Gladir is the co-creator (with Dan DeCarlo) of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and was head writer for the best of the MAD Magazine clones Cracked, as well as one of the writers of Archie’s own version of MAD-type satire, Archie’s Madhouse, so he should feel right at home at Papercutz, whose line includes some very MAD-like parodies. The Three Stooges graphic novel Bed Bugged is a followup to the Three Stooges movie coming from the Farrelly Brothers this April.

But wait — there’s more! Papercutz is also planning to collect some classic Three Stooges comics, written by Norman Maurer and illustrated by Pate Alvarado, in a best-of format. Maurer joined the Three Stooges team when he married Moe’s daughter Joan (who will pen a foreword for the collection) and wrote several comics about the trio, some of which were illustrated by Joe Kubert. Maurer later became the Stooges’ manager and was a writer, director and producer for their movies in the 1960s.

If that whets your appetite, check out this bibliography of Three Stooges comics from days gone by.

Judge Bao and the Jade Phoenix

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes and first issues so that I don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “ Wonder Woman is still awesome!” every month. And I’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

Also, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell me what I missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Archaia

Judge Bao and the Jade Phoenix - A detective story set in ancient China. Plus: cool name.

Avatar

Dicks #1 – Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s humor makes my top hat explode and my monocle fly off my face, but I remember this being pretty popular back in the day and I imagine that it’s new presentation in color and leading into a new storyline could make it popular again.

Bongo

Ralph Wiggum Comics #1 – This, on the other hand, is exactly my kind of funny. Kind of like 30 Days of Night, I’m astonished no one’s thought of it before. Too bad it’s just a one-shot, but hearing that Sergio Aragones is one of the contributors makes me want to poke myself with my Viking helmet to see if I’m dreaming.

Terror on the Planet of the Apes #1

Boom!

Terror on the Planet of the Apes #1 – Boom continues its domination of the Planet of the Apes by reprinting classic stories from Marvel’s time with the concept. Between Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Boom’s other PotA comics, I’ve been itching to read these stories.

Adventure Time #1 – As much a welcome no-brainer as Ralph Wiggums Comics. Oh, man. Now I want a crossover!

Dark Horse

Conan the Barbarian #1 – Not only does this have Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan; it also features one of my favorite Conan characters, Bêlit the pirate queen.

BPRD Hell on Earth: The Long Death #1 – The Mignola-verse is managing to come out with some kind of first issue or collected volume just about every month now. That’s amazing. In this mini-series, the team returns to the spooky woods from New World.

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi #1 – If this had come out fifteen years ago when I was still voraciously devouring all the Star Wars EU history I could get my hands on, I would’ve been dancing like a Twi’lek slave girl over finally getting the story of how the Jedi came to be. It’s one of the few events in Star Wars history that haven’t yet been explored.

Dark Horse Presents #9 – Featuring Tarzan, Lobster Johnson, and the world’s largest pirate ship. Not in the same story, unfortunately, but still pretty cool.

DC Universe Presents #6

DC

DC Universe Presents #6 – The Challengers of the Unknown take over the title with a beautiful, fantastic cover by Ryan Sook.

Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo - This isn’t even out yet and I’m already impatient for Volume 2.

Northlanders, Volume 6: Thor’s Daughter - I’ve been looking forward to finally trying out Northlanders with this volume. Telling the story of the Siege of Paris through the eyes of a Viking woman is a great hook.

Dynamite

Warriors of Mars #1 – Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter stories couldn’t be more different in tone from Edwin Lester Arnold’s goofy Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, but the similarities in concepts (Southern soldiers transported to Mars where they fall in love with princesses) has had fans and writers making connections between them for decades, including Alan Moore in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now Dynamite’s taking a turn with Carter’s princess (or her people, anyway) kidnapping Gullivar’s.

First Second

Friends With Boys - I’m all for three things: First Second publications, Faith Erin Hicks comics, and stories about people learning to communicate with people unlike themselves. No, wait: four things. Ghost stories.

The Big Town

Fantagraphics

The Big Town - Charles Schulz’ son wrote this novel (the last in his jazz-age trilogy) about the end of the Roaring Twenties and “the role of business, crime, morality, and love in our lives.” It’s not comics, but it sounds ambitious and transporting.

Humanoids

Celestial Bibendum – New York is now on the Seine and there’s a lonely seal named Diego living in it. That’s weird enough that I’d like to know more.

IDW

Road Rage #1 – You might think that the short story “Trucks” was Stephen King’s ultimate homage to the Richard Matheson novella Duel. After all, “Trucks” was collected in Night Shift and King himself directed the movie adaptation of it, Maximum Overdrive featuring Emilio Estevez, AC/DC, and a giant Green Goblin mask. What you might not know is that King also collaborated with his son Joe Hill on a biker-gang novella called Throttle that’s more directly inspired by Duel (which you probably remember was also adapted to film as Stephen Spielberg’s first feature-length project). IDW is now adapting both Duel and Throttle to comics with this four-issue mini-series.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Volume 1: Change is Constant – The first issues of the new, ongoing series are collected.

Jack Avarice is the Courier - I love the way IDW released this mini-series: weekly over the course of a single month, then the entire collection the month after that. I’d love to know how it sold for them, but for me as a consumer, that’s a perfect system.

Thief of Thieves

Image

Thief of Thieves #1 – Some new guys named Robert Kirkman and Nick Spencer team up to write one of those crime comics the kids love these days.

Glory #23 – Rob Liefeld’s Extreme relaunch continues to impress me with the talent it’s choosing. In this case, Joe Keatinge (Popgun) and Ross Campbell (Shadoweyes) offer a very different take on the Wonder Woman archetype.

King City - Brandon Graham’s masterwork is finally collected.

Marvel

Winter Soldier #1 – The closest thing we’re going to get to a Black Widow comic right now.

Ka-Zar by Mark Waid and Andy Kubert, Volume 2 - Ka-Zar vs. Thanos. ‘Nuff said.

Metropolitan

Journalism - A collection of short comics by cartoonist/war-reporter Joe Sacco.

Moonstone

The Lone Ranger: Vendetta - The concealed cowpoke and Tonto investigate a serial killer with possible connections to the Ranger’s dead nemesis, Butch Cavendish.

Rohan at the Louvre (French edition)

NBM

Rohan at the Louvre - A newly famous mangaka meddles with a cursed painting deep in the bowels of the famous museum. This will not end well.

Oni

Sixth Gun, Volume 3 – Trade-waiters have reason to whoop it up now that the next installment of the awesome Weird Western is on its way.

Courtney Crumrin, Volume 1: The Night Things Special Edition – The comic that put Ted Naifeh on so many radars gets color and a hardcover.

SLG

Malleus Maleficarum: A Guide to Catching Witches - Everyone’s favorite Inquisitorial treatise on How to Hunt and Torture Pagans, the Homeless, and Other People You Don’t Like is adapted to comics.

Top Shelf

Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland – One of the last projects Pekar worked on before his death is also – according to Alan Moore’s intro – “one of [his] very greatest works.”

That’s it for me. What are you looking forward to?

CBLDF

Organizations | The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has named Alex Cox as its deputy director, responsible for oversight of the organization’s home office and fundraising program. Cox, who came to the CBLDF in 2010, previously served as development manager. [CBLDF]

Publishing | Marvel Talent Coordinator Bon Alimagno is leaving the publisher for a position at San Francisco-based software company The Apollo Group. Previously editor of Harris Comics, Alimagno handled freelance scheduling at Marvel, working with David Bogart, the publisher’s senior vice president of business affairs and talent management. [The Beat]

Graphic novels | The Texas Library Association posts its 2012 Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List of recommendations for tweens and teens. [Texas Library Association]

Conventions | Michael Dooley styles his article about Long Beach Comic Con as a look at The Other Comic Con — the one that caters to, you know, comics readers. [Salon]

Festival International de la Bande Dessinée

Conventions | The 2012 Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angouleme, France, will include an Art Spiegelman retrospective, a star-studded list of spotlight panels, and a composer-in-residence who will create a symphony to be performed at the festival. [The Comics Reporter]

Conventions | Kevin Czap has the lowdown on last weekend’s Genghis Con in Cleveland, which featured underground and indy comics. [Comix Cube]

Creators | Eastyn Cazin talks to Elephantmen and Northlanders artist Marian Churchland. [Panel Bound]

Manga | NBM Publishing notes that its first manga, Stargazing Dog, has gone back to press, and the publisher has fixed some of the typos that reviewers (ahem) complained about in the first edition. [NBM Blog]

Cartoons | A 1927 Disney cartoon, previously thought to be lost, has turned up in the U.K. and will go on the auction block in LA later this month. The star of this cartoon is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a precursor to Mickey Mouse. [Reuters]

Americus

Reviews | Johanna Draper Carlson looks at Americus, M.K. Reed and Jonathan Hill’s story of a book controversy in a small town, and finds an uncomfortable tang of reality: “Throughout, there’s an undercurrent of suspicion of the educated. Those who read books are perceived to be thinking themselves superior to those who don’t. The only book they need is the Bible, they claim (not realizing that being able to read the Bible themselves in a translation for the common people required the kind of fight Neil and his friends are waging). Throughout, they’re arguing against something they aren’t even familiar with, and when their ignorance is pointed out to them, it just makes them meaner.” [Comics Worth Reading]

Reviews | Robin Brenner and Esther Keller discuss Barry Deutsch’s Hereville, a graphic novel about an Orthodox Jewish girl, and the larger question of whether a creator can depict a lifestyle outside his own experience. [Good Comics for Kids]

Analysis | Noah Berlatsky reviews Ben Saunders’s book Do the Gods Wear Capes? Spirituality, Fantasy, and Superheroes: “People often argue that superheroes are dumb because they’re simplistic; because they create a bone-headed binary between good and evil. Ben’s argument is that, in fact, Superman stories have traditionally not so much asserted as investigated this binary. In the light of late modernity, as religion has faded, Superman asks ‘how can human beings be good?’” [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Fandom | Heidi MacDonald does her annual purge and reorganization and has some practical tips and deeper thoughts about managing the physical presence of comics in our lives. [The Beat]

The Dare Detectives: The Snow Pea Plot

It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics. As usual, we’re focusing on graphic novels, collected volumes, and first issues so that I don’t have to come up with a new way to say, “ Life with Archie is still awesome!” every month. And I’ll continue letting Tom and Carla do the heavy lifting in regards to DC and Marvel’s solicitations.

