Like Cillit Bang I’ll cut through grease and get straight to the point: All-Star Superman team and Gosh! favourites Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Batman & Robin is in this week! It’s big news. According to Morrison, this new series sees a shift in the duo’s dynamic – and with a ‘more light-hearted and spontaneous Batman and a scowling, badass Robin’ they might have to switch sides of the ampersand. This is the first issue of a 3-part arc (the first of 12 issues in total). Morrison describes it as poppy and colourful but creepier, like David Lynch doing the Batman TV show. If this page takes your fancy make sure it’s in your stack of stuff on Thursday.
Punisher MAX: Naked Kill is a one-shot written by Jonathan Mayberry (writer of the novel Patient Zero, a short story in Wolverine: The Anniversary, and ex-bodyguard) with art by yet another Gosh! favourite, Laurence Campbell. It sees Frank Castle infiltrate a building to stop the making of a snuff film with nothing but his wits, some pencils and a feather duster – sort of like MacGyver gone bad. This one’s worth picking up for the art alone. Point your mince pies at these!
You’ll find more lashings of ultraviolence in Wolverine: Revolver by Victor Gischler and Das Pastoras a.k.a. Julio Perez (Wolverine: Switchback). In Las Vegas Logan finds himself in a game of Russian Roulette with a bunch of mobsters. Gischler loves writing Wolverine and it’s not just because he likes to see a fellow shortie kicking arse: 
“Wolverine has an animal cunning and temper that provides great material for a writer. I also love writing dialogue and narration in Logan's voice. I think if Philip Marlow were a bit more ill-tempered and had adamantium claws, he'd be Wolverine.” A Wolverine comic with Chandlerisms, maybe? We’ll see.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales of the Vampires is another one-shot out this week and sees indy artist Becky Cloonan (DEMO, Pixu) make her feature-length debut as a writer. Vasilis Lolos (also Pixu) illustrates the 40-page tale, while Gabriel Ba (Umbrella Academy) and Fabio Moon provide an alternative to the Jo Chen cover. Cloonan tells you all about it over at Newsarama.
There’s a pile of books worth a mention this week, and because I think Seth is brilliant I’ll blather about him first. Much like his Wimbledon Green, or for that matter It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, his latest offering is an account of the fictional life of George Sprott. It originally ran as one-pagers in the New York Times Magazine Funny Pages (previously occupied by the likes of Chris Ware’s Building Stories and Mister Wonderful) though Fantagraphics promises this to be a greatly expanded and re-mastered version of the thing. PDFs of the original pages still exist on the internet. This chap even reviews the book.
If you liked Bill Presing’s Bookplate Betties or Justin Coffee’s Cream & Sugar here’s another two for the shelf. Shane Glines is an animation character designer who has previously worked for Spümcø (of Ren & Stimpy fame), Batman: The Animated Series, Samurai Jack, and is also the founder of Cartoon Retro – the world’s largest online archive of vintage illustration, animation, comics and cartoons. Will Kane got in a bunch of Cartoon Retro: The Art of Shane Glines Volumes 1 and 2 which are full of amazing cartoon ladies. There are photos of the books on the publisher’s website. I wholeheartedly recommend you have a peek.
Speaking of animation, My Name is Dug is a hardcover kids books based on Pixar’s Up. Definitely one to grab if you like the look of the film – it’s written and illustrated by Ronnie Del Carmen who’s currently a story supervisor at Pixar and has also worked on various Batman things with Bruce Timm just like Shane Glines up there.
Let’s Do Nothing is a book by another Pixar/Disney animator, Tony Fucile. You’ll have seen his Jack-Jack Attack Little Golden Book on the counter here at Gosh! no doubt. This is another lovely looking kids book with huge illustrations of two hyperactive kids attempting to do absolutely nothing.
Fans of stuff like Tintin and Blake & Mortimer should keep an eye out for this one in August – The Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing. It’s the first of three volumes about the adventures of Julius Chancer and from the previews it looks amazing. He’s currently running a competition to win a cover proof he’s signed and sketched on. Head over to his website and log in to the members’ area where you’ll find the link to the competition.
And now for the ‘And finally’ bit of news: Shaun Tan is an amazing artist who has not only produced some of the most beautiful books in recent memory but has also worked as a concept artist for Horton Hears a Who and Pixar’s (them again) WALL-E. He’s over from Australia at the moment for the Hay Festival and popped into Gosh! last week to sign a bunch of books for us. But he didn’t just scribble on them with a black marker – he drew in them, stamped them, even drew designs over red inky thumbprints. And look – he drew us a picture!
