REVIEW: Astro Hustle #1 is a colorful and sexy space opera romp

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Astro Hustle #1 is out 3/6/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — Astro Hustle #1 from writer Jai Nitz, artist Tom Reilly, colorist Ursula Decay, letterer Crank!, and publisher Dark Horse Comics is the latest entry in already-crowded science fiction comicbook market. It’s a cosmic story, rather than the sort of sci-fi that hems closer to near-future or body horror or any other number of relatively more feasible concept. Within the broader segment of space-faring sci-fi comics, it’s more of the madcap variety, versus something more realistic, like, say Relay, a favorite of ours around these parts.

What’s perhaps most noticeable about this comic from the cover art on is the lush and vibrant color-palette deployed by Ursula Decay over Tom Reilly’s linework. This series is only four issues, so it may be around long enough to carve out this title, but if I had to guess, I’d say there’s a somewhat significant change that among its sci-fi comic breathern, Astro Hustle #1 could come to be known as the colorful one, at least as it pertains to the artwork.

The story is perhaps another matter. The sense of humor and the pacing of the action are both perhaps more like Wasted Space (another major sci-fi comic favorite of this website’s) than anything else on the shelves, although Astro Hustle lacks the philosophical bend of that book. One of the more distinctive story interests in Astro Hustle is a definite and apparent interest in being sexy, although Lion Forge’s Infinity 8 probably lays a more direct claim to the title of sexiest sci-fi modern sci-fi book (jeez, there are a lot of sci-fi comics!). Indeed, right on the first page this comic has major shot of booty and one lover summoning another (both of them scantily clad) to bed. It doesn’t work out well for them, but it does set a bit of a tone.

The final quality that works to set Astro Hustle apart somewhat from the horde of sci-fi competition is a 17th or 18th century aesthetic, distinct and shinier than the one to be found in the soon-to-conclude Cemetary Beach (seriously, there are a ton of sci-fi comics these days...and all the ones we’ve named here have launched within the past 12 months!). I thought the character and vessel designs in this book were among the top-tier most imaginative, so much so that I intend to finish the rest of this series based on the merits of the visuals alone. They’re interesting and eclectic, and I really don’t think I can get enough of them.

Anyway, so those are the elements I found (relatively) unique to Astro Hustle. The question for a review then becomes, how well do they all come together? And, perhaps more importantly, is this comic worth picking up amid the sea of other science fiction titles vying for consumer dollars and the all-important free reading time? For the first question, the seemingly-disparate elements at work in Astro Hustle do cohere nicely. Nitz’s script is confident in the way it calls for them all to exist in the same world together—the pirates and space lovers and oppressive robots—portraying it all in a way that never once begs a question about whether they can or should all exist. It’s effective.

As for the second question, well, I think it depends. I’ll be reading the entirety of this series (to be above aboard, I’ve read Astro Hustle #2 and Astro Hustle #3, and the series keeps improving), and I have no issue recommending it in full to someone looking for a fairly uncomplicated space opera romp. The introduction to the book’s protagonist is a little less than ideal (it comes almost halfway through the first issue), but once you get yourself oriented within this world, it’s hard not to find it charming.  

Overall: Astro Hustle #1 is yet another solid entry in an already-crowded sci-fi comics market. Colorful and kinetic and even a little bit sexy, this book should offer a great time to folks in search of a relatively uncomplicated space opera romp. 8.0/10

Astro Hustle #1
Writer: Jai Nitz
Artist: Tom Reilly
Colorist: Ursula Decay
Letterer: Crank!
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

REVIEW: Morning in America #1 marks the start of a compelling new teen adventure

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Morning in America #1 is out 3/6/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — Morning in America #1, simply put, is a comic about what it feels like to be a teen. It focuses on a group of friends, who are maybe only tenuously interested in spending time with each other. The dialogue in this comic is exceedingly well-written, seeing its characters bickering often throughout, doing so in a way unique to high school, a time when we’re maybe not yet sure what type of person we’d like to be around just yet.

The end result is book with four strong and distinct characters who all feel real, which goes a long way to making the larger plot engrossing. Speaking of the larger plot, there’s also a mystery at work here—it’s 1983 in smalltown Ohio, kids are disappearing, and a new factory has opened up without seeming to provide jobs to anybody. Still, for me the real highlight was the way creators Magdalene Visaggio and Claudia Aguirre gave their young characters so much room to think and brood and breath.   

What also added to the authenticity of the story was the way the characters moved throughout the world. Morning in America #1 never fell prey to that common coming-of-age issue wherein the teens are overly precocious, knowing everything or exerting so much control over situations that it starts to take an audience out of the story. Part of why the four characters at this story’s heart feel so real is that they are surrounded by consequential situations that rely (at least in part) on the actions of the adults in their worlds. Parents bicker about jobs, questions at school go answered, and when the protagonist of the story gets in trouble, the intervening mother and officer tasked with handling it seem more exasperated than concerned. It all rang rather true to my own experiences back in high school, feeling both under-respected and under-cared for.

In terms of the artwork, Claudia Aguirre’s lines are detailed and interesting, augmented by an interesting color palette that displays an impressive tonal versatility. There are pastels for sunsets and brighter colors for actions. What I found most interesting, however, was the book’s first page, which was maybe a flash-forward, showing one of our characters (I think) running from a monster as neon colors disrupted drabber tones that had set over the little city. It’s so attention-grabbing it could potentially function on its own as a poster. I really dug it.

Morning in America #1 is, in the end, a patient comic that sparks an interesting mystery, using its excellent character work in the service of a story that feels compelling and real. I’m not sure what it’s larger thematic interests are. There are hints of globalization affecting industrial smalltown America, although that seems at odds with the 1983 time period just a little bit. Basically, we know we have a group of teens who maybe don’t get along all that well and definitely have troubled behavioral records, and we know we have a monster-mystery unfolding (plus maybe aliens?). It’ll be interesting to see how and to what ends this story brings it all together.

Overall: Morning in America #1 is a rare coming-of-age comic that excels at realistic character work. A compelling start to an interesting mystery, this book is definitely one for teen adventure fans to follow. 8.0/10

Morning in America #1
Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Artist: Claudia Aguirre
Letterer: Zakk Saam
Publisher: Oni Press
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase

ADVANCED REVIEW: Spencer and Locke, Vol. 2 #1, the return of a book that just keeps getting better

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Spencer & Locke, Vol. 2 #1 is out 4/24/2019.

Spencer & Locke, Vol. 2 #1 is out 4/24/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — I’ve been going on about this via Twitter as of late, but the Calvin and Hobbes meets Sin City homage/mash-up Spencer and Locke is, quite simply, a must-read comic, especially for someone like me who bought the Watterson collections at book fairs in fourth grade and spent class time sneak-reading them under my desk. What Spencer and Locke does is imagine Calvin as an adult, still seeing his stuffed tiger (panther here) now as a hard-boiled police detective. That panther, it turns out, has been used all along to cope with trauma.

In Spencer and Locke, Vol. 1 writer David Pepose with artists Jorge Santiago, Jr. and Jasen Smith crafts a compelling and gritty noir mystery while simultaneously deconstructing pretty much every character from the classic Calvin and Hobbes strips. It’s an audacious idea, one that could have come off as ill-advised if the creative team had not executed pretty much everything so perfectly, enfusing the whole ordeal with a massive amount of heart by giving the Calvin character a young daughter of this own (I basically crumbled everytime she interacted with the imaginary panther).

With all this in mind, it would have been easy for the creative team—which has returned here entirely intact—to go back to the Calvin and Hobbes homage well. The book likely has an audience that can’t get enough of it, and so the choice could have been made to go through it all again, this time with just a new case. Pepose, Santiago, and Smith, however, start Spencer and Locke, Vol. 2 #1 by pointing the story in a faithful-yet-new direction: homaging another classic strip, Beetle Bailey.

I’ll talk more about the individual merits of this issue in a moment. First, I’d like to just praise this decision, not only for how it functions in smoothly transitioning to a new story and a new arc, but also for how it opens an entire expanded universe for use in future Spencer and Locke stories, basically enabling the book to draw from nearly 100 years of famed newspaper comic strip characters. Previews for the next issue already seem to indicate a coming send up of Scott Adams and Dilbert, and basically all I’m saying is now we might get a rabid Snoopy cast as a pitbull in the service of a criminal Charlie Brown—just imagine.

So, yes, major points to this comic for that decision. It should be noted too though that Spencer and Locke Vol. 2 #1 is on its own merits an excellent comic, much as the previous installments of this story have all been. Santiago Jr. and Smith continue to impress with their shifting aesthetics. Whereas in the first book the duo bounced seamlessly between Watterson and Frank Miller homages, this new issue requires them to also mimic Beetle Bailey, and with an assist from letterer Colin Bell, it fits right in with the rest of the story.   

Pepose’s script tries some new things as well. What I found perhaps most interesting was the way Spencer (who is the Hobbes analog here) started to become more aggressive, more feral in the way Locke pictured him. Pepose seems to be using that depiction of the imaginary panther to clue readers in on Locke’s fraying mental state. Like the expanded use of comic strip characters, an increased emotional range for the panther seems to expand the plethora of storytelling techniques available to this comic in a vast and welcomed way.

Sometimes a book like Spencer and Locke strikes fire and struggles moving forward to replicate that same energy. That’s not the case here. Fans of the first series—a group I count myself firmly among—can rest easy, this comic has gotten even better.  

Overall: Spencer & Locke, Vol. 2 #1 is the best kind of sequel, one that stays faithful to the core concept while expanding the world in new and exciting ways. The emotional core, the fond homages to classic newspaper strips, the noir mystery—it’s all back and even better here. 9.2/10

Spencer & Locke, Vol. 2 #1
Writer: David Pepose
Artist: Jorge Santiago, Jr.
Colorist: Jasen Smith
Letterer: Colin Bell
Publisher: Action Lab
Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 24, 2019

Check out Harry Kassen’s recent interview with the creators!

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

Comic of the Week: KINO #14 is ‘a shining star for the Catalyst Prime line’

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Catalyst Prime: Kino #14 is out 2/27/2019.

By d. emerson eddy — KINO began its life in the Catalyst Prime universe under Joe Casey, Jefte Palo, Todd Klein, and Chris Sotomayor. It was always something unique, a series ostensibly about Alistair Meath, one of the astronauts caught in space in the “Event” that sparked this rise of super-powered individuals within a new shared universe. It spent its time split between an espionage story of trying to find Meath's body and in a simulation patterned after old school comics superheroics that was trying to influence Meath's mind and outlook on life. It was very good, something different that played with comics conventions and told a nicely layered story. I highly recommend checking out those first two collections.

