Flippin’ through ‘Previews’ – September 2020

Oh, hey there. How are you? Astonishingly, another month has passed, and new Previews catalog, number 384 in a series, is out, and it’s time to check it out. You know you love it! So join me (who will soon be switching to blue text) and Travis (who may or may not be insane from quarantining for several months) as we dive into the comics and other stuff on offer!

7 September. Still waiting on Travis …

9 September. Still waiting …

Hey, I’m here now on the 9th.  Shush!

As we’ve been doing recently, let’s start with whiny crybabies DC.

Here are the solicits.

The Other History of the DC Universe shows up as a fancy Black Label book, and I’m intrigued by this (when it comes out in trade, of course). I’m still a bit confused by the premise, though. Is it a history of the DC Universe as seen through the eyes of minorities and such, so we’ll get different versions of “actual events,” such as Superman landing in Kansas, but the Kents beat up a black man who found the rocket so they can adopt the alien baby, something like that? Or is is an “alternate reality” where the DC Universe is more populated with minorities and “traditionally disenfranchised groups”? Either way, I’m sure it will be interesting.

I think you’re not quite right (ahem!) on either supposition.  I don’t think (I hope not, at least!) that the Kents are going to be beating up anyone, but neither is this an alternate reality.  DC actually has a decent amount of minority characters.  I think it’s more like we’re going to get the perspective of people like Black Lightning and the other characters mentioned here, how they view the world, how events like the different Crises affect them, etc.  Interestingly enough, I had the copy of the Previews from when this was originally offered easily accessible, so I took it out and took a look at it.  I believe this was the first book that was going to be a Black Label book, but I’m not positive.  You know what issue of Previews it was in?  #362!  Almost two years later, and this is going to still be bimonthly!  I guess instead of the original multiple artists (of whom only Alex Dos Diaz was named in the original DC Previews 7, although the cover of Previews 362 listed him as Alex Dos Santos, and unfortunately I’m too dumb to know which is right), they’re using Camuncoli and Cucchi for the whole book.  But the other fascinating thing is that other than changing the text about who the illustrator will be, the solicit text is EXACTLY the same as from 2 years ago.  So wtf held this up for so long? In the interview with Ridley, he thanks Camuncoli for his hard work for 2 1/2 years, which suggests that he was the artist intended from around when the book was announced (in January 2018, according to the interview), but the first issue was originally intended to come out about a year after that, and no mention of Camuncoli in the original solicit text for #1 back in #362.  The original was going to be 5 issues of 64 pages at $8 a pop, while this is now 5 issues of 48 pages at $7 a pop, btw.  OK, I’m done talking about that now.  Suffice to say I’m interested in seeing the trade of this someday.

Your explanation makes more sense, but I just wasn’t sure from the solicit text. And wasn’t this supposed to be part of the “5G” fiasco, and once DiDio started wandering onto thin ice, DC might have decided to kibosh it, but now they figured “Let’s get the geld, yo!” That wouldn’t completely explain the delay, but I thought that might have something to do with it.

I think that might play into it, but Ridley is also (I believe) writing a book where Luke Fox (Batwing) is going to be Batman, which was also supposed to be part of the 5G stuff, but will actually be coming, from what I understand, so who knows what is going on with this.  It still amazes me that the solicit text is the same except for detailing who the artist is.

In re: the Punchline special, given all the love that people have for Harley Quinn, and love for the Harley/Joker pairing that seems to be in the mainstream, is it really that odd that a teenage girl could be “radicalized” to the Joker’s viewpoint?  Oh, wait, years of shitty writing have made the Joker a super-psycho who kills by the hundreds and no one ever takes him down. Maybe if he wasn’t such a really pale white dude, the cops would be able to recognize him as a threat. (Oh snap!)

Oh god, Ghost-Maker is another character that knew Bruce Wayne when they were both teenagers?  Didn’t Hush suck enough?  Ahhhh, no it didn’t, because he’s back in a Tales of the Dark Multiverse book!

Well, I mean, Bruce probably knew quite a few people when he was a teenager. It’s only natural that some of them would turn out to be crazy vigilantes and/or villains. I graduated with about 630 people and I know for a fact that at least of a dozen of them are costumed vigilantes and another dozen have overthrown at least one government. So there, smarty-pants!

