The Gosh! Authority 23/09/09

Now that we’ve given you sufficient time to locate your diaries and scribble Joe Sacco Signing in the September 30 square we’re gonna hit you with another! Bryan Talbot will be signing stuff here at Gosh! in the usual place on the 10th of October, and the usual suspects will be manning the till and kettle. We’ll have early copies of his new steampunk graphic novel Grandville thanks to Jonathan Cape, so you’ll be able to get your mitts on a copy of the new’un and get it signed by the man himself all in one fell swoop. All necessary details are over in this post here.

And now onto the more immediate new’uns.

First up is an odd indie book called 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man HC by Matt Kindt, a Harvey and Eisner award nominated illustrator whose Pistolwhip was in Time’s Top 10 Graphic Novels in 2001. 3 Story is a book about Craig Pressgang, a man with a strange medical condition which causes continuous growth. By the time he was 15 he was three storeys tall and one of the most famous people on the planet. The book follows him from his birth to the present when he is unable to interact with a world that’s too small for him, all told in three eras by three women. The art’s lovely as you can see in this preview and over at Kindt’s blog there’s a link to a free online short story that ties into the very book I’m talking about. A freebie taster like at Baskin Robbins.

The long-delayed Will Eisner’s The Spirit: The New Adventures Archives Volume 1 HC has finally arrived on our doormat. In 1997, Eisner gave permission for some of the best names in the industry to resurrect the resurrected Denny Colt in a new series of stories. Everyone’s in it including Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in a rare post-Watchmen collaboration, Paul Chadwick (Concrete), and Neil Gaiman teams up with Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Alec) in a 10-page story that he’s talked about on his blog here and there. Campbell’s got another story in there too and will no doubt be flipping frantically through the book to see if Dark Horse have fixed the computer-related ‘colour boob’ in which he made the Spirit green. “It looked blue on my monitor,” says he.

The Spirit TP Volume 2 is also full of big names doing Spirit stuff, collecting issues #7-13 of the current ongoing series. There’s Darwyn Cooke (Parker, The New Frontier) Walter Simonson (Wednesday Comics), Kyle Baker (Nat Turner, Why I Hate Saturn), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman), Dennis O’Neil, Glen David Gold, Chris Sprouse, Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets), Phil Hester, Ty Templeton and more. Great stuff and definitely worth your time.

Sulk Volume 3: King of Strength Comes From Madness is one for all you Jeffrey Brown fans. In it you’ll find stuff about fantasy and science fiction, robot best friends, pirates, time travelling babies, martial arts masterminds, and something called Being Awesome is its Own Reward. If you missed the first two volumes of Sulk you can find them in the shop nestled next to Brown’s Clumsy and Unlikely.

The last of this week’s big books is Umbrella Academy Volume 2: Dallas, the very limited oversized deluxe hardcover variety. Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s (Pixu, De:TALES, Casanova) New York Times Bestselling series had a few sceptical staff-members finding themselves becoming unlikely fans of the series and recommending it to just about everyone who walked in the door (probably even you, which makes this sentence somewhat superfluous). This edition features an expanded sketchbook section with concept art by both Way and Ba. Dark Horse have a preview here if you missed the series.

Here’s a couple of #1s that I predict will be mighty popular. The Eisner award winning duo Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev team up again for Spider-Woman #1, the first of a brand-spanking-new ongoing series which spins out of New Avengers and the whole Secret Invasion thing.

“[S.W.O.R.D. is] more intergalactic while this is more Earth-bound. What's interesting about Spider-Woman and S.W.O.R.D. is how different in tone they'll be. This is much more gritty and nourish [noir-ish? – Hayley], almost like Alias and my other work with crime comics,” says Bendis.

Superman: Secret Origin #1 (of 6) sees superstar team Geoff Johns and Gary Frank reunite to set the record straight on the origin of Superman, promising to be a look at the mythic past with an eye toward the future. If you’re wondering why we need yet another origin story, here’s what Johns has to say:

“To me, origin stories - particularly "Secret Origin" stories in the DC Comics universe - are vital to the introduction of characters and mythology to the larger audience, and I think they can be to the long time audience as well. We haven't seen a modern day retelling of Clark's first adventure as Superboy with the Legion of Super-Heroes, or the day Superman met Jimmy Olsen or the origins of Superman's long time enemies like the Parasite and Metallo. More importantly, Clark Kent himself will be explored in his earlier years in a way I don't think he's ever been explored before. And freaking Gary Frank, one of the greatest Superman artists in history already, is illustrating it. Every cover, every panel, every line….. I can only say, unlike previous Superman origin stories, this will be told almost entirely from Clark's eyes. We won't be spending an issue on Krypton. We'll be opening on one of Clark's earliest memories as a kid and moving forward from there. This is his story of self-discovery and the world's story of meeting Superman.”

Here’s a preview of this week’s 48-page issue.

If you’re one of the many who’ve been waiting for Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s Wolverine Giant-Size Old Man Logan you’d best get to the shop quick smart because it’s here! It’s the gory, ultraviolent last chapter to the Mad Max-y Wolverine story Millar wants to be remembered for, complete with a gallery of covers, behind-the-scenes extras, and all-new pin-ups. Preview.

Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #15 is guest-edited by Sammy Harkham of Kramers Ergot fame and he’s roped in almost everyone he knows thus making it the weirdest take on the Simpsons universe to date. In it you’ll find Halloweeny strips by Jordan Crane (Uptight), C.F. (Powr Mastrs), Will Sweeney (Tales from Greenfuzz), Tim Hensley (MOME), John Kerschbaum (Petey & Pussy), Kevin Huizenga (Ganges, Or Else) Matthew Thurber (1-800 Mice, Kramers Ergot), Jeffrey Brown (him again), and loads of others. It’s probably going to be talked about everywhere (Heidi McDonald at The Beat’s very excited about it) so it’s definitely one to add to your swag.

Last bit: The very last Wednesday Comics is out this Thursday! Given that it’s our job to think about such things, we’ve organised it so we’ve got ALL TWELVE ISSUES on the shelf so you can grab ‘em all at once. If you haven’t been paying attention, here’s what you’ll be looking for.

And that’s yer lot.

-- Hayley