Previews-o-Rama part 2: The Middle

It's time to go through the latest Previews to discover the good, the bad, and the strange:


I remember many years ago reading from Dave Sim that there were two groups of Cerebus readers: the Aardvark Comments Rocks people and the Aardvark Comments Sucks people. If you're one of the former, you're likely to find Aardvark-Vanaheim's 580 page Dave Sim Collected Letters 2004 to be of interest. If you're like me, you'll stay far, far away...

About Comics has 24 Hour Comics All-Stars, which is not a comic featureing Jack Bauer, but rather a collection of stories from 24 Hour Comics Day with stories by people like Paul Smith, Sean McKeever, Scott McCloud, and Dave Sim.

ADV Films has Ray 2, a medical manga from Akihito Yoshifumi.

AiT/PlanetLAR brings us The Tourist, a graphic novel from Brian Wood & Toby Cypress that has oil rigs and AWOL special forces soldiers.

Aeon has Matt Howarth's Bugtown #5; Airship has Phil & Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius #14. Both are worthy of your comic dollars.

Arcana has a collection of 100 Girls.

New publisher Alias Enterprises debuts several titles at just 75 cents this month: Deal with the Devil; Killer Stunts, Inc.; Elsinore; and Lethal Enforcer. Worth a try for that price, I'd think. They're also the new home of The 10th Muse and Pakkins' Land, and have a couple of original graphic novellas as well: David's Mighty Men and Soulcatcher. I wish them well and all, but maybe it would have been smarter to not roll out so much new product in their firth month...

Fred Perry takes over for a three issue stint with Ninja High School #127 (with Ben Dunn returning for issue #130).

Bloody Mary Comics has Tales of Bloody Mary #1, which looks like a Lady Death Rip-Off. This of course begs the question of why would anyone want to rip off Lady Death?

Dynamite Entertainment debuts a new Red Sonja series with a 25 cent Zero issue. Mike Carey & Michael Avon Oeming are involved, so it might actually be halfway decent.

Del Rey debuts two new manga titles: Genshiken, with high school otaku in love; and Nodame Cantabile, with teenage muscicians in love. Both look like they could be worthwhile.

Drawn & Quarterly has a hardcover collection from Joe Sacco: War's End: Profiles from Boasnia 1995-96.

I expect at some point there will be an article in a medical journal about an emergency room doctor who has to remove the Dynamic Forces Wanted: Wesley Stature from someone's anal cavity...

Nietzsche! Plato! Bodhidharma! They're the Action Philosophers, and Evil Twin Comics has them, in a Xeric Grant winning comics from Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey.

Fantagraphics debuts Bete Noir, their new anthology series. They also have Seeing Things, a new Jim Woodring collection; and the third Complete Peanuts volume.

iBooks has a new Blacksaad volume, which is sure to have stunning art from Juanjo Guarnido. Really, this is one of the best looking comics being published.

iBooks also has a collection of Neil Gaiman's Lady Justice, which should bring back fond memories of those halcyon Tekno-Comix days.

Another old First Comics property finds its way to IDW, as Mike Grell has a new Jon Sable series and there's a first volume of a Jon Sable, Freelance collection. Plus there's a second Grimjack collection too.

Kandora debuts their second title, Jade Fire, by the same creative team (Brian Augustyn & H. S. Park) as Barbarossa. I'm sure that Augustyn can write a couple of books a month, but I worry about the schedule if the same artist is to be drowing two extra-length titles monthly...

Oni collects both Sam Kieth's Ojo and Chynna Clugston's (she's dropped the -Major?) Blue Monday: Painted Moon.

Origin has a second issue of Damon Hurd & Rick Smith's Temporary; I was kind of split on the first issue, but I liked it enough to give it another try.

Top Shelf has a new bughouse volume, Scalawag from Steve Lafler.

Vertical is releasing an inexpensive ($8) paperback of the first volume of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha, so now there's really no excuse to not buy it.

TokyoPop debuts another 'American Manga' title, Mike Schwark & Ron Kaulfersh's Van Von Hunter.

Viz debuts the potentially interesting 20th Century Boys, which has a thirty-something slacker who gets caught up in strange cults and conspiracies.


Well, that wraps up another trip through Previews. I hope that you find something that appeals to you.