You might be accustomed to seeing the comics of Matt Furie and Lisa Hanawalt in avant-garde anthologies like Kramers Ergot and Thickness, or in their solo humor series from Pigeon Press Boy’s Club and I Want You, or in the stylishly sleazy pages of Vice magazine. But now you can share your love of these modern masters of anthropomorphic mayhem with your little ones!

Sandy Bilus of I Love Rob Liefeld notes that McSweeney’s, the literary magazine-slash-publisher with a very comics-friendly track record historically, has officially launched a subscription plan for its new children’s imprint McMullens with books by Furie and Hanawalt. Furie’s The Night Riders chronicles the bike-based adventures of a frog and mouse on a nocturnal journey, while Hanwalt’s Benny’s Brigade follows “the world’s smallest, chattiest, and most gentlemanly walrus” as he attempts to find his way home with the help of two little girls and three brave slugs. Presumably these books will be as beautifully drawn as any of Furie and Hanawalt’s comics, but with far fewer dirty jokes.

The books retail for $17.95 each, but are the launch titles for a McMullens subscription package that will get you eight books for $80 total, including shipping. Not a bad deal at all.

What is it with Lisa Hanawalt and the use of automobiles for untoward purposes? Last week she drew a review of Nicholas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling’s neon-noir crime flick Drive, and now she’s selling an original art piece entitled “Car Wreck Totem Pole.” Originally created for the (very comics-friendly) Panorama issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the watercolor illustration was inspired by Crash, author J.G. Ballard’s novel about accident victims who’ve become sexually fixated on car crashes. (You may also recall director David Cronenberg’s kinky film adaptation, starring James Spader at his James Spaderest.) It’s on sale for $220 at Hanawalt’s new online store. Where does she go from here — The Road Warrior, Death Race 2000, Vanishing Point, Duel, Cars, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Herbie the Love Bug? The possibilities are endless and/or unleaded.

And hey, while we’re on a Ballard kick, it’s never a bad time to check out The Diary of a Teenage Girl author Phoebe Gloeckner’s extravagantly NSFW illustrations for Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition — well, unless you’re at work, in which case it’s a very bad time to do so. There’s also this examination of Ballard’s book covers by Simon Sellers and Rick McGrath, featuring striking from artists such as Salvador Dali, Chip Kidd, Max Ernst, David Pelham, Bill Botten, and Chris Foss. Finally, this is a bit farther afield from comics, but the excellent BBC4 rockumentary Synth Britannia, which is now available in its entirety on YouTube, spends some time tracing Ballard’s influence on early synthesizer-heavy experimental and synthpop acts The Human League, The Normal, John Foxx, and Gary Numan. Buckle up!

If you’ve seen Jordan Crane’s elegant webcomics hub What Things Do — or better still, if you’re one of the lucky few who have a copy of his hand-silkscreened, die-cut, three-books-in-one anthology NON #5 — you know that the cartoonist behind Uptight and The Clouds Above is one of comics’ best designers. But I think that with Keep Our Secrets, his new comics-style children’s book for McSweeney’s kids’ imprint McMullens, the man has truly outdone himself. This sucker is partially printed in heat-sensitive, color-changing black ink that disappears when touched to reveal a picture hidden underneath. Check it out in the video above, as two adorable tykes help demonstrate. If I were a little kid, I think being able to touch a book and suddenly see hidden stuff appear — like an accordion stuffed with cats, say, or a guy with banana hands under his gloves — would be something close to magic.

Usagi Yojimbo: Return of the Black Soul

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Paul Maybury, creator of the webcomic Party Bear. His work can be found in Comic Book Tattoo, various volumes of Popgun and 24seven, and, of course, the full-length graphic novel Aqua Leung. Be sure to check out the sketches he shares.

To see what Paul and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click on the link …

*****

Sean. T. Collins

Exit Wounds

I took last week off from WAYR last, so I’ve got fully half a dozen comics to share with you–well, my bloviating about half a dozen comics, at least. Click the links for full reviews…

Neighbourhood Sacrifice by Steph Davidson, Michael DeForge, and Jesjit Gill: Dark, down and dirty newsprint zinemaking from a trio of intriguing artists.

The San Francisco Panorama Comics Section by various: Uneven but nonetheless enjoyable broadsheet-format comics from an all-star line-up assembled by McSweeney’s.

