The Gosh! Authority 07/07/10

Before I’m knee-deep in this week’s delivery there’s already a bevy of brilliant new things on the shelves that have trickled in over the last few days, all stuff that is unlikely if not downright impossible to be found anywhere else but here (smug). Let’s get them out of the way starting with Jim Rugg’s Rambo 3.5.

Rugg, of Street Angel fame and Gosh! Favourite Afrodisiac, returns to his minicomic roots with a palm-sized black and white photocopied thing that uses the third Rambo film as a vague springboard and then goes mental with it. The real star of the piece of Dubya Bush who, after the attacks on New York and The Pentagon, convinces John Rambo “to get his strap one mo' gin!” as this blogger put it. You should read the rest of his review. He loves it just as much as this guy but has gone ahead and scanned some pages. I doff my cap to people who scan stuff.

Eddie Campbell and Daren White’s The Playwright now sports a limited edition signed bookmark featuring a new portrait of its celibate hero in some shiny brogues. Like the cover, it is astonishingly yellow. If you missed its arrival you can read about it here.

The lovely Posy Simmonds popped in during the week to sign and sketch in every copy of Tamara Drewe we piled in front of her. Come grab one of those before they all disappear in the lead up to the (I’ve heard very good) film which I think comes out some time in September.

We’ve also received a bunch of Sam Hiti’s Death Day Prologue. We’ve had it before but these ones have an original sketch by Hiti on the front cover – each with an entirely different picture. It must have taken him HOURS. You can track the progress of the upcoming graphic novel over at the Death Day blogspot.

Our brood of prints has literally doubled in size. Not only do we have the Becky Cloonan/Jamie McKelvie Gosh! Exclusive Jam Print for those who want it, we’ve also finally got round to producing the frequently requested This Is London print. At £6.95 it’s a steal.

Here ‘tis:


And lastly, be sure to check out the brand to addition to the Gosh! Exclusive Bookplate Editions, The Art of Pho by Julian Hanshaw, winner of the Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize in 2008. It’s a lovely looking thing indeed.

As for this week’s regular delivery we’ve got a brand spanking new Jason graphic novel called the Werewolves of Montpellier, a 48-page softcover book in the same style as The Last Musketeer and The Left Bank Gang. It’s a lycanthropic thriller starring an aimless Scandinavian artist in Montpellier who gets his kicks making nocturnal raids on houses dressed as a werewolf. As you do. Fantagraphics have a PDF preview.

Gosh! Favourite Roger Langridge pens a new series illustrated by Chris Samnee (Siege: Embedded, The Mighty) who Langridge says ‘draws like the bastard child of Alex Toth’. Thor: The Mighty Avenger #1 sees Thor landing on Earth after a long time away, separated from his hammer and unable to get home. Each issue will be a standalone story with interweaving subplots eventually coming together at the end of its first year. Langridge says he pretty much stopped reading superhero comics in the 90s when they all became utterly joyless, something he plans to fix with this series.

“When I read a super-hero adventure, I want to be taken away, uplifted, thrilled, maybe moved to laughter or tears if I'm lucky. …I mean, look, one of the central icons of the Thor series is a rainbow. How can you not want to write something uplifting around that? It's just begging for it. Thor himself, at least the way we're playing him, should be a fun, likeable character. We're playing up those aspects of his personality. Moody, sure, and a bit reckless; he needs to grow up a bit. But he goes into battle with a devil-may-care grin on his face, and he's got a code of honor you could break rocks on. I'm thinking he's a bit like the original, Siegel-Shuster Superman in that regard - reckless, smiling as he goes into a fight, with an unshakeable sense of what's right."

The rest of that interview’s here and a preview’s here. We reckon this’ll be a good’un.

It’s all a bit darker over in the DC camp when comics legend Neal Adams writes and draws a new six-parter Batman: The Odyssey #1. Everyone turns up in this one, even Deadman! Newsarama have a huge interview with Adams which is well worth a read, and over at The Source there are five pages of preview art.

Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo unite again for the penultimate chapter in this particular chunk of Hellboy’s life, The Storm #1 (of 3), before the final apocalyptic wrap up The Fury which is still to come. Mignola gives you the full run down on what to expect and how pinching ideas from mythology makes you look smart. Preview!

Here’s a quick lasso round-up of the other notable notables on our shelves this Thursday:

Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Mahmud Asrar (Avengers: The Initiative) give you Brightest Day: The Atom Special One-Shot, which kicks off a new major storyline to be continued in next month’s Adventure Comics #516. The editor gushes about it over at the DCU Blog.

Legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont teams up with renowned illustrator of ladies’ bottoms Milo Manara in a special X one-shot called X-Women. Claremont talks about it with CbR alongside some preview pages. Bums abound.

Next to that you’ll find X-Men #1 which isn’t a relaunch of the regular ongoing X-Men Legacy but an entirely new thing altogether by Victor Gischler and Paco Medina. Preview.

The new big Daredevil storyline begins in Shadowland #1 (of 5) by Andy Diggle with art by Billy Tan. Diggle talks about where Brubaker left off and what’s in store for the man without fear at CbR. A preview and a Shadowland checklist for your back pocket.

Speaking of Brubaker, he pops up this week writing Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier #1 (Of 4) which picks up where Siege left off. Brubaker tells Newsarama all about it and there’s a preview here.

And last of all, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev give you Scarlet #1, the first of a new ongoing bi-monthly title partly inspired by one of my favourite films of all time ("I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!") Network.

"With that movie, Paddy Chayefsky was able to put together what was almost a parody story, and when it came out, it was like, 'That's crazy! That would never happen!' And now most of what happened in that movie has actually happened on television. In that vein, I think, the way the world is, that if we woke up tomorrow to discover that someone started a revolution in this country, I don't think a lot of us would be completely shocked. I started to picture what the world would be like if someone did and how the media would react to it. And there it is. Scarlet."

More of that interview and a preview too.

And that’s yer lot! See you Thursday.

-- Hayley