Is It Wednesday Yet?

I'm glad I managed to write some comics reviews last week and I hope I can keep the momentum going. But as always, there are things happening in live that could possibly get in the way.

Plus, I thought I'd have lots of time to read comics after finishing A Clash of Kings, but I couldn't help it and bought A Storm of Swords and started reading it this morning on the way to work. I'm sorry.

Anyway. Some new comics this week:

• Animal Man #6 (DC)
• Swamp Thing #6 (DC)
• Sweet Tooth #30 (DC)
• Alpha Girl #1 (Image)
• Fatale #2 (Image)
• Amazing Spider-Man #679 (Marvel)
• Punisher #8 (Marvel)
• Winter Soldier #1 (Marvel)

I've fallen behind on both of those DC titles, so I hope they haven't started sucking and I'm not even aware of it. I'll try to catch up on them before Wednesday and let you know what I think.

Sweet Tooth is back on track now after a brief flashback story about the origins of the plague, which was illustrated (quite nicely) by Matt Kindt. That flashback made me a little uncomfortable for reasons that I still want to write about someday, but probably not today. (Hint: cultural appropriation.) But I'm not letting that turn me off too much, because other than that one thing, Sweet Tooth is still my favourite comic.

I've put Alpha Girl on the list even though I'm not totally convinced that I'm going to get it myself, but it's a new series from Image so it's probably at least worth flipping through at the store. Something to do with zombies, unfortunately. I'm a bit tired of zombies and vampires.

Fatale #1 was great, so I'm really looking forward to the second issue.

And Winter Soldier... Blargh. I'm about 90% sure I'm not going to buy that, unless I get a sudden urge to spend more money than I should. which happens a lot, so it's not completely out of the question.

PS: Follow me on Twitter and/or on Tumblr.

Is It Wednesday Yet? // What's wrong with her spine?

Ever since I started following this awesome tumblr called Eschergirls, I've been asking myself a couple of questions: How did this kind of art become so popular, and how come nobody has put a stop to it yet?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just click the link about. You'll immediately recognize the type of pose I mean. It's the one where a female character twists her body around in ways that are anatomically impossible in order to showcase both her ass and her boobs for the reader.

I'm serious. I don't understand why that kind of art can be so popular in professionally made comic books by major publishers. The obvious answer is that dumb straight males get turned on by gratuitous shots of tits and asses, and publishers assume that dumb straight males are their primary and most profitable demographic, so they pander to them. I supposed there's a little bit of truth to that. But that answer doesn't really satisfy me, because I actually find it incredibly difficult to be believe that there are that many straight guys who actually find those images sexually appealing.

Let's put aside all the feminist concerns about whether these images are offensive or harmful for a second and just look at them as pure images devoid of any moral or political charge, designed specifically for the purpose of giving dudes a hard-on. (Yeah, I know this is a weird thought experiment and there's no such thing as amoral/apolitical images, but just go with it for the sake of argument.) Let's go even further and pretend for a moment that straight males are the ONLY people reading comics (which is completely false) and that they DEMAND that these comics include sexy images of hot chicks. (I know. Crazy, right?)

Okay. If you can somehow accept the over-the-top premise of the previous paragraph, I say that still doesn't justify these awful poses. You're telling me that's the best, most sexy depictions of women these artists can come up with? You're telling me horny straight virgin dudes are happy with that? They wouldn't prefer to see sexy images of women that, oh, I don't know, at least look human?

I don't understand it at all. I don't understand how artists can produce those images and not be ashamed of them - not because they are overly sexualized but because they are SHITTY ART. I don't understand how editors don't shoot those images down and demand that those pages get redrawn - again, simply on the basis that they don't meet their basic requirements for quality. And I don't understand why readers put up with it.

*

Anyway. Here are some new comics I'll be buying this week:

• American Vampire #23 (Vertigo)
• Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #1 (of 6) (Image)

Wow. It's a very light week. But, oh, man, I'm really excited about that Bulletproof Coffin sequel.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Oh, man. Working full time. It takes a lot of energy. Not that I'm complaining. I'm happy. I love my job. I love the fact that I have money and benefits and job security. But finding the energy to focus on personal creative projects on evenings and weekends is a real challenge.

Last week, I had to work on music every night in order to prepare for a show I was playing on Saturday. It was torture, because all I wanted to do was lie down on the couch, eat potato chips, drink beer and watch TV. But I think it paid off in the end. (You can judge for yourself by listening to the recording of my set.)

This week, my plan is to get back into writing about comics. And again, all I want to do is watch episodes of Breaking Bad. I'm thinking maybe I should start writing in the morning. I'm too brain dead in the evening. I'm smarter, more relaxed and more focused in the morning. But I might have to wake up an hour earlier, which would mean going to bed an hour earlier, and I already find it hard to go to bed at 11:00. I don't know...

Anyway. Comic books! I've been reading some.

I thought the first issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' FATALE was pretty good. Nice blend of crime noir with hints of Lovecraftian horror. Only hints for now, but judging from the cover and the essay on Lovecraft in the back pages, I'm guessing it'll get more explicit soon. Recommended.

I also caught up on a few series I'd fallen way behind on, such as DAREDEVIL and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY. I don't really know if I need to say anything about the former, because critic on the internet seems to be praising it, and it's well deserved. A perfect marriage of story and art. Just a joy to read. Meanwhile, JIM suffers from being tied to the Fear Itself event and its aftermath, but is still worth reading because of the awesome characterization of young Loki. The art is also a bit all over the place, depending on the creative team.

Those are some more or less random choices from the stuff I've been reading mostly on my morning commute to work these past couple of weeks. Going forward, I'm going to try to be more diligent about writing short reviews for individual issues.

Here's what's on my pull list this week:

• Batgirl #5 (DC)
• Batman and Robin #5 (DC)
• Batwoman #5 (DC)
• Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #5 (DC)
• The Ray #2 (of 4) (DC)
• The Shade #4 (of 12) (DC)
• Northlanders #47 (Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #677 (Marvel)
• Journey into Mystery #633 (Marvel)
• Wolverine and the X-Men #4 (Marvel)

That's a lot of books and not a lot of non-DC/Marvel stuff. Sorry about that.

BATGIRL is teetering on the edge of my tolerance threshold right now. I can't say I'm enjoying it very much and the only reason I'm still buying it is that I feel some kind of obligation to stay on top of things in terms of the whole Oracle/New 52 situation, so that I can form my own opinion about it and potentially write about it later. I've tried to resist saying too much about how I feel about it for now, but sooner or later it's all going to come out. And when it does I'd like it to be an informed and carefully thought-out analysis, not just an emotional outburst.

Meanwhile, BATMAN AND ROBIN is a title that I had decided to completely ignore in the New 52, but I was convinced by Damian's considerable fan-following on Tumblr to give it a try. I bought the first four issues and read them over the holidays and I have to say it's really good. And I realize now just how much I missed Damian. Peter Tomasi has a good understanding of the character and Patrick Gleason's art is very pretty. The only problem I have with the series so far is that the first arc is yet another story about whether it makes sense for Batman to refuse to kill the villains he fights when they keep escaping from Arkham and killing more people. It's been done to death already, so it's hard to take it seriously. I'm also a little bit nervous about the preview for this week's issue, which teases a betrayal by Damian/Robin. But on the other hand, come on, that's gotta be a red herring.

