Click the full post link below for a tentative list of titles due to ship next week.
Adventure Comics #526
Angel Illyria Haunted TP
Annihilators #3 (Of 4)
Astonishing Captain America #1 (Of 5)
Astonishing Thor #4 (Of 5)
Avengers Academy #13
Avengers Academy Giant-Size #1
Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes TP
Axe Cop Bad Guy Earth #3 (Of 3)
Bat Boy Weekly World News Strips HC (Bagge)
Batman Beyond #5
Batman Long Shadows TP
Blue Estate #2
BPRD Dead Remembered #2 (Of 3)
Brightest Day HC Vol 2
Captain America Allies And Enemies TP
Captain America First Vengeance #1 (Of 4)
Captain America Hail Hydra #5 (Of 5)
Captain America Spotlight
Conan TP Vol 10 Iron Shadows In The Moon
DC Comics Presents Son Of Superman #1
DC Universe Online Legends #7
Deadpool Annual #1
DMZ TP Vol 10 Collective Punishment
Doom Patrol #22
Dungeons & Dragons Dark Sun #5 (Of 5)
Edge Of Doom #5 (Of 5)
Executor TP
Fear Itself #2 (Of 7)
Fear Itself Home Front #2 (Of 7)
Fear Itself Spider-Man #1 (Of 3)
Gladstones School For World Conquerors #1
Green Lantern Super Spectacular #1
Green Wake #2 (Of 5)
Herc #2
Heroes For Hire #6
House Of Mystery #37
Image Firsts Phonogram #1
Intrepids #3
iZombie #13
Jinx HC Essential Collection
Jonah Hex #67
Jonah Hex No Way Back TP
JSA All Stars #18
Little Endless Storybook HC New Ptg
Marvel Zombies Supreme #4 (Of 5)
Mice Templar Vol 3 #4
Moon Knight #1
Ozma Of Oz #6 (Of 8)
Proof Endangered #5
Red Spike #1 (Of 5)
Secret Six #33
Secret Six The Reptile Brain TP
Solomon Kane Red Shadows #2 (Of 4)
Spider-Man Power Comes Responsibility #2
Spidey Sunday Spectacular #1
Superboy #7
Sweet Tooth #21
Taskmaster TP Unthinkable
Thor For Asgard HC
Thor Wolves Of North TP
Tiny Titans TP Vol 5 Field Trippin
Transformers Heart Of Darkness #3
Tron TP Original Movie Adaptation
Turf #5
Uncanny X-Force #9
Walking Dead Survivors Guide #2 (Of 4)
Walking Dead Weekly #18
Weird Worlds #5 (Of 6)
Witchfinder Lost & Gone Forever #4 (Of 5)
Wolverine Best There Is #6
Wolverine Hercules Myths Monsters And Mutants #3 (Of 4)
X-Men Prelude To Schism #1 (Of 4)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Due To Arrive 04/05/11
The Gosh! Authority 26/04/11
Hello, I’m back. While I was in Spain I learned that Edward Gorey’s The Wuggly Ump is translated to El Wuggly Ump, and yesterday the Internet told me that REM’s Michael Stipe has a tattoo on his arm of Ignatz Mouse throwing a brick at Krazy Kat. I have travelled far, gained worldly knowledge.
I wouldn’t even know Krazy & Ignatz existed (and neither would Stipe) were it not for the work of Bill Blackbeard, who could have been an excellent pirate with a name like that but chose to be a comic strip historian instead. He died last month at the age of 84. Tributes are popping up all over the place but there’s a brilliantly written appreciation by Jeet Heer over at The Comics Journal which you should read immediately. A chunk:
If I had to sum up the achievement of the late Bill Blackbeard in one sentence, I would say that he was the man who gave comics its memory. Cartoonists like Winsor McCay and Frank King were immensely popular in their heyday but they worked in a notoriously fleeting medium, the newspaper page, and once their work stopped being published they were relegated to the dusty corner of the cultural consciousness reserved for trivia questions (“Who created Gasoline Alley?”). Largely thanks to Blackbeard’s unparalleled work as a collector and archivist, McCay, King, and countless other cartoonists from the early 20th century aren’t just answers to trivia questions, but rather are living forces in the comics world, with their major works in print and vibrantly influential on the best young cartoonists of the day.
The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art (SFACA) crypt in 1995
Photographed by R.C. Harvey.