Paper Blog Update Supplemental Postcard Set Sticker Pack by Anders Nilsen: A minicomic and assorted other goodies featuring never-before-seen strips from one of alternative comics’ best writers and biggest talents.

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan: Strong art dukes it out with predictable writing in Modan’s much-acclaimed Israeli drama.

Prison Pit: Book 2 by Johnny Ryan: Johnny Ryan goes as far as he’s ever gone.

The Witness by Hob: The artist also known as Eli Bishop serves up an existentially chilling minicomic about the death and afterlife of a dinosaur. No, seriously.

Brigid Alverson

Market Day

I picked up James Sturm’s Market Day from the library, having seen a preview of it online. I thought it was well done but lacked a satisfying conclusion. I liked the main character, and the way the story followed the monologue in his head. I really liked the fact that although this was a story about a traditional society, Sturm didn’t fall back on the standard folk-tale stereotypes. His characters are a bit neurotic and often deeply thoughtful, reflecting on the world around them and their own place in it. At the same time, the internal monologue we are listening to is an interesting one: Mendelman, the rug-maker, observes the world around him, thinks about how to translate it into rugs (in a way that only a graphic novel could show), experiences rejection, indignation, despair, and camaraderie, and reflects on the meaning of his life and his place in the world. It’s a wonderful, human portrait, and it is beautifully drawn with a limited palette and a simple but effective line, but having followed Mendelman through this day of upheaval and self-examination, I really wanted Sturm to finish the story, but it seemed to simply stop, rather than end.

The folks at Norton sent me a galley of Sophie Crumb’s art book. It was a bit of a tough sell—what parent doesn’t think their child is a genius? So I guess if you’re Robert and Aline Crumb, you get to show that to the world? Actually reading the book tempered my indignation quite a bit, however. First of all, from the pictures and descriptions, it’s clear that Sophie was indeed ahead of most kids her age. (Almost as advanced as my children! Hey, Norton, where’s my book?) And while her drawings are still little-kid drawings, she comes up with fairly complex relationships and stories within them. I ended up liking it quite a bit, although in the end, it suffers from the fact that it is a sketchbook—the drawings don’t have the finish of a completed work of art, and they don’t knit together into a single narrative, like a comic book. They just float on the page, and like any sketchbook, weak drawings share space with strong ones. For me, the best part of the book was the end, where she did combine pictures and text into something like a narrative, and I’d like to see more of that—I could see her doing a killer comic about life with her baby and husband. But those little-kid pictures sure are cute.

Chris Mautner

A Home for Mr. Easter

A Home for Mr. Easter by Brooke A. Allen — A rollicking, fast-paced affair from a relative newcomer. Allen could stand to tighten up her line a bit — there were times I had a bit of trouble figuring out what exactly was going on, especially in large crowd scenes with complicated backgrounds. That being said, she manages to keep her hero’s quest story moving at a fair clip without ever flagging once. And I liked how she had a rather unconventional heroine (a rather large, possibly mentally handicapped teen) as her lead. All in all, it’s a solid debut book and I plan on keeping an eye out for what Allen does next.

Booth by C.C. Colbert and Tanitoc — A fictionalized retelling of the day’s leading up to Lincoln’s assassination, from the perspective of his assassin. This was alright — I’m not sure Tanitoc’s impressionistic art style fits the material — I had trouble frequently trying to tell who was who and what they’re relation was to each other. It didn’t help much that Colbert’s script assumed too much on the reader’s part and didn’t really spell enough out for history dimwits like me. Bottom line: If you want to learn about Lincoln’s death via comics, Rick Geary’s version is a much better account.

Tim O’Shea

Roger Stern writing Captain America, I just get giddy reading that phrase. Add to the mix it’s the present day James Barnes Captain America–with Nick Dragotta drawing the 1940s era Bucky scenes and Marco Santucci on the modern day material and it gets even better–with the first installment of a four-part miniseries, Captain America:Forever Allies. Dragotta has a Darwyn Cooke vibe to his art that’s just perfect for Stern’s writing. My one gripe–Marvel’s penchant for reprint back-ups as a justification for the $3.99 price tag: instead of the 100th reprint of Cap’s origin, how hard would it have been to reprint one of Stern and John Byrne’s Cap tales instead.

Gorilla Man #1

Gorilla Man: Jeff Parker’s Ken Gale origin miniseries continues to hold my interest. My one question: in a world where Deadpool seems to publish on a weekly basis–why is there not room for a Gorilla Man ongoing monthly, eh?

