100 Bullets #91
The Good: Azzarello's lining up his final shots and it looks to be a doozy climax for this title.
The Bad: I know the title's basically built for the trade, but I still wish there was a "Previously..." page in the singles. The volume of characters and the intense cross-plotting means I always spend a minute or two refreshing my memory.

Batman #676
The Good: The new Batmobile, Tim and Alfred's discussion about Damian, the luchadore in The Black Glove.
The Bad: Tony Daniel, Tony Daniel, Tony Daniel, and Jezebel Jet. I just can't care about her.
The Ugly: The storytelling on the Joker bit near the end. When I have people much more thoroughly mired in superhero comics than I asking me what happened, somebody fucked up, and I doubt it was Mr. G. Morrison of Scotland.

David Lampham's Young Liars #3
The Good: High-octane, visceral storytelling that sells you on the unlikely.
The Bad: Lapham's not quite as in touch with the youth of today as he thinks he is, but the very 70s feel I've mentioned previously helps sell everything anyway.
The Ugly: Donnie without his wig on. Yeesh.

DMZ #23
The Good: This is my favorite storyline so far. The street-level Obama-style politicking by Delgado is relavant and entertaining and Matty's complicated relationship with the campaign makes for good drama.
The Bad: Matty is still fairly unlikeable for long stretches, which is sort of the point, but it's hard to have sympathy for someone you want to backhand.
The Ugly: I saw the last page coming from the end of the first part of this storyline, but we'll see what Wood and Burchielli do with it.

Final Crisis Sketchbook
The Good: Lots of neat drawings and hints of what might be happening. Glorious Chip Kid design on the cover, making it look like nothing on the shelf, even with a JG Jones illustration featuring six superheroes in iconic poses.
The Bad: The weird Bagley-esque eyes on Kamandi on Page 7.
The Ugly: $2.99 for what would be a four-page feature in Wizard is a bit something. As Sterling mentioned, it should have been a freebie.

Those are some solid comics that I enjoyed very much, but do you want to know the best thing I got this week?
So very fun.

Here we go, here we go, here we go with the last of the "Kevin Looks At The May 2008 Previews" posts. Let us tarry no further...

IDW Publishing | Page 313
I've been looking forward to Ashley Wood's World War Robot (48 pages, paperback, $11.99) since first spying designs for the book on his blog. If you're a bit agog at the price point, note that it's 12" x 12", meaning that you get 144 square inches of glorious robot vs human action on each page, or 288 of the non-metric squares if you're confronted by a double-page spread. The solicitation promises more than just the world: we get to see the slaughter on the Moon amd Mars as well.

I surely can't be the only one that sees one of those Complete Terry And The Pirates (352 pages, hardcover, $49.99) books and kicks themselves because they've not purchased them yet, can I? I've a few of the paperback reprints from the early 90s and if there's a better strip artist than Milton Caniff, I'd like to meet them so I can devour their brains and gain otherworldly superpowers.

NBM | Page 328
Dirk Schweiger's comic blog (not like this - one in which he drew comics about his life in Tokyo) was one of my favorite stops before it ceased operations in 2006. Thankfully, there's a collection of those strips, Morusukine: Updated Weekly from Tokyo (176 pages, softcover, $15.95) coming out through NBM, one of those publishers that quietly puts out three or four fantastic things a year. Besides Schweiger's strips, there's bonus materials from creators like Ryan North and James Kochalka. This is exactly the sort of autobiographical comic I want to see more of, and less of the "Oh hey, so my friends and I, we're fucking hilarious!" type.

Nerdcore LP | Page 328
How to know if you want to pick up Meathaus: S.O.S. (272 pages, softcover, $30.00): do you like James Jean, Farel Dalrymple, Brandon Graham, Tomer and Asaf Hanuka, Thomas Herpich, Jim Rugg, Corey Lewis, Matt Furie, D-pi, Ross Campbell, Sheldon Vella, and Dave Kiersh? Yes? Then you want to pick this up.