Pinched from here.
It’s a great piece, and so is this one by R.C. Harvey. If you’re a fan of stuff by Winsor McCay, Nell Brinkley, Frank King, Milton Caniff, Harold Gray, Chester Gould, E.C. Segar, Alex Raymond, Roy Crane, Jack Kent, Tove Jansson, or Charles Schulz you should doff your cap to the man who saved them from the bin.
A quick note on this week’s delivery: it’s still theoretically on schedule but is being buffeted in the wavy wake of Easter and the royal wedding. You won’t find us wearing Kate and William masks or straining to get a glimpse of a wedding dress or whatever: we’ll be here, don’t fret. However, the one-day buffer-zone we usually get between receiving the comics and actually putting them on the shelves has been taken from us, so we probably won’t have them for you until Wednesday afternoon. So! If you’re planning on coming in on Wednesday at all I recommend phoning ahead to see if they’ve arrived, or better yet: keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We’ll let you know as soon as they get here.
And when they do, you can bag a copy of Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. It’s the first volume in a three-book set from The Library of American Comics/IDW that will be “the definitive statement on the restless genius and timeless legacy of Alex Toth.” Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell had free reign to sift through Toth’s archives so the books will undoubtedly be full of stuff you’ve never seen before. This first volume covers his early work for DC in the ‘40s, his stuff at Standard, Zorro in the ‘50s, and all of the Jon Fury pages he produced while in the army. You can expect original art and photographs from family, friends and fans, plus rare pages and a previously unprinted-and-forgotten-about story from the ‘50s. Mullaney and Canwell talk to Dan Nadel (Art Out Of Time) over at The Comics Journal. Sample pages!
Love From The Shadows is Gilbert Hernandez’s third original hardcover graphic novel (after Chance in Hell and The Troublemakers) about Love & Rockets’ Fritz as a Z-movie actress. “Erotic, harrowing, graphically violent, and astonishingly grim, Love from the Shadows sees Hernandez plunging ever further into his own heart of darkness,” writes one reviewer over at TCJ, adding “Christ, what a f*cking book.” Here’s a PDF preview from Fantagraphics. A warning to those in offices or absent-mindedly explaining The Internet to elderly relatives: rude bits abound.
Obsolete is the latest from London’s own NoBrow Press by Danish artist Mikkel Sommer, who previously appeared in A Graphic Cosmogony. It’s about two neglected, weary soldiers taking solace in nihilistic hedonism. Head over to NoBrow for preview pictures and then check out Sommer’s blog and website. This guy is 23 years old. Let’s all pack it in and go down the pub and cry.
Pete Bagge’s Hate Annual is on fairly regular scheduling now, by which I mean I think it’s roughly a year since we saw the last one. Top marks, Mr Bagge. Hate Annual #9 includes the first full-length Buddy story in a decade and you can see some preview bits over at Fantagraphics.
David Hine and Shaky Kane’s six-part miniseries Bulletproof Coffin is collected in trade paperback. Here’s the Newsarama interview and preview pages I linked to when issue #1 was preparing to land, but between then and now a short documentary about Shaky Kane has appeared on Bleeding Cool. What’s Bulletproof Coffin about? “It’s about dead superheroes, stone-age girls in chamois leather bikinis, eyeball-headed psychics, bulletproof coffins with spiked tires, spirit walkers, secret attic rooms full of comic book collections, and resurrected GI’s,” of course.
In trade paperback you can have Sensational She-Hulk By John Byrne, collecting his early ‘90s eight-issue run plus Marvel Comics Presents #18. As a sort-of-related-aside, I found this accidentally: someone’s scanned choice pages from Sensational She-Hulk #50 in which she breaks the fourth wall and tries to find a creative team she likes to take over after John Byrne’s (comic book) death.
Jonah Hex: Tall Tales is also out in trade, collecting #55 – 60 of the series featuring usual suspects Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, with art by Vicente Alcazar, Phil Winslade, Jordi Bernet, Giancarlo Caracuzzo, Brian Stelfreeze and a cover by Gosh! Favourite Darwyn Cooke.
If you’re a fan of Cooke’s Parker graphic novel adaptations you might want to read the original prose novels. We’ve got loads of them on the shelf already but two more turned up this week – Comeback and Butcher’s Moon. They’re getting thicker as they go along so you’d best get stuck in now.