Also, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell me what I missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.

Ape

Richie Rich Gems Winter Special - In addition to their modern-look Richie Rich, Ape has also re-introducied the classic version in both new and reprinted adventures. I missed the solicit for Richie Rich Gems #44 last month (which picked up where the Harvey series left off in 1982), but the series continues with not only the Winter Special, but #45 as well.

Arcana

Dragons vs Dinosaurs - I haven’t had great luck with Arcana’s books in the past, but c’mon. The title alone…

Hero Happy Hour: On the Rocks - This, on the other hand, is no risk at all. I’m a big fan of Dan Taylor and Chris Fason’s superhero bar stories and this is an all-new, 80-page adventure. Not reprints; not even a printed version of the webcomic. It’s all-new and I need it.

Archaia

The Dare Detectives: The Snow Pea Plot Collected Edition – Archaia prepares for their publishing Ben Caldwell’s Dare Detectives: The Kula Kola Caper by re-publishing the first story that was originally put out by Dark Horse.

Andie and the Alien

Archie

Archie #637 – The first installment of the “Archie Meets Kiss” story. Not quite as odd as Archie’s meeting the Punisher, but gettin’ close.

Bliss On Tap

Andie and the Alien - An alternate-history story in which an alien prevented Europeans from colonizing North America and how that affected WWII. That’s a harrowing premise and I’m eager to see how Philip and Brian Phillipson and Alex Niño (the team behind God the Dyslexic Dog) tackle it.

Boom!

Outcast #1 – Undead (but not Zombie) Conan. I can get behind that.

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas - And my nine-year-old can get behind this. Just realized it’s written by Caleb Monroe too and that bodes well. I really liked his stuff on Hunter’s Fortune.

Dark Horse

The Strain #1 – Pandemic stories are too scary for me and zombies make me yawn, but this might just hit the sweet spot between the two.

Hellboy, Volume 12: The Storm and the Fury – The Death of Hellboy for trade-waiters.

Star Wars: Agent of the Empire – Iron Eclipse #1 – I don’t remember the last time I was interested in a Star Wars comic, but I’ve always supported the notion of using big, popular settings like that and Star Trek for other genres. James Bond in the Star Wars galaxy sounds kind of awesome just so long as it doesn’t turn into the same Empire vs. Rebels story I’ve already seen too many times.

Ningen's Nightmares

Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago, Volume 5 - Wrapping up the reprints of Marvel’s 107-issue Star Wars series. I have fond memories of a lot of those comics and have been waiting to read them all back-to-back.

Dark Horse Presents #7 – Another excellent lineup of talent from Neal Adams and Howard Chaykin to Mike Mignola and Eduardo Barreto.

Empowered: Deluxe Edition - Collecting the first three volumes (and some extra material) of the critically-acclaimed superhero spoof.

Ningen’s Nightmares - A warrior-monk fights bounty hunters, a witch, and her demon-samurai with art that reminds me a little of Mike Oeming’s.

DC

Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes #1 – Grant Morrison continues his popular, pre-New 52 Batman Incorporated story in this one-shot.

Ray #1 – Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Jamal Igle bring out the New 52′s Ray and make him fight giant monsters.

Catwoman, Volume 1 - Collecting the first issues of Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke’s much-loved time with the character.

Resurrection Man, Volume 1 - This was a fantastic series and deserving of a collection. It raises the question though: why isn’t there a New 52 Aztek comic?

Dynamite

Lord of the Jungle #1 – It’s been too damn long since we had a Tarzan comic. I just wish they didn’t feel the need to retell the origin story again.

Romeo and Juliet: The War

Voltron #1 – On the other hand, since I know nothing about Voltron (except that it’s about a giant robot, which is really all I need to know), I can do with a re-telling of the origin story on this one. So, yes, I’m a hypocrite.

1821

Romeo and Juliet: The War - Stan Lee turns my least-favorite Shakespeare play into a sci-fi fantasy with cyborgs and genetically enhanced humans. So torn.

Fantagraphics

Young Romance: The Best of Simon and Kirby’s 1940s – 1950s Romance Comics – Not only am I extremely curious from an historical standpoint, but damn it, sometimes you just wanna read about kissing.

Flannery O’Connor Cartoons - Growing up in the South like I did, Flannery O’Connor’s short stories were required reading. I had no idea she made comics too.

First Second

Mush! Sled Dogs with Issues - Sled dog soap opera! That’s so crazy it just might work.

Hermes

The Phantom: The Complete Series – The King Years – I really can’t seem to get enough Phantom.

The Hero Initiative

Justice League of America 100 Project - Great artists drawing great characters for an even greater cause.

Madman: 20th Anniversary Monster!

Humanoids

Before the Incal: Classic Collection – One of these days I’m going to get around to finally reading Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ The Incal and when I do, I’m going to include this prequel.

Muse – Terry Dodson draws the story of a beautiful (it’s Dodson; how could she not be?) governess to a mysterious family.

IDW

Memorial #1 – Magic shops are great settings for stories, but I rarely read one that lives up to my hopes for it. Maybe this one about an amnesiac girl (another favorite concept of mine, Starfire notwithstanding) will do the trick.

Magic: The Gathering #1 – I still get a little angry over the concept of a game where the advantage goes to the person most willing to spend a bunch of money on it (yeah, I’m looking at you too, baseball), but the art on the Magic cards did a great job of suggesting a cohesive world, even if I didn’t understand anything about it as I was playing. I’m hoping that this series can flesh out that suggestion while also telling a good story.

Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes – I’m a big fan of Gary Reed and Guy Davis’ alternate universe Holmes in Honour Among Punks, so I’m pretty excited by the prospect of Reed’s doing a comics anthology of the “real” Holmes teaming up with and/or fighting Dr. Jekyll, the Phantom of the Opera, Oscar Wilde, and Toulouse Lautrec.

Image

Madman: 20th Anniversary Monster! - Madman’s already cool. He doesn’t need Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Peter Milligan, Darwyn  Cooke, Dean Haspiel, Los Bros Hernandez, Erik Larsen, David Mack, Mike Oeming, Paul Pope, Eric Powell, Frank Quitely, Steven T Seagle, Jeff Smith, Craig Thompson, Matt Wagner, and others to make him cooler. But he’s got them anyway.

Polly and the Pirates, Volume 2: Mystery of the Dragonfish

Last Battle - Dan Brereton does the art on this Rome vs barbarians one-shot.

Marvel

Defenders #1 – I wish this had Green She-Hulk in it instead of Red (and also that it had Valkyrie and maybe Hellcat), but it’s still a revival that’s past due.

X-Club #1 – The X-Men’s Science Team was always a cool idea and deserves a shot at its own series, but I’m kind of scratching my head over why Beast isn’t in this. Apparently it’s Second-Guess Marvel Team Lineups day.

Moonstone

Captain Action: The Complete Adventures – Including both Fabian Nicieza and Steven Grant’s runs on the series. Over 400 pages for less than $30. I’ll take that Action. (Sorry.)

NBM

Inner Sanctum – I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a single episode of Inner Sanctum, but I always get a thrill of recognition when I hear the title thanks to Bill Cosby’s name-dropping it in his “Chicken Heart” story. Anyway, if you’re going to do a horror anthology, you could do much, much worse than have it inspired by Inner Sanctum and completely created by Ernie Colón.

Oni

Polly and the Pirates, Volume 2: Mystery of the Dragonfish – Have I only been waiting six years for this? Feels like sixty. Volume 1 was wonderful and I can’t fault Ted Naifeh for only writing this one when he got someone as awesome as Robbi Rodriguez to take his place on the art. The preview pages look amazing.

Spontaneous – The mini-series that combines Spontaneous Human Combustion with conspiracy theory gets its collection.

Th3rd World

The Intrepid Escapegoat – Guys, it’s a paranormal-investigating escape artist who’s a goat. You’re welcome.

Titan

The Complete Flash Gordon Library, Volume 1: On the Planet Mongo – I’m still not sure I understand the difference between this volume and IDW’s (except that IDW’s also includes Alex Raymond’s Jungle Jim comics), but I’m mentioning it just in case there is a difference that I don’t figure out until later. Seriously though: if someone knows, please explain it to me.

That’s it for me. What did I miss?

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

Hark! A Vagrant

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, I’d spend several musty dollars on Fear Agent #31 (Dark Horse, $3.50). This penultimate issue has been a long time coming, and I’m excited to see Remender and Moore enlist Mike Hawthorne to help get these final issues done – big fan of all three of them! Next up would be two of DC’s New 52; Action Comics #2 (DC, $3.99) and Swamp Thing (DC, $2.99); I admit that I feel weird not being more excited about Morrison’s run than I am, but somehow the first Action Comics wasn’t as gripping as the first All-Star Superman … and it’s not the art. For the last pick, I’d get X-Men: Schism #5 (Marvel, $3.99). It got off to a slow start, but Jason Aaron’s an expert at nailing his landings, and I’m intrigued to see how it all goes down.