Oni Press | Page 330
I remember when I saw my first glimpse of Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart's Apocalipstix (144 pages, softcover, $11.95) in Rumble Royale, a neat little anthology that came out three or four (or five?) years ago. Kick-ass rock and roll babes making their way after the End Times had stricken the world? Sign me up! Then nothing. Silence. Then, last year, a solicitation and a quiet cancellation. Now, this time, another solicitation and a silent promise, a pledge to not let me down this time. I hope not, as I think Cameron Stewart's a cartoonist who's just now getting up to full speed and Ray Fawkes hasn't disappointed me yet. (Mind you, I've only read one other thing he's done, Mnemovore, but I liked it well enough to keep the single issues after the great singles purge of last year.)

The first installment of Vasilis Lolos's The Last Call was that very rarest of comics: the well-done, most-ages-friendly fantasy comic with a youthful lead. The second installment (136 pages, softcover, $11.95) has been solicited and considering how the first book left readers with a veritable slab of unanswered questions, I'm eager for it to arrive, posthaste. If you've not grabbed the first volume, you should do so at your next visit to the local comics emporium.

Picturebox | Page 338
"Speaking of second volumes dot dot dot," Kevin said. "I finally picked up the first Powr Mastrs book just last week and it was brilliant and stupid and beautiful and crude and I want to recommend it, but I'm afraid 90% of the people I'd say something about it to wouldn't get it, but man, what a hell of a thing it is."

Powr Mastrs Volume 2 (120 pages, softcover, $18.00) should be more of the same.

Running Press | Page 344
I've been trying to find some information online about this publisher, whose The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics (448 pages, softcover, $17.95) continues a series of black-and-white reprint collections that live up to their title, but they seem determined to evade any sort of publicity. I've purchased the War and Horror collections so far and even when the reproduction quality is sub-par, the sheer volume of content more than makes up for it.

(Guys, seriously, if you want to improve your online profile and maybe start selling books directly to the public, email kevin(at)searchpeers(dot)com. I'm good at this stuff, really.)

Top Shelf Productions | Page 360
Alex Robinson is one of my favorite cartoonists (and the only one I own multiple pieces of commissioned and original art from,) so getting Too Cool To Be Forgotten (128 pages, hardcover, $14.95) was sort of a given. Sort of a male Peggy Sue Got Married with extra awkwardness and nerditude thrown in, this is sure to have the warmth and humor I've come to expect - nay, demand from Mr. Robinson and his comics.

Viper Comics | Page 364
The delightfully-monikered Middleman Collected Series Indispensability Compendium (336 pages, softcover, $19.95) contains all three Middleman comics series in one handy volume. I've mentioned this fine, fine book multiple times in the past and not even the apparent whoredom of Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les McClane to ABC Family can diminish my affection for Wendy and the hero for whom the book is named.

Aaaand that's it. Others have covered the horrifying and godawful in the rest of the catalog, so I'm bidding you adieu. To quote the poet Jerry Springer: take care of yourself...and each other.

AIT/PlanetLar | Page 205
Adam Beechen and Manny Bello's Hench is one of the very best comics put out by AiT and it remains strangely underappreciated still, despite writer Beechen's recent major-imprint work on titles such as Robin, Countdown (To Final Crisis), and Teen Titans and the book itself getting coverage in magazines like Entertainment Weekly. I'm curious to see if that magic comes back with the baseball (comedy? thriller? suspense comic? comedithrillipense comic?) Dugout (88 pages, softcover, $12.95,) which involves a jailed pitcher, a desperate manager, and an exhibition game that may serve as a smokescreen for a breakout attempt.

Antarctic Press | Page 212
Pal Dave has already pointed out how moronic a certain set of shirts offered by the publisher that brings you the pure dreck of Gold Digger and Warrior Nun Areola Areala, but I felt the need to point out that not only is the "pirates versus ninja" meme (that no right-thinking person gets involved in, I hasten to add) deader than dirt, but anyone that is likely to wear a "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For..." shirt is most likely the sort that should be ponying up for one of these bad boys:

Atomic Book Company | Page 225
I've mentioned Julia Wertz's webcomics and minis here before, and that's why I'm pointing out that there's now a Fart Party collection (178pages, softcover, $13.95) that you can ask your favorite comics retailer to please order for you and maybe one or two for the shelf, too, because it's funny and stuff. Wertz is an exception in a field overstuffed with autobiographical comics creators who think their navel-gazing is worth your brain-cycles: she's funny while willing to make herself the butt of the joke, a less-annoying Sarah Silverman for comics.