If we had a spinner-rack, these new releases would be flapping in the wind on Wednesday:
Thor: Asgard’s Avenger is a one-shot of character profiles which will probably be of interest to anyone just hopping on board after seeing the film. Also, Mighty Thor #1 by Matt Fraction and Olivier Coipel is the latest ongoing series in the slew of movie-hype releases. It’s especially geared towards anyone who’s never read Thor before, and kicks off with a storyline called The World Eaters in which Galactus has his eye on Asgard. Preview here, and here’s an extensive explanation of just what the hell Marvel are doing re: Thor and his many, many comics by Comics Alliance, gawblessem.
Strange Case Of Mr. Hyde #1 (of 4) by newcomer Cole Haddon and M.S. Corley somehow combines the story of Jack the Ripper with that of Dr. Jekyll. “I suppose it started with a childhood love of Victorian horror fiction, which itself was probably inspired by an earlier love for Universal monster movies,” said Haddon in his interview with Bloody Disgusting. “You know, Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, and so on. I think I discovered Shelly, Stoker, Wells, and, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson right around the same time I discovered Hammer horror movies, too. In other words, I grew up finding a classic style of monster and horror much more appealing than the slasher flicks other kids were obsessing over in the 80s. I wanted to pay homage to that childhood love affair, what all these books and movies had done to shape my life.” Preview at Comicbook Resources.
Horror-wise you can also pick up a copy of Tomb of Dracula Presents: Throne Of Blood, a one-shot by Victor Gischler (X-Men) and Goran Parlov (Marvel Universe Vs. The Punisher) which sort of ties into Fear Itself. Preview at CbR.
And lastly, the recently de-bearded Paul Cornell is joined by Richard Donner, David Goyer, Damon Lindelof and more for 100 pages of Action Comics #900. The Source has the scoop.
Don’t forget to put highlighter and glitterpen all over May 7 in your diaries: it’s Free Comic Book Day and we’ve got three 2000AD guys (Dan Abnett! Al Ewing! Robbie Morrison!) signing in our basement. Also, if any small press people would like to load us up with some stuff to give away on the day, drop us an email at info@goshlondon.com.
-- Hayley
In Store 21/04/11 - 27/04/11
Click the full post link below for a list of items in store this week.
Betty & Veronica Double Digest #190
Life With Archie Married Life #9
2000 AD #1731
Judge Dredd Megazine #310
Slaine: Lord Of Misrule TP
American Vampire #14
Angel #44
Anita Blake Circus Of Damned Ingenue #3 (Of 5)
Avengers #12 Point One (Bendis)
Secret Avengers #12 & 12.1
Batman Incorporated #5 (Morrison)
Detective Comics #876
Brightest Day #24
Bulletproof Coffin TP (D. Hine/S. Kane)
Captain America #617
Cavewoman Snow #1
Conan Road Of Kings #4 (Of 6)
Danger Girl Army Of Darkness #1
DC Comics Presents Night Force One-Shot
Doctor Solar Man Of The Atom TP Vol 1 & #6
Doctor Who Special #28
Doomwar TP
Dracula: Company Of Monsters TP Vol 2 & #9
FF #2 (Jonathan Hickman)
Marvel Masterworks Fantastic Four TP Vol 6
Flash #11 (Flashpoint)
Flash Rebirth TP
Fleagles: Classic EC Artists SC
Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art Of Alex Toth HC
Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters #2
Green Arrow #11 (Brightest Day)
Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #9
Hate Annual #9 (Peter Bagge)
Incorruptible #17
Incredible Hulks #627
Infamous #4 (Of 6)
Invincible TP Vol 14 Viltrumite War
Jonah Hex Tall Tales TP
Justice League Generation Lost #24
Justice Society Of America #50
Juxtapoz #124 May 2011
Kato Origins #8 The Hellfire Club
King Conan Scarlet Citadel #3
Knights Of The Dinner Table #173
Little Lulu’s Pal Tubby Vol 3 SC
Locke & Key: Keys To The Kingdom #6 (Of 6)
Love From The Shadows HC(Gilbert Hernandez)
Mad Magazine #509
Marineman #5
Marvel Previews May 2011 Extras