I'm considering skipping FRANKENSTEIN this week, as it's a stupid crossover with OMAC. Although according to Dan DiDio, it's not necessary to read both. *sigh*

First issue of THE RAY was okay. The first three issues of THE SHADE were fantastic. As were those of WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. And AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has been pretty consistently entertaining, despite the mostly shitty art.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Coming this week is the first batch of #2 issues from DC's New 52. On my pull list are:

• Action Comics #2
• Animal Man #2
• Swamp Thing #2

In addition, DC also has two new miniseries launching this week:

• Huntress #1
• Penguin: Pain and Prejudice #1

I'm definitely getting Huntress. In spite of the rather awful covers by Guillem March (why does everybody but me think this guy is a good artist?), the interior art by Marcus To promises to be absolutely gorgeous and well worth the cover price. Paul Levitz is writing. There's a preview here.

I think I'm gonna pass on the Penguin mini, though. It's written by Gregg Hurwitz with art by Szymon Kudranksi, and I'm not familiar with either of their work so that's neither a plus or a minus. But I already have way too much Batman-family titles on my pull list, so I'm not really looking to add yet another. 

Other stuff on my pull list:

• Sweet Tooth #26 (Vertigo)
• Severed #3 (Image)
• Mystic #3 (Marvel/CrossGen)
• Superior #5 (Marvel/Icon)

Sweet Tooth is Jeff Lemire's magnum opus, which just keeps getting better and better. Severed is a Scott Snyder horror project involving cannibals. Mystic is G. Willow Wilson's fantastic mini-series that I wish could go on forever instead of being a mini-series. It may be the best book of the year, due in no small part to the wonderful art by David Lopez and gorgeous colours by Nathan Fairbairn. Superior is the long-delayed Mark Millar/Leinil Yu fantasy about a boy who gets transformed into his favourite movie superhero, an analogue of Superman/Captain Marvel. I believe this is the penultimate issue.

Finally, IDW has a graphic novel called All-Ghouls School that might be worth a look.  I'm not going to pick it up right away, mostly because I can't afford it right now when there are so many other books on my waiting list (more on that later). But it looks like it could be fun. There's a cheesy trailer for the book here.


Full list of new releases is here.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Last week's awful Flashpoint issue, which I didn't even have the strength to review, combined with the sheer idiocy of the reveal at the end of issue #2 of Knight of Vengeance, convinced me to stop buying anything that had the word "Flashpoint" printed on the cover. Even though I was semi-enjoying at least a few of those mini-series and was vaguely curious about where the whole thing would lead and how it would flow into the New 52 in September, I finally realized that there's a reason so many people hate these comic book events. They suck!

And yet in spite of having dropped Booster Gold and that Frankenstein tie-in, I still end up with a gigantic list this week. (See below.) Going over-budget again.

Fill-in artists and unsolicited creative team changes on DC books

Yesterday I got into a bit of an argument with Gail Simone on Twitter after I made a cynical remark about not having faith in DC's ability to hold stable creative teams on the new books for more than a couple of issues. I understand why she was upset about it and how, from her perspective, it might seem like all I do is complain, but honestly I feel like my cynicism over this is 100% justified, given DC's recent track record with this issue and given that it's only going to get worse, based on DC's insistence that books will now ship on schedule and that artists will be replaced if they can't deliver the books on time. It's not like I'm making any of this up. It's coming straight from the horse's mouth. I think when a publisher who already has a rampant problem with art consistency on their books announced that they are going to have even more fill-in artists after a big line-wide relaunch, there's ample reason for me to say: "Fuck this. I'm not spending any money on these books until they come out in collections."

More than any other factor, it's the issue of inconsistent art that has convinced me to stop buying monthly books from DC in September. And let's be clear: I have no problem with occasional fill-in artists on a series. I understand that doing a monthly book must be incredibly demanding for a single artist, especially given the level of detail and craft that's expected of modern comic book artists. But there's a way to plan it so that the fill-in art feels organic to the story, rather than a last-minute patch-up job. A perfect example of this is Scott Snyder's current Detective Comics run, which has been alternating between art by Jock and Francesco Francavilla, both of whom are immensely talented artists who bring their own style and unique contribution to the story. This is the kind of model that I would like to see more books at DC adopt, but unfortunately there is no indication that the editors are learning anything from the critical success of this book.

Another book that I think manages to handle the art teams fairly well is Amazing Spider-Man. The art team is constantly shifting, but it doesn't bother me that much because I don't feel like I'm being lied to by the solicitations. The book ships twice a month, so it would pretty much be impossible for an artist to draw every issue for an extended period of time anyway, so the rotating artists are part of the plan. Some of them I like more than others, but the important thing is there are no nasty surprises when I pick up a book expecting Artist-so-and-so-who-was-listed-in-the-solicitation and instead find a name on the cover that I've never even seen before. If Marvel editors can get their shit together on a book that ships twice a month, why can't editors at DC get it right on a monthly book like Birds of Prey?

So that was the root of my pseudo-argument with Gail Simone yesterday, though I'm not sure I really managed to get any of my points across very clearly. I'm disappointed that she thinks I'm just being silly and cynical, but I guess part of that comes from our different perspective on the issue. When I brought up Jesus Saiz, who was announced as the new regular artist in BOP to much fanfare and who only worked on a single issue before a fill-in artist was brought it, she justified it by saying that editors wanted him to get a head start on the September books instead, as if that was supposed to make it better. In fact, it makes it worse! Because it proves that the inconsistent art teams on BOP weren't the result of unforeseen accidents or incompetence on the part of the artists, but poor planning by the editors. They decided to pull their brand new "regular" artist off the book after a single issue, even though he was listed in the solicitations as doing the next issue, even though the previous 12 issues of the series had already suffered tremendously from this revolving door approach to art. I rest my case.

Comics posi-vibes on Twitter!

On the other hand, I hate being a cynic. It's not like I want to be right about that stuff. I want the DC relaunch to be successful. I want DC to finally get it right. I want to be proven wrong about a lot of the concerns I have about what's going to happen to those books in September and beyond.

I think as a self-appointed comic book blogger, it's easy to slip into the habit of spending more time and energy pointing out the things that are wrong (or that we perceive as wrong) than talking about the things we feel good about.

And there are plenty of comics I'm very excited about. I wouldn't have 13 books on my pull list this week if I wasn't super-excited about the state of comics! So to tip the balance back in a positive direction, I've taken it upon myself to focus on the positive for the rest of the week. I'm going to be using the tag #comicsposivibes to stuff I read and enjoy and stuff I'm looking forward to.

I don't think I have enough followers to get that topic trending, but feel free to use the tag and spread the love.

New comics this week!

• Batgirl #23 (DC)
• Detective Comics #879 (DC)
• Teen Titans #97 (DC)
• American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #2 (of 5) (Vertigo)
• Northlanders #42 (Vertigo)
• Hellboy: The Fury #2 (of 3) (Dark Horse)
• Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths #2 (of 5) (IDW)
• Gladstone's School for World Conquerors #3 (Image)
• Red Wing #1 (of 6) (Image)
• Amazing Spider-Man #665 (Marvel)
• FF #6 (Marvel)
• Journey into Mystery #652 (Marvel)
• Loose Ends #1 (of 4) (12 Gauge)

I want to point out that there's a new epic story arc starting in Northlanders. It's going to be the final story, with the book concluding at issue #50. Like all stories in Northlanders, it's completely standalone, so you even if you've never picked up an issue before, you can jump right in. I highly recommend that you do, because it's one of the best titles at Vertigo - or any publisher, as far as I'm concerned.

