The Gosh! Authority 27/01/10

Like buses they’ve all arrived at once. This week you’ll find these chaps jostling for top spot on the new shelf:

Gosh! Favourite Ragnar’s new hardcover Big City is ‘160 f***ing pages of pure creative bliss!’ says Alberto Ruiz, who has also put up loads of preview pages and said something about his mother-in-law’s beard. Ragnar himself tracked the progress of the book over at his blog. A highly recommended lovely looking thing that you can’t miss because it’ll be in front of your face.

Shane Glines of Cartoon Retro fame (warning – high likelihood of retro boobs) gives you Lily & Flinch, another drool-worthy addition to our collection of painfully stylish sketchbooks.

It’s a deluxe hardcover edition of something that was originally only available as a print-on-demand softcover from Lulu but is somehow inexplicably cheaper than that original edition. As an extra bonus this one features a new cover and a few more images than the last. Glines was previously mentioned on the Gosh! Blog back when we got his Cartoon Retro Volumes 1 and 2, still available here in the shop and we still reckon you’d like ‘em.

In Shag’s latest offering it looks like he’s channelling Hieronymus Bosch and his sombre tones. “Something happened to me in the last year - call it an unexpected change of hear, if you like, but a lot of the unfettered hedonism my artwork espoused has begun to catch up with me,” says he. See what he means in these photos from the show’s opening in Los Angeles. Dark and weird.

Sam Hiti’s strange and brilliant inky manifestations are back in Ghoulash 2 which is - you’ll be happy to know - a really, truly bizarre little book. Have a look at the cover and nowt else needs saying. Beside it you’ll find his Death Day Prologue which is the prologue to his upcoming graphic novel Death Day. Like it says on the tin.

Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca (the blokes responsible for Street Angel) want you to funk it up hard style in their new book Afrodisiac, in which the hero has (yep, you guessed it) an afro as well as aphrodisiac superpowers over all women. He originally appeared in the now out-of-print anthology Project: Superior in a story that’s reprinted here along with a load of brand new stuff in one blaxploitation hardcover package. You can have a PDF preview and a thoroughly informative review, but if you want funky music and taglines I wholeheartedly recommend you watch this thing.

45 is an ambitious new superhero thing written by one guy called Andi Ewington and drawn by forty-five others all doing a page each – John Higgins, Sean Phillips, Gary Erksine, and 42 (count ‘em) others. It’s a bunch of interviews with superheroes conducted by father-to-be James Stanley who wants to know what’s in store for his unborn child if it ends up having superpowers. Ewington talks about the book, the people and the process in this interview. You’ll find lots more stuff over at the 45 blog.

The third volume of Fantagraphics’ Harvey and Eisner nominated Hotwire has arrived and it looks great. In it you’ll find stuff by Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix), Sam Henderson, Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed to Thrizzle) and loads more. Because we’re living in the future you now have a choice: PDF preview (old hat) or our new favourite thing – a video of a man flipping (rather roughly if you ask me) through the book in question. Nat watched it a few times and reckons they should stick this stuff on telly.

Nat also thinks you should read Dennis the Menace and said so ages ago. Given that the latest volume will be on the shelf this afternoon it’s as good a time as any to refer you back to his enthusiastic review which I happily swiped when the previous volume came out and fully intend to do again:

“In some ways it baffles me that these Dennis the Menace collections don’t sell nearly as well as the Peanuts equivalents. Like Peanuts the strips themselves are gently comic, rather than laugh out loud funny, although this often doesn’t prepare for the occasional really funny, dark or even borderline sinister gag that can take you quite by surprise. Like Peanuts it’s also steeped in that lovely 50s Americana that gives you that wonderful feeling you can only usually achieve by watching a live action Disney movie on a wet Bank Holiday Monday while enjoying some hot tea and toast.”

The Complete Dennis the Menace 1961 – 1962 by Hank Ketcham. Read it.

But enough of books. They’re too heavy to carry home anyway. How about some comics? The latest in Robert Kirkman’s Pilot Season is Demonic #1 about a possessed man who will do anything the demon asks as long as it promises not to make him kill his wife and daughter. As usual, whichever of the Top Cow Pilot Season one-shots gets the most votes is destined to become an ongoing series. Choose wisely.

Brian Michael Bendis co-founder of the Ultimate Universe adds another branch to the tree and introduces a powerful new villain in Ultimate Comics Enemy #1 (Of 4). There’s a preview here and a full rundown on what to expect here.

And finally, if you’ve been following DC’s one-issue resurrections you’ll want to pick up Atom & Hawkman #46 by Geoff Johns and Ryan Sook. Preview here. After this one there’s only one more to come – Greg Rucka’s The Question #37 illustrated by the original Question artists Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz. You can expect that next week.

And I’m done. See you Thursday.
-- Hayley