Mighty Samson Archives HC Vol 3
Mighty Thor #1 (Fraction/Coipel)
Mission #3
Morning Glories #9 (Nick Spencer)
Namor First Mutant #9
New York Five #4 (Of 4) (B. Wood)
Nexus Archives HC Vol 12
Obsolete SC NoBrow Press
Osborn #5 (Of 5)
Richard Stark’s Parker (Prose)
- Comeback
- Butcher’s Moon
Power Man And Iron Fist #4 (Of 5)
Previews #272 May 2011
Punisher TP Franken-Castle
RASL #10 (Jeff Smith)
Remake Special GN Vol 2
Runaways TP Vol 2 Teenage Wasteland Digest New Printing
Ruse #2 (Of 4)
Sandman TP Vol 5 A Game Of You (New Ed)
Scalped #48 (Jason Aaron)
Sensational She-Hulk By John Byrne TP
Spider-Girl #6
Amazing Spider-Man #659
Stan Lee's The Traveler #6
Star Wars Darth Vader & Lost Command #4
Strange Case Of Mr Hyde #1 (Of 4)
Action Comics #900 (P. Cornell)
Thor: Asgard's Avenger One-Shot
Thor Official Index To Marvel Universe TP
Thunderstrike #5 (Of 5)
Tomb Of Dracula Presents Throne Of Blood One-Shot
True Blood Tainted Love #3
Turok Son Of Stone #2
Turok Son Of Stone Archives HC Vol 8
Vampirella Archives HC Vol 3
Vanguard Frazetta Classics SC Vol 2
Velocity #4 (Of 4)
Venom #2
Walking Dead #84 (R. Kirkman)
Walking Dead Weekly #17
Warlord Of Mars #6
Wonder Woman #610
Age Of X Universe #2 (Of 2)
Astonishing Spider-Man/Wolverine: Another Fine Mess One-Shot
Deadpool #36
New Mutants #24 (Age of X - Carey)
Uncanny X-Men #536
X-23 #9
X-Men #10
X-Men God Loves Man Kills TP New Ptg
X-Men Vs Avengers And Fantastic Four TP
Xombi #2 (Frazer Irving)
Y The Last Man Dlx Edition HC Vol 5
MANGA
House Of Five Leaves TP Vol 3
March Story TP Vol 2
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Due To Arrive 27/04/11
Click the full post link below for a tentative list of titles due to ship next week.
Action Comics #900
Adv Of Dr McNinja TP Vol 01 Night Powers
Age Of X Universe #2 (Of 2)
Amazing Spider-Man #659 Big
American Vampire #14
Anita Blake Circus Of Damned Ingenue #3 (Of 5)
Artifacts #7 (Of 13)
Astonishing Spider-Man Wolverine Another Fine Mess #1
Avengers #12 Point One
Batman Incorporated #5
Betty & Veronica Double Digest #190
Brightest Day #24
Bulletproof Coffin TP
Captain America #617
Conan Road Of Kings #4 (Of 6)
DC Comics Presents Night Force #1
Deadpool #36
Detective Comics #876
Doctor Solar Man Of Atom #6
Doomwar TP
Echoes #5 (Of 5)
Fallen Angel Return Of The Son #4 (Of 4)
FF #2
Flash #11 (Flashpoint)
Flash Rebirth TP
Genius Isolated Life & Art Of Alex Toth HC
Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters #2
Green Arrow #11 (Brightest Day)
Green Lantern Emerald Warriors #9 (War Of GL)
Haunt #15
Incredible Hulks #627
Infamous #4 (Of 6)
Invincible TP Vol 14 Viltrumite War
Jericho Season 3 #6 (Of 6)
Jonah Hex Tall Tales TP
Justice League Generation Lost #24 (BD)
Justice Society Of America #50
King Conan Scarlet Citadel #3
Life With Archie Married Life #9 May June 2011
Love From The Shadows HC
Marineman #5
Mighty Thor #1
Miss Fury HC
Mission #3
MMW Fantastic Four TP Vol 06
Morning Glories #9
Namor First Mutant #9
New Mutants #24 AgeX
New York Five #4 (Of 4)
Oh My Goddess Rtl TP Vol 38
Osborn #5 (Of 5) Big
Power Man And Iron Fist #4 (Of 5)
Punisher TP Franken-Castle
Rocketeer Adventures #1 (Of 4)
Runaways TP Vol 02 Teenage Wasteland Digest New Ptg
Ruse #2 (Of 4)
Sandman TP Vol 05 A Game Of You New Ed
Scalped #48
Secret Avengers #12
Secret Avengers #12 Point One
Sensational She-Hulk By John Byrne TP Vol 01
Spider-Girl #6 Big
Spider-Man #13
Star Wars Darth Vader & Lost Command #4 (Of 5)
Strange Case Of Mr Hyde #1 (Of 4)
Suicide Girls #2 (Of 4)
Thor Asgards Avenger #1
Thor Official Index To Marvel Universe GN TP
Thunderstrike #5 (Of 5)
Tomb Of Dracula Presents Throne Of Blood #1
Transformers Prime TP Vol 02
Turf #5
Uncanny X-Men #536
Velocity #4 (Of 4)
Venom #2
Walking Dead #84
Walking Dead Weekly #17
Wonder Woman #610
X-23 #9
X-Men #10
X-Men God Loves Man Kills TP New Ptg
X-Men Vs Avengers And Fantastic Four TP
Xombi #2
Y The Last Man Deluxe Edition HC Vol 05
The Gosh! Authority 19/04/11
Tavvauvutit folks!