Avengers Prime: how much do I cherish Alan Davis artwork? I will endure the tiresome writing of Brian Michael Bendis in Avengers Prime just to see the incredibly executed layouts by Davis (and equally exquisite inks of Mark Farmer).

For all of us that enjoyed Paul Cornell’s Marvel work, we get one last treat with this week’s Spitfire one-shot. Cornell clearly has a bigger Spitfire/Blade story to tell (which we get a little taste of in this adventure) and someday I hope he gets to tell it.

I get the impression that if given the chance, Secret Warriors 18 scribe Jonathan Hickman would write an Untold Tales of the Howling Commandos miniseries. In this issue, he has the Commandos swapping war stories in a manner that says to me this guy understands Marvel history and character dynamics in a way that other current Marvel writers wishes they could.

Sweet Tooth 12: Jeff Lemire makes good storytelling look too easy.

iZombie 4: artist Michael Allred has every right to disagree with me, but the two-page of two characters walking through a mental landscape disguised as Egypt is the best sequential scene he’s pulled off in a damn long time. And I love that writer Chris Roberson snuck a punchline or two in the lush scenery.

Writer Jim Shooter and artist Bill Reinhold’s first issue of Magnus Robot Fighter is a little rushed and uneven in some parts (kudos to Dark Horse for reprinting the Russ Manning’s original first issue for contextual reference, it helped frame the modern day update in a sense), but I’ll likely be back to check out issue two. I wish Reinhold would tone down the cheesecake factor of the female leads, I get that it’s emulating Manning’s approach to a certain extent, but I wonder if it might alienate potential female readers.

Writer Jim McCann continues to hold my interest with the third issue of Hawkeye and Mockingbird. I particularly liked McCann’s pacing (with David Lopez’s art) in the opening where Hawkeye retraced the shooting that ended the last issue. Taking a CSI approach (on a slight level) with Hawkeye is a nice approach that makes sense for the character. He understands the physics of a shot more than most heroes, given his skill set.

Paul Maybury

First on my list, I finally tracked down a copy of Peplum by Blutch. I’ve literally been looking around for four years. While this isn’t the cover on my copy, I was floored by this image years ago, and remains one of my favorite comic covers ever:

Peplum

It’s almost a crime that more of Blutch’s work isn’t translated here in America. For now I’ll be slowly translating as I go while drooling over the imagery.

2 ) Fluorescent Black by Nathan Fox and MF Wilson
Nathan sent me a pdf of this a while back and I was excited to see this totally perverse and imaginative art with an interesting Biopunk story being published by Heavy Metal. Nathan is one of those guys that came into comics a little later, but has the work ethic and drive of a modern master. I finally got to pick up the hard cover in San Diego and man, this is one beautifully printed book. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a nifty pinup by yours truly in the back.

3) Peepo Choo by Felipe Smith
I was a huge fan of MBQ from TokyoPop, and was sad to see it end and then learn that Felipe was moving to Japan to work for Kodansha. I mean, super excited for him, but super bummed that I wouldn’t be able to read it. Thankfully, the fine folks at Vertical have blessed us with an English translation. It’s very much a spiritual successor of MBQ with some great characters like Milton, an American kid and hopeless Otaku who does some really weird Peepo Choo dance to communicate with people.

4) Usagi Yojimbo, Return of the Black Soul by Stan Sakai
The only book I’ve consistently followed my entire life. This volume mostly deals with the evil spirit known as Jei. We see Usagi, Gen and Stray dog team up again to track down a bounty. I love Stan’s pacing and whimsical story telling. The last three volumes really remind of me the feeling I got from the original Fantagraphics published volumes. I was lucky enough to receive this totally awesome Aqua Leung drawing by Stan a few years ago when I sat next to him at a show in Austin. Sorry, I just have to show it off:

5) Crogan’s March by Chris Schweizer.
Yes, Oni publishes Scott Pilgrim, but they also publish another fantastic series. The Crogan series is about a couple of kids learning about their famous family tree and the valuable lessons all of their stories tell. One of the few intelligent all ages series out there, I couldn’t recommend this book more. Heck, I even drew fan art for it. There are currently two volumes out, with a third on the way.

by Paul Maybury

6) Old City Blues by Giannis Milonogiannis
This recently wrapped up and is an amazing read from start to finish. It has a weird Snatchers (a very cool Sega CD game) vibe, with loose gritty art that fits the story perfectly. I hope this guy never stops making sweet sweet comics. Go read it now over on his site and give him a pat on the back. Webcomics can be a pretty thankless job, and it’s always nice to feel acknowledged by readers.

