Wednesday's New Things: Fantastic

1. This is the second Fantastic Four reboot in as many years. That's not a good or bad thing, necessarily, but I liked the direction that Matt Fraction was moving, even though the individual plots weren't always quite coherent. It's a shame that he gave up on the First Family to focus on Inhumanity, a project that is no longer his. Here we are, anyway, with James Robinson and Leonard Robinson taking the series up; Robinson's pencils, take a peak here, don't have a line out of place, and they stake a nice spot between photorealism and stylization. He's well respected from his work on that Captain Britain series he did with Paul Cornell five or six years ago; from the preview, it doesn't seem that there's anything particularly exciting about it, but it certainly gets the job done. As to Robinson, well, Starman is one of the most fondly remembered series of the nineties. That's not a high bar, but it is really good stuff, and it holds up. He hasn't been quite as good since, but I've heard intriguing things about the Earth 2 series he was doing for DC, and my understanding is that he's been generally solid. Obviously, he'll have to do something wild to step out from Jonathan Hickman's shadow here; starting with a story called "The Fall of the Fantastic Four" is certainly one place to start. I'm always suspicious of stories that give away the conclusion in the title, but there's certainly room for something interesting in this new phase of the world's greatest comic magazine. 

Wednesdays New Things: Iron Man, Once A Year

1) Undertow just seems like a good comic. I don't know either writer Steve Orlando or artist Artyom Trakhanov, but there's something about the preview that just pulls me in. Steampunk adventure at sea? What could be bad? Except the white lettering, which is hopefully going to be clearer/changed in print. 

2) I'll probably trade wait this one, just because it's a mini, but the premise is Winter Soldier-as-gangster, which is at least nominally intriguing. Also the art is great; think Chris Bachalo working in black and white. 

3) Marvel's Iron Man Annual #1 (I remember buying an Iron Man Annual #1 in 2010, but its time I accept that comic book numbering is meaningless instead of letting it drive me crazy) is a weird, weird comic book. It costs five dollars, and its an epilogue to one of the Marvel Infinity Digital comics. It is written by Kieron Gillen, but it doesn't seem to be connected to the mainline Iron Man book at all, except, of course, that the solicitation is very vague. Who knows? Could be relevant. I don't think I have a fiver that cares, though. Similarly, who is this new New Warriors series for?

Wednesday's New Things: Justice Isn't Blind, It's a Seven Foot Tall Green Lawyer!

1. This new She-Hulk comic was announced so long ago that I forgot I was waiting for it! Seeing it on the shelves this week will be very exciting. Written by up-and-comer Charles Soule and drawn by the very talented Javier Pulido, you might call this the Hawkeyeing of Jennifer Walters. The truth is that I'm not sure that this book will have that book's appeal; Soule is much less of a known quality than Matt Fraction, Pulido isn't quite the artist that David Aja is, although presumably he draws more quickly, and the main character didn't just appear in the most successful superhero movie of all time. Hopefully, potential readers will see past all that, and the character's dated branding; between what appears to be an honest attempt at a comic book starring a female character, Soule's ability, as a practicing lawyer, to lend credibility to the writing, and Pulido's always welcome retro style, this all new She-Hulk could be both very good and deeply important. I can't find a lettered preview, but you can take a peek at Pulido's unusually spacious art here. 

2. I love the idea of The Mercenary Sea. I mean, the solicit, though vague, just drips with potential: "Action and adventure set in 1938—The South Seas. Japan has invaded China. War in Europe is imminent. Ex-bootlegger Jack Harper captains The Venture, a refitted German U-Boat, with a crew of expats, mercenaries and treasure hunters. They do whatever it takes to stay afloat, often running up against pirates, headhunters, spies, and soldiers. They’re always one step away from the greatest score of their lives...or their certain demise." The rub, though, is in the preview: leaving aside the dialogue, which somehow seems both over- and underwritten, the art seems indebted to the style of the excellent FX cartoon spy show Archer. That kind of broad stroke and colorist driven depth works on television much more than it works here; when you're not distracted by the fact that the lines are moving, they just seem stiff and imprecise. Some of the silhouette work on the third page of the preview seems to avoid these problems, but, although those panels are ok on their own, they're a snoozefest when taken together. 