In Store 14/04/11 - 20/04/11
Click the full post link below for a list of items in store this week.
2000 AD #1730
Archie Seven Decades Of Americas Favorite Teenager
Man From Riverdale TP
World Of Archie Double Digest #6
Astro City Shining Stars HC (Busiek)
Avengers #12 (Bendis)
Avengers Academy #12
Batman #709 (Crossover)
Black Dynamite Slave Island GN
Bullet To The Head TP (Colin Wilson)
Captain America Vs Red Skull TP
Complete Crumb Comics TP (New Ptg) Vols 13 & 15
Dark Horse Presents #1
DC Comics Presents Ninja Boy #1
DC Universe Online Legends #6
Delirium’s Party: A Little Endless Storybook HC (Jill Thompson)
Deus Ex #3 (Of 6) (Robbie Morrison)
DMZ #64 (Brian Wood)
Duncan The Wonder Dog TP Vol 01 (Of 9)
Dungeons & Dragons Classics TP Vol 01
Dungeons & Dragons Dark Sun #4 (Of 5)
Dungeons And Dragons #6
Fables #104
Fear Itself Sins Past #1 Fear
Guy Ritchie Gamekeeper GN
Gotham City Sirens #22 (Batman)
Green Hornet #15
Green Hornet Strikes #7 (Of 10)
Green Lantern #65 (War Of GL)
Green Lantern Corps #59 (War Of GL)
Hellblazer #278 (Peter Milligan)
Hi Fructose Magazine Quarterly #19
Hitman TP Vol 04 Ace Of Killers New Ptg (Garth Ennis)
Hulk #32
Invincible #79
Invincible Iron Man #503 Fear
Iron Man 2.0 #4
Justice League Of America #56
Kill Shakespeare #10 (Of 12)
Klondike GN
Last Phantom #6
Legion Of Super Heroes #12
Madman Atomica HC (Mike Allred)
Marijuanaman HC (Joe Casey)
Marvel Backlist Reading Chronology #1
Mass Effect Evolution #4 (Of 4)
Pood #3
Power Girl #23
Red Hulk TP Scorched Earth
Red Sonja Break The Skin One Shot
Ryder On The Storm #3 (Of 3)
Safe Area Gorazde HC Special Ed
SHIELD HC Architects Of Forever
Sigil #2 (Of 4)
Silent Hill Past Life TP
Silver Surfer #3 (Of 5)
Simpsons Comics #177
Sixth Gun #11
Skaar King Of Savage Land #2 (Of 5)
Stan Lee Soldier Zero #7
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man TP Sensational Digest
Spectacular Spider-Man #1000
Spider-Man New York Stories TP
Spirit #13
Suicide Girls #1 (Of 4)
Super Dinosaur #1 (R. Kirkman)
Supergirl #63
Superman Batman #83
Superman Batman Worship TP
Teen Titans #94
Essential Thor TP Vol 05
Thor Warriors Three Unleashed Prem HC
Thunderbolts #156
Thunderbolts Classic TP Vol 01
Transmetropolitan TP Vol 09 The Cure New Ptg
Trickster Native American Tales A Graphic Collection
Ultimate Comics Avengers TP Crime And Punishment
Uncanny X-Force #8
Walking Dead Weekly #16
Winterworld TP (Jeorge Zaffino)
DeadpoolMax #7 (Kyle Baker)
Generation Hope #6 (K. Gillen)
Wolverine #8
Wolverine & Jubilee #4 (Of 4)
X-Factor #218
Young Justice #3
Zatanna #12
MANGA
Akira Kodansha Ed GN Vol 06
Naoki Urasawa 20th Century Boys GN Vol 14
Silent Mobius Complete Ed GN Vol 04
Sunday, April 17, 2011
2000AD Signing for Free Comic Book Day!
