The Gosh! Authority 21/07/10

Last week’s Brazilians have flown off to San Diego along with a considerable number of your own fine selves, but we’re carrying on the Brazilian theme without them. Mondo Urbano is a new one from Oni Press, the same publishing house who brought you that Scott Pilgrim chap you like so much. The only preview I can find is in the original Portuguese so you’ll just have to get out your babelfish. It’s about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll by three guys called Mateus Santolouco, Eduardo Medeiros and Rafael Albuquerque who originally self-published it as a four-issue miniseries in 2008/2009, now completely sold out. This 128-page book includes those original stories plus a brand new one, a bonus track if you will. Have a poke about on their website, there’s loads of stuff to see including special Mondo Urbano guitar picks you can get your mitts on at the Comic-Con. Viva o Brasil!

More rock ‘n’ roll in the new four-issue miniseries CBGB, the comic about the legendary New York club that played a huge and historic role in the punk and hardcore scene before its doors shut in 2006.

“As a provincial Brit, CBGB is something which is more of an idea than an actual place. It's sort of asking me what heaven or hell or Narnia means to me. Which of course, is “Everything.” Ideas are important and CBGB is a delightfully seductive idea. You can trace its influence as an idea down the years of pop culture easily,” says Kieron Gillen (Phonogram, Thor), who teams-up with Marc Ellerby (Ellerbisms, Love the Way You Love). So who else is here? Jaime Hernandez (Love & Rockets), Ana Matronic (Scissor Sisters), Kim Krizan (writer of Before Sunset/Before Sunrise) Chuck BB (Black Metal), Kelly Sue DeConnick (30 Days of Night: Eben & Stella), Rob G (Teenagers From Mars, Couriers), and Sam Humphries (the mind behind MySpace Comics).

“I suspect anyone who's a Phonogram fan -- all four of you -- will like it,” says Gillen. “It's lighter than the majority of the main Phonogram stories, but tonally not unlike some of the B-sides we did in the single issues. Hell, if you imagine crossing Marc's B-side in the first issue of Singles Club with the Memory Kingdom sequence in Rue Britannia, you're most of the way there. It's an urban-fantasy riff off Dickens' Christmas Carol, about warring Ghosts of Punk-Rock Past.”

So given they’ve never so much as had a wee in the joint, what strengths do the Ellerby and Gillen bring to the table? “I think what Marc and I share is a lack of strength. We are tiny weak-limbed British folk. Men like us are the reason why the Vikings kicked our arses and took our neat stuff.”

SCANDO SEGUE! The Troll King is the latest in Top Shelf’s Swedish Invasion, but this one is by far the weirdest. I’m serious; read the preview, it’s mental. It’s surreal story about two reclusive hairy mountain men who look a bit like wookies (kind of) but there’s also a carrot having a bath at some point. There’s a review here and an interview with creator Kolbeinn Karlsson who is perhaps the most Swedish-looking man I’ve ever seen. According to Top Shelf, he’s comics’ cuddliest Viking. From the looks of it he does good comics too. Pick it up!

On the subject of weird, one of the most classic and strange stories is now out in hardcover: The Complete Alice in Wonderland as told by Leah Moore and John Reppion. They talk to Newsarama about treading the same ground as the hairier of the Moores here.

Jeff Smith’s sci-fi noir series RASL is released in a pocket-sized volume which is good news for anyone who couldn’t fit that other original-art-sized thing in their bag. Comicbook Resources caught up with Smith back in April. It’s worth a read, he talks about sitting in the Arizona desert for two weeks to get his head around the story. Did he scream “I GET IT!” at the sun like Tony Soprano? We’ll never know.

Bad Planet was one of those unreliable comics with a rocky publishing history, all of which is pretty well documented here, so chances are you lost track of it. Written by Steve Niles and Thomas Jane (yep, the guy who played Punisher) and illustrated by James Daly III, Bad Planet is about mankind defending the Earth against a race of arachnid-like predators hell-bent on using the place as a breeding ground. It’s very much planted in the Tales From the Crypt/EC Comics/sci-fi horror genre with, as one reviewer put it “just enough exploitation of big-boobied scientists to make it entertaining as all get-out.” This is the first time it has appeared in colour and even has a fancy 3D section. Not one to read on the bus, you look ridiculous in those glasses.

There’s a new Walking Dead trade-paperback out this week if you’re in the mood for even more horror. It collects issues #67 to #72 and considering #75 is out too it very nearly brings you bang up to date. That’s Volume 12 if you’re counting. Blimey.

Other notables this week include Mark Millar’s Ultimate Comics Avengers Volume 1 TP (a review of the first issue if you’ve not been paying attention), Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman TP (interview with him), and a history of Marvelman in the Marvelman Classic Primer. Bleeding Cool whinges that it’s a bit of a textbook essay, but there are interviews with Neil Gaiman, Mick Anglo and the like so worth a look, as is this week’s Doctor Who Magazine because it includes a comic by the ever-brilliant Roger Langridge.

Psychiatric Tales by Darryl Cunningham has been out for a while now but has just been selected as the Graphic Novel of the Month over at the Guardian. Great review of it here and if you haven’t picked up a copy yet we’ve just received a bunch more. Convenient, no?

And finally, our friends in the North are in a spot of bother. If you can help OK Comics, help them now! We don’t want to see people like us having to go get proper jobs in offices, that’d be awful.

-- Hayley