New This Week: March 1, 2006

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is A Distant Soil: Coda, the fourth volume in Colleen Doran's fantasy epic.


In other comics:

Abstract Studios have a new issue of Strangers in Paradise (#80).

Antarctic have the third Gold Digger Color Remix, plus a print version of David Hutchinson's Mischief & Mayhem: Field Trip To Heck.

Boom! Studios have the debut of War of the Worlds: Second Wave.

Dark Horse have the Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 25 Cent Flip Book--just two bits!

DC kick off One Year Later with Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis (#40), Detective Comics (#817), JSA (#83), and Outsiders (#34); but they're still back in the previous year with the delayed final issue of Adventures of Superman (#649) and the latest Infinite Crisis (#5); they also have new issues of Jonah Hex (#5), Ex Machina (#18), Swamp Thing (#25), and Y, the Last Man (#43); a second collection of Garth Ennis's War Stories; and two collections of the Dini-verse Superman Adventures (vols. 3 & 4).

Devil's Due have the fourth issue of Elsinore.

Fantagraphics have a new issue of The Comics Journal (#274).

IDW have four hefty collections, including the fourth volume of The Complete Jon Sable, Freelance; plus a new issue of Fallen Angel (#3).

Image have a new issue of Gødland (#8); and, if you missed them, 3rd printings of the first two issues of Fell.

Marvel weigh in with the second issue of the fun Next Wave; the phone-book sized Essential Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition vol. 1; and new issues of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (#5), The Punisher (#31), X-Factor (#4), and Ultimates 2 (#10).

Oni have the fourth issue of Local and the long-delayed final issue of Queen & Country Declassified vol. 2 (#3).

Seven Seas debut a new OEL manga title, Captain Nemo.

Speakeasy have what may be their final comic: Beowulf #7.

TokyoPop have the second volume of I Luv Halloween, and also the second volume of Telepathic Wanderers.

Top Shelf have Max Estes' Coffee and Donuts.


Relatively big week this week (since you and I might think it's the first week of March, but for Diamond shipping purposes it's really the last week of February...)

Reader Mail

Sometimes we get mail from our readers here at YACB; sometimes I'll share it with you:

Todd Frye from Tennessee writes:

Hello -

When you have time, please visit my site

http://www.comic-covers.com/

and if you like it, I'd appreciate a mention in your
blog.

Thanks.

Consider it mentioned, Todd.


Ray Tomczak wrote in to let me know about an error that creeped into my SNAP! round-up:

I came across your "Yet Another Comics Blog" while running a vanity search on Google. Under other circumstances, I would be thanking you for the mention, but in this case the comic that you attribute to me--Are We On Mars Yet?--is not one of mine. It is in fact the work of Yul Tolbert, who lives not all that far from you (closer than I do, at least) in Detroit.

If my name is on it, it's because Yul was at the time a member of the Small Press Syndicate, a club for small press comics publishers of which I served as chairman from January 2001 to December 2003.

Also, I will soon begin posting my comic strip Wasted Potential on my blog--just as soon as I get the scans back from my friend Joe.

Sorry about that Ray. Thanks for the info--I've made the correction.


Stephen Frug writes to let us know about a unique project he's undertaken:

I've written a comics script, and released it under a creative commons license. What this means is that anyone who wants to can play with it (illustrate it, rewrite it, or whatever), and publish the result non-commercially (so long as I'm given credit, and so long as they release it under the same license). I think this is the first-ever creative commons comics script -- there have been comics before, but not a script, afaik... The info & script downloads are here: http://stephenfrug.googlepages.com/ContinuityIntro.html

So if you're an aspiring comic artist looking for something to draw, Stephan's got a script for you to play with.


Finally, Phil Ward, who was the manager at my former comic shop, The Underworld, back in the days when it wa a great comic & game shop (it is since deceased...) writes to tell me that he's now at Heroquest Comics and Games in Howel Michigan: 2608 East Grand River Ave, Howell MI 48843, 517-540-9790. I haven't been there yet, but Phil ran a good shop back when he was in Ann Arbor, so if you're in Livingston County it might be worth stopping by to check out what they have to offer.