If I had $30, I’d start off with a pair of number ones – Pilot Season: Test #1 (Image/Top Cow, $3.99) and Roger Langridge’s Snarked #1 (BOOM! Studios, $3.99). Pilot Season has always been a must-buy for me; sometimes the concepts don’t live up to the promise, but they still have a good track record. I just wish more ended up as ongoing series. Next up I’d get the long-running Invincible #83 (Image, $2.99); seriously, this hits all my itches harkening back to my younger comic-reading days. Last up I would get Animal Man #2 (DC, $2.99); I love what Lemire and Foreman started here; I just wish there were more of it!

If I found some extra cash, I would double-back for Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant (D+Q, $19.95). This reads like a literary nut’s comic strip, and I love every bit of it. For some reason it reminds me of Gary Larson’s The Far Side but in a very modern way.

Snarked #1

Graeme McMillan

If I had $15, I’d make a beeline for Roger Langridge’s Snarked #1 (BOOM! Studios, $3.99) first of all, having loved the #0 preview and being curious as all get-out to see where things are about to go next. For the same, “But what happens now?” reasons, I’d grab Action Comics #2 and OMAC #2, my favorites from the first week of DC’s New 52 books (Both DC Comics, Action: $3.99, OMAC: $2.99), and also Marvel’s wonderful and underrated Mystic #3 ($2.99).

If I had $30 this week, I’d put Mystic and OMAC back on the shelves, and pick up Drawn & Quarterly’s Hark! A Vagrant HC ($19.95), the print collection of Kate Beaton’s spectacular webcomic that may have been released last week, but shows up on the Diamond list for this week. There’s no way this won’t be awesome.

When it comes to splurging, I’m going to go for the seventh volume of Bakuman (Viz, $9.99), a manga I’m a latecomer to, but have finally been won over by. Yes, it’s ridiculous and over the top, but that’s grown on me to the point where I can’t quite imagine anyone doing a story about the inside workings of the manga industry that wasn’t approaching operatic levels of emotion and intensity.

Bakuman, Volume 7

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

The new Casanova and Boys are the obvious picks for me. And probably that first issue of Snarked as well. I might consider getting Action #2, although, to be honest, like Chris I wasn’t that enthralled with it.

If I had $30:

Hello, new volume of Bakuman! How nice to see you again! (Oh, and welcome to the club, Graeme.)

Splurge:

Everyone’s already mentioned that swell Kate Beaton book, and NBM has its first foray into manga, Stargazing Dog, but I can’t think of a more significant release this week than Vertical’s latest entry from the Osamu Tezuka library, The Book of Human Insects. This is one of Tezuka’s dark, later works from the ’70s and hopefully will be as gonzo insane as Ode to Kihrito and MW were.

Action Comics #2

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d return for a couple of DC series I enjoyed last month. My reaction to Action Comics was more in line with Graeme’s than the Chris’; possibly because my expectations for it were so mixed. I expected it to be interesting, but I didn’t predict how pleased I’d be with the less-powered Superman whose passion for social justice (as well as criminal) reminded me of the character’s earliest appearances. I’m eager for #2 ($3.99), though disappointed that the price is still not holding the line at $2.99; more pages or no. I’m a little less interested in Static Shock #2 ($2.99) knowing that John Rozum is leaving the series, but my fondness for the Milestone characters will keep me around long enough to see how it does without him. Next, I’d add the new Huntress #1 (2.99) because I like that character and – switching over to Marvel – grab Avengers 1959 #1 ($2.99) because Namora and Killraven on a team together sounds like a lot of fun.

If I had $30, I’d add Josh Fialkov’s Last of the Greats #1 ($3.99) to see him tackle a creator-owned superhero story. I also enjoyed the zero-issue of Snarked enough to come back for #1 ($3.99), so that goes on the pile too. I can’t pass up the price on Moonstone’s pulp crossover, Phases of the Moon, so I’d also grab the second issue ($2.50) featuring Honey West and Kolchak. And finally, with six bucks left in my pocket, I’d check in on Moriarty #5 ($2.99) and Reed Gunther #5 ($2.99), though in truth I’m trade-waiting both those series.

My splurge item this week is a no-brainer. Everyone’s already singing the praises of Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant ($19.95) and I’ll gladly add my voice to that choir.

Miles Morales

Comics | In a post subtitled “Why the new biracial Spider-Man matters,” David Betancourt shares his reaction to the news that the new Ultimate Spider-Man is half-black, half-Latino: “The new Ultimate Spider-Man, who will have the almost impossible task of replacing the late Peter Parker (easily one of Marvel Comics most popular characters), took off his mask and revealed himself to be a young, half-black, half-Latino kid by the name of Miles Morales. When I read the news, I was beside myself, as if my brain couldn’t fully process the revelation. My friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was … just like me? This is a moment I never thought I’d see. But the moment has arrived, and I — the son of Puerto Rican man who passed his love of comics to me, and a black woman who once called me just to say she’d met Adam West — will never forget that day.”

The New Yorker, meanwhile, posts the opening on an essay from the year 2120 that looks back at the cultural significance of the new Spider-Man. [Comic Riffs, New Yorker]

Legal | Analysis of the Kirby estate/Marvel case continues, as both Modern Ideas and Copyhype look at the concept of “work for hire” in light of the ruling. [Modern Ideas, Copyhype]

Creators | Roger Langridge talks about his life as a comics creator and reader and his work on the Muppets comics, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, and his new creator-owned work Snarked! [Graphic Eye]

Comics | Responding to the USA Today article on Flashpoint #4, which features a brief appearance by President Obama, Bully looks back at several Obama “guest appearances” in comics from the past few years. [Comics Oughta Be Fun]

Howard the Duck

Creators | Former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter continues his remembrances of writer Steve Gerber, recounting Gerber’s lawsuit against Marvel over ownership of Howard the Duck, and Disney’s legal threats over Howard’s appearance. Shooter shares model sheets of the character that were provided by Disney artists to accentuate the differences between Howard and Donald Duck. [Jim Shooter]

Creators | Ian Burns talks to King City creator Brandon Graham about his early life, his influences and much, much more. [The Comics Journal]

Publishing | Clan Apis creator Jay Hosler notes the book that started as “a floppy comic about bees” is now in its sixth printing. [Drawing Flies]

Publishing | NBM/Papercutz publisher Terry Nantier predicts that preorders for the upcoming Ninjago graphic novel, based on LEGO’s ninja-themed toy line of the same name, could surpass 100,000 copies, putting it into Twilight territory. [ICv2]

Publishing | Noah Berlatsky sees the demise of Borders as presaging a grim future for manga in the United States. [The Washington Times]

Awards | Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch has been named an Oregon Spirit Book Award Middle Reader Honor Book by the Oregon Council of Teachers of English. [Abrams, via Comics Reporter]

Manga | Deb Aoki shares the best and worst manga as chosen by the participants on the Best and Worst Manga Panel at San Diego Comic-Con. [About.com]

Tr!ckster

Conventions | Chris Smits writes about his experience of Tr!ckster, the creator-owned comics alternative to SDCC: “So, throughout my time spent in San Diego for the con, Tr!ckster became my travel shampoo: I washed, rinsed, and then repeated. Justice can not be done to how incredible it was to have such a haven across the street from the convention center. Anytime I had an inkling of con fatigue or (more likely) a frustrating build up of rage, the realization that I could just walk over there was amazing.” [Creator-Owned Comics]

Manga | Shaenon Garrity pens an appreciation of her favorite CLAMP manga, Wish, “a breezy four-volume series that features all the things I love most about the team: simultaneously cute and elegant artwork, charming characters, tantalizingly chaste romance, a dash of homoeroticism, and a heaping helping of fangirl nerdiness.” [Anime News Network]

Analysis | In homage to Wally Wood’s “22 panels,” Daniel BT compiles a list of 22 manga panels that always work. [Sunday Comics Debt]

Comics | When Captain Israel met Foreskin Man. [Huffington Post]

Robot 6: Why are you so interested in murder, and how has it held your interest through so many books?

Rick Geary: I’ve been a “fan” of crime, both fiction and non-fiction, since the early 1970s. I lived in Wichita, Kansas, and a friend of mine, a former cop, gave me a copy of the complete police file on an unsolved murder in Wichita from the 1960s. It fascinated me, and I used it as the subject of my first published comic story in 1977. Since then, the exploration of the dark side of human behavior has been a continuing obsession.

Robot 6:Would you ever do a book about a modern murder story, or do you prefer to stick to stories set in the past?

Rick: I prefer dealing with cases from the past, because with them the urgency and emotionalism have dissipated, and I’m able to get the proper ironic distance in my treatment. That said, I’d love someday to do the OJ Simpson case or JonBenet Ramsey or even Casey Anthony.

Robot 6: What was there about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that made you want to do a book about it?

Rick: It has all the ingredients I look for in a classic murder case: controversy, mystery and world-wide attention—plus a political dimension that divides people to this day.

Robot 6: There seems to be a lot of ambiguity about this case. How did you research it, and was it difficult to find objective sources?

Rick: The Sacco-Vanzetti case has been studied and written about over the years by both political partisans and objective historians. I searched out all the books available and had no trouble finding sources that dealt with the story even-handedly.

Robot 6: Did your ideas about the case change as you did your research?

Rick: I usually try to pick a case about which I have very few preconceived ideas, so the research phase is one of discovery and education for me. I’m finding out new things through every phase of the book’s production, right up through the final inking, so the piece is in a constant state of flux.

