Here’s where we talk about collected editions: TPBs, hardcovers, omnibuses, Absolutes… anything with a spine!
The Trades Thread: volume two
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Songes v.1: Coraline & Songes v.2: Célia
I read the first one of these lovely French HCs a long time ago but only recently found out that the second, concluding volume had been published some years ago by Humanoides. So I reread the first one to refresh my memory before pushing on with the second.
The story, set in a slightly imprecise but likely Victorian era (or thereabouts) concerns a young woman, Coraline, who applies for work at a chateau where a young, somewhat precocious inventor boy lives with his maid and his butler, spending most of his time preoccupied with elaborate steampunk contraptions in his workshop.
As Coraline discovers more about the estate and its inhabitants she also starts to find her dreams coloured by her daytime experiences, with her strange nighttime adventures often leaving her in various states of undress – giving Terry Dodson the chance to draw lots of beautiful semi-nude and nude shots of the heroine as she also journeys through a number of different pulp genres – including pirates, shipwrecks, fairy tales, samurai Japan, middle-ages England, the Arabian Nights and a jungle setting complete with a Tarzan-esque figure.
There are plenty of allusions to other fantasy works – Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe loom large, and there’s also a touch of Mr Benn in the costumiers who equip her for her adventures at the start of each dream.
While there’s a definite sense of Coraline being objectified for the reader’s pleasure – with some of the characters treating her as little more than a sex object – the nature of Dodson’s cheesecake art is fairly innocent and playful. It’s done in a sort of semi-inked loose style that still manages to fit in a lot of detail, and coloured in a lush watercolour style that really pops in the European oversized hardcover album format. If you like his art and you enjoy depictions of pretty, curvy women then you’ll find a lot to like here.
After a first volume that takes quite a while to get going – it ends just as the basic premise has been set up – the second volume packs in quite a lot of plot and exposition that both explains and adds unexpected depth to what we know from the first volume.
Without giving too much away, it makes for a more satisfying and complete story while also making the whole thing feel a bit lopsided, with an unhurried start giving way to a rather rushed finale. Also, (and again with no spoilers) what we learn about the nature of these dreams raises a few somewhat disturbing questions that the book doesn’t try to answer, sweeping them away in favour of a happy ending that doesn’t quite feel earned.
Still, as a steampunk fantasy romp it’s a fun enough story, and at around 100 pages in total it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
With my working knowledge of French I also found it easy enough to read in its original language, albeit needing to look up a handful of words. The language is fairly straightforward and not complex or overly wordy. I don’t know any of Denis-Pierre Filippi’s other work, but this was readable enough, while at the same time feeling that it mainly existed to service Dodson and provide a reason for him to draw what he wanted to draw.
While I gather that this has been republished in an English translation, I also hear that the physical page size is reduced. So given the choice – and the fact that so much of the attraction here is in Dodson’s art – I’d definitely recommend these original French HCs to see it at its best.
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Good review, Dave. Dodson’s artwork in this is superlative. There is actually an oversized English hardcover edition too (which I have), but subsequent versions have been in the regular trim.
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Red One is excellent but suffers from being incomplete. The story is relatively self-contained though. The hardbacks are great quality volumes.
I’ve been catching up on Valiant – holding off until the Harbinger Wars 2 OHC was out definitely the right call for reading Kindt’s X-O run. Just got the second half to read now.
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I think there’s a problem with the DC model too. The type of material they are publishing (let’s call it Vertigo type material even if they don’t ant to use the name) seems to settle at around 12 -15k copies sold, that’s consistently their level. A level that is below their cancellation point as it is losing money ,they tend to start cancelling when books drop below 18k. At Image as they keep their staffing and overheads really low and take payment at the back end you hit a break even at around 5-6k copies.
So they’ve really been running for the best part of a decade with a model that is never going to work and it hasn’t so all the books gets cancelled early. All in the hope I imagine that one of them catches on as much as something like Fables.
