IDW Publishing from Diamond Distributors for August 1, 2018

IDW PUBLISHING

MAY180729    ASSASSINISTAS TP    $19.99
FEB180393    BUBBA HO-TEP & COSMIC BLOOD-SUCKERS #2 CVR A RIVAS    $3.99
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MAY180642    GI JOE A REAL AMERICAN HERO #254 CVR A FERREIRA    $3.99
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Image Comics from Diamond Distributors for August 1, 2018

IMAGE COMICS

MAY180105    BLOODSTRIKE #24 CVR A (MR)    $3.99
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Marvel Studios from Diamond Distributors for August 1, 2018

MARVEL COMICS

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FEB180914    X-MEN REVOLUTION BY CHRIS CLAREMONT OMNIBUS HC    $100.00

Comics, Magazines and Books from Diamond Distributors for August 1, 2018

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

APR181716    2000 AD SCI-FI SPECIAL 2018    $9.99
APR181289    ADVENTURE FINDERS TP VOL 01    $19.99
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JUN181820    WHAT MUSIC THEY MAKE COMPREHENSIVE GT HORROR POSTERS HC    $129.99

Book Review: John Byrne's STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

JOHN BYRNE'S STOWAWAY TO THE STARS
IDW PUBLISHING – @IDWPublishing

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: John Byrne
ILLUSTRATOR: John Byrne
COLORS: Leonard O'Grady
EDITOR: Chris Ryall
COVER: John Byrne with Leonard O'Grady
Paperback: 8” x 10” (May 2018 – first print)
48pp, Color, $7.99 U.S., $10.99 CAN (June 6, 2018 – DIAMOND CODE: MAR180559)

John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars is an adult coloring book featuring all-new art by legendary comic book writer, artist, writer-artist, and creator, John Byrne (Fantastic Four, X-Men, Star Trek).  IDW Publishing originally released this coloring book in 2016.  Several months later, IDW published John Byrne’s Stowaway to the Stars as an over-sized art book (June 2017) with Byrne's art colored by Leonard O'Grady.  Sixteen images were printed with perforated edges, enabling readers to easily remove them for framing.

John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars the adult coloring book not only included Byrne's art, but also a story written by Byrne.  This is the tale of a spunky teenaged girl, of robots, of aliens, and of space travel.  This month (June 2018) IDW published Stowaway to the Stars as a paperback, graphic album, which is similar to the paperback graphic novel format that many American comic book publishers used throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.  The trim size was 8.5” x 11” or around that.

This new version of John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars features 23 illustrations, each one in a two-page spread.  On the left side is a section of text, written by Byrne, that is part of a larger story.  On the right side is a Byrne Stowaway illustration presented in full-color, executed by Leonard O'Grady.

The text of John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars is a short, short story, a science fiction tale that evokes classic sci-fi adventure tales of children escaping into the far-flung reaches of outer space.  In this case, the child is 14-year-old Eliza Smith.  On her home world, Capella 4-G (one of Earth's oldest colonies), Eliza lives close enough to a spaceport to watch one hundred ships come and go everyday.  Now, Eliza is taking control of her fate, but will this stowaway to the stars live to regret her decision far, far away from home.

First, John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars the graphic album (or illustrated book?) is beautiful.  Obviously, John Byrne is known for his comic book storytelling.  His work on X-Men/Uncanny X-Men with writer Chris Claremont is literally legendary, and truthfully, every X-Men comic book Marvel has published since the last Byrne-Claremont's issue (Uncanny X-Men #143) lives in the shadow of Byrne-Claremont's work.  Byrne revitalized Fantastic Four, and he basically reinvented Superman for DC Comics in 1986.

Still, for illustrative work – on comic books, magazines, and book covers; for portfolios; and on art commissioned by fans, Byrne has produced some of his most beautiful and distinctive work.  I think John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars contains some of Byrne's best art ever.  The line work here reveals Byrne as a master draftsman, and the composition informs the viewer that each illustration tells a story and that it is not just a drawing.

