware of any future scheduled projects, although it's always worth keeping an eye open, eh?

A little scant, but never too little.

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Death Note (a commentary on Tsugumi Ohba's & Takeshi Obata's leanish, meanish shonen sensation as an emblematic 'mainstream' comic of the '00s, for what the term's worth anymore)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

The Complete Torpedo Vol. 1: Ha! You thought the Golden Age of Reprints would sit these early days of 2010 out? You thought it'd rest for even one week, with an empire still to build?!


(Not from Torpedo)

Poor fool. You'd better just tithe IDW $24.99 now and steel your faith in this much-desired, months-delayed first hardcover collection of seminal Depression era New York hit man comics from writer Enrique Sánchez Abulí and artists Jordi Bernet & (briefly) Alex Toth, est. 1981 in Spanish-language environs. It's oversized and 160 pages, with a new English translation by Jimmy Palmiotti and book design by Darwyn Cooke. Then after that you can pick up IDW's $39.99 The Complete Dick Tracy Vol. 9: 1944-45 and Hermes Press' Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies Vol. 3 1932-1934, because these damn pyramids aren't gonna build themselves. Stack those comics bricks! Stack 'em!

Graylight: I don't know the slightest thing about this book, save that NBM is publishing it, as they have with two prior books by Swedish artist Naomi Nowak, Unholy Kinship (2006) and House of Clay (2007). It looks like a surreal, misty thing, and the solicitation tells me it's about a woman in (romantic) trouble. Your $12.95 gets you 144 pages of more.

Neonomicon Hornbook: Being a fancily-titled $1.99 preview of Alan Moore's upcoming Lovecraftian project with artist Jacen Burrows, a sequel to Burrows' (and adaptor Antony Johnston's) 2003 comics adaptation of Moore's prose story The Courtyard, except this one's actually an all-original Moore script, I believe his first with publisher Avatar. This 16-page item contains finished art, script excerpts, design sketches and more; as it usually goes with Alan Moore, even among those cold on his recent work (or his work full stop), I doubt many will be able to resist a little peek.

Blade of the Immortal Vol. 22: Footsteps: Only the latest $19.99 shot of Hiroaki Samura, its 232 pages paced a ways behind Japan's newest vol. 25. Ninja preview. Note that Dark Horse is preparing to expand its Blade line of products, with Junichi Ohsako's 2008 official prose novel Legend of the Sword Demon due out in a few weeks and Samura's (likewise 2008) 'Art of' book set for an expanded English release in June.

Silent Möbius Complete Edition Vol. 2 (of 15): Aw, but I can't blame ya if you want to pledge a softer $14.99 toward some sweet sweet nostalgia - errant X-Men and Batman artist Kia Asamiya's 1988-99 saga of cyberpunk occult policewomen vs. the demonic menace of the Lucifer Hawks in a cobalt tinsel Tokyo sprawl of 2026. It was Asamiya's big splash as a mangaka after years of working in animation, escorting him straight to the director's chair for a 54-minute theatrical anime short in 1991, which itself spawned a sequel movie and a television series. Manga and anime alike quickly found a home in North America, with Viz beginning serialization of the latter in '91 and Streamline Pictures picking up the initial anime in '92, as spicy action sci-fi could often be promised a run at the place in those days, and the artist always did like American comics and movies.

As a result, Silent Möbius got to be somewhat well-known, basically by virtue of hanging around and being visible a lot; truth be told, it's not a very good comic as much as attractively sewn together from bits of other popular comics, leaving it highly adept at pushing certain otaku buttons of its day by sheer force of genre collage. The original Viz translation totaled 12 volumes by 2003, wrapping up the core series just in time for the current manga boom. Now here comes Udon with spanking new editions, in right-to-left format, with the original Japanese color bits, supplemental materials and, eventually, a stack of unseen-in-English sidestory and prequel material, hence the extra three books. I suspect its ferociously derivative nature will only help it form a kind of an executive summary of period nerd delight today, while hearkening back to a time when glittering electric razor skyscrapers were as much a mark of manga in America as teeming bookstore shelves.

Creepy Archives Vol. 5: This, meanwhile, will push a different breed of reader's buttons, even as it sees the old Warren content (Creepy #21-25) sail into a difficult financial period. Still a bunch of nice Steve Ditko in here, I do believe. Still $49.99, still Dark Horse. Preview. Also this week on the fifty dollar old stuff from Dark Horse beat is Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Vol. 2, the solicitation of which tells me Alex Toth is again somehow involved.

Human Target: Chance Meetings: Your Peter Milligan of the week, this time a helpful $14.99 reprint of his very fine 1999 Vertigo miniseries revival of DC's bodyguard-as-master of disguise character, with art by the late Edvin Biuković, along with its 2002 original graphic novel sequel Final Cut, drawn by Javier Pulido. This is all in support of some upcoming television show, which I think is a fine excuse for good comics cheap.