Red Wing is a new mini-series by Jonathan Hickman.

Loose Ends is something that was completely off my radar until I heard Kelly Thompson's enthusiastic endorsement on this week's Three Chicks Review Comics podcast. I'm not sure they'll have it at my store, but if so I'll probably pick up a copy.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

I don't really have time for much commentary/ranting this week, so I'm just going to leave my pull list here.

• Flashpoint #3 (DC)
• Jonah Hex #69 (DC)
• Superboy #9 (DC)
• Sweet Tooth #23 (Vertigo)
• Astonishing Thor #5 (Marvel)

It's so tempting to just drop Flashpoint at this point, since I'm not really interested in the relaunch and it's pretty obvious that this event is not going to be a self-contained story at all, but merely a set-up for whatever comes next.

Jonah Hex is a comic book I've never read in my life, although I keep hearing very good things about it. This month I am finally picking it up because it features art by Jeff Lemire, who has a big week with Superboy and Sweet Tooth also hitting the shelves. Isn't it kind of weird that DC stacks all of his books on the same week like that? Wouldn't it make more sense to spread though across the month, so his fans have a reason to go to the store more than once?

Astonishing Thor is the last part in a mini-series that started like ten months ago. I really hate these bi-monthlies. It's way too long to wait between issues.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Back issue frenzy

I bought a few fills for my collection of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight back issues last weekend. I've been trying to roughly the first half of the series - skipping over the Knightsquest/Knightsend crossover issues (#59-63) and stopping just before No Man's Land (#116). That's a total of 110 issues, of which I already have more than half. Most of these back issues are relatively easy to find and they tend to go for pretty cheap. The nice thing about this series is that the stories are all pretty much stand-alone and by different creative teams, so as long as you have complete stories you don't really need to read it in sequence. Over the next few weeks, I plan to read all the full stories that I have so far and review them here. I expect that there'll probably be some stinkers in there, but hopefully there will also be a few gems.

Those are not the only back issues I need to read. Since I got kind of fed up with Tim Drake as a character after reading Fabian Nicieza's take on him in Red Robin, I've put my Tim Drake from the Beginning series on hiatus, but I still have the first 100 issues of Robin in a short box waiting for me. I'll get to them eventually.

And something else I'm collecting: Walter Simonson's 26-issue Orion series. Those issues are somewhat more difficult to find, but I'm pretty sure I'll get a complete set sooner or later. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, including the Montreal convention in September.

DC no longer "writing for the trade"

Among the many confusing and sometimes contradictory bits and pieces of info trickling down to the common folk from DC's retailer roadshow, one interesting message is that DC writers will no longer be asked to "write for the trade". I had an interesting conversation about it with Darryl Ayo on Twitter a couple of days ago, at the end of which I realized that I didn't fully understand what the expression means in the comics world. It also highlighted just how disconnected I am from the majority of mainstream comics fans.

To me, "writing for the trade" sounds like a good thing, almost a no-brainer, since it's obvious that trade collections have a longer shelf-life than single issues in today's market. They also have the potential to reach a much wider audience, since they end up on Amazon and in bookstores. Keeping in mind that a story is going to get collected in a single book and be sold as a separate, more or less standalone entity, just seems like good practice.

When DC talks about wanting to attract new readers, I find it very hard to imagine that those new readers are going to jump right into monthly comics. Honestly, the likelihood of that happening seems almost nil to me. Readers need to be eased into that market, and as I see it there are two potential "gateway drugs" to achieve this: trade paperbacks and (cheap) digital comics. I got into it through the former, but more and more I suspect that people will get into it through the latter.

But when non-regular comic readers pick up a trade paperback at a bookstore, they don't necessarily see it as a random collection of single issues from an ongoing series. They tend to think of it as a "graphic novel," so they expect a story that has a beginning and an end. The last thing you want to do is make that book so impenetrable that your potential new readers will be turned off by it and give up rather than keep reading (and buying) your comics. And that's why I think it makes sense to "write for the trade."

But as Darryl pointed out to me on Twitter (and as covered in the Robot 6 piece I linked to earlier), this is not what "writing for the trade" usually implies. Readers usually think of it as stretching out stories that could be told in 3 issues to fill a 6-issue arc. As such, "writing for the trade" is tied to the notion of "decompression," and under this light I can see why the news that DC is abandoning this practice would be received with cheers from fans.

Obviously, padding out stories with boring dialogue to fill a trade paperback sounds like a terrible idea. Still, I can't help but feel that DC is approaching the issue from the wrong angle. They stubbornly cling to the idea that the monthly comic book is the most important aspect of their business and that this is the area where they need to bring those hypothetical new readers. There must be some economical reasons behind this business strategy that I don't fully grasp, because it doesn't make much sense to me.

New comics this week! 

• American Vampire #16 (Vertigo)
• Batman Inc #7 (DC)
• Detective Comics #878 (DC)
• Flashpoint: Project Superman #1 (DC)
• Xombi #4 (DC)
• Butcher Baker #4 (Image)
• Super Dinosaur #3 (Image)
• Amazing Spider-Man #644 (Marvel)
• Avengers: Children's Crusade #6 (Mavel)
• FF #5 (Marvel)

 Those are the items on my pull list this week. A bit on the heavy side. I'm most excited for Xombi and 'Tec.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

My blog is experiencing a modest little boost in popularity right now, which I find very flattering and gratifying. Not that I'm reaching thousands of hits a day or anything (not even close), but it's nice to know that some people are reading, responding and linking to my posts.

So to all my new readers: welcome. And thank you. And please, keep posting comments. Also, consider following me on Twitter, where I also engage in a lot of comics-related discussions, with creators, fans and fellow bloggers alike. That's pretty much what the internet was made for, so you don't want to miss out, do you?

I wonder if it's going to be possible to keep the momentum when I shift my reading habits (and therefore also the focus of this blog) away from monthly superhero comics and toward indie and creator-owned comics in September. As a consumer, somehow who pays money for comic books, I'm pretty confident in my decision to jump off this bandwagon, but as a blogger/reviewer/writer-about-comics, I really wish that I could continue to be this involved in the serialized aspect of it all. Is this weekly  "Is It Wednesday Yet?" column even going to make sense anymore without all the super-hero comics on my pull list?

I also have to confess that I feel very intimidated by the idea of reviewing almost exclusively non-superhero comics. I keep wondering if I'll have anything smart to say about them. But that's probably just me being silly.

New comics this week!

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Lost Adventures TPB (Dark Horse)
• Batman: Gates of Gotham #2 (of 5) (DC)
• Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #1 (of 3) (DC)
• Flashpoint: The Outsider #1 (of 3) (DC)
• All Nighter #1 (of 5) (Image)
• Sigil #4 (of 4) (Marvel)
• Silver Surfer #5 (of 5) (Marvel)

I'm a huge fan of the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series, and aside from the free comic book in May, I haven't read any of the comics inspired by it, so I look forward to this collection. It might end up being a little too kid-oriented for my tastes, but I figure if that's the case I can probably just give it to my nephew in a few years when he's old enough to appreciate it.

