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Monday, July 24, 2023
Marvel Comics from Diamond Distributors for July 26, 2023
DC Comics from Lunar Distributors for July 25, 2023
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Comics, Magazines and Books from Diamond Distributors for July 26, 2023
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Thursday, July 20, 2023
#IReadsYou Review: KISS: Phantom Obsession #5
KISS: PHANTOM OBSESSION #5
DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT
STORY: Ian Edginton
ART: Celor
COLORS: Valentina Pinto
LETTERS: Troy Peteri
EDITOR: Joseph Rybandt
COVER: Jae Lee with June Chung
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Stuart Sayger; Tim Seeley; Celor
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (January 2022)
Rated Teen+
Kiss is an American, four-man, rock band. It was formed in New York City in January 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss, the original line-up that is also considered classic Kiss. Kiss is best known for its members' face paint and stage outfits, and the group rose to prominence and gained a notorious reputation in the mid to late 1970s with its shocking live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood-spitting, and pyrotechnics.
Dynamite Entertainment obtained the license to produce comic books featuring Kiss' brand and began releasing Kiss comic books in 2016. The latest comic book is Kiss: Phantom Obsession. It is written by Ian Edginton; drawn by Celor; colored by Valentina Pinto; and lettered by Troy Peteri. Phantom Obsession pits the band against Darius Cho, a powerful, super-wealthy, obsessed Kiss fan who wants more than some autographs.
As Kiss: Phantom Obsession #5 opens, Paul, Gene, Ace, and Peter learn the secrets of Darius Cho. That means that they must also confront the secrets of Lyra Tzen, one of Cho's employees. Since being kidnapped by Cho and presumed dead, KISS has faced it all: megalomaniacs, giant monsters and robots, and now, a killer android. Can the greatest Rock N' Roll band in the world survive its final showdown with the true mastermind behind it all?
THE LOWDOWN: In July 2021, Dynamite Entertainment's marketing department began providing me with PDF review copies of some of their titles. One of them is Kiss: Phantom Obsession #5, which is only the fifth Kiss comic book that I have ever read.
In the first four issues of Phantom Obsession, writer Ian Edginton offers a breezy adventure that is part Kiss comic book and part superhero comic book. I thought that Phantom Obsession #4 was the best issue of the series, but issue #5 surpasses it. The sad back story and the awful costs of a tech billionaire's arrogance and lack of self-awareness come full circle.
As this is the final issue of the miniseries, I think Phantom Obsession will read really nicely as a trade paperback. For one thing, readers can see the evolution of the art team of illustrator Celor and colorist Valentina Pinto.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of Kiss comic books will want to read Kiss: Phantom Obsession.
B
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
https://twitter.com/DynamiteComics
https://www.dynamite.com/htmlfiles/
https://www.facebook.com/DynamiteComics/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNOH4PEsl8dyZ2Tj7XUlY7w
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamite-entertainment
The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
#IReadsYou Review: THE MAGIC ORDER 3 #2
THE MAGIC ORDER 3 #2 (OF 6)
IMAGE COMICS/Netflix
STORY: Mark Millar
ART: Gigi Cavenago
COLORS: Valentina Napolitano
LETTERS: Clem Robins
EDITORIAL: Sarah Unwin
COVER: Gigi Cavenago
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Gigi Cavenago; Matteo Scalera with Giovanna Niro
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (August 2022)
Rated M / Mature
The Magic Order created by Mark Millar at Netflix
The Magic Order was a six-issue comic book miniseries written by Mark Millar and drawn by Olivier Coipel. Published in 2018-19, The Magic Order focuses on the sorcerers, magicians, and wizards – in particularly the Moonstone family – who live ordinary lives by day, but protect humanity from darkness and monsters of impossible sizes by night. A second six-issue miniseries, The Magic Order 2 (2021-22), was recently published.
The Magic Order 3 introduces the Asian chapter of the The Magic Order. A six-issue miniseries, this third installment is written by Millar; drawn by Gigi Cavenago; colored by Valentina Napolitano; and lettered by Clem Robins. The series finds Cordelia Moonstone focusing her attention on the Asian chapter's Sammy Liu and his impossible wealth.
The Magic Order 3 #2 opens in 1982 on that one night of the year when the Magic Order and those from whom they protect us call a truce. They meet in abandoned factories and suburban homes across the world for some hard partying. Not everything is debauched, as is the case with Leonard Moonstone and a woman named Salome (Mama Moonstone).
Well, now, it's time for some reunions. It seems that time is neutral, but sometimes … time runs out on old deals, old oaths, old treaties, and the spells on old men.
THE LOWDOWN: I used to think that The Magic Order was my favorite Mark Millar written, creator-owned comic book. Now, I know it is. I think I'm still stuck on The Authority when it comes to my all-time favorite Millar comic book.
I found a review in which the writer basically called Mark Millar's writing, especially on characters, shallow. Follow Mark on Twitter, and you will discover that he is nostalgic, as comic book fans are want to be. On the other hand, Mark's comic book writing is often free of nostalgia and sentiment, which is basically the potting soil for a substantial portion of American comics.
Mark and John Romita, Jr.'s Kick-Ass may be the most revolutionary comic book of the twenty-first century because it liberates the superhero comic book of sentiment and nostalgia. In Kick-Ass, the characters are inscrutable and their motivations and wants are ever shifting. It isn't that they are either rational or emotional; it is that what they want changes. What they want and what they can do comes up against reality, and all hell breaks loose.