… damn, you right.

Even though it’s dumb sounding (the whole event, that is), I do have to say I dig Burnham’s cover for the Multiverse Who Laughs.  Scary pets!

Dark Nights: Death Metal Infinite Hours Exxxtreme! needs, I think, at least one more “x” in the title. Come on, DC! And I like the cover, but man, dudes should not wear big skulls on their crotch. It’s definitely a fashion don’t.

Sir, there are THREE skulls on that man’s crotch!  I want to see the Rafael Grampa Lobo on the variant cover, because that’s got to look cool!

Oh, dear, I didn’t notice the two other skulls. So did DC Editorial say, “You can’t have a penis and testicles on a cover, but a super-obvious penis-and-testicles substitute? Yeah, we’ll allow that.” Because that large skull flanked by two smaller skulls is … well, it’s something, all right.

I’m not sure if I liked Sweet Tooth enough overall to be that interested in the Return series.  I’ll probably read the trade at some point, though.

I could not get into Sweet Tooth, so I’ll skip this.

I see the Authority trade (of the Ellis/Hitch run) includes a story from Wildstorm: A Celebration of 25 Years, so did that book actually ever come out?

Beats me. I can barely find my car keys, and you want me to remember something like that?

On the same page is The Amazing World of Superman, reprinting a tabloid size book from 1973 with Superman’s origin and a bunch of other stories.  I might get this because it sounds neat.  Also, big poster map of Krypton!

Unless they get Chip Zdarsky to do one of his “How to Draw ____” features, I don’t want to see that “How to Draw Superman” bit.

DC Through the ‘80s: The End of Eras is an odd collection, with a bunch of pre-Crisis superhero stuff as well as war stuff and the weird anthology stuff.  And then it goes and includes what it claims to be the full text of Beardy Alan Moore’s Twilight (of the Superheroes) proposal, which is decidedly post-Crisis, no?  Anyway, it’s a weird book but it might be good someday to read.

I’m not sure if it’s post-Crisis or Crisis-adjacent. I could be wrong, though. I often am.

From what I understand, the proposal was written in about ‘87, after Watchmen and Moore didn’t want them to do it because of what happened with the rights to that, so I think it would have to be post-Crisis.

Man, that Super Friends: Saturday Morning Comics HC 2 looks like a lot of fun, but it’s $70.  Too spendy for me!

All right, let’s get to the tree-killing part, like real ‘Muricans!

Well, give me a second to rant.  I haven’t been able to get to the comic shop yet since this issue came out, which is part of why this is so late, but Burgas was nice enough to give me the digital redemption code from his catalog.  However, Previews sucks ass.  After I “redeemed” the code on the Previews site, I got an email from Joomag, which I guess is a digital magazine subscription site, and looked at that, but when that didn’t seem to give me everything I downloaded the Previews app. With both I get the first 18 pages of the catalog and then I get told I need to log in further on Joomag, which I don’t have an account for and am not going to bother to get one for, and on the Previews app, it also wouldn’t let me see more of the catalog without signing in or purchasing.  Why is there a code to access the catalog digitally if you won’t let people access the catalog digitally once they use it?  So anyway, I’m going by the online catalog and the order form, which lists everything by the page number.  It’s entirely possible I’ll miss something cool or fun to talk about, but such is life!  Also, they don’t seem to be on the order form, but the DC listings are online on the Previews site, where they weren’t the last couple months.

DC: Trying to kill their own comics since 2004!

But seriously, did I miss some news and now we can order DC stuff from Previews again?

I don’t know. I just put everything on one order sheet and my retailer takes care of the rest!

Image:

It’s the solicits!

Much like Witchblade #1, Image is offering a Darkness #1, but I’m actually kind of intrigued by The Complete Darkness on page 42. It’s a lot of junk for 30 bucks, but when Garth Ennis wrote Medieval Spawn, it wasn’t good, exactly, but it was something unusual, so why wouldn’t this be? I’ll have to think about it.

That is tempting.  My favorite bit of trivia regarding Darkness is that Mike Patton did voice work for the video game versions of it.

I did not know that. That’s hilarious (and he has a great, rangey voice, so it’s not surprising).