3. Last week in this space, I wrote about the calculations I make when deciding whether or not to trade wait. In general, I tend to wait for miniseries; moreso than traditional serials, which are often themselves confused about whether or not they are better read in individual issues or trade paperbacks, minis, 99 times out of 100, read better when they're collected. In part, this is because the good mini is so rare; I expect that the vast majority are event tie in comics. Most everything else gets published as a graphic novel, with a few exceptions (Phongram, the initial publishing strategy of Fatale, Casanova, etc). This one, though, ties into to both the fact that CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER hits movie screens in early April and to a storyline currently being set up in Rick Remender's Captain America. By and large, Remender has attempted to stay out of Ed Brubaker's long shadow by avoiding espionage as a theme; unfortunately for him, that's the great genre of the Marvel comic book from the last ten years. It's also the only context in which a Winter Soldier solo comic book really makes any sense. With the movie imminent, Remender is stuck. Given how hit and miss his writing always is, it doesn't really make sense to trade wait this comic book; I want to read it now, I doubt I'll want to return to it later. I don't know what's up with Marvel and unlettered preview, but check out Roland Boschi's serviceable, if not great, art here.

Wednesday's New Thing: Ms. Marvel and Teen Loki

1. These two books feel like the big ones this week, particularly in the wake of Gillen and McKelvie's Young Avengers. From the preview, writer Tom Ewing and writer Lee Gabett's new Loki series seems like it's trying a little too hard to fill the space left by its progenitor; in particular, the writing seems a little like Gillen-lite. Still, I think Ewing just needs some time to find his own voice with what has essentially been Gillen's character for the past three or four years, and it will be particularly heartening if Gabett's already decent art, think a less stylized Terry Dodson here, makes a leap. The title's resonances with the silver age Nick Fury comics and the immensely popular film version of the character mean that this is a comic that's going to appeal to all kinds of people, to both comics lifers and the new reader into their LCS off of the street. The other big release this week is G. Willow Wilson's new Ms. Marvel, which famously stars a Muslim teenager. That fact alone is going to bring some people to the character, and will also (unfortunately) drive some people away. This is a book, though, that should stand out on its merits; Wilson is a good writer, and Adrian Alphona is trying some fun and unique stuff with the art. The closest analogue I can think of is Andre Lima Araujo, but the similarities there cease with the thin lines and a vaguely cartoony style. If you only buy two comics this week, I would make it these two.

2. Last week, I wrote about the calculus I use to determine whether or not I should trade wait; in terms of both of these series from Matt Fraction, I think I picked wrong. On the one hand, I wanted to make sure that they didn't get canceled, and so buying the single issues felt like it was important. On the other hand, I have a feeling that both (I haven't actually started Sex Criminals yet, but I have all four issues!) will be improved by a condensed reading experience; I've found certain threads in Satellite Sam hard to follow from month to month. And they would both look great on my bookshelves, one of the major criterions here. I'll definitely be buying this issue of Sex Criminals, but I very well may decide to start trade waiting Satellite Sam, deferring the cost for a nicer product rather than letting a whole 'nother volume waste away in my short boxes. Let's call it a game time decision.

3. Two other books of interest this week: First, Tom Ewing's other book, Mighty Avengers is guest starring Iron Fist, which is generally enough of a reason for me to at least take a peek. This may be the first issue of that series not directly or indirectly tied in with a crossover event. The second book worth looking into is Nathan Edmondson's Punisher. In general, I find that character to be uniquely uncompelling at this point, and so the quality of his comics is even that much more dependent on the quality of the creative team than usual. Greg Rucka's recent run on the character was pretty good, but the art on that series was atrocious and too obviously photoshopped. Edmondson's Black Widow series has been excellent, though, and although artist Mitch Gerads isn't Phil Noto, his art does remind me a little of early Chris Samnee. I'm not sure that the character's move to Los Angeles is really a very big deal, but this might be a book to take a flyer on.