Robot 6: Drawing a comic set in the past has challenges of its own. What do you do to prepare yourself not only to portray it accurately but to avoid anachronism?

Rick: In relating these cases, I try for accuracy and clarity above all, because many of them have acquired, over the decades, layers of mythology and faulty information. I always keep a photo file for the period I’m treating: clothing, interiors, automobiles, carriages, etc. Old catalogs are an especially valuable resource.

Robot 6: You favor a cool voice—the narration in Sacco and Vanzetti almost seems like the narration in a documentary. Do you ever have a strong emotional response to your subjects?

Rick: With any murder case, the horror and grimness and strong feeling are built into the material, so I figure my best approach is one of detachment. Especially with an unsolved case, I like to lay out all the elements and clues in a rational way, so readers can either solve it themselves or realize anew why it remains unsolved.

Robot 6: What are your plans for Comic-Con—and beyond?

Rick: I’ll be at my usual table (F-6) selling my new and older books, as well as postcards. I’m also working on my next book in the murder series: “Lovers’ Lane,” an account of the Hall-Mills double murder of 1922.

The Smurf comics are published by Papercutz, the all-ages imprint of NBM Publishing, and Papercutz publisher Terry Nantier smurfed the opportunity to point out that the little blue fellows started out as comics before they were animated cartoons. “I grew up with these comics, they truly are classics. It’s a shame that these books, which have been in print forever everywhere else on Earth, have been out-of-print for so long in America, which is why we decided to publish them in print and digitally,” he said.

Although you need an iThing to get the app and buy the comics, they sync with comiXology’s Comics reader, which is available for web browsers and Android devices as well as iOS.

Ninjago includes a complicated backstory (laid out neatly at the Lego wiki Brickipedia) in which the world is created by the first Spinjitzu master, using the four mystical ninja weapons: the Nunchucks of Lightning, the Shurikens of Ice, the Scythe of Quakes, and the Sword of Fire. Of course, things went bad and now the good ninjas are battling the evil skeleton warriors using these weapons. Needless to say, Ninjago is more than just building blocks; there’s a video game, an iPhone app, and now—and this is why you are reading about it here—a graphic novel.

Papercutz, the children’s comics imprint of classy NBM Publishing, will be announcing a series of Ninjago graphic novels at Book Expo America. Papercutz probably flies below your radar if you’re over 12, but they make some pretty solid kids’ graphic novels that sell like hotcakes. The Ninjago books will be written by Greg Farshtey, the writer of the Bionicle graphic novels, and illustrated by Paulo Henrique, who draws the Hardy Boys graphic novels. Although the Lego people seem to have this pretty well thought out, creating an action-packed story about interlocking blocks with martial arts skills does seem like it would present a challenge. On the other hand, you have the Lego and ninja fandoms locked up, so how can you lose? And with a television show in the works and a DVD ready for release, I would say there’s no stopping these square little ninjas.

NBM sent out a press release last night saying that it would be re-releasing Phil Yeh’s Dinosaurs Across America as an interactive digital graphic novel, and they are billing it as “a fully interactive version that may very well be the first interactive graphic novel ever published.” That’s a mighty bold claim, but apparently the digital Dinosaurs is more than just a comic that you read on a screen; it has been entirely retooled so that readers climb into a virtual spaceship and zip from page to page, clicking here and there to bring up information. (The original Dinosaurs Across America is an educational graphic novel that takes the readers on a panel-by-panel tour of all 50 states.) The book is available as an app through the iTunes store and as an ebook for Mac and PC via Koobits.

Perhaps this isn’t really the first interactive graphic novel—software companies have been doing something like this with children’s books for years—but it certainly is an ambitious retooling. Even more interesting is NBM publisher Terry Nantier’s comment, further down in the press release:

This is part of NBM’s fairly aggressive move into e-books for its graphic novels and reorientation we’ll be making more announcements about soon. Comics and graphic novels will always be in print, they’re too tactile and collectible not to be, but electronic versions are fun too. In this case, we see a fascinating magnification of the effect comics can have at making learning fun.

That should be interesting, because NBM hasn’t really jumped into the digital pool yet. They have a few graphic novels available via comiXology and comiXology’s Comics 4 Kids app, but that seems to be the extent of their digital presence, so a move into interactive e-books, or stand-alone apps, would be an interesting departure.

Batgirl #17

Welcome to a long holiday weekend (at least here in the United States) edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Doug Zawisza, who writes reviews and the occasional article for Comic Book Resources.

To see what Doug and the Robot 6 gang are reading, click below.

*****

Brigid Alverson

Pooches of Power!

I’m overwhelmed by cuteness right now! Capstone Press, which is a publisher I mainly associate with the library and school market, is launching a line of DC Super Pets chapter books, illustrated by Art Baltazar of Tiny Titans fame. I picked up Pooches of Power!, in which Ace the Bat-Hound and Krypto the Super-Dog team up to thwart a gang of sardine-stealing birds working under the aegis of The Penguin, and I have to say I enjoyed it. Despite being an early reader, it had a fairly complicated plot and plenty of interesting characters. I can see a lot of comics fans reading this story with their kids, but it’s also accessible enough that a child who had never heard of Batman before could enjoy it.

So, to bring my blood sugar levels down a bit, I read the first volume of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. Yes, I know it’s been around forever, but I hate zombies so I never felt the urge to pick it up. Of course, I quickly realized what everyone else already knew, that this is far more than a zombie story; it’s one of those comics in which, in the immortal words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” In some ways, it’s a very familiar and typically American story — people thrust out of normal society (and away from the government) and forced to live by their wits, supplemented with plenty of guns. Kirkman makes it interesting even to zombie-haters like me with a varied cast of characters and some interesting interpersonal dynamics. By the end of the first volume, I knew I would be signing up for the duration.

Sean T. Collins

I’ll tell you what — if you ever wanna feel good about comics, spend a few days cramming with nearly every title you heard positive things about at the end of the year. Click the links for full reviews!

The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd: A Work of Satire and Fiction by Benjamin Marra (Traditional Comics): In addition to being Marra what he does best — sex and violence in ’80s-trash fashion — this is a killer satire of one of America’s most satirizable pundits.

Crickets #3 by Sammy Harkham (self-published): As rock-solid a showcase of alternative comics as you’re likely to find, centered on a story about life as a low-level hack in Roger Corman’s ’60s/’70s movie factory.

Powr Mastrs Vol. 3 by CF (PictureBox): Kinky, funny, focused alt-SF/F. The artist also known as Christopher Forgues is doing something special in this series.

Mould Map #1

Mould Map #1 by various artists, edited by Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler (Landfill Editions): Each artist in this giant-sized artcomix anthology gets one page to tell a sci-fi story; in many cases this leads to stuff that’s more sci-fi tone poem than actual tale, and the material’s the better for it. It’s a British import, but American readers will recognize and welcome work from CF, Aidan Koch, and Matthew Thurber.

Bodyworld by Dash Shaw (Pantheon): Given the hubbub about how the webcomic version of this near-future sci-fi comedy was pushing that medium’s envelope, I was surprised by just how straightforward and focused it was. Strong character work, too, in an indie-comedy vein.

Map of My Heart by John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly): This collection of strips and prose from Porcellino’s seminal King-Cat Comics and Stories minicomic series is pulled mostly from around the turn of the millennium and tracks an ever more impressive refinement of the artist’s minimalist style and frequently melancholy subject matter.

Carla Hoffman

Daredevil: Reborn #1, by Jock

Okay, WAYR, you’re part of my New Year’s Resolutions too, so let’s get to it! I read Daredevil Reborn #1 because I am supposed to. Daredevil is a popular character and if you don’t know where he’s going, you can’t relate that info to customers looking to see where ‘that guy Ben Affleck played that one time’ is. After Shadowland, I was personally just done with Matt Murdock and whatever terrible thing he was going to do to himself this time, but I’m happy to report that Daredevil Reborn #1 is really good. This is exactly what Daredevil needs as far as character tune-up and this exactly feels like what Andy Diggle wanted to write about. The artwork has a hard line, empty feeling to it, where characters look rough and in the middle of nowhere, the perfect canvas for this little expedition to find himself. I’ll admit that I wasn’t surprised by Daredevil stopping at a mean, middle-of-nowhere locale for trouble he whines about not wanting in an internal monologue, but I love the pacing, the artwork and the art in the storytelling and -most importantly- I believe this is all going somewhere. Diggle isn’t just going to give us this same sad Daredevil story we’ve been reading for years, he’s going for change and I can believe that after this issue.

I also read Incredible Hulks #620 in an act of masochism. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well written, it’s just not what I want to read. Me and the Hulk books have had a strained relationship since I want them to be a man’s internal struggle with the monster inside, and they want to be a team book of heavy hitters with some inference to previous stories. I know, women always want to change the men we love, and I want the Hulk books to be more like when we met. I don’t like their new haircut and hip attitude that’s making them all popular. It’s worse too, because this issue mentions the Devil Hulk and boy howdy, I love the Devil Hulk from Paul Jenkin’s run on the book. It has Jarella too, plus Glan Talbot, Marlo Jones, two Abominations, Doctor Strange, Skaar and Korg and Hiroim and possibly the kitchen sink in a background cameo. Like I said, the story was good, but it doesn’t feel like the Hulk I fell in love with.

Man I relate to Betty Banner more and more each day….

Last but not least I read Infinite Vacation #1 (Resolution #3!) because the cover looked interesting and a quick flip through looked weird enough for me. Other people will describe what happens inside the book better than I will, but suffice it to say that buying time to live your alter-selves’ lives in parallel universes with an app on your phone is rad. They don’t hold your hand through the idea, they just jump you right in with David Mackian artwork and smart and clever narratives. Do you like Cory Doctorow? Sure, we all do! Do you miss ‘hard sci-fi’ set in the real world and the idea that New Media could sell us on anything? How about a book that you’ll have to read a couple times to really understand? Infinite Vacation #1 is all of these and more. I think this is what all the cool indie kids will be talking about this week.

