Comics for the week of June 3, 2009

...and that is how I escaped from OH HELLO I DID NOT SEE YOU COME IN.

Comics!

A pretty dry week, if the Diamond shipping list is accurate- usually I use The Savage Critics' list to put these together, but that won't be available until tomorrow and I felt like posting something, anything to get back into the blogging groove.

Singles
Batman & Robin #1. What, you thought I would stay silent on this? Are you out of your goddamned mind? Final Crisis was fascinating, and provided a lot to go over from a critical perspective, but as far as storytelling goes it was kind of a damp squib. I'm aware of Morrison's ambitions for the series, and I think he achieved some of them, but the awkward dovetailing with Batman RIP, the unplanned change of artists, and the strong whiff of interference from the complete fucking madhouse of DC Editorial made for something far less than the sum of its parts. What I've seen* of Batman & Robin has me excited like nothing since, well, Morrison's Batman, and the fact that he's working with Frank Quitely again raises my expectations to a level that's nearly impossible to satisfy. As with any Morrison book (except maybe All-Star Superman), it'll be difficult to judge based on the first issue, so I wait with bated breath for issue #2 in October, and next February's issue #3, featuring the art stylings of Igor Kordey. ZING MOTHERFUCKERS

Trades

Age of the Sentry. Not a very substantial book, but one I enjoyed, and one I can see myself loaning out to friends or acquaintances who are curious about superhero comics and want a quick, fun read with no prerequisites.

Wonton Soup vol. 2. Again, not a whole lot going on here, at least if the first book was any indication, but fun. I like Iron Chef, I like space and things that happen in space, I like this kind of Brian Lee O'Malley/Brandon Graham/Corey Lewis Westernized manga style, and more importantly this costs less than ten bucks so I'm not out too much if it's not entirely satisfying.

*preview courtesy of the vile Ain't It Cool News; click at your own risk. Actually, I'd advise holding off until the comic comes out, since it's just the cover and first three pages. Though those pages do include Mister Toad's Safety-Conscious Ride. Your call.

Not dead, just job-hunting/moving

And sore. From dancin'.

Also, via Dave Ex Machina, I am apparently a woman, or 66% of one, anyway. News to me; I can only wonder how my family will take it.

Some more cursory, ill-thought out posts coming later this afternoon. Huzzah!

I bought comics

My epic, country-spanning victory jig having finally petered out somewhere in the Pacific Northwest in the wee hours of Monday morning, I'm finally ready to wholeheartedly resume the work I love: making fun of comics before I buy them and then failing to follow up with the more in-depth commentary I repeatedly promise and just as repeatedly scrap after realizing it's not funny or insightful. LET'S DO THIS THING!

Here's what I bought last week, or, since I live in a city without a single comic shop, what I asked Scifigenre to stick in a box and mail to me at the end of the month:

Age of the Sentry #3
Air #4
Ambush Bug: Year None #4
The Goon #30

Some comics I didn't buy yet, but somehow feel entitled to comment on anyway, my god, the sheer gall of this man:

Ender's Game: Battle School #2. Fuck Orson Scott Card in the ear. That is all.
Punisher War Journal #25
Scalped #23
Tales to Suffice #1

Trades:
Batman: Gotham Underground.
Countdown to Final Crisis vol. 4.
Jack Kirby's The Demon Omnibus. Meanwhile, in comics that don't make me want to travel through time and space to beat Johannes Gutenberg into a coma, thus forestalling the invention of the printing press and, eventually, the career of Judd Winick, we have the latest entry in DC's long overdue series of deluxe Jack Kirby reprints. It is good, and you will buy it, or you will be shunned.
The Punisher by Garth Ennis Omnibus. You already know in your heart of hearts whether or not you need a gigantic, 63 dollar, seven and a half pound slab of Ennis' profane, ultraviolent, extraordinarily silly take on the Punisher. For me, the answer was yes.
Vertigo Tarot Deck 20th Anniversary Edition. Includes Aquanet, Floodland on cassette tape, fishnet shirt (unisex) and heavy-duty tear-resistant mascara! No, I'm not buying this, I just wanted an excuse to point and laugh and link to this video.

And this week's releases:
Batman #681. "Note price," sez Diamond. Duly noted!
Blue Beetle #33
Unknown Soldier #2
Wolverine First Class #9

This week's trades:
American Elf vol. 3. The third collected volume of James Kochalka (Superstar)'s daily diary comic.
The Best of Tharg's Future Shocks.
Gilbert Hernandez's Sloth is now available in TPB if you didn't pick it up in hardcover. Congratulations, your two and a half years of fiscal vigilance has saved you five dollars, you savvy consumer, you!
Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack vol. 2.

