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Upfront: PREVIEWS REVIEW
Welcome to the May Previews Review for items shipping in July
of 2001! I'm your host, PopImage Editor In Chief Christopher Butcher! Returning
this month after being locked in a small-ish cage for consistent lateness
with his half of the column is our own Publisher, Scott J. Grunewald. Scott,
anything to say about your newfound freedom?
Yeah Chris, and who had their half finished first this month?
Oh Scottie, will you never learn? At any rate, all of Scottie's comments
are italicized, while all of mine are not. Just to keep things straight.
PopImage's PREVIEWS REVIEW is a monthly feature that dissects Diamond
Comics Distributors' PREVIEWS magazine. The column is a companion to the
magazine, and we strongly suggest you pick up a copy from your local comic
retailer and read along with us.
We do the PREVIEWS REVIEW because we want to stress the importance of
pre-ordering your comics from your retailer. Pre-ordering comics is a very
important part of the comics industry at the moment, and not doing so is
making sure that small press and independent comic creators fail. Comic
retailers cannot afford to take risks, so they do what they've been doing
for years, buy the guaranteed sales and ignore the smaller, usually more
important works. For more information visit http://www.orderingcomics.com!
On that note, on to the review!
YOU NEED TO OWN THIS. We are all blessed with THE INVISIBLES, we are lucky that the series has graced comics and now you have the chance to own it. Not only that, it's the long, long, long-awaited conclusion to Volume 1. ENTROPY is the third of three trade paperbacks collecting Volume 1 of THE INVISIBLES, which means that come July, you'll be able to buy, and read, every Invisibles story from the beginning of Volume 1 through the end of Volume 2, with one massive trade paperback collecting Volume 3 coming (hopefully) this winter. You must own this. Easily my pick of the month. 232 pages of Grant Morrison INVISIBLES goodness. Yum! Finally, DC got its head out of its ass and finished re-printing the landmark first series. About fucking time is right.
I've been looking forward to this book for a year now. If you missed the first Little Red Hot book a few years back, then you missed one of the coolest comic debuts ever. Chane was the wife of the Devil himself, but she left him, and now she's on the run. How will the secrets of her life help two rookie bounty hunters find a runaway child? Buy this book! I really, surprisingly, liked the first LITTLE RED HOT series. I had heard a lot of smack talked about LRH because of it's heavy Frank Miller DARK KNIGHT references, but to be honest for a debut offering it was extremely strong, and I'd rather any number of good Miller riffs than any number of bad Miller riffs. One of the early, overlooked gems of Image's failed "non-line", now in colour with some brilliant art. And if that glowing recommendation doesn't convince you, keep an
eye out for a PopPreview of LRH: BOUND coming in a few weeks.
Dark Horse's MAVERICK collections are usually a great big bunch of greatness,
with some of the best folks doing creator owned work in the industry contributing.
This time around is no different, and I'm personally looking forward to
the brand new Matt Wagner Hunter Rose GRENDEL mini-series. Laura Dupuy
colours a HELLBOY pinup on the back, and it's got new stories by... all of
the folks listed above. Really, for five bucks you can't go wrong.
Oh, these are just too cool for school. Remember those old comic ads for cheap send away toys like x-ray specs? Well, Dark Horse has made a kick ass magnet set out of some of the classics. X-ray Specs, Joy Buzzer, Secret Spy Scope, Whoopee Cushion, Trick Black Soap, Onion Gum, Surprise Package and Worms! Ugh. Fucking UGH. I can't believe you made fun on MY useless nostaliga fetish with the SUPERFRIENDS trade paperback a few months ago, and you're recommending these. I think I'll bypass this particular blatent cash grab. You wanted a book with Wendy and Marvin, two of the evilest creations ever to tarnish the good name of Saturday morning cartoons. I still say I've got the better taste here, Sparky. Maybe if your wish is to be as trendy as possible. You probably shop
at Banana Republic as well.