Wednesday's New Things: Marvel of Marvels, Miracles of Miracles, But Where Does It Go?

There is plenty about Marvel's recent activity on the Miracle Man property, a property that's been dormant since they acquired specific parts of it a half decade ago, that's confusing for me. How did they untangle the rights? What does it have to do with Neil Gaiman selling Angela to the company? What was that all about anyway? Why did they even bother publishing that Golden Age Miracle Man stuff back in 2010? Now that they own the rights, why didn't they change the name back to Marvel Man? Isn't that the most logical thing to do?

Truth is, though, I'm just glad they've finally come around to publishing the damn thing. Between Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and the never ending story of who owned what, who owed what, and who owed whom, this is the only series that's ever entered that mythical, must read space for me; certainly the only one I can think of that I would have felt comfortable pirating, simply because there was no other good way to get it. I guess I just never got around to it. And, now that its here, I haven't been purchasing it, or at least I'm not yet. There's something about launching this particular book in an oversized floppy edition that feels wrong, to me; after having waited so long for this material, it just seems like it should be owned in hardcover. And I wasn't even born yet when the series conceived, and I wasn't talking when it concluded with issue #24-- there have to be people who've been waiting to read this story (that is, if they've bothered waiting) much longer than me. Put simply, it's not something I want to file away in a longbox, it's something I want to put on my shelf.

The thinking behind that choice-- do I put it in my longbox or do I put it on my shelf?-- is something that's long interested me. I can't say I've come up with a coherent solution, although I'll admit that I've tried. What I would like to do, in general, is buy the stories I don't think I'll come back to as floppies, and the stories I do think I'll come back to as trades; ease of access is related to how often I think I'll want to find them. In practice, I return to very little, and mainstream monthly comics even less so; Ed Brubaker's Captain America, Immortal Iron Fist, Phonogram. I can see myself returning to Manhattan Projects, too, and Young Avengers, Saga, East of West, Satellite Sam, and Pretty Deadly, among others. The problem is that I'm buying those last few every month-- I want to know what happens in Saga, I don't want to fall behind. I want the trades, sure, but I don't want to spend the cash on material I already own-- it's why I've never bought that beautiful Criminal omnibus, for example. A few times I've abandoned comics, Hawkeye, Prophet, Fatale, either because I've lost track or because of some wonky publishing thing, and I've decided not to catch up, specifically so I can start over with the trades. Barring those weird situations, though, its a choice that has to do with whether you prefer the instant gratification of the low durability floppy or the long term satisfaction of the higher quality collection; in theory, I'm for the former, but, when it comes to actual purchasing habits, I'm a weak, weak man. And, of course, I'm not interested in comics as a hardcore collector would be, which means that things like variants don't even enter the calculation.

Miracleman's history, though, makes the choice easy. I've waited this long. I'll wait until April for the edition that I want, and then it'll go on my shelf, in between The Manhattan Projects and Darwyn Cooke's Parker books, where it belongs.

Wednesday's New Things: Leaving Things on The Shelf

For the first time in a long time, I'm going to leave books that I want to read on the shelf this week. If I'm still interested next week, maybe I'll take the plunge. But $3.99 is a lot for a funny book, and this week I was prepared to buy several too many. Do I really want to keep up with Avengers World? Does Hawkeye's weird publishing schedule mean I should just be reading it in trade? Consider this a first attempt at a more conscious comics buying policy from this particular blogger. Anyway, three things that caught my eye:

1) I've been looking forward to All New Invaders. I'm not looking forward to Steve Pugh's style-less Greg Land imitation (and this is one of those comics where the interior art is disappointing compared to both the main cover and the variant, above), but a James Robinson book about the original Invaders, set in space? Count me in, I think. At least for right now. To be completely honest, I'd prefer if this book were retro, set in WWII, but I don't think that even this version will sell well. Let's say the over/under on this one is eight issues; in the meantime, I'm hoping to enjoy it while it's here.