Then Alex Paknadel, Diego Galindo, Adam Guzowski, and Jim Campbell came along and turned the series on its ear with issue #10. Basically that issue gave us an “Anatomy Lesson”, guiding us through the implication that everything we knew was wrong, upending Meath's life, and pointing us in an entirely different direction.

Often times I find that this sort of thing doesn't work in the long term, since it tends to alienate the hardcore fans and generally once the initial shock has worn off, the change becomes somewhat boring. That hasn't even been remotely the case here, as the revelations and integration with what came before just get more interesting. It's more that this entire arc has been the true “Anatomy Lesson” and not just that first issue of the new creative team's run. Because Paknadel, Galindo, Guzowski, and Campbell have taken the elements of espionage, political oversight, not knowing what's reality and what's a simulation, and the simulation itself and continued to develop the situation of two Meaths to a very satisfying conclusion. While we were led to believe that everything was wrong to begin with, maybe it wasn't?

This final issue of the story arc is a fairly bombastic fight between the two Meaths, but one of the things that Paknadel has been weaving into the story from the beginning is manipulation. That still comes through in the explanation for what happened and the “true” Meath's victory and plans going forward, leaving a compelling thread to see where this goes in name of queen and country.

The artwork from Galindo and Guzowski is wonderful, stepping up to the task of presenting this final battle on two fronts; the normal ordinary London and one of brightly coloured vintage comics. Jim Campbell, too, deftly changes approach to lettering during these shifts to the superhero simulation, adding in thought balloons and a more visceral, scratchy approach to sound effects. I love the attention to detail that goes into the presentation of the old school comics style, immersing the reader in that world to great effect.

Overall, KINO has been a shining star for the Catalyst Prime line and Paknadel, Galindo, Guzowski, and Campbell continue to make it glow. It's a very unique take on the spy thriller by way of the superhero, revelling in the style and substance of vintage superhero comics, while telling a thoroughly modern interpretation, rife with suspicion, confusion, and shades of grey. Everything may not always be as it seems in this comic, but what is unquestionable is that this story is well worth your time.

KINO #14
Writer: Alex Paknadel
Artist: Diego Galindo
Colourist: Adam Guzowski
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime
Price: $3.99

Check out more of d. emerson eddy’s Comic of the Week feature on our Lists Page.

d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.

Top Comics to Buy for March 6, 2019 - Die #4, The Green Lantern #5, and more

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By Zack Quaintance — At the risk of sounding repetitive, this first Wednesday of the month has really morphed into a monstrosity of great new comics. So much so that I’ve once again extended our usual top five picks to six. Hey, more content’s a good thing, right? Anyway, I could have also easily extended it to seven or eight or nine. It really pained me to cut great titles for this upcoming Wednesday like Doomsday Clock #9, Immortal Hulk #14, and Justice League #19.

But I figure pretty close to most everyone has their mind made up about those comics at this point, so why not shed some light on lesser-known books that are still in their early stages? I’m thinking specifically here of the creator-owned comic Self/Made, which continues to shock me with the high quality of both the its stories and ideas. It’s really turning into something special, the type of book I find myself reading toward the top of the stack each week and coming away shocked at where the story seems to be headed.

Anyway, on to the comics!

Top Comics to Buy for March 6, 2019

*PICK OF THE WEEK*
Die #4 (read our full review!)
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Stephanie Hans
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
"FANTASY HEARTBREAKER," Part Four-Our heroes reach the civilization of Glass Town and do what heroes have always done upon reaching civilization. As in, go to the pub. As it's DIE, you can guess people don't exactly get happy drunk.
Why It’s Cool: We’ll have a more detailed and thoughtful review of this comic later this week, but let me just say here that this is the best issue yet of a series that has been fantastic from its start. This is the smoothest and most immersive issue of Die so far, which I attribute to the previous three issues having done such great work toward familiarizing us with these well-realized characters. With so much of that work behind the story now, the creators are free in this comic to really hit some deep (and troublesome in the best way) emotional beats. Don’t miss this issue; don’t miss this book.

Age of X-Man: Prisoner X #1 (of 5)
Writer: Vita Ayala
Artist: German Peralta
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
ENTER THE AGE OF X-MAN!
In the Age of X-Man, when you break the law, you aren't sent to just any prison. You're sent to the Danger Room...a penitentiary filled with the roughest and meanest mutants that don't fit into X-Man's utopia. They each have a reason for being there. And they're all ready to kill each other.  But that's about to change, because the newest prisoner just arrived...Lucas Bishop!
Why It’s Cool: It’s a great combination of concept, creators, and character, with those respectively being the well-conceived and intricate Age of X-Man alternate universe, writer Vita Ayala (one of our favorite rising stars within the industry), and Bishop, always an underrated (if convoluted) X-Man. Seriously, Ayala has just been doing fantastic work lately, be it their superhero book for Valiant Livewire, the creator-owned Submerged, or the installment of the recent Marvel Knights mini-series that focused on T’Challa. These have all just been stunning comics, and we’re expecting nothing less from the Prisoner X miniseries, which follows Bishop into the underbelly of what is shaping up to be an Orwellian faux-utopia of an alternate universe.

Green Arrow #50
Writers: Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing
Artist: Javier Fernandez
Colorist: John Kalisz
Letterer: Andworld Design
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $4.99
Spinning out of the events of JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE and HEROES IN CRISIS! When a black ops organization discovers Green Arrow's long-held secret-a mysterious weapon in the form of a box, given to him by the Justice League-they'll deploy their top undercover agent: Black Canary! On opposite sides of this festering secret, Green Arrow and Black Canary will clash as only two lovers can-by aiming straight for the heart! A mystery six months in the making, the box that can destroy the Justice League will be opened...and the Emerald Archer's world will be forever changed. This extra-sized anniversary issue of Green Arrow's life isn't just ending...it's burning to the ground!
Why It’s Cool: This if the finale of one of the quintessential Rebirth books, and it’s also what is quite possibly the last book headlined by the Emerald Archer that we’re likely to get in sometime, what with DC Comics very public intent to keep its publishing line at the slightly reduced level we’ve seen in recent months. The writing team of Kelly and Lanzing are perhaps the best choice for this job too. As I believe Kelly outlined fairly recently online, the duo had a fairly elaborate plan for a 50 issue run that would get to the core of one my personal favorite characters. We’re obviously not getting that, but look for them to give us a truly epic send off that packs in as much action and as many of their ideas from that outline as is feasible. Savor it, too, I know I will. Also, we’ll (sort of) get an answer to the question from No Justice, the natural one that came up when J’onn gave Ollie a box he said was capable of stopping the entire league...

The Green Lantern #5
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Liam Sharp
Colorist: Steve Oliff
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99
"Blackstar at Zenith!" Hal Jordan has abandoned the Green Lantern Corps to join the Blackstars! But to do so, he'll need to convince their leader, Countess Belzebeth, and pass an initiation test. Which means he must survive a series of trials on the vampire planet Vorr, whose entire population wants to feast upon him! It's cosmic goth at its bloodiest...with a cliffhanger that's even bloodier!
Why It’s Cool: This run has been fantastic from start to finish, and this issue keeps it going. As promised by the creative team before the book even launched, The Green Lantern has been a series of quisi self-contained space cop procedurals. This issue builds on all that has come before while telling yet another compelling story built upon some of the key qualities and continuity bits that define Green Lantern. Also, as anyone who follows artist Liam Sharp will surely attest, the detail and imagination in the artwork he’s previewed for this comic has just been astounding, somehow even better than the tremendous heights he’s reached in earlier chapters. Think about it too long, and it will blow your mind as thoroughly as Morrison and Sharp seem hell-bent on doing.

Self/Made #4
Writer: Mathew Groom
Artist: Eduardo Ferigato
Colorist: Marcelo Costa
Color Flats: Mariana Cali
Letterer: A Larger World Studios’ Troy Peteri
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
"THE 'TA-DA' MOMENT": Amala has made it to our world-and she is distinctly unimpressed. What's a girl with a new robot body and some pent-up rage to do? Paint the town red.
Why It’s Cool: Simply put, because this is the best comic I’ve read in I don’t know how long that rushes head first at the central questions of life itself. That’s maybe being a little dramatic, but this really has quickly turned into a story with a lot to say about creation. In this issue, we also get some really clever interplay between characters that’s analogous to that between child and parents, plus a tour de force visual journey through a near-future version of Sydney, Australia, along with the now-standard breakneck plotting that’s come to define the book. This is yet another major surprise from Image Comics in the past year or so that more readers should be talking about. I get that you might not be familiar with these creators, but you’re doing yourself a disservice by sleeping on this book.

Top New #1 Comics

Others Receiving Votes

  • A Walk Through Hell #8

  • Batman #66 (read our full review!)

  • Blossoms 666 #2

  • Cemetary Beach #7

  • Doomsday Clock #9

  • The Dreaming #7

  • Eclipse #13

  • Giant Days #48

  • Immortal Hulk #14

  • Justice League #19

  • Killmonger #5

  • Paper Girls #26

  • Red Sonja #2

  • Uncanny X-Men #13

  • Vindication #2

  • Young Justice #3


Check back to the site later this week for reviews of Astro Hustle #1, Batman #66, Uncanny X-Men #13, and more!

See our past top comics to buy here, and check our our reviews archive here.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

The Saga Re-Read #30: Saga #30 is an action-packed story arc finale

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Saga #30 was first released on 7/8/2015.

By Zack Quaintance — The end of the most recent story arc is upon us, and so is the shift into what I’ve come to think of as the more recent issues of Saga, those essentially published after the book went from big-time comics hit to somewhere closer to broader cultural touchstone (although it still needs the inevitable TV/film adaptation to go all the way), and this finale is a good one.

I’ve written about this elsewhere during our Saga Re-Read project, but I’ve found this arc to be more unpleasant than those that came before it. This is, presumably, by design. The book was maybe running the risk of turning into a series of madcap adventures that the core family continues to escape mostly unscathed. This arc changes that, using temporary separations in a way that emphasizes the stakes for those are basically as high as they would be when dealing with injury or death. Just...different. Anyway, what we get with this finale is a packed adventure story with tons of consequences. It is, in a word, good.

Let’s take a look!

Saga #30

Here it is, the official preview text for Saga #30, which was first released back on July 8, 2015. This issue has a special significance for me, because it was after this one that I decided to make the crazy jump from Saga trade waiter to Saga monthly reader, which then opened to door to buying a whole slew of creator-owned comics monthly and ultimately starting this website. Ah, the follies of financial irresponsibility. Onward!...

Sooner or later, everything dies.