Doc Savage: The Silver Pyramid: Your random old DC miniseries of the week (oh alright, I think it's here to support the upcoming Brian Azzarello First Wave pulp hero universe), a 1987-88 out-of-retirement adventure from writer Dennis O'Neil and the green team of Adam & Andy Kubert. It's $19.99.

Age of Reptiles: The Journey #2 (of 4): Rushing dinosaurs from Ricardo Delgado. Preview.

Daytripper #2 (of 10): The rush of time from Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.

Die Hard Year One #4: Howard Chaykin is writing this ongoing Boom! license book, now ending its first storyline. I'm told it's nuts. I trust there's shootings.

PunisherMax #3: Shootings here too.

The Muppet Show Comic Book #1: You know the picture rocket format can't be too close to the cliff when Roger Langridge gets an all-new launch of an ongoing series following a successful pair of miniseries, and it somehow feels inevitable. Yes.


(Nor are they Muppets)

Sky Doll: Doll Factory #2 (of 2): Man, Marvel's even putting out a(nother) $5.99 comic's worth of production materials from a French religio-media manga fusion satire that doesn't even have its next album scheduled yet. Apropos of nothing, did you know the final volume of Valérian and Laureline (aka: Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent), L'Ouvre temps, is due out later this month? All the better that Cinebook is still set to start a new English translation effort sometime this year, I hope.

Quick One: Start the Year Fast

I'm trying to drop 20 pounds, so I figure I ought to keep moving.

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Best of 2009 (reminder: all works that did not qualify will be withdrawn from circulation and pulped at the close of business Friday)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

The Troublemakers: Oh shit, here's how you start 2010 off right - new Gilbert Hernandez. Specifically, his $19.99 Fantagraphics hardcover follow up to Chance in Hell (my Best of 2007 #1 pick) and Speak of the Devil (a portion of which was among my Best of 2008) in that it's a 'movie' that exists in the greater Love and Rockets world. As you can maybe guess, I've really enjoyed these project, and this one carries a double charge as Beto's entry into the emboldened crime comics scene of recent months: a sleazy rocker, a pair of nasty ladies and a big drug money rip-off are prominently featured over 128 cruel pages. Review coming soon, god willing, but here's a preview in which women wrestle on a dusty road immediately following the main titles.

The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.: Elsewhere in cockeyed genre hardcovers that put the "Fanta" before the "graphics," Dash Shaw brings a 104-page collection of color sci-fi stuff, ranging from production materials from the titular animated serial (his directorial debut) to various shorts from MOME and elsewhere, plus an all-new extra-length story. Definitely flip through this one; Shaw's fleshy, emotive, color-seared approach isn't quite like anyone else's, and the subject matter will (sort of) prepare you for Pantheon's collected BodyWorld later this year. It's (also) $19.99; samples here.

The Box Man: But enough of this gun shootin' and planet eatin' - what of the new bizarre pictures from Japan's world of "manga" comics? Enter Drawn and Quarterly and Garo veteran Imiri Sakabashira, a cartoonist and painter making his English-language bookshelf debut (he's also been in Vice) with what appears to be an all-new work, a strange and oozing trip report from some kind of porno kaiju movie geography. That's all I know, but the guy comes recommended by persons of good taste. It's $24.95 for 128 b&w pages; preview here.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms: Being a dandy new $14.95 hardcover edition of Last Gasp's fine 2007 release of Fumiyo Kouno's gentle, generations-spanning story of young women connected to Hiroshima and its ever-present 20th century legacy. The artist recently won an Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival for the book's 2008 sequel, Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni, which hopefully will appear in English one of these days.

Shutter Island: Well here's an interesting tie-in for the upcoming Martin Scorsese picture - a swift Tokyopop English edition of French artist Christian De Metter's 2009 comics adaptation of Dennis Lehane's original prose novel, 128 pages in color for $21.99. Preview here.

Olympians Vol. 1: Zeus: King of the Gods: The first out the door in First Second's new wave of releases, seeing George O'Connor of 2006's Journey Into Mohawk Country and 2009's Ball Peen Hammer (with Adam Rapp) begin a projected 12-book series adapting Greek mythology to an action comics style. It's a $16.99 hardcover, although I understand a $9.99 paperback edition should be around soon. In color, 80 pages; preview.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Vol. 1: I don't think I can cite the Golden Age of Reprints when the last edition of this was out in 2005, but that thing's going for something like $160.00 on Amazon now; I guess the demand is out there for a $24.99, 112-page Boom! Studios hardcover edition of what appears to be half of Don Rosa's much-loved extended 'origin' story for the great duck character, which doubles as a massive homage to the good (great!) duck artist Carl Barks. A similar two-volume re-release of Rosa's related stories (previously collected as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion) will follow, resulting in a total of four volumes.

Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea: Ah, but this surely counts! Yet another sorely tempting $49.99 item from IDW's Library of American Comics, but of a slightly different makeup, content to compile just a single, huge 1939-40 storyline from George McManus' beloved strip (est. 1913), following Maggie & Jiggs and their newly married daughter on a cross-country tour. A big (11" x 10") 272 pages, with the usual extras.

Big Questions #13: A House That Floats: A new $9.95 Drawn and Quarterly installment of Anders Nilsen's long-running serial of humans and (especially) animals skirting survival an a strange, bucolic place. Always worth a look as one of the few remaining alternative comic picture rockets around that doesn't do the all-in-one thing. Sean Collins reviews it here.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #1 (of 5): But if it's a more traditional $3.50 piece you're after, I doubt you'll go wrong with this new Guy Davis-drawn kickoff to one of those climactic storylines that crop up in the Hellboy universe's most prolific series. See it.

The Boys #38: And speaking of building toward things, writer Garth Ennis has mentioned that this series is now set to run for an extra-long 70 issues, with two more connecting miniseries on top of the completed Herogasm, which seems to mark this final (for now) 'origins' issue as the series' halfway point, mostly. Presenting: the Female.

King City #4 (of 12): Here's some good Brandon Graham reprints, sprinkled with new bonuses.

Tank Girl: Skidmarks #2 (of 4): Here's some colorized Alan Martin/Rufus Dayglo reprints, which I hadn't read when they were new.

Starstruck #5 (of 13): Here's some excellent old 'n new or old-made-new and certainly newly colored though not colorized material from Elaine Lee and Michael Wm. Kaluta.

Batman Confidential #40: Woah, Sam Kieth for the next four issues.

Greek Street #7: And Peter Milligan too.

Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books: Your non-comics oddity of the week - a new Bart Beaty & Nick Nguyen translation of a 2005 academic tome by American studies professor Jean-Paul Gabilliet of the University of Bordeaux, analyzing the history, distribution and turbulent legitimization of our domestic stuff from an interdisciplinary perspective. I can't imagine this not being worth at least paging through, which you can do online via Google Books. From the University Press of Mississippi; 432 pages in hardcover for $55.00, priced for learning.

How is your holiday?

*If you're having one. I am, and mine's ok, thanks.

***

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival 2 (concluding the one con report I've written that I feel best about; believe it or not, a lot of this is an exercise in learning the value of concision, albeit in the micro sense - contains minicomics, new manga in Japan, various recent releases circa the end of November, one bit inspired by a dream I had on Christmas Eve, more, etc.)

***

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

[nothing]: Just keeping in practice here for now; it's gonna hurt when I'm doing this every week after Marvel and/or DC stop publishing. But that's next year!

You could always show up at your store anyway, see if they're doing anything for/privy to the existence of Indy Comic Book Week, maybe holding a New Year's Eve's Eve sale. Maybe they got in that non-deluxe Rocketeer hardcover you've been looking for, or that Alec collection?

In lieu of funnybook content, I'll also mention that my whole family went out to see Sherlock Holmes in theaters, so here's a few things:

1. It is something to realize that From Hell has been sufficiently internalized by the right people that bits of the Iain Sinclair tour-of-London chapter can poke their head out of a breezy, summer-style money machine like this to serve as plot dressing. Is there some more immediate influence at work I'm missing?

2. The acting is fun in the same way as in some of the recent Marvel movies, in that the main performers seem entirely relaxed and willing to play up some amusing business dredged up from the background and lore of very storied characters, and all the better if the performer's very presence offers some added synchronization. By which I mean Robert Downey, Jr. is in twitchy scamp mode here, as opposed to cocky-yet-lovable rogue mode as in Iron Man, but the unavoidable aspect of being Robert Downey, Jr. adds a vulnerability that plays equally well off of an antisocial soul like Holmes and an ostensibly tortured, 'weapon's burden' badass like Tony Stark.

3. I sort of liked it. I mean, it's formulaic as possible, to the point where you can finish characters' lines at times before they do, but it's efficient, chummily-scripted, with a fairly endearing tendency to emphasize in-movie logic over the supernatural fantasy movie stuff the script hangs around as modern superhero/sci-fi decoration. That's not to say most of the action scenes aren't ludicrous, but I kind of dug how the pictured tried to at least metaphorically stick with Holmes' everything-makes-sense point of view.

4. On the other hand, my mother absolutely hated it, primarily because the script doesn't extend the slightest hand to the audience. Indeed, the plot is almost entirely powered by stuff happening quickly, Holmes looking at things and then performing vivid extrapolations from background details so as to move the characters to the next event. Now, I haven't read more than three of the original Holmes stories in my life, so maybe they're all like that, and if I were feeling especially generous I'd argue that point is that we, the viewers, cannot ever hope to approach such a fabulous mind, better that we sit agog and observe - which doesn't explain quite why typical reader surrogate Watson is that much of an ass-kicking he-man, or how the female Catwoman to Holmes' Batman doesn't get the same filmic aura of untouchability even though she's presented as the occasional superior to Holmes' intellect, but I guess she's not the star of the movie.

