This Week In Comics: 12/13/2006

[Clayface]

Welcome to This Week in Comics for December 13th, 2006 - December 19th, 2006!

This is the place to discuss the comics you've bought this week, whether it be a brand new title or old back-issues. We also welcome and encourage talk about comics in general - news you've read on comic news sites, the state of the industry in general, upcoming issues you're excited about, etc. All we ask is that you please use spoiler brackets in the event that your comments get too detailed concerning a particular storyline. This way the book won't be ruined for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

For a list of the new items shipping this week, please consult Diamond Comics' Shipping List (http://www.diamondcomics.com/shipping/shipping_121306.txt).

To find a comic book store near you, check out the Comic Shop Locator Service (http://csls.diamondcomics.com/).


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Highlights of the Week!



Clayface's Pick:

http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/6518_180x270.jpg (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=6518)
Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sleep of Reason #1 (of 5)



wonderfly's Pick:

http://www.marvel.com/comics/onsale/covers/1206/XFACT014cov_col_sm.jpg
X-Factor #14



Ace the Bathound's Pick:

http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/6471_180x270.jpg (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=6471)
The Spirit #1




-------------------------------------------------------------------------

[wonderfly]

It's a day late, (sorry) but here's the latest "This Week In Comics" folks!

Gargoyles Issue #2 came out yesterday, and I might've made it my "Pick of the Week" but I'm still mad about the wait inbetween Issues 1 and 2...maybe when that book can prove to me that it can be released on a steady basis, I'll make it my "Pick" again.

So in it's place, I made X-Factor #14 my "Pick of the Week", as it performs the amazing feat of consistently getting better with each passing issue! Making Pablo Raimondi, (the artist on the "Madrox" miniseries a couple years back) the ongoing artist for this title is a HUGE improvement for art on this book! :)

[Ed Liu]

My pick of the week is Darwyn Cooke's The Spirit. Preview at DC Comics (http://www.dccomics.com/media/excerpts/6471_x.pdf). Darwyn Cooke Rules. Gogettit.

Missed this, but Colleen Doran reports that she's going to be re-inking the art she did for the "A Game of You" story arc (http://adistantsoil.com/blog/?p=914) for the next Absolute Sandman edition. I remember reading a comment where she threatened to break the inker's fingers if he ever approached her art again (and, considering how horrid the art looks in "A Game of You," I didn't blame her), but apparently she's mellowed out about this over time. Or learned not to be quite so vocal about it. Either way, it's another instance of DC going the extra mile to make the Absolute editions as good as they can be (if you're optimistic), or another instance of DC trying to justify the unholy amount of money they charge for these things.

Also, check out the preview for the new La Muse webcomic (http://www.brokenfrontier.com/headlines/details.php?id=2154) coming from Big Head Press in January. I think it does a bunch of things right:

1. No unnecessary exposition. Like an episode of Law & Order, the comic jumps in as late as possible into the scene and lets you pick up what's going on as you go. The incessant need to explain that plagues a lot of superhero comics today is nowhere in evidence.
2. No poor "decompression." The big bang event of the comic happens right there on page 4 (http://www.brokenfrontier.com/img/2006/dec/LMpage004.jpg), after being nicely foreshadowed on page 1 (http://www.brokenfrontier.com/img/2006/dec/LMpage001.jpg). No spending an entire issue's worth of comic just to get to a big twist that could have been revealed 13 pages earlier.
3. Good writing. I mean this on the level that the writer lends the two sisters distinct voices and also pieces together something that has a lot of narrative drive. However, there aren't the usual homonym or spelling mistakes I've grown accustomed to in smaller-press and self-published books.
4. Good artwork. With the possible minor exception of the big bang event on page 4, the whole thing is clear as a bell. I also love the rendering of facial expressions on pages 3 and 4; the exasperation on the top of page 3 and the simmering anger at the end of page 4 "sells" the moments without requiring words. This is comic book facial acting on the level of Kevin Maguire or (more recently) Adrian Alphona of Runaways or Joe Abraham of Hero Squared.

This looks like Good Stuff. I even ran over to G-Mart to see if I could pre-order this book before looking at the article more closely to see that it's getting serialized on the web by Big Head starting in January. Already bookmarked their RSS feed, so we'll see how well it does.

-- Ed

[Stuckey]

I picked up THE SPIRIT #1 and JLA #4, but have yet to read either.

[Jin Kazama]

I picked up Bone: One Volume Edition, although I've yet to crack it open yet.

I've heard such really good stuff about it, but never gave it a shot. Once they put this out, I figured I would. That way, if it's good or bad, I only have to shell out once for the entire story.

[Terminatah]

My plan for this week is to get the DC Christmas Special (which I anticipate will be leagues better than the Marvel Holiday Special), the looong-awaited Gargoyles #2, and Escapists #6, rounding out that mini.

I read Ant-Man #3, loved it, and am probably going to STOP READING IT so I can better enjoy it as a trade paperback. The story for this book is all about long term, and the issues are about as self-contained as a minute of LOST. So buying the monthlies is too painful. Doc Strange #3 was also good, and I don't know if I'm going to keep reading that one, considering it's a mini like Escapists.

I don't know.

-Terminatah

[Xada-Hgla]

In comic-book related news, last Thursday I got the Joeseph Michael Linsner Dawn ornament.

[Ed Liu]

Comicon.com's PULSE News reviews one of my favorite comic-book Christmas stories: Batman Adventures Holiday Special from 1995 (http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=005831), on which the "Holiday Knights" episode of New Batman Adventures was based, even if they took the best story in the issue out of it for time.

Includes scans of some key pages, if you don't own this comic. You should if you don't. "Get some chains." Heh.

Along those lines, it's as good a time as any to link to the review of the comic on Dave's Long Box (http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2005/09/batman-adventures-holiday-special-dc.html). Awesome as always, but I think he must have a different version of the comic or something.

On an entirely unrelated note, Newsarama.com has posted part 1 of an interview with Jodi Picoult (http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=94768), the writer who will take over after Allan Heinberg's short and incredibly late run on Wonder Woman. I think she won me over with the following two quotes:


NRAMA: You've talked about how you want to have all five issues done in time for your next tour. How's that coming?

JP: It's coming well! (laughs) It's going to all be fine. My goal was to make sure my artists [Terry Dodson and Drew Johnson] had all of the books before I leave on tour, and I'm very well set to having that done.I don't know if I'll be able to mentally process a Wonder Woman comic that comes out on-time. Regardless, if the comic is still as laughably late as the current one, at least we'll know it ain't her fault. Unless she's lying. The fact that they're naming 2 artists also leads me to suspect where the weak link in the chain is in the current title.


NRAMA: You've done a lot of research for your books, such as living with an Amish family for Plain Truth and going on a ghost-hunting trip for Second Glance—

JP: Are you asking me if I've whipped out my lasso?Bwa-hah-hah-hah-hah!!

Of course, I love Devin Grayson's interviews and really dislike the comics a lot, so giving good interviews does not a good writer make. However, it seems that her heart's in the right place, so maybe I'll give her a shot after the Heinberg arc is over.

-- Ed