Took a look at the solicitations for the next few months worth of comics (May to July PREVIEWS, stuff coming out from July to about November). Of course, there's a lot of good stuff that Diamond doesn't carry, I'll post about a few of those in a bit.
In what's going to be a good year for comics, this may be the book of the year for me. Long after the original 21 issue run of Beanworld wound up (which will already be reprinted in two matching volumes before this one comes out, the already available WAHOOLAZUMA and the imminent A GIFT COMES), Larry Marder returns with a 212 page original story winding up the "Spring" cycle of his world's chronicles. The only thing that is better news that that is that Summer is underway.
ALEC SC YEARS HAVE PANTS LIFE SIZE OMNIBUS - US$35 - [JUL091081]
640 pages of Eddie Campbell's tales of "Alec MacGarry", some previously collected, some only printed once in various obscure places, some appearing for the first time in this book. I've got most of this stuff already, but with a chance to get it all (and the new stuff) in one handsome book, my only question is whether I should get this or the $50 hardcover version.
AL WILLIAMSON'S FLASH GORDON: A LIFELONG VISION OF HEROIC SC - US$29.95 - [JUN090912]
At 256 pages, it encompasses Williamson’s three stints of depicting Flash in comic book format: the legendary King Comics stories from the 1960s, the 1980 adaptation of the Universal Flash Gordon motion picture, and the Marvel Comics miniseries of 1994". Again, my only really issue is, hardcover or softcover?
THE TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN'S COMICS HC - US$40 - [JUN090668]
A 352 page anthology edited by Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman, including work by Carl Barks, John Stanley, Sheldon Mayer, Walt Kelly and more. Sheldon Mayer is the key one there for me, being one of my favourite cartoonists of all time, and with only the smallest amount of his work being readily available, so it's great to see him side-by-side with those others. Lots of other stuff I'm looking forward to in here, either old favourites or intriguing looking stuff that I'd never heard of before. The type of book I'd have loved to stumble on in a library at age 8, and will happily read at an age several multiples of 8.
GRIMWOOD'S DAUGHTER HC - US$12.99 - [JUL090942]
Reasonably priced hardcover of the short fantasy story by Jan Strnad and Kevin Nowlan which ran as a back-up in DALGODA back in the 1980s. Nowlan is re-drawing a few pages at the end.
TEZUKA'S BLACK JACK TP VOL 07 - US$16.95 - [JUN091097]
I haven't been paying attention, are they only doing hardcovers for the first few volumes? A shame, those looked nice. Anyway, I'm in the middle of volume three right now. Not my favourite Tezuka work, often the stories end just as they're getting interesting, but enjoyable stuff.
Rick Geary does a biography of Leon Trotsky "from his boyhood in the Ukraine to his fallout with Stalin and his moonlight romance with Frida Kahlo". In other words, the logical follow-up to his run drawing GUMBY. Anyway, Geary by definition is worth taking a look.
BOOK OF GENESIS ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT CRUMB HC - US$24.95 - [JUL091141]
While I'm not the biggest fan of Crumb, I've enjoyed some of his work, and found a lot of it interesting, and am curious what he'll do with this. The various samples that have appeared online certainly look very nice. Also available in a $500 deluxe signed edition, which you can order now for only $315!
ROSE GN GRAPHIX ED - US$10.99 - [JUN090804]
Jeff Smith and Charles Vess doing the prequel to Smith's BONE series, now in a smaller and cheaper edition to match the recently concluded colour editions of BONE. Really great comic, I liked it slightly better than most of the actual BONE series, so good to see it getting some wider exposure.
JEFF SMITH'S LITTLE MOUSE GETS READY HC - US$12.95 - [MAY091009]
And Jeff Smith's latest book, for the Toon Books imprint. I've read most of the books in the line, and there's been some entertaining stuff designed for early readers. Smith's work should be good, really spotlighting the Walt Kelly influence on his art, based on the cover.
TORPEDO HC VOL 01 - US$24.99 - [JUL090950]
New edition of Enrique Sanchez Abuli's Spanish crime comic, with art by Jordi Bernet and (for just the first two stories) Alex Toth.
STARSTRUCK #1 - US$3.99 - [JUN090953]
Fondly remembered old 1980s series by Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta returns, this time as a 13-issue series with all new colouring and various other new things.
TINY TYRANT VOLUME TWO: THE LUCKY WINNER - US$9.99 - [JUL090875]
As I've mentioned before I really liked these stories by Parme and Trondheim when First Second first published them in one smaller edition. Hopefully these new larger, thinner collections will do well enough that they'll continue to the remaining tales of "Le roi catastrophe".
USAGI YOJIMBO SPECIAL EDITION HC - US$95 - [JUN090896]
USAGI YOJIMBO #122 - US$3.50 - [JUN090039]
USAGI YOJIMBO #123 - US$3.50 - [JUL090055]
Lots of stuff from Stan Sakai to mention. Of course, the regular USAGI series continues to come out, consistently excellent as always. In addition, Fantagraphics has a deluxe reprint of the books from their days publishing the character, two volumes, 1200 pages (with colour cover gallery and other bonus material). But most exciting of all, YOKAI is an original fully painted Usagi hardcover by Sakai. All the fixings for some good rabbit stew.