5. If there's one thing that stood out about Guy Ritchie's direction -- which is mostly smooth and unspectacular, a no-doubt prudent submersion of his hyper-vivid taste for indulgence into blockbuster machinework; compared to someone like Michael Bay, which own hyper-vivid taste for indulgence doubles as blockbuster machinework, Ritchie seems like a well-behaved classmate that doesn't make you grin as much -- it's a little mote of wit added to the action stylings, so that the obligatory slooooooow action shots double as Holmes thinking about stuff, working out every angle, the 'joke' being that he can't even punch someone or whack them on the head without really thinking it through. This even extends to a dramatic fake-out explosion scene, where slow-motion (and a mournful string refrain) seems to indicate tragedy, but it's actually just Our Man sorting things out again, so as to explain invisible scents and elusive sights for our benefit later.

It's still a lecture in the end, but you take what you can get.

Holiday Good Times

*Well, at least I finished my Christmas shopping. Other than that, last week wasn't a great one for getting anything done, although I maintain I would have gotten part two of that con thing up if the words had only worked like they're supposed to. I'm now consulting the manual.

*Theatrical Shorts Dept: Oh, I did see the new Coen Brothers movie, A Serious Man, which I liked a hell of a lot. Although I think I was misled by some of the reviews - this is much more of a comedy than anyone seems to be talking about, in that there were laughs just about straight on through. I thought it was a lot funnier than Burn After Reading, for example, which landed for me as another not-quite-there Coens attempt at deliberate farce (I haven't seen The Hudsucker Proxy, though, the most infamous of those efforts, albeit an infamy of an earlier, different time). Maybe I just find them funnier when the weight of their effort isn't on the comedy?

I particularly liked how much its of a piece with other Coen pictures, how it adapts the chaotic universe outlook of (just sticking to recent work) diverse stuff like the literary adaptation of No Country for Old Men and the all-star spoofing of Burn After Reading to some deeply-felt religious struggle. By which I mean how the landscapes of No Country are neutral ground for human misdeeds and the control of fate offered by the flip of a coin won't stop you from being hit by a random car, and how the conspiracies and intrigues of the Burn cast are all self-absorbed, mostly fantasy playing out in an uncaring world - how all that mirrors the religious person's agony at how when things go wrong you don't weep in thrall of an immediate God.

Ah shoot, I'm gonna have to get into spoilers. If that's not your thing, skip down to the bold letters.

I took the primary theme of the film as physicality's interaction with spirituality/the supernatural, an old concern for sure. The opening Yiddish fable is a synecdoche; the husband accepts the physical nature of things while the wife views the home's situation in supernaturally religious terms, with no conclusion reached after Special Guest Star Fyvush Finkel gets shanked - the departure of the 'threat' to the house leaves the husband convinced that his wife is crazy, while the wife is content in having obviously saved the day.

The film proper reestablishes this setup right in front, with the titles and the title tune literally flowing into the ear of young Danny, preventing him from hearing his lessons (and happily suggesting that the movie itself will probably only confuse and distract from genuine religious concerns), cross-cut with Larry's physical examination, the scientific results of which are of course incomplete, a fact the Coens underline by going for the great old 'smoking doctor' joke. No surprises here.

And as Larry's life proceeds to spend the remainder of the film falling apart in a Job-like manner, he's mocked by the fact that his trials are fairly logical as far as things go, that his three 'friends' (the Rabbis) can only embody different ways of confronting struggle under the eye of God, and certainly that no divine answer appears to be forthcoming. Granted, I've seen some readings of the film cast the finale as God's 'answer' to Larry's moral failure (in contrast to Job's success), but I see it less as explicit punishment than human physicality finally, ironically begging questions of deeper contemplation that can otherwise be put away like paying for records by mail.

Consider how the film's ending mirrors its (post-Yiddish) beginning, again cross-cutting between Larry and Danny, except this time Larry's old body is clearly in bad shape from within, and he must contemplate not social or economic meltdown but the reality of death. At the same time, Danny tries to pay off the bully that's been chasing him for the entire movie, but here at the end he's standing still, as they both watch the storm swirling, suddenly aware that there's bigger things than them in the world, real physical smitin'.

Naturally, none of this mandates a belief in divine power; you can read the whole movie as a study of silly characters running back and forth crazy from superstition in the nihilistic world, in the same way that you can read, say, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, as an avowed agnostic's intellectual survey of variations on faith. The context would argue otherwise -- and you'll notice I'm not reading the Coens' film in the specifically Jewish context it's planted in, so I'm possibly on thin ice myself -- but that multiplicity of readings is going to be present with subject matter that explores such doubt without blinking. Although I daresay that denying A Serious Man's, er, seriousness in exploring these deeply-felt theological basics involves holding the characters at more of an arm's length than the filmmakers themselves.