Mysterius the Unfathomable

Welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where we talk about exactly what the title implies every Sunday. Today’s special guest contributor is BOOM! Studios editor Ian Brill, who works on their Farscape line, the Eisner-nominated Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the upcoming CBGB comic, among others. He’s also the writer of a new Darkwing Duck miniseries coming from BOOM! later this year.

To see what Ian and the Robot 6 gang have been reading this week, click the link below.

*****

Chris Mautner

Blazing Combat

I spent most of this week reading the new, paperback edition of Blazing Combat, which Fantagraphics released in hardcover format last year. For those of you who don’t know, Blazing Combat was a magazine-format war comic that Warren Publishing released back in the mid-60s, after the success of Creepy. It only lasted four issues, however, mainly because the U.S. military, the American Legion, and other like-minded individuals objected to what it saw as an anti-American attitude, especially in its Vietnam stories, and tried to keep it as far away from newsstands as possible.

Written mostly by editor Archie Goodwin and drawn by a stellar line-up that included Wally Wood, George Evans, Alex Toth, John Severin, Russ Heath and Reed Crandell, the comics slavishly follow the format set by Harvey Kurtzman with his EC war comics Frontline Combat and Two Fisted Tales back in the 50s. So much so that the tales at times creak and groan under the weight of their artifice. You can often sense the O. Henry style twist coming a mile away. When a soldier talks about getting a vintage bottle of wine on the first page, you can be sure it will lead to his undoing by the last.

And yet the artistry on display is so mind-boggling, particularly in the case of Crandall, Heath and Severin, that it seems churlish of me to not recommend this book simply because of a few overly and obviously ironic twists. The creators clearly had a real love for this kind of material, so much so that wish things had tipped slightly in their favor a bit more, and that the market had made at least a little more room for war comics when as the silver age gave way to the bronze.

Tim O’Shea

Cinderella #6

I’m sorry to see the Chris Roberson/Shawn McManus Cinderella six-issue miniseries end this month. Because of the villain reveal in last issue (Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother) this final issue was part therapy session/part way too much talking. I’m not slamming Roberson, given the dynamics, it was necessary–but I just wish the issue could have allowed for more action in the end. I know from interviewing Roberson that he’d be game for writing an ongoing Cinderella series, but I’m unsure if sales would support such a book long-term. That being said, I loved this miniseries overall (despite the pacing at the end) and hope that Roberson gets to work with Cinderella more (possibly BBC-style in another miniseries, as opposed to an ongoing). In the meantime, fans of Roberson like myself got a sneak preview this month of his new collaboration with Mike Allred–I, Zombie, which is set to launch in May. Roberson and Allred make a great team, it appears.

I understand all the hype and excitement behind Spider-Man: Fever by Brendan McCarthy. The man is channeling a major Ditko vibe in this project. I will likely buy the remaining two issues in this miniseries solely for the art. But Marvel should have had someone else write the dialogue for it. McCarthy has no ear for dialogue: in a pivotal early scene, Doctor Strange literally narrates what’s happening on the page. Consider this three panel (spoiler ahead) bit: Panel 1: “It’s leaving.” Panel 2: “Down the drainhole!” Panel 3: “But it has taken Spider-Man’s soul.” (I like to imagine that Strange’s intonation [lack of exclamation point] on that last line was akin to if he had said: “Wong, that pizza we ordered seems to be running late.”) And if I never see the word “Harrah” (uttered more than 50 times by various characters in this issue) again in this miniseries, I’ll be happy. This project? Please come for the art, brace yourself for the dialogue. Harrah, indeed. It’s truly a shame, as McCarthy is quite selective in the work he does, and the art is so incredible, I wish
the dialogue could do it justice.

I just described to my wife the scene where Spidey’s soul being stolen while he lay in a bathtub. Her reaction: “One would presume being in a bathtub, they took his kidney as well.” I love my wife.

