The Gosh! Authority 07/10/09

If you were lucky enough to be at the Birmingham convention over the weekend you would have seen some familiar Gosh! folk touting their wares. They’ve brought home a swag of goodies that I’ll get to a little later in this post. While they were beavering away up north I posted about our latest exclusive Bookplate Edition – Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist. I’m dutifully pointing it out again just in case you (much like half of Gosh!) are only just now emerging from beneath your duvet and post-con plague.

Lots of #1s out this week but first a couple of lovely big hardcovers: From Sunday Press Books (those fellows who did the splendid Little Nemo raft-sized books) comes the Upside Down World of Gustave Verbeek: Complete Sunday Comics 1903-1905. Verbeek’s Upside Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo has been called one of the eight wonders of the comics world (I didn’t know there was a list but I’ll happily have this on it) and the entire run of it is collected here along with other bits of Verbeek’s inspired lunacy: Loony Lyrics of Lulu (1910), Terrors of Tiny Tads (1906-1914), plus a wodge of paintings, drawings and other nonsense from books he illustrated. Over at the Sunday Press site they’ve got loads of sample pages, panels and words from people who know about stuff. Have a look.

The next Seth-designed instalment in Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley Library is already on our new release shelf. If you’re a regular here at the Gosh! Blog you’ll remember Melvin Monster came out in May (still available if you fancy it). Round two features the Brillo-headed Nancy, her best pal Sluggo, innumerable money-making schemes and cunning plans for removing loose teeth (some of which I probably tried myself). It’s a lovely book by one of comics’ secret geniuses and it’s a great thing to see his stuff back in print. Here’s an early review.

Having tipped my hat to the classics I’ll get onto brand new stuff by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Their series Criminal is a favourite round these parts so this week’s Criminal: The Sinners #1 will be greeted by ridiculously high expectations. From the few preview pages kicking about on the web it looks like it’s going to be great, and they even bring back Tracy Lawless who you’ll recognise from the previous series. Their stuff was always packed with extras and Brubaker promises The Sinners will be no different:

“We’ve got an interview with Darwyn Cooke about his Parker graphic novel. Duane Swierczynski is working on an article for an upcoming issue, and I’m going back to all my crime writer friends and hitting them up for articles again.” More of that over at CbR.

Garth Ennis is also returning to a fan-favourite series Chronicles of Wormwood with The Last Battle #1, the first of six issues illustrated in full colour by Oscar Jimenez. As it’s Ennis it’ll undoubtedly be full of rude words and sacrilegious nonsense and if it wasn’t you’d all be terribly disappointed. Preview!

Batman: The Unseen #1 (of 5) by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones (Batman, Sandman) sees another fan-favourite creative team reunite to introduce a new member to the rogues gallery. Here’s a preview of the new series that’ll be full of horrible and mysterious killings by an Invisible Man.

Marvel’s new Sorcerer Supreme is Jericho Drumm and you can see his first day on the job in Doctor Voodoo: Agent of the Supernatural #1. Written by Rick Remender (Punisher) and illustrated by the marvellous Jefte Palo, it’s a new ongoing series launched straight from New Avengers. Remender wants to make it as fun as (in)humanly possible and is filling the series with an entire cast of voodoo gods. And what do they think of the new Agent of the Supernatural?

“[Drumm’s] got some very awesome unique gifts that really elevate him above Strange as Sorcerer Supreme AND Houngan Supreme… all of a sudden you hoist him into A+ level bad assery, he’s been slingshoted to the top of the line, to the top of the game…You’ve got Dormmamu, Dr. Doom, Clea …. looking at him, going “Really?” The supernatural world says, “I don’t think so… that’s gotta be a mistake." More here.

Dark Reign The List: Secret Warriors is the next one to check off on your Dark Reign checkList. This one’s written by Jonathan Hickman (Nightly News), another writer we’d highly recommend if you asked us, and illustrated by Ed McGuinness (Fallen Son: Death of Captain America). As bonuses you also get Nick Fury Files and a classic reprint but, dammit, no one on the internet will tell me what it is. Have a preview.

Did you see the film I Sell the Dead at this year’s FrightFest and think to yourself, “why don’t they turn this gory, graverobbing, extravaganza into an equally horrifying and silly comic?” Well, you’ll never guess. Here’s the film condensed into 40 full-colour pages written by the bloke who wrote and directed the film in the first place (Glenn McQuaid) with art by Brahm Revel.

And finally, here’s what we scored in Brum:

Harker is a series by UK-based creators Roger Gibson and Vince Danks. Here’s what it says on the back of the first trade-paperback and they’ve written it perfek so I’ll just pinch it: When a series of gruesome cult killings take place near the British Museum, DCI Harker and his assistant, DS Critchley, are called the London to solve the case. Middle-class Satanists, dusty old bookshops, a labyrinth under the British Museum, a frantic car chase and wry, cutting humour all combine in this love letter to classic television detectives. It has something of the old Hellblazer about it and the crime scenes are right ‘round here. They even drink in the same pubs we drink in. How about that. We managed to nab a few copies of the first trade (collecting #1-6), plus #7 and #8. So that’ll be you up to date should you want to be so.

Also swiped from the Birmingham con is Strange Times by Dave West, a book about the strange things that happen to strange people in a town called Leyton. We’ve got a hardcover collection of the rather neat little webcomic which is still readily available online if you’d like to have a wee perusal. When you’re next in you can find the book on our counter staring you in the face.

And that’s it for this week, blog-wise.
-- Hayley