American Barbarian

Back in 2010, when Thomas Scioli started bolstering his online presence and entered the realm of webcomics with American Barbarian, I was curious to see how things would play out (as may or may not have been obvious in my June 2010 interview of him). I’ll be honest and admit that now, more than a year later (and with far more of the project online to read), American Barbarian far exceeds what I expected. As much as I have always enjoyed and respected his Kirby-influenced approach to visual storytelling, after reading this double post Apocalyptic tale, I am far more impressed with Scioli’s funky ear for dialogue. It’s like reading a 1970s comic written by a minimalist version of David Mamet. Doubting my quirky endorsement of the work? Then realize AdHouse is collecting the webcomic for a 256-page/6 ” x 9 ” /hardcover release early this year. If you don’t trust my tastes, then you should definitely trust AdHouse publisher Chris Pitzer. To mark the upcoming release, Scioli and I did another of our quick email interviews. Before diving into the interview, let me take a second to agree with JK Parkin’s sentiment in this post, back in June, that DC Comics should have considered Scioli for one of the New 52 titles that it launched back in September. So I was surprised to learn (as you can read in this interview) that DC did not contact Scioli when assembling the creative team for the new OMAC title. As I edited this interview I realized it was hard to find my favorite part of our discussion, but it may be the revelation that the look for Two-Tank Omen came to Scioli in a dream. A close second was learning a bit about his next webcomic, Final Frontier. Feel free to chime in with your favorite part of this interview and/or Scioli’s work in the comments section, please.

Tim O’Shea: As an independent creator, the job of marketing your work falls to you. Do you think over the years, you have gotten more comfortable marketing yourself? On a related note, how did you decide upon doing this one minute trailer for American Barbarian?

Thomas Scioli: Even the largest comics publishers don’t seem to have a budget for promotion, so I’d say any creator, independent or mainstream, can benefit from doing their own promotion. It’s something that I’ve never been comfortable with, but do out of necessity. I think I have gotten better about it, because in the beginning, it would give me crippling anxiety, now it’s just mild trepidation. The idea for doing a trailer came from having seen other people do it. AdHouse’s own Afrodisiac trailer and [Top Shelf's] Infinite Kung-Fu [trailer] are two that made an impression on me when they made the rounds. It got me excited about those two works, so I wanted to do the same. I’d been dabbling with animation, back when I started AmBarb so it was a natural outgrowth of that, too. Once you start doing a webcomic it isn’t long before you realize, hey, why not just do a cartoon?

O’Shea: Did AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer contact you regarding the possibility of an American Barbarian book, or was it the other way around?

Scioli: It happened pretty organically. Comics is a small world, independent comics is even smaller. We’d been hanging out on the convention circuit. Chris had expressed an interest in American Barbarian from pretty early on, but there’s a wide gap between interest as, “that’s something I’d like to read” and “that’s something I’d like to publish.” When I got closer to finishing the book, I knew I had to start pitching it to publishers soon. I was dreading the thought. Chris had bought an American Barbarian pinup I did for the program book and art auction at HeroesCon 2010. At HeroesCon 2011, our tables were adjacent. One of the most common things people ask me at conventions is “When are they going to reprint the first Godland hardcover?” Since it’s been out of print for many years and goes for ridiculous prices online. The idea occurred to me, “Hey, Joe and I own this, so just because Image doesn’t want to reprint it doesn’t mean some other publisher might.” I half jokingly turned to Chris and said, “Do you want to publish a reprint of the first Godland hardcover?” Chris said no, but that he’d like to publish American Barbarian. It was as simple as that. I was ready to say yes right then and there, but I decided to wait until I got home and think about it first. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I had a long list of reasons why AdHouse would be the best possible publisher for it. And I like Chris so much, that the idea of working with him made it easy to say yes.

O’Shea: To you, what are some of the larger benefits to teaming with AdHouse?

Scioli: Before AmBarb, my audience was largely the wednesday comics store audience, viewing my work mainly from a Kirby nostalgia direction. When I started going all-in on webcomics, I noticed a totally new audience discovering my work for the first time. I think being with AdHouse gives it a different context where the full range of things I’m bringing to the table can be highlighted.

I feel like Chris Pitzer is strong in areas that I struggle with. He’s got a great understanding of book design, which is really important for a project like this that is going from an online context to book form. He’s focused on making the book an interesting object in and of itself. Since this is a work that I created entirely on my own, it wasn’t commissioned by a publisher, the main thing you need is a publisher who understands presentation. I know American Barbarian will get the attention it needs and not get lost in the shuffle. AdHouse’s line seemed to me to be carefully curated. Each release really counts. It’s gotten to a point where each new AdHouse book is kind of an event, you know? The Josh Cotter books, then Afrodisiac, then Duncan the Wonder Dog, Pope Hats, Forming. I feel like AdHouse has had this great track record of quality, where I’m benefitting from that goodwill, that American Barbarian is the next AdHouse book and that that means something. I think it’s a great way to have your work presented.

O’Shea: In the webcomic’s first chapter for several panels before his arrival you inject small panels teasing the impending arrival of Two-Tank Omen in a manner that reminded me of Walt Simonson’s teases for Surtur. Did that serve as an inspiration for you?

Scioli: I’m a fan of Thor, so it might be in there somewhere. It’s probably closer to the buildup to the introduction of Galactus, since the buildup and intro happen within the same chapter. Ditko tended to do more of the Surtur-style multi-issue buildup to a villain’s intro than Kirby did. Didn’t they mention Dormammu for months before he actually showed up in Dr. Strange? Spiderman always seemed like it had lots of silhouetted mystery villains hanging around making plans for ages before they’d actually make a move.

Specifically what I was thinking of, and I think it will be more apparent in the print version, is that I had an idea in one of my notebooks to have a subplot going on in a small panel at the bottom of each page, and to have that bottom panel slowly get larger and larger until it engulfs the entire page. I eventually found a use for that idea here, in the buildup to Two-Tank’s arrival.

O’Shea: Is it me or did you enjoy writing the dialogue for American Barbarian’s brothers and father? I cracked up when you had his dad telling the king: “you’re going to have to eat some shit.”

Scioli: Yes I did. I had to make that choice for this comic, how do people talk? I’d been doing the high and mighty fantasy speech in 8-Opus. I wanted to take a break from it and see if I could get away with some more direct, less polished speech. While I’m drawing, I’ll write temporary dialogue in the margins as a placeholder for when I can fill in something more polished. I’ve talked to some other artists who also do this, too. I thought it might be interesting to have them speak in that “first draft” dialogue. “Eat shit, Submariner!” rather than “Taste the full cosmic fury of mine awesome hammer Mjolnir!”

O’Shea: When Rick is carving revenge into his fingers you went to a completely different art style in two panels (pages 10 and 11) of Chapter 2, in fact at least with 11 it looks like it is a photo of actual hands. What lead you to try those panels that way?

Scioli: I don’t know. It was something that just came up in the course of doing it. I hadn’t planned to do it that way, until I sat down to draw it. I knew I wanted to reserve the right to draw any page any way I wanted to. That’s part of the freedom of webcomics. I knew fumetti, watercolor and collage were tools that I hadn’t used before in a comic, so this seemed like a good place to do it. In a lot of ways that’s the emotional focal point of the whole story, so if you’re going to do it somewhere, that’s the place for it.

O’Shea: Am I right in assuming you love designing zany-looking characters. Who do you consider among the American Barbarian cast to be the most outlandish looking character?

Scioli: You’re right, that’s my favorite part of the job. The most outlandish has got to be Two-Tank Omen. That was one that came to me in a dream, so I don’t feel like I “designed” it as much as some of the other characters. Gali-Leo is pretty weird and he was one that was very carefully constructed.

O’Shea: At what point in the story planning did you realize: “I want to have Rick driving a Honda in the opening to chapter 3!”?

Scioli: I wanted him to roll down the hill in some kind of vehicle. At first I was kind of picturing something like in the Simpsons driving game where you utterly destroy your car and drive around in a frame with no tires.

Eventually I decided I wanted this to be another point to include some photo-collage. That’s actually my car.

O’Shea: How is plotting and pacing for a webcomic different than your approach in your past projects?

Scioli: Here’s a big difference, which worked out really well: there’s no set length for the chapters. Each chapter is as long or short as it needs to be. I had 14-page chapters, 40-page chapters. Originally I had concieved of this as a 10-part monthly mini-series comic book. That means that I would’ve had to cram the 40-page chapter into 20-some pages or pad out the 14-page chapter. It lets the work breathe and find its own pace.

I also like how you can release it a page at a time. In a monthly comic, the only page that lingers is the last page. You have to wait a while for that next chunk of story, so that’s where the cliffhangers go. With a webcomic, every page is a cliffhanger. As a creator, you hate the fact that something you labored over can be read so quickly. The people who followed the comic as each page was posted read it in a timeframe that was a lot closer to the timeframe I created it in.

O’Shea: Am I right in thinking you love to use thought balloons for comedic effect (I am thinking in particular of the line “I thought that douche was her boyfriend” from Chapter 5).

Scioli: I’m a big believer in the thought balloon. It lends itself to humor of course, since it’s viewed as a quaint relic, but I think you can use it for serious effect, too.

O’Shea: The webcomic is currently at chapter 10. How many chapters will be covered in February’s release?

Scioli: There will be 10 chapters total, but chapter 10 is pretty long. That’s the whole story. After the story finishes, ambarb.com will host my next webcomic: Final Frontier.

O’Shea: Care to divulge some more details about Final Frontier?

Scioli: It’s the most straight-up superheroey thing I’ve ever done. There’s a whole universe of characters doing all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s tangentially related to American Barbarian.

O’Shea: Are there any extras that the American Barbarian book is going to offer?

Scioli: There are extra drawings and sketches scattered through the book as chapter breaks or design elements. There’s an awesome map of American Barbarian’s world on the endpapers. There’s no backmatter. The book is pretty much all story. The story ended up being a lot bigger than I thought it would be. That last chapter just kept going and going.

O’Shea: In a recent Twitter exchange with Kurt Busiek, you noted that there is a lack of plot (much less subplot) in some comics. How did that come to be, in your opinion?

Scioli: I disavow anything I post on Twitter. Anything I say on there is usually only how I feel at the moment I tweet it, and I usually disagree with it immediately.

I think that because Kirby-style action comics story-telling is my baseline, which is very plot-heavy, everything else tends to seem to my eyes, leasurely and anemic by comparison. But I probably tend towards an over-reliance on plot mechanics and need to learn to more fully utilize the other components of storytelling.

O’Shea: It’s a simple opinion at its core, but I still have to ask (based on this tweet) what is it about the writing process that is so enjoyable for you?

Scioli: That’s where it feels like you’re really playing with toys and having fun, when you’re in those early stages of figuring out the shape of it. The day-in-day-out drawing of a comic has its own set of rewards, but things happen so much more slowly, it’s not as enjoyable. I think it’s also because my early work was so much more focussed on the drawing. Writing was something I did to facilitate the things I wanted to draw, where now I’ve accumulated enough experience that I actually have feel like I have things to say, and a way of expressing them.

O’Shea: Please tell me that DC contacted you when they decided to include OMAC as part of the new 52?

Scioli: They did not. DC is the one big four company I’ve never done anything with. OMAC is a lot closer to what I’d like to see from mainstream superhero comics, a focus on visual bravura and clearly-choreographed action. It’s got that joy in the drawing process that I’d just mentioned. I’d been enjoying Giffen’s recent penciling work leading up to it. It’s beautiful. It’s my favorite of the new 52, and tellingly enough it’s by far the worst-selling. I know better than anybody what a tough sell the fake Kirby thing can be.

Life with Archie #16

Comics | CNN covers the upcoming wedding of Archie Comics’ Kevin Keller, who will get married to another man in Life with Archie #16. Keller was injured while serving in the military in Iraq and Clay Walker, his groom-to-be, was his physical therapist. “Riverdale is this picturesque vision of American life, and when you see yourself reflected in that, you have a role in even the most idealized version of the reality you live in,” said Matt Kane, associate director of entertainment media for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “That’s the difference between feeling like a rejected outsider and feeling like you’re a part of something.” [CNN]

Comics | Jim Caple worries that viewers of the Tintin movie won’t appreciate it the way he does, comparing old-school Tintin fans to old-school Boston Red Sox or Seattle Mariners fans: “That’s what I worry about. I worry there will be all these Tintin wannabes who only know the character from the movie, who don’t appreciate Herge’s genius, who don’t know what it was like to wait a month for the next 10-page installment or when you had to special order the few books made available in America. Fans who didn’t earn this movie.” [ESPN]

Creators | Kurt Busiek discusses his work on Dracula: The Company of Monsters, which returned from cancellation as a webcomic, as well as digital comics in general: “I’ve been interested in the possibilities of online distribution for a long time, and even pitched an idea for an online strip a decade or more ago, but my collaborators and I couldn’t afford to do it on our own back then, and we didn’t find any takers who wanted to back it. And there are stories I’d love to do online, and ways I’d like to try taking advantage of the online interface, instead of print, that I’m eager to try — but between deadlines on existing projects and my health issues, I haven’t been able to launch an online series yet.” [Biff Bam Pop!]