Avatar | Page 226
Two Ellis books debut this month, with the more-interesting being follow-up graphic novella (no, let's not use that term again, ok?) in the same format as the supremely-entertaining Crêcy. While Aetheric Mechanics (48 pages, softcover, $6.99) has the slight eau du steampunk about it, there's a very pulpy feel about the solicitation, with lines like "The year is 1907, and Britain has entered into a terrifying war with Ruritania, whose strange metal planes darken the skies, and whose monstrous war engines cast looming shadows from across the channel. Doctor Robert Watcham, lately returned to London from the front, makes his homecoming to Dilke Street. There lives his old friend, and England's greatest amateur detective, Sax Raker. Even as his beloved city prepares for war, Raker is himself about to embark on the strangest (and, perhaps, the most important) investigation of his career: The case of the man who wasn't there," practically begging me to throw my seven dollars in the hat.

The second Ellis title that's debuting this month is No Hero, which gets one of those #0 issues that Avatar, Aspen, and certain other publishers continue to flog as if that joke was funny to begin with. Treading territory that's similar, if not identical to Black Summer with Juan Jose Ryp returning to provide more of the maniacally-detailed art that boggles even as it impresses, I'm not supremely worked up for this, but I ended up being quite taken by Black Summer, so maybe this will provide some of those thrills.

BOOM! | Page 241
The first issue of Challenger Deep, a four-part miniseries involving an underwater salvage crew getting in over their heads while retrieving an experimental nuclear submarine from the Marianas Trench. I'm a sucker for things like this, ever since seeing The Abyss back when I wasn't afraid to wear short pants and Hypercolor t-shirts. It's written by Andrew Cosby, who blah blah blah buy Cover Girl, the end.

Dynamite Entertainment | Page 264
The 10th anniversary reprint of Frank Miller and Simon Bisley's (justly?) forgotten Bad Boy (48 pages, hardcover, $14.99) gets resolicited. I never read this and presume that, since it's never spoken of, that it's not very good. Would I be incorrect and should thus ask my purveyor to include one in my order for the month? Please note that I continue to be a fan of Mr. Miller's comic work, despite the slide into insanity that he seems to have taken. I suspect that will one day be called a Sim Complex.

Devil's Due | Page 275
How to make me care even less about Hack Slash: get the controversial, overexposed, and increasingly-dreary Suicide Girls brand involved. I like looking at naked, tattooed, and pierced girls an awful lot, but they've managed to ensure that even in that niche, a uniformity of forced uniqueness is stamped onto each and every model with a carefully-considered distribution of barbells, ink, and studs. Apparently, one of the variant covers here is a Previews Exclusive, which means that those shops ordering Devil's Due books from the plethora of other distributors will be sadly left adrift.

Digital Manga Publishing | Pages 281-288
Holy shit, dude-on-dude action buys a lot of ad pages.

Drawn and Quarterly | Page 290
I've seen the name Raymond Briggs bandied about a lot by people who know their British comics better than I do (which is to say they know why they put the letter "u" in words like "color" and "behavior,") so I'm interested in his 1980 work Gentleman Jim (40 pages, hardcover, $14.95) as both a first read from the man and a look at an early example of the graphic novel.

Fantagraphics | Pages 298-302
Holy Mackerel. This is like some sort of holy grail, forcing me to switch the bullet-point format just so I can get through this without turning into a frothing madman who threatens to break fingers unless everything mentioned is ordered:

• Deitch's Pictorama (240 pages, softcover, $18.99) is a collection of Kim Deitch's shorts and "yarns," and I'm not exaggerating at all that when I say that each time I read his work, I walk away with a grin. Unlike Crumb,I don't feel Deitch's craft is overwhelmed by his legacy: he simply is that good.
  
• The Humbug collection (400 pages, hardcover/slipcased 2-volume set, $50.00) reprints the entirety of Harvey Kurtzman's too-briefly-lived, post-Mad humor magazine. I've never read any of this material, but considering that Kurtzman is responsible for Superduperman and at least million other laugh-out-loud moments in comics history, I figure this is going to be what that raving jackanape Jim Cramer would call a definite buy before slapping some noisemaker his producers had picked up from the discount bin at Staples.
  
• Los Bros Hernandez. An annually-produced 100+ page comic under the banner Love And Rockets: New Stories with a cover price of $14.99. That sound you heard was me sighing with positively phenethylaminic delight. A great format for creators that continue to hone their craft.
  