2) Did you read the first issue of Black Widow? The dialogue was kind of iffy, and Nathan Edmondson decided he had to justify narration by clarifying that Natasha was talking to a cat. Still, it was pretty good. I bet this second is going to be pretty good too. Check it out, if only so you can gape at Phil Noto's art. 

3) I like tenth anniversary books like this one, because I wasn't really reading comics when they first came out (obviously, at some point that will no longer be true). Still, it's a good chance to track the development of an artist over time. In this case, it'll be neat to see that way that Lost at Sea becomes Scott Pilgrim becomes the upcoming Seconds. 

Wednesday's New Things: Big Monsters, Big Egos

1) If there's one comic that's not going to get enough press this week, it's this one, from Brazilian cartoonist Gustavo Duarte. I'm very careful about unconditional recommendations, but Duarte's stuff is as close as I'll come. Almost wordless, his comics are carried on the strength of a visual style anchored by clean lines and clean compositions, extraordinarily emotive with neither a line amiss nor a single detail too much. That efficiency belies a particularly expansive imagination, one that values wonder over all else and has to be seen to be believed. I own most of his output in original Brazilian editions, purchased from Duarte at two separate NYCCs. Among those is "Monsters," featured here, a kind of interesting and clever version of Pacific Rim. Also included is a story, "Po," which I haven't been able to get my hands on yet. Originally released as a minicomic, I came to Duarte too late to have acquired a copy on the primary market. That was several years ago; as you can imagine, I'm eager to finally get my hands on it. I'd have preferred the inclusion of the charming "Taxi" rather than the morbid "Birds," but, at, $12.99, the price is right. 

2) Speaking of almost unconditional recommendations, you won't go wrong with Francesco Francavilla's Black Beetle comics. Francavilla is one of mainstream comics' true talents, and you can find his work in all sorts of projects, from After Life With Archie, to the-beloved-by-me Black Panther: Man Without Fear series, to this creator-owned joint. Here, Francavilla writes and draws and, although his dialogue can be stilted, the art, both creative and restrained, should be enough to keep you interested. You can also pick up the collected edition of the first Black Beetle mini, No Way Out. 

3) Look, Stuart Moore's Egos is basically a Prophet knock off, with a slight soap opera twist:  

Years ago, The Earth/Galactic Operatives defeated Masse, a sentient, hungry galaxy—but now Masse has returned, consuming entire planets and killing millions of people. Deuce, an aging hero, decides to reform his old team and go into battle to save the day. But in order to do that, he must cross a line with Pixel, his wife and former teammate, an act that threatens to tear apart the life they've built together. 

I mean, come on, you can't get a whole lot closer than that. Even Gus Storms's (what a fabulous name) art looks a little bit like sometimes-Prophet artist Simon Roy, although the lines are little more direct. Still, there's a lot to be said for looking at the same subject from a different angle, and, with Prophet's end nigh, Egos may be a half way decent substitute. 

Wednesday's New Things: Remender, Rios and Kelly Sue

1) One of my serious flaws is a reader of comics is that I have trouble reading single issues more than once, even if I've really enjoyed myself or I'm confused by something. This is frustrating, of course, because I've read all of these comics I've only read one time and which are now sitting around, taking up space. Luckily, sometimes, there's stuff that's so good that I will read it twice-- like the first issue of Pretty Deadly. If this second issue is even as close to as good as the first one was, it'll be worth the price, no matter how many times you read it.






2) I've always been a little ambivalent about Rick Remender. His books are bad (Uncanny Avengers) just as often as they're good (Captain America), and he seems to be good at very particular, very odd, things. Black Science, though, is a book that looks pretty odd; a psycha-sci-fi-fantasy odyssey through the impossible. Sort of like Fraction's Defenders, but with more latitude. How could you say no to an elevator pitch like that? 