"Saga," from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Creators | Fiona Staples talks with her local newspaper about her upcoming project with Brian K. Vaughan, the eagerly anticipated Image Comics series Saga. [Calgary Herald]

Creators | Sweets creator Kody Chamberlain gets the spotlight ahead of a book signing with Chew artist Rob Guillory. [The Times]

Creators | Here’s a heartwarming story for the holidays: A historian found some old comics about Saginaw, Michigan, in the local library and tracked down the artist, Vincent Faletti, whose work was published in The New Yorker and other magazines. It turns out that Faletti is alive and still cracking jokes at 95. [MLive.com]

Comics | The first issue of IDW’s Magic: The Gathering comic, originally scheduled to be released next week, has been pushed back to Feb. 1 due to “unforeseen printing challenges.” [ICv2]

Crime | Victoria, British Columbia, police have recovered a cache of stolen goods worth more than $10,000 — $8,500 of which was a comic book collection taken from an apartment storage locker. Police are returning the collection to its owner. [Victoria Times Colonist]

Fandom | Ology spotlights the marriage proposal of David Salomon, who proposed with a homemade take on an issue of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. “What is it about the gamers, the comic book Ologists, the sci-fi fans and the zombie slayers that makes them the kings and queens of romance?” [Ology]

Marvel

Publishing | Damien Lucchese, a production artist laid off last week by Marvel, explains why fans should not boycott the publisher over the layoffs: “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want everyone to just see the MARVEL logo and think of a huge, top-heavy company, full of money hungry suits that make poor decisions (in some peoples’ opinions). That’s not what MARVEL is and there are still people working very hard (even harder now), day after day to put out comics for people to enjoy.” [Blog@Newsarama]

Digital piracy | Jim Mroczkowski posts his third interview with a digital pirate; as in the first two episodes, what comes through is that social pressures and one-upmanship have a lot to do with it. Also, piracy is expensive for the pirates, who usually buy the comics they scan—and often don’t even read them. [iFanboy]

Creators | Following up on a post from the summer, former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter shares more details on the publisher’s failed plans to license several DC characters — specifically the plot for a Superman comic by John Byrne. [Jim Shooter]

Creators | The Columbia Basin Herald profiles Axe Cop creators Malachai and Ethan Nicolle. [Columbia Basin Herald]

Wolverine and the X-Men #1

Comics | USA Today talks to writer Jason Aaron and artist Chris Bacchalo about Wolverine and the X-Men, which has Wolverine becoming headmaster of his own school. [USA Today]

Conventions | Lance Fensterman, who presumably has had time to rest up a bit, looks back at the latest New York Comic Con. Among the high points: The White Space invitation-only pre-con event, and 7,000 kids showing up on Kids’ Day. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Conventions | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson covers the Womanthology panel at New York Comic Con. [MTV Geek]

Conventions | Stumptown Comics Fest director Indigo Kelleigh looks forward to next year’s show, which will include special guests Kurt Busiek, Stan Sakai and Geof Darrow. [GeekDad]

Drops of God

Manga | Vertical Inc. marketing director Ed Chavez talks about Drops of God, the manga about wine-tasting that has finally made it to the United States after winning much acclaim in Japan and France. [The Globe and Mail]

Webcomics | Cory Doctorow gives thumbs up to Dan Goldman’s Red Light Properties, the story of a real estate company that clears out haunted houses and sells them cheap. [BoingBoing]

Comics | Larry Cruz looks at how The Addams Family went from single-panel cartoons in The New Yorker to a television show, movies and more. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Digital | Viper Comics is launching a new line of direct-to-digital comics. [Broken Frontier]

Digital | Mike Romo explains why he is a convert to digital comics. Reason #1: “The art just looks better.” [iFanboy]

Journalism | Kristy Valenti has some good tips on how to interview comics creators, many of which would apply to other interviews as well. [ComiXology]

Wolverine and the X-Men #1

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, I’d be a judicious comics buyer and pick the top four out of over 20 titles I’d want this week. DC/Vertigo makes it slightly easier by making the new Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso joint Spaceman #1 only $1. This dollar price point for first issues combined with the $9.99 price point they sometimes do for the first volume of comic trade paperbacks surely gets a lot of traction. Next up I’d get Jason Aaron’s new era of the X-Men in Wolverine & X-Men #1 (Marvel, $3.99) with Chris Bachalo. I’d also get my regular pulls of DMZ #70 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99) and The Walking Dead #90 (Image, $2.99) and last–but first in my stack to read-–would be Secret Avengers #18 (Marvel, $3.99). I hear some Ellis guy is writing it, but the big draw for me is artist David Aja. His Iron Fist run is one of my top favs in comics in the past ten years, and he’s a titan in my book.

If I had $30, I’d first grab this week’s Pilot Season: The Beauty (Image/Top Cow, $3.99) despite not knowing what it’s about because I love the Pilot Season concept. Next up would be the finale of Red Wing #4 (Image, $3.50), Butcher Baker, Righteous Maker #7 (Image, $2.99) and Daredevil #5 (Marvel, $2.99). Looking back at my picks so far, it’s an art-heavy week for me with lots of favorites from Risso to Bachalo, Aja, Burchelli, Huddleston and Martin. That means extra-long reading, as I normally do a second and third read just to soak up the artwork page by page, panel by panel.

If I were to splurge, I would gladly plunk down money for The Manara Library Vol. 1 (Dark Horse, $59.99). I applaud Dark Horse for doing the massive undertaking of collecting all of Manara’s work in seven volume. This first volume collects The Paper Man as well as Indian Summer with Hugo Pratt. It’s going to be a good weekend for me, work be damned.

Graeme McMillan

Kirby: Genesis

For a Kirby fan like myself, this is a pretty great week to have $15: More than half of it would immediately go toward the lengthily titled DC Comics Presents: The Jack Kirby Omnibus Sampler #1 (DC, $7.99), which collects 96 pages of 1950s Kirby from the pages of Adventure Comics, House of Secrets, House of Mystery and other anthology titles. Then I’d throw some coin in the direction of Kirby: Genesis #4 (Dynamite, $3.99), the continuation of Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross and the unsung Jack Herbert’s evocation of Kirbyesque scale and imagination, using some of his lesser-known creations. I’ve really been digging this series, and even if I hadn’t already been planning to pick up this issue, that lovely Ross cover probably would’ve convinced me. Look at the Captain Victory pose! Look at the giant egg-headed character at the back! Not-so-Kirby-esque, but a definite must: The Flash #2 (DC, $2.99), which had a surprisingly lovely first issue last month and earned back all the goodwill lost with the previous series.

If I had $30, there’d be even more Kirby-influence going on, because I’d pick up the first issue of two relaunches of Kirby properties: Jason Aaron and Marc Silvestri’s The Incredible Hulk and Aaron (again!) and Chris Bachalo’s Wolverine and the X-Men (Both Marvel, $3.99). The prelude to the Hulk book at the end of Fear Itself #7 was the very definition of underwhelming, and I didn’t think much of Schism, but I’m holding out hope for these two books nonetheless. Also on the to-buy list: DC’s Legion: Secret Origin (The second retelling of the team’s roots in the last two years, both of them written by Paul Levitz; DC, $2.99) and the second issue of Justice League Dark (DC, $2.99), which was fun if not essential in its debut.

Like Chris, if I had the possibility of splurging this week, it’s be The Manara Library Vol. 1 (Dark Hourse, $59.99). The man’s art is just stunning, and I can’t wait to see it in this deluxe presentation.

Brigid Alverson

The Drops of God

If I had $15, I would have just enough for the first volume of Drops of God, the manga about wine tasting that features two willowy men competing for an inheritance based on how well they can identify 12 different wines. It’s a winning manga formula that has not only won the book several awards but also boosted the popularity of the wines involved, and I can’t wait to read it.

If I had $30, I would add Power Lunch, a new all-ages graphic novel from Oni Press. I like the wacky premise‹a kid gains superpowers from the different foods he eats‹and the creative team of Dean Trippe and J. Torres closes the sale for me.

Splurge: The second volume of A Bride’s Story, Kaoru Mori’s beautifully drawn tale of life on the Silk Road in the 19th century. The first volume didn’t have a lot of story–it was more a series of beautifully drawn moments with occasional bursts of action–which puts it in the splurge rather than must-buy category as far as I’m concerned. And since that only sets me back $16.99, expensive for a weekly buy but cheap for a splurge, I’ll toss in Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors #6, which I believe wraps up a story arc, and The Sixth Gun #16, and call it a very good week indeed.

Chris Mautner

Milo Manara Library

If I had $15:It would be a toss-up between The Smurf Apprentice, the eighth (that many already) volume in Papercutz’s ongoing reprint project, because you can never have too many Smurf comics, or the latest volume (that’s No. 10 if you’re counting) of Yotsuba! the cheery little manga about a effervescent green-haried girl. I’d probably end up going with Yotsuba, only because it’s one of my daughter’s favorite comics, and she’d kill me if I didn’t buy it.

If I had $30:I’d probably take a chance on Drops of God, that manga series about wine that seems to be insanely popular in its home country, if only to see what all the fuss was about.

Splurge:A couple people have mentioned the first volume of the Manara Library, and that’s definitely on my Amazon Wish List, but before that I think I’d pick up the second volume of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse. The first volume was a real treat, not just in terms of reintroducing myself to Gottfredson’s stellar work, but also in the sheer amount of incisive historical information about the strip, Gottfredson and his various Disney helpers. I’m sure Vol. 2 will be more of the same.

Michael May

From All-Star Western #2

If I had $15, I’d continue picking up some New 52 series I’m enjoying along with some talking apes. It hurts–oh it hurts–to pay four bucks for All-Star Western #2 ($3.99), but I’ll do it. I loved the detective story in the first issue with Arkham’s trying to figure out Hex in the voice over, and the art was even better. I don’t think I can keep buying it at that price, but I seem to be hooked for the first story anyway. More affordable are Justice League Dark #2 ($2.99) and Superman #2 ($2.99). JLD is starting with a slow build, but I’m attracted by the concept enough to keep checking it out. I was especially pleased by the attention the first issue of Superman gave to Lois Lane, so I’m hoping there’s more of that as the series continues. Finally, I’d grab Planet of the Apes #7 ($3.99), because that’s a fantastic series that I’ve run out of ways to say I love.

If I had $30, I’d get Aquaman #2 ($2.99). I enjoyed the stronger, tougher Aquaman in the first issue; I just hope the tone becomes less defensive, and quickly. I’m a big fan of the character, but (or maybe because of that) I’m already tired of his constantly explaining how cool he is. Next, I’d add some more expensive comics to the stack, like John Martz’ Heaven All Day ($4) about a lonely man who’s building a mysterious contraption and the abandoned robot he encounters in the process. Then there’s Ape’s Western/Kung Fu/Monster mash-up, Helldorado #1 ($3.99) and Warren Ellis’ Secret Avengers #18 ($3.99).

My splurge item would be Flesh: The Dino Files ($25.99) from Rebellion/2000 AD, because it’s a badass version of Terra Nova. Instead of going back in time to live, the future citizens of our depleted planet go back in time to capture dinosaurs for food. That’s a horribly irresponsible plan, but I’m curious to see if that’s addressed too. I hope it is, but even if not, I’m okay with shutting off the environmentalist part of my brain long enough to enjoy some dino-roping cowboys.

JK Parkin

If you buy one comic this week, it’s gotta be Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #19.

Dracula: The Company of Monsters

This past summer BOOM! Studios promoted two of its new ongoing series, Elric and Planet of the Apes, with dedicated websites that included, among other things, brand new content in the form of webcomics. The Elric site had a new 10-page story, while Planet of the Apes had a “prequel” story for the big blockbuster movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

And now BOOM! is launching another microsite that, appropriately enough, brings Dracula: The Company of Monsters back from the dead. BOOM! put a stake in the series with issue #12, but just like the title character it seems you can’t keep it down. In a press release BOOM! said they plan to serialize the print comic first and eventually will post new material. They also plan to include commentary from the series’ creators, which include writers Kurt Busiek and Daryl Gregory, and artists Scott Godlewski and Damian Couceiro. And they have a web store set up so you can go from reading to buying with a click.

It’s an interesting approach for the company, taking a print comic that didn’t work out for them and posting it for free on the web. It’s a model that worked well for Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius, which started out in print, then moved to the web and does well in trade collections. And it’s a good test case scenario for the company, as they’ve already got two Dracula trades in print that they can drive people to buy right away after sampling the free webcomic. Added to that, it’s a great series by some talented folks, so I’ll be interested to see how it does.

X-Men: Schism

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item. We’re coming a little late today due to a power outage in my neck of the woods — due to a blackout, not because I spent the money for the electric bill on Flashpoint or Fear Itself tie-ins.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, I’d make a mad grab for American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #2 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99); I love what Snyder and Murphy are doing here, and anyone who knows me knows how big a fan I am of Murphy’s work. Next up would be the debut of Jonathan Hickman’s Redwing #1 (Image, $3.50); after seeing Hickman blossom at Marvel, it’s great to see him re-invest in creator-owned comics. Third would be Jason Aaron and Carlos Pacheco’s X-Men Schism #1 (Marvel, $4.99); I have a sense Aaron’s the kind of writer to bring his “A” game when it comes to special stories (he did it recently in Scalped #50), so I’m interested to see what he does here. Last up would be Northlanders #42 (DC, $2.99).

If I had $30, I’d double-up on two indie series; Jeff Smith’s RASL#11 ($3.50) and Loose Ends #1 (12 Gauge, $3.99). Then I’d go back to Marvel and get FF #6 (Marvel, $2.99) and Wolverine #12 (Marvel, $3.99).

If I had some money to splurge, I’d get the great Twisted Savage Dragon Funnies trade paperback (Image, $18.99). It has two things I like — weird variations on a long-running character, and an eclectic line-up of creators. It’s almost as if the Popgun crew had a go at Larsen’s Dragon.

Graeme McMillan

Captain America #1

I admit: Thanks to traveling, work overload and just plain busyness, I’ve completely failed to make it to a comic store in the last few weeks, so if/when I hit the store this week, I’ll be less interested in the new releases than I will be just seeing what I’ve missed since mid-June. But if someone were to insist that I spend $15 on books from this week, chances are I’d spend it on Captain America #1 (Marvel, $3.99)–I’m curious to see what Ed Brubaker does with the idea of a new beginning for the character, especially considering the fact that he’s essentially been doing one 70+ issue storyline since the last time he relaunched the series –as well as Superman #713 (DC, $2.99), because I’m curious to see where the Man of Steel goes in my neck of the woods (presuming, of course, he gets there and someone at DC hasn’t taken offense at something else Chris Roberson has written this issue) and, completing an unconscious cycle, DC Comics Presents Gotham Noir (DC, $7.99), reprinting an early collaboration between Brubaker and Sean Philips that promises to be grim yet enjoyable reading.