They should think more outside the box. Would Constantine work as a series of OGNs if their primary market is bookstores rather than comic shops?
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I think it’s a bit of both, although I’m not really blaming as such.
It’s worth reiterating that this section of the comics book world, the adult non-superhero market, and especially the DC Vertigo stuff, has always been doing better in trade. The first Hellblazer trade came out in December; they had cancelled the book in August.
So yeah, this one is all on DC I’d say.
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Still, this discussion has convinced me to give the new Sandman books another go.
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Spurrier’s The Dreaming is a self- contained 3 book epic, with a definite ending. It’s also very good. I haven’t stuck around to read Wilson’s version.
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Would Constantine work as a series of OGNs if their primary market is bookstores rather than comic shops?
Given that Hellblazer is one of the few series that DC has stuck with recollecting en masse in new edition trades, I’m going to say yes.
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Still, this discussion has convinced me to give the new Sandman books another go.
The Dreaming is really good and of course Hellblazer was one of the best books published last year, certainly that I read.
I wouldn’t waste your time on The Books of Magic or House of Whispers. Books of Magic is completely by numbers. They put Dan Watters in to try help out on the writing on the latter, but it was too far gone, a lot of issues with the pacing and general flow of the writing.
Lucifer was pretty good though, pretty old school vertigo horror.
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I really enjoyed Lucifer too. DC really screwed the pooch with how they wrapped that up though – refusing to publish #19 as a single issue, the final part of a 6 part story. I’m not buying a trade I already have 5/6 of just to see how it finishes.
Goddamnit, Chris. Now I’m all riled up again!
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Is all the Sandman stuff finished now then?
If it is, it was also a pretty genius move by DC to manage to get all of this out and wrap it all up again before the Netflix series comes out. Brilliant strategic thinking right there!
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Well I guess they’ve got trades to punt now, at least. They can maybe get a new series out to coincide with Netflix for the floppy readers.
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Recent reads:
X-O Manowar OHC1 / Harbinger Wars 2 OHC / X-O Manowar OHC2
Best read as a OHC trilogy, this run of Kindt’s on X-O Manowar is a very smart piece of work. The entire thing is built around, even the big, flashy event arc that is Harbinger Wars 2, the standard concepts that come up in superheroes, but far more smartly and subtly executed. Kindt hints at a tragedy for the bulk of the first OHC, only revealing the answers in #14. The idea of the hero losing his realationships, of the person he loves, of a child dying is superhero normal, but the way Kindt tells it here isn’t. Kindt never goes for the easy, causative, quick tragedy answer. It might have been that the armour caused Aric’s kid to get – and die – of leukemia, but it might not have been. All that matters is Sana believes it and blames Aric and she cannot get past it. For Aric the reason is irrelevant, it changes nothing, his child is dead. So he runs, he goes somewhere else, but still end up getting involved, despite trying not to.
Having returned to Earth just in time for the Harbinger Wars 2 blow-out, Aric is perhaps more open to Livewire’s case than he might have been previously.
The second OHC, having shown how everything fell apart, spends its time on asking what is next for Aric. Where does he go now? What does he do? Kindt’s stories here make for both an effective resolution of his run and a clearing of the decks for Hannam to take over for the next volume.
The group of artists on this are all excellent, none of them are monthly artists either, which is why Valiant taps their skills by each just doing an arc. The three OHCs work very well together and read very, very well.
Once And Future Volume 2
Took a while for this one to become available cheaply but it was well worth the wait. Like with Hans on Die, Gillen has found an excellent new artistic collaborator in Mora. The other clever trick Gillen pulls on this is in ensuring the six pat arc we get concludes well enough on its own, but remains part of a larger tapestry. Mora’s artwork is superb too, so yeah, read this – highly recommended.
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Well I guess they’ve got trades to punt now, at least
That’s really what they need to look at, even in the 90s and early 2000s a line of Sandman spinoffs didn’t really stick.