Wednesday's New Thing: Pretty Deadly and Velvet, A Double Feature Comic Show

Going on two years now, Image has absolutely been killing it, releasing books that are consistently among the best mainstream comics going. This streak seems likely to continue with the releases of the Western Pretty Deadly (written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Emma Rios) and the espionage thriller Velvet (put together by long time Long and Shortbox of It! favorite team Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting). Without having read either, I will with some confidence put them in the company of Young Avengers and Satellite Sam as books to follow out of 2013. 

Wednesday's New Things: Lightning Round

To make up for my absence the last couple of weeks, and because this week brings a plethora of exciting new comics, here is a slightly different than usual version of Wednesday's New Things, a lightly annotated list of things worth taking a peak at that come out this week.

Leading the pack is a period piece, set in ancient Greece and written by Kieron Gillen. From the preview, stunningly pencilled by Ryan Kelly and colored by Jordie Bellaire, you can see that it has that typically, frankly, Gillen. Do you think I can just send him my money by airmail? Or do I have to go to a comic book store?

This looks pretty fun. Darrow is a practitioner of a smoother version of the raw, loose style that I mostly associate with Frank Quitely, and which you can also see in the work of Chris Burnham, Simon Roy and Nick Pitarra. When a prose story came out, I think a year ago, featuring this character, I passed because, well, prose. But Darrow's art is great, emphasizing the movement that those artist do so well without any of the attendant squishiness, so I'm likely to pick this up the next time I head to the shop.

 It's nice to see that Vertigo is back in the game in a serious way. After the departure of Karen Berger, the imprint, which had seemed moribund for a while, really looked decrepit. Recently, though, they've published Trillium, FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics (the poorly renamed book formerly known as Collider) and, now, this, which, with established author Caitlin Kitteridge as its writer, seems an awful lot like Vertigo projects of old. I've never heard of either contributor, and the story seems to fit squarely in the gothic horror genre (not that there's anything wrong with that), but the art, by Inaki Miranda, looks great.

I bought the first two issues of this, didn't read them, and then moved. They're in my short box, alternatively laughing at me and looking at me longingly. The pricing on the trade edition of this book's first volume is tempting-- less than $10, for four issues? I suspect the subsequent volumes won't be as cheap, but even so, at $3.50 a pop for individual issues, I save money as long as a four issue collections costs less than $14. Is that enough of a savings, considering I already own the first two issues? As I reconsider my comics purchasing strategy, reorienting myself towards buying trades in the case of books like this, I think it may be. 

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These lego variants are fun. Not enough fun that I want to own one, but, still, fun.

These Best American Comics anthologies seem like good books for people like me, who don't have the time, energy, or cash to pick through everything that comes out in a year. Although I think I'll wait until the end of the year to pick it up, it's a pretty sure buy.

Hey! New Paul Pope is always exciting. 

Wednesday's New Things: Spiegelman Looks Back, Chester Brown and Brandom Graham Too

1) I confess that, in my ongoing attempts to give myself a comprehensive comics education, I haven't yet gotten to Chester Brown-- it's hard! There's just so much good stuff. I just got to the Hernandez Brothers. It's not like I have a syllabus, and a lot of what I read is dependent on what I can find at the library or justify acquiring based on temporarily decreased cost or temporarily heightened interest. I've been meaning to get to Brown for a while, though. Even amongst the generally self-revealing autobio comics crowd, he seems to be particularly honest, with books like The Playboy and Paying For It, in which he shares parts of his life that others would scarcely admit to in private, let alone in public. And, tellingly, Paying For It isn't some kind of redemption memoir, some kind of claim that he's become a better person and that he doesn't do that (that being seeing prostitutes) anymore. Louis Riel, though, is a fundamentally different kind of book-- a comics history in an academic frame. Brown, like Art Spiegelman, seems interested in pushing the boundaries of what people can do with the genre, but in terms of content rather than in terms of form. The mere fact that this new release is a tenth anniversary edition rather than just a new edition suggests that Brown and Drawn & Quarterly believe that this is a different sort of comic book, the initial publication of which is worth marking, which makes this book interesting both as an artifact of a certain moment in the history of comics publishing as well as an achievement by one of the form's most celebrated artists. 