But yeah - funny movie, a really sharp, clever treatment of topics near and dear to probably a lot of people the Coens knew/know. Lots of love in this picture, great touches, etc.

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

(Do note that while the awesome-looking Eddie Campbell collection Alec: The Years Have Pants is set for imminent release according to some lists, such as Midtown Comics', it is not on Diamond's list for the week... so basically, keep your eyes peeled at the shop, since it might be there but maybe not.)

Footnotes in Gaza: Straight up from the footnote-like region of the Merchandise section of the Diamond list comes a popular recent pick for your stop-the-presses-here's-a-book-of-the-year talking point - the new 432-page(!) hardcover work by Joe Sacco, honed in on the town of Rafah at the bottom of the Gaza Strip, and the 1956 killing of over 100 Palestinians that embodies the area's living conflict.

Every time I see a new Sacco comic I'm struck by how out-of-time he seems; with his in-story avatar furiously scribbling down the action, his caption narrations topping many a panel and his subjects frequently turning to address YOU the reader, a pretty fucking straight alt comics line can be drawn back to American Splendor, or even Justin Green's stuff, to an extent, which isn't something that can be said at all for contemporary lit comics superstars of Sacco's stature. His innovation, I think, is in refining these storied techniques in pursuit of a subject matter that both benefits from the comics form -- particularly in evoking the faces of displaced people, and their bodies and living spaces and posture too, but the faces are very very important -- and conflicts with it in terms of tone, if a bit from the formal characteristics Sacco adopts. In other words, I'm never surprised that the back-of-cover quotes on these things continue to marvel at the sight of comics as journalism, because Joe Sacco's comics look like comics as anyone who's read Archie can recognize.

That's not to say he's alone in the effort -- I suppose any number of biographical, reportage comics, that 9/11 Report book etc. use the same basic tried-and-true toolkit -- but circumstances have left him as maybe the only A-list longform People Know Him big-time publishing cartoonist in North America today really working an older, just-post-underground brand of comics art, save for Harvey Pekar himself (with various artists, of course). It's really worth comparing with The Photographer, this year's other big comics-as-journalism release, both as immediate in general storytelling posture as Sacco's book but also a bit tricky and formalistic in that (maybe stereotyped) French alternative comics manner. But yeah - look through this book, it's something. The price is $29.95, the publisher is Metropolitan Books.

The Original Johnson Vol. 1 (of 2): And speaking of comics biography, here's the first IDW collection of Thriller co-creator Trevor Von Eeden's webcomic saga of boxing legend and early 20th century media sensation Jack Johnson. It's 128 color pages for $19.99.

The Art of Herge, Inventor of Tintin Vol. 2 (of 3): 1937-1949: Being the $39.95 center hardcover layer of Last Gasp's big (11" x 8.9") collection of drawings and illustrations by the great Georges Remi, picking up with the start of the color Tintin and passing through the WWII years. With text by Philippe Goddin, translated by Michael Farr. It's 208 pages.

The Great Anti-War Cartoons: Or, for more of a thematic arrangement, Fantagraphics has a $24.99, 192-page Craig Yoe-edited collection of international images from across 200 years. Samples.

Sublife Vol. 2: The latest in this annual (or so) landscape-format Fantagraphics series from John Pham, who first came to most readers' attention with the 2000-2002 self-published, multi-format series Epoxy, a really striking fusion of NON-ready lush cartooning with Otomo-like detail action. He later appeared in early issues of the Fanta anthology MOME with his serial 221 Sycamore St., an odder, less satisfying union of Chris Ware-styled storytelling devices and dreamy symbolic interludes reminiscent of David B. The extra-length debut issue of Sublife was greatly devoted to revising that serial, and it will continue into this new 48-page, $7.99 edition, along with a smaller (even more Ware-like) outer space serial, a self-contained story of a more direct pastel & scratching dissonance (samples here) and assorted short strips. Certainly worth flipping through.

Hellboy: The Bride of Hell: The new Mike Mignola/Richard Corben joint, this time a $3.50 one-off comic with Our Boy on the trail of a missing woman promised to evil. What's not to like? Preview.

Detective Comics #860: The last segment in the Origin o' Batwoman sequence, and the final Greg Rucka/J.H. Williams III issue for a while, as the latter takes some time to work on the larger story's concluding five chapters. Or six. Actually, Williams has been firmly hinting that the rest of the story might not even be happening in Detective Comics itself. Regardless, issue #861 starts up a three-part Rucka-written Batwoman side-story with art by Jock, and the Cully Hamner-drawn Question backup, as here, as always.