If you haven’t yet nabbed a copy of The Arrival or Tales From Outer Suburbia come get a signed one before they’re all gone.
-- Hayley
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Gosh! Authority 03/06/09
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Gosh! Authority 30/09/09
One of our top picks this week is Gilbert Shelton’s Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus which collects all the strips about that other famous, non-lasagne eating ginger tom. Like many things he began as a footnote to something else and soon became deservedly famous in his own right. In this latest omnibus (which fits perfectly with the Freak Brothers Omnibus design-wise) the orange Cat can be found sleeping on Fat Freddy’s head, battling endless armies of roaches, travelling to Mexico, saving the world from an alien invasion and (of course) the Hee Hee Hee drug. If you were one of the many people who asked for more Freak Brothers you’ll need to swing by the shop tout de suite.
In other news, Alan Moore has some thoughts on pornography that will probably sit very well on the bookshelf next to that well-thumbed copy of Lost Girls. If you managed to grab a copy of the long sold out issue of Arthur magazine you’ll have read them before in that brilliantly titled essay of his, Bog Venus Versus Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography. This book I’m foisting on you is called 25, 000 Years of Erotic Freedom HC and it’s an extended version of that very essay now beefed up with relevant illustrations, photographs, and frontbottoms. In a 1000 word excerpt on CbR Moore argues that “Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilisation and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.” And he’s probably right. The big hairy one tends to be terribly convincing, anyway. At his Gosh! signing he almost had me agreeing that custard creams are the lesser, anaemic cousin to bourbons.
Mike Mignola’s Hellboy Library Ed HC Volume 3 collects three classic stories in a big black book including the award-winning Conqueror Worm in which Hellboy has his first run-in with fan-favourite Lobster Johnson. And just to make sure you get your £37.50’s worth, there’s an extra thirty pages of never-before-seen sketchbook stuff. Preview!
Lords of Misrule HC reprints classic (word of the day, obviously) stuff by Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson, Steve White, Gary Erskine, and Peter Snejbjerg for the first time in full colour with a bunch of other previously uncollected pages – so it’s not just for those of you who missed it the first time round. If you did, here’s what happens: After two friends are horribly murdered near a rural English town the survivors discover a longstanding history of grim doings in the village. Sure to appeal to the 10 or so fans who loved Abnett and Tomlinson’s original Knights of Pendragon. It feels like it exists in the same universe as that fondly remembered series, although of course it doesn’t as that was set in Marvel Universe (sort of), but eagle eyed fans might notice that Lords of Misrule is actually set in the same universe as the popular Aussie soap Neighbours. Answers on a postcard….
Another big hardcover that arrived midweek is Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikyorak (The New Yorker, The Onion, Mad), a Drawn & Quarterly collection of parodies of classic literature full of the superfluous exclamation marks, cartoon colours and the general nuttiness of old comics. See good ol’ Charlie Brown become Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metemorphosis whose social unease is probably just right for the miserable cockroach hiding in his bedroom. In the meantime, see a preview.
Ed Brubaker (Criminal) and Sean Phillips’ (Incognito) final collection of Sleeper is out this week collecting the full second year of the acclaimed series plus a never-before-collected prequel. There’s also the second block of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s Umbrella Academy to look forward to in a trade collection of Dallas. Alternatively, there’s always the lovely big hardcover edition that came out last week if you prefer that.
Superman: Kryptonite TP collects the amazing Superman-meets-Kryptonite–for-the-first-time story by Gosh! Favourites Darwyn Cooke (Parker: The Hunter, DC: The New Frontier) and Tim Sale (Batman: The Long Halloween) in their first project together. Everything these guys do is brill and we always say so, ipso facto there’s really no need for me to harp on about it. I’ll let this man do it. He says it’s glorious. In fact, he says the word glorious several times.
If you’re a fan of Hergé’s Tin Tin there’s a new book on the shelf by Garen Ewing that’s likely to catch your eye. The Adventures of Julius Chancer: The Rainbow Orchid Volume 1 is drawn in much the style with a pink-cheeked hero on an international adventure. There’s no shortage of mystery and intrigue here so check out the artwork in this ‘ere preview if it sounds like your cup of tea.
That’s it for another week. Don’t forget we’ve got the Joe Sacco signing today from 5pm until 7pm!
-- Hayley