Sigh. A preview that is both mysterious and terrifying, meaning that the only way to figure out even part of what it’s talking about is to read the damn comic. In other words, I supposed this morbid vaguery has done its job…

The Cover: This is without question my favorite cover from this arc, featuring as it does a clearly alien flower atop an ample splattering of blood. It gets to two of my favorite facets of Saga—the imagination and the backdrop of shattering relatable tragedy. I also think the color choices on the leaves provide a nice (if subtle) contrast to the deep crimson of the blood splayed over the ground. Great stuff.

The First Page: Yet another divided first page, this one used well to show us Marko and his current plight (with a dash of foreshadowing...but more on that in the foreshadowing section). The shot start on the planet where Marko has crashed, zooms in, and then zooms in again to show him splayed and wounded in the snow. It’s as intriguing a set of images as an establishing first page for a long-running story can offer, and it’s made even more powerful by Hazel’s narration, which suggests her father might be hurt worse than we think.

The Summary: Marko, Prince Robot IV, and Ghus crash land, with Ghus staying to tend to an injured IV while Marko storms off to find his family. Speaking of his family, Alana, Klara, and conflicted murderous kidnapper Dengo (who gets humanized here) fight their way free from the Last Revolution. Things...do not go well for the Last Revolution, but the survivors of manage to abscond with Klara, Hazel, and a spaceship without much fuel. Once they do, Alana turns to kill Dengo and is stopped by Marko. The reunion, of course, is quite satisfying.  

As they struggle over whether to hurt a now-vulnerable Dengo, Prince Robot IV shows up and wastes him immediately as recourse for Dengo did to his own wife, quickly turning to enjoy his own reunion with his son. Elsewhere, Sophie, Gwendylon, and Lying Cat sneak The Will from a hospital (off page), and administer the antidote to him, waking him from a years-long incapacitation. The Will is devastated to learn that his sister died in the service of waking him. Finally, this arc ends with a shot of Hazel presumably interned in some kind of jail/kindergarten. Intriguing.

The Subtext: This is one of those issues where the plot mostly crowds out any potential subtext. What room there is for reading between lines is also mostly devoted to foreshadowing events to come. Still, there is the continued beating of the all violence is bad drum that has in many ways been the foundation of the commentary in this series. Any sort of broader familial subtext here is lacking.

The Art: There are a lot of panels in this issue of Saga, at least relative to some of the other recent issues. I didn’t expressly count, but it’s quite possible the only splash page in the entire issue is the final cliffhanger. As such, Fiona Staples is asked to pack a lot of intricate action into several busy pages...and she unsurprisingly pulls it off with ease. See below...

The Foreshadowing: There’s a good deal of foreshadowing in this comic, from the first page hinting that Hazel will lose Marko, to Hazel telling us later that she would spend a great deal of time separated from her own family. As noted in the subtext section, Hazel’s narration also hints that problems have always and will continue to stem from Marko and Alana struggling to limit their own use of force, as does her narration when The Will awakes from his coma: Nobody knew exactly what kind of nightmare had been awakened that evening...but in time, my parents would find out.

All in all, this is a pretty telling issue, at least in retrospect upon re-read. The first time through, the action made it hard to focus on anything past what happens next! It should also be noted that IV wasting Dengo for killing his lover as Dengo begs for mercy is an eerie parallel to something that happens to IV much later...

Join us next time for the start of a brand-new arc, the one that began after Fiona Staples went off and helped Mark Waid re-launch that new Archie line, which as far as I know are the only other comic interiors she’s drawn since starting Saga...

Saga #30
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Letterer: Fonografiks
Publisher: Image Comics

Check out past installments of our Saga Re-Read.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

Creator Journal: Jeffrey Brown

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This piece is the second of a monthly series giving nascent creators a chance to share and document part of their artistic journeys. We’ll be following four individuals—writers, artists, writers/artists—and spotlighting each on a rotating basis throughout 2019. Future installments will take more of a traditional journal format, giving creators a space to share thoughts and comics. For the intro, however, we’ll get to know each participant better through a question and answer.

With all that in mind, we’ll cede the space now to our second creator, Jeffrey Brown, a writer/artist from Live Oak, Fla., which is located in the northern part of the state between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. Jeffrey is as passionate and hard-working of comic writer/artist as there is. Check back the last Friday of next month for a look at our next participant!

Writer/artist Jeffrey Brown

Q: Tell us as much as you'd like to share about yourself...where are you from? How old are you? What is your life as an artist like?

A: Hello, my name is Jeffrey Brown (not to be confused with that other Jeffrey Brown), and I live in a Live Oak, Fla. My life as an artist thus far has been getting up in the afternoon or evening, sketching stories for my comics in my notebook, writing a rough outline of a plot, and when it’s good to go...pencil, ink, and color a page a day :). I take breaks in between projects to read my favorite books, chill out on Twitter, watch movies, and listen to my favorite podcasts.

Q: What are your aspirations for making comics and what is your biggest motivation to get there?

A: My aspirations for making comics are simply to be a storyteller. I want to make the kind of comics I like  to read. The thing that really gets me excited about making comics is that I have the freedom to let my imagination run wild. My goal as a cartoonist is to write and draw comics that will be timeless years from now. That’s really what motivates me. I want to leave a legacy behind with my work.

Q: Where do you see yourself right now in terms of your career trajectory?

A: My career is still a work in progress. Hopefully, I see myself making a decent living as a cartoonist some day, maybe getting the opportunity to work on interesting projects with talented writers in comics. I also want to one day work in animation, but my goal right now in life is to be recognized and valued for my talents as a young cartoonist. I want to keep putting weird and interesting stories into the world through my comics.

Q: What are some of your short term goals and what are some of your longer term goals for 2019?

A: To be honest, my short term goals for 2019 is to just build steady sales of my art and comics. I’d also like to Get my comics and art published in various publications. I want to make an income through making my art. I’m really thankful for the little victories I have had thus far but I am hungry for more. One day, I’d also like to win awards.

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Q: How much time each week do you spend working on comics and what do you spend that time doing?

A: A typical week for me making comics is something like this: on Monday I will write out a short outline of the plot, starting with the style of writing, and then I draw thumbnails in my sketchbook as my first draft. If I like what I scribbled out, I then get to work on my PC and sketch out from my thumbnails the sequential pages from my story (lately my stories have been like 16 pages), and then after doing rough sketch layouts I proceed to ink a page a day. If it’s a comic in color, I usually do that last after inking and lettering. I try to spend at least 2 to 3 hours on a page inking and coloring. I do take breaks in between, and I spend that time on twitter, listening to podcasts, playing retro games and watching movies.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges--both logistically and emotionally--when it comes to making comics in your life?

A: I’m currently working from home, which is a both fun and a challenge. The fun part is right now I get to focus on my work and just create. The challenge is that right now I don’t have enough money to go out and travel. Ever since I got sick recently and lost my job at a BBQ restaurant, I decided to stop waiting for the right time to pursue my passion for creating comics. I decided to go for it. Right now I feel good about myself and what I am doing. Work that day job for two years was emotionally exhausting for me. It was a rough two years for me (lol). Right now, I feel like I’m emotionally in a better place. Right now, I enjoy spending my time pouring my heart and soul into making comics. I enjoy putting pen to paper and having fun and sharing that with the world. Doing this truly brings me joy.

Q: Finally, tell us about the piece you've shared here today…

A: I’m currently working on the fourth issue of my mini comic, The Misadventures of Izanami Grey. It’s about a brilliant scientist who has empathic vampire powers that occasionally turn her into a mutant Were-Bat monster. In this issue Izanami and her boyfriend Kieron are on a mission to rescue the president. They must find him alive and bring him back to the states to be prosecuted for his many human rights violations. Chief among his many crimes was denying humanitarian aid to the people of the fictional island nation of Gene-Verte, who now have the president and are also about to put him on trial to punish him for his grievous crimes against them. I can’t say any more, so please buy a copy of my comic to check it out for yourself over at Gumroad:

You can buy The Misadventures of Izanami Grey through the following links:

You can follow Jeffrey Brown on Twitter at @tsujigo and you can read last month’s Creator Journal feature here!

Check back next month to meet the third of four creators participating in this series!

Best New Comics February 2019 - Daredevil, Red Sonja, and Wonder Twins

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By Zack Quaintance — One fun thing about comics from year-to-year is that we really don’t have an accurate idea of what the next 12 months will bring in early weeks. We can see as far out as the solicits allow (which is currently May), but anticipating what new books will come in the months that follow is at best a lightly informed guessing game. At this time last year we knew scant details about some of 2018’s defining releases, from Benids’ work on Superman to Marvel’s entire slate of new books: Captain America, Immortal Hulk, Venom, you name it.

That’s all to say that these new series that have launched in January and now in February, are just the tip of 2019’s forthcoming new comics. There are, without question, GIGANTIC releases that will shift and reshape the comics landscape yet to be unveiled. All that said, I’m still impressed with the number of quality releases we’ve gotten in 2019 so far. Marvel’s return to broader quality continues this month with Daredevil while DC’s Wonder Comics imprint continues to be a welcome new tone for the 80-some-year-old publisher.

It’s all very exciting, and so let’s not dilly dally any further. Onto the books!

Quick Hits

Let’s start with the most imaginative and welcoming new take on a long-standing property in year’s Michel Fiffe’s G.I. Joe: Sierra Muerte #1. This book makes setting capital I Important, with the titular Sierra Muerte area disrupting the old fight between Joes and Cobras. I for one love it.

Another book in which setting is vital (this time it being a dystopian future) is High Level #1 from writer Rob Sheridan and artist Barnaby Bagenda. This is the best of the Vertigo: Rebirth books so far, and with Second Coming off to another publisher, it seems poised to stay that way.

Meanwhile staying at DC, Female Furies #1 is a book I’m kind of surprised to not hear more folks talking about. It really extrapolates Darkseid’s all-consuming universal darkness in a way that’s relevant and specific to our times.

Speaking of relevant things to say about our current tumultuous times, Vindication #1 was a complex and realistic take on race-based injustices within law enforcement. This is a fair book setting out to take an unflinching look at how shades of gray can creep into these situations, or at least at how perception can alter behavior. This is a very smart comic. Read our Vindication #1 review!

The new book that left the greatest impression on me last month, though, was Girl in the Bay #1, a haunting tail of family and murder and the concerns of the young in a bygone era. There is a long tradition of horror-tinged innocence lost stories in American fiction that this book seems poised to fit right into.

One of the most consistent publishers in all of comics, Valiant, had a rare month in which it launched not one but two new books, those being Forgotten Queen #1 and Incursion #1, the former featuring a brand new character and the latter using established characters in the service of a new idea. Both debuts were strong and I’m excited to see where the larger stories go.