Novelist Greg Rucka has been the coolest thing to happen to Batman since the plastic nipples. Greg's strong dialogue and quick pacing brought Bats back to his core, good old-fashioned crime stories. EVOLUTION collects DETECTIVE COMICS #743-750, the first post-No Man's Land stories. If you've never read a Batman book or it's been a while, this is a good place to jump onboard. Ennnnnnnnhhh... You can do better than that Chris. The current Batman teams are blowing me away. Don't let Christopher's bad attitude keep you from trying them out. I still say enh.
When Grant Morrison was announced as the new writer of DC's flagship title staring the big seven, people scoffed until they read it. Morrison had taken what had once been stale and revolutionized the way we looked at the core DC heroes. When he said he was going to leave and that Mark Waid was his replacement, more people scoffed. Well this is the story that shut them up. Waid came onto the book with a vengeance, turning the JLA inside out, giving the book a different (But no less cinematic) feel. The Tower of Babel also collects various stories from the JLA Secret Files #3 and the JLA 80-Page Giant. I was thoroughly uninspired by this story. I am not shut up. The book
under Morrison was larger than life. This story, like much of Waid's work,
was about making these Gods more human, and fallible. Which, in the end,
isn't what I want to read JLA for. That's why all of these characters (most,
anyway) have solo books. So, I'd say let your JLA collections culminate
with WORLD WAR III and EARTH 2, and let that be the final word on the series
until someone with Morrison's epic vision returns.
From the Diamond solicitation copy: "The first in a series of stand-alone one-shots introduces Wayne Washington, a black man framed for armed robbery. Consumed with thoughts of revenge against those who framed him, Wayne is freed from prison with a powerful physique and a bold new purpose... a purpose he acts out as a masked wrestler called Batman." Uhmm... This is either going to be really cool, or really monumentally bad. I'm kind of afraid. Be afraid. Does anyone really remember what Stan Lee wrote like? WRITES
like? RAVAGE 2099 folks. And did anyone like anything at stanleemedia.com
besides the creepy bondage-Stan? Congratulations to DC for garnering a
spectacular ammount of hype around what is nearly sure to be a monumentally
terrible series. Or perhaps I'm being cynical. Or perhaps not.
Um, I'm really not interested in this series. I found the original confusing and annoying, and this one, acting as a bizzare AUTHORITY spin-off... Anyway. The shining light, for me, is Eric Canete. Eric Canete is the brilliant, with beautiful artwork and a strong sense of design and storytelling. Eric's work is great, and I hope that Harris can live up to it. Harris did the short lived, but much loved SLINGERS series that was
spun off of one of Marvels many Spider-induced cashgrabs (Shall we got
for a record and see how many times we can say "cashgrab" during this column?).
I was never a fan of the book, but it had a strong fan base that seemed
to contain a lot of non-scary comic readers. I might try this based on
high opinion of his work there, and of course the truly talented Canete.
Attention editors: Give this guy some goddamn work!
WILDCATS: SERIAL BOXES TP
Joe Casey continues his heavy hitting run on Wildstorm's core superhero title, and I'll tell ya, I'm still not sure why it's still being called a superhero book. Joe Casey's writing is smart, suspenseful and brutal, and it's matched perfectly by Sean Phillips fantastic artwork. If you are not reading this book then shame on you! Actually, I thought the story had great build up and a terrible pay-off, but you still beat me to recommending it. Do you know why? Because of the cover. This is, perhaps, one of the nicest covers I've seen on a trade paperback. It's cool but it's still a comic book. Life is good, that they make these this pretty. Sean Phillips can sling a mean illustration can't he?
Yay! The first, to my knowledge, professional comics work by Aman Chaudhary! Aman did a cover that ran on the toolbar of PopImage for about 5 months, and was goregeous. Aman is the artist of former PopImage staffer and attractive brit Antony Johnston's FRIGHTENING CURVES, coming in August. Aman is incredibly fucking talented, and if you buy this book for no other reason, buy it to own some beautiful artwork. And if you're not already buying Double Image you're missing out
on what's turning into a really cool little book.
Fuck you. It's incredibly pretty. Soooo pretty. And it comes in a shiny-covered version. I am weak. Yeah, 'weak' is pretty much the word I was thinking of...
