New This Week: January 19, 2005

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:



The pick of the week is Patty Cake & Friends #13 from Slave Labor/Amaze Ink. Scott Roberts' comic only comes out quarterly, but it's 48 pages of pure fun. Patty Cake and her friends are kind of like Peanuts is the kids acted more like real kids (and the stories were longer than four panels). It's good clean fun with a slab of sass on the side.



In other comics:



Dark Horse has the third issue of BPRD: The Dead.



DC has the collection of the first five issues of Ex Machina for their usual low introductory price of just $9.95, which makes it the perfect opportunity to catch up on one of the few books that's actually growing its audience. They also have new issues of Birds of Prey (#78); Human Target (#18)--who cares if it's cancelled, it's still good comics!; Lucifer (#58); Terra Obscura (v. 2 #5); and Plastic Man (#14)--buy it before it's too late!



Image has the first issue of Pigtale and the long-delayed final issue of The Secret Soc..., er, Wanted (#6).



Marvel has Hulk Visionaries: Peter David, vol. 1 as well as the final issue of David's entertaining Madrox (#5). Lots of Bendis, with new issues of Daredevil (#69), Powers (#8) and Ultimate Spider-Man (#71); and Peter Milligan's first issue of X-Men (#166), so we know he won't go without a roof over his head with Human target getting the axe.





Decent-sized weeks from the Big Two, but scant else of interest from the rest of the publishers. Must not be the last week of the month yet...



Oh, wait, there's the Stargate SG1 Fall of Rome Royal Blue Foil Cvr #1 (Of 3) for only $75 from Avatar--see my post last week about having too damn much money.

Fred Julsing

Over at The Comics Reporter, Tom Spugeon reports that Dutch comics creator Fred Julsing has passed away.



The sad thing is that, despite what was apparently a long and illustrious career, I'd never even heard of Julsing.



A quick visit over to this fansite shows me what I've been missing. Even though the site is in Dutch, I can look around enough to see that I would in all probability really like Julsing's work. It's, well, charming. A bit Miyazaki-esque at times, by way of Dr. Seuss, but with a charm all its own.



Sadly, a quick check for Dulsing in Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk shows nothing, which would seem to indicate that nothing by Julsing has ever been translated into English. Which is a shame, because Dulsing seems like a talent who should have had some exposure over here.



So, which publisher will step up to the plate and get us some translated Dulsing? Please?

Levitating Frogs

This may be the most important scientific paper ever written:



Berry, M. V. & Geim, A. K. (1997). "Of flying frogs and levitrons." European Journal of Physics 18: 307-313.