New This Week: July 27, 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 the collected edition of the lighthearted adventure comic Cryptozoo Crew by Allan Gross & Jerry Carr from NBM. The trade paperback reprints the first two issues and also includes 3 new stories--which should place it at around 50% or so new material (if I'm doing the math correctly...) Plus: monkeys!


In other comics:

Alias debut two more 75 cent first issues: Gimoles & Imperial Dragons, and they have the trade collection of Lions, Tigers & Bears.

Kolchalka fans will probably be happy to see that Alternative Comics are releasing his Cute Manifesto.

Amaze Ink have a second collection of Evan Dorkin's Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Adventures.

Dark Hose have the second and final issue of Hellboy: The Island and a new Usagi Yojimbo collection: vol. 19: Fathers & Sons.

DC have a collection of Kinetic, the fifth and final Promethea hardcover, the start of Warren Ellis's six-issue JLA: Classified arc (#10), and new issues of Albion (#2), Astro City: The Dark Age (#2), City of Tomorrow (#4), Hellblazer (#210), Legion of Super-Heroes (#8), The Losers (#26), The OMAC Project (#4), and Otherworld (#5).

Del Rey have the second volumes of Genshiken and Nodame Cantiabile.

Disney have the Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas Manga GN.

IDW have the final issue of Grimjack: Killer Instinct.

Image have the debut of the Kirby-esque Gødland.

Marvel have the digest-sized collection of Spider-Man/Human Torch: I'm with Stupid; the thirteenth Ultimate Spider-Man collection: Hobgoblin; the debut of Peter David's Hulk: Destruction; and new issues of Black Panther (#6), Machine Teen (#3), The Pulse (#10), Runaways (#6), and Spellbinders (#5).

Oni have the first issue of Ted Naifeh's new quarterly (?) Courtney Crumrin Tales.

Seven Seas' Amazing Agent Luna vol. 2 actually came in my comics shipment last week, but Diamond has it listed for this week, so your store may be getting it tomorrow.

TokyoPop have a bazillion volume sof manga, including the fifth Rising Stars of Manga contest collection.

Viper Comics have the final issue of Oddly Normal (#4).

Viz have the second issue of Shojo Beat (which also arrived for me last week...)



And finally, Avatar are release seven comics with twenty-seven different covers. No, really. That's at least $285 dollars worth of comics if you were to buy them all, which is about the same as it would cost you to buy the entire run of Lone Wolf & Cub. Guess in which way your money would be better spent?

New Library Comics: Week of July 18 2005

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


Bravo, Émile. Boucle d'or et les sept ours nains /[Paris?] : Éditions du Seuil, c2004.

Dorkin, Evan. Hectic planet /San Jose, CA : Slave Labor Graphics, 1998- v. 1-3

Martin, Pauline. La meilleure du monde /Angoulême : ego comme x, c2001.

Mead, Stu. The immortal man bag journal of art /Marseille : Le Dernier Cri, 1999.

Miyazaki, Hayao, 1941- Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind /San Francisco, CA : VIZ, LLC, c2004- v. 1-6

Scheibner, Reinhard. Holy shit /Marseille : Le Dernier Cri, [2002?]

Shelton, Gilbert. The complete fabulous furry Freak Brothers /London : Knockabout Comics, c2001- v. 1

Spiegelman, Art. Maus : a survivor's tale /New York : Pantheon Books, [1997]

Stripburek : comics from the other Europe. Ljubljana, Slovenia : Strip Core : Forum Ljubljana, 2001.