There’s a track on Fantomas’s Suspended Animation where he’s basically just grunting something like “ee-ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ee-ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ooh-ah” and it’s amazing.

I’ll probably get The Ludocrats trade on page 43, because it’s Kieron Gillen and it looks fun. I do love that when I was re-reading The Wicked + The Divine, Gillen was talking about this in 2015 and 2016, but with a different artist, so it must have taken a while to find a new one. Just another reminder that comics can take a long time from inception to fruition.

Yeah, it sounded fun, so I’ll probably get it.  That’s interesting about the different artist and how it can delay a book, given what we were talking about with the Other History of the DCU. Somehow my retailer missed getting me a copy of WicDiv 43, and I didn’t notice right away, so at some point I’ve got to order that from an online retailer or something to be able to finish reading that series and then read your post.

Shameless plug: Go read it if you haven’t yet!

On page 45, Mirka Andolfo’s Mercy is … resolicited? Right? I can’t be bothered to check. Maybe I just remember saying I’ll wait for the trade, and now here we are. Anyway, the solicit mentions that there’s a woman arriving in a town in Washington, near the Canadian border, during the Klondike Gold Rush. Except … the Klondike Gold Rush was a Yukon thing, and soon after, sort of an Alaska thing. It wasn’t a Washington thing. So why mention it? That’s like saying, “During the Spanish-American War, a young man arrives in Calcutta and eats a kumquat.” So did Andolfo just not know that the state of Washington didn’t have too much to do with the gold rush (I mean, plenty of Seattleites went north, but that doesn’t seem to be the thing here), or will the gold rush have something to do with it. I needs ta know!!!!!

I don’t think the trade was solicited yet.  I think the gold rush bit is just an awkward way of letting us know the time period?

Dark Horse:

Check out the solicits here!

Yeah, nothing really jumped out at me either.  Sure, there’s a new Resident Alien book, but I’m so far behind it’s not even funny.

Lemme ‘splain. When I write these, I list the publisher before I even look at their offerings, and then I go through it. If I find nothing to really highlight, I simply move on and leave it for Travis, and then come back if I want to make comments about what he wrote. This time even he didn’t have anything to highlight in Dark Horse! I’ll probably order one or two things, but nothing that needs to get mentioned here. Moving on!

IDW:

You can find the solicits here!

Locke & Key/Sandman: Hell & Gone is offered on page 103. I guess this is fine – it has Roderick Burgess and the Corinthian – but it seems very much for Locke & Key fans and not necessarily Sandman fans. I could be wrong. Nice Williams III cover, though.

Yeah, you’ve really got to be careful not to step on what Gaiman and company did.

Maybe Full Bleed on page 117 would have been more successful if it had actually been quarterly instead of taking several years to put out 4 issues?

Rob Liefeld’s G.I. Joe comic solicits its final issue on page 119. I guess a few days ago some guy named Adam Levine (not the Maroon 5 guy) tweeted a “list” of people he wished had died instead of Chadwick Boseman and there was only one person on the list: Liefeld. He was predictably dunked on, and some people defended him (making a list of one item is not terribly funny, but some found humor in it – I will always – ALWAYS – laugh at the “That’s the SECOND biggest [fill in the blank] I’ve ever seen!” joke, so what the hell do I know of humor?), but why Liefeld? I mean, these days Trump seems like the most likely candidate, or Biden if you’re a Trump Cultist, but what the hell did Liefeld ever do to anyone? I’ve only had a very brief interaction with Liefeld in my life, but he seems perfectly nice. That he has unleashed so many terrible comics on the world and is presumably rich doesn’t really bother me, because I can, you know, ignore that. Levine didn’t really apologize, either, which is also fine with me – if he doesn’t feel bad about it, don’t apologize, but don’t whine about any financial consequences that come your way. I just don’t know why anyone in 2020 would be mad at Liefeld. I can think of a few million people I’d rather die before either Boseman or Liefeld, but even then, I really don’t want anyone to die. Life’s too fucking short to wish death on anyone. [/End soapbox rant.]

Even the EXXXXtreme comics trend didn’t affect every comic in the ‘90s, and Liefeld wasn’t the sole proprietor of that sort of style anyway.  Plus, some of his stuff is fun in a “omg this is bad” way.  Also, you’re doing a bad job if you share your name with the Maroon 5 guy and he’s not the worst person with that name!

Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey are back with another history book, this time The Comic Book History of Animation on page 133. These guys have quite the cottage industry going with these comics, and they’re always awesome, so it’s neat they’re doing another one.

Marvel:

Take a look at the solicits!

I love how Wolverine: Black, White & Blood on page 2 (which, yes, looks awesome and which I’m stunned took Marvel this long to get around to) is “parental advisory” and they can’t show Wolvie’s claws going through the dude’s head in the preview, but you know there’s not going to be any nudity. Yes, I’m always going to bang the drum for nudity as long as “parental advisory” means only that they can show more gore. IF YOU CAN SHOW MORE GORE THAN YOU CAN SHOW SAUSAGES AND VEGGIES! But yes, I will be getting the trade of this, because of the aforementioned awesomeness.

Yeah, when I heard about this, I thought it sounded pretty cool.  And I too am for more nekkidness if you’re also showing gore.

How badly did the solicit writers on page 9 want to write: “Two Swords. Two Cups. Two Girls. One Cup.”? Because I bet it was very badly.

Oh you naughty boy! [Friendly edit: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, DO NOT GOOGLE IT!!!!! I’m not joking. I’m still scarred.] [I wonder if you can google and find the skit from the first episode of Inside Amy Schumer without finding the original.]

I’m somewhat intrigued by the new Eternals on page 18, since Gillen is always interesting.  But holy fuck, that’s a lot of variant covers!

THIRTY-SEVEN variant covers! Boy, it’s a good thing it’s not the 1990s anymore, right? And it’s a good thing we’re not in the middle of something that has cost a lot of people their source of disposable income so they can spend all the money on these covers? MARVEL KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING!!!!!

On pages 64 and 65 are the True Believers reprints for this month, tying into the King in Black Venom stuff, but … are some of these reprints just because the characters are named Black-something?

That would be amazing. “Black Cherry Yogurt #24! You remember it so well!”

Mmm, Black Cherry Yogurt …

Now that he’s gone from DC, Bob Harras is going to have to live off the royalties from the Avengers: Gathering omnibus on page 85.

Soooooo … he’ll be moving into a box under the overpass?

You’re not going to comment on the Marvel Masterworks of Dazzler, volume 2, on page 88?  Sir!

Nah. As much as I love Dazzler, $75 is a bit dear for these. They’re still good comics, but that’s a bit cray-cray.

Page 91 has a Marvel Portfolio of Peach Momoko, and my goodness, this artist is EVERYWHERE!  It’s neat looking stuff, but I swear the name has been printed in the last few issues of Previews about 1000 times!

The Spider-Woman trade is on page 97. I liked the first issue, so I’ll probably pick this up and check it out.

Juan Ferreyra’s Spider-Man Noir trade shows up on page 102. This has looked soooooo good, so of course I’m getting it!

I’m interested, but I wonder how much of it hinges on the prior minis of this character.

Who gives a swut? IT’S JUAN FERREYRA!!!!!!

I’m considering the Marvels X trade on page 105, although it was probably the least interesting of the Marvels spinoffs/celebrations that Marvel has been doing lately.  And what happened to that new Busiek book, too?

I’m sure it’s been COVIDelayed!

Some of the Star Wars comics that John Ostrander and Jan Duursema did for Dark Horse are collected on page 114. I’ve read some of them, and they’re quite good, so I might pick this up.

Dynamite:

The solicits are here!

I get that fetishes are awesome and everyone has something that they love and that’s all cool, but the “old lady Vampirella” cover on page 143 is kind of weirding me out. Grandma, put some clothes on, please!

The Gunduz cover, you mean?  I think it’s funny that you can’t get that one with a “virgin” cover!

Yeah, but that dude has three (3) umlauts in his name. I’m so jelly.

I thought The Boys: Dear Becky was only 6 issues, but issue 7 is on page 154.  Huh.

I’m sure it’s because of artistic integrity and not because Ennis wants more money thanks to the television show doing so well!

Let’s take a look at the back of the book!