I'm not sure how to feel about this book. On one hand, I'm intrigued over the premise, and Bendis' involvement in the book, but on the other I'm kind of upset about Marvel once again going back on their promise to leave Elektra alone. No, I'm not surprised that Marvel is going back on its word, just annoyed. I just don't know if I can buy the book, even for Bendis (Who's bitch I totally am) because the fact is, an editorial promise was made to Frank Miller, and it's now being broken. Sure, different editors made the promise at a different time in the company, but that shouldn't matter. Yeah, here I am, expecting a company to have morals... Well, maybe it's time that we all expected it. Incredibly unfortunate. But thankfully, it's a wonderful symbol out there for creators at the "New Marvel": MARVEL WILL FUCK YOU UP THE ASS. I guess it's just a matter of knowing whether or not to lube up, but it's going to happen one day, no matter who makes the promises. I just don't see why it is so hard for the current regime to respect Miller's desire to have Elektra left alone. Now if they were to seek out Miller's approval [and not just "make him aware of the series"], kind of how DC gets Gaiman's okay before it does another book with the Endless I could see myself buying the book... But as it is now, it just leaves too dirty a taste in my mouth. Actually, funny you should bring up DC and the Endless. This month they're
doing three new Endless action figures (Daniel, Desire, and Delierium),
plus they're hawking the hot-topic exclusive Sandman Prayer Candles and
Sandman T-Shirts. I bet Marvel wishes it had a property like that it could
so thoroughly and continuously rape the corpse of. Say it with me folks,
CASHGRAB!
When was the last time you saw a Marvel annual produced by top name talent? I remember way back in the day, when annuals were a cool way to tell longer stories that couldn't fit in the regular book. They always had top-notch talent, and the titles regular writer almost always either wrote it themselves, or was involved in it's creation. But somehow, somewhere, the Marvel Annual turned into a second string operation that often times ignored or downright contradicted events that were happening in the current book. Now I don't have a problem with Marvel testing out new talent, but make sure they, ahem, have talent. I hope the release of this annual is the start of a new trend. Actually, it is. For you see it is the start... of MARVELSCOPE! "Introducing Marvelscope, the format that truly delivers that 'widescreen' feel by creating a stapled spine not on this 48-page Annual's vertical side, but on it's horizontal top! So when you fold it open, you're going to get some huge panels, people!" Huge. Panels. On the one hand, this sounds incredibly stupid. On the other, it's the incredibly talented Francis Lenil Yu, drawing a story by Grant Morrison. That's Marvel, for me these days. An interesting book, the purchasing of which would make me feel incredibly dirty for any number of reasons. Any number. MarvelScope... God, are they trying to make themselves look like goofs? Whether they try or not is irrelevant. On many fronts they are succeeding
though.
"Beyond The Music: Dazzler!" by Jill Thompson! Oh come on, who can resist that??? By Jill Thompson and Will Pfeifer, the team responsible for the excellent FINALS mini-series from Vertigo. I mean, pure pop perfection, offset by Mike fucking Deodato doing a story. Do you see? DO YOU? DIRTY! I'm thinking scissors and some tape will be all the tools I'll need
to excise the good stuff from the bad stuff.
Dean Haspiel is the shit. He's smart, he's incredibly nice and humoured his way through a conversation with me even though I was so fucking tired that I don't remember events and actions that were later ascribed to me, and he makes some great fucking comics. BOY IN MY POCKET was my first Haspiel, and as much as I liked the lead Billy Dogma story, the Volcano Girl backup was even better. The smoking crack & Kung Fu story from EXPO 2000 was also much goodness. I mean, all around, Dean Haspiel is fantastic. You totally owe it to yourself to buy this. I've dug deal since BOY IN MY POCKET: A BILLY DOGMA EXPERIENCE, and
I'm a real sucker for autobiographical comics. This new book also sports
an introduction by Harvey Pekar.
You know what? Andi Watson is incredibly talented. I recently re-read his mini-series, BREAKFAST AFTER NOON for Oni, and I was amazed at what a clever, multi-layered and engrossing story it was. Compelling, though it was just about two different people muddling their way through life and romance. He tells great stories. SLOW NEWS DAY, which is about a sleepy town's newspaper being shook up by a shiek new reporter "with a past" from New York City. Sounds... classic. Best way to say it. Buy Andi's comics and read and enjoy them, and pass them along to your girlfriend or your mom. Does Oni pay you by the plug? But yeah, I agree, Andi is the shiznit. No comment.