Last but certainly not least are a trio of the new X-Men miniseries, showrun by Zac Thompson and Lonnie Nadler, that I’m considering in my head to be Age of Apocolypse 2.0 (side note: there were four, but I wasn’t all that interested in the Nightcrawler one). The books I want to shout out here are: Age of X-Man: Marvelous X-Men #1, Age of X-Man: NextGen #1, Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #1. Contributing writer Allison Senecal will have more on each next week in her monthly Age of X-Man Round-Up, but I’d like to praise these books for the thoughtfulness of the alternate world they inhabit as well as the variety in the way they’re examining a flawed utopia. They all bring something different and welcome to a fascinating overall picture of the world. Kudos to the creative teams.

Top 5 Best New Comics February 2019

Daredevil #1 (Read out full review of Daredevil #1!)
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Marco Checchetto
Colorist: Sunny Gho
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel Comics

The transition to a brand new Daredevil creative team (which is what we got this month) is a long-standing and noteworthy event in comics, be it from Frank Miller to Annie Nocenti, Kevin Smith to Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Waid and Chris Samnee to Charles Soule, and so on. There’s just something about Daredevil—the Catholic guilt? the simultaneous aversion to/embrace of violence? the background that saw him become a hero because he already was one?—that consistently gives creators the fertile ground they need to do career best work.

I’m expecting no less, quite frankly, from Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto, and I’m also happy to say that I was encouraged by this opening chapter. In it, there are few flashy gimmicks, just solid comicbook storytelling and writerly impulse to put the protagonist up against great possible odds, thereby showing we the audience what our guy is made of. It’s an understated and appropriate debut for an often-understated character, and I highly recommend it.  

Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 (Read our review!)
Writer: David Barnett
Artist: Martin Simmonds w/flatting be Dee Cunniffe
Publisher: IDW - Black Crown

I was going to try and write this segment in a British accent filled with punk lingo...but I decided to save us all the indignity of that, banishing it instead to the deepest reaches of my mind where it will never be thought of again or uttered aloud. Anyway, Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 is essentially the first issue of this book’s second season. It’s also my favorite issue of Punks Not Dead to date.

I loved the concept of this book from the time it launched last year—an angsty, lonely, and flailing kid gets linked to the ghost of Sid Vicious, annnnnd hi-jinx—but what I like about this new series is that the central duo now have a really well-built quest to go on. They are at once being chased by authorities while pursuing the true identity of the main character’s father. It’s such a solidly-written hero’s journey kind of deal. When paired with the book’s already-excellent premise, you get a really exciting new comic.   

Red Sonja #1.jpg

Red Sonja #1
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Mirko Colak
Colorist: Dearbhla Kelly
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: Dynamite Comics

It’s a Mark Russell double whammy this week, with first Red Sonja #1 and later on Wonder Twins #1. Obviously, Russell is one of my favorite writers, but I think he did outstanding work on both of the new series he launched in February. I’ve never read a Red Sonja book, and, really, I’m not one to read comics simply because I love a character. In fact, at this point I’ve aggressively become one of those readers who reminds you that I never do that, preferring instead to follow the creative team.

So, what then did I find in this issue as someone brand new to Red Sonja but familiar with pretty much all of writer Mark Russell’s comicbook work? I found quite a bit to like. Russell, joined here by collaborators Mirko Colak and Dearbhla Kelly, does a great job orienting readers like myself to this world, before then applying his wry satirical storytelling sensibilities. It’s a smart and savage read, and I know Russell fans (and probably also Red Sonja fans) have a lot to look forward to here.

Stronghold #1 (Read our full review of Stronghold #1!)
Writer: Phil Hester
Artist: Ryan Kelly
Colorist: Dee Cunniffe
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Publisher: AfterShock Comics

Stronghold is a new book from one of my favorite indie publishers, AfterShock Comics, and it’s about a man who maybe has the power to break the universe but doesn’t have any inkling he’s significant. He’s an insurance salesman in St. Louis, for pete’s sake. Meanwhile, a secret society/cult (take your pick) is monitoring him daily to ensure he never finds out the truth of his existence. That’s the status quo we find upon entering the book. The plot begins when a young woman who interacts with him daily (and was raised in the secret society/cult) falls in love with him. Hi-jinx ensue.

This is a really well-formed comicbook produced by a talented and veteran creative team. It has a high level of ideas and themes one might expect to find in a full-blown novel rather than a graphic sequential story. Most importantly, though, I found the execution in this first issue to be absolutely flawless. Every scene is perfectly paced and enthralling. The POV is chosen well throughout, and it all adds up to a new comic series I’d recommend to pretty much any reader.

Wonder Twins #1
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Stephen Byrne
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Publisher: DC Comics - Wonder Comics
I don’t play favorites with this Best New Comics monthly piece, but—between you and me, shhh—this one was probably my favorite new book. It recasts the Wonder Twins from the old Super Friends show (and probably other things?) as alien new kids in a new earth high school, where they suffer the same bouts of hubris and insecurity I know I did. Humiliation and triumph and searching for ones place ensue, all set with a superheroic backdrop.

I’m not generally a fan of loquacious meta humor comics, your Deadpools and Harley Quinns, and while this is a funny book, it’s not really kin to any of that. It’s sensibility is smarter and quieter, more like Russell’s The Flintstones. It also has a big heart. So often, joke superhero comics fall back on making their heroes look dumb or madcap. This book is respectful and humanizing of the Wonder Twins, and it gives the creative team a much broader emotional canvas to work with. Well done, everyone involved.

Check out more of our many monthly lists here.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

Thirsty Thursdays February 2019: A Thirsty Valentine’s Day

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By Allison Senecal — Welcome to a special and somewhat oversized Valentine’s edition of Thirsty Thursday! It’s not all smoochin’, but there sure is a lot of it. And now, without further adieu, let’s get to this month’s very special look at a certain intense type of comicbook art.

Enjoy!

Artist: Matteo Buffagni
Colorist: Federico Blee
Asgardians of the Galaxy #6: Angela/Sera shippers have been waiting 84 years for this reunion and were rewarded with a kiss as soon as the two shared page-time again. Happy Valentine’s Day indeed!
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5

Forget about guarding the galaxy, who’s going to guard my heart?

Penciler: Carlos Villa
Inker: Juan Vlasco
Colorist: Carlos Lopez
Flashback Art: Gerardo Sandoval
Shatterstar #5 – What? You wouldn’t reach through time and space to rescue your sad, hot, stabby boyfriend? Very seriously going to miss the team of Villa, Sandoval, Vlasco, and Lopez on this, but hey they get to do some Uncanny this summer...
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5

Call me a romantic, but I think it’s sweet when one goes to the trouble to “reach out across the universe and find your unique signature.”

Artist: Marco Checchetto
Colorist: Sunny Gho
Daredevil #1 – HOW DO YOU EVEN pick  a single panel from this %$#&ing comic? Matt gets to spend some quality time in bed with his three favorite things: Catholic guilt, batons, and a lot of blood. Elektra would approve.  
💔💦💔💦💔 out of 5
Read our review of Daredevil #1!

Is that your Catholic guilt, or are you just happy to see me?

Penciler: Paco Medina
Inker: Juan Vlasco
Colorist: Jesus Aburtov
Avengers: No Road Home #2 – In peak Hawkeye fashion, Clint spent Valentine’s Day in a hospital bed, scruffy and sad. And crying! Hell, I’ll fight the Hulk myself.
💔💦💔💦💔 out of 5

Can someone get me the heart rate monitor next? I think Clint just stole mine.

Artist: Sana Takeda
Monstress #20 – Liu and Takeda know how to summon me from the void. Arranged lesbian wedding? A bowl of sacramental blood? Now drink it and KISS!
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5

Once again, my favorite thing is Monstress.

Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colorist: Marte Garcia
Guardians of the Galaxy #2 – Come for the Thanos mystery, stay for the soft girlfriends content with Phyla and Heather. On a later page, they’re grumpy and wearing comfy PJs. It’s the best.
💦💦💦💦 out of 5
Also, check out our Guardians of the Galaxy #2 review!

And apparently there’s something going on with Thanos in this book too?

Artist: Mattia De Iulis
Jessica Jones: Purple Daughter #2 – Back in October, I said Emma would automatically make this list every time she made an appearance, and in the spirit of journalistic integrity (and De Iulis’s Emma Frost being a stunner), voila! The Black King, darling.
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5
Also, check out Jessica Jones, Comic of the Week!

And long may she reign.

Artist: Jon Davis-Hunt
Colorist: Steve Buccelatto
Wild Storm #20 - MIDNIGHTER AND APOLLO ARE 100% BACK, BABY. And in such style. 💦💦💦💦 out of 5

I can’t remember the last time this lovely couple has looked so good.

Artist: Amilcar Pinna
Colorist: Ulises Arreola
Forgotten Queen #1- I love when my tastes are so specifically catered to, as they were here. A charmingly foul-mouthed millennia-old personification of conflict? Is this for me? I would die for Vexana, and I’m sure she’d let me.
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5

Clearly, Valiant has not forgotten about my tastes.

Artist: Gang Hyuk Lim
West Coast Avengers #8 - More kissin’! This time courtesy of America and Ramone! Love that Gang Hyuk Lim is coming onto this title for a few issues. Everyone (even tired slobbery Kate) comes across dynamic, hot, and incredibly fun.
💦💦💦💦💦 out of 5

Sure, this art is thirsty, but it’s a really fun kind of thirsty.

I also have to shout-out the Stephanie Hans cover for the 2nd printing of Die, which kept me awake several nights this month….

I am 100 percent going to die from lack of sleep due to this cover.

Hope you’re looking forward to March aka my birthday month aka the Month of Bêlit.

Check out The Thirstiest Comics of January.

Allison buys books professionally and comics unprofessionally. You can find her chaotic neutral Twitter feed at @maliciousglee.

REVIEW: Vault Comics’ Wasted Space #7 makes smooth transition into ongoing monthly comic

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Wasted Space #7 is out 2/27/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — I’ve been reviewing Wasted Space since the series started in April of last year, and I’ve loved this book from the start. As I wrote in our Top Comics to Buy for February 27, 2019 feature this week, this is the best original space opera in all of comics today. You can read more detailed and nuanced thoughts over on our Reviews Page, but to sum it up, I think this is a versatile and smart comic, one as capable of making jokes about sex robots as it is asking profound questions about religion and power structures.

This is all a means of establishing why I was so excited when late last year publisher Vault Comics announced that the book would be its first proper ongoing series, extending past the always-difficult 20 issue mark. Now, I’m not always one to clamor for more, more, more from creatives, believing as I do that inspiration is a flighty and special commodity, and that writers, artists, etc. shouldn’t mine topical areas that have long gone dry. Wasted Space, however, has brimmed from its inception with almost too many ideas, too many hilarious exchanges, exciting conflicts, and just straight up space operetic adventures.