I wasn't that excited by the first issue of the Gates of Gotham mini-series, and now that we know the DCU is going to implode in September, I have a hard time understanding how this is supposed to "set the stage for a bold new direction in the Bat books," as the August solicitation text claims. I know that most comic fans only seem to care about stories that "matter" in the overall continuity of the shared universe, but I'm the opposite: I want stories to be able to stand on their own and be satisfying without simply serving to "set the stage" for whatever comes next. (This is all part of my reasoning for why I'm dropping these books in September.) So now I don't really know if I should even bother reading this. I guess I'll give it another issue to convince me.

I wonder also why anybody would bother reading Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing, the first issue of which comes out on Wednesday. I didn't put it on my list, because it already seemed like pointless filler and even more so now that we know about the relaunch. I know DC keeps saying old stories are still in continuity, somehow, but I just can't wrap my head around how it's possible to have it both ways!

The two Flashpoint tie-ins I'm mostly just getting out of curiosity and because I decided to stick with this ridiculous event all the way to the end. Bart is one of my favourite characters, so that explains the Kid Flash book. I wasn't going to pick up the Outsider one at first, but based on Graeme McMillan's review at Savage Critics, it sounds like this is one of the better tie-ins, so I guess I'll give it a shot.

All Nighter #1 is available as a free PDF download on David Hahn's website. You should check it out, and then pick it up on Wednesday if you like it.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Okay, I have a lot of stuff I want to talk about right but very little time to get into any of it. So I'm just going to dump this list here and hopefully have time this evening to write a bit more about the DC relaunch and a few other things that have been on my mind lately.

New comics this week!

• Batgirl #22 (DC)
• Supergirl #65 (DC)
• Teen Titans #96 (DC)
• Northlanders #41 (Vertigo)
• Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths #1 (of 5) (IDW)
• Gladstone's School for World Conquerors #2 (Image)

These are the last few issues of Batgirl as we know it by Bryan Q. Miller. So sad.

Supergirl is the start of a three-issue arc written by Kelly Sue DeConnick. Like everything else at DC, this title gets rebooted in September, but that doesn't mean this can't be a good stand-alone arc worth reading.

Teen Titans is continuing J.T. Krul and Nicola Scott's story, and this is another title that will definitely become unreadable in September, so enjoy it while it lasts. I wonder what the point of introducing Solstice as a new character in this story was if she gets erased at the end of it.

Northlanders is getting cancelled with #50, so that's another "enjoy it while it lasts" recommendation.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

I tried to write a post about the Batman books announcements yesterday, but I couldn't even be bothered.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just go to any comics news site on the internet. I'm sure they're talking about it. The important part is that Barbara Gordon is going to be Batgirl again in September, and I can't even begin to tell you how stupid that is.

We're only halfway through the 52 new books, so I'm going to wait until that's done and then I'll have something to say about this whole idiotic relaunch. And it's probably not going to be pretty.

Expect more bombshells from DC throughout the day and week.

New comics this week!

It's a little bit hard to get excited about what's going on right now when everyone is so focused on what's going to happen in September, but apparently life goes on and comics continue to hit the shelf every Wednesday. This is what my pull list looks like this week:

• American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #1 (Vertigo)
• Birds of Prey #13 (DC)
• Booster Gold #45 (DC)
• Journey into Mystery #624 (Marvel)
• Magus #5 (12-Gauge)

This is probably going to be the last issue of Birds of Prey that I ever buy, since the last two issues before the whole DCU implodes are going to be by a fill-in creative team. This book along with The Flash are probably the two biggest disappointments I've experienced since I started reading regular monthly comics a little over a year ago. I'll have more to say about that later.

I'm half-tempted to not even bother picking up Booster Gold. I started reading it last month because it ties into Flashpoint, but it's safe to say my interest in that crossover has diminished considerably after some of the recent announcements from DC. I'll probably get it anyway, just because it's a light week.

Survival of the Fittest is a new mini-series by regular American Vampire writer Scott Snyder with art by the amazing Sean Murphy. This should be very good and a great companion to the main series.

Magus #5 is the last issue of that mini-series. Issue #4 is still sitting in my to-read pile.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

Things have been really weird on the personal side lately and I haven't been reading a lot of comics. Half my pull from last week is still piled up on my desk unread. These things happen. I'm sure I'll get back into it soon.

*

I have two unfinished posts in my drafts folder and I'm beginning to think they may never see the light of day. One is about the lack of strong female characters in Thor (the movie) and the other is about the consternatingly bad Alpha Flight #0.5, a comic that takes place in Canada on election day but has nothing to do with the recent Canadian elections. Hopefully I'll get around to finishing that post sometime this week. I think I've more or less given up on the one about Thor, though. The movie gets less and less relevant as we move into summer and the theatres are about to get flooded with a bunch of other super-hero movies. All of which, by the way, I intend to see. So maybe I'll revisit the idea for the post later this summer as a comparison with the other big movies.

*

DC Women Kicking Ass has a post about what improvements DC have made in diversity since they announced a commitment to it five years ago. I haven't read it yet, because I'm afraid it's going to be too depressing. I didn't even know DC had made this commitment and as far as I can tell there is little to no evidence that they've made any real efforts in that department.

*

I'm going through one of my phases where my blogs seem to multiply faster than my readers do. Right now I could 6 active ones and 3 dormant ones. I won't mention all of them here, but here are a few that might be of interest to you:

• I Have Thoughts and Feelings: Where I write about music. There is only one post so far and it's a detailed song-by-song review of Nirvana's In Utero. It was originally going to be "a blog about Phil Collins and Queen," as the header says. I know that seems inexplicably random and weird, and that was sort of the point. I was about halfway through a very long rambling introduction explaining the concept, but I decided to trash it and just review whatever. I'm sure I'll get to Phil Collins and Queen eventually.
• Melt Into Whiteness: A Tumblr where I dump YouTube videos of songs I like. There's no concept here. Just a straightforward (though very eclectic) collection of music.
• I Understand and I Wish to Continue: This is going to be my "personal" blog where I write about anything that isn't music or comics. Some of it is likely to be very personal and not all that interesting for anyone else but me, but I also plan to use it to dump ideas and rants about issues like social justice, feminism, queer politics, etc.

As an added bonus, I will also link to my Flick photostream, only because I just bought a new digital camera and I hope to get back into the habit of posting pictures regularly. It'll probably mostly be boring pictures of myself and my cat, since I don't have anything else to take pictures of.

*

New comics this week!

Flashpoint kicks into full speed this week with not only the second issue of the main series but also the first batch of minis:

• Flashpoint #2 (of 5) 
• Flashpoint: Abin Sur: The Green Lantern #1 (of 3)
• Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance #1 (of 3)
• Flashpoint: Secret Seven #1 (of 3)
• Flashpoint: The World of Flashpoint #1 (of 3)

You'll find previews for each of those on DC's The Source. For now, I'm going to stick to my plan of only buying the main series, although I will admit that both the Batman and Secret Seven ones look better than I anticipated. As a blogger/reviewer, I really wish I could afford to cover all of Flashpoint. But as a fan/consumer, it's pretty hard to justify spending that much money on it.