On page 199 is The Cimmerian HC 1 from Ablaze, with new adaptions of the REH stories “Queen of the Black Coast” and “Red Nails”, along with the original short stories.  I’ve never actually read the original Conan stories, so I’m thinking about getting this nice package.

“Red Nails” was decent. Once again, I love how these are “uncensored” comics, but there hasn’t been any nudity yet. These people jump and twist around while wearing loin clothes! There’s going to be some nudity!!!!!

Unless Page 200’s “complete” Grumpy Cat comics collection includes the Garfield crossover, it is not complete, sirs!  Gee, why did Dynamite let this one get away?

Dave Sim is always at it, and on page 201 we find Spider-Whore One-Shot, with a charming solicit. “Full title … ‘Spider-Whore Dishes the Dirt on Feminism!” “Cerebus is still the Alpha Plus Male Feminist of the Western World but Spider-Whore is fighting back! WHY? Because that’s what everyone does in super-hero comic books! Fighting back! Doesn’t matter ‘against what?’! Fighting back is fighting back! Fighting is good! Fighting back is even better!” Oh, Dave, don’t ever change. Oh, wait, you never change, and that’s why the world has passed you by and you’re an afterthought in comics anymore. “Hey, whatever happened to that guy who did the aardvark barbarian comic? Is he still alive or did Adam Levine wish he were dead?” Sigh.

Sigh is right.  I’m a fan, but I usually find it hard to “justify” my fandom of Dave and Cerebus.  Suffice to say that Cerebus from Aardvark-Vanaheim is some of the best looking, best laid out, best lettered, most fascinating comics around, and check out Church and State volume 2 on the same page for some proof.  I also plan on reviewing the “fundraiser” edition of the Strange Death of Alex Raymond soon, and somewhere down the line I’ll look at all these Cerebus in Hell? one shots.

Also on 201 is the Marvel Mini Comic books box set collection, which reproduces the “smallest comics ever,” but at a readable size and with a seventh book about the collectibles.  Couldn’t they just have reprinted the books all in one volume if they were so damn small?

Terry Moore has a “complete” graphic novel on page 204 called Ever: The Way Out, about a 17-year-old who’s the subject of a prophecy by an angel and why that freaks her out. I like Moore, so I’ll probably pick this up.

I love that he keeps trucking along after all these years and creates new stuff regularly.

Apparently I missed when Action Lab first offered the second volume of Double Jumpers, because it’s offered again on page 208 (according to the order form, at least).  I probably had to make a hard decision about cutting stuff.  Hopefully it makes my list this time, because the first volume was good.  Although Action Lab has been cancelling a bunch of stuff lately, but I guess this one is already out.

AfterShock has Kaiju $core on page 210, which, frankly, sounds awesome. It’s a heist movie in a Godzilla movie, and I’m just wondering if the thieves planned the heist so the monster attack would distract everyone or if it just happened. I’ve read exactly one thing by the writer, but it was pretty good, so I’m intrigued.

I don’t think I’ve read anything by the writer, but the artist Rem Broo did the quite good mini The End Times of Bram and Ben, so I’m in for the trade of this.

Mark Sable isn’t a bad writer, and on page 212 he has Miskatonic, which is about a series of bombings in Miskatonic Valley that leads J. Edgar Hoover to send in FBI agent Miranda Keller (I’m sure there will be a reason why she’s a woman, as women were not FBI agents until years after this takes place) to figure out what’s what. Of course, she finds Lovecraftian horror. This sounds keen, though, so I’ll probably give it a whirl.

I’m unclear when this does take place, though.  It mentions prior bombings from the 1920s, but I’m not sure it’s clear how many years prior to this story that those bombings took place.  But since Hoover is still head, it’s no later than the early ‘70s.

The clothing seems to imply the 1920s or 1930s.

Ah, that’s true.

AfterShock also has the trade of Undone By Blood (page 218), a strange revenge story by Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, and Sami Kivela, all of whom are good creators, so I’ll pick this up.

It’s weird to me that they’re listing this as not having a volume number (again, at least on the order form, but also the online listing), because I swear they just released news that this series is continuing.  They’ll slap “volume 1” on books that obviously have no intention of continuing, but this one that is going to have more doesn’t have a volume number on it.  /End rant.

It’s listed as “volume 1” in the actual catalog, so there’s that.