Brigid Alverson

Ratman

I just picked up vol. 1 of Ratman today, so I’m not too far into it yet, but I’m liking what I see so far. It’s almost self-critiquing—it’s a manga about a short kid who dreams of being a superhero someday. The Japanese handle this sort of story very differently from Americans—for one thing, superheroes in the new Japan double as corporate spokesman and there is a whole array of them. And in the first 30 pages or so we have already had a fight on the basketball court, a humorous mishap involving a tough guy from a school gang, and a martial-arts display that included a gratuitous full-on panty shot. It’s sort of a parody of all the conventions of shonen manga, and it’s well drawn and easy to read, which is a plus. The hero is fairly sympathetic, and the characters are less stereotyped than the usual run of manga characters, so I think I’ll be sticking with this one.

Also this week, I picked up Gene Yuen Lang’s Prime Baby. I’m probably the only person who will be disappointed that there wasn’t more math in it—I come from a family of serious math nerds—but there are other reasons to be disappointed as well. The story was cute but didn’t hang together very well, and I didn’t care for the ending at all. The story is told in comic strips and they were just a bit too small to read comfortably. I’m afraid this one just didn’t work for me.

One that did work better was Rabbi Harvey vs. The Wisdom Kid, an all-ages comic about a rabbi in the Wild West. It’s a clever story about a battle of wits between Rabbi Harvey and a slicker rabbi from out of town. The art is done in a naive but pleasing style with a muted palette. This is published by a Jewish publishing house, not a graphic novel publisher, but they get all the elements right, and I really liked it.

Tom Bondurant

Fun Home

Oh dear Lord, I read so much comics since last we spoke! Finally I can cross Whiteout and Fun Home off my to-do list, because I read ‘em both on the plane back from WonderCon. Fun Home sure lived up to its reputation, although I wish I’d paid a little more attention in 12th-grade English. I was especially fond of Alison Bechdel’s cartooning style, because it seemed to blend the best parts of Lynn Johnston and Garry Trudeau while staying unique. As a dad who wonders what his daughter will think of him when she’s older, Fun Home‘s story resonated with me pretty strongly.

I found Whiteout (by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, of course) to be a deft thriller, and it’s hard for me to imagine it in color, let alone movie-fied. A few elements (including one of the twists at the end) were a little familiar, but I still liked how Rucka and Lieber worked them into the Antarctic setting. Carrie Stetko is the key to the book, though, and she comes across with depth and real personality.

I liked Batman And Robin #11 a lot, and it was good to see a certain Morrison character again in Doom Patrol #9, but my favorite single issue this week is, ironically, a comic which I missed picking up in San Francisco. Madame Xanadu #21 returns to the present (well, the ’50s) with penciller Amy Reeder Hadley for our heroine’s long-awaited team-up with a prominent DC superhero. Oh sure, Matt Wagner’s script was entertaining as always (although I thought the gangsters’ accents were a bit much). Nevertheless, I am really enjoying Hadley’s sprightly, energetic portrayal, and this issue gave her lots to do. Plus, that cover is really something.

And finally … last Saturday night found the Bondurants and the Hoffmans in the Marriott Marquis lobby talking comics. I shared my love for Detective Comics #500, which includes the classic Alan Brennert/Dick Giordano “To Kill A Legend” and Len Wein and Walt Simonson’s sublime “Once Upon A Time.” However, my presentation was
but a trifle compared to Carla’s. Not only did she lay out in detail — using the phrase “death-metal” a couple of times — why August 2008′s Thor: Reign Of Blood special (written by Matt Fraction and pencilled by Khari Evans and Patrick Zircher) was both a great Thor story and a great single issue; not only did she buy a copy of the issue at WonderCon just to make her point; but she in fact gave me that copy for my very own! So thank you, Carla, for introducing me to Matt Fraction et al.’s version of Thor! I read the issue again when I got home, and it is a well-executed epic which uses its 36 pages very efficiently. Plus it has, you know, the big scene at the end where Thor pilots … well, you’ll have to read it yourself. Or track down Carla, which is probably a better option.

Matt Maxwell

Hulk #1

Hulk #1 Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness
It came for free on my iPad from the Marvel Comics app. Go ahead and mock me. The art’s pretty and muscular, even if it’s serving a story that’s pretty bare bones at best and very much moment-driven in the style of The Ultimates. Colors look real good, though. But I’m not finding enough there for me to be really interested in additional chapters, even at two bucks apiece.