• Tales Designed To Thrizzle #4 is the first new issue of Michael Kupperman's hilarious comics magazine in far too long. I don't think anything has ever made me laugh so hard and with such consistency as the previous three issues of this comic. Get this, and if you've not, order the previous three issues. You'll thank me with your laughter.

In addition to these highlights, there's a few resolicitations worth pointing out: Jason's The Last Musketeer, Ellen Forney's Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads From Seattle's Stranger, and the Kurtzman-profiling installment in The Comics Journal Library, which would make a nice companion to the Humbug book.

Harper Collins | Page 306
You know, in a month that includes the just-mentioned Humbug collection and American Flagg, it's hard to imagine that there's another reprint collection that could claim the top spot in my heart, but here it is: Zot! The Complete Black and White Stories 1987-1991 (576 pages, softcover, $22.95.) I've read just a few issues of this series and was smitten, but the collections have been out-of-print and impossible to find. In light of Bone and its success in multiple markets, the lack of a definitive edition became even more baffling. This looks to correct this error and manage to one-up my hopes by featuring "lots and lots of commentary," sketches, and ephemera related to the character. Hot damn, am I excited for this one.

My fingers are wearying, so we'll finish this up tomorrow, OK? OK.

What it says in the title. Go, read, and comment.

(Via Pulp Of The Day.)

New strip? Right here: http://www.therackcomic.com .
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

There's a few changes happening this time around. The first being that I'm just going to skip Marvel and DC. There's a few reasons for this, the first being that I'm lazy, of course. Secondly, you've already seen the solicitations from the big two and have made up your mind. That's fine, I understand.

There's also the fact that Marvel and DC offer a slog through No Fun Central that, frankly, leaves me a bit discouraged for everything else. Suffice it to say there's a few trades worth getting (Invasion! and Ellis and Edginton's Counter-X material,) a couple of hardcovers (Heavy Liquid and Annihilation: Conquest Book 2,) and even a new Kathryn Immonen-written miniseries from Marvel with Hellcat, a character I have a strange, almost scans_dailian affection for.

With that out of the way, let's just dive into Dark Horse Comics, OK?

Holy shit there is enough Hellboy product here to choke the mythical whale that Jonah took an around-the-block trip in. T-shirts, making-of books, novelizations, magnets, superdeformed toys, undeformed toys, and even the occasional goddamn comic book. Frankly, good on Dark Horse and Mignola for managing to capitalize so well on the character and maintain control and creativity over their property, especially in light of the complete brute-force, idiotic defanging that is being applied to (the admittedly dunderheaded as it is, but still...) Wanted.

But back to the whole reason for this post. In Dark Horse's case, outside of the usual manga suspects, I'm only really interested in the webcomics they're putting into print. The Great Outdoor Fight (96 pages, hardcover, $14.95) is certainly the finest material produced yet by Chris Onstad, and the presentation is goddamn gorgeous. While Achewood is generally a strip that I find is best to leave alone for a few months and then wallow in like the proverbial pig; its rhythm and language are best enjoyed in doses of twenty strips or higher (it's only then that Onstad's surreal banter and outre plots make any real sense,) this is a very easily-accessible storyline and will hopefully propel more of the strip into the direct market instead of being confined to online venues and the occasional merchant willing to order directly from the creator.

More conventional in some ways is Jesse Reklaw's dream-interpretation strip Slow Wave, even if the content is more psychotropic. The Night Of Your Life (256 pages, hardcover, $15.95) collects a mess of his delightfully deadpan four-panel strips at a price that I can't imagine even the most miserly regular reader of his work turning down.

Even though I've not read Mitch Clem's Nothing Nice To Say (128 pages, softcover, $9.95) in aaaaages, I remember it being funny enough to recommend to others. I could recheck the archives, but a ten-buck softcover fits in my courier bag so much more nicely.

All of these, though, frankly pale in comparison to The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack (272 pages, hardcover, $24.95.) Nicholas Gurewitch's hip-check to the rest of the online (and quickly enough, newspaper) comics world deserves every bit of lavish praise I can muster for it and while he's ended it prematurely, it's good to see that it's going to be given the proper treatment. I'm eagerly anticipating his next step. My only complaint is that this book, I think, reproduces material found in The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, but that's certainly a minor bit of whining at this juncture, as an omnibus format benefits the readership much more.