In Wasted Space #7, the value of transitioning from a finite story to a longer ongoing series for a book like this becomes clear: writer Michael Moreci is able to dedicate more space to the excellent characters he’s been building for half a dozen issues, giving us a chance to get to know them a little bit better. This is—make no mistake—an exciting issue, in which several major plot developments (especially for Dust and Molly) come to a head and push our characters into new directions. But there are also several scenes I think are only possible in the context of a longer-form story

And they’re some of my favorite scenes in this issue. I’m thinking specifically here of the opening, in which Billy and Molly have one of the series trademark philosophical conversations in a cosmic convenience store (rendered with great detail and better colors by the art duo of Hayden Sherman and Jason Wordie). Billy leans back and pours blue space slurpee directly into his mouth as Molly essentially satirizes social media, landing the Wasted Space culture commentary line of the issue with: I have been to the social stacks though. You have terrible people saying terrible things, then you have so-called good people assuming everyone who doesn’t share their exact principles is a total monster. And all it leads to is everyone screaming and no one listening. As usual, this is great stuff.

So yes, while not every comic is best-served by long-form serial narrative, Wasted Space certainly is, quickly making the most of the format and giving us more than enough value for the price of admission. One last note...the editorial team is already buzzing about how good Wasted Space #8 is, so I for one am circling my (non-existent and entirely theoretical) calendar for its due date, March 27.

Overall: Wasted Space #7 is another great example of this books strengths: operatic space adventure blended with philosophical discourse about modern society, all filtered through Hayden Sherman and Jason Wordie’s fantastic artwork. This remains one of the best comics today. 9.5/10

Wasted Space #7
Writer: Michael Moreci
Artist: Hayden Sherman
Colorist: Jason Wordie
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.


REVIEW: Ice Cream Man #10, one step back and two steps toward that other dimension

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Ice Cream Man #10 is out 2/27/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — There was bound to be a bit of a slowing down after the revelations of Ice Cream Man #9, a comic that (cliche alert!) took everything you thought you knew about this series and flipped it on its head. Ice Cream Man #10 had the difficult task ahead of it of returning the audience back ever so slightly to the core concept of this series, while still building on the mind-bending preceding chapter.

For those who may have missed it, Ice Cream Man #9 put the titular white-clad ice cream man in the foreground along with the black clad hero figure who’s been chasing him (and who he murdered in Ice Cream Man #8, but that’s a whole other thing…), and it put them front and center in what is presumably a different planet...or a different dimension...or our same planet during a mythological time of gods when fate was still undecided...or all three? As you can see, the whole thing was very Stephen King’s Dark Tower.

The effect it had on the audience was all very impressive, reorienting our understanding of the connective tissue between the preceding eight issues. Ice Cream Man #10 doles out, hmm, let’s say a half scoop of more context around that, while instead returning to the horror-tinged vignettes that have run throughout this series. This was a great choice, reminding us that while, yes there is some sort of potentially cosmic epic of gods and spirits raging behind the mundane everyday facade of the world, possibly spilling over at times to inflict great pain and suffering upon the normals (normals like us), the real important stuff here has been that everyday facade all along.

Now, I won’t front like I have any idea whatsoever what may or may not happen in the final three issues of this series. C’mon—I know my limits, but I think making it just as much about the individuals we’ve seen brutalized, tormented, and in rare instances left to grow old and happy as it is about whoever these elemental forces are? Well, I think that’s a very good flavor, indeed (jesus, sorry about that, it’s late and I clearly should have written this earlier…).

In more practical matters, it should perhaps be noted that the vast majority of this issue was written in Spanish. I can read Spanish myself at maybe a third grade level, somewhere in that vicinity, and I didn’t struggle with comprehension at any point, not even for a moment. If you have even a cursory handle on the language, you’ll glide seamlessly through it. Even if you don’t, though, you’ll be just fine. If you really need to know every last word, Google Translate has gotten amazingly proficient lately (seriously, it’s one of the best inventions of our modern era and like nobody talks about it...we can instantly translate like anything!). This entire issue is set on the border, and writer W. Maxwell Prince approaches it with the attention to immersive detail that has powered this entire series.

The venue shift really works well for this story and this comic, given that to date everything took place in an idyllic (on the surface, anyway) suburb. Essentially, it fits with the expanded scope of the story as established by last issue. If this is going to be a tale of deep and massive forces, it needs to effect all of space and time, and that’s what we start to get in Ice Cream Man #10. Meanwhile, Martin Morazzo’s artwork continues to impress with colors by Chris O’Halloran, and as usual, the letterer, in this case Good Old Neon (yes, you read that right), is the unsung hero of the creative team.

Overall: One step back and two steps in some potentially cosmic direction nobody saw coming, Ice Cream Man #10 nudges the series back toward its core concept—horror vignettes—while still pushing forward the overarching narrative. This is one of the best comics today, and we should all be grateful for it. 9.4/10

Ice Cream Man #10
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colorist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Good Old Neon
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.


REVIEW: Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 adds mystery to an already great concept

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Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 is out 2/27/2019.

Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 is out 2/27/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — The IDW - Black Crown title Punks Not Dead launched early last year from writer David Barnett and artist Martin Simmonds (with flatting by Dee Cunniffee). It was on the tail end of the first wave from the imprint, trailing behind Kid Lobotomy and Assassinistas, which both came with more experienced creators attached, specifically writer Peter Milligan for the former and artist Gilbert Hernandez for the latter. Punks Not Dead, however, emerged as arguably the most audacious and idiosyncratic of the bunch, which as Black Crown readers well know, is really saying something.

See, Punks Not Deads’ first arc (which ran for five issues) told the story of an angsty teen in England who via some supernatural imbroglio got attached to the ghost of Sid Vicious, bassist/vocalist for the seminal punk band, the Sex Pistols. Punks Not Dead—simply put—was a $@&ing blast. I especially enjoyed it, because growing up in the late ‘90s, I used comics and punk for my own escapism (think Marvel Knights, Vertigo, Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka runs at DC...while listening to bands like Pennywise and Bad Religion). As such, a comic about a teenager whose life is charged by the ghost of a punk rocker felt like it was made for me. I loved the characters, the tone, the voice, the concept, all of it.

This is all a long-winded way of saying I’m happy the book is back, and not only is it back but (cliche alert!), it’s back and better than ever. During the comic’s first arc, the creators spent much time establishing the book’s premise, working hard on the pages to introduce us to our protagonist, show us the home life he’s stuck with, and, perhaps most importantly, make it seem if not entirely believable, at least feasible that he’d become entangled with the ghost of Sid Vicious, and they pulled it all off wonderfully. Now, they’re back in the second arc with a solid foundation already built. Barnett and Simmonds use that foundation to launch readers into a suspenseful plot with the first issue of this new series.

Basically, the first arc setup the concept—balancing perfectly between punk and paranormal—and now the second arc is here with a firm call to action. In Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1, we get the same great concept from the earlier issues, just now with a new quest to give our action shape. Writer Barnett’s scripting also feels more confident, a bit more tongue-and-cheek, and Simmonds artwork is, as always, absolutely fantastic sequential storytelling. Add in a tinge of mystery (that I won’t spoil here), and what you get is a truly promising start to the second arc of a great comic.  

Overall: Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1 is this book’s best issue to date, taking the fantastic punk-paranormal premise and building a new suspenseful mystery on top of it. Few books on the market today are as confident and clever as this one, and we should all be excited for its return. Highly recommended. 9.3/10

Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1
Writer: David Barnett
Artist: Martin Simmonds w/flatting be Dee Cunniffe
Publisher: IDW - Black Crown
Price: $3.99

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

TRADE RATING: Euthanauts is a transformative Memento mori for our time

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Euthanauts Vol. 1, Ground Control is out 2/27/2019.

By Harrison Stewart — I’ve always appreciated Alan Moore’s definition of magic. Instead of focusing on specific words or iconography, he posits that magic is simply a “purposeful engagement with the phenomena and possibilities of consciousness.” I can’t say for certain whether the creators of IDW’s Euthanauts had this exact definition in mind when crafting their work, but I can say this: There is true magic at work within these pages.

Ostensibly a trippy space opera with a Gothic twist, Euthanauts defies simple classification. It isn’t quite horror, despite loving nods to genre tropes. Nor is it pure adventure, despite prevailing senses of discovery and wonder. The story floats comfortably in the middle, employing familiar trappings to introduce novel ideas.

Chief among them is the notion that we have the power to define our own relationship with death. The concept may have ancient roots in many world cultures, but there are inherent difficulties in relaying such a message to an Anglophone audience. Social and religious pressures have long rendered engagement with the subject taboo. And when we do speak of death, our lexicon is strictly pejorative. Fear of the thing is prescribed even by our language.

Keenly aware of these innate discomforts, writer Tini Howard wisely turns to humor and allegory. The dialogue snaps, moving at such a clip that any sense of disquiet never has the chance to settle. Characters feel alive and fresh, each unique yet bound by the same forces. Howard establishes deep connections with her cast simply by allowing them to breathe and hold their own opinions on the strange events unfolding.

Initially, I was frustrated by the lack of clear boundaries to the world. The exact rules and functionality of the central technology are often confusing, at times even incomprehensible. But in the end, these concerns prove to be a forest-for-the-trees situation. I was thrilled in hindsight by Howard’s resistance to heavy-handed exposition. This is a writer who not only trusts but rewards her readers’ intelligence and patience, monthly release schedule be damned.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the story’s distinction between suicide and euthanasia. Though the line is often thin, Howard walks it with the utmost nuance and grace. She carefully sidesteps the temptation to conflate the two, painting violence and despair as the cancerous agents that corrupt our ability to claim “The Good Death.” In doing so, Howard stakes out a truly unique and sympathetic position in the conversation that has become increasingly relevant to our social media saturated generation.

While Howard’s words alone would make for a fine novel, Nick Robles’ art elevates them to soaring heights. Nearly every page is a feast for the eyes, demanding your full attention and appreciation. The imagery and visual motifs are as wildly ambitious as they are effectively mesmerizing. Oftentimes, I would simply stare at a page for minutes on end, occasionally backtracking because I still couldn’t believe he’d pulled them off with such apparent ease.   

Robles masters the art of drawing your eye across the page. And that is no small feat in a book that isn’t afraid to shirk traditional panel structures. As topsy-turvy as the plot that drives them, the pages are delightfully innovative and clean. By visually melding the worlds of the living and dead, Robles puts his own stamp on the story, demonstrating the importance of writer/artist pairing in comics.