Other stuff on my pull list:

• Hellboy: The Fury #1 (of 3) (Dark Horse)
• Static Shock Special (one-shot) (DC)
• Superboy #8 (DC)
• Sweet Tooth #22 (Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #663 (Marvel)
• 50 Girls 50 #1 (Image)

Is It Wednesday Yet?

New comics this week!

• Detective Comics #877 (DC)
• Xombi #3 (DC)
• American Vampire #15 (Vertigo)
• Strange Adventures #1 (Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #622 (Marvel)
• FF #4 (Marvel)
• Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #3 (IDW)
• Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #3 (Image)
• Super Dinosaur #2 (Image)

I dropped Action Comics this month, because although I've been enjoying Paul Cornell's run so far, the Lex Luthor arc has concluded and the story now shifts to the "Reign of Doomsdays" arc. That story so far has consisted of Doomsday beating the shit out of various heroes, and based on the solicits for the next three issues, that's about all we can expect until its conclusion. This is a totally idiotic crossover, hijacking several titles and adding absolutely no value to any of them. It's the best example I've ever seen of how NOT to do crossovers.

Is It Wednesday Yet? // What's going on with DC books after August 31?

So I've been looking at DC's August solicitations and I have to admit that I'm pretty damn excited about what's going to happen after August 31st. Yes, I know that as a comic book blogger, it is my job to be cynical about the stunts that the big two pull to convince us that their comics are really important and a big deal and that they're going to change everything. Which is pretty much what DC has been telling us lately about Flashpoint, with all the PR and creator interviews and now the solicitations for August, where it is revealed that the only title currently scheduled to be released on the fifth Wednesday of the month is Flashpoint #5, because of the tremendous impact it's going to have on the DCU. I mean, I am fully aware that this is all manufactured hype, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't care. Or even, perhaps, enjoy it? Is that permitted?

Okay, editors and creators and ads constantly telling us that "it's a big deal" gets tiring and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. And only soliciting one book for the last week of August is a bold move, but what I think is much more telling about the solicitations is the fact that pretty much every book in the mainstream DCU in August is either the conclusion of some longer story arc, or what feels suspiciously like a filler done-in-one. It's like all the loose ends are getting wrapped up in August, so that it's really impossible to tell which book is going to continue in September and which book is going to be cancelled or transformed.

Let's take a closer look at the non-Flashpoint August solicitations. JMS's two epic failures, "Grounded" in Superman and "Odyssey" in Wonder Woman, both come to an end. Kelly Sue DeConnick's three-issue story in Supergirl also concludes. Superboy ships twice in August so that Jeff Lemire can finish the Hollow Men story he's been crafting since the first issue. Karl Kerschl's cover for #11 is an homage to Rafael Albuquerque's cover for the first issue (see above), which would gives the whole series a nice symmetry if this turned out to be the last issue. And Teen Titans ships twice in July and twice again in August, all so it can reach issue #100 before August 31. Do they want to end on a nice round number, or start off in a new direction on #101?

In the Bat books: Scott Snyder's long arc in Detective ends (with two issues shipping the previous month so they could fit everything in before August 31). Batman Inc promises a "surprise ending." Red Robin will have concluded its current arc the previous month and in August gets a story about Tim going after Captain Boomerang, the man who killed his father; it sounds like a done-in-one and is thematically appropriate for a final issue, with some payoff for an issue that's been in the background since Brightest Day started. Batgirl has to "put her past behind her" in a story that sounds like the conclusion for the stuff that's been going on for months with the Reapers. Batman and Robin is a done-in-one by David Hine, to kill time after Judd Winnick's three-issue arc that will end in July. Batman also sounds like a done-in-one, this one by Fabian Nicieza, and it hints that Dick Grayson's time time under the cowl might be coming to an end.

So there you have it. There's pretty much no way to predict what September's going to look like. What's going to be interesting is how DC manages to hold the suspense once it becomes time to release those solicits next month. Ideally, they wouldn't tell us anything about what comes next until the last issue of Flashpoint comes out on August 31, but obviously they can't do that. I'm predicting a lot of "top secret" covers in the September solicits. Should be interesting.

New comics this week!

• Batman: Gates of Gotham #1 (of 5) (DC)
• Booster Gold #44 (DC)
• Supergirl #24 (DC)
• Teen Titans #95 (DC)
• Amazing Spider-Man #661 (Marvel)
• Sigil #3 of 4 (Marvel/CrossGen)
• Silver Surfer #4 (of 5) (Marvel)

Wow. Only Marvel and DC for me this week. That's rare.

I'm super excited about Gates of Gotham, the Batman mini-series written by Scott Snyder. As you probably know if you've been reading my reviews, his current run on Detective Comics is probably the best Batman comic in a long time, so there's little doubt that this is going to be a good story. The wildcard is artist Trevor McCarthy, whose work I'm not familiar with. His covers are definitely nice, though.

I'm adding Booster Gold to my pull list as it seems to be a major tie-in to the Flashpoint event. This will be my first-ever issue of Booster Gold, though he was one of my favourite characters in 52.

I decided to drop Legion of Super-Heroes. Not that it was terrible, but I realized it was always the book I was least looking forward to reading. Sometime the issue would stay on my to-read pile for almost a full month before I'd get around to it. Nothing that's happened in it so far has really gotten me excited. And with Flashpoint and a few other additions to my pull list, this one just had to go.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

I feel like my "Is It Wednesday Yet?" column is getting a bit stale, so in an effort to keep things exciting, I'm changing the format AGAIN! The thing is, I'm not delusional. I know that I don't have a lot of regular readers. For a while, I thought maybe if I pretended to be a "real" comics news site that people who land here randomly might be fooled by it and start visiting regularly. If you build it, they will come, etc. And so I pretended that this weekly look at new comics wasn't just my personal pull list, but an informative survey of new and exciting books people might want to know about. But let's be honest. There are two dozen other blogs who do this EXACT SAME FEATURE EVERY WEEK and at least half of them probably do a better job of it than I do and a few of them probably get thousands of hits while I'm extremely lucky if I hit the 100 mark on a good day.

So, fuck that shit. This is not a comics news site. This is my blog. And I'm just some guy who happens to be into comics and, for whatever reason, isn't satisfied with just reading them and feels this perverse need to talk about them on the internet. I know, it's weird.

The point is, there is no point. I'm in a constant existential crisis over my relationship to language in general and written language in particular and I constantly alternate between manic, ambitious writing projects and absolute despair over my inability to write. Frustrated attempts to express myself are followed by shameful regrets at having wasted time and energy over such a pointless task.

On this blog in particular, I have attempted to maintain a facade of "professionalism" because I'm desperate for some kind of recognition from my "peers" (if I can even call them that), by which I mean fellow bloggers and critics, but I don't know if I really have it in me to be a serious comic book critic with ever-insightful commentary and clear prose and witty remarks and whatever else you need to "make it" as a blogger. Which, think about it for a minute, is probably the most pathetic and saddest ambition anyone could ever have. What do you want to be when you grow up? A guy whose blog posts get linked to from other blogs.