Spider-Man #526 (I think. It’s the first chapter of “Brand New Day.”)
Much meatier, story-wise, even if I’m not wild about the storyline that all this spun out of. The issue itself wasn’t bad, a little disjointed, some nice art, but nothing really amazing. I’m also not the biggest Spider-fan on the planet, so I didn’t have a lot of investment in this. The backup features did nothing for me, but I’d have been happy with a JJJ featurette.

Fantastic Four, whichever issue Jonathan Hickman started his run with.
Kinda neat, possibly leading interesting places. I’m not entirely convinced by his take on Reed Richards (particularly the buffed out, unshaven manly-man presentation we got from the artwork.) The reveal at the end was neat, but without a connection to the characters themselves (and I haven’t read the book since Simonson’s run, really), there’s not much for me to come back to. Of the Marvel titles listed above, this is the one I’m most likely to come back and pick up a second issue of.

Looked over the first issue/preview of Valentine, by Alex de Campi (writer of the oft-overlooked Smoke from IDW) and Christine Larsen. What I read here didn’t give me enough of an idea to see if I’d really enjoy the series or not. I will say, the presentation was interesting, where the panel would come up, then you “turn” the page to get the captions to show up. It did let the art hit you first, and actually seemed like it was offering a different way to read digital comics (instead of just translating the experience of reading a printed comic on a screen.) I may check this out further, but additional episodes would have to be much more substantial for me to keep going.

The first three were from the Marvel Comics app, the last is from Comixology. I also just downloaded the iVerse reader, but haven’t had much chance to check out their offerings.

Also reading the Conan the Barbarian Omnibus, which is a bunch of the original Robert E. Howard stories. Finished “The Scarlet Citadel” last night. Wish the Kindle reader app had an easy way to jump from story to story. It doesn’t, and that makes me sad. A clickable table of contents would really be helpful.

Besides that, it’s research. And you don’t want to hear about that.

JK Parkin

The Last Resort

The Last Resort by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Giancarlo Caracuzzo is pretty much an ode to the zombie genre, set on a tropical resort island where a virus has started turning everyone into flesh-eating monsters. The story doesn’t just pull out every B-grade horror movie cliche there it is, it revels in them, making the story a whole lot more fun than it sounds like on paper. The characters are fairly well developed, despite the fact that you know going into it that many of them are just cannon fodder, and the whole thing is loaded with humor, violence, sex, gore, foul language, gratuitous body parts and even monkey zombies — everything you need for a fun, over-the-top story. Plus the collection features all of Darwyn Cooke’s covers, which was definitely a bonus.

This week I also finally dove into the comic section of McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama. The newspaper-style insert, which can be purchased separate from the larger Panorama, features some really great comics by Jon Adams, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Erik Larsen and many more.

Ian Brill

Thank goodness you’re asking what I am reading, as opposed to what books I have set to read. If I were to write about all the books I still need to get to we might run out of Internet. In between writing Darkwing Duck, editing a good lot of comics (28 Days Later, Farscape, The Amory Wars and plenty more) I do get around to reading. Here’s a sample.

Planetary #21

Planetary by Warren Ellis, John Cassady and Laura Martin: I decided to revisit this, one of the series that got me back into comics. Reading all the issues so close together, and yes Planetary is as known for its publishing delays as it is anything else, I really see what an amazing feat this series is. Warren Ellis, John Cassady and Laura Martin are telling a story of how the world works and they do it by using genre storytelling artifacts. When drawn by Cassady, characters inspired by Doc Savage, Tarzan and the actual Sherlock Holmes become the icons you’re always told they are. Ellis has the genius, he truly is one of the few people in comics who deserve the description, to take all of the pulp landscape and wrestle it down so it tells a story of power, corruption, lies and the universe itself. I feel only in their hands a story like “Death Machine Telemetry” (issue #21), which is basically a didactic where Elijah Snow is told the story of the building blocks of life, could work, and work brilliantly.

Doctor Who: Nightshade by Mark Gatiss: Anyone who knows me knows I’m an incurable Doctor Who fan. Guilty as charged, I feel DW demands storytellers give us tales of great imagination with intelligence, curiosity and empathy at their core. This novel is part of The New Adventures line, original stories featuring the Seventh Doctor told after the original series ended in 1989. A lot of people who went on to write for the re-launched show contributed, including former show runner Russel T. Davies and Paul Cornell, whose novel Human Nature was turned into a brilliant two-parter. Mark Gatiss has written episodes for the new DW, including the next episode to air in the UK, “Victory of the Daleks,” as well as acted as the titular villain in “The Lazarus Experiment.” This novel from 1992 promises to be somewhat of a tribute to the Quatermass series, Nigel Kneale’s creation that launched science fiction on British television. I’m two chapters in and can already appreciate how much care and detail Gatiss puts into setting up all of supporting players The Doctor and his companion Ace shall meet along the way. The maturation of DW that led to the re-launch being such a hit started here in this line of novels.

