Salon on Finder

Salon's Douglas Wolk discusses Carla Speed McNeil's Finder in general and the most recent volume, The Rescuers, in particular: "Yurts, robot secretaries, and talking dinosaurs." (link via Jumbotron 6000)

Yet Another Fantasy League

If you're like me, not only do you love comics, you also love American football.

Okay, so maybe you're not like me; I've found that the overlap of comic fans and sports fans is rather small...

But I've decided to try creating a Fantasy Football league tied to this blog anyway.

So, I invite everyone reading this blog to join Yet Another Fantasy League for some fantasy football fun.

To join, simply follow this link and register your team. To increase the fun, please choose the name of a super-hero team as your team name. (I've already taken Kickers, Inc.!) If you join, please use the comments for this post to tell us who you are and what your team name is.

Registration will continue until all 12 team spots have been filled, or until August 29 (the date for our autopick draft) whichever comes first.

It'll all be good fun, I'm sure!

This is part of our month-long 1st Blogiversary Celebration. Don't forget to check in here on this blog this coming Sunday for the announcement of our next big giveaway event!

New This Week: August 10, 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 Paul Chadwick's Concrete, vol. 1: Depths from Dark Horse, the start of a complete reprinting of the entire Concrete saga (in story chronological order). Finding the original Conrete #1 in a quarter bin back in the 80s was one of the events that led me into the wonderful world of non-Marvel/DC back in the day, and it will be good to have all of this stuff back in print, including the scattered short stories.


In other comics:

Alias have the third issue of Penny & Aggie colorized reprints of the Webcomics.

Arcana have the delayed fifth issue of 100 Girls.

DC have the trade collection of the Adam Strange mini; the debut issues of Supergirl and The Winter Men (buy this--John Paul Leon on art!); and new issues of 100 Bullets (#63), Action Comics (#630), Fables (#40), Majestic (#8), Seven Soldiers: Zatanna (#3), and Villains United (#4).

Fantagraphics have Richard Sala's Peculia & The Groon Grove Vampires (which would have been the Pick of the Week if not for Concrete), and also the first volume of Mome.

Image have the debut of Ferro City and the third issue of Pigtale.

Lightspeed Press have the seventh Finder collection by Carla Speed McNeil: The Rescuers (also a potential contender for Pick of the Week--there's a lot of good GNs and collections this week!)

Lost in the Dark have the debut of Fragile Prophet.

Marvel have a collection of Peter David's return to Hulk: Tempest Fugit; new issues of Captain America (#8), Gravity (#3), Mouse of Him (#5), Incredible Hulk (#85), Kabuki: Reflections (#5), The Punisher (#24), and the first Ultimates Annual; plus a big ol' hardcover collection of the first 18 issues of Runaways.

Speakeasy have the debut issue of Hero at Large.

TokyoPop have the debut volume of the OEL manga Bizenghast by M. Alice LeGrow, which--artwise at least--looks pretty damn sweet.

Top Shelf have a trio of new OGNs: Tricked by Alex Robinson; King by Rich Koslowski; and Spiral Bound by Aaron Renier (which has been good some pretty good advance press). It's great that Top Shelf has several good books coming out, but maybe they could have spread them out a bit more?

Viz have the ninth volume of Banana Fish and the third issue of Shojo Beat.

Review: Periphery #1-2

Periphery #1-2
O-P-P
$3.50 each

Anthologies are notoriously hard to pull off, especially if there's no overriding subject or theme. But with Periphery, publisher/writer/artist Omaha Perez has put togther a winner. Ranging from horror to humor to mythology, over the course of two issues the stories in these two 48-page anthologies never fail to entertain.

Prerz provides the art on about half of the entries; other creators involved are Steve Niles, Brian Horton, Mark Fearing, Eli S. Stone, Richard Raleigh, and Matthew Smith.

Niles is best known for his supernatural horror work for IDW & Dark Horse, but his story in issue #1, "Carsickness," drawn ably by Brian Horton, is a thrilling Tarantino-esque story about a convenience store robbery that goes in unexpected directions, with nary a vampire or werewolf in sight. Issue #1 also includes "The Handsomest Man in the World," A tongue-in-cheek spoof by Stone & Perez; "Closed Case," a two-page solo effort by Horton about a police interrogation with a shock twist ending; "In Deep," by Niles & Perez, about two guys who really can't stand each other who get stranded in outter space; and "The Story of Ganesha" by Raleigh & Perez, which I believe is a retelling of a Hindu myth and is probably the best story of the lot.

Both issues include a "Jerry: Caveman Inventor" story by Mark Fearing; both are quite funny with a wry sense of humor that builds to the end.

Iuees #2 also includes "The Novice" by Matthew Smith & Brian Horton, a mostly-silent tale about an unusual encounter between two warriors in the desert; and "Holmes," a solo effort by Perez (and featured as a flip-book), which reimagines Sherlock Holmes as a drugged-out maniac and Dr. Watson as his supplier-enabler. Of all the stories over the two issues, it is this last that didn't quite work for me, although that may be because I'm not much of a Sherlock Holmes fan so perhaps some of the jokes were lost on me.

Overall though this is a quality anthology, providing plenty of entertainment for your comic dollar, and shows that there's still plenty of life in the comic-sized anthology.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

(Review copies were provided by the publisher. A copy of Cenozoic #1 was also sent, although I reviewed that previously.)

New Library Comics: Week of August 1, 2005

Here are the comics we got in for our library collection last week:


Jarry, Grégory. L'os du gigot : photobiographie /Angoulême, France : ego comme x, 2004.

Kerkoš, Saša. An art of normal, everyday conversation : Harlem story /Celje : Samozal, 2001.

Micol, Hugues. 3 /Paris : Éditiosn Cornélius, 2001.

Peña, Nancy. Le cabinet chinois /Antony France : La boîte à bulles, 2003.

¡Que suerte! : zen mecánico. [Madrid] : [s.n.], [2003?]

Salazar, Souther. Fervler & Razzle /[Los Angeles] : No Questions Asked Publishing ; Crashlander Comix, 2004.

Sury, Caroline. Féroce agenda de Mars /Marseille : Le Dernier Cri, 2004.

Quick Alan Moore GN Reviews

A Small Killing
by Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate
Adman Timothy Hole has just landed a major Russian account. On his way to Russia he stops off in his home country, England, and the past comes back to haunt him; not just in the remembering of his mistakes and failures, but also in the preseance of the vision of a demonic child that only Tim can see, and who seems to be trying to kill him. In the end it's not much of a mystery, but it is cleverly constructed and does manage to evoke a solid emotional response. As Tim devolves into paranoia, we are brought right along with him through the pacing and the art.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)



Top Ten: The Forty-Niners
by Alan Moore & Gene Ha
Journey with us now back to 1949, when Neopolis was still young and being populated by science heroes, now that the world had no real use for them after the war. Moore tells several interweaving narratives about the early days of the city, from the struggles of a young police department against organized vampire crime to the struggles of the new immigrants trying to adjust to life after war. The art by Ha and colorist Art Lyon is wonderful, fully evoking the feel of the past butting up against a gleeming future. Each page is packed not only with mood but also with small details that really make this book come alive. It's a story both epic in scope and human in its details, and along with the art is well worth the deluxe hardcover treatment.
Rating: 4 (of 5)

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover.

Today's cover is Forbidden Worlds #132, from November 1965. The cover by Kurt Schaffenberger (as Pete Costanza) features Magicman going into battle against The Ancient Ape, who apparently has a penchant for armored car robberies.

(standard disclaimer about apes not really being monkeys applies)

Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.