New This Week: July 7, 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 Jill Thompson's The Dead Boy Detectives Digest from Vertigo/DC. Aside from her wonderful Scary Godmother, this is the book that Thompson was born to create.


In other comics:

Alias have the debut issue of the Biblical David: Shepherd's Song.

Dark Horse have the Freaks of the Heartland collection.

DC have new issues of DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy (#2), Firestorm (#15), Gotham Central (#33), The Intimates (#9), Swamp Thing (#17), and Y, the Last man (#35); and at last the long-delayed final issue of Warren Ellis & Chris Sprouse's Ocean (#6).

Image have the second issue of Strange Girl and the debut issue of Todd Nauck's new Wildguard mini: Fool's Gold.

Lightspeed have the latest issue of Carla Speed McNeil's excellent Finder (#37).

Marvel have the debut of David Lapham's Daredevil vs. Punisher mini, plus new issues of Mouse of Him (#3), Incredible Hulk (#83), and Ultimate Spider-Man (#79).

Viz have oodles of new GNs, including the inaugural volumes of their Shojo Beat-branded line: Full Moon, Ouran High School Host Club, and Tokyo Boys & Girls. They also have the third volume of Doubt, which is also shojo, though not part of the Shojo Beat line. This might get a bit confusing...


A relatively light week, although there's still plenty of good stuff to choose from. If you can't find anything to your liking, then you're just not trying hard enough. And if you find yourself with a few dollars left over, so yourself a favor and pick up the first issue of The Surrogates.

Sidebar Update Post

Added to the blogroll on the sidebar today are The Flying Inn, Listen to Us, We're Right, and Seven Hells; also, Chris Tamarri's Crisis/Boring Change takes the place of his old blog, Wednesday Week.

Go pay 'em a visit and say hi, and tell 'em that YACB sent'cha.

Runaways Contest - Winners!

In the YACB Runaways contest, I asked you to write a paragraph (or so) responding to the following: "If your parents were super-villains, which super-villains would they be, and why?"

Second place goes to B. R. Salazar. B. R. writes:

If my parents turned out to be super-villains I would have to pick “The Rhino” for my mother because of her stubbornness. She may be the most hard-headed person I have ever met. She has the unrelenting ability to never forget a wrong committed against her and to hardly ever forgive. Once her mind is set in a certain direction, there is no swaying her of course.

My father on the other hand is short, stocky and tough as nails. I would say he reminds me of Wolverine, but since this is villains, I’ll go with the wrecker. My father was great at taking things apart, but not so good at putting them back together.

For being the second-place finisher, B. R. wins the first six issues of the first Runaways series.


First place, and the grand prize package of the first three Runaways digest collections, goes to Max Crowe. Max writes:

Turner D. Century, for my father, for being hopelessly out of date (and dressing funny) and Cassandra Nova, for my mother, for being complex, remarkably intelligent, and having a fondness for the paintings of Max Ernst. (And of course, because they're both evil.) (Also if you do post this, my mother insists that you make clear that she is not bald.)

Congratulations to the winners--I'll be in touch with you shortly to send you your prize packages. And thanks to everyone who entered. Look for our next contest sometime in August, celebrating our first blogiversary with more free comics to give away!

Quick Comic Reviews

Outsiders #25
by Judd Winick & Carlos D'Anda
Superboy has been turned evil by Lex Luthor. Indigo has been turned evil by Brainiac. Can their teammates help them find their true inner selves before it's too late? The story is just one big slugfest that goes on too long (did this story really need to be stretched over four issues of two titles?), and it's not helped at all by the inappropriate and frankly ugly art of D'Anda. Combined with the murky color palatte it's ofttimes difficult and sometimes impossible to tell what is going on, which is a major problem when the plot of the book is a bunch of people hitting each other. This just isn't a very good comic.
Rating: 1.5 (of 5)


Uncanny X-Men #461
by Chris Claremont, Tom Raney & Scott Hanna
I never really cared much for Mojo, but Claremont uses him to good effect here, mainly as an excuse to get Raney to draw a bunch of silly stuff, including the X-Babies. Calremont also follows up on the only plotline from Chuck Austen's run worth a damn: Juggernaut and his relationship with Sammy. It's a jam-packed issue that doesn't get bogged down in self-importance. Look at this as sort of the baseline for what a super-hero comic should be. It shouldn't be a rarity these days, but it is.
Rating: 3 (of 5)


The Surrogates #1
by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele
Top Shelf are mostly known for publishing indy comic anthologies and B&W OGNs, so what are they doing publishing a scifi noir as a glossy color limited series? I don't know, but since the results are so good, I don't really care about the reasons. Fifty years in the future, a couple on their way home from a bar are attacked and electrocuted in an alley. But it turns out that these aren't people who have died, but rather their surrogates. In this future world, 'surrogates' are artificial bodies employed by people to interact with the real world while they sit around all day in their crummy little apartments. Yeah yeah, it's a metaphor, but it serves to put a twist on the murder mystery. I don't recall ever encountering work by either of the creators before, but what I see here impresses me. The art by Weldele is a simple pen-and ink style that echoes somewhat Bill Sienkiewicz or Ben Templesmith, colored in a moody Vertigoesque palatte. Author/creator Venditti & Weldele create a world and give us the parameters of its functioning within the confines of the story; they never stop to explain something but rather let the explainations come about naturally and as needed. (Although a text piece posing as a faux-academic article at the end fills in some of the background, it is not necessary reading for the story.) All in all this is a promising start to the series; I just wish it was being published more frequently than quarterly.
Rating: 4 (of 5)