The Mighty Vol. 1: Tucker Stone once described this Peter J. Tomasi & Keith Champagne-written series as the version of Super-Man in that one issue of The ACME Novelty Library where he gouges out all those eyes on the desert island starring in a proper DC superhero comic, which is worth bringing up. This is a $17.99 softcover collection of the first six issues, which'll be half of the whole series once all is said and done in January. Peter Snejbjerg draws a bunch of this part, so it'll look pretty slick too.

Crossed #8 (of 9): In which Garth Ennis' & Jacen Burrows' end-of-days zombie (or thereabouts) series skips 'n whistles ahead, no doubt with an extra laugh on its lips given the heartwarming events of last issue.

Criminal: The Sinners #3 (of 5): More from Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. Have a look.

Beasts of Burden #4 (of 4): No more for now from Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson. Check it out.

Frank Frazetta's Dark Kingdom #3 (of 4): I am bound by statute to identify and log every new Tim Vigil-drawn comic or illustrated prose story in comic form, so there.

Gantz Vol. 8: Seriously, Hiroya Oku will probably keep making this so long as you buy it.

Garth Ennis' Battlefields: Happy Valley #1 (of 3): Marking the return of Ennis' Dynamite strain of war stories with a lil' thing about an Australian bomb crew over Germany in 1942, with art by 2000 A.D. regular PJ Holden. Note that there's only three issues due; as with the last bunch of these things, it's gonna be trilogy of three-part stories coming out monthly, so I think some wires got crossed somewhere and Happy Valley got solicited as a nine-part series, when it's actually just set to be followed by two other three-chapter tales. Preview.

Charley's War Vol. 6: Underground and Over the Top: Ho ho ho, Joe Sacco & Garth Ennis not quite enough for the conflict department of your internal Santa's Workshop? Well why not a $19.95, 9" x 12" hardback shot of Pat Mills' & Joe Colquhoun's vintage battle pictures of the sick futility that was World War One? There's no comics next week, so savor these 112 pages of absurd human ruin while you toast the new year. Be sure, it's fiction, but not too much, and of a period, but really unending. Have a funny 2010!

Asleep At the Keys: The Post

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival 1 (featuring reviews of French brut force Pakito Bolino's Spermanga and various Shaky Kane klassiks, plus comments on new manga in Japan, idle chatter on recent Diamond releases and some actual thoughts on the comics convention in question - the second half will be up tomorrow or Wednesday)

*What's the word of the week? OLD. Old old old. The Criterion Collection of Comics is real.

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons: I mean, c'mon, a $125.00, 942-page three-volume slipcased doorstep -- by which I mean it's so big it doesn't stop the door, you use it to access the door from a lower level -- collecting what appears to be all of the famed wit's content for Playboy, ranging from cartoons to prose stories to illustrated essays... but mostly cartoons. And in the good Criterion tradition, publisher Fantagraphics has readied a set of production notes by designer Jacob Covey and an introductory appreciation by author Neil Gaiman. Big preview here.

The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures: But if you want your all-in-one hardcovers more recently interested (and a lot smaller) (and way cheaper), you might want to look at this IDW collection of the late Dave Stevens' breezy early 20th century movie serial-inspired odyssey into adventure comics perfectionism, which blinked in and out of sight for 13 years (1982-95) and 111 pages before settling into a conclusion of sorts. It remains an attractive piece of modern throwback costumed hero stuff -- Michael Wm. Kaluta, no stranger to that himself, did breakdowns for some of the later segments -- here newly recolored by Laura Martin, presumably to add consistency to visuals noticeably affected by evolving visual tools. The publisher has two editions ready, a $29.99 basic edition, 144 pages, and a $75.00 Deluxe Edition that adds 104 extra pages of production art and bonus images.

Silver Streak Comics #24 (The Next Issue Project #2): Wow, kinda forgot this was still a going concern - not a reprint at all, but Image's most conceptual of anthologies, assigning today's popular artists to public domain superhero and adventure characters to create a $3.99 'next issue' of a long-gone Golden Age series, printed in the larger period-specific pamphlet format. The first one of these was a very mixed bag, but it's still hard for me to resist the prospect of Erik Larsen, Paul Grist and Michael T. Gilbert (of Mr. Monster) playing around with ye olde Lev Gleason superheroes. The probability of Jack Cole homage is high. Preview.

Asterix & Obelix's Birthday: The Golden Book: Being the 34th official entry in the mighty Franco-Belgian series, another old comic, but one that simply never stopped after its creation just over 50 years ago by the late René Goscinny and current writer/artist Albert Uderzo. And 'mighty' stands strictly in terms of money and visibility, I'm afraid; almost everyone seems to agree that Asterix has been in decline for some time now, with 2005's Asterix and the Falling Sky (vol. 33) representing a mild cultural protectionist meltdown over the hideous uniform monster horde of manga, coupled with American superhero jokes dating back to crew cut era William Gaines. This one promises to be a little different, a probably-cozy old-series-talking-about-aging thing wherein 12 short stories track birthday celebrations throughout the years, matched up with a guidebook feature based around text by Goscinny. From Sterling Publishing Company; a $14.95 hardcover, 56 pages.