Finally, if you're a retailer reading this, please make sure you order at least three or four copies of the Fray paperback as the character's appearing in the Buffy comic and those fans, even if you've told them that the future slayer comic has existed a half-dozen times before, they're going to suddenly decide that they must have it as it's real now because Joss told them in a dream or some shit. Just take their money and be happy.

Image Comics
It's largely business as usual for me and the house that Jim, Jim, Rob, Erik, Todd, Whilce, and Marc built: a little Jack Staff here, some Madman (with what will likely be my last issue, but more on that in a couple of lines) there. GØDLAND's Adam Archer shoes up in The Savage Dragon, but that'd involve me reading The Savage Dragon, so no.

If you want, you could check out the (largely disappointing) first few issues of Allred's slow decline into sophomoric philosophy with Madman Atomic Comics Volume 1 (208 pages, softcover, $19.99), but even the most rabid Allred fan of yore would be turned off by the Morrison-light psychobabble that inhabits this title since the relaunch. Good on Allred for following his muse, I suppose, but it's coming out as pure drivel, sort of like if Beach Blanket Bingo had suddenly turned into a sweded version of 8½. Sure, Madman has had its darker elements - Frank's mysterious past, the infamous eyeball-eating scene from very early in the series - but this is just drivel.

The biggest Image-related news is the prodigal son of comics reprint projects: American Flagg Volume 1 (440 pages, hardcover, $49.95,) a book that was originally solicited for November of 2004 from Dynamic Forces. Image is releasing this volume "in conjunction with" the people who offer slabbed variant covers of the latest hot books, which makes me suspect that someone got fed up and crept over in the dead of night, stole all the files, and left a note saying "Will give credit + $" in their place.

American Flagg, from the six or seven issues I've read, is a goddamn treasure of the medium, even if I'm certain that modern audiences are going to find certain sociological ruminations as arcane as extispicy. Chaykin's at the top of his game, creating a subversive, deeply funny world that pokes at everything that made America what it was in the 80s. The price tag is steep (Amazon offers a very steep pre-order discount), but the end product is near invaluable.

Tomorrow, we'll catch up with other companies that put out the funnybooks, including Avatar, Top Shelf, and Picturebox.

...Birdie's got a summer cold or something that's made him practically Dickensian in his wretchedness. He says he'll be able to draw tonight, so we'll find out if the bloodletting and tinctures has done its job. You could always visit the archives if you're trying to avoid work!

From Page 52 of the May 2008 Previews.
Shocking, isn't it? It's shocking that Diamond, a company that refused to let the solicitation for Cover Girl read "This chick, right? She's fucking awesome and she shoots shit and this guy, he's sort of a boob, but that's all right because he's a really fucking nice guy and you'll want to see them interact and crap. It's fucking awesome, so just fucking buy it, shitheads!" lets Scott McCloud spew such filth. The scales have fallen from my eyes and I now see that you have to be a multiple Eisner-winner who has done an awful lot to elevate comics into academic circles to get by with cursing in Diamond's precious catalog, something that nobody under 18 has touched in the last decade. Add in the fact that the third comic featured in the ad also features rampant foul language, and you've got a case of big publishers throwing their weight around and pushing their filth into the catalog while other companies are forced to bend to the yoke of censorship.

Alternately, somebody let this slip through without throwing asterisks in the right places. Either/or, really.

It has nothing to do with the holiday, but I just updated my Muxtape to highlight some classic race/acid house/ohjustcallitdance tunes from the 80s and 90s. Leftfield, Underworld, Utah Saints, Mr Fingers, Orbital, Eon, etc, etc are in this one, so have a little cubicle dance on Monday.

(Jokes about "Hur hur do I need glowsticks" are unnecessary. Thank you.)

I'm fairly sure that regular readers here know how I feel about David Mamet's work. Even with all of his obvious quirks (the elliptical dialogue technique "borrowed" by Brian Michael Bendis,) and faults (the remarkable inability to create a female character that's believable,) Mamet consistently does more to make the writer-portions of my brain sing than any other writer-slash-director working. I'll champion movies like the underappreciated Spartan as if I were their father and when his material disappoints me, such as in the loathsome and excruciating Edmond, I take it as a personal affront.