Leonard O'Grady's coloring brings Byrne's illustrations fully to life.  O'Grady's colors shimmer and glow, giving each illustration a sense of possibility and storytelling potential.  O'Grady basically makes the illustrations pop off the page.

As for the story, which IDW has sometimes described as “story fragments,” John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars recalls juvenile science fiction, the kids-in-space sub-genre probably best exemplified by Robert A. Heinlein's “juvenile” novels (like Farmer in the Sky).  Part of me loves the dystopias of Philip K. Dick and the near-future worlds of books like A Clockwork Orange and Fahrenheit 451.  Another part of me wants to be “Lost in Space,” whether it be with the Robinsons or aboard the “Astra” of Kenta Shinohara.  Eliza's adventure recalls a sense of wonder, of adventure, and of mystery evoked by the promise and potential of space exploration.

You don't have to live far, far away on an Earth colony to wonder what it would be like to be in space.  You can sit in tall grass on Earth and look up at the stars and feel almost exactly as Eliza feels.  John Byrne's Stowaway to the Stars may be a fragment, but even in its smallness it reaches for something that is probably universal.  I want to read it again.

9 out of 10

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


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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

Book Review: THE WORD IS MURDER

THE WORD IS MURDER
HARPCOLLINS – @HarperCollins @HarperBooks

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

AUTHOR: Anthony Horowitz
ISBN: 978-0-06-267678-8; hardcover (June 5, 2018)
400pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S.

The Word is Murder is a 2018 detective novel from bestselling author, Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk, Moriarty: A Novel).  Horowitz is also known for creating the acclaimed British television series, “Foyle's War.”  In this new novel, Horowitz unites a fictional version of himself with a taciturn former London detective in a kind of crazy Holmes-Watson-like team.

The Word is Murder opens in London on a bright, spring morning.  Wealthy Londoner, Diana Cowper, arrives at Cornwallis & Sons, a funeral home, to plan her funeral.  Six hours later, Diana is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.  Unable to solve the case, London police turn to a “consulting detective,” disgraced detective inspector (DI) Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, but eccentric investigator who rubs people the wrong way with his arrogance and insults.

For this case, Hawthorne wants his activities documented, and he needs a ghost writer.  He turns to Anthony Horowitz, bestselling author and creator of acclaimed British television series, such as “Foyle's War.”  Horowitz had previously hired Hawthorne as a consult on his TV series, but he does not like the pushy former cop.

Reluctantly, Horowitz agrees to follow Hawthorne, from one place to another, as he investigates Mrs. Cowper's murder.  Thus, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control and is forced to silently follow the brusque, temperamental, and annoying Hawthorne.  Complicating matters further, the case of Diana Cowper's murder is filled with twists and turns, which do prove to be irresistible to Horowitz.  But this unusual partnership will place Horowitz in great peril, working with a man who may have his own dark secrets.

I read Anthony Horowitz's 2014 mystery, Moriarty: A Novel.  I thought the novel was brilliantly written, but I hated the resolution.  I gave Moriarty a grade of “B,” although I probably would have given it at least an “A,” if the ending had not irritated me so much.

I think that The Word is Murder is also brilliantly written and structured, but I absolutely love this book's final three chapters.  There are so many twists and turns and more twists and turns, and I do want to be careful about spoiling anything.  However, I can attest to the fact that this novel is a hugely entertaining piece of meta-fiction in which Horowitz creates a captivating fictional version of himself, a kind of modern-day Dr. Watson.  The Horowitz of The Word is Murder seems like a perfectly reasonable and relate-able man.  As the first-person narrator and storyteller, he is a delightful guiding companion for readers.

As a Sherlock Holmes-like character, Daniel Hawthorne is also fascinating, especially because Horowitz does not give us much about the personal Hawthorne.  Of course, we can only rely on fictional Horowitz to tell us about Hawthorne.  This detective may pry into everyone's business, but he does not like people to pry into his.  So I found myself desperate to know more about Hawthorne simply because he is worth discovering.