Well, that’s better at least.

On page 222 we find Happy Hour from Ahoy, in which Peter Milligan brings us a story of a future America where being happy is the law. I’m confident this will be good because Milligan, but that premise is kind of silly. We shall see.

I already plan to get all the Ahoy singles, so I’m in anyway, but while the premise is silly, I have confidence that Milligan will pull it off well.

American Mythology gets around to collecting Starring Sonya Devereaux, a satire of B-movies. I think you got this, but I imagine you haven’t read it yet. Anyway, it’s been a while, so I’m glad a trade is in the offing, even though this can’t be very good, can it? I’m sure it will be fun, though.

You’re good, man!  I do have these (unless I’m missing one of the four issues), but I haven’t read them.  I think I have them all gathered up, so maybe I’ll get to read them before the final order deadline and offer a review (hahaha!).  Since it probably collects the variant covers and has a new intro, I might consider this trade on page 227 anyway.

Andrews McMeel has Dbury@50, a digital collection of the complete Doonesbury comic strip, which has always been one that I like.  That’s awfully spendy for a USB drive, but I suppose you do get a shit load of satire!

Antarctic Press has a couple of neat things on page 231.  The Gold Digger remastered omnibus volume 1 features over 20 issues of the comic, now in color, and if I ever get around to reading some of that stuff, maybe I can see if it’s worth it.  And I thought there was a book called Punchline, so I’m wondering how DC missed that when they created their shitty new villain?  Oh, wait, they probably figured they could just bully small Antarctic into not suing or anything.  Jerks.

I reviewed volume 1 of Punchline here, if anyone is interested. I’m friends with the writer on Facebook, and he hasn’t mentioned anything about DC coming after them, so maybe they’ll just ignore it. We shall see.

I have volume 1 but didn’t read it, but I did read the FCBD reprint of #1 … last year?  The year before?

Atlantic Monthly Press has Wild Minds by Reid Mitenbuler, about the early days of animation and bios of the creators.  I guess because I’m so immersed in comics, I take issue with the notion that Winsor McCay is largely forgotten today, but maybe this book on page 232 will be interesting otherwise?

Yeah, that’s kind of annoying. McCay is probably more remembered today than he was, say 50 years ago. The internet rules, man!

Avery Hill has a couple on page 232 that might be worth checking out. Breakwater by Katriona Chapman sounds like a typical romance, but Chapman is a solid artist and it could be nifty. The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott is about an artist who’s getting her first exhibition just as she’s going blind. Zoe Thorogood is quite a good artist, and this sounds pretty keen.

Yeah, those do sound good.

On page 248, Caliber has a neat sounding trade with Everything Will Be Okay, about every end of the world scenario happening at once, and how a brother and sister have to navigate the disasters.

That does sound pretty good.

Chapterhouse returns, as does Captain Canuck, on page 250.  There’s a trade of “season 4”, which dealt with an alien invasion (and I’m not sure all of the story was ever in print before), while the new #1 for “season 5” has a new Captain on the scene.  Uh, spoilers for volume 4, I guess.  What surprised me most is seeing Ho Che Anderson writing a superhero comic.  Whodathunk?

Dude needs to eat, yo! And boy, wouldn’t it be nice if their books actually, you know, came out?

Yeah, their scheduling was so off after the first few years they were putting out stuff.  It’s probably because of that weird Canadian money!

On page 257, Drawn & Quarterly has their usual fare of high-brow stuff, including City of Belgium, about three people who arrive at a popular restaurant on the same night. I can’t tell if they know each other, but it seems unlikely. Anyway, Brecht Evens is a fascinating artist, but I don’t know if this is going to be a completely wordless story or something more comicky. It’s hard to tell.

I’ve heard of The Eternaut 1969, and now Fantagraphics has it on page 260, which is nice. I loved The Eternaut (it stumbled a bit at the end, but for the first 90% or so, it was amazing), and I knew there was a different version, so it’s nice that it’s coming out in English.

What kind of marketing didn’t include resoliciting the original version here as a companion?

Yeah, it’s pretty stupid. Even small comics companies are bad at this sort of thing!

