FCBM5 Day 27

It's day twenty-seven of the Fifth Annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our next selected entry is from Ge Oh. The five comics that Ge listed are:

1. Invincible
2. BlokHedz
3. The Walking Dead
4. Ghost Tank
5. Scott Pilgrim

And Ge's other thing of interest is music.

For Ge I have the first issue of Chynna Clugston's latest Blue Monday series, Thieves Like Us.

For Ge's bonus comic, I'm sending the Peanuts Halloween comic.

Ge's comics should be in the mail within a week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
27 entries
64 free comics sent so far
4 days remaining

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

We conclude our special Colleen Coover week here at YACB with her cover to Banana Sunday #3, featuring the gang taking in a movie.

(Standard disclaimer about talking apes not really being monkeys applies.)

Click on the image for a larger version.

Quick Review: Polly and the Pirates

Polly and the Pirates
by Ted Naifeh
Oni Press, $11.95

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, so when you go to your Friendly Local Comic Store to pick up today's booty, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Ted Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates. Polly is a pre-teen girl who learns that she is the heir to the legendary Pirate Queen. At first she rejects her status, but of course eventually comes to accept her role as a leader of pirates. It's standard hero journey stuff, but Naifeh really makes the story come alive with wit and adventure and interesting characters. It's easily on par with his Courtney Crumrin series.

Rating: 4 (of 5)

Monkeys in Space!

Oni's James Lucas Jones sent along this promotional piece for James Vining's upcoming First in Space GN:




Normally I don't post such blatant ads, but how can I resist monkeys in space?

Quick OEL Manga Reviews

Snow vol. 1 by Morgan Luthi (TokyoPop, $9.99) features one of those galactic future milieus where humans and aliens exist side-by-side, and an oppressive galactic empire seeks to run roughshod over the various worlds for no apparent reason. The empire's key weapon is The Ghost, a humanoid being that is dropped onto an uncooperative planet and runs roughshod over everything. On the ass-end of the universe is The Hub, whose newest arrival, Snow, bears a remarkable resemblance to The Ghost. Luthi--another of TP's Rising Stars finalists--manages to work in libertarian ideas without being too obvious or preachy, or leaving out the many warts. In fact, there are a lot of good ingredients here; but they don't quite gel into a comprehensive whole, and the story is a bit too obvious in places.


I shouldn't have liked Nathaniel Bowden & Tracy Yardley's Riding Shotgun vol. 1 (TokyoPop, $9.99) for it's senseless, over-the-top violence, but it was gleeful and charming enough to win me over in its nihilism. Set in an alternate world where assassination is legal and regulated, Doyle Harrington and his partner Abby are up-and-coming assassins looking to make the jump to the big leagues. But their plans go awry when one of their targets turns out to be Doyle's old high school girlfriend. Yardley's art is appropriately energetic. The car chase sequence that runs for about 17 pages at three-quarters of the way through is one of the best I've seen represented in comics. Riding Shotgun doesn't quite measure up to Bambi and Her Pink Gun in the ranks of violent nihilistic comics, but it's a good read for fans of that sort of stuff and I'll be looking forward to the next volume.


With Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness (Oni, $11.95) I think I'm finally getting into the groove of Brian Lee O'Malley's video games-meet-emo world view. I laughed quite a bit, and actually looked forward to the crazy fight scenes that pop in to resolve existential and emotional conflicts. I'm a bit concerned that the plot doesn't seem to be moving forward much, but we get enough drama, back story, action and humor to carry us through this volume at least. And I still feel sorry for poor Knives Chau, whose only mistake was falling for the charming but self-centered Scott.



Ratings:
Snow vol. 1: 2.5 (of 5)
Riding Shotgun vol. 1: 3 (of 5)
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness: 3.5 (of 5)

Dave's (Half) Dozen: Indy Comics

Continuing my look through the October Previews (for comics supposedly shipping in December), here are a half dozen indy comics that I feel are worth your attention:


DinoWars: Jurassic War of the Worlds #1
(Antarctic, $3.50, p. 222)
Ros Espinosa's latest has a race of intelligent dinosaurs returing to Earth after 65 million years away--and they're pissed!



Cthulhu Tales: "The Rising"
(Boom!, $6.99, p. 248)
The first Cthulhu Tales was a good deal of fun, and there's no reason to expect that this second offering won't be more of the same.



Mr. Stuffins #1
(Boom!, $3.99, p. 250)
Another piece of high-concept pop-action from Boom!: A teddy bear secret agent!



Code #1
(Guardian Line, $2.99, p. 286)
One of three new Christian-themed titles debuting from new publisher Guardian Line this month, Code could be the best of the lot. A baddd-a$$ techno-sage in a trench coat and fedora with a comprehensive knowledge of saced writings. "Evil had best sit down and shut up." Indeed.



Maintenance #1
(Oni, $3.50, p. 309)
Jim Massey & Robbi Rodriguez bring what looks to be a fun comic about a couple of janitors at an evil science think tank.



The 3 Geeks: Jim's Jerky!
(3 Finger Press, $2.00, p. 318)
Rich Koslowski takes a break from 'serious' graphic novels to come back to his original series of three comic-loving guys.



I covered mainstream comics a few days ago. I'll have the collects and graphic novels picks in a day or two.