This post is supposed to be about this week's new comics, but what I'm trying to say is that it really isn't. It's always about me, and about my desperate need for attention and for approval and for recognition and for validation and, I suppose, for affection. I wish I had more followers on Twitter and that most of them were not spambots. I wish people would reply to everything I write and tell me how much they agree with me and how smart I am and how well put that was.

So this new format? There is no format. I'm just going to stream-of-consciousness it and rant about whatever the hell I want whether it's even related to comic books or not. Kind of like I've been doing for the past several paragraphs. And then, at the end of it, I'll post the list of books I may or may not buy this Wednesday.

(Don't worry. Not every post on this blog will turn into an unreadable mess like this one. This will mostly just affect the "Is It Wednesday Yet?" column.)

Go read something that actually makes sense

Like for example this post at DC Women Kicking Ass about race issues in comic books. I don't always agree completely with everything that Sue has to say (though I tend to agree more often than I disagree, and even when I disagree I usually think she brings up important points that need to be acknowledged), but when she's on, holy fucking shit, she's on. That's what I'm talking about.

I got involved in some of the discussion in the comments thread (hint: if you want to venture into that section of the post, start by selecting "Sort by Oldest first," otherwise Discus arranges the comments in order of "popularity" which makes it completely impossible to follow the thread), although I don't necessarily recommend you read anything other than what Sue says in the post itself. And that dude CharlesHB is really annoying.

Why is Thor plastered all over DC Comics' website?

I've been complaining about this for about a week, but nobody's been paying any attention to me, probably because they justifiably have much more important shit to worry about, but...

Every time I head over to the DC Comics website (which seems to happen several times a day, believe it or not) I am greeted with the same awful Thor video game animated banner advertisement. And it annoys me for two reasons. First, because it's advertisement and advertisement is generally annoying. And second, because I can't understand why DC is putting advertisement for their competitor's properties on its corporate website. It makes no sense to me.

I know. I know. Who cares?

Lowest Denomination

I got into a "fight" with Rich Johnston on Twitter because I think it's stupid that he routinely includes art that has clearly not been "swiped" in his regular feature Swipe File on his blog, Bleeding Cool. My point was that it doesn't matter if there's a disclaimer that says Swipe File includes homages, parodies, etc. The title of the post is still Swipe File and for most people in the comics world, "swiping" means "tracing" or "copying without acknowledgement."

His reply: "I'm not changing the title of something that's been used successfully for thirty years because of knee jerk reactions. I certain refuse to pander to the lowest denomination. I like to presume a certain intelligence and desire to read in readers."

Fair enough. But I think he meant lowest common denominator.

New comics this week

• Hellboy: Being Human (one shot) (Dark Horse)
• Batgirl #21 (DC)
• Batman Incorporated #6 (DC)
• Birds of Prey #12 (DC)
• Flash #12 (DC)
• Flashpoint #1 (DC)
• Northlanders #40 (Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #660 (Marvel)
• FF #3 (Marvel)
• Journey Into Mystery #623 (Marvel)
• Magus #4 (12-Gauge)
• Mega Man #1 (Archie)

Yep, that's a lot of comics, and since I'm not a millionaire, I probably won't buy all of them.

What's Batman, Inc doing on this list, you ask? That's right, I didn't bother picking up the last issue and I'm kind of sick of Grant Morrison. But it's on the list mostly because I want to check out the new artist, Chris Burnham. Also, I'm curious to find out this nonsense about Red Robin becoming the leader of the Outsiders. I'll probably just flip through the book at the store.

Flash #12 is the last issue of that series, and Flashpoint #1 presumably picks up right where it leaves off and kicks off the big humongous giant overwhelming summer blockbuster event. I will try the first issue, but depending on how unreadable it ends up being, I may not follow through with it.

Northlanders #40 is a one-shot with art by Matthew Woodson and should be pretty good.

Journey into Mystery... I just know I'm going to get burned by that one, because it has a "Fear Itself" trade dress and that presumably means that the story will tie into whatever's going on in that event, which I'm not interested in at all. But the first issue was all right, so we'll see.

Mega Man looks like it's aimed at young kids, so I'm probably not going to stick with it. But I'm curious enough to give the first issue a try.

Yes, It Is Wednesday Yet! + Read in April 2011

If you're wondering why this blog is being updated so sporadically lately, there are many perfectly valid explanations. I'm getting ready for a show (tomorrow night, details here) and that's been eating up a lot of my time. Meanwhile, I've also been going through a bit of an existential crisis, where I'm putting everything into question and wondering whether there's any point to me writing anything at all, let alone a blog about comic books. This happens to me fairly frequently and, hopefully, this too shall pass. (Although the recent blow of Canadians electing a majority Conservative government doesn't help.)

Anyway, some comic books are coming out today, and I will be buying a few of them. Namely:

• Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #3 (of 3) (Dark Horse) - although I haven't even read issue #2 yet
• Superboy #7 (DC) - although last issue sucked, but that was because of the Doomsday crossover
• Sweet Tooth #21 (Vertigo) - which will be amazing, because it's Sweet Tooth
• Astonishing Thor #4 (of 5) (Marvel) - I almost forgot this wasn't over

That's a remarkably small pull list for me this week. I'm proud of myself. However, I may also be tempted to try Fear Itself #2, Megaman #1 or iZombie #13. Or maybe I'll forget about all those and pick up a the hardcover of Greg Rucka's Stumptown that came out a few weeks ago.

---

In other news, here's a list of all the comics I read in April:

• 5 Ronin #4-5
• Thor #621
• Fear Itself #1
• Nonplayer #1
• Sweet Tooth #20
• Superboy #6
• Flash #10-11
• Journey into Mystery #622
• Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish
• Birds of Prey #11
• Batgirl #20
• Amazing Spider-Man #658-659
• Avengers: Children's Crusade #5
• Wolverine and Jubilee #4
• Super Dinosaur #1
• Supergirl #63
• Teen Titans #94
• Butcher Baker #2
• Infinite Vacation #2
• Madman Special
• Dark Horse Presents #1 (most of it, anyway)
• Detective Comics #876
• Action Comics #900
• Xombi #2
• Silver Surfer #3
• Sigil #2
• American Vampire #14
• Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2

I'm not going to pick my usual top 5 and stinker of the month, but I will say that Super Dinosaur was way better than I expected it to be and Dark Horse Presents was probably the biggest disappointment. If I thought any of this was in any way important, I might even bother to write reviews for both. But I probably won't.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

I'm a little bit late with my weekly preview post, so I'm just going to post my pull list instead:

• Dark Horse Presents #1 (DH)
• Legion of Super-Heroes #12 (DC)
• Supergirl #63 (DC)
• Teen Titans #94 (DC)
• Super Dinosaur #1 (Image)
• Silver Surfer #3 (Marvel)
• Wolverine and Jubilee #4 (Marvel)

 Dark Horse Presents is definitely the pick of the week. I'm also stoked (though a little bit sad) about the last issue of Wolverine and Jubilee. Super Dinosaur looks like a lot of fun.

Is It Wednesday Yet?

New comics this week!

(Note: the following are previews, not reviews. Unless stated otherwise, I haven't read these books. Recommendations are based on preview pages, solicitations and hype.)