In other words, it's very, very weird for me to walk out of one of his films with something like mixed feelings for the work, but that's exactly what happened this afternoon when I saw Redbelt.

The brief version of the plot: Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mike Terry, an honor-bound, financially-strapped jujitsu trainer that finds himself involved in a typically Mametian plot. It begins with an accidentally-fired gun and a Hollywood star involved in a nightclub fight, passes through a flirtation with the film industry, works in getting screwed by completely unprincipled fight promoters, and ends with a well-handled fight for not only Terry's honor, but that of the martial arts he holds so dear.

Everyone in this film - with the notable exception of Rebecca Pidgeon (whose sole purpose seems to be appearances in films made by her husband) does an impressive job with the material they're handed. Mamet's emblematic dialogue, particularly when he's directing, is not easy on actors: repetitive and stripped to the point where the absence of nuance becomes its own trope, but the cast, including Emily Mortimer and Tim Allen (who I'm glad to see actually acting versus being a Disney Corporate Puppet) alongside mainstays like David Paymer and Ricky Jay, holds up their end of things with nary a grumble. The centerpiece, however, belongs to Chiwetel Ejiofor, who's the sort of actor I love, able to convey emotion and thought without opening his mouth or making exaggerated facial expressions, it's easy to see why Mamet picked him as Mike Terry.

So, what's the problem? That's the bugaboo - I can't really go into it without spoiling the film's ending and I loathe spoilers, spoiler-devoted websites, people who issue them, and the DC Comics character of the same name (albeit for an entirely different reason.) Suffice it to say that where Mamet normally goes for the unconventional and clever, the resolution to Terry's travails is far too simple for the amount of buildup the viewer experiences, particularly after its revealed how deep the plot against him goes. For a good 90% of the film's running time, I was very pleased with what was being unfolded in front of me. The unlikely, near-random turn of events in the dojo that occur very early in the picture and the amount of coincidence and good fortune that comes Terry's way may have been scented with incredulity, but I accepted it as I accepted The Spanish Prisoner and House of Cards and their unlikely setups because the end result, the final knife-twist in those pictures, it brings everything together.

But this time, it...doesn't, but it does. It provides the kind of finale that Mamet's never done before, one that's closer to The Karate Kid than Heist and even if it feels as if Mamet thinks he's done the work, it's strangely unsatisfying. A stretched metaphor would be if you took a first-class flight to Paris, got a luxurious limousine ride to your hotel, checked into an opulent room, and were then informed that the only food you'd be allowed to eat was McDonald's. While it's not quite the final-act disaster that movies like Sunshine have become known for, it's still disappointing.

Even with all of that said, there's an awful lot to like about the final product. Mamet shows signs of directorial growth in several scenes, opting for quiet over chatter in a few key moments, thereby letting his actors tell the story with their bodies and faces with unheard dialogue, and giving the audience a break from his rat-a-tat wordplay. Perhaps even more surprising is Emily Mortimer's portrayal of an attorney who finds herself being taught by Terry - she comes mighty close to being the first female character in a Mamet film that I like, which can be nothing but a good sign as far as I'm concerned.

Brigid Alverson's Good Comics For Kids launched very quietly recently, and deserves some notice. As a mother of two and a smart cookie, the Mangablog editor brings a keener-than-usual insight into why certain comics are good picks for the younger kids. The only thing I could wish for is getting a superhero-friendly writer on board so kids that enjoy the Spider-Man and Batman cartoons can get their hands on the goods friendiest to them. (Ultimate Spider-Man is a 13+ title in my mind, as is material like Batman: Year One.)

Go, check it out, and point others towards it. I like Brigid's work a lot, even if she likes MS Comics Sans.

New strip! Read it at http://www.therackcomic.com.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

The Boys #18
OK, officially, the hamster joke is done. Still, the parallel trajectories of Starlight and Hughie is the sort of thing that Garth Ennis does that I absolutely love, and Robertson is as strong as ever.

The Invincible Iron Man #1
I wrote 700-something words about it over at Comic Book Resources. Short version is that I enjoyed it, feel it has a lot of potential, and want to stick my middle finger in the air at the mouth-breathing twits who inhabit their forums that think I'm a "graphic novel snob" because I thought Secret Invasion's first issue was lousy. (Dear Trogolodytes: It's not that I don't like Marvel comics; it's that I don't like crappy Marvel comics. Calling me a snob for this only lets me know that you haven't quite mastered that whole chewing-gum-and-walking thing.)