If I had $30, I’d make a point of adding Ultimate Comics Fallout #1 (Marvel, $3.99), because I hope it’ll include something to make the “Death of Spider-Man” storyline so amazingly emotionally vapid, Green Lantern #67 (DC, $2.99) because I’m curious to see how that whole “War of The Green Lanterns” ended up–My bet? Hal is shown the box office take of the GL movie and has to face real fear for the first time–and X-Men: Schism #1 (Marvel, $4.99) because I am masochistic enough to be curious about how this particular Cyclops/Wolverine clash will differ from the seventy-nine similar clashes in their past.

Splurging this week for me will probably take the form of just buying all the books I’d meant to get for the last three weeks or so, but if I were to look at something from this week’s list, I’d probably take a look at the Bloom County To Mars: The Imagination of Berkeley Breathed catalog from the Cartoon Art Museum’s recent exhibit that IDW is making available in the direct market ($20)…

Chris Mautner

It’s a pretty quiet week for me, so if I had $15, I’d probably just stick with the 11th issue of Jeff Smith’s RASL.

If I had $30, I’d pick up the trade for Incognito: Bad Influences. There’s something about Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ work together that just really accentuates their particular strengths.

As far as Splurge items go, that Bloom County book that Graeme mentioned sounds rather intriguing, so let’s go with that.

Brigid Alverson

If I had $15, I’d spend the whole thing on the fourth volume of Cross Game ($14.99), Misturi Adachi’s charming story of boys and girls and baseball, packaged by Viz in a double-sized volume of almost 400 pages.

If I had $30, I’d take a chance on The Homeland Directive ($14.95), a new thriller out from Top Shelf that looks like it would make good summer reading.

My splurge is pretty modest this week: The third issue of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors, which would be my first choice if the other books weren’t 15 bucks each. Nothing other than that is calling out to me, so I’ll save the rest of my splurge money for next week.

Michael May

Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown #2

If I had $15, I’d load up first on three different series I’m following: Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown #2 ($2.99), Alpha Flight #2 ($2.99), and Mystery Men #3 ($2.99). I’ve written about Alpha Flight and Mystery Men here before, so I’ll spare you, but Frankenstein has a great concept and Jeff Lemire did an excellent job on the first issue by drawing me in without making me feel like I needed to buy any other Flashpoint titles to follow his story. Next I’d add Defenders: From the Marvel Vault #1 ($2.99), because I’m curious and excited to see Kurt Busiek write a story over Mark Bagley’s art that was already produced from a Fabian Niceza script. That’s a crazy experiment that I wouldn’t pay money to see many people do, but Busiek…you bet. Finally, if I just had 50 cents more I’d grab the new RASL or BPRD, but I don’t, so I’ll buy All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #9 ($2.99) instead. I’m not a big Hawkman fan, but B:tBatB has consistently been strong enough that it doesn’t have to rely on my affection for its guest-stars.

If I had $30, I’d add Casanova: Gula ($14.99) to see how it’s improved since I read it in single-issues from Image.

My splurge item this week wouldn’t be actual comics. Instead, I’d buy the Triton and Black Manta figurines from Eaglemoss ($14 each) and make them fight each other.

Hello and welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today’s special guest is Shannon Wheeler, New Yorker cartoonist and creator of the Eisner Award-winning comic book Too Much Coffee Man, Oil & Water, the Eisner-nominated I Thought You Would Be Funnier and the upcoming Grandpa Won’t Wake Up.

To see what Shannon and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below …

*****

Tom Bondurant

Superman Family #203

Last week my brother-in-law was in a used bookstore — actually, I guess “used-book store” would be more accurate — and called me asking what random old DCs and Marvels I’d like. One of the fruits of his labors was September-October 1980′s Superman Family #203, a decent little anthology inked mostly by Vince Coletta (so they all tended to look the same) and written and penciled by various DC stalwarts. The lead was a Supergirl story, “The Supergirl From Planet Earth,” written by Jack C. Harris and penciled by Win Mortimer. Seems there’s a formerly-comatose blonde teenager in Kara’s old hometown Midvale who suddenly starts manifesting Kryptonian powers and zipping around in a certain blue-skirted super-suit. Moreover, when questioned by Supergirl, the new kid pretty much recites Kara’s first speech to her cousin, about the destruction of Argo City, etc. Naturally I was reminded of Peter David and Ed Benes’ “Many Happy Returns” storyline, but Harris and Mortimer only have 12 pages to introduce another complication and then resolve everything — and resolve it they do, using X-Kryptonite, a medallion made of lead, and some conveniently-placed acid. It’s a neat little story which, although inconsequential in the greater scheme of things, is still entertaining.

Since I’m always interested in how a Lois Lane solo series might work (once more), I read “Lost,” another 12-pager, written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by Bob Oksner. As with the Supergirl story, there’s a lot of plot in these pages: Lois is kidnapped and mind-wiped, escapes, gets picked up by a helpful widower, falls in love with same, and then uses her (unwiped) martial arts skills to fight off the goons who eventually catch up with her. The story ends with an amnesiac Lois wandering off into the woods, Bruce-Banner-style, so I’ll have to seek out #204 to see how it ends. Here, I’m not sure the format does this story many favors (especially with regard to Ted, the widower). It might do better played out over a few issues of that hypothetical solo title. (That would also leave room to cross over and/or be mentioned in the main Superman books, too….)

Finally, “The Critic Killer” (written by E. Nelson Bridwell and penciled by George Tuska) is a tale of the Earth-2 Lois and Clark, set in the early ’50s when the two were newly married — and when TV was still new enough that the Daily Star didn’t have its own critic. Along comes Lana Lang, daughter of a professor Clark knew from Smallville, seeking to carve out some column space for just that purpose. Clark (editor of the Star, like you didn’t know) gives her the job, and she promptly goes all scorched-earth on the new sitcom from a notoriously thin-skinned writer. Lois realizes nothing good can come of Lana’s scathing review, and sure enough, the writer traps Lana and Lois in a specially-modified elevator car. Because Lois — in what strikes me as a bit of Earth-2 Superdickery — is wearing a “mood ring” which telepathically alerts Clark to sudden changes in her emotions, Superman saves them (of course). However, we learn that the writer bought his elevator-trap from Luthor, still in prison but still scheming about taking down Superman. Dun dun dunnnn! Again, it was a clever little tale whose eight pages were more concerned with establishing Lana’s bona fides (this was apparently the retcon introducing Lana to Lois and Clark) and maybe making Lois a little jealous, than with a straightforward adventure/suspense story. Along those lines, it laid the groundwork for future stories involving Lana and/or Luthor, and I’m now curious to see how fleshed-out the “Mr. And Mrs. Superman” stories got.

And speaking of Earth-2, I read Invaders Classic Volume 1, written by Roy Thomas (who else?), penciled mostly by Frank Robbins, and inked by Vince Coletta and Frank Springer. This paperback reprinted the first several issues of The Invaders, plus ancillary issues, and it’s pretty much non-stop action from page one. Essentially, the Invaders — Captain America and Bucky, the Human Torch and Toro, and the Sub-Mariner — fight Nazi super villains, as depicted by Robbins’ hyperkinetic pencils. What I took away from this book, though, was that even though he was working at Marvel, and even though DC was, at the time, doing contemporary Earth-2 stories featuring the Justice Society, Roy Thomas desperately wanted to write a wartime JSA book. I have no idea how much Thomas drew from those old Timely comics to come up with the various Axis bad guys and the heroic Liberty Legion (although reprinted text pages help out in this regard) — but there sure are conspicuous references to moving “faster than a speeding bullet” and being part of “seven soldiers” of something-or-other. Actually, I take part of that back — the first baddies the Invaders face are a trio of faux-Teutonic godlings, and I thought “oh, here’s a riff on Evil Thor.” Still, though, the Liberty Legion contains 1) a speedster, 2) a guy who stretches, 3) a superheroine with black hair and a red-and-blue costume, 4) the Blue Diamond, who kinda looks like Green Lantern if you squint, 5) a flying guy with big bird-wings on his back, 6) Jack Frost, an ice-based hero who looks like he’s got Aquaman-style scales, and 7) the Patriot, another red-and-blue-clad figure who’s the group’s moral center. Maybe it was just me, but I had more fun looking for those kinds of references than I did reading the stories themselves. Lucky for the series, though, the last couple of issues introduce Union Jack and Baron Blood, a British hero and his undead foe, and The Invaders starts to build its own little corner of Marvel history, instead of reminding readers of others’. Lucky for Roy Thomas, too, that it wouldn’t be long before he was writing DC’s All-Star Squadron — otherwise, I suspect his brain might have exploded.

(By the way, I’m not up on Marvel history as much as some — but doesn’t Union Jack’s debut in World War I make him Marvel-Earth’s first costumed hero, preceding the Human Torch by at least 20 years?)

Michael May

Lois Lane and the Resistance

As I said in this week’s Food or Comics, I wasn’t sure if I was going to buy Lois Lane and the Resistance or not. I flipped through it in the store though and decided to get it for its visuals and action sequences. It looked like fun. And there were some exciting parts, but unfortunately, this still isn’t the Lois Lane comic I’m waiting for. Lois spends the entire issue running around doing the bidding of other people. The story opens with Perry White’s sending her on a fluff piece instead of covering the impending war. The Lois Lane I want to read about doesn’t get sent to cover Fashion Week. She doesn’t have to whine and argue that she’s a serious reporter; everyone should know that she is and treat her that way. But this Lois…even when the story gets going she’s still acting as someone else’s agent, and not even a particularly competent one. This isn’t the story of a strong, empowered reporter that I’ve been craving.

I also read Mystery Men #2 and liked it, but it reminded me why I became a trade-waiter. The first issue got me all excited to continue the story, but now I’m growing impatient with its being rationed out in small chunks. Some cool stuff happens this issue — another masked hero joins the investigation and there’s a major revelation about the villain — but it’s hard to say that I enjoyed this particular chunk of the story as its own, self-contained unit.

Finally, I read the first volume of Jason DeAngelis and Aldin Viray’s Captain Nemo, a manga re-telling of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. There are some cool, imaginative things going on in it, like the story’s taking place in an alternate timeline where Napoleon won at Waterloo and has taken over the world. The 19-year-old son of the original Captain Nemo is operating the Nautilus II in rebellion against the French Empire, providing this version with an actual plot (something that Jules Verne’s novel lacks). Viray’s obviously had a great time creating the steampunk world for the story; the environment of the book looks great. And I like how it’s still hitting major beats in Verne’s story, but reworking them enough to keep them exciting and follow DeAngelis’ plot.

But the book falls victim to some standard manga tropes and the characters are boringly familiar. Nemo is the classic manga hero: handsome, but stand-offish, but really very gentle at heart. Camille Pierpont (who stands in for Professor Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land by ending up prisoner on the Nautilus II after Nemo saves her from drowning) is the traditional manga heroine: headstrong, judgmental, entitled, but supernaturally gifted with wild animals and really just one good kiss away from calming down into someone likeable. Even the characters’ designs are unimaginative; something that Aldin admits to in the sketchbook section where he says that he gave Nemo “the standard Harlock look” and Camille “the typical female lead character look.” The other crew members of the Nautilus II are just as immediately recognizable: Smart and Cocky Guy With Glasses, Bad Attitude Girl, Plucky Kid, etc.

Brigid Alverson

Treasury of Victorian Murder

This week was murder, at least in terms of what I have been reading. I got an advance copy of Rick Geary’s latest Treasury of Victorian Murder book, The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti, which will be debuting at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Like all of Geary’s books, it’s cool, almost clinical, with the timelines and details carefully laid out in a heavy-bordered grid and a narrative voice straight out of a PBS documentary Geary’s objective voice suits the story well, because the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti is a matter of some controversy, but it does make the book seem rather dry.

Also on the stack is The Green River Killer, written by Jeff Jensen and illustrated by Jonathan Case. Jensen’s father was a detective on the case, and the story is told from his point of view. The story gets rolling with Gary Ridgeway’s confession and skips back and forth in time as the police bring him to the sites of the murders and then flash back to their first encounters with the same scenes. The art is straightforward and linear, but there are some nice atmospheric moments.

And in the prose realm, I’m reading The Poisoner’s Handbook, which would be more aptly titled “The Toxicologist’s Handbook.” Set in 1920s New York, the book follows the work of pioneering medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler as they investigate various murders — grouped by the poison involved. Some they solve, some they don’t, and sometimes they are simply frustrated by the difficulty of proving their toxicological case in court. It’s a bit overly dramatic but a good read nonetheless, and I’m learning a bit of chemistry from it too.

Tim O’Shea

IDW’s Rocketeer Adventures #1

Rocketeer Adventures #1 and #2: OK, I have to admit, I completely missed the first issue’s release. So I picked up issue #2 this week, Mark Waid teamed with Chris Weston, Darwyn Cooke, Geof Darrow, Lowell Francis with Gene Ha (all colored by Dave Stewart) and realized: “you were a fool to miss issue #1.” Fortunately I snagged the last copy of issue #1 at my local store. And I am torn which is my favorite from that issue, it’s a close race between John Cassady colored by Laura Martin or Kurt Busiek teamed with legendary Michael Kaluta (honorable mention Mike Allred colored by Laura Allred). But after serious consideration I have decided that Kaluta (inked by Stewart) is my favorite. There’s not a bad story in either issue–and I am looking forward to issue #3.

Thunderbolts #159 is a double-sized issue with multiple creative teams on different tales. But all you need to know is this: Jen Van Meter writes a team-up (of sorts) between Ghost and John Walker. I really hope that Marvel announces some more work for Van Meter at San Diego, because she deserves a monthly assignment.

Captain America: Given Bucky’s current status quo (given the Fear Itself event), I am confused as to why I would care what happened to James in this issue. But all my annoyance washed away when I got to see Chris Samnee draw more Nick Fury in the second half of the issue.

Did you catch my interview with Roger Langridge about the preview of his new Kaboom book, Snarked #0, which will sell for $1 in August? Did I convince you to tell your retailer to get a copy for you? You have until June 30 for the Previews deadline (Diamond Code: JUN110963). I mean it when I commit to this series being destined for my best of 2011 books.