The Art of Ditko: See, we're passing through the vintage comics color spectrum here. This is another IDW project, a Craig Yoe-edited/designed 9 1/2" x 12 1/2" hardcover appreciation of someone who needs no introduction, nor even a mention of his given name. Rare stories and art are promised, along with appreciations by Jerry Robinson, John Romita and P. Craig Russell, with an introduction by Stan Lee. It's 208 color pages for $29.99.

Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess: Or maybe the latest in Dark Horse's line of artist-focused hardcover showcases will do? I've never heard of any of these things not looking really nice, so if you like high fantasy specialist Vess I can't imagine your $39.99 going to waste. Huge preview here, by which I mean over 1/4 of the book's contents - I get the impression someone's mighty confident about this thing's appeal as a physical item. It's 9" x 12", 200 color pages, with an intro by author Susanna Clarke.

The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion: Ok, what's next in our journey through antiquity? How about an expanded reprint of a 1992 book about a vintage newspaper strip? Layers of an onion, friend. Brian M. Kane compiles and Fantagraphics publishes this 160-page package of essays and samples and synopses of everything Valiant, right up to today, with the participation of the strip's current creative team of Gary Gianni & Mark Schultz. It looks like this. Note that this week brings the $39.99 hardback; a $24.99 softcover should follow shortly.

Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie Vol. 4: House Divided Or Will Fate Trick Trixie?: Oh my god, wait - we haven't had a proper thick book reprinting a big stack of old newspaper strips yet this week? Thank providence good American pluck and industry for IDW's Library of American Comics, because now 1932 and half of 1933 are coming back to life for $49.99. What could possibly come next?

Connie Vol. 1: Captives of the Space Pirates & Connie Vol. 2: Battle for Titan: Oh. Oh right. And finally, there is Connie. Don't know what Connie is? Yeah, me neither, but the internet assures me it's a signature comics work by illustrator Frank Godwin and the product of a smaller syndicate, which meant exposure in smaller papers. Running from 1927-44, Connie apparently tossed its girl hero into any situation deemed attractive for the time, and these two $11.95 books -- 140 and 112 pages respectively -- cover the 1939 sci-fi era of the strip in which Connie went into space to confront space threats. From longtime rare/obscure funnies purveyors Pacific Comics Club, doing a 'deluxe' release and taken up by Diamond. Why not? Now can't possibly not be the time.

20th Century Boys Vol. 6 (of 24): But getting back to new... shit, are manga reprints too??

Children of the Sea Vol. 2: Maybe if it's a newer manga... sure, like this evocative, lightly-plotted Daisuke Igarashi series about special water kids and vanishing fish, sort of an arty children's entertainment, although I understand it maybe doesn't remain fit for children for too long. Up to vol. 4 in Japan; $14.99, Viz, IKKI, high-end.

Elephantmen #23: Ending the current (long) run of self-contained side character stories, to focus on something else next.

Gødland #30: Joe Casey, Tom Scioli. Look.

The Zombies That Ate the World #7 (of 8): Drawn by Guy Davis.

Hellblazer #262: Your Peter Milligan of the week.

Dodgem Logic #1: And finally, both old and new - the official bimonthly lifestyle magazine from off the streets of Northampton, England, fronted by writer/artist(!) Alan Moore, in the thrall of reviving some bygone whiff of the underground papers. Your $3.99 nets you cartoons (by the likes of Kevin O'Neil, Melinda Gebbe and Savage Pencil), helpful advice and chat on society, a CD of local music (including the Magus himself on one track) and texts of varying styles and attitudes. The official site has a lot of free things, enough to warrant an entire section labeled "Steal," which is probably as close to online culture as a new print endeavor can get today.

They're Prompting You to Jolt the Holiday Economy

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

stunt casting (in the tradition of The Comics Journal #300 but far better, Tucker Stone and I have a special conversation about comics; countless insights erupt from all of last week's pamphlets in an obscene display of hilarity and meaning, with a lot of heart too)

*It's a light one on Wednesday, although I've gotta commend one item in particular to your flipping eye -

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Crossing the Empty Quarter and Other Stories: It'd probably be excessive to title Welsh-raised, painting-trained Carol Swain the most underappreciated cartoonist in the history of ever, particularly considering she's a one-time Peter Milligan/Brendan McCarthy collaborator (on Skin) that counts Alan Moore among her appreciative readers, but rarely have I found a cartoonist to be so reliable at delivering an utterly unique worldview -- a stark, grimly poetic semi-rural setting torn by ex-hellraiser snarling-through-the-fog attitude and a visionary outsider's obscure address -- in such a spread-out bunch of settings: her old Way Out Strips series, the current Hotwire anthologies, her erratic Fantagraphics releases Invasion of the Mind Sappers (1995) and Foodboy (2004).