Quick GN Reviews

Doctor Cyborg, vol. 1: Outpatient
by Allan Gross & Mike Oeming

Inventor Malcolm Syberg has spent the past several years in a mental health facility, suffering from traumatic amnesia. And though he hasn't fully recovered his lost memoreis, he is still deemed fit to be released. Once he returns to his old home, he begins to suspect that he is not an ordinary man; that he has nanites running around in his bloodstream which make him a cyborg! Thus begins as odyssey that takes Malcolm from stopping a hostage situation to the future to the heart of an anti-technology cult. The plot progresses at a furious pace, with one adventure rolling right into the next. Despire all the action though, Gross still finds time to work in character development. Oeming's art is reined in somewhat by the adventure strip format that this comic originally appeared in online, but he proves that he can work just as well within a restrictive grid as he can on a full comic book page. If you're looking for a fun, exciting comic that's a modern take on the adventure strips of yore and relief from today's slow-paced multi-part 'epics,' then Doctor Cyborg may be just the thing.
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)



X-Treme X-Men, vol. 5: God Loves, Man Kills
by Chris Claremont, Igor Kordey & Scott Hanna

Boy, that Chris Claremont never met a comic panel that he doesn't think can't be improved by adding in several dialogue balloons or narrative boxes. Never content to let a scene speak for itself, he fills each page with so much description that the book nearly suffocates under his purple prose. The plot, which sees Rev. William Stryker--the X-Men's old anti-mutant enemy from the original God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel (which is reprinted here as well)--escape from prison and discovering a secret mutant haven in the Colorado Rockies, makes little sense as it goes along and falls apart completely when you think about it too hard. Logical leaps abound and characters act according to the dictates of the plot rather than on their established personalities. Kordey was in his 'rushed' phaze during the period these comics were produced, and it definitely shows. His storytelling is solid enough (Claremont could and should have disposed of about half of his narrative captions), the quality of the character work varies around in several places and not even the skilled brush of Hanna can always save it. I'm sure that it must have been tempting to doa sequel to one of the stories that was an inspiration for the X-Men movies, but this is one project that should have been thought through more before proceeding.
Rating: 2 (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.

In honor of Jim Aparo, who passed away last week, today's cover is Adventure Comics #438, the March 1975 cover by Aparo that features the Spectre and a bunch of gorillas with what appears to be murderous intent.

(standard disclaimer about gorillas not really being monkeys applies)

This cover was suggested by YACB reader Nuadha. Image is courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

James Turner interview

comicreaders.com have an interview with James Turner, creator of the upcoming Slave Labor series Ex Libris:

...Librarians have been subtly guiding human civilization for almost two thousand years. By emphasizing, or de-emphasizing, strains of knowledge, they are able to influence the development of our societies. They approach human knowledge as if it was a great Bonsai tree, and they cull and encourage it into the desired shape.

Turner goes on to lay out an entire secret history of librarianship, which is rather fun to read. I was already looking forward to this comic, and after the interview I'm even more excited.

Remember, as TangognaT says: "librarians really are the next zombies/monkeys/pirates/ninjas."

Also New This Week

Not mentioned in my New This Week for this week, because it wasn't on the NCRL, but showing up in my DCBS shipment nevertheless, was the second volume of Seven Seas' Amazing Agent Luna by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Carmela "Shiei" Doneza. This definitely would have been my Pick of the Week had I known about it beforehand.

Also in the box but not on the NCRL were the second issue of Shojo Beat from Viz; and the debut issue of the second volume of Craig A. Taillefer's Wahoo Morris from Too Hip Gotta Go Graphics.

The Pack is Back, Again

According to an interview on Newsarama, Marc Sumerak & GuriHiru will return to chronicle the adventures of everyone's favorite pre-teen super-heroes in a four issue X-Men/Power Pack mini. While I'd rather see Power Pack on their own sans X-Men, I enjoyed the first series by this team so much that I'll be happy to see them return to Power Pack in any form.

In the same interview, I also learned that GuriHiru is not some guy, but rather a pair of female artists from Japan who work as a team. They do some cool other stuff too.

For those of you poor souls who missed out on the first Power Pack mini, you'll want to check out the digest sized-collection coming out soon, as well as the Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius comic that collects the back-up stories.