2) Speaking of Art Spiegelman, he's another interesting guy. Maus is essential reading for anyone interested in comics, of course, and Breakdowns and Meta-Maus seem like good resources for people interesting in pulling apart the form a little. Although I hesitate to recommend retrospective books, or comics art shows like the one this is attached to, to beginners, I do like that it apparently reprints some stuff that's hard to get your hands on now and, as important as Spiegelman is, it's nice to see a high profile bibliographical essay published by a mainstream art comics publisher rather than an academic press. 

3) Another reprint worth looking at this week is the collection of some of Brandon Grahm's loose Multiple Warheads material. Graham is one of my favorite mainstream comics writers and artists-- King City is one of the best serial comics of the past few years, easily-- I just haven't gotten a chance to read any of this stuff yet, in part, I guess, because I was waiting for the new mini from last year to be released as a collection. This, however, seems like a much better place to start. 

4) Just so I don't seem like I'm mired in the past, here's a never before published book from Ales Kot and Michael Walsh! The premise is a little tired, Kot knows it: "What happens when you grow up in a world that celebrates murder as a means to an end? What happens when you’re taken in by a team of people who exploit war scenarios while looking like the white knights? What happens when you start snapping out of it?" In this way, Zero seems like a sort of converse of 24, movies, The Bourne Identity with implications that reach past what it means for the spy's life. If that weren't enough of an enticement on its own, the art resists the compulsion to make stories like this either hyper realistic or grim and gritty. It'll be interesting to see if there's a tension between story and content here and, if there is, how that might reflect Kot and Walsh's view of the world they've built. 

Wednesday's New Things: Hail and Farewell

1. It's a real shame to see Matt Fraction walk away from Marvel's first family; although his Fantastic Four didn't set the world on fire or anything, I thought he was doing a pretty good job following Jonathan Hickman on the book, in particular how he was dealing with  bad dad Reed Richards. And, of course, his madcap FF is excellent, buoyed by the excellent visual storytelling of Mike and Laura Allred.  Of the post-Fraction two, I think I'll stick with FF alone. I'm assuming that they're going to relaunch Fantastic Four with a new creative team sometime early next year and, given my newfound fondness for these characters, I'll think I'll pick it back up then. In the meantime, it's nice to see Fraction move from the kind of shared universe series where he often seems cramped into a wider portfolio of books were he has more room to play-- very few people, for example, have any skin in the game when it comes to the Inhumans, Satellite Sam is just hitting its stride, and his upcoming Sex Criminals, from Image, is intriguing and totally untethered to anything except his imagination. Hopefully, his work in those places, like with Immortal Iron Fist, Invincible Iron Man, and Hawkeye, will be illuminating. 

2. Speaking of unexplored sandboxes, Fred Van Lente follows up on the success of his Archer and Armstrong revival with another legacy project, the resurrection of Dell Comics' short live Brain Boy hero. It seems like a halfway decent espionage-with-super powers story, mixed with some of the alienated hero elements of a book like Chew or of the kind that the X-Men were once premised on. Certainly worth taking a shot on, if you've got some extra room on your pull this week. Preview here.

3. Also of interest this week is Greg Pak's Eternal Warrior, for Valiant, a book which is connected to Pak's former partner-in-crime Van Lente's Archer and Armstrong. The obvious concern here is that humor and absurdity of A+A will be absent from a book whose main character is Very Serious-- let's call it the difference between Incredible Hercules and Herc. Still, as with all the Valiant books, the art will be bright and legible, which will do wonders for making the darker, but probably not edgy content, palatable. The preview, at least, suggests that we should expect good things. 

