Comic Book Resources

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: What Looks Good for January

Time again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for interesting new adventure comics.

Ape

Hairy Things #1-3: Interesting strategy releasing three, individual issues in the same month rather than a single graphic novel. I hope there's a collected version coming soon though, 'cause Bigfoot vs. cowboy cannibals sounds awesome.

Dark Horse

Blacksad: Funny animal comics for people who don't like funny animal comics. In fact, calling Blacksad a funny animal comic is like calling Homer a fantasy writer. The characters may all be animals, and they may talk, but private eye John Blacksad's world is absolutely real and his mysteries are utterly engrossing. Unfortunately, even though it's in January's catalog, the book isn't coming out until March.

Hellboy, Volume 9: The Wild Hunt: The latest Hellboy collection. I really need to get caught up.

Mesmo Delivery: Rafael Grampa is enough to peak my interest, but this gets on the list for the Elvis impersonator and the words, "wrong delivery man to mess with."

Funny animal Frankenstein, robots vs. dinosaurs, and steampunk fairy tales after the jump.

Fantagraphics

Almost Silent: Speaking of funny animals who transcend their genre. In this reprint collection, Jason uses his anthropomorphic creatures to riff on Frankenstein and zombies.

Graphix

Kazu Kibuishi's Copper: Copper and his canine friend Fred are always one of my favorite parts of any Flight anthology. Partly because of their sweet personalities, but mostly due to Kibuishi's fantastic landscapes that make up the world the characters get to play around in.

Image

The Weird World of Jack Staff #1: I'm not sure how accessible this is going to be for people like me who are new to Jack Staff, but hopefully it will be. I've been wanting to check out Paul Grist's series for a long time. I mean, Jack runs around a place called Castletown with giant robots, vampire reporters, and Victorian escape artists. How have I not been reading this already?

Rocketbots: Trouble in Time: Robots vs. dinosaurs and cavemen (and more robots). I want to marry the guys who made this.

Strange Girl: Complete Series: Looks like my procrastination in picking up the Strange Girl collections has paid off. This was one of the first series I began trade-waiting on too, so it's been a long time coming. Can't wait to finally find out what happens to my favorite post-Rapture heroine and her little demon buddy.

Moonstone

Airfighters #1: I'd buy a comic just for the adventures of Iron Ace, the medieval armor-wearing WWII pilot, or Skywolf, who naturally wears a wolf skin. But Chuck Dixon and Moonstone have gone way beyond that and included Black Angel, the Flying Dutchman, and Bald Eagle too. I wasn't thrilled by the Golden Age versions of these characters (or, more accurately, by the racist caricatures of their enemies), but I've been looking forward to this modern take on them for a long time.

Orion

Haunted: What can I say? I'm a total sucker for the spend-the-night-in-a-haunted-house plot. Especially when it includes a kid in a cow costume complete with giant udder.

Radical

Legends: The Enchanted #0: I think I'm morally opposed to #0 issues, but I'm helplessly intrigued by the concept of steampunk fairy tales where Pinocchio is a burnt, half-mechanical warrior, Jack is best known as a slayer of giants, and Hansel and Gretel are psychic exterminators. Looks just similar enough to Fables to get my attention, but different enough to have a good shot at keeping it.

Vertigo

Joe the Barbarian #1: Sort of sounds like Life on Mars but with a teenage loser replacing the homicide detective and a fantasy world instead of the '70s. What I like about it though (besides Grant Morrison's being the exact guy to pull it off well) is the fantasy world's including ninjas, robots, star captains, and a samurai rodent.