Friday, 4 May 2007

FCBM3 Day 4

It's day four of the third annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Today's selected entry is from William Burns. The five comics that William listed are:

1. Fell
2. Action Philosophers
3. The Preposterous Adventures of Ironhide Tom
4. Meat Cake
5. Criminal

I suspect that William will greatly enjoy:

Eddie Campbell's Deadface: Earth, Water, Air, Fire #2

William's bonus comic is the Sandman #1 Special Edition.

William's comics should be in the mail sometime next week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
19 entries
8 free comics sent so far
27 days remaining

Thursday, 3 May 2007

Yet Another Music Moment: Retro Girl Groups

I've become enchanted this week with two UK-based female vocal trios, both of whom exhibit a retro feel.

The Pipettes take Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" and bring it kicking and screaming into the 21st century. (Except for one demo track) Their recordings are not yet available in the U.S.--their album is due on domestic shores in August--but thanks to the wonder of the musical tubes of the Internet you can listen to four tracks on Last.fm, hear the music streaming off their official Website or their MySpace page, or view a variety of their music videos in glorious low-rez on YouTube:

Here's their video for "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me":



And their video for "Judy," which has a visual comic book theme:



and you'll find plenty more on YouTube as well.

Not enough? You can watch an entire concert performance by The Pipettes at Fabchannel.com!


Going even further back in retro time we find The Puppini Sisters, a trio that channels the era of The Andrews Sisters on their just-released album Betcha Bottom Dollar. Besides singing classic WWII-era songs, they also bring their style to some fun covers, such as "Heart of Glass," "I Will Survive" and "Wuthering Heights."

You can hear a feature on The Puppini Sisters on NPR; hear several tracks on their MySpace page; and here's an excerpt from an in-store performance of "Heart of Glass":

FCBM3 Day 3

Kana's IslandIt's day three of the third annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Today's selected entry is from Lee Fanning. The five comics that Lee listed are:

1. Uncle Scrooge
2. Mickey Mouse
3. Batman Adventures
4. Flash
5. Justice League Adventures

Lee appears to be a fan of all-ages comics, so I've chosen:

Kana's Island #1, by Mark Page, billed by its creator as "The charm of a children's book in the form of a comic."

Lee's bonus comic is the Fables #1 Special Edition, which isn't an all-ages comic but does make use of characters from old fairy tales.

Lee's comics should be in the mail by the end of the week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
17 entries
6 free comics sent so far
28 days remaining

Wednesday, 2 May 2007

Zombies Calling in November

panel from Zombies CallingI'm looking forward to Zombies Calling, an OGN from Faith Erin Hicks being published by Slave Labor in November. It's a zombie comic about people who have actually seen zombie movies; kind of a graphic novel of the Zombie Survival Guide done with a style and attitude not unlike the Scott Pilgrim comics. Read more about it at Hicks's Website, and spy some preview pages at this week's "All the Rage".

FCBM3 Day 2

Midnight Mass #1It's day two of the third annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Today's selected entry is from Michelle Miller. The five comics that Michelle listed are:

1. Scott Pilgrim
2. The Walking Dead
3. Fables
4. Death Note
5. Hellsing

For Michelle I have the first issue of one of my favorite underrated comics of the past few years:

Midnight, Mass #1, by John Rozum, Jesús Saiz & Jimmy Palmiotti.

Michelle's bonus comic is the Sandman #1 Special Edition.

Michelle's comics should be in the mail by the end of the week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
9 entries
4 free comics sent so far
29 days remaining

Tuesday, 1 May 2007

New This Week: May 2, 2007

First in SpaceBased on the NCRL, here are some comics you may want to look at picking up at your friendly local comic shop tomorrow:


The Pick of the Week is James Vining's Xeric-winning First in Space OGN from Oni Press. It's the true story of a chimpanzee trained by NASA for orbital space flight; how can you go wrong?


In other comics:

Abstract have the penultimate issue of Strangers in Paradise (#89).

Boom! have the first issue of Dominion and the final issue of X-Isle (#5).

Dark Horse have the sizable and affordable and generally fun Gunsmith Cats Burst Volume 1; the debut of a new Hellboy mini, Darkness Calls; a new volume of Eden (vol. 7); and a new issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (#3).

DC have the final issue of 52; a Showcase Presents volume for The War That Time Forgot; a collection of The All-New Atom: My Life in Miniature; and new issues of 100 Bullets (#83), The All-New Atom (#11), Danger Girl: Body Shots (#2), Detective Comics (#832), Hawkgirl (#63), Jonah Hex (#19), Justice League Unlimited (#33), Midnighter (#7), Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil (#3), and Superman (#662).

Del Rey have tons of manga, including a new volume of Nodame Cantabile (vol. 9) and the first volume of their edition of Parasyte.

Image have the debut of Alien Pig Farm; and the sixth collection of The Walking Dead.

Marvel collect my personal favorite Fantastic Four run in Fantastic Four Visionaries: Walter Simonson volume 1; and have new issues of Astonishing X-Men (#21), Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (#20), Punisher (#47), Runaways (#26), Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (#18), and Wonder Man (#5).

Oni have the second Love as a Foreign Language Omnibus.

TokyoPop also have a ton of manga, including the debut of Grand Theft Galaxy and a new Kindaichi Case Files (vol. 15).

Top Shelf have the all ages Korgi OGN.


Which should be plenty of comics to tide you over. Don't forget that Free Comic Book Day is Saturday, so drop by your FLCS a second time this week and sample something new!

FCBM3 Day 1

Little White MouseIt's day one of the third annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our first selected entry is also the first entry received: Bryan F. Irrera. The five comics that Bryan listed are:

1. Amelia Rules
2. Castle Waiting
3. Fables
4. Strangers in Paradise
5. Birds of Prey

Bryan obviously appreciates well-told stories with strong female characters. So for Bryan's free comic I'm choosing:

The first collected volume of Paul Sizer's enjoyable Little White Mouse, about a resourceful teenage girl stranded on an abandoned space station.

For Bryan's bonus comic, I'm sending him the Donald Duck Halloween comic, as Bryan already has the regular bonus comics (and its smaller size will fit perfectly in the envelope with the LWM GN).

Bryan's comics should be in the mail by the end of the week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
6 entries
2 free comics sent so far
30 days remaining