Image Comics from Diamond Distributors for November 13, 2019

IMAGE COMICS

SEP190165    BATTLEPUG #3 CVR A NORTON & PASSALAQUA    $3.99
SEP190166    BATTLEPUG #3 CVR B ALEXANDER & NCT    $3.99
SEP190021    FAMILY TREE #1 (MR)    $3.99
SEP190194    GIDEON FALLS #18 CVR A SORRENTINO (MR)    $3.99
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SEP190054    MOONSHINE #13 (MR)    $3.99
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SEP198113    SPAWN #301 2ND PTG (MR)    $4.99
AUG190233    TELLTALE WALKING DEAD WALKER SCREAM T/S SM    $30.00
SEP190222    TREES THREE FATES #3 (OF 5) (MR)    $3.99

Marvel Comics from Diamond Distributors for November 13, 2019

MARVEL COMICS

AUG191169    ADVENTURES OF X-MEN GN TP RITES OF PASSAGE    $12.99
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AUG191163    X-MEN MILESTONES TP FATAL ATTRACTIONS    $44.99

Comics, Magazines and Books from Diamond Distributors for November 13, 2019

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

AUG191969    ALL TIME COMICS ZEROSIS DEATHSCAPE #5 (OF 6) (MR)    $4.99
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SEP191671    LUCKY LUKE COMPLETE COLL HC VOL 03    $29.99
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SEP191938    OPERATION OVERLORD TP    $24.99
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SEP191828    POKEMON COMIC NOVEL GN #2 GRAND TRIAL SHOWDOWN    $7.99
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SEP192019    ROBOTECH REMIX #2 CVR A DAMASO    $3.99
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MAR191404    ZORRO SWORDS OF HELL TP    $19.99

MAGAZINES
SEP191675    COMIC SHOP NEWS [90CT BUNDLE] #1691    $PI
AUG192148    DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE #544    $16.99
AUG192163    JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #413    $13.00
SEP191870    LOCUS #706    $8.99

BOOKS
SEP192265    86 EIGHTY SIX LIGHT NOVEL SC VOL 03    $14.00
AUG191801    ART OF DIABLO HC    $45.00
AUG192577    CLASSROOM OF ELITE LIGHT NOVEL SC VOL 03    $13.99
SEP191474    CREATIVE CREATURE CATCHER ONE SHOT    $19.99
AUG192435    DRAGON BALL VISUAL HISTORY HC ART AKIRA TORIYAMA    $34.99
SEP191472    DUNGEONS & DRAWINGS ILLUS COMPENDIUM OF CREATURES HC    $19.99
JUL191924    FAMOUS MONSTERS CHRONICLES II SC    $39.95
AUG191922    FRIGHTFEST GUIDE TO WEREWOLF MOVIES SC    $24.95
SEP191670    GAME OF THRONES GT WESTEROS & BEYOND COMP SERIES    $50.00
SEP191684    JOURNEY STAR WARS RISE OF SKYWALKER FORCE COLLECTOR HC    $17.99
MAR192025    JUNKO MIZUNOS HELL LADIES SC (RES) (MR)    $29.99
JUL191847    MAKING COMICS SC LYNDA BARRY    $22.95
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SEP191807    SPECTRUM ART BOOK SC VOL 26    $39.95
SEP192219    TRANSFORMERS VISUAL HISTORY HC    $49.99
SEP192220    TRANSFORMERS VISUAL HISTORY HC LTD ED    $99.99
SEP191681    TRAVELS WITH FIGMENT ON ROAD SEARCH DISNEY DREAMS HC    $26.99
SEP192112    ZEN OF R2D2 SC    $16.95

Review: BUBBA HO-TEP and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers #3

BUBBA HO-TEP AND THE COSMIC BLOODSUCKERS No. 3
IDW PUBLISHING – @IDWPublishing

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Joshua Jabcuga (based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale) – @jabcuga @joelansdale
ART: Tadd Galusha – @TaddGalusha
COLORS: Ryan Hill
LETTERS: Tom B. Long
EDITOR: Joe Hughes
COVER: Baldemar Rivas
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Baldemar Rivas; Tadd Galusha
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (May 2018)

There is a kind of flavorful, pop culture horror, a “McHorror,” if you will, like the tasty treats that are tricks from McDonald's.  In McHorror, pluck, grit, and a few Latin phrases will banish the fiercest denizens of Hades.  An example of this is The Conjuring scary movie franchise.  Then, there is another kind of horror storytelling.  In this horror, pithy quotes and declarations from the sacred texts and languages of Western religious faith cannot and will not stop two serial killers from enjoying Friday night cadaver poon at the local drive-in.