Shannon Wheeler

Paying for It

There’s a narrow road to success if a creator already has a lot of good books. If it’s too different from what came before, I’ll hate it, and if it’s too similar to what came before, then I’ll hate it, too. Chester Brown created my favorite comics: Ed the Happy Clown and The Playboy. So, of course, I was disappointed with Paying for It.

It’s an autobiographical book about Chester Brown’s decision to satisfy his sexual needs by being with prostitutes. The best part of the book is when he details his internal conflict and anxiety when he first hires women to have sex with him. Unfortunately, the book drags as he uses his friends as characters to stage pro and con arguments regarding prostitution. The books drags even more when he reiterates his beliefs for the third… and fourth time. He avoids talking about his final relationship in respect for her desire for privacy. This could have been an emotional resolution in the book — Chester finding a relationship that he’s comfortable with. They are both happy with monogamous, but independent, lives where he continues to pay for sex. Any editor could have trimmed 20 percent of the redundant ranting to make it a smoother read and then pushed for a conclusion with emotional depth and acute observations similar to the book’s beginning. Chester Brown could have had a book that matched or succeeded his earlier work. As it stands, the book is a vaguely interesting read as a political diatribe and an okay read as an emotional journey, but is redundant as one and unresolved as the other. Chester is still a great creator; it’s too bad his editor hasn’t kept pace. It’s a good book that could have been a great book.

Okko

Okko

It’s a solid read that takes place in old Japan with demons, ronins, monks and magic. The book is skillfully put together with natural storytelling, attractive drawings and pretty coloring. It’s not a book you’ll ponder much after putting it down. As a book in the same genre as the great Usagi Yojimbo, it holds up as a solid and entertaining read.

New Yorker: On the Money

I always grab collections of New Yorker cartoons. This one has the strength of being assembled by the New Yorker’s current cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff. By choosing financially themed comics from 1925-2009, Mankoff shows an economic history of our country through humor. It’s telling that the rich-screw-the-poor is a recurrent theme that doesn’t change from the earliest comics to the recent ones. The repetition left me a little cold. Maybe not cold – but depressed. If the economics of this country could change the way families, gender roles and race relations have changed, I might like the book better. But I guess that’s not really the book’s fault.

Cowboy Wally

Always funny. I’m constantly amazed at how well this book has held up. I consider it one of the best comics created.

Underground

I just picked this one up, but the first issue shows potential. I love the art and story. Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber are great comic creators. I’m sure they’ll deliver.

Alpha Flight

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d start with Alpha Flight #1 ($3.99). I had mostly positive feelings about the prequel issue with the only negatives being a mixture of “that doesn’t look like Sasquatch” and some anxiety born from being used to disappointment from Alpha Flight books. Neither of which has anything to do with the people creating the next eight issues, so I’m looking forward to this in a way that I haven’t since John Byrne left the book. Next I’d grab Flashpoint: Grodd of War #1 ($2.99), because an all-out Gorilla Grodd comic sounds awesome. And then I’d give Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths #1 ($3.99) a shot to see how well IDW can manage two Godzilla comics at a time. They certainly managed the first one well. Finally, I’d pick up Mickey Mouse #309 ($3.99) because it’s a globe-trotting adventure with a ton of guest-stars, including my favorite: The Phantom Blot.

If I had $30, I’d add Anya’s Ghost ($15.99) to the stack. I’ve already read it, but I’d buy it again; it’s that good. The most enjoyable, surprising comic I’ve read in a long, long time.

My splurge item for the week is The Sixth Gun, Volume 2 ($19.99). I picked up Volume 1 at C2E2 and have been waiting for this so that I could read them back to back. I’m excited to see what all the buzz is about.

Graeme McMillan

Kirby: Genesis

If I had $15 this week, the first thing I’d pick up would be Kirby: Genesis #1 (Dynamite, $3.99), the second issue — but first full-length one — of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’ love letter to the King of Comics. I’ve talked about how much I love this series already, but suffice to say, this is the issue where it all really kicks off and the result is even more fun than last month’s #0. Talking of fun, I’d also grab Supergirl #65 (DC, $2.99), which begins Kelly Sue DeConnick and Chriscross’ short run on the title, pre-reboot; I’ve got really high hopes for this, so fingers crossed it delivers. Also on the DC side, I’ll likely be getting Flashpoint: Deadman and the Flying Graysons #1 and Flashpoint: Wonder Woman and the Furies #1 (both $2.99), although for different reasons: I’m a big fan of the characters in the former, and curious enough about the back story of the latter. The Flashpoint tie-ins have been uneven so far, but here’s hoping these trend toward the higher end of the quality scale.

If I had $30, I’d grab Ruse #4 (Marvel, $2.99), the last issue in Mark Waid’s light but fun reboot of his Victorian detective series from CrossGen, as well as the debut of Roger Stern’s Captain America Corps series (Marvel, $2.99), about which my inner conflict can be summed up with “Concept sounds dumb, but Roger Stern is pretty damn awesome, so… maybe it’ll be good?” Beyond that, I’m saving my pennies for…

Splurging this week: the Legion Lost hardcover (DC, $39.95). I’m a big Legion fan who had drifted away from the series by the time Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Olivier Coipel launched this year-long mini. I’ve been hoping to read it for a long time, and now, finally have the chance to do so in one place.

Brigid Alverson

Anya's Ghost

It looks like First Second will be getting a lot of my money this week.

If I had just $15, I’d pick up Dave Roman’s Astronaut Academy ($9.99), which is funny and smart, a kids’ comic that a grownup can enjoy as well. It’s a cute idea‹a school in outer space, which allows Dave free rein for all sorts of outlandishness, but at the same time, the kids are typical kids, with the full range of personalities that you see in elementary school. And that will put me in such a juvenile mood that I’ll have to pick up Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors #2 ($2.99), the second issue of Mark Andrew Smith’s delightful story of kid super villains–again, a clever setting with believable kids.

If I have $30, I’ll have a dilemma on my hands: Do I go for Vera Brosgol’s Anya’s Ghost or Gene Yang’s Level Up? Both are $15.99, and it’s a tough call. For me, Anya’s Ghost gets the edge because it’s about a girl and I’m not a gamer, but I love Yang’s storytelling, and Level Up looks like it will go far beyond gaming. I’ll save it for my splurge pile.

The splurge starts with Level Up, but it won’t end there. There are some books coming out this week that aren’t all sweetness and light, and I’d like to cleanse my palate with That Hellbound Train #1, the first of a three-issue miniseries from IDW that looks totally kickass, and the second volume of The Sixth Gun ($19.99), because we all need a little evil (or a lot of evil) to keep things interesting.

Chris Mautner

Welcome to Oddville

If I had $15: It would go toward Welcome to Oddville ($14.99), a collection of newspaper strips by Jay Stephens starring superkid Jetcat. Stephens is a real underrated talent in comics, and I hadn’t heard of or seen any of these strips before now, so I’m really looking forward to diving into them.

If I had $30: First Second has a number of books out this week, but Anya’s Ghost ($15.99) would probably be my pick. It’s a really well-told, smartly observed story of a girl who befrends a ghost, only to discover that the friendship isn’t everything she bargained for. Plus, cartoonist Vera Brosgol has some serious cartooning chops.

Splurge: I’ll probably check out the ninth volume of the heavy metal satire Detroit Metal City ($12.99) and pick up the other eight volumes as well. I am splurging after all.

JK Parkin

Northlanders #41

This week’s issue of Brian Wood’s Northlanders, issue #41 ($2.99), features artwork by Marion Churchland of Elephantman and Beast fame. So it goes to the top of the list. I’m also looking forward to Graveyard of Empires #1 ($2.99), the new zombie/war book by Mark Sable and Paul Azaceta. I’d also grab Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths #1 ($3.99), as Chew scribe John Layman and Unknown Soldier artist Alberto Ponticelli send a detective on vacation to Monster Isle, courtesy of the mob. One of the covers is by Geof Darrow, which is the one I’d be looking for. And finally, Alpha Flight #1 ($3.99) … I was a bit lukewarm to the zero issue, but I have enough faith in the creators to stick with it for a few issues to see what happens.

That puts me at $13, so for the second tier, I’d also add the Deadlands one-shot ($2.99) from Image; this is based on a role-playing game I’m not familiar with, but I am familiar with the team of David Gallaher and Steve Ellis, who worked on Zuda’s High Moon, among other projects. So I know they can do weird westerns well. Like Graeme, I’m also looking forward to DeConnick’s run on Supergirl ($2.99) so throw one of those in the bag. Also, I’ve been meaning to retry Soldier Zero since Abnett and Lanning came on board, and since issue #9 ($3.99) starts a new story, it seems like a good week to check it out. And to round it out, I’d get the second issue of Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors ($2.99) and Avengers #14 ($3.99).

To splurge, I’d go with Graeme and get the Legion Lost hardcover ($39.95) but all the First Second titles everyone’s talking about also sound very tempting, so what the hell … let’s throw those in, too.

Marvel’s solicitations for July revealed a new/old project yesterday — Defenders: From the Marvel Vault #1 by Fabian Nicieza, Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley. Fans might remember that Busiek once worked with Erik Larsen on a Defenders title circa 2001. Busiek explains on his blog that the book’s editor, Tom Brevoort, had commissioned Nicieza and Bagley to do a fill-in issue just in case the regular team fell behind, and after Bagley drew it based on Nicieza’s plot, it went into a drawer, unscripted, and wasn’t used.

And when Marvel decided recently they wanted to publish it, Nicieza was unavailable to do it because he’s exclusive to DC. So they recruited Busiek, who wrote the script based on the art without a copy of Nicieza’s original plot (which Nicieza lost in a hard drive crash years ago):

So I have to come up with a story to fit the art. A new story. One that might bear some resemblance to what Fabian intended, at least at the big structural moments, but other than that, it’s wide open.

And as I keep looking through the art, I get an idea. A pretty demented idea, really, based on one cryptic panel late in the book (You’ll know it when you see it. The script for that panel is “HTNN–!”). But it’s an idea that, demented as it is, won’t go away. And actually, I’m thinking, it could be kinda fun…

I tell Fabian the idea, mostly as a joke. But he laughs, and says that it sounds like a hoot, and it might even be better than whatever his original story was.

And I tell Rachel Pinnelas, who’s editing it, and she cracks up, and says “Do it, do it.”

So I do it.

It’s not what Fabian plotted, not by any means. It’s very strange. It has a very old, very dumb joke about a hot dog vendor in it. It has the Hulk building sandcastles. A near-pointless cameo by Empress Lilandra. And I had a blast writing it.

It sounds like it oughta be fun to read for no other reason than to see what Busiek came up with.

Kirby King of Comics

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading? Our special guest today is Ryan Cody, creator of Icarus and illustrator of Villains and Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun. You’ll be seeing more of Icarus around these parts starting very soon …

To see what Ryan and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.

*****

Brigid Alverson

Strangers in Paradise

I bought a copy of Strangers in Paradise from author Terry Moore himself at C2E2, and it helped make the trip back go more quickly. This is a classic book that came out during my long hiatus from comics, and I’m glad to have finally discovered it. Just in the first few chapters Moore quickly sketches out a set of characters—Katchoo, Francine, and David—and sets the story barreling out of the gate at full speed. I love their personalities, his deft hand with dialogue, and the twists and turns of his stories, and I’m definitely signing on for the whole series.

I also read an advance copy of, One Soul, by Ray Fawkes, which is due out from Oni Press in May. Fawkes splits each page into a nine-panel grid and tells 18 stories in parallel on each two-page spread. His characters are widely separated in time and space and never actually meet, but they have a lot in common, and parts of their lives echo each other. I read it once, but I know I will have to read it a few more times, partly because it’s hard to keep 18 characters straight and partly because I know I’m going to see more in each re-reading; there are many patterns and subtleties that are only starting to emerge.

Carla Hoffman

New Mutants #23

I read New Mutants #23 this week and suddenly, everything makes sense. Having already read the start of this ‘new perspective’ side event (Age of X: Alpha and X-Men: Legacy #245) back when they were released, I wasn’t expecting much from chapter four of this storyline. At first glance and being thrown into the action as it were, the characters just seemed like pale Age of Apocalypse shadows and the idea of a full scale war between mutants and humans was something I know I had read before. There was nothing to stick to as far as where this whole thing would be going. But there is a new an interesting piece of the plot that shows up in New Mutants #23 that reminds me that no one would or should get away with printing the same old story, no matter how cool the character designs are. I’d tell you more but that would ruin the discovery of it on your own, which is always part of the battle. Mike Carey is giving nothing to you directly, but through deduction, you’re actually working right alongside Magneto and Rogue to find out what’s really going on.

So fellow X-Fans, take note: if you read the first part of Age of X and compared it to something you have already read or didn’t find anything interesting in the infinite war between mutants and humans, give it another chance. Read New Mutants #23 as see if the twist doesn’t make you think a little more kindly on those earlier issues. If it does, go back and read them (that’s X-Men: Legacy #245, New Mutants #22 then X-Men: Legacy #246; don’t worry there’s a list in the back) because I know you’ll catch things the second time around. Things that really do make this a story I don’t believe we’ve seen before, despite some familiar window dressing and the ever-so fashionable lens of nostalgia. I’m already starting to re-think my ideas of a ‘never-ending battle between mutant and man’ and what that really means…

Michael May

Colonia

I finished the first volume of Jeff Nicholson’s Colonia, but I don’t think I’ll be going back for the second. In his introduction, Nicholson compares what he’s trying to do with Bone, and I can see the similarities. As a concept, it works wonderfully: an innocent boy and a couple of companions enter a world filled with strange people and creatures, but instead of Bone‘s medieval-fantasy setting, Colonia‘s locale in based on the early days of New World colonization and piracy. That’s a milieu I enjoy more than the Middle Ages, so it should have worked.

Unfortunately, though his story is interesting, Nicholson isn’t as proficient as Jeff Smith at creating humor in his art. The dialog is funny enough, but the visual timing’s all off and Nicholson lacks Smith’s gift for expressive faces and slapstick. That also makes the characters rather flat, so while I really wanted Colonia to work, I kept thinking that I should be reading Bone instead, pirates or no pirates.