Amazingly, this Dark Horse project is the second major Swain hardcover release of 2009, following Fantagraphics' Giraffes in my Hair: A Rock 'N' Roll Life, a memoir of writer and Swain partner Bruce Paley. Here it's a full-scale career-spanning collection of short stories, over 30 of them in b&w and color, crammed into a 200-page, $24.95 hardcover. Don't let it get lost in the crowd. Sample story here; exciting flipbook preview here.

Daytripper #1 (of 10): Being the much-anticipated Vertigo project by Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá, both of whom naturally have extensive experience in writing their own comics prior to and apart from Casanova and The Umbrella Academy -- the 2006 Dark Horse collection De: Tales is worth checking out on that front -- though this is pretty well tagged as the post-breakthrough work, with colorist Dave Stewart along to assure us of visual polish. Along with breathless comparisons to David Mazzucchelli, Craig Thompson and Paul Pope, the publisher promises "quiet moments that ask big questions" and "a mystery about the meaning of life itself," told through the temporally fragmented life of a dissatisfied news writer in Brazil. I haven't been this interested in a Vertigo series in a while... so, full-priced $2.99. Sneak peek.

Yotsuba&! Vol. 7: More from the lil' "cutie pie manga aimed at male otaku" that could - this thing's got stacks of copies at my local Borders. Vol. 9 is currently new to Japan. Yen Press is also presenting its new edition of ADV Manga's Azumanga Daioh omnibus this week, collecting an earlier, similarly wide-appealing gag-based high school cutie pie comedy from artist Kiyohiko Azuma.

Detroit Metal City Vol. 3: Somehow I don't think this ongoing ALL METAL manga from Kiminori Wakasugi will enjoy a similar kids' comics crossover, although admirers of dirty jokes in situation comedy (a famed metal legend is really OMG an indie pop wimp!!) will possibly have a lot of fun with this. A $12.99 Viz release; up to vol. 8 in Japan.

Sky Doll: A $19.99 Marvel softcover edition of this universe-spanning, animation-informed and furry-casted lampoon of diverse religion and media from Disney Italy veterans Alessandro Barbucci & Barbara Canepa, closing in on five years as a series with a fourth chapter still forthcoming. Note that this edition does not appear to collect any of the content (mostly production art) from the not-yet-finished-in-English Sky Doll: Doll Factory series, so it remains a slightly smaller, twice-as-expensive version of the Heavy Metal Summer 2006 Special -- where these first three chapters initially saw North American release -- with nicer paper and a smoother English translation.

The Muppet Show Comic Book Vol. 2 #0: Being the 'first' issue of the newest incarnation of this popular licensed series, which apparently will present itself as a formal ongoing series after all. Roger Langridge will remain the primary artist, but this $2.99 introduction has a guest turn by Shelli Paroline. Preview.

Tank Girl: Dark Nuggets: Yes, its the same current Tank Girl team of Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo, who are indeed working on a color miniseries for Titan (Tank Girl: Skidmarks) right now -- first published as a b&w serial in the Judge Dredd Megazine -- but this is a new, b&w 32-page Image special presenting three complete stories of a supposedly nastier type. More will follow, along with more from IDW ("Publisher #3") in turn. Preview.

Phonogram 2: The Singles Club #6 (of 7): Nearing the end of Kieron Gillen's & Jamie McKelvie's second music-as-magic miniseries, and it looks like you, Phonogram reader, better savor it while it's here. Preview.

PunisherMAX #2: One Kingpin, comin' up.

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #4: In which this series of action/suspense-heavy John Arcudi flashback/looking-back pamphlets comes to a close with the always-welcome art of Peter Snejbjerg and a focus on gaseous Johann Kraus, who finds out what the hell happens to all of these cannon fodder monsters after they die. Looks like this.

Citizen Rex #6 (of 6): Concluding Gilbert & Mario Hernandez's odd, sometimes striking miniseries, a real old-timey 'alternative comics' kind of offhandedly joking sci-fi series hyper-literate in funnybook art. Mario sez "I tried to give it the feel of a strange late-night foreign movie you're too drunk to remember clearly the next day," but it's more like an untethered anthology serial you don't realize went on so long until you look it up. Recommended, but remember - I even sort of liked Girl Crazy. Samples.

Batman: The Cult: Oh, this is a new $19.99 printing of that post-Dark Knight 1988 Jim Starlin/Bernie Wrightson miniseries where Batman's mind is ruined by an evil preacher and his deadly henchman Alan Moore and they all conquer Gotham but then Batman gets away and him and Jason Todd ride into town in a monster truck Batmobile and beat the shit out of an entire religion. It may be gritty late '80s superhero stuff at its silliest, but my affection remains undimmed.