Because why wouldn't IDW cross over the Transformers with Angry Birds? Previews #312 shows just how logical that is!!!!



Dark Horse:

Full solicits here, in case you want to follow along. Why have I never done that before? BECAUSE I'M JUST THAT STUPID, PEOPLE!

Fred van Lente was pimping his latest comic, Resurrectionists, at the Phoenix Con in June, and it shows up on page 34. The main character is able to inhabit his past lives (presumably with full knowledge of his current one) and the hijinks that ensue because of this ability. Van Lente rarely disappoints, and the art looks pretty neat, so I'll probably pick this one up. (12 November)



I never read Buzzkill, which was "critically acclaimed," according to page 36, but Ghost Fleet, about "the world's most elite combat-trained truckers," sounds pretty neat. Yes, Jason Statham could have told the protagonist that you never look in the package, but what are you going to do? Without idiotic curious people, 90% of the world's plots wouldn't work. (5 November)

Art Baltazar and Franco show up on page 47 with Itty Bitty Comics: The Mask. They've made quite a nice little cottage industry with the juvenile versions of these various characters. Good for them! (12 November)



I checked out the issues of Eye of Newt, and it looked pretty neat. Now Dark Horse has a hardcover for 18 dollars on page 57. Fantasy Forever!!! (21 January)

Grindhouse is back on page 65 with an issue drawn by R.M. Guéra, which should be pretty keen. I'm glad this is doing well for Alex de Campi - I'm torn about getting it, because it's 4 bucks a pop and I might just wait for the trade, but we'll see. (12 November)



DC:

Full solicitations here.

So there's Wonder Woman on page 78 with her new "superstar creative team." How do they decide that? I don't think even David Finch would describe his wife as a superstar writer, even if he thinks she's the greatest writer ever. Not for the first time, I would love to write solicits for DC or Marvel. "The new creative team for Wonder Woman, with a writer most people have never heard of and an artist who might draw five consecutive issues if we chain him to the drawing table and don't let him take bathroom breaks!" People would buy a comic described that way! (19 November)

Gotham by Midnight by Ray Fawkes and Ben Templesmith on page 79: Dang, DC is making it hard for me to trade-wait their books. This could be absolutely awesome. (26 November)



Juan Ferreyra drew what appears to be a cigarette in Constantine's mouth for issue #19's cover (page 89). Is that subtle "screw you" to DC's policy of non-smoking for everyone's favorite grumpy Englishman? (12 November)



So, Teen Titans #4 (page 97) claims that "a major villain is revealed." Um, let's hope it's not, you know, Ladytron:



DC reprints the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga from the 1960s on page 119. I have no idea if this is any good or not, but of course I'm getting it! (It is, in fact, 15 dollars for 352 pages, so it's almost criminal not to buy it!) (3 December)

Batman '66: The Lost Episode (page 123) features a Two-Face story by Harlan Ellison, a script by Len Wein, and art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. Yeah, I'll be getting that. (19 November)

You know, of all the stuff DC hasn't collected yet, I wonder why they would choose to put out Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday on page 133. I'm really, really, really racking my brain about this. If only I could figure it out!!!! (10 December)

The second Spectre trade is on page 135. As with the first one, you should really get this if you haven't read the series. (17 December)

Speaking of page 135, Twilight, by Howard Chaykin and the aforementioned Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, shows up there too. Is this worth a look? I've never read it. (24 December)

I doubt if I'll get The Kitchen, which is a crime drama set in 1970s New York, but I might get a trade if it gets good reviews. It just sounds a bit too familiar, even if the protagonists are women, not men. But Ming Doyle is drawing it, so good for her! (19 November)

I'm not sure when the old edition of Enigma came out, but there's a new edition on page 140, and you really ought to check it out. Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo do stunning work on it. (3 December)

The Royals: Masters of War gets a trade on page 144. I was waiting for the trade, and now I have to ask if anyone read this and if it was any good? It sounds interesting, but I'm curious. (10 December)

IDW:

Full solicitations here.

Speaking of Angry Birds/Transformers, there it is on page 159. Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! This is happening, people!!!!



If you've been waiting for the trade of Winterworld, as I have, it shows up on page 171. It's only four issues, but it's priced to move at $9.99. I don't know if it's any good, but the original was, so why wouldn't this be?

On page 184, the latest Kill Shakespeare trade shows up for 20 dollars, which is a bit more than getting the single issues, but there you have it. I really like Kill Shakespeare, and I wonder how many stories the creators have in them. I'll keep buying them, though!

Weird Love #4 is offered on page 185. You really ought to treat yourself to at least one of these issues. In this one, it appears there's a story about not shaving and a girl who's too fat to "frug." Get your minds out of the gutters, people - I assume it means the dance from the 1960s. Still, these stories are wild.



