For comics and various sundry items that will appear in your LCS in June.
1. Black mask Comics warning for shop owners amused me,"Comic shops: Expect new customers looking for this." It was for some new series about vigilantes who I guess kill people who torture animals.
2. I also noticed they gave Darick Robertson top-billing on the comic he is on. Pretty rare you see the artist get that.
3. Dark Horse did an interesting thing of splashing the creators names across the top of the page on their solicits.
4. Looks like a really nice collection of Ditko's Creepy work.
5. Even with a poster (which should just be a bonus really) $5 for a 32 page comic! DC is high...that is for Superman Unchained
6. I really could not care less about Pandora and anything she has to in the DC Universe.
7. I am gonna give Robert Venditti's GL a shot.
8. Tempted about the Neal Adams Batman vol. 3, yet I can't get the 2nd one for half price at Amazon.
9. New Astro City! There was much rejoicing!
10. A new X-Files series that continues the TV series. I like this (not really recent) trend of continuing television series as a comic book.
11. Greg Rucka is a fan of Samoa cookies. I knew I liked him.
12. Andy Diggle on a Thief of Thieves arc should be fun.
13. I am stoked to see Lee Weeks on art again.
14. Kind of cool that Marvel is doing a She-Hulk and a Rogue young adult novel.
Replies
In no particular order…
DC: I’ve decided to drop World’s Finest based on the solicitation for #13: no George Perez, no Kevin Maguire. Paul Levitz is fine, but I was buying this series for the art. I see DC will soon be soon be launching a new Superman/Batman title by Jae Lee. I plan to give that one a try. I really feel I should read something by DC, but I feel completely disassociated from the New 52.
EC: Each month I see the offerings of EC collections dwindle. They started pushing these again when Russ Cochran and Grant Geissman’s LLC picked up the line. It’s been more than a year since the one-and-only volume from that publisher shipped. I sent an e-mail a while ago inquiring about the status of the project, but it went unanswered.
Al Feldstein: The Mad Life and Fantastic Art of Al Feldstein looks interesting, but I’m veering away from the text-heavy career retrospectives in favor of the collections of the comics themselves.
Marvel UK Hulk: I am possibly more excited about this book than I am about anything else this month. The Hulk was my very first favorite character, but I’m not interested in the direction Marvel has taken the character… oh, for at least a decade now. It would be impossible (or at least highly unlikely) for modern creators to recapture the feel of “my” Hulk, but these are “undiscovered” gems by top British talent actually from that era. I don’t often read the solicitations posted on this board (I prefer a paper catalog), but this time I did, and consequently now have to wait that much longer!
Steve Ditko: This is a good month for Ditko fans! Not only will Fantagraphics release the fourth volume in the “Ditko Archives” series, but Dark Horse will release a collection of his work for Warren’s Creepy.
DC Archives are $75 now!? I like the Silver Age Teen Titans, but…
IDW Artist’s Edition: Mark Schultz’ Xenozoic Tales? Drooool…
Superman Dailies: Publishers seem to have learned to lead with their strongest material first, rather than adhering to a strict chronological order. Because another publisher already released three years’ worth of Golden Age material, I’m convinced this is the way to start (for that reason, and also because DC itself has been very stingy about releasing Silver Age Superman in archive format).
Craig Yoe Books: I am enthusiastic about any collection editied by Yoe, and about his horror anthologies in particular. The latest volume in the line, the fourth, is dedicated to the work of Jack Cole.
Archie Dailies: Here’s another example of a publisher deviating from strict chronological order (Fantagraphics does this, too, with its Carl Barks Library series) in order to lead with its strongest material. There has already been one volume of Archie dailies which started at the beginning. It was very good, I thought, but rather than following it up with another from the ‘40s, Dark Horse has decided to jump ahead to the ‘60s, reportedly Bob Montana’s strongest period. (They have a Gasoline Alley series starting with the Dick Moores years, too.) I am looking forward to comparing and contrasting the two volumes.
Other Strips (Hermes Press): In addition to Superman and Archie, this catalog also solicits new volumes of Buck Rogers and The Phantom.
Creeping Death from Neptune: One of my favorite releases from last year (I nominated it for a “Cappie”) was the collection of Basil Wolverton’s Spacehawk. This collection offers some Spacehawk (how much?), plus “Brain Bats of Venus,” “Escape to Death” and “Robot Woman.” This is one I’ll have to see first. If it’s all of Spacehawk with only three stories I don’t have, it’s not worth it (to me).
This looked interesting as well, but it is something I can definitely wait on.
I did the math about a year ago. While they are more expensive, the ones I checked had more material in them. The price per page ended up being just about the same. I have no idea if it holds true here.