HOW TO DRAW MANGA COMPILATION-LOOSELEAF VERSION & BINDER
A collection of the first four issues of Antarctic Press' HOW TO DRAW MANGA comics, in two formats. The first is a tradition trade paperback, no great shakes. The second though is as 128 unbound, loose-leaf sheets pre-punched for insertion into any standard three-ring binder. This is a fantastic idea, and as an artist I always wish I could get my reference books to stay flat without having to destroy the spine on them. Kudos to Antarctic. As little as my interest in buying these books is, I will give them a thumbs up for that clever idea. Some people just don't want to learn to draw manga, I guess ;).
Expo 2001 is one of the best deals in comics. 352 pages of comics from
creators around the globe, spanning a multitude of styles and genres, a
mix of talented professionals and talented newcomers in one very slick
package. I've poured over the last two anthologies at least 5 times, each
time discovering a subtle nuance to a strip I had enjoyed or coming across
a work I hadn't read the first time around. Although the quality on some
of the strips varies quite wildly, it's all an important look into the
unique idea of comics. If I had only one criticism of the volumes, it's
that it doesn't really look at what Asia has to offer in terms of "independent"
comics. Viz Comics has undertaken great steps to remedy this with their
magazine anthology PULP and the SECRET COMICS JAPAN project really showcasing
the extrordinary diversity of the Japanese underground comics market. But
with so much more work availible, not to mention the booming comics publishing
going on in Korea, China, and Hong Kong, the EXPO series as an example
of worldwide comics talent could be instrumental in bringing notice to
some somewhat neglected comics from around the world. Still, EXPO 2001
is more than worth the price of admission.
I really dug the last OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS book and am delighted (Did I just say delighted?) that there is a follow-up. Comic fans, too say the least, can be an odd little bunch, and I'd imagine that the last book only scratched the surface of the funny fan encounter stories out there. A great idea with some fantastic contributions for a great cause. This issue features the horror-stories of comic creators like Brian Bendis, Matt Wagner, David Mack, Walt Simonson, Joe Kelly, and quite a few more. The first issue was hilarious. I expect more of the same. Yes, and just in case you have yet to do it, go to www.cbldf.org
and give them money do they can fight for your right to party.
I met Lloyd Dangle at this year's Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco,
and really dig his work. TROUBLETOWN is the name of is off the wall, semi-autobiographical
and totally farcical look at current events and popular culture. It's funny
and always biting, and should be a must read for anyone who digs political
humor (Although it strays from politics more often than not) Read this
book!
I don't know anything about this other than what the solicitation copy told me. It's a story about a Jewish baseball team from the 1920's that touches on manipulation, sports and anti-Semitism. It sounded interesting, so I'm giving it a try. D&Q has a reputation for some pretty high-quality work, so this
might be as interesting as it sounds. I've learned it's the third in a
series of self-contained stories, set in the 1880's-1920's of America.
Really interesting sounding stuff.
I've said it before, and I will keep saying it until the day I die. Stray Bullets is a great book, and these BEAUTIFUL hard covers are the best way to read it. These are simply the nicest hard covers on the market today. If you're not reading Stray Bullets, you need to be beaten with a hard copy of Dave Sim's Tangent. Agreed, STRAY BULLETS is fantastic. With the over-sized HC finally making
an appearance, I'm going to put out a strong recommendation. The book is
huge, reading it is an all-new experience. STRAY BULLETS was the precursor,
in many ways, to the overwhelming popularity of the great crime fiction
in comics today. This book collects issues 15 through 22 of the regular
STRAY BULLETS series.
THIEVES & KINGS is a very good series. This issue marks the beginning
of the fifth volume of the series (meaning the long, long-awaited T&K
VOLUME 4 TPB: THE BOOK OF SHADOWS may be solicited soon), and should act
as a great juping on point to the series. T&K is unique fantasy fiction,
in the tradition of folks like HAYAO MIYAZAKI. If you've never read the
series before, pick up this issue.