Yep, in association with the cuddly tykes of 2000AD, all three of these esteemed gentlemen will be taking their places in our stylish basement at 39 Great Russell St, WC1B 3NZ on Saturday 7th May from 1pm – 2.30pm. Come down and say hi, and get some writing advice from three gentlemen who have been instrumental in the restoration of the UK’s venerable science fiction magazine to its former creative glories.
So, if you think you can stand that much thrill-power in one room, then come on down! Saturday 7th May, 1pm – 2.30pm. Gosh Comics, 39 Great Russell St, WC1B 3NZ.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Due To Arrive 20/04/11
Click the full post link below for a tentative list of titles due to ship next week.
68 #1 (Of 4)
Angel #44
Astro City Shining Stars HC
Avengers #12
Avengers Academy #12
Batman #709
Captain America Vs Red Skull TP
Dark Horse Presents #1
Darkness #91
DC Presents Legion Super Heroes Damned #1
DC Comics Presents Night Force #1
DC Comics Presents Ninja Boy #1
DC Universe Online Legends #6
DeadpoolMAX #7
Deus Ex #3 (Of 6)
DMZ #64
Dungeons & Dragons Classics TP Vol 1
Dungeons And Dragons #6
DV8 Gods And Monsters TP
Essential Thor TP Vol 5
Fables #104
Fear Itself Sins Past #1 Fear
Firebreather Vs Dragon Prince One-Shot
Generation Hope #6
Genius Isolated Life & Art Of Alex Toth HC
Gotham City Sirens #22
Green Lantern #65
Green Lantern Corps #59
Halo Fall Of Reach Covenant #1 (Of 4)
Haunt #15
Hellblazer #278
Hitman TP Vol 4 Ace Of Killers New Ptg
Hulk #32
Invincible #79
Invincible Iron Man #503 Fear
Iron Man 2.0 #4
Justice League Of America #56
Kill Shakespeare #10 (Of 12)
Legion Of Super Heroes #12
Magdalena (Ongoing) #6
Marijuanaman HC
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man TP Sensational
Mass Effect Evolution #4 (Of 4)
Mice Templar Vol 3 #4
Morning Glories #9
Power Girl #23
Proof Endangered #5
Red Hulk TP Scorched Earth
Scarlet #5
Shield HC Architects Of Forever
Sigil #2 (Of 4)
Silver Surfer #3 (Of 5)
Skaar King Of Savage Land #2 (Of 5)
Spectacular Spider-Man #1000
Spider-Man New York Stories TP
Spider-Man One Moment In Time TP
Spirit #13
Super Dinosaur #1
Supergirl #63
Superman Batman #83
Superman Batman Worship TP
Teen Titans #94
Thunderbolts #156
Thunderbolts Classic TP Vol 1
Tiny Titans #39
Transmetropolitan TP Vol 9 The Cure New Ed
True Blood Tainted Love #3
Turok Son Of Stone #2
Ultimate Avengers TP Crime And Punishment
Uncanny X-Force #8
Velocity #4 (Of 4)
Walking Dead Weekly #16
Witchblade #144
Wolverine #8
Wolverine & Jubilee #4 (Of 4)
X-Factor #218
X-Men First Class TP Class Portraits
Young Justice #3
Zatanna #12
The Gosh! Authority 12/04/11
It’s a smallish one this week but hopefully that means you’ll get to the end of the blog without nodding off. As a special bonus it even includes a thing I was supposed to blog last week but totally forgot so you can help me out by pretending you’re in the past.
First up there’s Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish, a one-shot illustrated by the very excellent Kevin Nowlan, who not only pencils and inks it but gets to do his own lettering and colouring too: “As a kid I always liked the issue where my favourite artist would take an issue and ink it himself. It always seemed to be the ones that stood out. And in a rare instance or two a guy might do his own colour guides. Barry Smith did that with his last issue of Conan, The Song of Red Sonja. Neal Adams did it with his last issue of Green Lantern / Green Arrow. The Swamp Thing stories that Bernie Wrightson coloured really stand out in that series.” You can read the rest of that interview over at Newsarama where he also gives you tips on how to draw cows to exaggerate their “cowness”. Preview at Dark Horse.