Chris Mautner

Networked

Networked: Carabella on the Run by Gerard Jones and Mark Badger — This is a unnecessarily convoluted story about a blue-skinned girl from another dimension who comes to our universe only to have the totalitarian regime from her world attempt to follow over to take over the Earth. The real purpose of the book is to warn everyone about the dangers of social networking and how the government can use stuff like Facebook and Twitter to monitor everything you do, etc. Considering the real dangers involved in sites like those — i.e. stalking, harassment, bullying, sexting — making grandiose arguments about how THE MAN is going to use FourSquare to create a one-world Orwellian state seems not only far-fetched, but a trifle irresponsible. Still, it’s always nice to see Mark Badger’s art.

Elephant Man by Greg Houston — Fitfully amusing superhero parody that dares to say what if Jon Merrick fought crime. A lot of the problems that plagued Houston’s last book — Vatican Hustle — plague this book: It’s a bit too wordy, it’s a bit too self-aware and a bit too in love with how “zany” it is. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t laugh several times and the plot is a lot tighter than Hustle‘s. For those who don’t get easily offended and don’t mind yet another collection of smart-ass jokes about superheroes, Elephant Man will suit you fine.

Rat Catcher by Andy Diggle and Victor Ibanez — This is the latest book in Vertigo’s Crime imprint, about a double-agent in the FBI who goes around killing mob informants and another agent who attempts to go after him. The book plays around with the two characters’ identities to keep you guessing as to who’s who, but it’s pretty obvious from the outset. More to the point, the book’s very plot-heavy, to the point where there’s really no room for characterization. It moves speedily enough that fans of the genre probably won’t mind too much, but it comes up short when compared to more notable recent crime comics like Criminal or 100 Bullets.

Tim O’Shea

Superman #707

Used to be I believed the closest I would get to Mark Waid writing Superman was Waid on Irredeemable. But if Chris Roberson remains as strong as he is on this first issue of his Superman run ([#707]/part five of this JMS-initiated Grounded storyline), this is the closest we can get to Waid. I’m often nervous when a writer shares that he’s been a fan of a character since childhood (as Roberson has said of Superman), but I was pleasantly surprised to see Roberson’s healthy knowledge of Superman is something that he wields in a reasonable, while engaging fashion.

So, this week the final Thor: The Mighty Avenger came out and was as strong as the other seven issues. And I’m still waiting to hear from Marvel when writer Roger Langridge and artist Chris Samnee have their next ongoing or limited series is scheduled. Those two need to work together again on more than just Free Comic Book Day material.

Bryan Miller concocts the finest Damian Wayne scene to date in Batgirl #17, as he is forced to go undercover as a grade school student on a field trip.

Doug Zawisza

For the past half-decade I start every year with the same resolutions: lose weight, eat better, read more. Every year, I fail at all three. I decided to bring those resolutions back again this year, and I’m trying, I really am, to knock them down this year. I’m sure most of you are familiar with similar resolutions, but the read more resolution is one that I try to apply to things outside of comics.

I’m the father of three very bright girls, all of whom love reading. My wife is a kindergarten teacher, so there’s never really a shortage of reading material in our house. As a matter of fact, there’s usually too much. Everyone’s reading two or three things, here, there, or wherever. I’ve always had multiple reading options open at all times, and right now is no different.

Secret Zoo

The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick is a book that I happened across while researching an idea that’s been baking in my brain for longer than I care to think about. As a father of three voracious readers, I’m always trying to help them find new worlds. This is one world I’m glad we’ve found. My oldest and youngest haven’t had a chance at this book yet, but my ten-year-old and I have been enjoying it immensely. It’s the story about a boy who is looking for his missing sister, Megan. Noah Nowicki finds clues that tie his sister’s, disappearance to the Clarksville City Zoo. Most of those clues come to Noah via the animals AT the zoo. Chick delivers a story that is filled with adventure, child-like enthusiasm, and unbridled hope.

Chick has stated that he has a target audience of 9-12-years-old, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless. It’s a smart read that holds a great deal of potential beyond this book. Chick has planned the series to run over ten volumes, with the second set to be released on Feb. 1.

Skippyjon Jones came home with my wife. As I’ve already mentioned, she’s a kindergarten teacher and has her students bring in their favorite books to share. How my children made it past kindergarten without partaking in the free-wheeling, madcap imagination of Skippyjon is beyond me. Judy Schachner delivers the story of this creative young kitty who imagines himself as a Chihuahua and dreams up adventures for his “pack” of Chihuahuas (who are really stuffed animals in his closet). It’s zany fun that even my 13-year-old gets a good laugh at.

After the kids go to bed and when the wife tunes in to her shows, I find myself with some spare time to flip some pages, so I do. This week the highlight of my comic stack was Batgirl, a book I’ve been enjoying since issue #1. Issue #17 features a team-up between current Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) and Robin (Damian Wayne) in a story that Bryan Q. Miller delivers with equal parts humor, adventure and character. The team-up is driven by Batgirl’s first official Batman Inc. assignment. It’s definitely the lightest of the Bat-books, but strong enough to leave you wanting to read more in a hurry.

Superheroes, Strip Artists, & Talking Animals

I’m also making my way through the anecdote-laden Superheroes, Strip Artists, & Talking Animals book by Britt Aamodt. Published by the Minnesota Historical Society, this book covers Minnesota’s Contemporary Cartoonists. It doesn’t limit itself to just mainstream comic books (and thereby the work of luminaries such as Dan Jurgens, Peter Gross, Doug Mahnke, and Pat Gleason) it also looks at the comic strip artists that call the North Star State home. Aamodt does a nice job of letting each artist – mainstream, independent, or comic strip – have a few pages of glory, including more than one sample from most of the artists. It’s a black-and-white book, but the art reprinted here translates well to grayscale life. The book itself has the heft of one of TwoMorrows’ Companion books, and the quality of the material within is pretty darn close to TwoMorrows’ standards.

The last thing I’m reading is on my iPod touch. I haven’t committed to a Kindle, iPad or other such reader device yet, but I have decided to experiment with the apps and my Touch. I’m reading The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer. The book just hit the stands (digital and deadwood) on Tuesday past, but I’ve been able to bust out the iPod Touch while waiting for kids at dance or swim, or heating up my lunch at work. This has given me the chance to pack an extra seven chapters of reading into a week that wouldn’t normally allow such an extracurricular activity. The book is standard-fare from Meltzer, playing close to his Decoded show while investigating the National Archives in more detail. Beecher White is an archivist who happens upon a secret that may or may not be tied to the President of the United States of America. From there, assumptions are made, conclusions are jumped to, and adventure busts forth. As he has done in previous prose works, Meltzer peppers the story with comic book-related winks and nods. It’s a page-turner at this point, and I’ve found myself unlocking the Touch to read one more page quite frequently.

As for what’s waiting for me next, well, I just checked out Ed Brubaker’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire from the library. I haven’t done much X-Men reading in the past few years, so I’m looking forward to an interstellar adventure with Nightcrawler, Havok, Polaris, Marvel Girl and Warpath. That will be waiting nicely over to the side as I finish one of these other books.

And there’s more good news: Worley’s husband James Vance has been working with Waller on a sequel, which is currently being serialized in Sizzle magazine and will hopefully be published by NBM in 2012, according to NBM’s Terry Nantier.

Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #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 we 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.

Michael May

If I had $15:

As usual, I’d spend it on single issues. Starting with Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #1 ($3.50), then picking up a couple of Moonstone books: Zeroids #2 ($3.99) and Return of the Originals: From the Vault – The Pulp Files ($1.99). I enjoyed the first issue of the genre-mashing Zeroids and have been looking forward to the next part of the story; From the Vault is sort of Moonstone’s version of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe or DC’s Who’s Who. I don’t know nearly as much about the classic pulp characters as I’d like, so I’m looking forward to the education. Next I’d check out IDW’s Dungeons & Dragons #1 ($3.99) to see if they’ve figured out how to do a good D&D comic. That brings me to $13.47.

If I had $30:

I’d put back The Pulp Files and D&D and grab the Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard hardcover ($19.95) instead. With Atomic Robo and Zeroids, that’s a total of $27.44.

Splurge:

My top choice of a splurge item is Fantagraphics first volume of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec ($24.99). I’ve been itching to read these stories since Luc Besson’s movie adaptation was first announced. I can’t resist a French, turn-of-the-century pterodactyl hunter. And as long as I’m splurging, I’d also add Bryan Talbot’s Grandville: Mon Amour ($19.99). I haven’t read the first volume yet, but it looks like exactly the kind of thing I’d enjoy.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15:

The Return Of Bruce Wayne #6

Dave Sim’s Glamourpuss remains a fascinating, if extremely uneven, read for me, so I’ll be picking up issue #16 ($3). I’ll also grab the sixth and final issue of Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne ($3.99), even though it hasn’t been one of my favorite Grant Morrison or Batman series. My final must nab will be the NBM’s new edition of Smurf King, one of the finest comics about little blue creatures that like to wear white caps and stockings ever made. That brings me to a total of $12.98

If I had $30:

I’m extremely curious about Fantagraphics’ new kids eurocomic line, which kicks off this week with the release of Stephane Blanquet’s Toys in the Basement ($14.99). I’m especially curious in this case as Blanquet isn’t up till this point an author known for his all-ages friendly material. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; his work is usually typified by ugly, sweaty people doing horrible, disturbing things. So, yeah, I want to see how he dials it down (if at all) for the kiddies.