(some letters have been edited for length or clarity)

New Library Comics: Week of February 20, 2006

Here are the comics we got in for our library collection last week:


Amano, Masanao. Manga design /Koln ; Los Angeles : Taschen, 2004.

Amrapali and Upragupta /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Ancestors of Rama /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Battle of wits : a Jataka tale /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Blood orange. /Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics Books, 2004- no. 1, 3-4

Burns, Charles, 1955- Black hole /New York : Pantheon Books, c2005.

Draupadi /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Gravett, Paul. Graphic novels : stories to change your life /London : Aurum, 2005.

Mahiravana /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Monkey Covers

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

On the cover of 1980's Super Friends #30, Ramonda Fradon & Bob Smith draw Gorilla Grodd up to his old tricks, trying to turn people into gorillas. What is it with that guy?

(Standard disclaimer about gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! LEGO Pinball (via Steve Jackson)

ITEM! Wired has an article about the trials and tribulations of Richard Linklater's roto-animated adaptation of A Scanner Darkly: "Trouble in Toontown ".

ITEM! Chris Butcher is blogging up a storm out at the New York Comic Con. It's the next best thing to being there.

YAFQ: Fire!

Yet Another Friday Question:

There's a fire at your place of residence. You of course have first made sure that your family members, loved-ones, and pets are safe, and have already rescued your picture albums, heirlooms, and important documents. You have time to grab just one more handful of things before it finishes going up in flames, so which comic books do you grab to save from fiery destruction?


Me, I'm saving three things that are nearly irreplacable: the Flex Mentallo mini; Tales of the Beanworld; and my Curt Swan original Superman art pages.


How about you: which comic items would you save from the flames of fate?

Yet Another Music Moment

(I've pretty much given up on Yet Another Media Blog, as I was hardly ever updating it and no one was reading it when I was. So you'll all have to put up with me rambling on about music and tv and movies and books and whatnot from time to time over here on YACB.)

Who knew that listening to NPR could be so expensive? After hearing an All Things Considered story on singer Jenny Lewis, I hopped on over to iTunes and ended up not only purchasing her new album Rabbit Fur Coat, but also the album More Adventurous by her regular band Rilo Kelly. (Darn iTunes makes buying new music too easy!) Both are rather good, so hop on over and give a listen when you get a chance.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

Well, it's my birthday too, yeah!

Other people who share our birthday (courtesy of WikiPedia):

Pope Paul II (1417)
W.E.B. DuBois (1868)
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (1932)
Peter Fonda (1940)
Howard Jones (1955)
Dakota Fanning (1994)

(Update: See the Wikipedia article on the birthday paradox.)

(modified cover to The New Adventures of Superboy #1 by Kurt Schaffenberger & Dick Giordano, courtesy of the GCD. Clark Kent's actual birthday is February 29, but this is close enough!)

Review: War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1

War of the Worlds: Second Wave #1
by Michael Alan Nelson & Chee
Boom! Studios, $2.99

The basic story of War of the Worlds is probably familiar to just about everyone, if not through H. G. Wells' original novel than via one of he many other media adaptations: Martians invade Earth and wreck destruction upon humanity until finally they are wiped out in a rather anticlimactic fasion via common Earth germs.

This first issue of this new Boom! Studios series retells the basic WotW story, set in modern day middle America, from the perspective of Miles, a self-professoed unheroic suburban everyman who just wants to survive. In the process Miles loses his wife to the Martian's onslaught, and he vows revenge. He may get his chance, as the last page of the comic reveals (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything here, as it is the main premise of the series) that a week later the Martians return.

Therein lies the main problem with this first issue: it's all set-up. Worse, it's set-up that we basially already know. The interesting story, the *real* story, is what happens during the Second Wave, and how Miles will respond. While the set-up is important, it probably should have been condensed way down to four pages or so, and perhaps moved into a flashback.