Tim O’Shea

Yo Gabba Gabba

I am kicking myself for neglecting to mention a release from last week, the 128-page Yo Gabba Gabba Comic Book Time anthology. Imagine a book with a range of talent including, Michael Allred, Philip Bond, J. Bone, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Chris Eliopoulos, Matthew Loux, J. Torres (who also co-edits the book with James Lucas Jones), and Dean Trippe (among many, many others). For whatever reason, I’ve never seen the Yo Gabba Gabba show, but despite my ignorance I immediately fell in love with this book. Why? Because Jamie S. Rich (who wrote the first story in this anthology) provides a story resolution that partially involves The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Seeing an Allred-drawn character singing Rolling Stones lyrics is the kind of left field moments I love in a story.

My tastes don’t lean toward horror or supernatural, but one has to take notice when BOOM publishes the first issue of a new Hellraiser series, written by Clive Barker. And there’s a back-up tale written by Larry Wachowski. I am a lousy judge of horror, but I speculate that the folks who enjoyed Hellraiser under Barker’s vision will really enjoy this book. Even though not a fan of the genre, I will admit I was impressed with the linework on the main title from Leonardo Manco.

Graeme’s post that praised BOOM! Studios’ Dracula: The Company of Monsters reminded me that I had allowed the comic to drop off my radar. That’s despite the fact I am a huge Kurt Busiek fan (see the aforementioned aversion to horror). But this week, prompted by Graeme, I read the series’ first volume (collecting issues 1-4) –a story created by Busiek and written by Daryl Gregory–and will likely try to track down the more recent issues. This modern day take on Dracula has him terrorizing board rooms–and gives us odd scenes of the vampire acclimating after his resurrection and reading the New York Times.

There’s no doubt that Marvel is flooding the market with Thor and Captain America one-shots, due to the upcoming theatrical releases. But Kieron Gillen actually pulls back the mask (real and metaphorical) on Batroc the Leaper–indulging in some interesting character exploration. I am hard pressed to recall another writer examining the fiscal and logistical challenges to the life of a villain. Added bonus: the 1967 battle between Batroc and Cap, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby from Tales of Suspense #85. It includes two great moments: Stan Lee having Cap mocking Batroc: “How’s this for some fancy stuff weeth zee hands” (as he punched the villain) and Lee shutting up and allowing Kirby to do a fight scene for one page (nine panels) with no dialogue.

Tom Bondurant

Green Lantern #64

Following Blackest Night, I had thought Green Lantern was in a bit of a rut, gazing into the Rainbow Lanterns’ collective navel without having much of a direction. However, I was pretty impressed with the first two parts of “War of the Green Lanterns” in GL #64 (written by Geoff Johns, penciled by Doug Mahnke, inked by Christian Alamy et al.) and Green Lantern Corps #58 (written by Tony Bedard, penciled by Tyler Kirkham, inked by Batt with Rob Hunter). GL #64 pulls together the past year’s plot threads into a neat little bundle of revenge, tied together with the longstanding notion that the Guardians’ omniscience doesn’t always make them right. What’s more, Krona’s plan involves the return of some “classic” Green Lantern mythology; and as ominous as those developments were, it was good to see Johns returning to them. Bedard and Kirkham come at the same events from a different perspective in GLC #58, but they too end up with our heroes facing overwhelming odds. “War of the Green Lanterns” could actually be that proverbial storyline which changes everything, but it’s setting up those changes nicely so far.

Having just spent some time with the ’70s Batman Family stories which reintroduced Kathy “Batwoman” Kane, I was delighted to see her return in Batman Incorporated #4 (written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Chris Burnham). The issue worked well as an interlude in Batman’s Argentinian adventure, but it may have worked even better as yet another giddy deconstruction/celebration of Goofy Sci-Fi Batman. Robin’s dialogue about “even the dog wear[ing] a mask … makes it all dumb instead of special[,] like it doesn’t matter anymore” is probably the most pointed criticism of the (for lack of a better term) “anti-goofy” reader. Still, once again Morrison has given meaning and resonance to a dusty corner of Batman lore, even echoing the great Alan Brennert’s treatment of an aging, wistful Batwoman in the classic “Interlude on Earth-Two” (Brave and the Bold #182, January 1982), while continuing to advance the “United Colors of Batman” theme he’s been working for the past five years. Just a really great issue all around, and I haven’t even mentioned Burnham’s wonderful work.

Ryan Cody

Sadly, for someone who claims to be a writer himself, I do not read as much as I should, and what I do read is mostly comics. One book I just finished was Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier. I found a used copy at Hastings for $8 and thought there was no way to go wrong there. It’s basically a beautifully illustrated biography of Jack’s life in comics. It touches a little on his youth, mostly in how that affected his later ideas of the stories he wanted to tell, and goes through his long career. There was nothing scandalous or really mind-blowing about it, but it was a quick read and gave a good impression of the greatest comic creator ever. It also has some beautiful artwork in it including some variant designs for Marvel’s Norse Gods that are amazing.

The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women

Another recent book I read, and in part had read to me, was The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women by James Ellroy. It’s a biography that has the single focus of Ellroy trying to explain and come to terms with his relationship with women, and how those relationships reflect back to him being 10 and his mother being murdered. It has a snappy pace and is hilarious more often than not. Biographies are probably my favorite types of books when I do sit down to read, it’s often that the truth can be as entertaining as fiction if you care enough about the subject.

The artist side of me mostly follows other artists when it comes time to read comics. No matter how good the story is, if the art is boring to me, I can’t get through it. I really enjoy the B.P.R.D. and Hellboy books, Guy Davis did some fantastic work on those and Arcudi and Mignola have created a great universe for the characters. I try to follow Powers as much as I can, again I think the setting and relationships coupled with insanely talented art make for good reading. Last but not least, I just finished reading The Winter Men by Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon. That was fantastic, from plot, to script, to art, one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It had everything I love; crime, amazing powers, corruption, bad language and even a tiny bit of nudity. I highly recommend it.

The Amazing Spider-Man #1

Comics | A July house fire in Minneapolis that killed homeowner Gary Dahlberg spared his meticulously preserved comic-book collection, which experts say could be worth $1 million. The comics, which includes first issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Daredevil, will be sold at auction on May 5 by Heritage Auction Galleries, with the money going to Dahlberg’s estate. “To go for the really big money they have to be really perfect, and that what these are,” says Barry Sandoval of Heritage Auction Galleries. “The comics look like they just rolled off the printing press and nobody’s ever touched them.” [KSTP TV, with video]

Crime | A 17-year-old boy accused of attempting to rob Fun 4 All Comics & Games in Ypsilanti, Mich., on Monday has been arraigned on charges of assault with attempt to rob while armed and attempted larceny. Police say the teen, wearing a blond wig, bandanna and dark glasses, gave an employee a list of merchandise — “most, if not all, of it Yu-Gi-Oh! cards” — then opened his coat to reveal what appeared to be an improvised explosive device. The boy allegedly threatened to detonate the bomb if he wasn’t given the merchandise. When the employee yelled for the owner to call police, then teen said he was only joking, then bought some inexpensive items and left the store. The sheriff’s department later arrested the teen in his car in a Burger King parking lot. The Michigan State Police bomb squad responded, and determined the potential explosive device was inert. [AnnArbor.com]

Clowntime

Comic strips | Two years after Washington City Paper eliminated its syndicated comics amid massive budget cuts at its parent company, the alternative weekly is bringing back its comics page. The new lineup, debuting in this week’s issue, includes Derf’s The City, Shawn Belschwender’s Clowntime, Michael Kupperman’s Up All Night and David Malki’s Wondermark. [FishbowlDC]

Creators | Alex Carr interviews Guy Davis, Dave Stewart and John Arcudi during at last weekend’s Emerald City Comicon. [Omnivoracious]

Creators | Kurt Busiek, Austin Grossman, Gerard Jones, Sean McKeever and Gail Simone offer advice on “how to create your own original superhero from scratch.” [io9.com]

Creators | Howard Buck reports on a recent visit to Washington State University Vancouver by Josh Neufeld, creator of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge. [The Columbian]

Creators | Collaborators Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt discuss their “Blade Runner meets Dangerous Liaisons.” clockwork murder mystery The Puppet Makers. [Guerrilla Geek]

Noah Van Sciver

Creators | Noah Van Sciver talks about Blammo, Four Questions and his upcoming graphic novel about Abraham Lincoln’s life in Springfield: “Blammo drew me to it. I was doing a short story on his duel with James Shields. As I researched it, I became more interested in Abraham Lincoln in his time before the Civil War. He’s my favorite president—he just seems like a cool guy. There’s not a lot out of there about Abraham Lincoln at that point in his life. I was interested in him because of his depression, and also because he came from nothing. I feel a kinship to people who come from nothing, because I come from a very large, very poor Mormon family. I’m trying to do that in comics — come from nothing and achieve something, which I guess is stupid, but it’s what I’ve got.” [The A.V. Club]

Creators | The Center for Cartoon Studies has launched a blog dedicated to its visiting artists. [CCS Visiting Artist Blog, via The Comics Reporter]

Comics | Matt Wilson counts down “10 Major Comics Events that Actually Mattered.” [Topless Robot]

Comics | Jason Serafino looks at “The 10 Lamest Batman Villains of All Time!” [Complex]

Deadpool Team-Up #886

Hello and welcome to a special “birthday bash” edition of our weekly “What Are You Reading” feature, where the Robot 6 crew talks about what books we’ve read recently. Usually we invite a special guest to share what they’ve been reading, but since today isn’t just an ordinary day for us, we thought we’d invite a whole bunch of special guests to help us out — our friends and colleagues from Comic Book Resources, Spinoff and Comics Should Be Good!

To see what everyone has been reading, click below …

*****

Brigid Alverson

Fables Deluxe Edition Hardcover, Vol. 1

I’m trying to catch up on some of the books I missed during the long stretch of my life when I was away from comics, so this week I picked up the first volume of Fables. I like the idea a lot—taking the characters of fairy tales and children’s literature and putting them into adult situations—and the stories are interesting enough to keep me reading. The art bothers me a lot, though. The character designs are fine, but the different elements of each panel don’t work together to create a coherent space. Snow White’s office for example, is in a vast room filled with all sorts of clutter—a flying ship, a toppled column, a suit of armor—but it’s as if every piece was drawn separately and then pasted down, like a Coloforms kit. It’s not as obvious in other parts of the book, but that early scene made me aware of it. Also the characters in this first novel don’t wander far from standard stereotypes—the icy executive woman, the bad boy, the slut, and of course Prince Charming. That’s the cost of using fairy tales as your source material, but I hope the characters develop a bit more complexity. Anyway, it’s a very witty take on the topic and the stories are fun to follow, so I’ll be sticking with it.

Manga-wise, I read the first chapter of Mizuki, a shoujo manga that Digital is publishing on their eManga site. It’s a pretty standard story about a girl who transforms into a devil to fight ghosts; as she is in high school, she tries very hard not to transform because her friends are frightened and revolted by her other form (they don’t know it’s her) and she doesn’t want to scare off the guy she has a crush on. That’s a pretty transparent metaphor for teenage life, and I can see why a book like this would have some appeal for the young-adult crowd. The art is not very distinctive but it is nicely done; I’ll be sticking around for chapter 2 of this one.

Sean T. Collins

Oh, sweet Christmas break! I did a ton of cramming to be properly equipped for doing Best of 2010 lists and now I can kick back and catch up on my prose reading. Right now I’m working my way through an old favorite fantasy series, Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising Sequence. Re-reading it for the first time in years, I’m struck by how much of it is basically info-dumping, yet somehow its tale of the eternal, Arthurian conflict between the Dark and the Light in Britain and Wales still feels immediate and epic.

But there have been plenty of comics on the docket as well. Click the links below for full reviews!

H Day

* H Day by Renee French (PictureBox): French’s elliptical, silent tone poem about her struggle with migraines and ants is a fantastic showcase of her considerable gifts as a crafter of images.

* I Want You #2 by Lisa Hanwalt (Pigeon Press): Body horror, gross-out humor, and insanely detailed drawings of horses and birds and stuff. It’s quite a combo.

* Boy’s Club #4 by Matt Furie (Pigeon Press): Another uproarious installment of Matt Furie’s chronicle of the unrepentant dude-dom.

* Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines (AdHouse): Despite its rapturous reception elsewhere and my sympathies for its subject matter of animal rights, I found this graphic novel a classic case of reach exceeding grasp.

* The Wrong Place by Brecht Evens (Drawn & Quarterly): Evens uses color like you’ve rarely seen elsewhere to tell the tale of two friends, one a livewire and one a wallflower, and their shared social scene.

* Big Questions #15 by Anders Nilsen (Drawn & Quarterly): The decade-in-the-making conclusion to Nilsen’s haunting series about a flock of birds who were tragically ill-equipped to deal with the incursion of humanity into their world offers no big answers.

Timothy Callahan

The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, by J. W. Rinzler
I’ll admit that the combination of the leaden prequels and video-gamish Clone Wars theatrical release nearly killed my interest in anything Star Wars-related. But I used to be a total Star Wars geek, even going so far as to submit a Star Wars RPG adventure to West End Games in the mid-1990s, though my adventure was rejected because it (a) wasn’t very good, and (b) had what the editor called an “inappropriate title” for something in the Star Wars line. The title? “Attack of the Energy Beasts,” a purposely goofy classic sci-fi homage. I guess, when the second prequel title was announced, years later, that editor probably realized his mistake. Or he said to himself, “Yeah, Lucas doesn’t get it, either.”

Anyway, Rinzler’s massive “Making of…” tomes are the kinds of things that can rekindle interest in that far, far away galaxy. This book focuses on Episode V, of course, and it not only has fascinating behind-the-scenes photographs, and a compelling overview of the struggle to make the movie at a time when no sequel had ever made as much as the original film (Godfather II only did half as well as the original, for example, and that was the best sequel ever made), it also has a great sequence which transcribes a day in the directing life of Irvin Kershner, based on a recording of that day’s events leading up to the famous Han Solo in carbonite scene. Kerhner was wearing a mic all day for another “Making of…” project being completed at the time, and the transcription of the on-set script revision and fragile egos of the performers is a clear look at what really happened when the cameras weren’t looking. The whole book is a pretty great, and engrossing, read.

