The Gosh! Authority 09/09/09

We’ve just received this week’s delivery of goodies and I can tell you it’s definitely an art-book week. The Art of Tony Millionaire is 200 long overdue and beautiful pages of unseen illustrations, comics, stories, photographs and anecdotes from the multiple Eisner/Harvey/Ignatz Award-winning creator of Maakies all topped off with an introduction by Elvis Costello. It promises to be a drunken fever dream of dollies, apes, and exotic mysteries (no doubt hilarious) but there’s also some of his realistic artwork too: Portraits, ginger cats, etc. Expert in many fields John Hodgman reckons he’s the closest thing we’ve got to George Herriman. You will want this.

James Jean’s (Fables covers) stuff always flies off the shelf here at Gosh! so his two latest things won’t need much (if any) pushing from us lot. The Kindling Portfolio is a collection oversized prints of new paintings housed in a lovely-looking portfolio. You can leave them all in there or take them out and frame them.

The other is Process Recess Volume 3 which collects sketchbook drawings by Jean in a classy hardcover. There’s a lot of figure drawings like these ones here, and you can see dozens more in the PDF preview.

The other blogworthy art book is Junko Mizuno’s Flare, a hardcover collection of her weird and wonderful paintings. Mizuno signed here at Gosh! some time ago so you’re probably already well aware of how highly regarded she ‘round these parts.

In other, more comic-y news, The Collected Hook Jaw is something ultra-violent that you might like. The 1970s UK-based Action comic (a forerunner to 2000AD) was eventually banned for its graphic violence – a lot of which was down to an attempt to cash in on the success of Jaws with their own man-eating great white shark. This is the very first collection of Pat Mills (Charley’s War, 2000AD) and Ramon Sola’s (2000AD) blood ‘n guts strip, which includes two of the infamous pre-ban tales which led the Evening Standard, the Sun and the BBC to launch prohibition campaigns. We’ve had it before but it hasn’t been around for a while, so get in and grab a copy today!

The last trade-paperback of the ill-fated Captain Britain and the MI:13: Vampire Nation hits the shelves this Thursday and it has Dracula in it. This trade collects the last 5 issues of the (now canned) series by Paul Cornell (of Doctor Who). Here’s a review of #10, the first in the book.

Another trade worth a look is James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.S. Robinson (Starman), considered by many to be one of the best modern comics writers, took over WildStorm’s flagship superhero team after Alan Moore left and all his 1990s issues are collected here.

This week sees the beginning of the highly anticipated Dark Reign: The List series in which the post-Utopia Norman Osborn makes a list of everything that’s wrong with the world – namely, every major name in the Marvel Universe. There’s a List checklist here for everything you can expect in the not too distant future and first up is Dark Reign: The List: Avengers by Bendis (Dark Avengers) which you can stick in your bag this Thursday. Preview!

Locke & Key #1 has been reprinted as a beefed-up special edition. It now includes the original script and an 8-page back-up story by Seth Fisher in a very rare appearance having died three years ago.

Grimwood’s Daughter is a hardcover collecting some great old Kevin Nowlan (Batman Confidential) stuff. “Grimwood's Daughter wasn't my first work in comics but I think it was the first thing I did that was really worth buying. It ran as a back up feature in Dalgoda during the early 80's. The script was terrific. It was dark and sad and fit my twenty-something attitude better than any of the super-hero stuff I was being offered.” There’s more of that here, where he also tells you all about the new bonus bits.

A lastly, there’s a couple of things from last week that deserve a shout: Solomon Grundy #7 (of #7) is a Blackest Night crossover you might have missed, and Andrew is astounded by how many copies of Starr the Slayer #1 (of 4) we’ve still got because he thought it was brilliant.

-- Hayley