In The Magic Order 3, Mark's characters are inscrutable, mystifying, and incomprehensible. For all the power they possess, they are ensnared by the rules of the Magic Order, but rules are bound to the time in which they were conceived. The characters' power has not made them super-human; it has simply made their humanity more dangerous for them and for everyone around them. Mark's character's aren't shallow. The personalities that he has them present may only be a front or fraud, and, as readers, we assume we know what they want. Comic book readers want decades of consistence from fictional characters. Mark suggests that want and desire make the fictional characters (like humans) consistently inconsistent, which in turns fills his comics with great moments of the wonderfully unexpected. There is always a surprise, and because of Mark's great characters, the surprise makes sense.
The other guy who is making The Magic Order 3 so great is Italian artist, Gigi Cavenago. Cavenago conveys the sense of chaos and magic in Mark's scripts, and, most importantly, the sense of impending doom. The Magic Order 3 #2 is unremittingly dark. Cavenago rips off the sheen of sparkly magic with storytelling that revels in the gloom. These characters all seem like bad or dangerous people, and whatever we expected from the series, Mark and Gigi aren't going to give it to us.
They respect us enough to give us the best, and The Magic Order 3 #2 is one of the best single-issue dark fantasy comic books since the days of Alan Moore and company's Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman and company's The Sandman. This is the comic book Marvel wishes Doctor Strange could be.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of Mark Millar and of The Magic Order will want to read The Magic Order 3.
A+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
https://www.mrmarkmillar.com/
https://twitter.com/ImageComics
https://twitter.com/mrmarkmillar
https://twitter.com/netflix
https://twitter.com/themagicorder
http://www.millarworld.tv/
www.imagecomics.com
The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2023
#IReadsYou Review: NITA HAWES' NIGHTMARE BLOG #8
NITA HAWES' NIGHTMARE BLOG #8
IMAGE COMICS
STORY: Rodney Barnes
ART: Szymon Kudranski
COLORS: Luis Nct with mar and Silvestre Galotto
LETTERS: Marshall Dillon
EDITOR: Greg Tumbarello
COVER: Szymon Kudranski
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Jason Shawn Alexander with Luis Nct
28pp, Colors, 3.99 U.S. (September 2022)
Rated “M/ Mature”
Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog created by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander
“Murder By Another Name” Part II: “The Rule to the Exception”
Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog is a comic book series created by Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander. Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog is written by Barnes. The current artist is Szymon Kudranski. Colorist Luis Nct and letterer by Marshall Dillon complete the creative team. The series focuses on a woman who is on a quest to root out evil by helping the people who contact her blog.
In Baltimore, Maryland, which some call “Bodymore, Murderland,” there is a woman named Dawnita “Nita” Hawes. She is the owner of “Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog” where citizens can contact Nita when they have a problem of a supernatural or paranormal nature. Nita has just begun her quest to root the evil out of her city – with the help of her dead brother, Jason.
Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog #8 (“The Rule to the Exception”) opens with a ghost saying that it wants to let go, but that's not true. Once upon a time, a group of powerful white men sought immortality, and they paid for that journey with the body and blood of invisible humans. Now, their descendants must pay, and Detective Harden, once a non-believer, believes enough to call on Nita. Her brother, Jason, insists that sis sit this one out, but sis ain't backing down.
Plus, two men visit Nita. One is deeply in love and says all the right things. The other is petty and jealous and way too old to be acting that way.
THE LOWDOWN: Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog is a spin-off of Rodney Barnes and Jason Shawn Alexander's hit vampire comic book, Killadelphia. We are still early in the new story arc, “Murder By Another Name.”
Although I may be wrong, I interpret Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog as writer Rodney Barnes' most deeply personal work. The supernatural killer in “Murder By Another Name” comes from Barnes' connections to the history of Black folks in America and how that story is tied in knots to the larger history of violence of the United States. His stories, particularly here, directly connects that this violence on black people then is a violence on black people now.
On the Nita end of things, Barnes makes Nita feel real and really human because he isn't afraid to depict her pain and loss as coming from deep in her overall hurt; it is not merely character window dressing. Nita is heroic and vulnerable, and her vulnerability and pain and loss make her determination to continue the mission that much more admirable.
I am in love with Szymon Kudranski's lovely art, especially how he subtly shifts the atmosphere and lighting for each change of scene. It depends not only on the presence of the supernatural, but also the kind of supernatural present. Luis Nct's coloring measures the power in those changes.
Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog is like if “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” and Hellblazer had black baby girl. [What a scandal that would have been at the DC Comics' offices.] And what a beautiful comic book baby she is.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of Killadelphia and of the original Hellblazer will want Nita Hawes' Nightmare Blog.
A+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
https://twitter.com/TheRodneyBarnes
https://twitter.com/jasonshawnalex
https://twitter.com/luisnct
https://twitter.com/MarshallDillon
https://twitter.com/ImageComics
https://imagecomics.com/
http://rodneybarnes.com/
https://www.instagram.com/imagecomics/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Image-Comics-Inc/178643148813259
https://www.twitch.tv/imagecomics
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHmaKLo0FXWIPx-3n6qs3vQ
https://www.linkedin.com/company/image-comics/
The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
-------------
Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).
Monday, July 17, 2023
BOOM! Studios from Diamond Distributors for July 19, 2023
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