Monkey Covers

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

Peter Cannon — Thunderbolt! battles in the Ape Arena on the cover to Secrets of the Unknown #229. That's right: The Ape Arena! I love comics!

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

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

The Librarians and Other TV News

ITEM! A writers' strike is looking imminent, and it appears that the first casualty is the Heroes: Origins series, as NBC needs to free up the budget money for non-scripted programming (i.e. crappy reality programs).

ITEM! One quote I read about the upcoming strike (I forget from whom and where) was that "a lot of novels are going to get written." With the number of writers from television moving into comics these days, I suspect there will be a lot of comics scripts written too; who knows, maybe this'll mean that Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk finally gets finished!

ITEM! Despite the troubles, FOX has greenlit a new series from Joss Whedon starring Eliza Dushku called Dollhouse for probably the 2008 season (unless the strike is still going on...) Reportedly Tim Minear will be involved too. Hmm, Minear + FOX = Cancelled within four episodes, so don't get too attached.

ITEM! Not really comics or television, but related to both, is the news that a new X-Files movie will begin shooting in December for a Summer 2008 release.

ITEM! And from a land (Australia) where there is no strike looming: I've always thought that a public library would be a perfect setting for a television comedy, and finally someone agrees with me! Yesterday marked the debut of The Librarians, a six-episode series on ABC (That's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Of course you can't see it on the telly outside of Australia, but for the time being you can go to the ABC Website and watch the pilot episode in YouTube-like-quality streaming video. It's not a laugh-a-minute sitcom, but rather a workplace comedy in the humour mode of the UK version of The Office. There were also some great background gags, and those of you who have worked in libraries will recognize the characters who work at the fictitious library, no matter which country you are from.

X-Halloween

Parker + Coover + X-Men + Halloween = Fun!

(via TCR)

New This Week: October 31, 2007

Hey, it's Halloween. Instead of going out for tricks or treats, you're going to your local comics store for new comics day. What treats await you there?


Do you like dinosaurs? Do you like animals? Do you like manga? If you answered yes to any one of those questions, you should pick up Gon vol. 2 by Masashi Tanaka (from CMX). It's the most entertaining six bucks you'll spend all week. (Don't worry if you missed volume one--each installment of Gon can be read and enjoyed on its own.)

Dark Horse publish the "already-best-selling-on-Amazon" collection of Nicholas Gurewitch's Webstrip The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Ready for some mind-blowing so-square-it's-hip-again Bob Haney madness? Then hook yourself up with the second Showcase Presents Teen Titans volume!

For some Halloween scares, you can pick up Osamu Tezuka's horror manga MW, the latest in Vertical's noble effort to bring the "Godfather of Manga"'s work into translation.

In floppy-land, there's the first issue of Greg Rucka's Crime Bible (starring Batwoman and The Question); the debut of Kyle Baker's war satire Special Forces; Gary Frank's debut on Action Comics (#858) with the old-school Legion of Super-Heroes; and the third issue of Josh Howard's The Lost Books of Eve.


After getting your comics, hurry home to hand out candy (or better yet, comics!) to all the neighborhood little goblins.

Hey DC, Where's My Love Syndicate?

Over at Gad Sir, Comics!, Steve Flanagan reminds us of the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld, an alternate version of the JLA featured briefly in an issue of Grant Morrison's Animal Man. Little is known of the Love Syndicate, except that is featured heroes such as Sunshine Superman, Speed Freak, and Magic Lantern. In other words, a world with a 'hippie' JLA.

At least one Internet denizen has attempted to extrapolate a history of Dreamworld (confusingly interspersed with a history of an 'Earth-17') which adds in forgotten DC properties Brother Power the Geek, President Prez Rickard, and the 'Emma Peel' version of Wonder Woman to the mix.

So somewhere amongst the 52 worlds of the New Multiverse I'd like to think that Dreamworld is one of them. If looks like we won't be getting a Countdown Presents the Love Syndicate mini, even though I would totally buy such a thing. But with Morrison writing Final Crisis, we can hope that maybe Sunshine Superman and his pals will be making an appearance.

New Library Comics: Week of October 22, 2007

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Gallagher, Fred (Fred M.), 1968- Megatokyo = [Megatōkyō] / Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 2004- vol. 3

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Konny and Czu / San Antonio, Texas : Antarctic Press, 1994- nos. 1, 3-4

Howarth, Matt, 1954- WRAB Pirate Television : the graphic novel / Langhorne, PA : Howski Studios, 1985

Kolossal. Roma : Lancio, [1973]- nos. 407, 420

Lancio color. Roma : Lancio, [1978]- no. 339

Lanciostory. Roma : Eura, [1975]- v. 31 no. 39

Raiti, Ashly. Mark of the succubus / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, Inc., 2005- vol. 1


This listing is now available as an RSS Feed!

Monkey Covers

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

Detective Chimp is on the case on the cover of this week's Shadowpact #18 by Tom Derenick & Wayne Faucher.

(Standard disclaimer about magnifying glass-using chimpanzees not really being monkeys applies.)

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