As for the art, the uni-named Chee has solid storytelling abilities, and during the action scenes brings a good level of tension to the story. There's room for improvement with the figurework, especially in the case of Miles' wife Gina, drawn in many panels looking more like an 11-year-old girl than a twenty-something woman (which caused this reader at least a bit of confusion in the opening).

On the whole, War of the Worlds: Second Wave is off to a somewhat flawed but promising start. It's hard to judge, given that the real story doesn't kick off until the last page. But I'm interested enough to want to see where the story goes from here, so I'm looking forward to the real story kicking off in the second issue.

Rating: 3 (out of 5)

A review copy of this comic was provided by the publisher.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! If it's February, it must be the start of awards season (which goes for what, six months?) Nominees have been announced for the Shuster Awards (Canadian creators), the Glyph Awards (Achievement in black comics), and the ISPie Awards (Indy & Small Press).

ITEM! This week, the Detroit Free Press is running a survey asking readers which comics in their comics section should stay and which should go. Vote now and send Mallard Fillmore to the early grave it deserves!

ITEM! Scholastic are apparently considering a line of manga targeted at elementary kids. (Follow along with the discussion for inersting responses about kids & comics in libraries.)

ITEM! Newsarama have up preview pages for 3 of the DC OYL comics: Aquaman, Catwoman, and Hawkgirl. Spoilers ahoy, especially for Catwoman. Tom Spurgeon has some interesting comments regarding DCs latest creative direction/marketing ploy. Success will hang, I think, on not just the quality of the comics, but whether or not sales increase enough to justify the costs of the high-profile creative teams involved in many of the titles. If not, look for second- and third-tier creators coming on-board in 2007.

ITEM! We're suffering under a massive denial-of-service attack on campus today, as apparently are many other institutions, which is making Web surfing slow to a crawl sporadically. Kind of makes my 100Mbs connection kind of worthless right now...

New This Week: February 22, 2006

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is Mouse Guard #1 from Archaia Studio Press. Yes, its story of mice in a fantasy-like world is somewhat derivative of Redwall, but the art is charmingly realistic and well-done. It's a funny shape though (square) so don't miss it.


In other comics:

Aardvark-Vanaheim & Win-Mill have another installment of comics criticism with Following Cerebus #7.

Alias have collected editions of both Lions, Tigers & Bears and Lullaby: Wisdom Seeker.

Antarctic have the last issue of Oz: The Maga (#8), although I think there's also an epilogue on the way.

Boom! Studios have Zombie Tales: Death Valley #2.

Dark Horse have a new issue of Usagi Yojimbo (#91).

DC have the earliest adventures of the Man of Steel in Superman Chronicles, vol. 1; debut issues of John Ridley's American Way and Jones & Sears' Warlord revival; and new issues of Catwoman (#52), JLA Classified (#17), Legion of Super-Heroes (#15), Lucifer (#71); and the final issue of Wonder Woman (#226).

Fantagraphics have a new issue of Luba's Comics and Stories (#7).

Marvel have the return of Whedon & Cassiday's Astonishing X-Men (#13); the final issue of Black Widow 2 (#6); and new issues of Captain America (#15), Book of Lost Souls (#5), Kabuki (#6), Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (#3), Supreme Power: Hyperion (#4), and Ultimate Spider-Man (#90).

TokyoPop have a ton of books, including volume 3 of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad.


That about does it. Looks like DC wasn't able to ship an issue of Infinite Crisis during February--that's really going to hurt their dollar share...

New Library Comics: Week of February 13, 2006

Here are the comics we got in for our library collection last week:


Atangan, Patrick. The silk tapestry and other Chinese folktales /New York : NBM Pub., c2004.

Atangan, Patrick. The yellow jar : two tales from Japanese tradition /New York : NBM Pub., [2002]-

Atangan, Patrick. Tree of love /New York : Nantier, Beall, Minoustchine Pub., 2005.

Birbal the clever /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Dasharatha /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Dead herring comics /Tel Aviv, Israel : Actus Independent Comics, [2004]

Jataka tales : bird stories /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1997.