This is just a some of Euthanauts’ incredible artwork. By Nick Robles and Eva de la Cruz.

I love this book. And the experience is only enhanced by the collected edition. This is a story that is meant to be read and reread, each time offering new and exciting revelations. You’ll pick up on little nods and plot threads that seemed insignificant the first time around, only to reveal themselves upon closer examination as carefully planted seeds that will come to full bloom. Editor/curator Shelly Bond and the Black Crown imprint et al are to be commended for allowing such a potentially off-putting comic to come to print – the medium is better for it.

It was only after my third reading that I realized the impact of the spell that had been cast. The work haunted me, but I couldn’t say why. The death-positive undertones were entirely new to me, but I now stand indebted to the creators for a fabulous introduction. Though Euthanauts takes time to fully appreciate, the end result forms a delicate and sophisticated Danse Macabre that eschews morbidity for unabashed optimism. It is a timely invitation to join the conversation about the one thing which binds us all: the end. You would do well to accept.

Euthanauts, Vol. 1: Ground Control
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Nick Robles
Colorist: Eva de la Cruz
Letterers: Aditya Bidikar, Neil Uyetake
Publisher: IDW - Black Crown
Release Date: 2/27/2019

Check out more installments of our TRADE RATING original graphic novel reviews!

Harrison Stewart is an aspiring human being whose goals include solving the mathematical equation for love. Follow him on Twitter for more writing stuff.

ADVANCED REVIEW: G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward’s Invisible Kingdom #1

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Invisible Kingdom #1 is due out 3/20/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — Invisible Kingdom #1, the new comic coming next month from writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Christian Ward, is perhaps the next evolution of the ongoing creator-owned sci-fi comic boom. A complex and weighty piece of work, the book uses Ward’s unique (and absolutely stunning) brand of psychedelic space art in tandem with Wilson’s ideas about societal foundations ranging from religion to commerce to forge ahead into new thematic territories. It’s not alone in doing this—Wasted Space and Relay both come to mind as close cousins to this comic—but in its debut issue, Invisible Kingdom seems to offer a new and perhaps more realistic sort of take on this genre.

Realistic is maybe not the right word, given the aliens and intergalactic travel and all of that, but there’s a level of intellectual seriousness here that makes this book stand out from other space epics. To be sure, there are plenty of serious sci-fi comics on the racks today, so that’s maybe also not the best word. There’s actually a panel on the second page that can maybe get this point across much better than I can struggling here with prose. In it, a crew on a space ship are attempting a trick maneuver in the service of some sort of cargo delivery and in weighing the merits of a tricky move, one character notes, But your company-sponsored liability insurance won’t cover—

There’s always that character on distressed sci-fi vessels, the C-3PO who’s fretting is designed to remind the audience exactly how implausible the heroics of braver protagonists are. That character, however, is usually exclaiming some sort of bonkers world-specific jargon or a quick throwaway joke. In Invisible Kingdom, that character reminds us of the ever-looming presence of economics. The book doesn’t apply this plausible lens to just economics, either.

Within its intriguing and aesthetically-powerful world, it gives us similar glimpses into religion, governance, and the way different species react to/treat one another. The end result is a relentlessly thoughtful comic, as well as a sense of narrative confidence that makes it easy to trust these uber talented creators from the book’s earliest pages.

Also, I’ve peppered compliments to Christian Ward’s artwork throughout this piece, but, and excuse me for this, I don’t think I’ve come anywhere close to doing Ward’s contributions justice. The best comics are such an alchemy of creative collaboration it can be tough to evaluate individual elements. This is certainly one of those books. Everything comes together seamlessly, and the end result is greater than the sum of its pieces. Ward’s artwork, however, is—to borrow an Internet phrase—next level good. There isn’t a bad-looking segment, page, or even panel in this entire comic. On the contrary, there are actually several that left me absolutely stunned (that word again!) when I passed over them.

The colors, the character designs, the facial expressions, the panel sizes and composition...it’s all so mind-bendingly luscious and just plain good. Ward has long been a talented psychedelic artist, lending massive talents most recently to Marvel’s Black Bolt. This book, though, has the trappings of a sequential art masterpiece. And for every smaller, detailed panel with a green-skinned character gritting their way through a challenge, there’s a subsequent splash that could be framed and hung on a wall somewhere in a hip loft apartment.

Story-wise, this is an advanced review so we have to tread carefully here, but I think it’s okay to divulge that there are a pair of plot concerns: one related to joining a religious order and another to embezzlement. This is a dense first issue that has to work hard at world-building, so the characters are a bit lightly-defined at the start. That’s OK. Comics like this need to progress further to, to set up world rules and concerns before they can really show us who are central figures are, what they most care about, and why. We do get some great philosophy here and there, enough to draw us into the story further. My only real regret is I’ve read this book so far in advance, it’s going to be a painful long wait for Invisible Kingdom #2.

Overall: Invisible Kingdom is a heady comic you’ll want to read twice to get a better grip on its ambitions and ideas. Fortunately, the artwork in this book is so vibrant and imaginative, immediately re-reading will feel less like a redundancy and more like a second helping of an impossibly-spectacular visual treat. 9.5/10

Invisible Kingdom #1
Writer: G. Willow Wilson
Artist: Christian Ward
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics - Berger Books
Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 20, 2019

For more comic book reviews, check out our review archives.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

Comic of the Week: Hot Lunch Special #5

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Hot Lunch Special #5 is out 2/20/2019.

By d. emerson eddy — I can say unequivocally that Hot Lunch Special is not only one of the best crime comics of 2018/2019, it's also one of the best comics of the same time…period. I'd argue even further beyond that that it's quite possibly one of the best things that I've read this decade. All in a tidy little family crime drama from Eliot Rahal, Jorge Fornés, and Taylor Esposito.

There are the obvious comparisons to Fargo (or really any Coen Brothers movie) in its offbeat approach to storytelling and crime, taking an angle through the food service industry as a front for the illicit business. Yet the crime procedural aspect wasn't really at the forefront, it was more about the family, the Khourys, trying to get revenge for the murder of their youngest in an intimidation attempt gone wrong. It was about the family trying to deal with the loss of someone they held dear as they try to put the pieces back together of a fractured, strained relationship between the siblings and their father.

This final issue launches the ultimate plan for the Khourys revenge on Big Jim Moran for killing Ben. And it's pretty simple, but that simplicity is part of what makes it work. A simple plan, a simple plot, but from it it allows Eliot Rahal to focus still on the characters, making them interesting and unique, even new ones like Pat, all while building them up through dialogue. Then prime the detonator.

That detonator being a part of the plot, but also coming through Jorge Fornés, whose artwork for this series has been incendiary. Fornés has a style that's not dissimilar to David Mazzucchelli with a hint of Steve Lieber, wonderful use of shadow amid a simple thin lined approach, and it works incredibly well for crime comics. Add to that some inventive use of page layouts and panel compositions in ways that can really only be done in comics and it results in a story that also celebrates what you can do in the medium.

Since dialogue is often a very important part of crime drama and family drama, there is a lot of it in this story. It never feels forced or wordy, but it does mean that Taylor Esposito has a gargantuan task ahead of him to make it flow and not feel cramped or overly imposing on each page with his lettering. Working well with Fornés to ensure that the words and pictures aren't competing.

Overall, this has been a wonderful series. It's been an entertaining, offbeat story with some interesting characters and a family that you want to see succeed, even with their shortcomings and hang-ups. Rahal, Fornés, and Esposito wove a good yarn here and I hope that the hint of something more at the end of this story comes true.

Hot Lunch Special #5
Writer: Eliot Rahal
Artist: Jorge Fornés
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
Publisher: AfterShock Comics
Price: $3.99

Check out more of d. emerson eddy’s Comic of the Week feature on our Lists Page.

d. emerson eddy is a student and writer of things. He fell in love with comics during Moore, Bissette, & Totleben's run on Swamp Thing and it has been a torrid affair ever since. His madness typically manifests itself on Twitter @93418.

Top Comics to Buy for February 27, 2019

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By Zack Quaintance — This week feels like a bit of break, in that there aren’t roughly 50 titles I want to read and another dozen I want to put in our five slots for the top comics to buy for February 27, 2019. However, that’s not to say that there aren’t good comics coming out this week. There are plenty of really great books, more than enough really, and we’ve done our best to highlight a diverse array of them as we do every Monday.

Leading the way is Ice Cream Man #10, which we’ve been waiting for anxiously since Ice Cream Man #9 blew our minds back whenever that first came out. We also have the sophomore issue of Invaders finally arriving after the debut seeded a mystery and then went away for six weeks, as well as the continuation of three runs we’ve without questioned mentioned in this space before. So, go forth and rejoice with these comics, as well as any of the other titles that strike your fancy on our Top #1 Comics this week or the Others Receiving Votes.

With all that out of the way, let’s take a closer look!

Top Comics to Buy for February 27, 2019

*PICK OF THE WEEK*
Ice Cream Man #10
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
Colorist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Good Old Neon
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
Ice Cream Man #10 Review
"HOPSCOTCH MÉLANGE," Part Two: En este cap tulo, no existen las fronteras. El mundo está lleno de amor, pero el amor es peligroso.
Why It’s Cool: So yes, Ice Cream Man #9 blew our collective mind and expanded our perception of what this vignette horror series might ultimately prove to be. Ice Cream Man #10, meanwhile, is a bit of a return to this comic’s core concept: a mostly one-off comic in which the principal characters have horrifying things happen to them that speak to universal ideas of existential dread...with the titular Ice Cream Man and his own foil bouncing around the periphery. At least that’s how it used to seem, anyway. Knowing what we know from Ice Cream Man #9, they now feel like the center. Regardless, this is one great comic. Look for a full review later this week.

Invaders #2
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Carlos Magno with Butch Guice
Colorist: Alex Giumaraes
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
After the SHOCKING reveals about NAMOR last issue, THE HUMAN TORCH goes deeper into the Sub-Mariner's PAST, hoping to uncover his plan. But CAPTAIN AMERICA goes the direct route: TO ATLANTIS. Alone against THE MAD KING and his ARMIES in the exciting second chapter of WAR GHOSTS: THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR!
Why It’s Cool: The first issue of Invaders was a fantastic update of the WWII Invaders concept, essentially catching up with the core characters from that bygone book—Namor, Captain America, and Winter Soldier/Bucky plus a bit of Jim Hammond Human Torch—to give us an update on their statuses as it still pertains to the war. What does that mean? Well, something is off with Namor, and it’s fallen to his old war-time compatriots to address his behavior. I won’t spoil it, but the first issue ended with a mystery. We can’t wait to see where this second installment picks up.   