The BBC have actually posted this story as an eBook.

I also want to recommend Dorian Wright’s Paperback Book Club at Postmodernbarney, where he has reviewed every one of the New Adventures novels.

Mysterius the Unfathomable by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler: I heard a lot of good things about this book so I decided to pick up the trade. I’m enjoying it so far. Fowler’s art is amazing. In the back cover Howard Chaykin declares it looking “like Jack David inked by Wally Wood.” That’s pretty apt. It’s wonderful to see such an expressive art style be used to tell a longform genre story, this time one of modern urban fantasy. Mysterius is a private supernatural investigator with a W.C. Fields nose and a female assistant, Delfi. Yes, as a DW fan I noticed certain similarities to our favorite Time Lord but this is a story of magic, not time travel. Parker has several strands going on at once and all bumping into one another, a storytelling choice I usually love seeing. I can see Parker loves giving Fowler fun stuff to draw. There’s a visit to another plane of existence in the first issue and Fowler does killer work with it! I hope to see more of his work in the future.

Luba by Gilbert Hernandez
GoGo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

That’s a pretty outstanding group. In other comics-related Book Prize news, McSweeney’s publisher Dave Eggers will be presented with the Times’ first-ever Innovators Award, while cartoonist Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia is a finalist for the Young Adult Literature Book Prize.

According to the announcement of the finalists in all categories — which, again to my delight, treats the addition of the Graphic Novel category like a major selling point — the winners will be announced April 23. My sincere congratulations go out to all the finalists.

(via Bryan Lee O’Malley)

And, of course, it featured a comics section, with contributions from Erik Larsen, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Jon Adams, Keith Knight and many more. The full issue can still be bought online for $16, but now McSweeney’s is also selling the comics section for $7. In addition to all the comics, it comes with a Chris Ware poster titled “Rocket Sam,” which features a build-it-yourself paper spacecraft, and accompanying scenery and characters.

(Hat tip: Jon Adams)

James Stokoe's poster for the San Francisco Panorama

Wow, newspaper nostalgia is quite the hot ticket for comics these days, huh?

First there was Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham and Alvin Buenaventura’s avant-garde anthology, printed at a massive size meant to emulate Winsor McKay’s full-page Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper strips. Then there was Wednesday Comics, DC’s 12-issue anthology title, published on fold-out newsprint. And now there’s the San Francisco Panorama, a one-time-only “21st-century newspaper prototype” that doubles as the 33rd issue of author/publisher Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.

Boasting 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format Panorama contains full-color comics from Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Erik Larsen (still can’t get over that) and more. It also features prose contributions of varying stripes from such comics-relevant authors as Michael Chabon, Chip Kidd, Stephen King, Junot Díaz and Michelle Tea, and a poster of the 49ers’ Patrick Willis drawn by Wonton Soup‘s James Stokoe. And there’s all the other stuff you’d expect from a newspaper — journalism, sports, features, a magazine, a book section and more. Only, y’know, all fancy-pants.

The New York Times reports that the paper has already sold through the limited run made available for sale on the San Francisco streets yesterday at the low price of $5, but it’s still available (or will be soon, that is) at the full $16 pricetag at bookstores and at the McSweeney’s site. Click here for an extensive preview.

(Times link via Pop Candy.)

At his Blog Flume group blog, Buenaventura reveals that In addition to an Acme Novelty Library/Jack Surives “crossover cover” by regular cover artist Charles Burns, the issue features an interview between Acme‘s Chris Ware and Jack‘s Jerry Moriarty, other interviews with Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Peter Blegvad, and a poster by Moriarty.

Finally, the issue sees the launch of a new monthly feature: a comics spread featuring new strips from Burns, Al Columbia, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Lisa Hanawalt, Tim Hensley and more, edited by Buenaventura himself.

Click over to Buenaventura’s blog for sample art, click the individual links for the respective features, and get ready to gorge on some great comics content.

Wow — between this and issue #33 of The Believer‘s sister publication McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, dubbed The San Francisco Panorama and featuring comics by Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Erik Larsen (!) and more, it’s a good time to be a fan of comics in high-end literary periodicals.