Kaulfersch, Ron. Van Von Hunter /Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2005. v. 1

Krishna /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

Kurtzman, Harvey. Playboy's Little Annie Fanny /Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 2000-

Mansukhani, G. S. Guru Nanak /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

McCay, Winsor. Little Nemo in Slumberland /Palo Alto, CA : Sunday Press, c2005.

Noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish so maybe you could help us out /San Francisco : McSweeney's, c2005.

Pekar, Harvey. The quitter /New York : DC Comics, c2005.

Sala, Richard. Mad night /Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, 2005.

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro, 1935- The Push Man, and other stories /Montreal : Drawn & Quarterly ; New York, NY : Distributed in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2005.

The hidden treasure : a Jataka tale /Mumbai, India : India Book House, 1998.

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! "I'm always sorry to have to rush to the defense of idiots." Joe Sacco, along with Art Speigelman, discusses the Danish cartoon controversy on The Nation.

ITEM! Linkology: How the Most-Linked-To Blogs Relate from New York Magazine. And not a single comics blog among them.

ITEM! Infuze magazine has the entire first issue of David: Shepherd's Song available online (free registration required). I previously reviewed this comic favorably.

ITEM! Over on Newsarama, Andy Diggle interviews David Lloyd about the V for Vendetta movie (Lloyd's take is quite different from Alan Moore's...) and his upcoming graphic novel, Kickback (with sample pages!)

ITEM! On this weekend's Speaking of Faith, host Krista Tippett speaks in-depth with American Muslim scholar Vincent Cornell about the Danish Cartoon Controversy. It's very interesting, but missing from the conversation is any mention of the inflamatory fake cartoons.

Monkey Covers

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

Win Mortimer draws the cover to 1954's Adventure Comics #196, featuring Superboy facing off against the improbably-named Kingorilla.

(Standard disclaimer about giant gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

100K Contest Winner

The winner of the YACB 100,000th Visitor Free Comic Giveaway Contest--randomly chosen via a die roll out of the 19 entries I received--is Nate Atkinson.

Congratulations to Nate, and thanks to everyone who entered. There will be plenty more chances to win free comics in May when we have our 2nd Annual Free Comic Book Month here at YACB.

Time is Running Out!

There are less than six hours remaining to send in your entry for our 100,000th Visitor Free Comic Giveaway Contest. Don't miss out on your chance to win a bunch of cool comics, all for the cost of a single emai

The official 100,000th visitor hit the site at 5:41pm EST, following a link to the contest from P. Jarvinen's Comic Book Wife blog (thanks for the link!) If this person was you, email me with enough identifying information that I can match you to the site meter (e.g. your ISP and city where you live) and I'll send a special prize your way.

100,000th Visitor Free Comic Giveaway Contest!

Sometime today YACB will have its 100,000th visitor.

To celebrate, I'm offering a special prize package to one lucky YACB reader.

What's in the prize package? I'm glad you asked!


It consists of two graphic novels:

• Sea of Red, vol. 1: No Grave But the Sea by Rick Remender, Kieron Dwyer & Salgood Sam. It features pirates, vampires, and vampire pirates.


• A Trip to Rundberg by Nate Southard & Shawn Richter. It features zombies, zombies, and more zombies.

Plus a set of recent #1 issues of the following comics:

• Fury: Peacemaker #1 by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson & Jimmy Palmiotti


• Generation M #1 by Paul Jenkins, Ramon Bachs & John Lucas


• Jeremiah Harm #1 by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, & Rael Lyra


• Loveless #1 by Brian Azzarello & Marcelo Frusin


• Planetary Brigade #1 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, & friends


• Revelations #1 by Paul Jenkins & Humberto Ramos


• Sentinel Squad O*N*E #1 by John Layman, Aaron Lopresti & Norm Rapmund


• Team Zero #1 by Chuck Dixon, Doug Mahnke & Sandra Hope


• Underworld #1 by Frank Tieri, Staz Johnson & Tom Palmer


• Vigilante #1 by Bruce Jones & Ben Oliver

And that's not all--I'm also tossing in a DVD of 10 classic Fleischer Superman cartoons!


