Swamp Thing in Star Wars? What the heck?!?!? It's all in Previews #298, where you can find so many goodies it's almost not fair!
Mike Mayhew is doing the interior art on The Star Wars #1, the mini-series based on Lucas's original rough draft (page 30). Man, I wish I could be a gaziollinaire so that people would do comics adaptation of my rough drafts. I mean, when I was in third grade I wrote and illustrated a story called "The Insect Murder" in which a private investigator called Phoenix (who looks like a phoenix) solves a murder that involves a cockroach and a horseshoe crab. THAT WOULD SELL LIKE GANGBUSTERS!!!!!! But I'm not George Lucas, so no one cares. I'm going to go cry now. Wait, what am I talking about? (4 September)
Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman have been doing good comics together for a while now, so I'm keen to get the trade of Star Wars: Legacy II Book 1 - Prisoner of the Floating World (phew!) (page 34). I honestly don't even care what it's about, because I'm sure it will be full of adventure, and it will look great. (20 November)
I probably won't buy The Fifth Beatle, which comes to us from Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson, and Kyle Baker (page 35), because I'm just not all that interested in the Beatles, but I'm sure it will be a nice book, especially the fancy hardcover that Dark Horse is offering. They're also offering a softcover, which is nice of them! (19 November)
Dark Horse offers The Colossal Conan hardcover on page 39, which gives us the first 50 issues of the recent series for $150. That's not bad, and these are almost uniformly good comics. Kurt Busiek and Timothy Truman wrote them, Cary Nord and Tomás Giorello (for the most part) drew them, and it's pretty darned cool. As always with giant collections (this is 1264!!!!! pages), I worry about the binding, but as far as the quality of the stuff inside - that's beyond a doubt! (13 November)
For $25, you can get a hardcover of Violent Cases by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean on page 42. It's probably been over 15 years since I've read this, but it's pretty good. I'm not sure if it's worth that much coin, but it's not a bad comic. (13 November)
I'm torn about Kiss Me, Satan #1 on page 44. I've probably read one or two Victor Gischler comics in my life, and that was probably by accident, and the description - the boss of the New Orleans werewolf Mafia wants a witch dead, but she's protected by a demon looking for redemption - doesn't sound too great. On the other hand, Juan Ferreyra draws this. As you know, Juan Ferreyra is one of the best artists in comics right now, and I love to look at his work. Man, this is annoying. (18 September)
B.P.R.D.: Vampire gets a trade on page 47. I haven't seen much about this, but Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are the artists, so it's bound to be at least decent. (27 November)
I've been waiting for some digital comics to get printed on good old American paper, so I'm very, VERY keen that Bandette volume 1 shows up on page 60. I've been hearing how awesome this is since it launched, so I'm looking forward to actually reading it!!!! (6 November)
On the same page, Sabertooth Swordsman is offered. It sounds silly - the bad guy is called Mastedon Mathematician - but Chris Sims recently posted some pages over at Comics Alliance, and it looks gorgeous. I might have to check this out. (13 November)
If you've ever wanted to see Alex Ross's first professional work, Dark Horse has The Terminator: The Burning Earth in trade on page 63. I'm not sure if this is worth it, even though I like Ross. Has anyone read it? (13 November)
I don't really care if DC wants to suspend their regular publications this month for the "Forever Evil" thing - I'm not a retailer, so Brian Hibbs's problems about ordering the books don't mean much to me, although I can see why it would be annoying to him. But it does seem kind of weird, the way they're labeling them. If you've been reading Dial H, there's a coda to the story called Justice League #23.3: Dial E (page 76). That's bizarre. Are all of them one-shots, or do they tie into the regular series, even obliquely? They're switching creative teams around a lot, which seems to imply that they're just one-shots (John Layman, the regular writer on Detective, is writing Batman: The Dark Knight #23.3: Clayface, for instance). Some of the descriptions seem to imply that they're tied into the regular books, but who knows. It's very weird. Bully for DC for doing this (honestly, I don't care, but they know what they're doing, I guess), but it seems like a lot of the DCnU stuff - they had an intriguing idea but didn't really think it out too well before they decided to launch it. And I wonder if this is a sneaky way to increase the prices on some of their titles - "We'll raise the price to $3.99, and then only drop it back down for some of the books!" We shall see.
DC offers Superman: A Celebration of 75 Years and Lois Lane: A Celebration of 75 Years on page 120. I'm not getting either of these, but I love what seems to be the utter randomness of the selections. I'm sure there WAS a method to DC's madness, but it appears they just put a bunch of numbers in a hat and pulled them out - "Superman #53! Sure, why not?" Also, I like to think that the price discrepancy - the Superman book is 40 bucks, while the Lois one is 28 bucks - is a comment by DC about the disparity between what women earn in the workplace compared to men, as Lois's book is about 70% of the price of Superman's, but I don't think DC is that subtle. That would be pretty awesome, though, wouldn't it? (27 November)
Batman: Odyssey gets a trade on page 126. 368 pages of Neal Adams insanity for 20 bucks. Man, that is tempting, even as insane as this comic is. I'd want to read it just to see the train wreck! (2 October)
On page 127, JSA Liberty Files: The Whistling Skull is in trade. I liked the first two installments of this alternate world, and B. Clay Moore is a good writer, so I'm on board with this! (30 October)
It's a bit weird that DC would collect John Ostrander's Deadshot mini-series (along with two other issues in which he fights Batman), considering how much has changed since it came out, but it's still kind of cool. This is an incredibly bleak series and isn't quite as good as Suicide Squad, of which it's kind of a spin-off, but it's not bad. (30 October)
Man, I'm really tempted to get Vertigo Visions: Frank Quitely on page 138. I own a few of the stories contained within, but there's a lot I don't have, and I'm sure they're pretty cool. It's 25 dollars, but I still might get it. (13 November)
I don't know if I'm going to get Black Dynamite (page 153), but I love that it exists in this universe.
