IDW Publishing from Diamond Distributors for November 29, 2017

IDW PUBLISHING

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JUN170506    YO-KAI WATCH HC    $12.99

Dark Horse Comics from Diamond Distributors for November 29, 2017

DARK HORSE COMICS

SEP170038    BPRD DEVIL YOU KNOW #4    $3.99
JUL170195    CONAN THE SLAYER TP VOL 02    $19.99

Image Comics from Diamond Distributors for November 29, 2017

IMAGE COMICS

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SEP170784    SPY SEAL #4    $3.99

Comics, Magazines and Books from Diamond Distributors for November 29, 2017

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

SEP171874    A CENTAURS LIFE GN VOL 13 (MR)    $13.99
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MAGAZINES
AUG172407    007 MAGAZINE PRESENTS SIR ROGER MOORE SPECIAL    $13.99
JUL172505    BRICKJOURNAL #48    $8.95
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BOOKS
JUN171524    ART OF PATH OF EXILE HC    $24.99
AUG172299    BIG BOOK OF BATMAN HC    $16.99
AUG172300    BIG BOOK OF SUPERMAN HC    $16.99
AUG172301    BIG BOOK OF WONDER WOMAN HC    $16.99
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SEP172174    ILLUSTRATED DUST JACKET 1920-1970 HC    $39.95
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#IReadsYou Review: BANKSHOT #3

BANKSHOT No. 3 (OF 5)
DARK HORSE COMICS – @DarkHorseComics

STORY: Alex de Campi
ART: ChrisCross
COLORS: Snakebite Cortez
LETTERS: Alex de Campi
EDITOR: Aaron Walker and Randy Stradley
COVER: ChrisCross with Snakebite Cortez
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (August 2017)

Bankshot is a five-issue comic book miniseries from writer Alex de Campi and artist ChrisCross.  Snakebite Cortez is the series colorist and de Campi is the letterer.  Published by Dark Horse Comics, the series focuses on an anti-hero Marcus King, part modern-day Robin Hood, part terrorist, part tech-enhanced super-human or both – on a mission of revenge.

Bankshot #3 takes place in two time periods.  First, the story returns to Tunisia, a decade earlier, where King recuperates in an unnamed hospital.  The revolutionary nanonite procedure that will help him walk again is already showing changes in King – in ways that are almost supernatural.  Jump forward to the present, King is in the Ukraine, tearing through the base of operations of The Dutchman, the man who left King for dead in North Africa, but just when King seems to have snatched victory...  Meanwhile, the CIA makes its boldest move yet against King.

I will keep saying it as long as they keep doing it.  Alex de Campi and ChrisCross are killing it with Bankshot... and then killing it again.  This is pure action-adventure like Jason Borne, James Bond, and Mission: Impossible movies with a dash of the novels of James Rollins.

Bankshot is a pop comic from the action, mercenary, noisy side of the pop comic house.  I like that Alex de Campi has focused on Marcus King's past from a decade earlier to establish him as a character,  but I have to admit that I have a blast when de Campi slams us with some fight comics.  She can get down in the dirt with male writers of action comic books; she is better than many male comic book writers who are allegedly top writers of violent action comic books.

ChrisCross' storytelling captures all the moods and the switches in pace and setting.  He visually and graphically creates a balance between the drama and suspense and the action and violence.  Boy, though, he can draw some wild and crazy fight scenes.  Hurry up, space-time; get us to #4

A
9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

----------------------------

Amazon wants me to inform you that the link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the ad below AND buy something(s).

Review: REBORN #1

REBORN No. 1
IMAGE COMICS – @ImageComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Mark Millar – @mrmarkmillar
PENCILS: Greg Capullo
INKS: Jonathan Glapion
COLORS: FCO Plascencia
LETTERS: Nate Piekos of Blambot
COVER: Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion with FCO Plascencia
VARIANT COVERS: Greg Capullo; Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion with FCO Plascencia; Jock; Frank Cho with Laura Martin; John Cassady with Paul Mounts; Todd McFarlane with FCO Plascencia
28pp, Color, $3.50 U.S. (November 2015)

Rated M / Mature

Reborn is a new comic book miniseries from Mark Millar and Greg Capullo.  An action-fantasy, Reborn is set in a world where people go to fight for survival... after they die!   Reborn is written by Millar; drawn by Capullo (pencils) and Jonathan Glapion (inks); colored by FCO Plascencia; and lettered by Nate Piekos.

Reborn #1 opens in Minneapolis, 2002, the scene of a tragedy.  In 2016, we meet Bonnie Black, a 78-year-old woman intimately connected to that tragedy.  She believes that she is very close to the end of her life, and that death will come like a light being switched off.  But there is another life waiting for her, and that life may not be lived in Heaven or Hell.

For me, Mark Millar's creator-owned miniseries are hit (Kick-Ass, Empress) or miss (Huck).  So far, I think Reborn is leaning towards hit.  Its central conceit – that people go somewhere after death where their past (the good, the bad, and the ugly) await them – is creepy, but intriguing.  I am sure that Millar has even crazier stuff to reveal beyond Reborn #1, so I am ready for more.