On page 187, IDW and Yoe Books present another cool collection, Ditko's Shorts, which unfortunately is not a photo album of the Grumpy Master sitting around in cut-off trousers drinking mojitos. It's a bunch of 1-, 2-, and 3-page stories by Ditko, so they should be pretty danged neat.

Image:

Full solicitations here.

I've lost some faith in Matt Fraction over the past year or so, and it seems like Christian Ward is a slow artist (an extremely good one, to be sure, but his comics seem to be very, very late, and I don't know if it's him or the writers), so I'm not so sure about Ody-C, which shows up on page 192. I'm fairly confident it will be ... good, and I know it will look great, but I'm wondering if I should wait until the trade, given that it seems like Fraction is in it for the long haul. (26 November)

Kurt Busiek has a new book on page 196 called Tooth & Claw, which sounds pretty good - a conclave of wizards finds a legendary champion to save the world, and things go horribly wrong, as they do. Busiek, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, is quite good at sword and sorcery stuff, and artist Ben Dewey is good, so this should be a nice comic. (5 November)



You know, I'm not terribly interested in Sinergy, in which a girl's first sexual experience allows her to see inter-dimensional monsters who feed on energy emitted by sin (hence the punny name of the comic), but wouldn't it be nice if we stopped equating sex with sin, especially for girls? I mean, really? Couldn't she commit an actual crime or, I don't know, vote Republican, and that triggers her power? (19 November)

Ray Fawkes just keeps dropping weird shit on us, as Intersect #1 shows up on page 208. The description is vague, but the painted art is beautiful, and Fawkes usually writes some very weird stuff, so I'll have to give this a look. (19 November)



Wow, Savage Dragon hits issue #200 (page 210). Good for Erik Larsen! (12 November)

On page 213, there's a Madman In Your Face 3D Special! I've never been a huge fan of Madman, for some reason, but this sounds kind of neat if you're into it. It features "The World's Biggest Comic Book Panel," for instance. Not sure how that works, but that's what they promise! (26 November)

Sina Grace told me and my daughter about Penny Dora and the Wishing Box (page 214) back in January, and it shows up here. It's about a Pandora story, basically. It sounds pretty neat. (5 November)



Brandon Graham's version of Prophet begins its wrap-up on page 215 with "Earth War." Won't that be fun! (12 November) (Speaking of which, I totally dug a Stephen Platt issue of Prophet out of the cheap bins the other day. I doubt if I'll even feature Platt this year, but I simply could not resist!!!!)

In the kerfuffle over the Manara cover, I actually saw someone compare it to the cover of Saga Book One on page 217. I really could not tell if they were doing it tongue in cheek, because they seemed so serious. I'd like to think they were joking, but you can never tell. (19 November)



The Bounce gets a full trade of all 12 issues on page 219 for 20 thin dollars. It's pretty good, and the price point makes it much more enticing. I don't know if it ever quite hit what Casey wanted, but it's still a nice read. (19 November)

On page 223, the first trade of The Wicked + The Divine is offered for 10 dollars (it collects 5 issues). I know I'm in the bag for Gillen and McKelvie, but this series is phenomenal so far. Go buy this!!!! (12 November)

Marvel:

Full solicits here.

Okay, so the solicits for All-New X-Factor #16 (page 10) tell us that Gambit takes off his shirt. I chuckled. (5 November)

There's a Howard the Duck Omnibus on page 89 for 100 bucks. Marvel already offered this, right? Well, if you missed it last time, get it this time! (29 October)



All right, we got that out of the way. Now it's time for ... the back of the book!

Action Lab offers Fight Like A Girl (page 250), in which a girl has to fight (imagine that!) through nine trials thrown up by nine gods to save her terminally-ill brother. Sounds neat.

Boom! Studios/Archaia:

Full solicits here. Be forewarned: It's Newsarama!!!!!

Justin Jordan, who's getting more work these days, shows up on page 283 with Deep State, which is about some dude who has to take care of the many black ops the government runs when they go horribly wrong. It sounds interesting.



I'll probably pick up Hit volume 1, which shows up on page 284. It's noir, man! I digs me some noir!

The Protocol: Orphans trade is offered on page 287. This was a pretty good series, although it felt like it should have been maybe one issue longer, as Michael Alan Nelson didn't get much of a chance to delve into the characters enough. But it's still a fun read, and Mariano Navarro's art is nice.

The Free Comic Book Day Mouse Guard stories are collected in a hardcover with two new stories in Baldwin the Brave and Other Tales (page 291), which I will be buying like the sucker I am (I already own the FCBD stories, but I want the two new ones!). Mouse Guard is awesome, so I don't feel too bad about it!