While I've read a fair bit of the later Ninja Turtles stuff when other creators I was interested in worked on it (Rick Veitch, Michael Zulli, Mark Martin) I never read too much of the original Laird and Eastman stuff until the recent free reprint of #1. It was okay, enough to get me to consider this volume, collecting the first 11 issues and 4 early one-shots in one 544 page book.
GRANDVILLE HC - US$17.95 - [JUN090027]
A new book from Bryan Talbot, which is about all I should have to say. Video "trailer" over here.
FAHRENHEIT 451 GN - US$16.95 - [JUN090928]
An adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story by Tim Hamilton, looks pretty good and the story should work well in comics form. Hamilton did a good job with TREASURE ISLAND a few years back.
CAT BURGLER BLACK GN - US$16.99 - [JUN090909]
A new book from Richard Sala published by First Second. Sala's work is always interesting, if somewhat perplexing, and the publisher always puts together an attractive package.
GROO TREASURY TP VOL 01 - US$24.95 - [JUN090037]
The earliest adventures of GROO by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evaniér in one thick, affordable 336-page package. Hard to say no to even if you already have one or two copies of most of the stories already. Now where's my Groo/Conan crossover?
FLASH CHRONICLES TP VOL 01 - US$14.99 - [JUN090208]
BATMAN CHRONICLES TP VOL 08 - US$14.99 - [JUL090228]
SHOWCASE PRESENTS ECLIPSO TP - US$9.99 - [MAY090192]
SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE FLASH TP VOL 03 - US$16.99 - [MAY090193]
SHOWCASE PRESENTS HOUSE OF SECRETS TP VOL 02 - US$17.99 - [JUL090242]
QUESTION TP VOL 05 RIDDLES - US$19.99 - [JUL090237]
SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING HC BOOK 02 - US$24.99 - [JUL090294]
A few noteworthy things from DC, almost all reprints. I was enjoying Mike Kunkel's CAPTAIN MARVEL series (as I like to call it), sorry to see him gone from it for now, and will pick it up again when he comes back (or I'd pay double if he gets back to HEROBEAR). Of the non-Kunkel issues, I'll take a look at #6, with art by Stephen DeStefano. Also looking forward to a lot of cheap b&w reprints in the SHOWCASE books (good to see some thinner volumes, and the bigger volumes with only a small price increase), and some not-quite-as-cheap-but-still-not-expensive colour reprints in the CHRONICLES books (which I really need to get caught up on. Batman is up to volume 8?). And good to see the O'Neil/Cowan run on THE QUESTION continue, though I'm kind of bugged that they don't seem to be including the annuals. Oh, and that SWAMP THING, probably won't get it, but I mention it because just to note that if anyone is looking for an "... and meet the sun" moment the first few places to spot-check are
(a) see if the "Just say Uncle" dialogue appears when Arcane reveals himself
(b) check if a pin-up is awkwardly flipped (as seen in the image above) and inserted into the story to make sure the double page spreads come out right
(c) the cover of #29 (if included), see if it looks like the original or like this
(d) check if they restore the "Crisis" crossover pages removed in previous reprints
(e) look for some weird edits in the Gaiman introduction (if it's included at all), including a reference to "Steve Moore".
Man, DC has a bad history with reprinting this run of comics... And of course, could just fix all those and add all new screw-ups. Still, some great comics if you don't have them in any other form.
WESTERN GN - US$12.99 - [JUN090671]
Newest themed anthology from Accent UK. I liked a lot of the stuff from their previous ZOMBIES, and there are a lot of sample pages over on their website that look good, including a page from Steve Bissette's story.
WEASEL PATROL GN - US$9.99 - [MAY090625]
Never read these comics by Ken Macklin and Lela Dowling (from a back-up in FUSION and a one-shot, both from Eclipse), but I like Macklin's DR. WATCHSTOP and Dowling's work from a few other places, so it's worth a look. Preview available here.
NEXUS SPACE OPERA ACTS 3 & 4 - US$4.99 - [MAY091015]
The conclusion to the return of NEXUS by Mike Baron and Steve Rude. An enjoyable series, a shame about the delays in it coming out and other circumstances, I certainly hope that Rude finds suitable format that will allow him to continue doing comic book work.
Mini-series by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, both of whom have frequently done work I enjoy. Haven't read the short stories from various Dark Horse anthologies that introduce these characters, but I'm sure they won't be essential to enjoying this, so I might make it one of those increasingly rare new comics I buy in this format.
COMICS REVUE PRESENTS OCT 2009 - US$16 - [JUL091179]
The long-running comic strip reprint showcase changes format in the face of the changing market, as explained over here.
POPEYE HC VOL 04 PLUNDER ISLAND - US$29.99 - [MAY090847]
CAPTAIN EASY HC VOL 01 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE - US$35 - [JUN090893]
COMPLETE PEANUTS BOX SET 1971-1974 - US$49.95 - [JUN090892]
A few comic strip things from Fantagraphics that look good. Man, Peanuts will get into the stuff that I was reading in real time in the newspapers starting with the volumes out next year. Weird.
LONE RANGER COMIC STRIP COLLECTION HC - US$39.99 - [JUL090807]
Hey, Russ Heath and Cary Bates comic strips from the 1980s. A whole lot of them.
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