New This Week: April 26, 2006

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 Fantagraphics' The Complete Peanuts, vol. 5: 1959-1960. Lucy's first Psychiatric Booth! The first Great Pumpkin! The first appearance of Sally! It's all here.

Peanuts may not be in all stores this week; so if it's not in yours, you may want to give a look at Brian Fies's Mom's Cancer; I haven't read it yet, but I've only heard good things.


In other comics:

Alias have the third issue of Lullaby.

Amaze Ink/Slave Labor have the final issue of Paris (#4) and the first issue of Tron. Yes, Tron. I loved that movie when I was 12. You know you want it, fanboy.

Archie have a new issue of Sabrina (#75).

Boom! Studios join the new-dialogue-in-old-comics bandwagon with the What Were They Thinking?! Some People Never Learn one-shot.

Dark Horse bring the funny with Star Wars Tag & Bink Episode 1 Revenge of the Clone Menace; they also have a new Usagi Yojimbo (#93).

DC have a new 100 Bullets collection (vol. 9: Strychnine Lives); the final issue of Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein (#4); the Villains United Infinite Crisis Special; the debut of Checkmate; and new issues of American Way (#3), Batman (#652), Blue Beetle (#2), Catwoman (#54), Hawkgirl (#51), Lucifer (#73), and Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes (#17).

Image have new issues of Gødland (#10), and Invincible (#31).

Marvel have new issues of Astonishing X-Men (#14), Runaways (#15), and X-Factor (#6).

Oni have the penultimate issue of Polly and the Pirates (#5).

Superverse finally debut their hyped-up-the-wazoo Zoom Suit.

TokyoPop debut Chuck Austin's Boys of Summer; c'mon, admit it, you're dying to see it...


That oughta do it for this week; enjoy your new comics!

Yet Another Music Moment

Dave's Car Mix, April 2006

1 Human (Class Mix) - The Pretenders
2 Nth Degree - Morningwood
3 Hockey Monkey - James Kochalka Superstar
4 4ever - The Veronicas
5 Washed Out - The Eames Era
6 Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley
7 Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
8 Through Your Eyes - Lunik
9 Satyam Shivam Sundaram - Thievery Corporation & Gunjan
10 Ooh La La - Goldfrapp
11 Stars Above Us (DJ Jeff Barringer Lite Mix) - Saint Etienne
12 Unbeauty - Rachael Sage
13 Better - Plumb
14 Warm Sand - Tina Dico
15 Conceived - Beth Orton
16 The Charging Sky - Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
17 I Wanna Die - Miranda Lambert
18 Bad Things - Jace Everett
19 Getaway Car - The Jenkins
20 Leave the Pieces - The Wreckers
21 Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males - Todd Snider
22 Love Smiles - The Billy Nayer Show

If anything catches your fancy, I've turned this into an iMix.

Dave's Dozen: Collections/GNs

Concluding my look through the April Previews (for items supposedly shipping in June or July), here are a dozen collections and graphic novels that I feel are worth your attention:


B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame
(Dark Horse, $17.95, p. 32)

It may be sacrilidge, but I enjoy the latest batch of B.P.R.D. stories more than the regular Hellboy comic. If you missed this when it came out in floppies, you'll definitely want to pick up the collection.



Sloth
(DC/Vertigo, $19.99, p. 115)

Vertigo continues its assault on the indy comics scene by bringing Gilbert Hernandez's new OGN into the Warner fold. It's billed as a surrealistic romance/drama in the mold of David Lynch.



The Drowners
(Image, $14.99, p. 148)

The very good noirish mini from Nabiel Kanan gets a collection.



Oz: The Manga Pocket Manga
(Antarctic, $14.95, p. 229)

All nine issues of David Hutchison's critically acclaimed adaptation of The Wizard of Oz get the handy pocket manga collection.



Flight Volume 3
(Ballantine, $24.95, p. 245)

The acclaimed anthology series jumps ship to major publisher Ballantine, with over 350 massive full-color pages from a mixture of established creators and fresh young turks.



Little White Mouse Omnibus Edition
(Cafe Digital, $24.95, p. 252)

If you've never real Paul Sizer's delightful sci-fi tale, you owe it to yourself to pick up this massive (over 400 pages!) omnibus edition.



Action Philosophers volume 1: Giant-Sized Thing
(Evil Twin, $6.95, p. 290)

The first three issues of the funny and good for your brain bio-series are collected in one affordable volume. No excuses now!



Wet Moon volume 2: Unseen Feet
(Oni, $14.95, p. 318)

I haven't read volume 1 yet (it's relisted this month), but I enjoyed Ross Campbell's The Abandoned so much that I'm willing to dive right in to this.



Fool's Gold volume 1
(TokyoPop, $9.99, p. 331)

I'm sold on this just based on the strength of Amy Hadley's cover illustration. And if she can deliver on the premise--a support group for girls who are drawn to jerky boyfriends--so much the better!



Grease Monkey
(Tor Books, $27.95, p. 352)

Tim Eldred's comics is about a gorilla, in the future, who fixes spaceships. There's your high concept right there! Another massive collection (over 350 pages); I haven't read all of it before (some may be previously unpublished?) but what I've read has been loads of fun.



Hikaru No Go volume 7
(Viz, $7.95, p. 356)

I'm falling too far behind on this manga, but I'm sure that when I get to it this latest volume will be just as good as the previous volumes. It's good proof that just about any subject can make for an interesting comic if done right.



She-Hulk, vol. 3: Time Trials
(Marvel, $14.99, p. M97)

I've been waiting for the trade on this for what seems like forever. The bizarre legal issues of the Marvel universe come to the page in this enjoyable series from Dan Slott.



Sorry this was so late--hopefully you still have time to let your FLCS know that you want one or more of these fine books. I'll be back next month! (Earlier this month I had my picks for mainstream and indy comics.)

YACB Bulletins

ITEM! Over at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, Kalinara tells how she would fix Nightwing and make it readable again.

ITEM! Pulitzer winner Mike Luckovich is interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air.

ITEM! Not comics: Hopefully none of you reading this will ever need it, but the book Stalking: A Handbook for Victims is now available for free online in PDF. It was written in 1999, so it doesn't really cover cyberstalking (there's a new edition planned for sometime this year...) but nevertheless there looks to be some good information.

ITEM! We're now just one week away from the second annual YACB Free Comic Book Month. Look for the official announcement and full details on Friday...

Monkey Covers

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

Aquaman? No, Aquaape! It's the JLApe cover of 1999's Aquaman Annual #5 by Arthur Adams.

(Standard disclaimer about apes not really being monkeys applies.)

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

Spidey Saves Your Teeth from the Green Goblin

I was going to write up a post about how my simple trip to the dentist for a cleaning yesterday turned into 3-hour ordeal, but it ended up sounding too whiny.

So instead, here's the cover to an AIM toothpaste giveaway comic starring Spider-Man!

Blogiversaries

Happy Blogiversary to Photon Torpedoes, which celebrated its 1st blogiversary yesterday; and to Comics Worth Reading, where Johanna is celebrating her 2nd blogiversary today (although she's been commenting about comics online in various venues for a lot longer). Here's to many years to come from these two always interesting blogs.