Anyhow, I'm sure somebody'll find a reason to complain about a three-and-a-half-star review, but I feel that five stars should be reserved for something truly sublime and defining, not a well-executed comic featuring a corporate character, so it'll be a long, long time before Marvel or DC gets that golden ring from me.

Jack Staff #16
Let's say I found Paul Grist in the sub-basement of a nursery school throwing toddler-sized bundles into a furnace and muttering about how baby blood is the toughest kind to get out. The conversation might go a little something like this:

Kevin: Paul, hello! What are you up to? This is quite a mess you have here! Ha ha!
Paul: Just doing a bit of the old child slaughter before going back to work on a Tom Tom The Robot Man page!
Kevin: Oh, right then. Carry on. Can't wait to see the next issue!

That is how much I love Tom Tom The Robot Man, so there's never any reason to expect anything like actual criticism from me when talking about any issue in which the character shows up on one or more pages.

Justice League Unlimited #45
On paper, a story about Gorilla Grodd stripping Superman, Mary Marvel, Green Lantern, and The Flash of their powers during a high-stress situation and the group needing to work without their usual abilities is something I'd enjoy. In fact, however, Alexander Gradet's script switches storytelling gears too many times and has an ending that I'd call a deus ex machina if it wasn't so clumsily foreshadowed early on. Nice art by Scott Cohn, however, with an on-model look that still manages to be individual.

Madman #8
Please tell me there's a plan here, somewhere, as I'm an old-school fan (who even bought the damned Gargantua) who's being left so very, very cold by this title's college freshman metaphysics. Some points were earned for the cute little backup (is it still a "backup" if it takes up half the issue?) by Mike Allred's brother J.L. with layouts by Nick Dragotta and finishes from Allred himself, as it managed to maintain some of the original spark that brought me to the series and include a mention of the Superman/Madman Hullabaloo, one of my favorite cross-universal crossovers.

Midnighter #19
So, the cover's pretty misleading (the events depicted happened last issue,) and I'm literally just reading this so I know how the series ends (an annoying, fannish habit I'm ashamed of) but at one point, The Midnighter shoves a squirt bottle of mustard up Assassin8's (blergh!) nose and squeezes. That sound you just heard was Chris Sims's head whipping around at hypersonic speed.

Rex Libris #11
Who knew a comic book about a librarian who collects overdue books and their attendant fees would feature an enthralling, high-energy parody of every Michael Bay military cliché ever and C'thulhu? Not me, and I've been reading the title for the last two years.

What did you get? Did you enjoy it?

I may review comics later. I dunno.

Milk and Cheese in "The Fur Suit of Crappiness."

1.
Ross Campbell's Water Baby desperately tries to be something unique. You can feel it wanting your approval with its dogpile of quirky characters and an opening hook (attractive, bisexual, booger-eating surfer girl Brody loses her leg to a shark) straight out of a very sincere indie film. In fact, by the time you get to the slacker ex-boyfriend puking all over himself, prompting a road trip you've got the next Diablo Cody screenplay.

2.
I'm not a prude, but it seems to be established fairly early in the book that the leads are minors ("You don't even have a license and I can't drive after 10!") and there's more cleavage and sideboob on display here than in entire seasons of Baywatch. I'm not quite sure if that's actually what the Minx target audience wants to look at, really. It's a shame, as Campbell's a very accomplished cartoonist with a nice handling of body language and storytelling, but the skeeve factor creeped into Dead@17 levels for me.

3.
Campbell does very, very little to establish the people around whom Water Baby is centered as anything more than the most plastic of mannequins that spew only-occasionally-interesting dialogue, making it hard to care about what happens to whom or why. It's telling that the most interesting character to me was Louisa, Brody's best friend cum former lover, who's down to earth, funny, and unfortunately given very little to do besides be Brody's best friend cum former lover.

4.
The ending of this book is the most disappointing denouement I've encountered in some time, with Campell apparently trying to sprinkle on some of that old time Clowesian disaffection for storytelling conventions and instead looking like he simple stopped typing when he hit the 156-page mark. There's no emotional or thematic resolution, just a dangling plot that made me wonder if this was part one in a series and nobody bothered to tell the readers.

5.
Yes, just like they did with The Plain Janes.