Pick of the Week: Infinite Vacation #2 (Image)
I usually try to go with a new series or new-reader friendly jumping-on point as a pick of the wick, but there's just not a lot that excites me in that department this week. Infinite Vacation is Nick Spencer's weird story about an iPhone app that allows you to tap into alternate realities and trade situations with other versions of yourself. The mechanics of how this works are not clear and possibly make no sense if you think about them too much, but that's besides the point. It's like a Philip K. Dick thought experiment. The first issue was pretty cool and featured some really trippy art by Christian Ward. This is going to be a five-issue limited-series.

NEW STUFF

Birds of Prey #11 (DC)
This issue is a done-in-one story about Huntress going on a date with Catman and features art by guest artist Pere Perez. The solicitation text, which I'm assuming Gail Simone wrote, is actually hilarious: "...but can two hot-headed, red-blooded hunter-warriors on opposite sides of the law have a simple night out without trying to kill each other? Hint: No. No, they can't."

Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish (Dark Horse)
A little done-in-one featuring mutated livestock, evil aliens and giant robots. Written by Mike Mignola, drawn by Kevin Nowlan.

Journey Into Mystery #622 (Marvel)
Matt Fraction's short run on Thor was basically filler to kill time before Fear Itself kicked in. Now that it has, Fraction's off the book, along with artist Pasqual Ferry, replaced by Kieron Gillen and Doug Braithwaite, and it gets retitled "Journey Into Mystery." Fraction moves to a new Thor title that launches sometime this month also. To be honest, I've sort of lost interest. I'm gonna sit this one out.

Breakneck #1 (or 3) (215 Ink)
Buck #1 (215 Ink)
I don't know much about publisher 215 Ink, and it seems like the comic book store I go to rarely orders any of their titles. But a little while ago they put out a graphic novel called Brian and Bobbi that I thought looked pretty good. This week, they've got two new titles coming out. I think Buck is a one-shot. I can't vouch for the quality of any of these, but my interest is piqued. The 215 Ink website is here. You'll find a bit more info there, although the previews are unfortunately tiny and useless.

Butch Baker: The Righteous Maker #2 (Image)
Carbon Grey #2 (Image)
These two #2 issues are worth noting because they'll be shipping with reprints of the first issue, so it's still very easy to start reading without missing anything. I read and really enjoyed the first issue of Butch Baker. Carbon Grey I don't know anything about, but you can find more info and previews for both here.

Steve Rogers: Super Soldier Annual #1 (Marvel)
I have no idea what's going on in this title. There's a weird preview here.

Thor: Whosoever Wields This Hammer (one-shot) (Marvel)
This features reprints of Thor's early adventures with a new "framing sequence" by Christos Gage.

Red Robin #22 (DC)
This is the first part of a crossover with Gotham City Sirens and Batman this month. I've gotten so fed up with writer Fabian Nicieza's nonsensical plotting on this title that I dropped it from my pull list after the last issue. The only reason to keep reading is Marcus To's art, but he's taking a (much deserved) break this month, making this issue even less appealing. (Although, to be fair, I think guest artist Freddie Williams is all right.)

THESE OTHER FINE TITLES ARE ALSO ON MY PULL LIST:

• Batgirl #20 (DC)
• Batman and Robin #22 (DC)
• Flash #10 (DC)
• Superboy #6 (DC)
• Northlanders #39 (DC/Vertigo)
• Amazing Spider-Man #658 (Marvel)
• Casanova: Gula #4 (Marvel/Icon)
• Stan Lee's Starborn #5 (Boom)

Is It Wednesday Yet?

New comics this week!

(NOTE: These are previews, not reviews. I haven't read any of the comics mentioned below. Recommendations are based on preview pages, solicitation text and "hype.")

Pick of the week: Nonplayer #1 (Image)
Nate Simpson has been documenting his progress on this project for what seems like ages on his blog, Project Waldo. He says he's "learning how to draw comics by drawing a comic." And wow. The previews are just breathtakingly beautiful. Early reviews suggest the script does the art justice as well. This looks like a must-read. More here.

NEW STUFF

(listed in totally subjective decreasing order of interest)

Madman New Giant Size Super Ginchy Special One Shot #0 (Image)
A new comic by Mike Allred. I was going to say that's all you need to know, but then I realized Matt Kindt, Emi Lennox and Tonci Zonjic are also listed as artists. Maybe this should be my pick of the week!

Fear Itself #1 (Marvel)
Fear Itself: The Home Front #1 (Marvel)
Marvel's big summer event kicks off this week, and it's... so... hard... to resist. As I posted this weekend, I decided to skip this one completely, but early reviews of the first issue of Fear Itself are very positive, which fucks everything up for me, because I'm so easily convinced. These are both seven-issue mini-series, by the way. The main one is by Matt Fraction and Stuar Immonen. The Home Front is by a bunch of people and doesn't sound very interesting. I'm probably going to at least flip through the first issue of the main series at the store tomorrow and try not to let it suck me in. Advance spoiler-free review and preview here.

iZombie #12 (Vertigo)
While you get your Mike Allred fix from Madman this week, he takes a break from iZombie and lets guest artist Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets, etc.) take over for an issue. Script is still by Chris Roberson. If I understand correctly, this is going to be a done-in-one story, with a new arc starting next month with regular artist Allred back onboard. Sounds like a good place to jump on.

BPRD: The Dead Remembered #1 (of 3) (Dark Horse)
A new BPRD series by Mike Mignola, co-written with Scott Allie and pencilled by Karl Moline. Story involves a 14-year-old firestarter who accidentally burned her family alive, a small New England town, a witch hunt, a ghost and a priest. Preview.

Herc #1 (Marvel)
Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente continue their epic Hercules story in a new series with an abbreviated title. That seems to be the in thing at Marvel these days. Georges Jeanty is on art duties. The first two issues come out this month. This one is 40 pages and $3.99 and next one drops to 32 pages and $2.99. While this isn't listed as a Fear Itself tie-in, it'll get sucked into that event next month, so beware. For that reason, I'm going to sit this one out.

Skaar: King of Savage Land #1 (of 5) (Marvel)
"It's dinosaurs, giant robots and an ancient evil mastermind in Marvel's finest jungle adventure tradition." Okay. By Rob Williams and Brian Ching. Preview.

JLA 80-Page Giant 2011 (DC)
Oversized and six-dollar collection of short stories from various writers and artists. The best thing it has going for it is that it seems to feature a pretty classic line-up of the JLA, with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Martian Manhunter and John Stewart Green Lantern featured on the cover. I'll never understand why DC insists on having this team consist of anything other than the so-called Big Seven. It just seems so obvious that the appeal of the JLA is that they're the team of DC's biggest and most popular heroes. If you absolutely want to have a team of B- and C-listers fighting Eclipso, can't they do it in some other book? Anyway.

Superman/Batman Annual #5 (DC)
This is some shitty "Reign of Doomsday" tie-in. The only reason I'm even remotely interested in it is that I'm reading two ongoing books that are getting hijacked by this stupid crossover (Superboy and Action Comics). But I still won't be buying this.

Blue Estate #1 (Image)
Green Wake #1 (of 5) (Image)
Two new series from Image. I can't say I'm particularly interested in either of them, but check out the previews here.