The anthology of prose short stories edited by Neil Gaiman finally arrives on our shelves almost a whole year after America got it. Simply called Stories, it features a cracking cover by Gosh! Favourite Tom Gauld and innards by the likes of Roddy Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Joanne Harris, Michael Marshall Smith, Joe R. Lansdale, Walter Mosley, Richard Adams, Jodi Picoult, Michael Swanwick, Peter Straub, Lawrence Block, Jeffrey Ford, Chuck Palahniuk, Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O'Nan, Gene Wolfe, Carolyn Parkhurst, Kat Howard, Jonathan Carroll, Jeffrey Deaver, Tim Powers, Al Sarrantonio, Kurt Andersen, Michael Moorcock, Elizabeth Hand, and Joe Hill. Gaiman contributes his story The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains which is the thing he read aloud at the Sydney Opera House last year, accompanied by a Fourplay soundtrack and Eddie Campbell illustrations. Here’s a review of Stories, and here’s another one in the LA Times.
(Speaking of Tom Gauld, his new graphic novel from Drawn & Quarterly looms nigh. Well, sort of. Next year. It’s called Goliath. It looks amazing -- see above.)
The Rime of the Modern Mariner by is a retelling of the Coleridge poem by Guardian cartoonist Nick Hayes. “It was when I discovered a picture of an albatross, belly swelled to busting, full of plastic bottle caps that it had mistaken for shrimp, rotted and interlaced with plastic bags tight around its bones, that the penny dropped: albatross; Coleridge; burdens of guilt. It was time for a modern mariner,” says Hayes in his “director’s commentary” over at the FPI Blog. It’s a gorgeously bound and coloured hardcover – in short, a typically excellent production by Jonathan Cape, UK home of Dan Clowes’ books – and if you’d like to see some pages they’re dotted in amongst his FPI Blog appearance. There’s a review of it over at the Guardian too. Biased or not, who cares – it looks lovely.
Pro-tip: putting a whale in your book is a sure-fire way of getting a mention on the Gosh! Blog
Darkie’s Mob HC is a collection of the strip by John Wagner (2000AD) and Mike Western that originally ran in the UK comic Battle in the mid-seventies. It’s pretty violent and dark – Captain Joe Darkie is crucified at one point, at another there are soldiers dying dysentery. “It was one of the things that made the story readable. No plastic soldiers like Captain Hurricane, this was an attempt to portray the reality of war and the strong emotions and sometimes desperate condition of the men who fought it,” said Wagner in this old interview.
Vertigo Crime’s Area 10 TP is worth a look, partly because it’s written by Christos Gage and illustrated by the excellent Chris Samnee, but mostly because it’s the only book in the shop to include the word “trepanation” in its blurb. Set in New York, it’s about a series of killings by someone who keeps the head every time – a killer the police have called Henry the Eighth. In an interview with USA Today, Gage talks about the perils of Googling a word like “trepanation” and I think it probably trumps my earlier experience regarding “infestation”. "I don't know that it's ever been big enough to be called 'popular.' It was done in the early 70s, and there are still people to this day who do it. Drilling into your own head is by itself going to keep out casual users. It's not like smoking weed – there's a little bit more of an investment in it.” Don’t do that to your head. And, uh, seeing as I’m somewhat ridiculous/cannot help it/have already done it: don’t look up “trepanation” on the Internet.
In trade-paperback you can get Sense and Sensibility, Nancy Butler and Sonny Liew’s follow up to Marvel’s Pride & Prejudice which spent an age on the New York Times Graphic Novel Best-Seller list. Here’s a review from someone who liked it very much, and if you never caught a preview: here you go.
Howard Cruse’s Wendel is now seeing print in a collected edition, decades after its first appearance. When it first appeared it was considered a unique, revolutionary piece of work – it being the first gay comic in mainstream media. It’s not so revolutionary now, of course, as Alison Bechdel (Fun Home) explains in her introduction: “You’ll find virtually no discussion of gay marriage in the pages of Wendel. The issue that has now become practically synonymous with LGBT civil rights was not high on the homosexual agenda in the eighties. Yet Wendel and Ollie’s loving, committed relationship is a paragon of stability. They parent a young boy, negotiate with Ollie’s ex-wife, have loving exchanges with Wendel’s parents, and come out to co-workers. They don’t live in a parallel universe like Chelsea or Castro, they’re ‘the gays next door,’ integrated for the most part seamlessly into the broader community.” More over at Publisher’s Weekly.