Captain America #613 by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice, and Friends
I read ten to twenty new comics every week, so why single out this one? Because sometimes I forget how good Brubaker’s Captain America can be, and this was a particularly good reminder of what has been one of the best mainstream superhero comics of the past five years. From Guice’s chiseled artwork (best embellished by Stefano Gaudiano) to the sometimes dynamic vividly nightmarish layouts to the rapid cross-cutting between Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and the daughter of the Red Skull, this looks to be a comic that’s back on track after a year of slightly disappointing issues (though by the high standards of Brubaker’s Captain America, even weaker installments are better than most). I liked this one a lot.

The Art of Jim Starlin, by Jim Starlin
Quite early in my comic book reading days, I picked up a copy of Dreadstar and Company #2, which reprinted the second issue of the Epic Comics series focusing on Dreadstar’s blind female compatriot, Willow. It was a shocking issue back then, and rereading the entire Dreadstar saga these days, trying to follow along with CBR’s Chad Nevett in “Dreadstar December,” has reminded me how much I’ve always enjoyed Jim Starlin’s work. I’ve been devouring his other comics, and I have an essay on Gilgamesh II that I keep promising to write.

Jim Starlin’s art book, which features highlights from his career and a lengthy retrospective written by himself, is a good primer on the man’s career and it’s also a good reminder of all the projects he’s tacked over the years. It doesn’t go into nearly enough detail about the conflicts he’s had with various publishers (he frustratingly hints at juicy stories of poor treatment by the Big Two, but politely declines to name names or provide specific blow-by-blow accounts), but it does show Starlin to be a man who has always been ahead of the curve, trying to do his own thing in an industry that wants bland conformity.

Timothy Callahan writes the regular column When Words Collide, as well as reviews for Comic Book Resources. He does a lot of other stuff online, too, even talking about comics on the Splash Page podcast with CBR’s Chad Nevett.

Josh Wigler

Morning Glories #2

It’s probably no accident that the books I’m enjoying the most these days are coming from Image Comics, given the fact that I’ve covered the Image beat on CBR for the better part of two years now. But that’s just the state of things, I guess — it’s a good time to be a comics fan, and an especially great time for Image’s creative output.

The two books at the top of my buy pile every month are Chew and Morning Glories, and not just because I’m running monthly columns on them (though that certainly doesn’t hurt). With Chew, John Layman and Rob Guillory are constantly evolving the story of FDA agent Tony Chu in exciting new directions, almost effortlessly taking the series from its initial premise of a guy who gleans psychic impressions from the things he eats to it’s current end-of-the-world-by-fiery-alien-sky-writing status quo. There’s no telling where the book is going to go next, which is exactly why I love it so much.

Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma’s Morning Glories is entering the new year in great shape as well, with the first arc officially concluded in last month’s breathtaking fifth issue. Having already read this month’s installment a couple of weeks early, I can already tell you that Morning Glories is off to an excellent start in 2011. I can also say with no bullshit that this series is one of the most consistent edge-of-your-seat reads you’ll find anywhere in comics today. If you’re not picking Morning Glories up already, do yourself a favor and dive in while it’s still early — trust me, you don’t want to miss this boat.

Some other current favorites include:

- Artifacts … the best event series of 2010, trucking strong into 2011 thanks to Ron Marz and the enormously talented people at Top Cow.

- Orc Stain … I’m pretty sure James Stokoe couldn’t make a bad comic if he tried, certainly not when crafting the disturbingly detailed world that “Orc Stain” inhabits.

- Proof … recently relaunched with a new number one, but it’s the same hairy Sasquatch you know and love.

- The Walking Dead … as the world wakes up and smells the coffee thanks to the hit AMC series, the rest of us already know how amazing this series is thanks to the increasingly devastating monthlies. After eighty issues, Kirkman is still at the top of his game and showing no signs of slowing down.

That’s barely scratching the surface of what I’ve been reading and loving lately, and judging by what’s on the horizon in 2011, the new year should be an equally crowded one. Here’s hoping, at least!

In addition to covering Image for CBR, Josh also can be found blogging regularly for Spinoff. He also writes for MTV and ComicsAlliance.

Ryan K Lindsay

Franken-Castle

Franken-Castle
It’s a concept nearly everyone scoffed at and while many enjoyed it just as many would never admit that it was fun. I missed the boat but that only means I get to enjoy it in one big HC instead. While the end of the tale may have lost its way, the start of this strange monster filled romp by Remender and Moore was one of my picks for comic of the year. A shame not enough agreed with me and it missed out on a mention on the CBR Top 100. I absolutely loved the art and the writing here and while it wasn’t really the Punisher I kind of dug that about it. It wasn’t afraid to try something new and completely succeed in totally new ways.

I can only imagine what a youth would make of Franken-Castle if s/he found it squirreled away at home (which is the optimal way for every generation to discover comics). The sensational art by Tony Moore is something indeed and matched with Rick Remender cutting loose in a way that the Big Two just don’t do enough is the sort of mind-expanding four colour drug that every formative stage should be exposed to. This is comics the way I always imagine them through the magical and misty lens of the golden years of my youth. There should be more titles out there like this.

Secret Dead Men
I love Duane Swierczynski. I’ll just come out and say it, I think he’s a damn fun writer. I really liked his Immortal Iron Fist Run and I would have loved to see him do just a bit more on Black Widow. But the man also writes novels and very good ones so I’m slowly catching up on them all. I recently finished The Wheelman, which is a stellar heist story, and I’m now elbows deep in Secret Dead Men, which is about a sort of wandering PI who collects souls and stores them in his brain. It’s the sort of zany idea that must be read to be believed, and once you’ve read enough Swierczynski you will become a believer. I have no doubt.

Proof
John Prufrock is a very cool character. A Bigfoot (perhaps the Bigfoot) who works for a shadowy government agency tracking down other cryptids. It’s a perfect high concept but shocking in that the execution is actually better than you think it might be. There’s erudition to the words, and beauty in the art, and a certain spirit between the panels that just makes you fall completely into the world created. This is a title you can get lost in.

I initially picked this title up in trades but I’ve switched to floppies for the new relaunch and I’m glad I did. The latest issue was a whole barrel of cool and I’m so very glad I don’t have to wait months between my Proof fixes. This comic deserves to be read by more people so become the next one and pick up a trade, or the latest #1 issue, today. You won’t regret it.

Ryan K Lindsay is a weekly reviewer at CBR. He is also a staff writer for comic news and reviews site The Weekly Crisis. He also runs a comic scripting challenge site called thoughtballoons where each week a character is picked and every member of the site must write a one page script about that character (and play-at-home scripts are encouraged in the comments). He’s also been known to throw a think piece up at Gestalt Mash and is hoping one day to have his many comic pitches drawn by people with pencils.

Greg McElhatton

All Clear

All Clear by Connie Willis: I’ve been a fan of Connie Willis’s writings ever since I first picked up a copy of Doomsday Book, back in the day. The second half of what was supposed to be a single novel (but so big it got split into Blackout and All Clear), it feels like it’s the final word on her time travel novels. A book about World War II is rarely cheerful, but this one pulls your heartstrings with both despair and hope. It’s a book I was a little unsure of early on, but it comes together beautifully for a strong conclusion.

Justice League International Vol. 1-4 by Keith Giffen, J.M DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, Ty Templeton: I have a confession to make–aside from the odd issue here and there, I’ve read almost none of the “classic” Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire JLI. I recently went on a binge and read all four collections to date, and unsurprisingly I loved them. Sure, I could’ve done without the inevitable line-wide crossover every five or six issues, and the rotating door of cast members is a little hard to keep track of at times, but it’s still a lot of fun. Looking forward to picking up Volume 5 shortly!

Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder: I’m about halfway through this collection of short stories, and if there was any doubt that Snyder’s adept at multiple genres (he’s already proven that by writing both American Vampire and Detective Comics with completely different voices), this should seal it. The opening story (“Blue Heron”) about a man chasing a zeppelin across the country to catch the love of his life will hook you, and three stories later the quality hasn’t dipped. Really looking forward to sitting down with the rest before long.

Greg McElhatton writes reviews for CBR and Read About Comics, and also has a fun personal blog.

Kiel Phegley

X'ed Out

Over the past few weeks, my reading has been divided up on two very specific categories. First up, I’ve been going back over a ton of great comics while working on CBR’s top 100 of the year list. Aside from some of the books I wrote up for the countdown including Brandon Graham’s King City, Hope Larson’s Mercury and Mike Dawson’s Troop 142, I’ve been going back over the big books of the year like Wilson an X’Ed Out as well as some killer stuff that didn’t quite make my top ten or the top 100 including Jason Lutes’ latest issue of Berlin and Kathryn and Stuart Immonen’s Moving Pictures. And in case you’re wondering, my #1 book of the year was totally Love & Rockets New Stories #3. That one has been banging around my brain box since the moment I first picked it up. We live in an age of wonders.

The other stack of stuff I’ve been tearing through are a slew of novels I have to read for my upcoming residency as an MFA student at Hamline University. My program is in Writing for Children and Young Adults, so my required list is a metric ton of middle grade and YA prose with a few picture books thrown in. I’ve read Jack Gantos’ Joey Pigza Swallowed The Key, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak and Deborah Heiligman Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith. Most importantly for the comic folks out there, I’ve been asked to re-read Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese because, get this, Yang will be at Hamline next week while I’m in my first residency to give us students a workshop in writing and graphic novels and what not. How rad is that?

Kiel Phegley is the news editor for Comic Book Resources, and one of the folks I should probably thank more often for all the help he gives us. Check out his interview with The Comics Reporter.

Brian Cronin

The last five comic books that I read were Deadpool Team-Up #886, a well-told action story by Shane McCarthy and Nick Dragotta featuring Iron Fist. Dragotta’s art was fantastic and McCarthy had a lot of funny dialogue.

Secret Warriors #23

Secret Warriors #23 was the rare issue that gives you an extreme amount of singular character development while still moving the over-arching plot along. Great job by Jonathan Hickman, and it is awesome that Alessandro Vitti is going to finish out this series on art.

Justice Society of America #46 was an intriguing look at the idea of a superhero team devoting itself entirely to one city and not letting ANY crime occur. Meanwhile, Marc Guggenheim and artist Scott Kolins do strong work in establishing the mysterious villains in the comic as a formidable and scary threat to the cast of this book. One drawback in the issue to me was a scene featuring Obsidian that did not ring true to me.

Hulk #28 was another entertaining issue by the impressive duo of Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman. Hardman has not had a bad issue yet, and Parker gives him a lot of really cool stuff to draw in this issue (and the previous issues, as well).

Finally, Flash #8, by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins, was an effectively eerie look at the origin (or should I say originS) of the Reverse-Flash. Seeing him cruelly change time around himself makes him a rather terrifyingly disturbing creature.

That’s my list!

Brian Cronin runs our sister blog, Comics Should Be Good! and was part of The Great Curve team way back in the day, before we were ever Robot 6. He’s also an author.

Alex Dueben

Apollo’s Angels

Apollo’s Angels by Jennifer Homans. Writing about comics and art has its challenges, but it’s a cakewalk compared to writing about dance. For centuries, the only real record we have of dance has been through writing. The facility with language required by good dance writers is part of what I love about the genre (sometimes more than dance itself) and as I think and write more about the history of comics I know that Homans’ cultural analysis and history of ballet is something that’s going to stick in my head for some time to come. This is the gold standard of arts writing.

Berlin: City of Stones and Berlin: City of Smoke. I’ve been meaning to reread the first volume and read the second one of Jason Lutes’ epic series ever since I picked it up months ago but I wanted to read through it all in one sitting and finally got a chance this week. I can’t help but feel that like Love and Rockets, the problem isn’t that we love the series any less or that the quality has dropped – it’s better than it’s ever been – the problem is that we’ve run out of adjectives to describe it. There’s nothing new to say. How many times can we say it’s a brilliant piece of work and one of the greatest comic series ever?

Bad Machinery: A Feral Flag Will Fly. I picked up this limited edition book of the beginning strips of John Allison’s new comic at Webcomics Weekend and hadn’t gotten around to reading it. Part of the problem with buying the books of webcomics is that I’ve already them, which means they drop to the bottom of the pile quickly. The truth is that I love Bad Machinery. I think it’s Allison’s best work. And it was great to OD on the comic for an afternoon without staring at the screen.

The Butterfly Mosque. G. Willow Wilson is best known to comic fans for her graphic novel Cairo and the series Air. This new memoir will likely change all that. It’s a beautiful book that I can’t recommend highly enough, detailing Wilson’s conversion to Islam and her time in Cairo, falling in love and her young married life. Wilson conveys the culture she found herself a part of and the essential separateness that one feels in a culture unlike that which one is born and raised in. Through it all there is a greater understanding and love.

Alex Dueben writes about the kinds of comics that I know Sean and Chris dig for CBR.

Sonia Harris

The Essential Moon Knight

The Essential Moon Knight Vol 1 & 2
by Doug Moench, Bill Sienkiewicz and others
Love Bill Sienkiewicz, I have ever since New Mutants and then Elektra Assassin. Because of his genre-altering work , I thought it would be interesting to see how his style evolved. This book definitely show his early work, you can see the change and watch him move towards something more communicative. Still, his line is always characteristic, easy to spot even when he’s trying to hide his inherent craziness. To be honest, I’m not reading the words, I’m just in it for the art. I might go back and read them if I get stuck in bed sick one day or something, but there isn’t a lot of draw.

http://www.freakangels.com/
by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield
I tried reading this online when it started, but the short episodes meant that I couldn’t really get into it. Then I forgot about it for a few months and came back with plenty of story unfolded. Elis writing a screwed-up, post-apocalyptic London is very compelling, especially with a dysfunctional, neo Village of the Damned (but nice, sort of) angle. Duffield’s art is quite lovely, and it’s become one of the few comics that I don’t mind reading online. Having said that, it does look good in print – the colors sort of do slightly better things in print – but knowing that it is up online, how can I wait all those extra weeks for the book?