Splurge:

Oh, I shall splurge a bit this week. Michael has already noted the release of Grandville Mon Amour and the Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec, two books I’ve been anticipating for awhile now. I’d also like to point out the arrival of Inkstuds ($20), a hefty collection of Robin McConnell’s radio interviews with notable cartoonists, fully transcribed onto paper for your reading pleasure. Lots of quality insights abound in there, no doubt.

Brigid Alverson

Twin Spica

If I had $15…

I’d start with volume 4 of Twin Spica ($10.95), Vertical’s space-opera manga about a spunky girl in astronaut school. Like any good series, this manga has pulled me in with good storytelling, a convincing world, and characters that seem grounded and real but don’t quite fit the standard stereotypes.

Then maybe I’ll keep the science fiction theme with Atomic Robo: Deadly Art of Science #1 ($3.50), as that kicks off a new arc and looks like a nice read.

If I had $30…

I’d add Toys in the Basement, although at $14.99 for 32 pages, even in hardcover, it seems a bit skimpy. Still, I like the idea of a kid-friendly comic that isn’t afraid to be creepy, and this one—in which a boy dressed in a pink bunny suit stumbles into some weird French version of the Island of Misfit Toys—looks like a challenging read.

Splurge items

Being a complete pushover for Archie and for classic comics, I’m the natural target for Dark Horse’s Archie Firsts collection ($24.99), which groups together the stories in which each character makes his or her first appearance, plus the first stories from each comic in the line. How could I resist? And I’d also love to read Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics (Bloomsbury, $28.00); a hardcover biography certainly feels like a splurge to me.

Boneyard, Volume One

Boneyard, Volumes 1-7
Written and Illustrated by Richard Moore
Published by NBM

I’m trying to figure out how to use the words “Monster Decadence” to describe Boneyard without sounding mean about it. It’s a wonderful, fun, involving series, but there’s an element to it that reminds me of the problem with having Speedy beat crooks up with a dead cat or Guy Gardner vomit blood all over the cover of a comic. I’m not suggesting that Richard Moore’s done anything wrong – it’s his series, he created it; he can do whatever he wants with it – but on its surface Boneyard appears to be simply a cute story about an unlucky everyman who inherits a graveyard full of funny monsters. There’s something very Bone-ish about the concept and kids would love the creature designs and giggle at some of the jokes. But it’s not a kids’ book. At all.

Again, I’m not faulting Moore. He’s got an appealing, humorously animated drawing style, but it would be foolish to suggest that he should tone down his writing because of that. On the contrary, it’s very cool that he’s been able to create such a grown-up story with such attractive, endearing characters. And as much as I kept thinking, “My son would love this if only…,” Boneyard is a whole different creature from “adult” superhero comics.

This is ironic since Boneyard is a monster comic, but it’s nowhere near as bloody or violent as the Superhero Decadence crowd of books. What puts it out of kids’ reach is mostly its playfulness about sexuality. There’s plenty of cheesecake, but nothing graphic; just good, naughty fun.

Nessie introduces herself

And the themes can occasionally get heavy, like when we learn why Nessie the gill-woman is so promiscuous. She’s such a light-hearted character that the darkness of her back-story is surprising, though not nearly as surprising as how tenderly Moore relates it. He’s masterful with the way he switches from laughter to tears and back again, but it’s not a transition that most kids are going to be able to make.

As I said, Boneyard is the story of a young man who inherits a cemetery. Michael Paris hasn’t had a lot go right in his life, but things begin to look up when his grandfather leaves him the graveyard and a nearby town makes him a very generous offer to take it off his hands. It’s when he travels to the town to close the deal that he realizes his bad luck is holding true. The boneyard is full of creatures who make their home there: a couple of gargoyles, a leather-jacket-and-shades-wearing werewolf, a lecherous skeleton, a sarcastic raven, a Cockney witch, a megalomaniacal demon, and – most importantly for Paris – a kind and beautiful vampire named Abbey. She and the others convince Paris not to sell to the pitchfork-and-torch-wielding townspeople; a decision that sets one of Boneyard‘s two, continuing plots into motion.

Over the course of the seven books, the forces that want the graveyard (I won’t spoil who it is, but will just say that the townsfolk aren’t the ringleaders, but only tools) try various schemes to get what they want. The other, over-arching story is the sweet, will-they-won’t-they romance between Paris and Abbey. That kind of thing can often be frustrating and annoying, but Boneyard avoids that by making it clear that Paris and Abbey do truly like each other; they just can’t get past their own insecurities enough to express it. It’s obvious that they’ll end up together eventually; Moore’s just coy about the when and how.

Skinny dipping

The nice thing is that Paris and Abbey are both so likable that it’s easy to wait for them to get their act together, knowing that seeing them do so will be worth the delay. And it’s not like Moore asks readers to twiddle their thumbs as they’re passing the time. Each volume moves the series’ story ahead while also presenting a complete story of its own. For instance, one volume is about the monsters’ trying to raise money to pay off the graveyard’s debt by publishing a swimsuit magazine. Others feature various threats to the cemetery like a zombie attack or a chainsaw-wielding serial killer.

By the end of Volume Seven, one of the two meta-plots is resolved. That the other isn’t speaks well of the likelihood that Moore will return to the series. He put it on indefinite hiatus after Seven, but I’m hoping he feels the itch to return to it soon. I’m already anxious for Volume Eight.

Discussion Questions: What’s your favorite monster comic?

The whole gang

The Garfield Show

NBM publisher Terry Nantier posted some news yesterday about his company’s upcoming publishing plans. Papercutz, NBM’s all-ages imprint, has picked up the rights to publish a Garfield comic book based on the Cartoon Network show — which, of course, is based on the comic strip of the same name.

He also mentioned some new projects and initiatives for NBM proper:

I can tell you we’ve got a new David B lined up where we’re going to take a quite different approach to how we present it than what we’ve been doing. Also the next Louvre book will look quite different! Basically, we’re seeing we don’t need to be married to the 6×9 format as much as we were so we’re going to open things up!

Also, we’re seeing a need for our books to reflect what we publish: beautiful quality comics you want to have physically and keep proudly in your library. For those who’d rather not spend so much, we’ll be multiplying our efforts on the E-book side.

The Broadcast

Small Press Expo happens next weekend, and NBM is ready with a nice lineup of creators and book launches, including the debut of The Broadcast, Eric Hobbs and Noel Tuazon’s suspenseful graphic novel about a group of neighbors and strangers weathering the panic caused by Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast.

In addition, there will be appearances by Brooke Allen (A Home for Mr. Easter), Greg Houston (Elephant Man), and Ted Rall, “fresh back from Afghanistan, if he’s still alive,” according to the blog. Nice to know they care!

Carabella values her privacy

Carabella has blue skin, a Princess Leia hairstyle, and an attitude about posting her personal details online. That’s because she comes from a planet where social networking has gone from fun to mandatory, and no one has any personal privacy any more. So when a friend posts her picture online—and a group of Princess Leia look-alikes show up at her door—she freaks.

Carabella is the hero of Networked: Carabella on the Run, a graphic novel with a message: Think twice before putting your personal information online, whether on Facebook or your favorite shopping site. Produced by the nonprofit Privacy Activism, the book was written by Gerard Jones, illustrated by Mark Badger and funded by a grant from the Rose Foundation and published by NBM last month; it’s also available as a webcomic on the Privacy Activism website.

I spoke to Linda Ackerman, the staff counsel for Privacy Activism, at the American Library Association meeting in Washington, DC, in June.

Brigid: Why make this a graphic novel?

Linda: Our purpose has been to try to educate people about privacy issues, visually where possible. There is enough legalese around. We wanted to be able to communicate information about privacy in an accessible way.

Brigid: What is the story about?

Linda: It’s essentially about control of personal identification as a means of social control. It’s about a character who comes from a planet where people’s lives are completely controlled, they are designated as having certain characteristics and qualities, and she escapes and comes here and believes she is going to find a privacy paradise. She gets involved with a boyfriend who has designed these sports shoes that measure your bodily functions while you do sports. On her planet she was being controlled by her hair attachments, and she chops them off. He picks them up and incorporates the tracing technology into the shoes. Meanwhile, he has made a contract with a mega-capitalist who is going to market his shoes to the world, and he is going to be set for life, and she realizes what is going on, it’s the shoes that are responsible for running everybody t ground

Brigid: What age group is it written for?

Linda: We consider it as being for middle school-high school. I think it’s sort of a tween-young adult crossover.

Brigid: Why would I care about online privacy—especially if I were a teenager?

Linda: You would care because so much of your personal information is in other people’s hands, for whatever purpose they like to use it. Sometimes it could be innocent or inconsequential, or merely commercial, collecting info on where you go online as a means of behavioral targeting, although the commercial stuff is becoming more and more insidious in my view. Jerry Jones, who wrote the story for this one, has already done a plot outline for a behavioral targeting book.

Brigid: So I look up a recipe for cupcakes, and then I get ads for cupcakes when I go to another site. Is that so bad?

Linda: An ad for cupcakes probably wouldn’t bother you, and you might want the information about the cupcakes, but there is other information online having to do more with your behavior. There are a couple of notorious instances of photographs on Facebook that have led to people losing employment. One woman was claiming she had a disability, and there were photos of her [on Facebook] having fun, fun, fun.

Apart from the private and commercial enterprise of data collection, there are things like location privacy: If you’re on Twitter and you don’t have your location suppressed, everyone knows where you are, and they know if you are not at home, if they want to check out your house.