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #2
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Casper Wijngaard
Colorist: Mary Safro
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Publisher: Dynamite Comics
Price: $3.99
Humanity is at a crossroads, between life and annihilation. The threat comes not from space, but from a place absolutely inconceivable to anyone other than Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. Only he can take Earth's remaining heroes to confront that which threatens us all...but when he knows so much more than they do, should he? Also: strike a light, how hot is Tabu now? This is what happens when you give "DREAM DADDY" as the main artistic direction.
Why It’s Cool: Speaking of ending with a mystery and picking up somewhere fascinating, our next book is Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. This comic is about a character that one of the Watchmen characters—Ozymandias—himself was based on, and it’s using the homage as its central conceit. We discussed all of this in our review of Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #1, but it’s worth revisiting because the second issue continues to build on the charater’s connection to Watchmen. I don’t want to tip any of the surprises, but this is one of the most metafictional comics I’ve ever read and I’m absolutely fascinated to see what a team of creators as collectively strong as writer Kieron Gillen and artists Casper Wijngaard and Mary Safro are ultimately aiming to do here.

The Terrifics #13
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Joe Bennett
Inker: Dexter Vines
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99
The Terrifics are back! And they're ready to enter the final battle with the Dreadfuls, Doc Dread's revenge squad that has systematically wiped out dozens of Mr. Terrifics from across the Multiverse. As the many Mr. and Mrs. Terrifics fight for their lives, the cavalry is on its way-but will Phantom Girl, Plastic Man and the repowered Metamorpho reach the battle in time? And how can the heroes possibly count this as a win with a mountain of bodies in Doc Dread's wake?
Why It’s Cool: It’s no secret that writer Jeff Lemire is winding down his time on The Terrifics (and if he is to be believed, on work-for-hire gigs in general), and while we’re excited to see what his replacement, the intriguing Gene Luen Yang, will do with this team, we’re currently enjoying the hell out of Lemire’s finale. This is some of the most character-driven emotional storytelling taking place in all of superhero comics, with multiple storylines so well-developed they threatened to make me cry during recent issues (I’m sentimental and don’t care who knows it). Lemire is also joined here by artist Joe Bennett (with Dexter Vines ink and Mike Spicer colors) who is one of my favorite prolific superhero artists, generally associated right now with Immortal Hulk. Anyway, The Terrifics continues to be a must-read comic and we’re excited for this issue.

Wasted Space #7
Writer: Michael Moreci
Artist: Hayden Sherman
Colorist: Jason Wordie
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99
Read our full Wasted Space #7 Review!
Reunions and betrayals! Our reckless heroes stage a rescue mission to save Rex-and secure the nuke still threatening to kill everyone. Along the way, Billy and Molly make a pit stop at a galactic gas station, where they discover brain-freezes and morality, and past demons catch up to Dust and Fury.
Why It’s Cool: Wasted Space is the best space opera in all of comics today. The first five issues of this book—all of which you can read more about on our reviews page—were pretty tightly plotted, orienting readers to this series’ versatile tone and characters. A TON happened in that arc. Toward the end of it, publisher Vault Comics announced that this series would become an ongoing, making issues like this one possible. Wasted Space #7 is loaded with character moments, rewarding progressions, and setup for the future. It’s an absolutely joy to spend time with this dysfunctional group that writer Michael Moreci and artists Hayden Sherman and Jason Wordie have brought together here. Check back later this week for our full review.   

Top New #1 Comics

  • Age of X-Man: The X-Tremists #1

  • Captain Marvel: Braver and Mightier #1

  • Emotional Data One-Shot from Silver Sprocket

  • Forgotten Queen #1

  • Honor and Curse #1

  • Punks Not Dead: London Calling #1

  • Sweetie #1

Others Receiving Votes

  • Action Comics #1008

  • Amazing Spider-Man #16

  • Black Hammer: Age of Doom #8

  • Black Panther #9

  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer #2

  • Captain America #8

  • Daredevil #2

  • Flash #65

  • Hellboy and the BPRD - 1956 #4

  • Martian Manhunter #3

  • Redlands #11

  • Shazam! #3

  • The Wicked + The Divine #42

  • Wonder Woman #65

  • Wyrd #2

See our past top comics to buy here, and check our our reviews archive here.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

The Saga Re-Read #29: Saga #29, the rigors of sacrifice

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Saga #29 was first released on 6/10/2015.

By Zack Quaintance — Welcome back to The Saga Re-Read, where eagle-eyed readers may notice we’ve made a minor tweak...we’ve changed the surface level category to be a straight up summary. This is great, because it allows us to unpack more in the subtext section, while also turning these pieces into minor reference guides for myself and anyone else who might come in search of a literal plot summary of the major things (and some of the little ones too) that take place in each issue.

So, where are we at now in terms of this story arc? This is the penultimate issue. Next week will see the finale of this first arc in which the family at the story’s center has been separated by its plot. This has been a tougher arc to read, which is something I didn’t get during my first time through but definitely feel now. I just want them all to face these things together, damn it. Though suffering in stories will ultimately make the good times better, just like in life, amiright?

On to the individual elements!

Saga #29

Here it is, the official preview text for Saga #29, which was first released back on June 10, 2015. You know what that means? The Saga Re-Read project here is on the cusp of turning 30. We can only hope and pray that it has less anxiety about that than I do about turning 30 in my own life. Anyway!...

The Last Revolution makes their move.

Hey now! That’s an enticing summary, and—dare I say it?—even a bit revealing, at least by Saga teaser standards. The Last Revolution has essentially been coiled and ready to strike since the start of this arc, and now all signs point to that strike coming. Which brings us to the first of our individual elements, the cover. Onward!

The Cover: This cover, in all its neon orange glory, puts the Last Revolution front and center, which connects nicely to the issue’s solicit. Front and center there we have the scantily glad fish-woman character, who reads to me like a riff on an era of superhero art that was maybe in its death throes when this issue was published: an era of butt floss and stripper gear and just overall general objectifying of female characters. It’s not just the scantily-clad fish woman character though, the entire team plays like a parody to me, a send-up of the type of revolutionaries that are often glorified and made lead characters in galactic war stories like this one. Just a reminder that Saga aspires often to be capital S, Subversive.

The First Page: See above, at least to some extent. This first page is all business, reminding us that while The Last Revolution might look like early Image characters (like early early...back when they were under Malibu), they are ruthless zealots who only care about their own causes, so much so that they’d sell a literal child to a military industrial complex who is being pretty clear that it’s goal is to kill said child. Not the most visually scandalous Saga front page, but pretty appalling from a morality standpoint.

The Summary: The issue opens with The Last Revolution trying to negotiate a trade of Hazel to Wreath High Command in order to further its own fight. Talks, however, break down when the murderous android kidnapper Dengo is spotted. Even though he literally murdered Robot Kingdom royalty, the woman from Wreath is clear that she will not under any circumstances negotiate with “one of those death machines.” Just a nice little insight into how deeply-entrenched the war is at this point. The Last Revolution immediately throws Dengo under the bus to make the talks tenable again, thereby completing Dengo’s now-intense disillusionment with them. In the brig, Alana tries a desperate negotiation of her own, aimed at saving Hazel’s life. That’s not necessary, as Klara and Dengo save the day, however violently.

Sophie, The Brand, Lying Cat, and Gwendolyn, meanwhile, continue their quest to get the alien dragon semen (I think) that they need to save the life of The Will...and we get one of Saga’s trademark scandalous visuals, the alien dragon having some...fun...with himself across two pages. They get the sample, but at a pretty steep cost. RIP, The Brand.

As this unfolds, Marko, Prince Robot IV, and Ghus find themselves in a space battle. They take a big risk and retreat...right into an ice storm. That goes about as well as it sounds (much like Rick Moody’s classic suburban ennui novel, The Ice Storm, but I digress…)

The Subtext: This is another issue in which Hazel’s future self narrates the subtext into pretty much being regular text. She notes throughout that parents often make sacrifices for their children, as we watch the three separate storylines all require sacrifices to save the day: The Brand distracting as Sophie gets the dragon semen, Dengo killing again to save Hazel, and Marko and Prince Robot IV realizing that Yuma made the ultimate sacrifice for them last issue. I don’t know if there’s really any deeper meaning here than that. There’s certainly something to be said about glorifying revolutionaries and the disillusionment one often suffers as a result, once they show themselves to be either too extreme, too selfish, or a combination of both as we see here, but it takes a significant backseat to the more latent (sub)text about familial sacrifice, especially as it applies to children.

The Art: Whereas for Saga #28 we saw the finest work being done in facial expressions, this time around Staples talent manifests most clearly in a pair of action sequences, detailed in the full pages we’ve clipped below:

The Foreshadowing: I suppose one could read all of Hazel’s narration about sacrifice as foreshadowing for the events of the most recent issue, Saga #54, but it’s a bit of a reach. The events in that issue continue to strike me as more of a commentary on the end results of aggression and war, than any sort of statement on what we all give up to have families. Still, it’s there if you want to make that connection.

Join us next time for the conclusion of this arc as well as the inevitable existential crisis that’s likely to come before, during, or right after our little re-read project’s 30th birthday!

Saga #29
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Letterer: Fonografiks
Publisher: Image Comics

Check out past installments of our Saga Re-Read.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.

TRADE RATING: TKO Studios’ The 7 Deadly Sins is a rare modern western that works

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The 7 Deadly Sins is available in full now.

By Jarred A. Luján — The 7 Deadly Sins is another one of TKO Studios’ debut books. Featuring the artwork of Artyom Trakhanov and colors of Giulia Brusco, it’s the comic book debut of television writer Tze Chun, who is also a co-founder and publisher with TKO. The story here is a western-style tale, taking place in 1857, in the greatest state in human history, Texas (Editor's note: Jarred is a Texan, obviously). The story follows a priest who recruits six death row criminals for a mission deep into Comanche territory.

Westerns are hard stories to pull off anymore. There was a time in American culture where westerns were everywhere. They helped to shape American film, particularly moives like Shane, Dirty Harry, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Unfortunately, there’s only so many of these kinds of stories you can tell without things getting a little…repetitive. Most modern westerns now try to blend elements of the genre with others, like Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (sci-fi/fantasy/western) or the movie Logan (superhero/western).

Chun and Trakhanov don’t really do that here, which I felt concerned about at first. I love westerns, but did we really need another story about outlaws and cowboys, or someone being the best gun in the west? The answer to that is probably not, but Chun skates around it altogether with one of the wildest group of characters in any western.