Now they’ve all fallen away bar The Dreaming that got a new series with a new creative team. So maybe a focus on a single book, making it very high quality, will feed that trade market which we all know is where people who hazard upon the Sandman TV show will come from.
You give the Spurrier run two trades with a sub-title like The Dreaming: Daniel’s Buggered Off instead of releasing the next Wilson volume with the same name and a lack of clarity in what it is.
Comics publishers tend to always fall into the same old bad habits and in the US are very reluctant to approach things differently. They’ve got a hugely popular franchise that reaches outside the normal comics market and they don’t really know what to do with it other than the same marketing tactics they use for superheroes.
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They can maybe get a new series out to coincide with Netflix for the floppy readers.
Netflix series or not, a monthly series is only going to sell as many as any other Vertigo property (i.e. close to zero).
Sandman is only only every going to sell in significant numbers in bookshops, with Neil Gaiman’s name on it.
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Sandman is only only every going to sell in significant numbers in bookshops, with Neil Gaiman’s name on it.
To clarify what I mean:
The “general public” who came to our beloved characters via films and TV don’t know or care who the writers are. They care only about the characters. They are not fans of Stan Lee or Jack Kirby or Chris Clairmont. You could put any “Avengers” trade in a bookshop without a writer’s name on the cover, and it will see just as well as one that says by Stan Lee or Brian Bendis or Jonathan Hickman. Readers don’t know or care about those names.
Sandman is different.
The “general public” who made Sandman a massive hit in the 90s are fans of Neil Gaiman. I don’t believe any significant number of Sandman’s fan base will pick up a spin-off book that doesn’t have Gaiman’s name on the cover.
I don’t have any empirical or even anecdotal evidence to support that. But I know it’s true.
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I don’t believe any significant number of Sandman’s fan base will pick up a spin-off book that doesn’t have Gaiman’s name on the cover.
Easy fix, just small print “Based on the characters created by:” big letters “NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN!”
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I don’t have any empirical or even anecdotal evidence to support that. But I know it’s true.
(I think you’re right, but I had to do it)
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The covers of the latest books have ‘from the mind of Neil Gaiman’ on them so DC did think of that one.
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The “general public” who made Sandman a massive hit in the 90s are fans of Neil Gaiman. I don’t believe any significant number of Sandman’s fan base will pick up a spin-off book that doesn’t have Gaiman’s name on the cover.
Yeah, like Gar points out that’s why they had his name on the relaunch. But I think the new readers coming in with the Netflix show are a different matter. If you’re a fan of the Umbrella Academy TV show and walking into a bookshow looking to buy the books, you don’t know who Gerard Way* and Gabriel Ba are, you just want that book from the TV show. The same will go for Sandman, if the Netflix show is any good. So to prepare, you should have a new edition of all the Sandman books and make sure that any current sequel series are recognisable as connected to The Sandman. So the idea of the Sandman Universe wasn’t bad in that respect, and I would have thought that the coming series played into that, but… well, apparently not, eh?
*Unless you’re a My Chemical Romance fan, of course.
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Alienated –
Spurrier & Wildgoose – Boom
Si Spurrier can do no wrong at the moment. This is another great book. He flexes different muscles again on this, with more of a Young Adult vibe maybe close to tone with Morning Glories and The Woods. It’s the most immediately engrossing thing I’ve read in the last few weeks, other than the Ennis chapters of Crossed volume 4. It just lured me right in and like all the best comics it shut off my inner dialogue and I forgot I was reading a book. I can’t say the same for any of the Future State stuff I read this past few days, so this is a level above all of that. Spurrier is fantastic with characters and I felt he managed to avoid the black and white approach that a lot of books suffer from. Although I got a real sense from Spurrier that he has no time for the self righteous virtue signaller types at all, that he kept pretty consistent throughout the book. It’s a brilliant read and the art is also terrific.
Ive had ups and downs with Spurrier in the past in his 2000ad work, he’s got rid of his annoying dialogue tics now though and has established himself the past couple of years as one of my favourite writers.