The latter is exemplified by author Joe R. Lansdale, whose bibliography is a journey through the dark corpus of America – from the rooter to the tooter.  IDW Publishing's current comic book miniseries, Bubba Ho-Tep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers, is adapted from a 2017 novel by Lansdale.  That novel is a prequel to a Lansdale novella, “Bubba Ho-Tep” (which was adapted into film by another purveyor of non-McHorror storytelling, Don Coscarelli).

Bubba Ho-Tep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers the comic book is adapted by writer Joshua Jabcuga; drawn by Tadd Galusha; colored by Ryan Hill; and lettered by Tom B. Long, with covers drawn by Baldemar Rivas.  The comic book follows a fictional version of legendary rock 'n' roll singer and performer, and American icon, Elvis Presley.  The King of Rock 'n' Roll works for a secret government organization (which might by named the “Hidden Agenda”).  Elvis' manager, “The Colonel” (based on the real-world Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker), is his handler, as Presley and a team of operatives fight supernatural threats to the world

As Bubba Ho-Tep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers #3 opens, Elvis and company remain secure in an abandoned plantation manor protected by the craziest barriers, spells, and wards.  The team awaits an attack while Elvis gets his ashes hauled by some fine-ass spectral bouté, who will lend her powers to the cause.  An attack will come, but nothing about it will be what it appears to be.  And Elvis might have to fight the invaders while in a state of butt-ass nakedness!

I gave the first two issues of Bubba Ho-Tep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers each a glowing review.  I love this comic book, and IDW can't get new issues to me fast enough to sate my outer-dimensional-vampire-like blood lust for it.  I was not going to review this third issue, but Tadd Galusha's art and storytelling is just too outrageous to ignore.

I enjoy Joe R. Lansdale's writing, and I am clearly enjoying Joshua Jabcuga's adaptation of Lansdale here.  As comic books rely on illustrations to tell much of the story, I have to notice artist Tadd Galusha.  He has to deliver, and he does in a way that matches the wildness and weirdness of the source and its adaptation.  Galusha impressive drawings include a naked, ghostly broad; a multi-headed thing connected to an oil slick-like monstrosity; and an army of the dead to rival Army of the Dead.  All of it is visually and graphically striking, obviously, but it exists to tell the story, which it truly does.  And well, Galusha draws an impressive naked Elvis.

Ryan Hill colors Bubba Ho-Tep and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers as if he is battling for his place in the hoary American comic book horror hall of fame.  He uses shades of orange, brown, blue, and green to create horror comic porn, and I'm aroused.

As Tom B. Long's spot-on lettering and fonts chase me with the simulated sound effects of funky phantom invasion, I await more.  And I wonder... what Mr. Lansdale might imagine Elvis doing off-camera when not racing cars in Viva Las Vegas.

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 reprint and syndication rights and fees.


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Review: THE ENVIOUS SIBLINGS and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes

THE ENVIOUS SIBLINGS AND OTHER MORBID NURSERY RHYMES
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY – @wwnorton

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR: Landis Blair
ISBN: 978-0-393-65162-1; hardcover – 7.3” x 7.3” (October 8, 2019)
240pp, Color, $20.00 U.S., $27.00 CAN

The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes is a book collection of nursery rhymes and cartoons from comics artist, cartoonist, and book illustrator, Landis Blair.  A hardcover book (7.3” x 7.3” dimensions/trim size), The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes is a collection of rhyming vignettes or stories.  Each vignette/story is divided into multiple verses; each verse has its own page featuring a cartoon that illustrates the contents of the verse.

The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes (which I will occasionally shorten to The Envious Siblings) contains eights vignettes/stories.  They are “The Malicious Playground,” “My Suspicious Sister,” “The Envious Siblings,” “The Refinement Tree,” “The Awful Underground,” “Honourable Beasts,” “Grounded,” and “Danse Macabre.”