Kill Shakespeare: The Tide of Blood gets a trade on page 173. This hasn't finished yet, but so far, it's been a worthy successor to the first series.
I think Matt Fraction has been hanging out with Howard Chaykin (or possibly Nicholson Baker?) a bit too much, as on page 178 we get Sex Criminals, about two people who can stop time when they're having sex, so they go out and rob banks while time is stopped. I'm not sure about this one. It's Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, so it has a good pedigree, but I'm still not sure. We shall see. (4 September)
Rat Queens on page 182 does not sound like my cup of tea at all ("Let's make fun of hipsters" doesn't sound like something you should base a series on), but it's drawn by Roc Upchurch, which might be the greatest name in history. (25 September)
You can get a trade of Lost Vegas on page 195. This is another series that hasn't quite finished yet, but it's pretty fun. And it looks great, so there's that. (18 September)
So, what is Infinity about, anyway? I'm just wondering, because it's been kind of vague.
Infinity: The Hunt #1 (page 16) has a nice creative team - Matt Kindt and Steven Sanders - but the solicitation is weird. "This CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS pits the super students of school all over the Marvel U (including some you've never seen before) against each other." Doesn't Marvel publish an ongoing that does exactly that? Or has Avengers Arena moved on from that conceit? I can't keep up! (11 September)
I love this cover, with Kang just chillaxin' and shit (page 23; 25 September):
Spider-Man 2099 shows up in Superior Spider-Man #17 (page 32) because "YOU (LOUDLY) DEMANDED IT!" Where is this place where we can loudly demand things of Marvel and they listen, and why doesn't anyone listen to me when I loudly demand something? I really need to know these things. (4 September)
On page 87, Marvel offers Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus volume 2, which is 1224 pages for $125. I already own most of this, so I'll probably skip this, but I wanted to note it as one of our famed commenters has been asking about it for years. Are you happy now, Tom???? (4 December)
So after Marvel releases the first trade of Brian Wood's Ultimate X-Men run, which doesn't actually collect his first issues on the title, they get around to releasing a trade of his first 6 issues, which is part of a big crossover called Ultimate Comics Divided We Fall, United We Stand (page 101). That makes a ton of sense, Marvel! (25 September)
Oh, the back of the book! So much fun back there!
I'm extremely disturbed by Afterlife With Archie (page 246), in which Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla seemingly kill off the Archie Gang. That's just weird.
Jonathan Hickman joins the Avatar bunch with God Is Dead on page 255. Apparently all the gods of various pantheons are coming back to Earth, and they're pissed. I might check this out, because Hickman is a good writer, but the actual idea doesn't thrill me.
Boom! has a special edition of Dingo on page 274. This is a pretty good comic, and for 15 bucks, it's a pretty good price.
Jeff Smith has Rasl in full color on page 280, and I will be picking this up. I bought a few issues of Rasl but didn't keep up because it was taking forever to come out, but I'm sure it reads well as a complete volume. It's 472 pages for 40 dollars, which is not bad at all.
Jeff Parker writes Kings Watch for Dynamite on page 282. This stars The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the Magician fighting evil. I'm not sure if I'm going to get this, but Parker's so good I might be swayed! (11 September)
On page 289, Dynamite offers The Shadow 1941: Hitler's Astrologer HC 25th Anniversary Edition, which is the book by Denny O'Neil and Michael Kaluta. This is 20 bucks for only 64 pages, but I'm really thinking about getting this, because I just don't have enough Kaluta comics in my collection. I'm sure Greg Hatcher can offer his opinions about the quality of this comic!
Gene Luen Yang has two new books out from First Second, with Boxers and Saints, two parallel stories about the Boxer Rebellion in China. Yang is a superb creator, and I'm really looking forward to both of these books.
Graphix has The Lost Boy by Greg Ruth on page 314. Man, a new Greg Ruth book is awesome news. It sounds good, too - a creepy mystery about a missing boy and the kids who try to find what happened to him. I'm very keen to read this sucker.
On page 324, Oni offers A Boy and a Girl by Jamie S. Rich and Natalie Nourigat. It's a twist on a traditional love story, as it take place in a future where androids are replacing humans (but what happens to the humans?), and Rich writes good love stories and Nourigat is a good artist. It works for me!
Rebetiko from SelfMadeHero is about a Greek dictator in 1936 trying to stamp out Turkish influences in his country, which includes the music of the title, which blends Greek and Turkish ideas. I'm a sucker for historical fiction, and this sounds pretty cool!
Eternal Warrior returns to Valiant on page 346. It's by Greg Pak and Trevor Hairsine, so it will probably be pretty good. As usual with Valiant stuff, I'm waiting for the trade!
That's all for this month's trek through the catalog. Of course, I'm sure I missed some things, but that's why you need to ask for this by name from your retailer! Have fun checking it out, and remember to pre-order the comics you love so you don't miss them!