Wednesday's New Things: The Uncanny X-Boondoggle

1) I usually use this space to write about a book that I'm going to buy this week. Today, something slightly different, at least at the top-- I don't think I'll be buying Battle of the Atom, and I don't think I'll be buying any of the comics that I usually buy that tie-in to the crossover. This isn't the first time I've abandoned an onerous X-crossover, but Marvel did a really good job of making this one easy for me. For one, Infinity is running basically concurrently. Multi-author crossovers are very rarely good, and, although I very much like Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men and have been surprised by the quality of Bendis's work on Uncanny, Jonathan's Hickman's single author event has been worthwhile. Given that, if I decide that I can purchase only one wallet consuming crossover that'll mean buying comics that I don't typically read and don't typically want to read, which one am I going to pick? How about if only one is running, but I decide that I can afford to purchase precisely no expensive event comics? I often actually find that the coming of a crossover decreases the amount of money I'm spending on Marvel books for the duration thereof. This must not be true for the whole market, since Marvel is running crossovers for the foreseeable future, Matt Fraction's Inhumanity following Infinity, and I presume that means that such event comics are profitable. I think that these comics make money despite their inevitable dearth of quality means something interesting about market preferences, but I would have to take some time to figure out exactly what that something is. 

2) Speaking of Hickman, does he have a time turner or something? I'm counting six books out by him this month, and that's just off the top of my head. The new one is the Avatar-published God Is Dead, illustrated by Di Anorim. I think that it's sort of in the spirit of Warren Ellis's Supergods from a couple of years ago. Unlike some of the other more recent pieces of superhero deconstruction, this one's at least a little interesting off the bat, since it removes the allegorical element, trading out the godlike superheroes in deconstruction's question-- what would happen if godlike superheroes were real-- for straight up gods. I can't find a preview, but expect the art to be competent if not compelling. Can you imagine how mind blowing some of this stuff would be (say, both God is Dead and Uber, also out this week) if Avatar branched out from the house style a little bit?

3) So Hit's premise-- LAPD goes outside the law to fight crime-- is not exactly groundbreaking; it is, for example, the exact same premise as the recent movie Gangster Squad. Still, sometimes seeing what a talented storyteller can do with an old saw is a worthwhile endeavor. I can't speak to writer Bryce Carlson, I think this is his debut, but Vanesa Del Rey's artwork has been bouncing around the internet for a while. The one lettered page I've seen suggests that Carlson is going to let Del Rey do most of the talking, which is fine by me; her art has this slinky quality, aided by her facility with light/dark contrast and her understanding of the power of negative space. Both of these seem to work because she exercise discretion about when to use her black pen, making her figures stand out and her shadows more powerful. A longer, unlettered, preview here.

4) I know this came out last week, but how cool does Itty Bitty Hellboy look? It reminded me that I need to check out Balthazar and Franco's Aw Yeah comics. 

Wednesday's New Things: Red Rover, Red Rover, A Pretty Good Crossover

1) The general consensus on Jonathan Hickman's relatively new Avengers comics is that New Avengers is pretty good, but that Avengers is something of a mess. I'd strenuously disagree with the latter claim, but I'm also the only person I know who would. New Avengers, though, is pretty good, generally, although I thought last month's issue was basically incomprehensible. Still, everyone gets a little leeway for a bad comic now and then, particularly Hickman. Moreover, given that the Infinity crossover has so far been of a perfectly acceptable quality, it seems like a shame to skip out on that story right now. The decent crossover comic is just such a rare thing. 