What do you have to do to enter for a chance to win this prize package? It's simple!

Just email me with a note saying that you want to enter, and include '100K Contest' in the subject line. That's it! All entries must be received by Midnight tonight (EST). Tomorrow morning I'll randomly choose a name out of the winning entries, and that person will win the prize package detailed above.

Of course, there's some fine print:

* The decision of the winner is solely at my discretion--it will be chosen at random--and my decision is final.

* Only one entry per person.

* All entrants must live within the United States.

* All entrants must be at least 18-years-old.

* If you are chosen to win, your name will be used on this blog for the announcement of the winner.


Remember, you have to enter today if you want to win, so enter now!

And thanks to everyone for reading this comic book blog.

Quick Boom! Reviews

Planetary Brigade #1
by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Joe Abraham, Cynthia Martin, Eduardo Barreto, Mark Badger, & Chase Conley.

When I first heard that Giffen & DeMatteis were doing their own super-hero team book, it was cause for excitement. With their recent Not the Justice League stories showing that they still knew how to bring the funny, bringing their brand of humor to a super-team of their own creation seemed like the logical next step. Alas, Planetary Brigade largely disappoints, as this first issue never gels together. Part of the problem is that, unlike in their Justice League work, these heroes are unknown to us. They can't rely on short-hard with the characters' personalities, and there's no humor by playing against type because we don't know what their normal characteriation is supposed to be. The artists involved are all fine in their own right, but smooshing them all together in this comic really doesn't work (especially Mark badger, who I generally like but here seems out of place). I won't give up on this comic just yet due to the track records of the creators, but this comic is on a short leash.

Rating: 2.5 (of 5)



Zombie Tales: Death Valley #2
by Andrew Cosby, Johanna Stokes, & Rhoald Marcellus

I never read the first issue of this two-issue series, but it hardly matters as the comic rapidly brings us up-to-speed with its standard issue zombie plot: all of Los Angeles has been transformed into Zombies, except for a plunky band of misfit teenagers who need to fight to survive and escape. The comic largely survives on the quick characterization work from Stokes and the slightly cartoony artwork from Marcellus. It's mostly well-paced and well-drawn--in other words, a perfectly competent zombie comic. But there are a lot of those around for choosing these days, but if you need even more zombie bashing this prestige-format comic should do the trick.

Rating: 3 (of 5)



(review copies of these comics were provided by the publisher)

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?

You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.

Moya (Farscape)		75%
Serenity (Firefly)		63%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)		63%
Enterprise D (Star Trek)		56%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)		50%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)		50%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)		44%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)		44%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)		44%
SG-1 (Stargate)		44%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)		38%
FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)		31%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

New This Week: February 15, 2006

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is the Kid Eternity trade, collecting the early 90s mini-series by Grant Morrison & Duncan Fegredo. Not a major work in Morrison's oeuvre, but still a good story and of interest to those interested in his formative career.


In other comics:

Antarctic Press debut Rod Espinosa's Alice in Wonderland adaptation.

Boom! Studios debut Planetary Brigade.

Dark Horse have new issues of Conan (#25) and The Goon (#16).

DC debut Paul Pope's Batman: Year One Hundred; continue the story of Kal-L in Action Comics #836; and have new issues of Birds of Prey (#91), Hellblazer (#217), JSA Classified (#9), The Losers (#32), Manhunter (#19), Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy (#2), and Testament (#3).

Fantagraphics have two Blab Storybooks: Darling Cheri by Walter Minus and Struwwelpeter & Other Distrubing Tales by Bob Staake.

Heroic debut Roy Thomas' Anthem.

IDW debut Brian Wood & Kristian's Supermarket.

Image have a new issue of Noble Causes (#17).

Marvel have Ed Brubaker & Michael Lark's debut on Daredevil (#82); A big thick Essential Moon Knight vol. 1; and new issues of Runaways (#13), She-Hulk 2 (#5), and X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl (#2).

MR Comics have the second issue of Revolution on the Planet of the Apes.


Which wraps things up for a rather light week. Enjoy!