The friend I’m staying with just got back from Colorado, and he said you can only pay with a credit card on toll roads, so your location is tracked, and it is attached to your license plate, so it is not anonymous.

Technology is a boon, it is great for research, but it is also a place where criminals figure out interesting things to do, and where companies who want to sell to you can operate.

Comic-Con International

With all of next week’s Comic-Con International’s panels fully revealed, those of you who are attending are probably putting together your schedule as we speak … but don’t forget to factor in some of the cool stuff that’ll be going on on the floor. Here’s a list of stuff you can do and people you can meet at various booths, with no doubt more on the way:

• Dark Horse Comics will have Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon, Morgan Spurlock, Stan Sakai, Mike Mignola, Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Eric Powell, Joss Whedon, Janet & Alex Evanovich, Felicia Day and more at their booth.

• IDW will host Berkeley Breathed, Peter Beagle, Scott Morse, Steven Niles, Fiona Staples and more at their booth. They’re also holding a Tiger Tea Party.

• BOOM! Studios also released their booth schedule, which features appearances by Mark Waid, Claudio Sanchez, Peter David and Tad Stones, who created Darkwing Duck.

• Fantagraphics has released their booth schedule, along with a list of new books that will debut at the show. These include new volumes of their Peanuts collections, a new Prison Pit book, several Ignatz titles and Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories.

• Drawn & Quarterly also has several new books debuting at the show, including Kevin Huizenga’s Wild Kingdom, Palookaville 20, a new Moomin, Vanessa Davis’ Make Me a Woman and more. Appearing at their both will be Jillian Tamaki, James Sturm, Vanessa Davis and Gabrielle Bell.

• SLG’s signing schedule is also up; they’ll have Ross Campbell, Van Jensen, Dusty Higgins, Greg Weisman and many more at their booth during the show.

• Viz will have Stan Lee and the cast of Vampire Knight at their booth.

• NBM’s booth will feature Mark Badger, Gerard Jones, Richard Moore and more.

• Red 5 Comics (booth 2306) will hold portfolio reviews for artists and will look for creator-owned titles for publishing. They’ll also be selling all current and back issues of Atomic Robo, ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, Abyss, Neozoic, Box 13, We Kill Monsters and more.

• Visitors to video game maker Ubisoft’s booth can play Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game before it’s released on Aug. 10, as well as Just Dance 2 and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer.

• At the Warner Bros. Interactive booth, they’ll have playable demos of the Batman: Brave and the Bold video game and The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest.

• And Capcom’s booth will feature demos of Marvel VS. Capcom 3, Dead Rising 2 and Monster Hunter Tri.

• AMC has several Walking Dead-related activities scheduled. Attendees will have an opportunity to get “zombified” by visiting The Walking Dead booth and putting themselves into a zombie scene from the series via a touch screen and AMC will email the photo to them. AMC will also distribute limited edition “The Walking Dead” series posters from Drew Struzan, and will have series buttons on hand. And an autograph session will take place with Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Frank Darabont, Robert Kirkman, Greg Nicotero and Gale Anne Hurd in the Image Comic Books booth.

A panel from The Broadcast

As I was looking through the items on display at the NBM booth at ALA, the cover of The Broadcast really caught my eye. Written by Eric Hobbs and Noel Tuazon, it’s a story about how one isolated community faced the panic started by Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast—not realizing it is a hoax, four famlies come together for safety but the enemy, as is so often the case in these stories, comes from within.

Hobbs has just posted a scene from the story at the NBM blog, and it makes for powerful reading. There’s a bit more here. I enjoyed Tuazon’s art in Red Plains, so I’m really looking forward to this one.

Scalped

With the school year ending and summer arriving faster than you know it, now’s the time to update your summer reading list — and there’s no better place to find some good stuff to read than right here in our weekly What Are You Reading? column. This week our guests are Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, the creative team behind The Sixth Gun, published by Oni Press. You’ll be seeing a lot of Cullen and Brian over the next few weeks here at Robot 6, so here’s the perfect opportunity to find out what comics they’re into.

*****

Brigid Alverson

Neko Ramen

Lots of manga came in the mail this week, so I’m having a good time. From Tokyopop, I have Neko Ramen, which is a collection of four-panel gag strips about a cat who runs a ramen shop. Like Snakes on a Plane, the title pretty much embodies the concept. Four-panel gag manga (4-koma) are not usually funny in the same way gag strips here are, and the structure is different, so they often don’t travel well. This one does, although the humor is pretty goofy, relying on a mix of cats acting like humans, cats acting like cats, and human customers trying to sort it all out. I wouldn’t watch a full-length film based on this premise, but broken into short strips, it works OK.

My Girlfriend’s a Geek is a gender-reversed twist on the usual Train Man/Genshiken story, because in this case the otaku is not a nerdy guy but a confident woman. Taiga is a college student who has a thing for girls who are slightly older than him. He sees a beautiful girl through a window, applies for a job at her office, and gets it, but at first he seems to get nowhere. What Yuiko is hiding from him is that she is a fujoshi, a girl otaku, who sees Taiga only as a human version of the fantasy boys in yaoi manga. Ed Sizemore really didn’t like it, finding Yuiko’s objectification of Taiga “unsettling.” I haven’t gotten that far into it yet, so I’m enjoying the romantic-comedy aspects and Rize Shinba’s lovely artwork, but I may end up agreeing with Ed when I’m done. We’ll see.

Sean T. Collins

Wilson

Dan Clowes and minicomics are how I spent my last two weeks. Click the links for reviews of what I’ve been reading…

Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes: Clowes’s New York Times Funny Pages strip reads like a trial run for his next comic…

Wilson by Daniel Clowes: Never mind the backlash — this mean-spirited comic about the price of being mean-spirited is a black-comedy masterpiece.

Jumbly Junkery #8-9 by L. Nichols: This one-woman anthology series is manic creativity in minicomic form.

Henry & Glenn Forever by Igloo Tornado: Tom Neely and friends pay tribute to the undying love between Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins. The feel-good comic of the year.

The Numbers of the Beasts by Shawn Cheng: A children’s counting book using mythological monsters, e.g. “Nine are the heads of the hydra.” Gorgeously drawn.

Wiegle for Tarzan by Matt Wiegle: In this not-very-autobiographical minicomic, the author asks for your support as he runs for New York State’s official Tarzan. Yes we can!

Chris Mautner

Little Sammy Sneeze

I picked up Sunday Press Books edition of Little Sammy Sneez by Winsor McCay back on Free Comic Book Day, as my local store was having a 20 percent off on everything discount and I’d been eyeing the book for quite a while. I’m glad I got it because while it doesn’t match the heights of McCay’s Little Nemo, it does have some odd merits on its own.

As his name suggests, Sammy has got one hell of an achoo — it sends, billiard balls blowing, frightens elephants, sends just about everything flying every which where and creates general chaos and devastation in its wake. Each strip is paced almost exactly the same: Adults are engaged in some important adult activity and Sammy gears up for a mother of a sneeze, which always lets loose in the next to last panel (the final one usually involving him getting a kick in the rear). As many reviewers (and the book’s contributors) note, what’s odd about Sammy is his complete laconic attitude and steadfast refusal to alter his ways. He never says a word and never seems to learn to use a handkerchief. You get the feeling the boy ain’t quite right in the head.

What’s equally interesting to me however, is how utterly oblivious the adults are to Sammy’s sneezes. There he is, taking several minutes to wind up but everyone else seems to busy engaged in their own petty matters to pay any attention. It’s suggests a bit of an editorial on McCay’s part, especially as the Sammy strips are paired with McCay’s Hungry Henrietta. That strip follows a young girl who, as a baby is basically fed whenever she’s upset and, as she grows (she ages a few months every strip), her parents become mystified at what an enormous appetite she has. It’s the helicopter parenting of 1905 I suppose, though there’s something selfish in in the family’s inability to understand Henrietta’s behavior that coats a somewhat sad veneer over the whole enterprise, which is what makes it so fascinating in the first place.

Cullen Bunn

It seems like lately I’ve been reading more prose and non-fiction than comics, and a lot of my comic reading involves delving into some of the books that inspired me in my youth. I could go on for hours about my “go-to” books—my all-time favorites—such as Micronauts and Dreadstar and Man-Thing. I’ll steer away from those until some other time. Instead, here are a few graphic novels and comics that I’ve really been digging lately.

Batman and Robin #13

BATMAN AND ROBIN by Grant Morrison

I probably don’t have to encourage most comic fans to read this one. Here’s a secret, though: I’m not a huge Batman fan. I like the character, sure, and I have a ton of back issues stowed away in the long boxes hidden in the basement. But he’s not a character I go out of my way to follow. So, this is for the non-Batman fan. It was Morrison’s run on New X-Men that got me back into comics after a long hiatus, so I was excited by the prospect his take on the “new” Batman. He plunges the reader right into the new Batman and Robin pairing, and I didn’t miss Bruce Wayne at all. The new characters (especially Scarlet and Flamingo) alone are worth the price of admission. There’s a little Batman back story that may cause brand new readers to stumble just a bit, but not much. If you’re passingly aware of the Caped Crusader, you’ll be able to keep up without a problem.