A runaway slave, a Chinese surgeon, a slave turned Union soldier, a cannibal, and a white man living as a Comanche all exist in this story. That’s such a diverse and strange roster, but Chun manages to pull it off well. The characters help to really breathe something fresh and new into a genre that is almost traditionally repetitive at this point. The 7 Deadly Sins unapologetic inclusion of slave characters was one of my favorite parts of the book. Westerns have something of a notoriety of shying away from that element of the era, but Chun unflinchingly puts it in the spotlight here, including the central protagonist.

Unfortunately, this character roster is also something of a weakness as well. There are a couple characters in the book that I had a hard time rooting for. As the story goes on and we see some of the things these people have done—and how little interest some have in redeeming themselves—it feels difficult to continue wanting them to succeed. Obviously, not every death row criminal can have a sob story where they didn’t mean to harm someone or they were wrongfully convicted, but because of The 7 Deadly Sins unique characters beings its strongest suit, losing concern for one or two of them does its damage. Regardless, Chun manages to focus the story on the characters you stay keen to, which makes it worth sticking with despite those brief, difficult moments.

Looking at these pages is really something else, though. This book is gorgeous. Trakhanov lays down some brilliant line art here. The actions scenes feel kinetic, they feel violent. TKO’s giant-sized pages are one of my favorite parts of their releases, because you really get to see the brilliant artwork in a larger, more exciting format. Not to mention Giulia Brusco, who really shines on this as well. Her color work is so good in every scene. Some of my favorite parts of the book are Jericho’s flashbacks, where most of the panel is done in blue, but he’s colored in red. The change is subtle, simple even, but it adds to the depth of emotion going through the character at that time. I live for color work like that.

Briefly, I think letterer Jared K. Fletcher is wonderful in here as well, and I promise it isn’t just because we share a first name. The letterers in this book stand out because they flow so well together with the art. The simple moments are kept simple, but when the book gets violent or tense, we see the colors of the letters themselves stand out, or they seemingly look scrawled on the page. The letters here really add something special to the pages, and it’s some of my favorite lettering altogether.

One of the bigger surprises I found from the book, though, is that this is literally Tze Chun’s first venture into comics. He’s obviously got a background in film, having worked on a wide range of projects, including Gotham, but I’m hoping we’ll see more comics from Chun soon. With a wild story like this, I’m sure he’s got some even more surprising stuff locked away in his head. As a matter of fact, I felt like there was some potential for more story with one of our 7 Deadly Sinners, so I’ll hope that we see more in the future.

Ultimately, The 7 Deadly Sins is fun as hell. While it struggles with its own gritty and unique character group, the book’s focus on the right members of its cast makes it easy to read and another solid offering by TKO Studios.

The 7 Deadly Sins
Writer: Tze Chun
Artist: Artyom Trakhanov
Colorist: Giulia Brusco
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Publisher: TKO Studios
Price: Digital $13.99, Paperback $17.99, Individual Issues in Collector’s Box $24.99
Get It: Via TKO Studios

Check out our Trade Rating page for more great writing about collected comics from Jarred and others!

Jarred A. Luján makes comics, studies existential philosophy, and listens to hip-hop too loudly. For bad jokes and dog pictures, you can follow him on Twitter.


DC’s Wild Bunch: Gail Simone’s SECRET SIX

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By Taylor Pechter — What do DC’s deadliest marksmen, a washed-up big game hunter, the man who broke The Bat, the daughter of an immortal, a banshee, and a human rag doll all have in common? They form the band of baddies known as the Secret Six. Spinning out of the events of the major DC Comics stories Villain’s United and Infinite Crisis, Secret Six is a book that follows these characters as they do work as a mercenary outfit.

Penned by fan favorite writer Gail Simone with assists by legendary Suicide Squad scribe John Ostrander and the work of a cadre of artists including Dale Eaglesham, Brad Walker, Nicola Scott, and Jim Calafiore, this series is rich with distinct themes connected to its six main characters, as well as to how they affect work as a team. It all adds up to a modern classic superhero story about comradery, love, addiction, mental illness, and much more.

Secret Six - Deadshot

What lies at the heart of Secret Six is its characters, each with their own intricacies that not only inform their character but also their place within the team. To start with, let’s talk about one of the most recognizable team members: Deadshot. Floyd Lawton—alias Deadshot—is one of Batman’s deadliest adversaries, also touted as one of the deadliest assassins in the entire DCU.

With Deadshot, Simone’s story examines how his job has affected his morality as well as his mental state. In a great one-shot issue titled “Control”, written by Ostrander, Floyd meets with a priest to confess his homicidal tendencies. Through his many years of work, he has grown numb in his morality. The only way he knows how to satiate himself is by killing. While these qualities make him a hard teammate at times, his brotherly rivalry with Catman (more below) and his connection to Scandal help pull him through.

Secret Six - Catman

Speaking of Catman, let’s move on to him. Thomas Blake is the son of a big game hunter. His father was abusive to his mother, at some points threatening to run away with him. As he grew up, he became a formidable big game hunter and tracker in his own right. He eventually crossed paths with Batman, but ultimately became a has been. That is until he left for Africa and got marked by one of the lions in the pride he ran with.

After declining membership in the Secret Society, Catman joined the Six to combat the Society. In “Cat’s In The Cradle”, a story that focuses on Catman, we follow him as he tracks down the kidnappers of his son, Thomas Blake, Jr. Sadly, he couldn’t save his son, but the narrative comes back to Catman absolving himself of his past. He realized he couldn’t be there for his son, and it tears him apart.

Secret Six - Bane and Scandal   

Bane and Scandal are next. We all know Bane as the man who broke Batman. He is a master tactician and hand-to-hand combatant. However, Bane also battles addiction to the fictional steroid known as venom. Throughout most of this series, he has kicked the substance. He refuses to use it for fear of again losing control. Bane eventually gives into his temptations to juice up in order to save Scandal’s life.

Consequently, Bane is then stuck by his craving, even to the point of waking up in the middle of the night for a hit. Scandal, meanwhile, is Scandal Savage, daughter of the immortal Vandal Savage. As the leader and organizer of the team, she carries many burdens. Not only does she have to worry about her team not killing each other, she also has a lot of baggage pertaining to her relationship with her father and also with her lover, Knockout. This combination of loneliness and atonement is what drives Scandal’s arc in the series. Scandal and Bane are paired together because of the bond that grows between them. Bane becomes somewhat of a father figure to Scandal, helping her through her trouble as she gets over the loss of Knockout. This works quite well for the development of both characters.

Secret Six - Jeanette and Rag Doll

Finally, we come to Jeanette and Rag Doll. Jeanette is the most mysterious member of the team. She was a member of the Hungarian gentry but was eventually sacrificed and became a Banshee. She has a history with Scandal which is hinted at, possibly a relationship. She, however, eventually hooks up with Deadshot. They make a perfect couple since death follows them everywhere they go.

Rag Doll, meanwhile, is the comedy relief of the group. Don’t let this fool you though, he does have a dark side. During the story “The Darkest House” he becomes prince of hell. However, he is brought back to the land of living by Scandal....with Knockout in tow. Rag Doll is a character based around forgiveness. At the start of the series, his sister Alex, known as Junior, was killed by the team. In the story mentioned above, he comes to terms with her death and connects with Scandal on how she felt when she lost Knockout.

While there are other members of the group that come and go—including magic siphon Black Alice, King Shark, Giganta, and more—the six characters discussed above are the team’s core. They not only serve as the backbone of the series, but as a team that brings a much larger story together. They are dysfunctional at times, but that is to expected of a group of villains. What’s great about Simone’s characterizations throughout is that she makes each of these characters sympathetic while also not comprising their villainous personalities.

So with all that in mind, what do say: are you ready to join the Six? Do you accept the mission?

Read more of Taylor’s writing on our comics analysis page.

Taylor Pechter is a passionate comic book fan and nerd. Find him on Twitter @TheInspecter.

REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy #2 slows things down but still contains a MAJOR development

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Guardians of the Galaxy #2 is out 2/20/2019.

By Zack Quaintance — As I wrote last month, Guardians of the Galaxy #1 was a natural extension of its creative team’s past work, first of the creator-owned God Country and then more directly of the subsequent Thanos Wins story for Marvel. That debut issue was fast-paced, grandiose, and packed with big moments, while at the same time managing to set up a new concept for this run—Thanos is, indeed, dead, and now he will be reincarnated after his consciousness enters someone new. A team of good guys coalesce around mitigating the threat to the universe that so clearly stems from that.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2 is a much slower affair, especially in its first half. The book seems to collectively take a breath, get itself together, and center itself for a long journey to come, rather than the relatively contained story arcs that marked the aforementioned God Country and Thanos Wins. It’s not boring by any means. Cates is such a good writer that he turns the team’s leader, Peter Quill, drunkenly bemoaning his plight into a really funny interaction with Kitty Pryde, whom Quill has recently had a romantic relationship with (Quill says he has trauma from having been dead and come back to life, and Kitty retorts, You’d hate the X-Men...very funny stuff).

These type of character moments and slower bits of development are key facets of long-form team-based superhero comics, and I almost always welcome them. This one caught me a bit off guard with how soon in the run it came, but, also, this wasn’t entirely a stepback and breath issue. No, the second half of the book sees a major development that will have major ramifications throughout the rest of the run. If the first issue brought our good guy team together, well, this second issue gives them a foil, and in a pretty brilliant bit of narrative plotting, Cates makes it so their goals might even overlap.

Indeed, both the good guys and the bad in this new Guardians book are invested in stopping Thanos from again terrorizing the universe. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just note that the tension between them is likely to arise from their very different ideas on the best way to accomplish this. All the setup then culminates in a grandiose (that word again!) last page cliffhanger, the sort of textbook ending for an entertaining superhero comic that Cates and artist Geoff Shaw all but perfected during their run on Thanos. SPOILER: a team of Dark Guardians comes together and sets out to find Richard Rider in order to murder Gamora…thus giving us the characters and the goals that will be at odds with our heroes.

All in all, while I didn’t white knuckle my way through this comic with a huge grin on my face the way I did the debut issue, I still came away from Guardians of the Galaxy #2 basically certain that this will be a major run with these characters. There’s clearly a huge scale and a big plan at work here, and I’ll be happy to follow it through to completion, enjoying Shaw’s outsized artistry and Cates’ clever dialogue throughout.

Overall: A quieter step-back issue that invests in character moments and funny exchanges while still pushing the grandiose plot from Guardians of the Galaxy #1 forward. There’s clearly a huge scale and big plan at work here, and I’m excited to follow it through to its ending. 8.5/10

Guardians of the Galaxy #2
Writer: Donny Cates
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colorist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99

Check out some of other thoughts about this comic from both this week and the past in our reviews archive.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as BatmansBookcase.