I’m digging the Complete Hate box set on the same page.  I really like Peter Bagge’s stuff and Hate is the concentrated stuff.  I have the second volume in a B&W trade, so this would be a step up, but it’s quite spendy.  Maybe it’ll be on my Christmas wish list!

Yeah, if I liked Peter Bagge, this would be a cool purchase.

The Hero Initiative has another of their art books to support creators in need on page 271, this one being the Batman 100 Project, and with all the great creators listed, yes, I will be getting this.

Humanoids has a couple of good ones on page 273.  Madwoman of the Sacred Heart is collected, a Moebius/Jodorowsky collab that was serialized in Dark Horse Presents back in the day, and is a very weird, sexual thing about a Professor who knocks up a student and she believes the baby will be a new religious leader.  There’s also Milo Manara Definitive Collection, which I guess are his more erotic comics?  Wasn’t Dark Horse and/or Fantagraphics reprinting his work for the States?

Dark Horse was, but they finished that a while ago. Maybe they couldn’t get the rights to everything? I’ll get the latter one, but I already own Madwoman, so I’ll skip that.

Legendary has the trade of Annihilator by Grant “I tried to change my name to Weird Shit, but they wouldn’t let me” Morrison and Frazer Irving on page 276. I got this in singles quite some time ago, so I wonder why the trade was delayed for so long. It’s a pretty good story, and anytime you get to see Frazer Irving’s art, you should take it!

The HC came out in August 2015, and I actually read it!  I’m guessing there’s some movie or TV adaptation in the works, then?  Otherwise I’m not sure why this would be coming out now.

Mad Cave Studios has Pantomime on page 277, a new book from Christopher Sebela about deaf kids at a boarding school for special needs kids who decide that they’re going to turn to crime.  Like you do, I guess.

Yeah, it will probably be good, but the premise is goofy. They just decide to become criminals? I mean, kids are stupid, but not that stupid.

Presumably there’s some reason, like the corporation they’re stealing from is trying to shut down the school.  I could see that as a workable reason.

On page 278, Magnetic offers Paris 2119, about a dude who rejects technology and the trouble that gets him into. It sounds pretty good, and Dominique Bertail is a terrific artist, so there’s that.

Huh, the solicit text online doesn’t get into that, it just talks about how teleportation has changed things.  Cool looking cover.

That’s funny – maybe they didn’t have enough room to go past the teleportation angle?

Moonstone has, on page 280, the neat Black Bat and Domino Lady — Danger: Coast to Coast trade, collecting a 3 issue Guns of the Black Bat story as well as 100 pages of new comics, including a super duper Golden Age/pulp team up.  I’ll probably give this a look.

Also on 280 is Moordam Comics, with Hully Gee It’s the Yellow Kid #1, and I trust Chris Yambar (I’ve read some of his stuff before) to do a decent job with a comic celebrating the “original” comic strip character.  The book is sealed and may contain all sorts of neat little add-ins, so that’s kinda cool.

Normally I wouldn’t mention a Tick reprint from New England Comics, but on page 281, they’re reprinting the Karma Tornado series, and that has early work by Chris McCullough, aka Jackson Publick, aka co-creator of the recently cancelled Venture Bros.!  Noooo!  Fuck you to hell, 2020!!!!  (I was going to link to the story, but c’mon, you can just look it up and cry yourselves to sleep like I’ve been doing.)

I’ve never watched The Venture Bros. and have no interest in it. In 2020, if I’m crying myself to sleep (I’m not), I’m doing it because the Feeble Tyrant might steal the election, not because some cartoon won’t be on anymore. /Buzzkill

We can cry ourselves to sleep over many things, sir!  There’s not only one source of bad news!

I was about to say “in better news”, but I see that the tenth volume of Bad Machinery from Oni on page 293 is the final volume.  Awww.  Now I’m re-bummed out!

How do you function with all these meaningless things bumming you out so much?

Aw, you think I function!

Rebellion/2000AD has their usual batch of awesome on pages 298-299.  There’s war comics with Death Squad.  Spy stuff with The John Steel Files.  Holmesian detectives with The Return of Sexton Blake.  Post-apocalyptic sci-fi with Strontium Dog, which I love.  There’s also the trade of Faceache, which I might get to reviewing before the order deadline, but no promises!