I am not familiar with Landis Blair's prior work, but it is obvious that he is influenced by Edward Gorey, the American writer and artist whose drawings were macabre and unsettling.  In fact, Blair holds Gorey for special notice in the acknowledgments page at the back of the book.  The contents of The Envious Siblings can also be favorable compared to the work of Roald Dahl (renowned author of children's books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Quentin Blake (children's author best known for illustrating Dahl's books), Charles Addams (legendary cartoonist at The New Yorker and creator of what became known as “The Addams Family”), Shel Silverstein (beloved children's book author and illustrator), and Tim Burton (director and filmmaker known for his 30+ year career making films with macabre sensibilities).  I would also add to that list cartoonist and comic book creator, Richard Sala, who is far lesser known than the aforementioned authors and visual artists, but whose work is also true to the spirit of Edward Gorey.

I have seen the term “pop macabre” used to describe the work of Charles Addams and Tim Burton.  I assume that the term separates Burton and Addams from horror novelists like Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Clive Barker, “masters of the macabre” who emerged in the last quarter-century of the twentieth century.  The authors' novels were sometimes both macabre and violent, while Addams and Burton's work is macabre, but gentle and humorous.

I would call Landis Blair more “pop gruesome” than “pop macabre,” but the stories and cartoons in The Envious Siblings are both gleefully gruesome and grotesquely macabre.  They have a kind of absurdist horror to them that, to me, redefines the nursery rhyme, the fairy tale, and the folk tale.  Or perhaps what I see as a redefinition is actually a cartoonist and visual artistic voice that is truly unique.  Edward Gorey may have inspired Blair, but Blair has gone on to create his own aesthetic, the way American blues music inspired The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, before Jagger and Richards took those influences and invented their own sound for the Stones.

I want to pick a favorite story in The Envious Siblings, and I actually think a few of the stories here would get Landis Blair jailed in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes.  First, there is the pantomime comic strip (of sorts), “The Awful Underground,” a sort of Brothers Grimm fairy tale-warning about getting lost.  It mixes a bit of Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak and has a blood-chilling ending.  I really don't want to spoil this, so I'll say no more.

Right after that is “Honourable Beasts,” a Satanic Aesop's Fable about talking to strangers.  The ending is ghastly, just not the way you think it would after reading the first 15 pages of this 16-page tale.  And right after that (dear Lord) is “Grounded,” a middle-grade (not nursery) rhyme about an incorrigible child in a test of wills with his exasperated and none-too-bright parents.  About that ending, all I can say is “Wow!”

All the stories here are delightfully macabre, but these three are the little monsters that stand out.  If every music album needs one great song, The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes has three great rhymes/songs and that makes the entire book a great work of the macabre and the gruesome.

If you like Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake, Charles Addams, Shel Silverstein, and Tim Burton... and Richard Sala, do I have a book of cartoons for you!  The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes is a must-have, and its author, Landis Blair is a revelation.  Encore! Encore!, you sick and devious new master of the macabre.

10 out of 10

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

https://www.landisblair.com/
https://twitter.com/LandisBlair
https://www.instagram.com/landisblair/


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: THE UNSTOPPABLE WASP #1

THE UNSTOPPABLE WASP No. 1 (2018)
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Jeremy Whitley
ART: Gurihiru
COLORS: Gurihiru
LETTERS: VC's Joe Caramagna
EDITOR: Alanna Smith
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Akira Yoshida
COVER: Gurihiru
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Yasmine Putri; Ben Caldwell
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (December 2018)

Rated “T+”

The Wasp created by Stan Lee, Ernie Hart and Jack Kirby

The Unstoppable Wasp is a Marvel Comics character that is a new version of The Wasp, a classic superhero character from the early days of Marvel.  Like the original, the updated Wasp is depicted as having the ability to shrink to a height of several centimeters; fly by means of insectoid wings; and fire bio-electric energy blasts.

The Unstoppable Wasp is Nadia, the daughter of Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) and Maria Trovaya.  Nadia starred in her own Marvel comic book series, The Unstoppable Wasp, which ran for eight issues in 2017, before being canceled in Marvel's jihad against so-called “diversity” comic book titles.  Well, you can't keep a good girl down.  The Unstoppable Wasp returns in the two-oh-one-eight.  The new series is written by Jeremy Whitley (who wrote the 2017 series); drawn and colored by Gurihiru; and lettered by Joe Caramagna.