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
by David Lynch
A funny little, chunky, blue book. Although I read sequentially, it would be a great book to dive into at any point for inspiration, a sort of random divination kind of a thing, to set the mood for a project or day. David Lynch talks gently about his creative process and the role transcendental meditation plays in that (which may or may not be your cup of tea, but I think it is interesting, regardless.) He’s very candid, talks openly of his feelings about major projects, which is really interesting to me. He discusses about how some films are made, what it means to him, and what he intends in making them… It’s nice, but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of his films. The book is less dry than that, more an aspirational piece for the creative mind.

Sonia Harris writes for Comics Should Be Good every wednesday and sometimes writes convention coverage for CBR.

James Hunt

Hopeless Savages: Greatest Hits

1. Hopeless Savages: Greatest Hits – Jen Van Meter, Christine Norrie et al.
Many of my favourite creators have admitted being influenced by Hopeless Savages, so when the omnibus edition came out recently, I took that as my “now or never” moment to see it for myself. Working through the book, I’m not sure I’ve been entirely won over by the “punk family” premise, but the characters are lovingly-crafted and it’s easy to see why it had such an impact on those who read it.

2. Generation Hope – Kieron Gillen, Salvador Espin.
With its central theme of teenagers accepting themselves as mutants, Generation Hope feels more like the X-Men than any other X-Book does right now. I’ve loved Gillen’s work ever since the days of the original Phonogram series, and this is no exception. The market might feel a little over-saturated with mutant titles, but this had an incredibly strong launch, and it’s a series that I’m looking forward to seeing more of in 2010.

3. The Fabric of the Cosmos – Brian Greene.
Sometimes it’s good to get away from fiction and be reminded that actually, the universe we live in is strange enough even without superpowers and cosmic beings. I figure if I can understand DC continuity, quantum physics shouldn’t be much harder to grasp, and Greene’s informative yet approachable style keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by the hard maths – just when you think it’s getting a bit too complicated, out come The Simpsons references.

James Hunt reviews comics for Comic Book Resources.

Greg Hatcher

Well, to be honest, what I’m reading is usually listed right there in the column every week. But today we have….

Crossovers: The Secret Chronology of the World, volumes one and two, by Win Eckert. This is kind of the ultimate continuity-geek book, working out the chronology of every single literary crossover ever, including comics. It might be a little uber-nerdy for some folks but I’m pretty nerdy and I think it’s great fun. I’m a Wold Newton guy from way back, I bought Philip Jose Farmer’s biography of Doc Savage new off the stands back in the seventies, so this is totally my thing.

Coils, by Fred Saberhagen and Roger Zelazny. Picked this up on a whim not too long ago, on one of our bookscouting road trips. A man discovers that his memories are false computer implants… when he tries to discover the truth his fiancee is kidnapped and the chase is on. Sort of a cross between The Bourne Identity and Total Recall.

The Liberty Project by Kurt Busiek and James Fry, collecting their short-lived comics series from Eclipse way back when. I remember this series fondly from the 1980s and it’s nice that it’s back in print again.

Greg Hatcher can be found writing every week for Comics Should Be Good!

Shaun Manning

20th Century Boys

20th Century Boys vol. 12

I’ll admit that I thought 20th Century Boys went off the rails a bit when the “New Book of Prophecy” was introduced, but volume 12 reveals a bit more about the origins of this second deadly tome and ties together a lot of really fascinating threads. Urasawa is utterly brilliant, managing to string out the big reveal of the Friend’s identity for a full twelve volumes and keep things interesting at every step of the way.

Doctor Who #1

I got a preview copy of the new IDW series starring the Eleventh Doctor, and this standalone issue was a hell of a lot of fun. Basically, the TARDIS is infected with every spam email Rory has ever received and brings to life the various charlatans and con men embodied in each. The 419 man is a special treat. My only gripe is that it drives me nuts when recognizable entities like Facebook are tweaked just to avoid naming them directly, and there was a bit of this.

Shaun Manning covers Dark Horse, BOOM! and a lot of other comic news on CBR.

Chad Nevett

Invisible

I got some really cool books for Christmas and have been reading those, prose and comics alike. On Wednesday, I had a bunch of time to kill and wound up reading all of Invisible by Paul Auster in the process. It’s not dissimilar to his other books with a narrative within the narrative presented to us by a friend of the original author. I find Auster’s prose engaging and it always makes me want to write. It’s writing that requires you to be active and read between the lines. He’s also a writer I love just for the fact he’s almost at the point where he’s releasing one novel each year.

I arrived home from the holidays to find a shipment of comics I bought, including Jack Cross #1-4 by Warren Ellis and Gary Erskine. It’s one of the rare recent Ellis-penned minis that I hadn’t read and I missed getting a copy of the recent DC reprint. It fits nicely into his larger body of work with his interest in intelligence work. The protagonist is an interesting fellow with his idealism and pacifism in the ‘real’ world, but his utter brutality when he’s called on to do a job. It’s a cynical book, but definitely one for the Ellis fans.

And, finally, just today, while at work, I read Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke (on lunch and during breaks, of course). I picked this up during the week with a gift card and loved it. Much more of a COMIC adaptation of the prose than The Hunter was. Cooke is more playful and inventive here, willing to change up styles and storytelling approaches when it suits him, not just during the heist scenes. It’s a shame we’ll have to wait until 2012 for more.

Chad Nevett talks about comics in several different places around the web — at his personal blog GraphiContent, at Comics Should Be Good!, as a reviewer for Comic Book Resources and on the Splash Page podcast, with Mr. Callahan. He also writes about wrestling for 411mania.

The Pirate Bay

Legal | A Swedish court last week upheld the copyright convictions of three founders of The Pirate Bay, billed as “the world’s most resilient bittorrent site.” Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Carl Lundstrom and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg were convicted in April 2009 of copyright infringement, fined and sentenced to one year in prison. On Thursday the appeals court reduced the sentence to between four months and 10 months each for Sunde, Nij and Lundstrom while increasing the fine by about $2 million to $6.4 million. A decision regarding Warg’s appeal was postponed because of the defendant’s poor health. [CNET]

Legal | The Japan P.E.N. Club writers group and the Tokyo Bar Association last week announced their opposition to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s latest effort to tighten regulations on the sexual depictions of minors in manga, anime and video games. [Anime News Network]

Piracy | Johanna Draper Carlson and Tim Geiger wade into Colleen Doran’s recent argument against digital piracy. [Comics Worth Reading, Techdirt]

DC Versus Marvel Comics #1

Publishing | John Jackson Miller pieces together more sales estimates from the mid-1990s, when the direct market splintered as multiple distributors signed exclusive deals with publishers. [The Comichron]

Comics | Writer Kurt Busiek confirmed that he and artist John Paul Leon are collaborating on Batman: Creature of the Night, a follow-up to the well-received 2004 miniseries Superman: Secret Identity. [Newsarama]

Comics | Tom Spurgeon has compiled his annual, and exhaustive, holiday shopping guide. [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Organizers Eric O’Dell and Rhett Thomas talk about the April return of MaCon Comic Book Convention to Macon, Georgia. [Macon Telegraph]

Creators | Jeff Lemire is profiled following the selection of Essex County as a finalist for the CBC’s prestigious Canada Reads program: “It’s very overwhelming, really flattering, exciting.” [The Windsor Star]

Amelia Rules!

Creators | Amelia Rules! creator Jimmy Gownley talks at length about his deal with Simon & Schuster, moving to the graphic novel format, creating “all ages” material, and more: “[O]ne of the stipulations of going with Simon & Schuster was that we discontinue the pamphlet form. It wasn’t something they were interested in getting into, and they sort of felt it would be easier for them to be able to promote and publicize a book that was all original — which I totally get. And to be honest, the pamphlet form is just sort of dying in the comic book industry. I think Marvel Comics are now like four dollars a piece, which is just an absurd price to pay for a comic book. So I was more than happy to let that go — because even at the time we finished publishing Amelia Rules! through Renaissance Press, the trade paperbacks were selling multiple times as much as an individual issue was. So at some point we had to ask, ‘Why am I even bothering with the issues?’” [The Trades]

Creators | Sarah Glidden, creator of the travelogue How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, is spotlighted by The Associated Press. [ABC News]

Creators | Veteran artist José Luís García-López is interviewed at the release party for 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. [Fox News Latino]

Alan Moore

Creators | Alan Moore is teaming with a local co-op supermarket for the holidays to provide tote bags filled with groceries to the underprivileged in Northampton, England. [Northampton Chronicle & Echo]

Creators | Collaborators Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col discuss their IDW Publishing series Kill Shakespeare. [Calgary Herald]

Creators | Stumptown Trade Review posts an audio interview with Y: The Last Man artist Pia Guerra. [Stumptown Trade Review]

Comics | Here’s a list of the 25 “awesomest” gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender comics characters, from Kevin Keller and Daken to Batwoman and Wallace Wells. [The Chronicle, via WildStorm]

Comics | Using criteria that excludes, among others, superheroes and titles sporting “scene after scene of characters in their mid-20s sitting around in cafes kvetching about their love lives,” Laura Miller highlights 10 new graphic novels suited for mainstream readers. [Salon]

Batman Incorporated #1

Welcome to another installment of “Food or Comics?” Every week we set certain hypothetical spending limits on ourselves and go through the agony of trying to determine what comes home and what stays on the shelves. So join us as we run down what comics we’d buy if they only had $15 and $30 to spend, as well as what we’d get if we had some “mad money” to splurge with.

Check out Diamond’s full release list if you’d like to play along in our comments section.

Graeme McMillan

If I had $15, at least $9 of it – okay, $8.98 – would be already spoken for. The first issue of Batman Incorporated ($3.99) and one-shot lead-in Batman: The Return #1 ($4.99) offer up the first glimpses of what Grant Morrison has in mind for his new Batus-quo and, after the way he brought the RIP/Return of Bruce Wayne storyline to a close, I’m pretty much on board no matter what. The remaining money…? It’s a tough one, but I’m going to go for Spider-Girl #1 ($3.99), pretty much because I like Paul Tobin’s writing, I like the Twitter gimmick (Somewhere, Joe Casey’s going “I did it first in Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance!” and I know, Joe), and, most importantly, the Spider-Girl short was my favorite part of last week’s Amazing Spider-Man relaunch issue. Who could’ve seen that coming?

*****

If I had $30, I’d add the sixth issue of The Sixth Gun ($3.99) to the pile, because it’s been a fun ride so far and I want to see what happens next, and also Vertigo Resurrected: The Extremist #1 ($7.99), because I only vaguely remember Peter Milligan and Ted McKeever’s kink-centric series from the early ’90s and want to happily relive Milligan’s golden age, back before he broke my heart with that X-Men run (although Greek Street was a partial return to form, I’d argue).

ShockRockets

If I could splurge, I’d be torn. IDW is reissuing Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen’s Shockrockets as a $24.99 hardcover, and I really, really want to read that, having missed it the first time around but being someone who enjoys the work of both creators quite a bit (It doesn’t help that the book will probably look beautiful; IDW doesn’t mess around when it comes to production value). But at the same time, Jim McCann and Janet Lee‘s Return Of The Dapper Men is also out this week, and from everything I’ve read and seen about this fairy tale OGN, it looks like something I’d enjoy quite a bit. To make matters even worse, Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman have a new OGN out this week as well, Kickstart’s Hero Complex ($14.99). Dammit! How much am I allowed to splurge, again…?

Brigid Alverson

If I had just $15…

I’d blow it all on the trade paperback of CBGB, BOOM! Studios’ anthology of comics about the famed New York punk rock club. It’s odd to think of anyone being nostalgic for the punk era—”nostalgia” and “punk” being polar opposites—but the stories manage to be wistful and head-banging in equal parts, so it’s all good.

If I had $30…

I’d give it all to Fantagraphics in exchange for the second volume of Castle Waiting, the long-awaited continuation of Linda Medley’s story. I’ll confess I haven’t read the first volume yet—maybe that should be my splurge—but my librarian friends strongly recommend it, and their description of an updated fairy tale with a modern sensibility makes me want to give it a try.

Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

Splurge item:

It’s jumping the season a bit, but IDW’s Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories is just what I need to get into the holiday mood. It’s a perfect fit—I always used to find a big book of some sort of stories under the Christmas tree when I was a kid, and with comics by Walt Kelly and John Stanley, this collection can’t miss.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

There’s a lot of good comics out this week, but the item I’m most excited to see is a new $11.99 edition of Hewligan’s Haircut, a new edition of Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett’s ultra-loopy saga of a man whose coiffure has the ability to warp space and time. Also features a female lead named Dali Scarlet O’Gasmeter. And if that’s not enough to send you out to the comic book store, I don’t know what is.

If I had $30:

I’m a sucker for anything French artist David B does, so I’ll be sure to snatch and grab a copy of The Littlest Pirate King ($16.99), his latest entry on American shores, an all-ages titles about a young boy who leads a group of undead pirates. Part of Fantagraphics new Eurocomics for kids line. (Speaking of which, Eurocomics fans should note that Joann Sfar’s adaptation of The Little Prince comes out today as well, and stands every chance of being quite good.)

Splurge:

Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal

I’ve been a longtime fan of The Big Red Cheese, so my splurge item for the week has to be Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal ($35), a Chip Kidd-edited hardcover that looks at the history of Fawcett’s major superhero property, photos of toys and other ephemera included.

I’m also quite curious to check out Sophie Crumb: Evolution of a Crazy Artist ($27.95), a collection of the youngest Crumb’s artwork from childhood to today. I’ve yet to see Crumb do anything that really knocked my socks off, she’s got incredible chops, but her stories themselves have always seemed two steps shy of true inspiration and insight. Maybe this book will change my mind though. I’d like to give it the chance to.

Michael May

If I had $15:

I’d start with the Hellboy Double Feature of Evil one shot ($3.50), because you know…Hellboy. I’d also be sure to check out Osborn #1 ($3.99) because it’s written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and she’s awesome. Finally, I’d check out Dynamite’s Warlord of Mars #2 ($3.99).

If I had $30:

Return of the Dapper Men

I’d trade-wait for Osborn and Warlord of Mars, and add Jim McCann and Janet Lee’s Return of the Dapper Men ($24.95) to my Hellboy fix. I’m happy with McCann for writing an Alpha Flight one shot, but my interest in this is mostly due to my predisposition to like anything with the word “dapper” in it.

