Stuff I want to read

I'm picking up two new issues tomorrow: Brave and the Bold #33 and The Spirit #1. The former should deliver its usual awesomeness (here's a preview), while I really don't know what to expect from the latter. It's spinning off of the First Wave limited series, which I haven't read. And by "spinning off of," they mean "taking place in the same alternate pulp universe," which sounds like fun. (I wish I could find a copy of First Wave #1, but every store I've been to was sold out.) Mark Schultz is writing the first three issues of The Spirit, before being replaced by David Hine. I don't know much about either of these guys, so I'll just have to wait and see. The covers are all very nice, and there's a co-feature written by Dennis O'Neil, so it looks promising.

Last week I picked up a couple of issues of Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth, but haven't gotten around to reading them yet. There's a trade collecting the first five issues coming out next month, which I'm also planning to get, so it would make sense for me to wait until after the trade comes out and read everything in the proper order. But I don't think I can wait that long – I've been reading nothing but praise for this series as well as for Lemire's earlier works, and I'm eager to sink my teeth into it.

Speaking of Lemire, he's crossing over into the mainstream DC universe in July with a one-shot Atom special, followed by a co-feature about the same character in Adventure Comics. I'm very tempted to add that to my pull list as well, as the main feature will be written by Paul Levitz and deal with the origins of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

There's a few other Vertigo titles I want to check out. I've been reading amazingly positive reviews of The Unwritten, and in particular of issue #12 which came out last week. This sounds absolutely fantastic and if they have any copies left at the store I will surely pick it up. Interview with the artists, along with beautiful sample pages, on the Vertigo blog.

Then there's Grant Morrison's Joe the Barbarian, which I've wanted to check out ever since I read a hilariously clueless scathing review of the first issue. The review is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. It goes one seemingly forever and is about as insightful as the kind of stuff you read in YouTube comments. Unfortunately, the review of issue #2 on the blog was written by a different author, and while it is saner and better-written, it's nowhere near as entertaining. In any case, I've decided to wait for the trade on that one, but because I think it looks so good (and right up my alley) it's been really hard to resist picking up the single issues.

Finally, there's Daytripper, a 10-issue miniseries by the Brazilian team of Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. Issue #5 came out last week and there's a 5-page preview here.