More reprints in DC Comics Presents Batman: Arkham, collecting a bunch of creepy stuff you won’t have seen since it first appeared by the likes of Dennis O’Neil, Alan Grant, Paul Grist, Curt Swan and more.
New stuff! Kieron Gillen (Phonogram) writes this week’s Journey into Mystery #622 which is a renaming of Thor. Incidentally, Thor: Whosoever Wields The Shield One-Shot collects old, old issues Journey into Mystery: #83, #84 and #88 with remastered colouring, plus a brand-spanking new framing sequence by Christos Gage and Marco Torricelli. Gillen’s story ties into the whole Fear Itself thing so if you’re following that – pick this up! “We're not just looking at the Asgardian part of the Marvel Universe. We've got all these magical beings and pantheons of gods existing in one universe. So what's the political structure surrounding that? How do these different people get along? Mostly it's a strained peace, but occasionally it's not. I, Claudius is one of my big influences. Another is The Thick of It, which was a brilliant British political TV show that set up the movie In the Loop. Obviously we're nowhere near as sweary as that. That gives you and idea, though, and I think that structure and those ideas make these mythological figures more real in that way.” More of that interview here, and a preview of Doug Braithwaite’s artwork too.
This week there are no less than three crossovers that need to be brought to your attention – Steve Rogers: Super Soldier Annual #1 is the second chapter of James Asmus’ Escape From The Negative Zone (which started in the Uncanny X-Men Annual #3 last month, and continues in Namor: The First Mutant Annual #1 next month). Previewed here.
Red Robin #22 is the first bit of a 3-part crossover called Judgement on Gotham, which continues in Gotham City Sirens and Batman later this month. Writer Fabian Nicieza says to Newsarama, “Even though it's part of the larger Judgment on Gotham storyline, it's a great self-contained issue that I think shows Tim [Drake] at his best, facing countless obstacles and managing to figure out how to overcome all of them, until the final obstacle he can't overcome to win the day is the stumbling block called: the truth.” Preview at Gotham Knights.
Daken Dark Wolverine #8 is the second part (of four) in the Daken/X-23 crossover by Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu. Liu talks to CbR about it in an interview I probably should have linked to when Part 1 came out. Speaking of X-books, Rick Remender and Jerome Opena’s Uncanny X-Force: Apocalypse Solution is out in hardcover this week, collecting the first four issues of the series along with some stuff from Wolverine: Road to Hell.
If you’re a fan of Elephantmen, you might want to pick up this week’s Elephantmen: Cover Stories #1 which is, as you’ve probably guessed, a collection of Elephantmen covers. Preview here. And if you’re following the Walking Dead but losing track of who’s doing what, Robert Kirkman’s got it covered in the Walking Dead Survival Guide #1 (of 4) which gives you a character run-down on everyone who’s been (and gone).
Last week I said that Skaar: Kind of Savage Land #1 (of 5) was out but it transpires I was being somewhat previous. Apologies. It’s out this week and it’s by Rob Williams and Brian Ching. See the son of Hulk fight against dinosaurs, giant robots and an evil mastermind, too! Preview.
And finally, Jonathan Hickman’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Infinity One-Shot promises to make foundations shake, crumble and fall. Here’s a preview and make sure you check out the issue number. Nice work, nerds.
Another thing I failed to do last week was tell you that Jason Atomic’s Hail To The King! exhibition, (aka H2TK!, his celebration of all things Jack Kirby) was opening, because then you could have gone along to the launch party. My most massive apologies for anyone who stayed home in their pajamas and ate fish fingers instead. Anyway, it’s on now at Bethnal Green’s Resistance Gallery (265 Poyser Street, E29 RF) and you should go and maybe even buy some of his excellent artwork. You can find some teaser images at Atomic’s blog.
So, that was the last Gosh! Blog from me for a couple of weeks. Now I’m off to Barcelona for a (busman’s) holiday. In the meantime you can read this review of Kiki de Montparnasse that I wrote for The Comics Journal, and Andrew will keep you suitably entertained in my absence too.
Adios.
-- Hayley