I love these little 6x9 collections that Oni does. They make the perfect books to carry around in a backpack. But even better is the story by Andi Watson who knows how to tell a killer yarn. As I mentioned earlier in the SLOW NEWS DAY paragraph, this series was
really really good. It comes highly recommended, really.
This is another great benefit book, with all proceeds going to suport the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which is a fantastic cause. Filled with talented contributors, this book is most notable to readers of PopImage for a brand new, 8 page story by BOONDOGGLE creator Steve Stegelin! This is the first of several new projects from Steve, and if you're one of the many folks who read BOONDOGGLE each month, then you really ought to pick up a copy. Yes, this is shameless promotion for a good friend of mine, but it's good comics too, so really, it all rationalizes out in the end. Just buy it already... If we made money from Steve's comics, you could almost say that it was a shameless "cashgrab" couldn't you? Seriously though, this book has some amazing talent on it, and is for a wonderful cause. Luckily, however, we don't. We just love Steve. Oodles of Steve.
We love Jill Thompson, and especially her Scary Godmother books and WILD ABOUT HARRY is her first trade paperback. We can only hope that this is the start of a wonderful trend. I'm happy to see this tpb released! I'm hoping next up is a collection
that reprints all of the great Scary Godmother single issues. Scary Godmother
is full of creepy goodness. Buy it! And if you want to know more about
Scary Godmother, and get a preview of the stuff in this trade paperback,
head on over to http://www.popimage.com/feb00/profile/sgpreview.shtml.
PISTOLWHIP GN
Be on the look out for some previews of MEPHISTO and PISTOLWHIP in
the next few weeks on PopImage. You're going to be hearing a lot about
of Jason Hall and Matt Kindt in the coming months, mark my words.In the
meantime, head on over to their site at http://www.topshelfcomix.com.
Um, I don't particularly LIKE ELFQUEST , what with never having read
it, but this is the first new ELFQUEST material in nearly 2 years, and
marks the beginning of a series of new stories. I would be remiss in my
Previews Reviewing duties if I didn't take a second to point this out.
Now I have, and I can go and wash until I feel clean again.
That's it for this month! Sure is a great month for comics! It sure is... This is an exciting time to be a comic reader. Marvel is going to start publishing at least 12 trades a month, Warren Ellis' dream of producing his Pop Comics seems to be coming true, what with the announcement of two new projects (With Tony Harris and Cully Hammner), and the whole phenomena that is The Invisibles will soon be available in easy to use trade paperbacks for cerebral ingestion. Praise Jebus. Well, again, we want to remind you to pre-order your comics! Until next month... - Christopher Butcher, EIC
|
THE
INVISIBLES: ENTROPY IN THE U.K. TP
LITTLE
RED HOT: BOUND #1
DARK
HORSE MAVERICK 2001
TREASURE
CHEST OF FUN MAGNET SET
BATMAN:
EVOLUTION TP
JLA:
TOWER OF BABEL TP
JUST
IMAGINE... STAN LEE WITH JOE KUBERT CREATING BATMAN
CYBERNARY
2.0 #1
DOUBLE
IMAGE #5
WARLANDS:
AGE OF ICE #1
ELEKTRA
#1
NEW
X-MEN 2001 ANNUAL
X-MEN
UNLIMITED #32
OPPOSABLE
THUMBS VOLUME 1
SLOW
NEWS DAY #1
HOW
TO DRAW MANGA COMPILATION TP ANTARCTIC PRESS
EXPO
2001 ANTHOLOGY
OCCUPATIONAL
HAZARDS #2
TROUBLETOWN
#7 MANIFESTOS AND STUFF
THE
GOLEM'S MIGHTY SWING
STRAY
BULLETS VOLUME 3: OTHER PEOPLE HC
THIEVES
& KINGS #36
BREAKFAST
AFTER NOON TP
INDEPENDENT
VOICES #3
SCARY
GODMOTHER: WILD ABOUT HARRY TP
MEPHISTO
AND THE EMPTY BOX
WOLFSHADOW:
ELFQUEST SUMMER SPECIAL 2001 #1