As a work of crime fiction and as detective fiction, The Word is Murder is playful and experimental, even when it is being brutal and shockingly violent.  I would not mind a sequel, but I think that a sequel might ruin the original spirit of The Word is Murder.  Let's not worry about that, however; let us enjoy a truly original mystery novel.

8.5 out of 10

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


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, VOL. I
DC COMICS/Vertigo – @DCComics

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITER: Alan Moore
ARTIST: Kevin O’Neill
COLORIST: Ben Dimagmaliw
LETTERER: Bill Oakley
EDITOR: Scott Dunbier
ISBN: 978-1-56389-858-7; paperback – Seventeenth printing
176pp, Color, $16.99 U.S., $22.99 CAN

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen created by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One is a six-issue comic book limited series published in 1999 and 2000 (cover dated: March 1999 to September 2000).  The series was created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill and was published by America's Best Comics, an imprint of Wildstorm Productions, itself an imprint of DC Comics.  The first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (abbreviated as “LoEG”) miniseries was initially collected in a single volume in 2001 in a trade paperback entitled The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One.

The story takes place in 1898 and is set in a fictional world where all of the characters from Victorian literature are real and coexist, and the events, adventures, and drama depicted in that literature actually occurred.  Alan Moore borrowed LoEG's main characters and plot elements primarily from the works of writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a secret task force created to protect the British Empire from potential, extraordinary threats.  The League's de facto leader is Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray (from Bram Stoker's Dracula), charged with gathering extraordinary people to this task force.  Mina recruits Allan Quatermain (the great white hunter created by author H. Rider Haggard); Captain Nemo; the terror of the seas in his submarine, “The Nautilus” (from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea); Dr. Henry Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Edward Hyde (from Robert Louis Stevenson's novella, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) and Hawley Griffin, (known as “Griffin” the title character of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man).

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One opens in 1898.  It is one year after Mina Murray's encounter with the vampire, Dracula, and Mina has divorced her husband and now works for the British government.  She meets with MI5 agent, Campion Bond.  [Alan Moore means for Campion to be the grandfather of Ian Fleming's James Bond, although for intellectual property reasons, James Bond is not mentioned].  Bond gives Mina the task of gathering certain men for the task force known as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  Campion is vague about MI5's leader, the mysterious “M,” whom Mina assumes is Mycroft Holmes, the brother of Sherlock Holmes.

After Mina gathers her extraordinary gentlemen and the LoEG is formed, Bond gives them their mission.  He wants the League to recover a stolen supply of “Cavorite,” a man-made element that can power and levitate heavier-than-air machines.  The thief is the crime lord of the “East End” of London, a mysterious figure known as “The Doctor” (a stand-in for the fictional character, Fu Manchu, which is not in the public domain).  While “The Doctor” has indeed stolen the Cavorite, the League does not realize that there is more to their mission than recovering a stolen item and that there is a bigger conspiracy against London than one crime lord.

The people who only know The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen through that mediocre 2003 film that was loosely adapted from the comic book are unlucky.  I think many of those people would love Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's fantastic original comic book series.  I have already praised Moore and O'Neill as geniuses in a review of a later LoEG comic book.  For Moore: I praised his inventive concept, his imaginative story, and his ingenious execution of the narrative.  For O'Neill, I praised his original illustrative style, his eye-popping graphics, and his stunning graphic design.

What new readers will discover is how funny this first LoEG comic book is, especially compared to the fake wittiness of the hapless film adaptation.  My recent re-reading is the first time I have read the original series since it original publication.  I did not remember its sense of humor, so I was delighted to discover it.  It was like finding something new.

Whether you look for literary references or whether you want to enjoy its unique spin on classic fiction, LoEG seems to always offer something new to discover.  I noticed I was finding new things when I reread certain pages during this second reading.  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One has not so much stood the test of time as it has proved to be timeless.  I now consider it a comic book that I would share with anyone inclined to read comic books.

10 out of 10

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


The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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