Also:

• Thunderbolts: From the Marvel Vault #1 (Marvel)
• Solomon Kane: Red Shadows #1 (of 4) (Dark Horse)
• First Wave Special (DC)
• Vertigo Resurrected: Hellblazer: Bad Blood #1 (Vertigo)
• Deadpool Family #1 (Marvel)

ON MY PULL LIST

• Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #2 (of 3) (Dark Horse)
• Sweet Tooth #20 (Vertigo)
• Orc Stain #6 (Image)
• Avengers: Children's Crusade #5 (Marvel)

Is It Wednesday Yet?

After a three-week hiatus involving an unfortunate move to a website I am now too embarrassed to mention, my weekly column about new comics is back. I've altered the format slightly. "Pick of the week" is the single most exciting new release of the week. "New stuff" includes #1 issues as well as new story arcs or creative teams on ongoings. "My pull list" includes all the titles I play to buy (unless they were previously mentioned). And finally "Books and trades" includes noteworthy graphic novels or collected editions.

Pick of the Week

• Butch Baker: The Righteous Maker #1 (Image)

A new series written by Joe Casey and drawn by Mike Huddleston is reason enough to celebrate. I don't think there's anything I can say about it that will be more convincing than Casey's own description of it: "This one ain't for the faint of heart," declares Casey. "BUTCHER BAKER is a sleazy, mature readers superhero book about a semi-retired 'patriotic' superhero who gets the call for one last adventure. It's everything you want a superhero comic book to be. It's simultaneously iconic and subversive and a whole lot of fun." Here's a NSFW preview.

New Stuff

• Captain America and Secret Avengers (one-shot) (Marvel)
• Captain America #616 (Marvel)
• Secret Avengers #11 (Marvel)

This week from Marvel you can either get Captain America, Secret Avengers, or both combined in a special one-shot! The one-shot is the last in the series of 70th anniversary one-shots featuring the character this month. It looks very skipable to me, although I have heard good things about writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. Captain America #616 promises a "bold new direction" and Secret Avengers #11 is starting a two-issue story set in the past that will explain the connection between Steve Rogers and the Shadow Council. I don't know how new-reader friendly that last one is going to be, as it sounds more like an epilogue to Brubaker's run on the title to tie up some loose ends before he hands over the reigns to newcomer Nick Spcencer with issues #12.1 and 13. All of which is expected to tie into Fear Itself this summer. (Personally, I've lost interest and dropped the title.)

• Cyclops (one-shot) (Marvel)

I can't tell you what this books is about, because Marvel didn't think it was necessary to say anything about it in the solicitations or on its website. I'm going to go on a wild limb here and suggest that it's probably going to be about Cyclops. I bet it's also going to be set in the era of "First Class" like that truly pointless Marvel Girl one-shot I read from a month or two ago. I'd suggest you pretend this doesn't exist.

• Jimmy Olsen (one-shot) (DC)

This $5.99 "80-page giant" collects the first few chapters of the Jimmy Olsen story written by Nick Spencer, which appeared in Action Comics, plus 30 pages of new material concluding the story. This is infuriating because I already paid an extra dollar on Action Comics for several months while this was the back-up feature, and now I have to pay six bucks to buy that material again, just so I can get the conclusion of the story. Yet another example of how there is ZERO cohesion or foresight to DC's editorial decisions these days. They make a big deal out of "Drawing the Line at $2.99" because they care about their readers, but meanwhile the mid-story cancellation of this back-up feature results in this. And I understand that it makes more sense now to collect the full story rather, so that new readers can buy this and not have to hunt down those back issues of Action to piece things together. But the losers are the ones who did buy this the first time around and paid that extra dollar for nothing. The worst part is I still have to recommend this, because it's actually pretty good.

• American Vampire #13 (Vertigo)

New story arc starts this issue. I bought issue #12, which was a quick done-in-one in between arcs, and I loved it. Raphael Alburquerque is now back on art duties and I'm psyched. Scott Snyder, whose been blowing my mind on Detective Comics lately, is of course the writer and creator of this title. Preview.

• Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1 (IDW)

The last time I got excited about a title from IDW, it was that awful Infestation crossover event and I lived to regret it. So much so that I said I might never buy another IDW title ever again. Well, I changed my mind. I'm probably going to get this one. Because it's Godzilla and it sounds awesome. Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh are writing, while Phil Hester provides the art. What could possibly go wrong?

• Caligula #1 (Avatar)

In the comments that followed my non-review of Neonomicon, I declared that Alan Moore's four-issue limited series was in poor taste, and Rich Johnston agrees with me, though he sees that as a good thing, comparing it to South Park and the Bible (!). Poor taste is what Avatar does best, and Caligula looks like another fine example of it, with David Lapham writing and German Nobile on art. Here's a NSFW preview.

• Dollhouse: Epitaph (one-shot) (Dark Horse)

This is a one-shot that follows the canceled TV series's last episode and sets things up for the upcoming ongoing comic book series. Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon are writing, and Cliff Richards does the art. If you're a fan, you probably know all about it already. Otherwise, like me, you probably don't care.

• Undying Love #1 (Image)

A new horror-action vampire comic set in Hong Kong, by Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman. There's an interview here and a preview here.

My pull list

• Action Comics #899 (DC)
• Detective Comics #875 (DC)
• Teen Titans #93 (DC)
• 5 Ronin #5 (Marvel)
• Amazing Spider-Man #657 (Marvel)
• Thor #621 (Marvel)

Action Comics is inching closer to #900, which is going to be amazing. Detective Comics, by Scott Snyder and Jock, is possibly the best book DC publishes at the moment, so if it's not on your pull list, you're missing out big time. Speaking of Big Time, Amazing Spider-Man is pretty good these days. Thor concludes Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry's epic cosmic story. 5 Ronin, a five-issue limited series, also concludes.

Books and trades

• Superman: The Black Ring HC (DC)

There's something really stupid and dishonest about putting Superman's name in the title of this book, since he's not even in it. I guess DC marketing figures it's okay to lie to your audience as long as it helps sell a few more books. But this is just like when movie studios market a film as one genre when it is actually a completely different type of film. It might attract a few more people to the premiere, but they're all going to hate it because it's not what it was advertised as, whereas the actual audience that might have enjoyed it won't bother showing up. This hardcover collection includes the first five issues of Paul Cornell's excellent Action Comics run, which stars Lex Luthor. It should be titled Lex Luthor: The Black Ring, but I guess that wasn't marketable enough.

• Strange Tales II HC (Marvel)

If you didn't buy this in single issues, then you MUST get this collection. It's probably the best thing Marvel released last year. An anthology of short stories by some of the greatest indie comics creators currently working, given more or less free reign to do whatever they want with Marvel characters. Solid gold.

The imminent return of my "Is It Wednesday Yet?" column to its rightful home - right here!

Earlier this month I announced that I was moving my weekly new release column, Is It Wednesday Yet?, to a brand new collaborative comics blog called Tastes Like Comics. Well, it was good while it lasted, but after some, uh, editorial differences, I've decided to move it back here. No hard feelings (I hope).

So starting next week, I'm going to be posting the column every Tuesday morning. I'm going to keep the slightly altered format I was using at the other site, though, which focuses more on new series or easy jumping-on points than my own pull list.

You can read this week's column here.