Polly and Her Pals

• IDW announced over the weekend that it will be collecting the Sunday strips from the Cliff Sterrett classic Polly and Her Pals. The first volume, encapsulating 1925-27, will be in stores this coming August.

The strip began in 1912, but it was in the 20s that Sterrett’s art really took off. Influenced by the modernist art movements, he started incorporating abstract and surrealists motifs into his Sunday pages, and many historians and critics have compared this period favorably to strips like Krazy Kat.

Kitchen Sink attempted to publish these strips back in the 90s before going under but they were only able to get two volumes out the door. Having managed to find those books in a back issue bin years ago and devoured them several times since then, let me say this is fabulous news and I’m really looking forward to seeing this release.

• IDW also posted about their intention to publish a four-issue mini-series about the Weekly World News’ Bat Boy, which I imagine will be quite different from Polly and Her Pals.

• Writer Clifford Meth reports on his blog that Marvel will be publishing The Invincible Gene Colan in February 2010. The 128 page book will feature art work by the master as well as appreciations by folks like Stan Lee, Marv Wolfman and John Romita Sr.

• Apparently Erik Larsen (and his Savage Dragon) is featured in the latest edition of McSweeney’s newspaper. That’s kinda cool.

• Jim Woodring says he’s finished Weathercraft, his first Frank story in several years and is already hard at work on a new one.

• Bluewater Productions has entered into an agreement with famed young adult author S.E. Hinton. The company will adapt several of Hinton’s books into comics, with Taming of the Star Runner being the first. Hinton will also create a new title for Bluewater that will see print next summer.

• Here’s the cover for Dash Shaw’s upcoming BodyWorld book from Pantheon.

• Noah van Sciver is letting it be known the fifth issue of his comic, Blammo, is out.

• And, in case you haven’t seen it yet, Kiel Phegley gets the dope on just about everything there is to know (at least for now) about the upcoming revamp of The Comics Journal.

The Original Johnson

• IDW has announced the street dates for a couple of publishing ventures recently, including the their two Archie collections. The Best of Dan DeCarlo Vol. 1 will hit stores in May, while The Classic Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 will arrive in June.

More notably, the company also announced they would be collecting and releasing Trevor Von Eeden’s The Original Johnson, about the life of boxer Jack Johnson, in December. In his recent interview with The Comics Journal, Von Eeden had discussed contract disputes he had been having with co-publisher ComicMix about the work so it’s nice to book being completed and in print form.

• According to a press release that seems to be going around town, Fantagraphics and Supermen! editor (and former Fanta employee) Greg Sadowski will be working together on a series of seven collections of Golden Age comics. They are: Setting The Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54, The Road To Plastic Man: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41, Away From Home: EC Artists at Other Companies, Creeping Death From Neptune: Basil Wolverton’s Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55 and The Comic Book Frankenstein: The Monster According to Dick Briefer. That’s a pretty amazing line-up. I’m especially excited for that Briefer book.

• Rex Libris author James Turner has let it be known that the third issue of his Warlord of Io series is now available for download from SLG.

• I think I mentioned this before, but just in case I haven’t: McSweeney’s is releasing a fancy hardcover reprint of the Justin Green classic Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. You’ll probably want to get this.

• Things I wasn’t aware of department: BOOM! Studios has entered into an agreement with Italycomics to publish a monthly anthology of the former’s books in Italy. The “Boom Magazine Annual #!” will debut this weekend at the Lucca Comics festival.

• PictureBox is plugging a whole slew of new books, comics, zines and prints for those who are interested.

• Radical Publishing has unveiled their solicitations for January of next year. They include: the first issue of Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost, a three-issue mini-series written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Patrick Reilly and Stjepan Sejic; Legends: The Enchanted #0, written and illustrated by Nick Percival. The Aladdin series will retail for $4.99 an issue. The complete Legends story will be released in April as a stand-alone graphic novel.

• You might be wanting to keep an eye out for this Dark Horse book soon I reckon.

Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, creator of Wacky Packs and the Garbage Pail Kids, and father of the modern graphic novel (though hes still demanding a blood test), presents this warts-and-all reproduction of his private sketchbooks — and the results are as candid, sharp, and funny as the relentlessly innovative man behind them. BE A NOSE! is a rare glimpse into the secret scribblings of an American original.