Artist Greg Capullo is good in his first substantial post-New 52 Batman work.  So he can draw something other than Batman!  He mixes real-world-styled compositions with video game faux-reality with ease, but his storytelling in the fantasy world is a bit muddled.  That can be fixed in future issues, which I intend to read... and maybe tell you about.

www.millarworld.tv

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2016 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

------------------------

STAR WARS THE CLASSIC NEWSPAPER COMICS Volume 1

STAR WARS THE CLASSIC NEWSPAPER COMICS, VOL. 1
IDW PUBLISHING/The Library of American Comics – @IDWPublishing

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITERS: Russ Manning; Steve Gerber; Russ Helm; Don Christensen
ARTISTS: Russ Manning; Mike Royer; Rick Hoberg; Dave Stevens
EDITOR/DESIGNER: Dean Mullaney
ISBN: 978-1-63140-872-4; Over-sized 11” x 8.5” hardcover-with-dust jacket (May 9, 2017)
264pp, Color and B&W, $49.99 U.S., $65.99 CAN

Introductions by Rich Handley and Henry G. Franke III.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... there was a Star Wars newspaper comic strip, which included a daily strip in black and white and a full-color Sunday episode.  From 1979 to 1984, a group of dedicated writers and artists “brought us all the action of the movie [Star Wars] in a daily adventure comic strip!”

Now for the first time, courtesy of IDW Publishing and its imprint, The Library of American Comics, the classic Star Wars newspaper strip is being reprinted in its entirety and in its complete format.  That includes each Sunday title header and the “bonus” panels in their restored original color.  Star Wars The Classic Newspaper Comics, Volume 1 was published in May and contains 575 sequential comic strips from the Star Wars comic strip’s premiere on March 11, 1979 to October 5, 1980.

This collection covers ten story arcs, beginning with the first three, which were written and drawn by the legendary newspaper comics and comic book artist, Russ Manning.  The next six story lines were drawn by Manning with the help of several artists, among them Rick Hoberg and Dave Stevens, and written by Russ Helm, Don Christensen, and Steve Gerber.  This book's final story arc is drawn entirely by legendary Filipino comic book artist, Alfredo Alcala, and written by Helm.

The Star Wars newspaper strip features the classic characters from the classic original film, Star Wars (1977).  Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and, of course, Darth Vader, spar for the fate of the galaxy.  In “Gambler's World,” Luke and Leia travel to Vorzyd 5, a world that is one planet-wide casino, and our heroes must shut down this gambling operation that funds the Galactic Empire's military efforts.  Han Solo and Chewbacca race “The Second Kessel Run” to stop a ship that can use a planet's weather and climate to destroy that world.  In “Bring Me the Children,” the entire Star Wars gang leads a ragtag band of pilots, who are also friends of Han Solo, to save a group of children from the murderous clutches of the Empire.

Once upon a time, the Star Wars franchise consisted of a few novels, a few dozen comic books, and assorted odds and ends.  In this fledgling universe, the Star Wars newspaper comics were born.  Because there was only a single movie upon which the creators of the strip could draw (and not a big expanded universe), the Star Wars newspaper comics came about as close to the tone and spirit of the original film as any official Star Wars spin-off ever got, perhaps even closer than Marvel Comics first run of Star Wars comic books.

I think what makes that possible is that the beginning of the Star Wars newspaper comics was guided by Russ Manning.  Manning's career as an illustrator and as a comic book artist began with his childhood love of pulp magazines and of science fiction in the 1930s and 40s.  As a young professional artist, he worked on the kind of material that entertained and influenced a young George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars.  In fact, Manning's best known work, the comic book, Magnus, Robot Righter, which he created, made him the ideal choice to be the writer-artist to bring Star Wars to the newspaper comics pages.  Manning gives the early story arcs a tone and a spirit that recalls space opera and space jockey adventurers like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, as well as the B-movie serials of the 1930s and 40s and 1950s sci-fi films – all Star Wars influences or antecedents to one extent or another.

What really shows is Manning's great talent for character design and creature creation and for his ability to fabricate exotic locales and environments.  Characters like “Black Hole” (a Darth Vader agent, lackey, and spy) and the wookies of Chewbacca's home planet (to say nothing of the fauna and foliage) are inventive and striking.

I do not want to downplay the contributions of the other writers and artists who worked on the first two years of this newspaper comic, but Manning sets the tone.  Manning was captivated by the original Star Wars and described it as incredible to the Los Angeles Times.  His love and admiration shows in the narrative and in the graphically striking art Manning produced for the strip, and that carries on through the stories reprinted in Star Wars The Classic Newspaper Comics, Volume 1.

For Star Wars fans who read this in a newspaper back when it was originally published, these comics are probably as entertaining now as they were then.  For someone who is just reading them now, like me, well, these newspaper comics, feel, read, and look like old-timey, original Star Wars.  IDW and The Library of American Comics do it again!  No fan of Star Wars comic books can go without reading Star Wars The Classic Newspaper Comics, Volume 1.

A
9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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