On page 302, we get two potentially interesting graphic novels from Caliber. First, we get Storyville: The Prostitute Murders, which takes place in New Orleans in the early 1900s, and then we have Strange Detective Mysteries, in which H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Nikola Tesla (ugh), Harry Houdini, and Bat Masterson are gathered in 1902 to solve the murder of Edgar Allan Poe, which might be difficult given that he died decades before. Caliber usually has interesting stuff, and these both sound neat.

I don't know if Silver from Dark Planet (page 306) is any good and I'm kind of sick of vampires, but it still sounds intriguing, as it's about a 1930s con man who steals silver from the "living-dead" (why do vampires need silver?) and eventually brings together a group of people for a big heist. I don't know why vampires are crucial to the story, but it still sounds neat.

Dynamite:

So for years now, Dynamite has been publishing all sorts of John Carter comics. I must have missed when they stopped, because they're relaunching on as John Carter, Warlord of Mars (instead of Warlord of Mars, because that could have been any old warlord!) on page 311. Ron Marz is writing it, so at least you know where you stand on the writer, and I don't know the artist, Abhishek Malsuni, but the art isn't bad in that "Dynamite house style" kind of way. (5 November)



Greg Hatcher has been really digging The Black Bat, and there's an omnibus on page 319, collecting 12 issues for 30 bucks, which ain't bad. I don't know if it's any good, but you can trust Hatcher, can't you? (26 November)

Speaking of Greg Hatcher, he's a big fan of Lynda Barry (actually, so is Our Dread Lord and Master), and Drawn & Quarterly has a smorgasbord of Barry stuff on pages 333-334, including Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor, which is her advice to writers. I'm not the hugest fan of Barry's work, but if you are, you can go nuts ordering her work from Previews this month!

On page 346, Humanoids has Foligatto, which is about a carnival in a dying town and is the first work by Nicolas de Crecy, who's quite good. As usual with Humanoids books, it's spendy (25 dollars for 64 pages), but it might be something to check out!

Oni Press:

The Life After volume 1 is solicited on page 355. This is for release in January, so fair enough, but only two issues have come out, so maybe Oni wants to let people get a better sense of what's going on before soliciting a trade? I mean, that just seems really early. Anyway, it's 10 bucks for 5 issues, so maybe they think people don't care and will pick it up based on the price alone! (28 January)

Cullen Bunn is going a bit nuts these days, as he has yet another comic coming out on page 356: Terrible Lizard, in which a Tyrannosaurus Rex is pulled forward from the past and imprints on a teenage girl, leading to hijinks. But there's other prehistoric monsters attacking the world, and what's going on? Bunn is a good writer, so this might be worth a look! (5 November)



I'm not sure if Stickleback: The Number of the Beast (Rebellion/2000AD on page 369) is a sequel to the original or the original and more stories in a brand new package. I liked the original trade, but I don't want to buy it again. It seems from the solicitation that it's a sequel, but I'll have to check it out.

Red Giant Entertainment offers Banzai Girl: By Dreams Betrayed, which ought to be called The Ridiculous Adventures of Banzai Girl. If you've never seen Jinky Coronado's creation, you really should give it a peek. It's not good by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still something to see. If you're at all interested, there it is on page 370.

On page 382, Th3rd World Studios offers Thanatos Diver by Nick Tapalansky and Alex Eckman-Lawn. It's an all-ages adventure about a young woman who lives on an island on a watery world and the mystery she uncovers. Tapalansky and Eckman-Lawn collaborated on Awakening, which was a very moody and odd quasi-zombie story, so I'm curious to see how they do on something that seems the complete opposite of that.

Titan has Captain Stone on page 391, which is a six-issue mini-series. It's about the world's only superhero and his sudden disappearance after he made a prediction that the world was in dire danger. It's co-written and drawn by Liam Sharp, and I, for one, just don't get to see enough Liam Sharp art, so I'll probably be on board with this.



Van Jensen is an interesting writer, and on page 394 he gives us The Leg (from Top Shelf), which is about ... well, it's about the disembodied leg of General Santa Anna rising from the grave to save Mexico. Yeah. You know I'm totally down with it!!!

Peter Milligan and Cary Nord are doing a three-issue Eternal Warrior mini-series for Valiant on page 400. That might be worth a look, as both creators are, you know, good. (5 November)

Well, that's about it for this month. As always, chime in with stuff I missed, and don't forget to ask your retailer if he (or she) will give you Previews for free so you can pre-order a bunch of comics you normally wouldn't get! That's why we're here, isn't it? Have a nice day, everyone!