Splurge:

I’m very tempted by the new volumes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold ($12.99) and Castle Waiting ($29.99), but they’re both trumped by David B and his ghost pirates in The Littlest Pirate King ($16.99). Still, since I’m splurging, let’s just get all three.

JK Parkin

If I had $15:

Batman: The Return #1 ($4.99) and Batman Incorporated ($3.99) both get my money this week as well, as does the fourth issue of Morning Glories ($3.50). That leaves me with roughly $2.50.

If I had $30:

Thunderbolts #150

Zatanna has slowly but surely made its way up to the top of my reading stack each month, so let’s grab issue #7 ($2.99). And the Thunderbolts meet up with the Avengers in issue #150 of their title, an extra-sized issue ($4.99). Then I’d add the latest issue of The Sixth Gun ($3.99) and Northlanders #34 ($2.99) to round out my week.

Splurge:

It’s hard not to just repeat what my distinguished colleagues have said above about pirates that are little or men that are dapper, but it’s been an awfully long time since I read the Legion of Super-Heroes Great Darkness Saga, comics my brother owned and I could only borrow on occasion, so I’ll go with the deluxe hardcover DC is releasing as my splurge item this week.

One Piece, Vol. 6

Publishing | The 60th volume of Eiichiro Oda’s popular pirate manga One Piece sold more than 2 million copies in its first four days of release. It’s the first book to move more than 2 million copies in its first week of sales since the Japanese market survey company Oricon began reporting its charts in 2008. As we reported last week, this volume’s 3.4 million-copy first printing set a record, and propelled the series past the 200 million-copy mark. [Anime News Network]

Editorial cartoons | Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Matt Davies has been laid off by the Gannett-owned Journal News in White Plains, N.Y. [Comic Riffs]

Publishing | Abrams has made three comics-related promotions: Susan Van Metre to senior vice president and publisher, overseeing all comic arts books as well as Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books; Charles Kochman to editorial director of Abrams ComicArts; and Chad W. Beckerman to creative director, overseeing design for all comic arts books as well as Abrams Books for Young Readers and Amulet Books. [Abrams]

Astro City

Publishing | Writer Kurt Busiek reveals that his long-running series Astro City, which had been published by the recently closed WildStorm imprint, will continue under the DC Comics banner. [Newsarama]

Publishing | Simona Stanzani talks about translating manga into Italian and English. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Conventions | The Smith College student newspaper reports on New England Webcomics Weekend. [The Smith College Sophian]

Publishing | Deb Aoki talks to Senior Editor Joel Enos about the January relaunch of Viz Media’s Shonen Jump Magazine. [About.com]

Creators | The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund pays tribute to Neil Gaiman on the writer’s 50th birthday. [CBLDF]

R. Crumb

Creators | Deborah Vankin chats with a “less angry” R. Crumb: “All I read anymore is investigative journalism. You name it. Scandalous political stuff, the pharmaceutical industry, all that crap. I’m fascinated by that stuff.” [Hero Complex]

Creators | Jim Shooter talks briefly about his lengthy career and the future of comics ahead of his appearance Sunday at the Pittsburgh Comic & Collectibles Show: “Someone told me recently that I’m the longest-tenured (though not the oldest!) active comic book writer, with 46 years of service. I think I keep getting gigs because I out-work, out-care and out-try the younger, gifted people for whom writing is easy, apparently. Someone also told me that I’m 59. Not inside my head, I’m not.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Creators | Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl discuss their upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood miniseries, created for video-game publisher Ubisoft. “It’s quite an astonish­ingly rare job, where it’s a big commercial product by a big corporation, yet it feels to us very much like a personal creation,” Stweart says. “We figured we’d have to work around very strict rules with a brand as big as this, but it turned out to be the opposite. We had a whole lot of creative freedom.” [Montreal Mirror]

Creators | Sweets creator Kody Chamberlain is asked general questions by a reporter from his local newspaper, who notes “there is even a Wikipedia page about him.” [The Daily Advertiser]

The Witchlands

Here’s one I’ve personally been waiting for … writer Kurt Busiek previews his The Witchlands project over on his blog, offering a look at the cover by Zachary Baldus and some of the interior art by Conner Willumsen.

The project was first announced in San Diego in 2009 at the WildStorm panel and was originally titled Kurt Busiek’s American Gothic. With WildStorm going away, he told Heidi at The Beat that it will likely be coming from somewhere else within DC.

Be sure to click on over to his blog to see Willumsen’s interior art.

Dracula: The Company of Monsters #3

Courtesy of our fiendishly fine friends at BOOM! Studios and just in time for Robot 666 week comes a preview of Dracula: The Company of Monsters #3. Written by Kurt Busiek and Daryl Gregory, with art by Damian Couceiro, this issue features a “revived, enchained and seemingly tamed” Dracula under the control of the Barrington Corporation … or is he?

Check out the preview and solicitation text after the jump.

*****

DRACULA: THE COMPANY OF MONSTERS #3
Written by: Kurt Busiek, Daryl Gregory
Drawn by: Damian Couceiro
Diamond Code: AUG100857

From the mind of Kurt Busiek, the all-new ongoing horror series continues! Revived, enchained and seemingly tamed, the Barrington Corporation believes they have Dracula under their control. Which is just what Dracula wants them to think. As Dracula gets his pawns into place, Evan Barrington races to discover his true plan before it’s too late! It’s bloodsuckers vs. bloodsucker, as Busiek brings an incredibly modern spin to the Dracula mythos!

from Seth's pencils for the Coober Skeber 2 cover

The other day we linked you to the saga of Coober Skeber 2, the Marvel-spoofing, copyright-defying anthology put together by influential alternative comics publisher Tom Devlin and a small galaxy of future alternative-comics stars in the late 1990s. Well, now it’s time for genuine superhero-comics superstar Kurt Busiek to weigh in on the book. On his blog, the Buse shares his memories of getting a copy at Comic-Con International in 1997 and digging it so much he helped get one participant hired by Marvel:

I liked the Hulk story so much that when I got home, I photocopied the story and faxed it to Tom Brevoort at Marvel (this was in those halcyon days before scanners were common), and urged him to get someone to buy it from Kochalka and have it colored and run it as a backup somewhere. It was too cool not to show to Hulk fans everywhere.

Tom wasn’t editing Hulk at the time, but he took over the book a little later, and eventually did try to buy the story. Kochalka wanted to re-do it, so Tom hired him to re-do the story, in color, and it ran in Hulk 2001, that year’s Annual.

Click the link to read the whole story — and to get a look at the full pencils for Seth’s cover, which Busiek bought. This makes me wonder: Does Astro City have a hipster enclave full of superheroes that look like Fort Thunder drawings?

Sleeper #1

After 18 years, former Image studio and current DC Comics imprint WildStorm is shutting down this December. And as many have noted already, the house that Jim built has produced many awesome, memorable and even game-changing (to steal a phrase from Rob Liefeld) works in the last two decades.

Here are six of them that we found to be particularly awesome; let us know what we missed in the comments section.

1. Sleeper: There have been many comics that mash up superheroes with down-and-dirty genres like crime and espionage over the past decade; this may just be the best. The high concept is a gripping one: Super-spy Holden Carver is so deep undercover in an international super-criminal organization that when his one contact is placed in a coma, literally no one knows he’s secretly on the side of the angels. Carver’s predicament, the way he plays and gets played by both sides, his growing unwillingness or inability to draw the ethical lines needed to save his soul, if not his life–such is the stuff of a great crime drama. Superstar in the making Ed Brubaker brings all his talents and obsessions to the table here: his knack for crafting morally compromised characters while neither romanticizing their misdeeds nor softening them up, his recurring theme of how the secrets and sins of our pasts never truly leave us, his belief that damaged people seek out other damaged people to repair that damage, his eye for and ability to work with strong visual stylists. In this case that meant Sean Phillips, never better in his ability to believably root spectacular action and super-powers in a naturalist-noir milieu. All of this in a WildC.A.T.s spinoff, proving just how wild WildStorm was once willing to go.

Even its relatively short run redounds to its benefit: The complete story of Holden Carver is yours to own inexpensively, read easily, and ponder at your leisure. (Sean T. Collins)

2. Astro City: For 15 years, and despite all manner of extracurricular difficulties, Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Will Blyberg, Alex Sinclair, and Alex Ross (not to mention the good folks at Comicraft) have produced one of the greatest odes to superheroes ever committed to paper. On its face, Astro City may look like a mash-up of the DC and Marvel universes – a place where the truly-super Samaritan can rub elbows with the fantastic First Family – but like the decades of superhero stories it evokes, it’s not quite that simple. See, everyone in Astro City has a tale to tell, whether it involves horror or crime, romance or even funny animals. It’s Exhibit A for folks who believe that superheroes can be used to relate all kinds of stories. Sure, there are the requisite number of cosmic calamities, villainous capers, and existential threats to civilization, but they’re not really the point. Whether they’re about teenage sidekicks, time-lost crusaders, or a man robbed of love by a literal twist of fate, the best Astro City stories make those very personal connections in a way that makes the reader feel like part of the place’s history. You come to Astro City for the pastiche, but you stay for the people. (Tom Bondurant)

The Authority

3. & 4. Planetary/Authority: All right, I’m going to cheat here a little bit and talk about two titles at once. And while the Authority certainly had life afterward, especially when Mark Millar and Frank Quitely got their hands on them, for the purpose of this exercise I’m going to be talking about the first 12 issues, by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. Spinning out of his work on Stormwatch, Ellis and Hitch assembled a team of ultra-powerful, bad ass heroes, The Authority, who promised to make the world a better place by any means necessary. Around the same time, Ellis and artist John Cassaday created Planetary,which focused on three super-powered individuals aimed at discovering the secret history of the WildStorm universe — a history shaped by everyone from Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger and Count Dracula to an evil version of the Fantastic Four.

Both of these books debuted in 1999, right before the turn of the century, a time of anxiety and uncertainty in the world at large. The comic industry itself had survived the 1990s, the speculation fallout and, let’s face it … it really just needed someone to light a fire, someone who was willing to push storytelling forward into the new century. Both of these comics did that; while Planetary did it by challenging the notions of the past and everything we know about fictional characters, Authority did it by defining “widescreen” comics, with bold plots and concepts, and a grand visual style. They changed a lot of notions people had about comics and set a high bar for the medium in this century. (JK Parkin)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Anyone could have had the idea for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s such a simple concept: The Justice League of America for Victorian literature. But it wasn’t just anyone, it was Alan Moore. That meant that it included not just main characters like Mina Murray and Captain Nemo, but also cameo and guest appearances by John Carter of Mars, Fu Manchu, and obscure folk like Inspector Donovan and Miss Coote. It wasn’t just a nineteenth century JLA, it was a bona fide and thorough exploration of the Wold Newton Universe. It was also the flagship for an entire imprint-within-an-imprint at WildStorm. Though relations were still unpleasant between DC and Alan Moore, WildStorm was able to serve as a buffer for a while and America’s Best Comics lived up to its name, publishing such awesomeness as Tom Strong, Top 10, and Promethea. (Michael May)

6. Ex Machina: I still remember the day I bought this at the local comic shop. One of the employees and I, both being fans of Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, had been eagerly awaiting it for months. He handed me my weekly stash, which had Ex Machina on top, and said, “Wait until you read the last page.” Vaughan and artist Tony Harris went where I never expected them to on that last page, just as they did in every subsequent issue. Was this a superhero title? Sometimes I forgot, because it was the characters, politics and philosophical/moral debates that were featured in every issue that really connected me to the work. Although I lament the end of the title and the imprint that spawned it, it is somewhat fitting that it’s one of the last exclamation marks WildStorm will leave in the comics world. (JK Parkin)

Planetary #21

This week brings the end of an era, as DC Entertainment announced that the WildStorm imprint is shutting down in December. That, of course, has brought a lot of commentary and remembrances around the web.

• Both Newsarama and The Beat have round-ups of reactions from creators and former WildStorm employees. As Heidi notes in her intro, “…it isn’t just another in a long list of comics imprints that have ended over the years. It’s the end of a comics company that made history for 18 years as a vital part of several revolutions in commercial comics.” She received a comment from Rob Liefeld that really drives home how game-changing WildStorm was, noting how several prominent creators got their start under WildStorm, and how WildStorm published some of the biggest comics works of the past two decades.
• My favorite piece on WildStorm is probably Andy Khouri’s essay on ComicsAlliance, where he talks about the generation of comic fans who have grown up with WildStorm (and Fairchild’s breasts). “… the history of WildStorm tracks well with that of many turn-of-the-century babies like myself, whose unconditional affection for the comics medium (and, in some cases, employment in the comics industry) can be traced back to WildStorm founder Jim Lee’s pied piper act, where the most influential comic book artist of the 1990s lured a generation away from the safe, altruistic heroes of our childhoods and into much darker, much sexier and much more violent comic book worlds where we roamed free before he finally led us back to water,” he wrote.
• Over at Techland, meanwhile, Robot 6 contributor Graeme McMillan takes a closer look at WildStorm’s rebranding and relaunches over the last ten years, many of which didn’t work too well, from Eye of the Storm to Worldstorm to World’s End.
• And David Brothers wonders “What did Wildstorm do that DC couldn’t do just as well?”
• Rich Johnston has a piece up on how the purchase of WildStorm by DC Comics was initially reported.
• And finally, Kurt Busiek has posted a bit of an update on Astro City, noting that his contacts at the imprint have been in meetings ever since the announcement occurred, so he hasn’t had a chance to talk to them about Astro City, the Arrowsmith novel or Witchlands, his upcoming creator-owned series. “I won’t speculate on what the upshot will be, but I wouldn’t worry about it,” he writes on his blog. “Astro City is a profitable series, and DC isn’t going to be in a hurry for it to go away. [And frankly, even if they were, in the last few days I think I've heard from almost every American comics publisher whose staff isn't tied up in meetings, letting me know that if it should possibly happen that DC and Astro City part ways, there are safe landing spots.]“