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!!! Oh, I needed a good laugh. Sorry, you were talking about writing something for the blog? Do go on.

Hey, I put up a couple short posts recently.

Scout has a bunch of neat stuff on pages 301-303.  Frank at Home on the Farm #1 is about a man who returns home after WWI to find that his family is missing from the farm, and he must journey to find them. The Perhapanauts return to comics with First Blood, so that’s cool.  Gutt Ghost and Stabbity Bunny cross over in a one shot.  There’s the Scout Comics Cover Gallery Coloring Book, which presumably has a bunch of B&W covers, as well as debuting some new series.The Recount sounds a little scary, with a group who assassinated the president going after everyone who put him into office, meaning the voters.  Hope that’s not prescient! The Electric Black: Cursed Edition reprints the first two issues at magazine size.  And reoffered is the Island of Misfit Toys GN, which I got for someone last year and was actually a pretty good story.

On page 306 from Six Foot Press is Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great (x5)-Granddaughter.  Who has the same power to heal monsters as the Frankenstein writer.  So the monsters start bugging her, as does everything and everyone else in this teen girl’s life.  C’est la vie!

Source Point Press has some good stuff on pages 306-307.  Black of Heart is about a serial killing taxi driver in NYC 1949, and the detective (and of course boozehound) on his trail.  This kind of thing has been done before, but Dial P … for Peanuts sounds neat, where a mysterious stranger gathers together the grown up kids from the Peanuts comic strip, in a seemingly noir or gothic setting.  I’ll probably get Horror Double Feature 2, as the first one shot was decent enough.  Mother is a one shot set in the world of The Runner (am I supposed to know what that is?), but it sounds neat, about a mother trying to protect her daughter in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic world.

T Pub has a new Twisted Dark volume on page 310. Neil Gibson, who writes these, wants to do 18 volumes (I think), and this is the seventh, but first in “season 2,” and apparently it’s easy to jump right in. The first “season” (yuck) was quite good, so this should be too.

Hmm, since this is a jumping on point, perhaps I’ll be able to jump on here.

Muhammad Ali, Kinshasha 1974 is a new graphic novel from Titan on page 315 that incorporates rare photographs to create a vision of the “Rumble in the Jungle” between Ali and George Foreman (poor Foreman doesn’t get to be in the title). This looks very neat, and if you get it, you should read it and then watch When We Were Kings, the documentary about this fight, which is superb.

Page 321 and TwoMorrows give us Back Issue 124, creepy heroes, including Man-Thing, the Creeper, and the Atlas/Seaboard characters.  Damn you, TwoMorrows, for always tempting me with cool stuff, he says facetiously.  Bring it on!

That can’t possibly be right on page 322 from Uncivilized Books.  The set of Craig Thompson’s new series Ginseng Roots 1-6 as well as a mini comic and sticker for just $6?  (I just checked the Previews site for their Product Changes, which is where any mistakes like this are usually listed, and while I didn’t find anything about this, I did see that Marvel Tales: Hellstrom, is now titled Hellstrom: Marvel Tales, and the Hellstrom trade got cancelled and uncancelled from one week to the next.)

It has to be $6 each, because #7 is also $6 by itself. But it’s weird. Which woman will Thompson fetishize in this comic?!?!?!?

I assume that it’s $6 each myself, but that’s not how it’s listed, man!

Vault has good stuff as well.  I haven’t read Fearscape yet, but on page 330 is A Dark Interlude, an apparent sequel to that.  And on page 334 is I Walk With Monsters, by Paul Cornell and Sally Cantirino, about a woman who hunts down men who prey on the defenseless, and the monsters in her own past.

Flip it!

M-48 has Funko’s Infamous Iron Man Funko POP is pretty cool looking, especially with the glow in the dark eyes and features.  I’ll have to let my old work pal who liked that series (and is a big Doom fan) know about that one.

I guess that’s about it.  That was hard trying to figure out what to comment about just from the online listings!  I used to do that some ages ago, and look before the catalog came out but after the online listings were posted.  It’s hard, and was usually a waste of time!  Next month I hope will be better!

Thanks for reading, everyone! Remember: Monopolies are our friend, so make sure you check out Previews for all your comics shopping needs! Comics that aren’t distributed through Previews are obviously figments of your imagination!