Jack Kirby’s THE DEMON and DEVIL DINOSAUR

One from Marvel. One from DC. Both from the 70s. Both awesome. I just re-read these series in the collected formats. Holy Cow! Talk about no-holds-barred craziness! These are the types of books that hook readers with their wild plots and eye-popping character designs. And it’s not some sense of nostalgia that fuels my love for these books. Okay … maybe a little … but that’s only part of it. The most important thing about these stories, written over thirty years ago, is that they show a level of fun and creativity that I often fear is lost in newer comics. As a writer, I aspire to capture some of that anything-can-happen wonder in my work.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, and Stephen King

Finally a vampire comic for horror fans! I guess there’s nothing wrong with Lestat and company, but I’ve always preferred my bloodsuckers to be a little more down and dirty, and that’s what I got with the story of Skinner Sweet, the first American Vampire. If this series keeps going the way it has, it will quickly become one of my favorite Vertigo series. Hey, it’s got the Old West and the Roaring Twenties, two eras that are obviously near and dear to me, and I’m eager to see the history of the titular character unfold.

SIEGE by Brian Michael Bendis

When I picked this up, I really just wanted to read a story about superheroes beating each other up. That’s what I got, too! It was a lot of fun, and it’s interesting to see the culmination of events that were set into motion years ago. A book like this, which seems a little tight with just four issues, is all about moments of coolness, like Thor’s entrance in issue 1, Captain America’s arrival on the final page of issue 2, and Iron Man’s appearance in issue 3. Wait a sec! All my favorite bits are when characters arrive on the scene. Well, I guess Bendis writes damn good entrances.

SCALPED by Jason Aaron

When I first started reading comic books, I would have never thought that a book like Scalped would by one of my favorite titles. Here’s a book that has everything going for it. A great premise. A terrific cast. A suitably damaged protagonist who can “break it off” when he needs to, and a complex, evolving storyline that never lets you get too comfortable. One of the things I like most is that I started out thinking this was the story of Dashiell Bad Horse, but as the tale unfolds, I’m thinking this is really crime boss Red Crow’s story.

SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING by Alan Moore

Again, there’s probably a little nostalgia here. When I first read Alan Moore’s take on Swamp Thing, it was when my younger brother bought a bunch of them at the flea market. The stories have been reissued in some beautiful hardcover editions, so I couldn’t help but dive back into them. It’s strikes me that the individual covers to those early Moore issues really couldn’t prepare the reader for the shock and awe awaiting them. The covers often looked like your standard monster vs. monster fare. There’s nothing wrong with that. I love that stuff! But when you opened the book, you were thrown into this poetic, creepy, disturbing world that changed the way American comic creators approached horror forever. And if that wasn’t enough for me, the confrontation between Arcane and the “new” Swamp Thing still makes me giddy with the level of whoop-ass unleashed on the page.

Vol. 8 of Pluto

A Bunch of Them There Manga Books

Lately, I’ve been getting into a lot of manga titles. It started with an exploration of J-Horror in comics, because I wanted to immerse myself in the surreal creepiness of books like Uzumaki and Tomie by Junji Ito. The structure of those books is appealing to me, but I don’t know how they manage to suspend my disbelief from beginning to end. In Uzumaki, most of the stories (especially in the beginning) stand on their own, and the horror gets more and more bizarre. I guess it’s a little like reading someone else’s nightmare. It’s tough for comics to be truly scary, but these are definitely unsettling.

I think it was Brian who turned me on to Death Note and Parasyte, both of which I enjoyed from beginning to end. What I like most about these stories is that the creators really take their time developing the characters and letting the plot unfold, sometimes over the course of dozens of issues. Along the way, they manage to toss complication after complication into the mix, so there’s always something new to keep the reader’s attention, even in the midst of page after page of exposition. I just really dig these complex plots and characters … and the more fantastic elements are always a lot of fun.

Currently, I’m reading Pluto, which for a book inspired by an episode of Astro Boy is a damn fine mystery. Again, this one is focused on character development rather than robotic battles. I went into this one without knowing a whole lot about it, and I think I’m better off for it. I’m only three volumes in, but the stories of North No. 2 and Brando were surprisingly sad and touching.

Brian Hurtt

When I was first asked “What Are You Reading?” I kind of panicked. I stay pretty busy, I’m on a budget, and I have this constant guilt about not reading enough comics. So I started to put together a list of what I’ve been reading recently that I could recommend. I really hoped that I could come up with 3, maybe 4 books. That’d be fine. That’d be enough. I had to stop my list at 10. That surprised me. So, what follows, are a few titles from that list—the ones I’ve read most recently and was most excited to share.

Dungeon Twilight: The New Centurions

DUNGEON: This is one of my all-time favorite series! It’s a great day when I walk into a store and see that a new volume has come out. My only complaint is that there aren’t nearly enough of them (translated to English) and they don’t come out often enough. Just this week I picked up Dungeon Twilight: The New Centurions.

I really have a hard time describing this book to people when trying to recommend it. It is sort of a parody of fantasy or sword and sorcery comics but at the same time it is so much more. At first glance, it is very cartoony, with all the characters being anthropomorphic animals and monsters, and you immediately think it’s a “funny book”. And it is a funny book. But it’s also, at times, dark and violent and sometimes existential and sad.

One of the things that is really interesting about this series is the rotating cast of French creators. Every volume, as far as I can tell, is either written, or co-written, by the series creator’s Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat, Vampire Loves) and Lewis Trondheim (Little Nothings, Harum Scarum). They also dip in and do art chores from time to time as well as some other French luminaries like Blutch and Christophe Blain and many more.

I’m absolutely in love with all these creators so it only makes sense that if you put them all in the same universe and let them run wild that the final product of that will be something that I can’t resist. There is this quality that they all share and I describe it as immediacy. There is an immediacy to the art and the quality of line. Nothing seems labored over—it’s like a pure love a just drawing exudes every panel. It’s kinda hard to convey. But that immediacy also extends to the storytelling. You are given an almost stream of consciousness sense to the plotting—like the creators have no idea what an outline is. It may be a quality that is intentionally brought to the stories by masters of storytelling—kind of like jazz masters who are so intimate and knowledgeable of the art that they can then break it down and improvise. But I’m constantly left with the sense that they’re making it up as they go along—until the end, when the whole journey comes together beautifully.

But maybe I’m just over thinking it. It is just a funny book, after all.

Fantastic Four: World's Greatest

FANTASTIC FOUR: WORLD’S GREATEST: I’m one of those people who finds Mark Millar hit or miss. In fact, the only time I ever really enjoy his work is when he’s working with Bryan Hitch. I loved Ultimates. I liked Ultimates 2. I wasn’t sure what to expect from their work on the Fantastic Four. Now, the Fantastic Four, similarly, is hit or miss. I really like the FF but I tend to like them best when the series most closely resembles the tone, imagination and scope of Lee and Kirby when they were in their prime on this series. I’m a big fan of John Byrne’s run on the book in the 80′s (in my opinion, along with Simonson’s THOR, one of the best series of the 80′s). The last time I was compelled to pick up FF was when Waid and Weiringo were on the book. So it was with trepidation that I picked up the recent Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest (collecting FF #554-561). My concerns were laid to rest pretty quickly. I found a series that was as exciting and epic as any previous incarnation while at the same time adding depth to the characters (especially Sue and Reed) without sacrificing their core personalities. It goes without saying that the art is amazing. Nobody stages epic action like Hitch and he’s firing on all cylinders here. This book was exactly what I wanted from a post-millennial FF book and has guaranteed that I will be back for more.

JASON AARON: Okay, I realize this is a cheat. I was going to just tell everyone that I was reading Scalped, that it is the best ongoing on the stands, and it’s generally all around awesome. There really isn’t anything I can say about Scalped that hasn’t already been said by everyone else. It’s a testament to his writing that a book that, conceptually (a crime series set on a Native American reservation), didn’t really appeal to me ahs become my favorite ongoing series. It’s a book that has a rich ensemble (the main character, Dashiell Bad Horse, disappears for a whole arc and you don’t mind) and is emotionally and psychologically dark and complex–all the while, being a great thrill ride. But, I couldn’t mention Scalped and not also mention where it has taken me.

I wonder if Aaron hopes that his work for Marvel might in some way be a gateway drug to discovering, what is obviously a more personal work, Scalped. I know that it has actually been the opposite for me.

I don’t generally read a lot of superhero books, I just tend to dip my toe in here and there (usually when Ed Brubaker is involved). But, in the past couple weeks I’ve found myself tugged toward the Marvel Universe. Specifically, the work of Aaron. Already a Scalped fan, I found myself in the possession of the first arc of Aaron’s PunisherMAX series. This was essentially a Kingpin origin story. I’ve never found the Kingpin more compelling, smart and dangerous as I did in this series. The Punisher, in this series, is more of an engine for the story. He seems less a character and more a force of nature. Kind of like the character of Shigur in No Country for Old Men. And Aaron’s command of the comic language is on full display here with flashbacks and parallel narratives—just a wonderfully constructed comic. Did I mention that Steve Dillon delivers some of his trademark, mundane ultraviolence? The arc that just started in the series features Bullseye. Hell yeah. Ya got me, Mr. Aaron. I’m sold.

So there I was. I loved Scalped. I was intrigued enough to pick up PunisherMAX and I loved it. So what am I to do when I see Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine…written by Jason Aaron? Not something I’d pick up, generally. But, with Aaron’s name on it I’ve gotta give it a chance, right? Well, glad I did. Again, he does a does a great job of constructing this dual narrative, with two distinct and iconic comic voices, and all the while making it look easy. It has that sense of pure fun and adventure that superhero comics, on a whole, seem to have lost. It’s a book that I want to read on the floor of my living room on a lazy Saturday afternoon. I’m on board. And I’m also compelled to go seek out some of his other recent Marvel work. From Scalped to Spidey and Wolvie–well played Mr. Aaron.

Some of the other books I wanted to write about but didn’t have the space for: CRIMINAL, SCOTT PILGRIM, HELLBOY/BPRD, Fraction’s INVINCIBLE IRON MAN and Matt Kindt’s 3 STORY.