You cannot see me but I am doing a little dance right now

Comics for the week of October 5, 2008

First things first. Are you American? Have you voted? No? You, sir, are a cad and a scoundrel. Get your ass to a voting booth and then we'll talk.

Back so soon? Well, okay, then.

Singles

Final Crisis: Resist #1. I'm hoping this will act as a sort of corollary to Morrison's Submit. This is my theory, hear me out: just as the main body of Final Crisis is holding steady at Pretty Fucking Great, but Submit was entirely disposable, incredibly ugly and not very well-written, I'm hoping that Resist will balance out the sadly unexciting Revelations and give us something really great. Rucka can do it, we know that; here's his chance.

Grant Morrison's Doctor Who #2. I have to confess, the first issue of this is sitting in a pile of unread books; I've been picking them up because, hey, The Moz is writing, but I'm putting them off until I've had some serious Netflix* and Wikipedia time to absorb all the Who I need. As a 20-something American, opportunities to see Doctor Who in any media have been pretty few and far between during my lifetime until relatively recently, and while I've caught up with most of the classic Tom Baker episodes and a few episodes with earlier Doctors, my knowledge is still extremely spotty.

Invincible Iron Man #7. The first story arc is over; this one's got Spider-Man. That's about all we know.

Top Ten: Season Two #2. The first one was good. With any luck, this will be too. Yeah, that's why you read this blog, exciting and provocative ideas and bold, confrontational views.

Weapon X: First Class #1. This just sounds like the worst fucking thing ever, at least for this week, as Marvel appears to be ditching the whole "fun" part of the First Class books for, and I quote, "a brand-new look at the horrifying history of Marvel's most prominent mutant". Because God knows, that well isn't dry, oh no. That barrel is un-scraped. The horse is one hundred percent alive and it is in need of a vicious beating. "PLUS: Each issue features a 10-page back-up story featuring an important player from Wolverine's past! First up, an untold tale of Wolvie's arch-nemesis, the mutant madman known as Sabretooth!" BE STILL MY BEATING HEART

Trades

Absolute Sandman vol. 4. Yeah, I'm a sucker, I've already got most of these books in paperback and they're not quite as great as I thought when I was a teenager. I don't fucking care, I'm still buying them again. Because...hell, I don't know why. They're pretty on my shelf?

Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson vol. 1. The first volume in Marvel's paperback printing of the out-of-print Miller/Janson Daredevil Omnibus. I have it on reasonable authority that this is Good Stuff and will be picking up a copy.

Liquid City. An Image anthology of Southeast Asian artists and writers. I don't know anyone involved in the project, but after the success of Image's Popgun anthologies I'm definitely interested. Will at least give this the old bookstore flip-through.

The Mister X Archives. Dark Horse reprints all of Dean Motter & co.'s Mister X in anticipation of the new miniseries starting November. This is beautiful work, even if it didn't always make a great deal of sense or conclude satisfyingly; I'm looking forward to the opportunity to read the whole thing.

The Question, vol. 3: Epitaph for a Hero. More O'Neal Question. I'm experiencing the series for the first time with these reprints, so I really can't speak to the quality of this trade; I did enjoy the first two, though, for all their desperately earnest 80's-ness and melodrama.

Watchmen. The Absolute Edition? Savage Critic says it's another reprint of the Absolute, as did DC's website months ago, but other sources suggest it's just a new hardcover with the Absolute Edition's revised coloring. If it's the former, yay; the Absolute Watchmen was a gorgeously produced book with some truly worthwhile supplementary material, and one that I never managed to convince myself to buy before it went out of print. If it's the latter, I can definitely do without, as I'm ambivalent about recoloring classic comics (see this recent Funnybook Babylon post for a truly heinous example, or the rereleased Killing Joke).

*Netflix subscribers should be aware that they have quite a lot of Doctor Who DVD sets available on their thoroughly impressive streaming service, including the entire Key to Time arc

Halloween mix CD

Good evening, folks- a quick heads up to let you know that, in a shocking reversal from the usual procedure, there won't be any new content tonight, as it's time for the annual Halloween movie marathon at Stately YDKFH Manor. This year's lineup: Prince of Darkness, Suspiria, Ils aka Them, and The Wicker Man (the good one, not the Nic Cage shitbucket). Over at my long-neglected music blog, Telephone Thing, I'm uploading a quick mix CD of horror soundtracks and spooky electronics and whatnot. Download before someone makes zshare yank it!