2) Rick Remender is wrapping up his first, extraordinarily long, arc on Captain America. The comic has, generally, been pretty good, although it's notable mostly for just how different its goofy sci-fi beats are from Ed Brubaker's long standing super spy take on the character. I do hope that some of the characters we've been introduced to carry through, although with the "dramatic death" promised in the solicitation that seems unlikely. Still, its nice to see a ten month long serial wrapped up completely, meaning that its able to pick up next month with a completely new, though presumably connected, story. Another thing to note is that John Romita Jr.'s work here has been excellent; because JRJR has been making public noises about leaving Marvel and he's being replaced by Carlos Pacheco (himself an excellent, although very different and much more traditional, artist) next month, this maybe the last chance you have to see these characters drawn in this way for a long time.

3) Also being released this week is Chuck Forsman's The End of the Fucking World, collected and retitled the safe for bookstores TEOTFW. I've heard a lot of really good things about Forsman, and I think I'll probably check this one out sooner rather than later. One thing I wonder, though, is if the fact that this material was originally published as a minicomic was part of the appeal. Does the book, published a different, more formal way, call to the same people? I very much hope it does. If it doesn't, or if it finds a different audience in this format, it'll mean something interesting things about the divide between comics subcultures.

Wednesday's New Things 7/3/13

#1 Satellite Sam by Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin

#2 Avengers A.I. by Sam Humphries and Andre Lima Araujo

Wednesday's New Thing: Guardians of the Galaxy 0.1

Although I long ago understood that the numbering of comic books has little meaning outside of marketing, Marvel's .1 initiative has always seemed sort of goofy. Whether or not a book's number is actually important in any way, it certainly appears to have market value; that's why the comics person sometimes seems, from the outside, like a peculiar sort of counter, trying to piece everything together by completing a collection. So, although the .1 books were designed as "good jumping on points!," they actually make everything more complicated simply by bearing such arcane numbering. I have a feeling that this scared off new comics readers, that is, the sort of person that Marvel was ostensibly interested in attracting with the initiative.

This Guardians of the Galaxy issue, though, is particularly silly seeming. Since the series hasn't even really started yet, it reminds me of an old George Carlin joke about airplanes: "preboarding? What does that mean? Do you get on before you get on?" Look: the #1 is the ultimate in jumping on points, because every reader is starting from the first position together. The fact that comics sometimes run into the dozens, even the hundreds, of issues is precisely why the industry thinks it needs good jumping on points. That said, many of my not-comics friends have told me that one of the great things about serialized books is the ability to pick one up without the slightest idea of what came before and then enjoy the damn thing anyway, and it may be that a certain percentage of new readers are happy to start anywhere. Assuming, however, that issue numbers in the hundreds do put some people off, the companies seem to think that they are compelled to start new books (or, I guess, renumber old ones) after awhile. And, so, even though this issue is sort of a prologue to the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy ongoing, this particular .1 strikes me as unusually silly; if it's important to the story, why not just start here? Or why not make it a one-shot? Prologue to Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill: Starlord #1! 

The dearth one-shots is frustrating for me, in part because I think that a publisher dedicated every month to putting out two or three books that are tied only vaguely to stuff that came before or that will come out later is a publisher dedicated to innovation, or, at least, to trying new things. I expect that the big companies don't make the single serving books because they don't sell as well as the ongoings, but I suspect that they also aren't motivated to go do it, because trying something different would force them to seek new ideas. This isn't something that Marvel and DC are very good at; instead, they prefer to recycle old things and then trick people into believing that they're about to read something new, hence Guardians of the Galaxy #.1 and the ongoing growing pains of the New 52. Of course, one-shots really are a hard sell, innovation or not, and it may just be that the market doesn't really want them. That's a shame, but its not very hard to understand why; there is, after all, a certain joy in reading a book that's a specific part in a longstanding story.

I'm sort of vaguely interested in Guardians of the Galaxy, because I like Steve McNiven's art and also because I'm curious about how Marvel makes comics that tie-in to its movies, and so I have a feeling I'll pick this up when I go to the store in the next few days. I do wonder, though-- will it sell the same way that the #1 will next month? And, if it does, does it mean that we asked for all this?

Wednesday's New Thing: Paul Pope

Paul Pope, colored and reprinted. From Image.

  Preview @ Comics Alliance