The Unstoppable Wasp #1 (2018) finds Nadia and Avengers' butler, Jarvis, on the way to Nadia's driver's license test, when she gets a call for her mentor, Janet Van Dyne (the original Wasp).  It seems that Monica Rappaccini and her A.I.M. offshoot have targeted a small Horizons Labs facility.

Nadia a.k.a. “the Unstoppable Wasp” dumps her test so that she can head into action.  She even has her own mission control that helps her on missions.  It's the girls of G.I.R.L. (“Genius In action Research Labs), who operate out of Pym Labs in Cresskill, NJ.  The Agents of G.I.R.L. are Taina Miranda, Priya Aggarwal, Ying, and Priscilla LaShayla “Shay” Smith.  But the A.I.M. operatives are led by “Seeker,” and she has a past with Nadia.

I was not feeling the first six pages of The Unstoppable Wasp #1.  I thought to myself that if the rest of this issue were like those six pages, the entire thing would be a disaster.  However, things kick into gear with Page 7, and the story turns into a sparkly superhero comic book adventure.  The way writer Jeremy Whitley presents the mission's interplay between Nadia and the Agents of G.I.R.L. is part Mission: Impossible and part Iron Man.

Artist-colorist Gurihiru makes the art pulse with a quality that reminds me of an animated television series.  It made me feel like I was watching a Saturday morning cartoon, so this is a Gurihiru illusion that works.  Joe Caramagna's lettering fits right in, giving the story a lively vibe.

I did not think that I would want more of The Unstoppable Wasp, but now, I know I do.  I hope this new series runs at least a little longer than the first – 12 issues?

7 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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Review: SHURI #1

SHURI No. 1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Nnedi Okorafor
ART: Leonardo Romero
COLORS: Jordie Bellaire
LETTERS: VC's Joe Sabino
EDITOR: Wil Moss
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Akira Yoshida
COVER: Sam Spratt
VARIANT COVER ARTIST: Travis Charest; Jamal Campbell; Skottie Young; John Tyler Christopher; Carlos Pacheco; Rafael Fonteriz with Laura Martin
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (December 2018)

Rated “T”

Black Panther created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee; Shuri created by Reginald Hudlin and John Romita, Jr.; Dora Milaje created by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira

“Gone”

Shuri is a Marvel Comics superhero character.  She was created by writer Reginald Hudlin and artist John Romita Jr. and first appeared in Black Panther (Vol. 4) #2 (cover dated:  May 2005).  Shuri is a princess of the (fictional) African kingdom of Wakanda and is the daughter of the late king, T'Chaka.  Shuri is best known as the sister of T'Challa, the king of Wakanda and the Black Panther.

Shuri has a genius level intellect which matches that of her brother, T’Challa, and she has also once replaced him in the role of the Black Panther.  Shuri gained additional fame when she appeared in Marvel Studio's record-setting film, Black Panther (2018), portrayed by actress, Letitia Wright.

Shuri now has her own comic book series in the obviously titled Shuri.  It is written by author Nnedi Okorafor; drawn by Leonardo Romero; colored by Jordie Bellaire; and lettered by Joe Sabino.

Shuri #1 (“Gone”) opens as Shuri directs the mission that will send Black Panther and the mutant, Manifold, into deep space on Wakanda's first human space mission (as seen in the current Black Panther series).  After a few weeks past with no contact from the mission, however, Shuri may find herself taking on an important mantle... again.

It is clear from the beginning that writer Nnedi Okorafor intends to establish Shuri as a both a personality and as a superhero outside of her relationship to T'Challa.  This book will be about Shuri's own identity, goals, motivations, desires, etc., and that is a good thing.  She is an interesting, indeed, even alluring character.

As for the art:  In Sam Spratt, Shuri has a cover artist with a bold, eye-catching style that captures the power and potential and regalia of an African woman who is full.  The interior artist and storyteller, Leonardo Romero, has become something of a Chris Samnee acolyte (if not clone).  Stylistically, Romero's illustrations here suggest a sense of wonder and discovery, as if Shuri was a child, seeing a world of possibility for the first time.  Thus, the storytelling seems a little disconcerting and disconnected to what I think Okorafor intends.

Jordie Bellaire's coloring goes right along with Romero's graphical angle.  Joe Sabino's lettering seems neutral, as if he focuses on merely efficiently finding place for the dialogue.  I am curious to see where Shuri is going, and while I have questions about this title's direction, I do recommend it to Black Panther fans.

7 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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