9/10
Also really enjoyed
Trese
By Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo from Ablaze which is a monster of the week style procedural based on Filipino folklore. The art is terrific and the structure of each chapter (which were previously published as single issues) is quite different from most western comics.
Each chapter is well thought out and has a satisfying conclusion, which we seldom get in most comics because that normally requires the writer to think of an ending and stick a landing, instead of a lot of the modern day cop outs that are really common place in all entertainment. EG leaving it up to the reader to decide. Fucking lazy cunts.
Anyway this was good.
8/10
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Supergirl: Being Super TPB
I checked this book out after enjoying Joelle Jones’ work on the recent Future State: Wonder Woman book.
It’s a teen-oriented take on Supergirl’s origin story that’s light on superhero codenames and costumes and focuses mainly on teenage angst and high school drama. It’s the Smallville version of Supergirl, basically, a bit Buffy in places too, although not quite as sharp and funny.
It’s fine for what it is, and Mariko Tamaki creates a decent cast of characters that are fleshed out relatively well within the four issues collected here – particularly when it comes to Kara’s close friends and parents.
This is a story about Supergirl realising who she is and who she’s going to be, and on that level it works well. There’s also a (slightly hurried-feeling) supervillain plot involving one of Kara’s teachers and a second Kryptonian that is a bit underwritten and a bit rote, but works well enough to give Supergirl something to push back against in the back half of the book.
But it’s Jones’ art which is the real star here. It doesn’t get any better than that fantastic cover, but the interiors are pretty good too, with Kara and her friends feeling like believable teenage girls, a lot of character information conveyed through faces and body language, and a decent sense of wonder and energy created for the more fantastical stuff as needed.
My main criticism of the book is that it packs a little too much into the back end and leaves a lot of story strands dangling and somewhat unresolved (and as far as I know, there aren’t any plans for a continuation), which makes the whole thing feel a little bit rushed and unfinished.
But as a teen-oriented take on Supergirl’s origin as a hero it’s a decent enough read. I’ve given it to my daughter to see what she makes of it.
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I think SpeedyHen is only up to early June right now, with preorder active two months before release date.
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Catwoman v.1: Copycats
This is the second book after that Supergirl mini that I bought to check out some of Joelle Jones’ other work. It was ok, but not good enough for me to want to continue.
It’s a solo title spinning out of that time when Catwoman was going to marry Batman and then didn’t (remember that?) but thankfully it’s not really tied to that at all, and works as an accessible standalone story in its own right.
The trouble is, it’s just not that exciting. You have all the ingredients for a fairly good story – Catwoman moves to a new locale where she has a personal connection, but also rubs up against a local criminal family with political ties – but a lot of the developments feel like they only really exist to serve what Jones wants to draw without being more meaningful to the story than that.
So a fun early plot thread involving a small army of Catwoman-imitators provides a great punchline for the end of issue #1 (and a title for this arc), but fizzles out soon after that and doesn’t really get explained or go anywhere. Similarly, some glamorous scenes at casinos and high-class parties are initially impressive and well-drawn, but they don’t really lead anywhere interesting.
There’s also a lot of work done on fleshing out the backstory of the villainess (sadly the flashbacks change to a different artist, which sometimes works but doesn’t quite mesh here) but it ends up feeling pretty redundant and not really mattering to the story.
Ultimately it all feels a bit aimless and uninteresting, despite the lovely art.
I’ll probably give up on Jones’ stuff for now, at least until her new Wonder Woman series comes out, unless anyone has any recommendations for stuff that’s better than this. (Has anyone read her Lady Killer from Dark Horse? Any good?)
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Heads up, Brubaker has confirmed the Criminal OHCs reprints are set for April. They are doing a major print run, but once gone that is it so move fast.
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Doing a little bit of Amazon fishing, I found this:
Namor The Sub-Mariner Epic Collection v1
Out in April, so could possibly have been in solicitations (I don’t bother reading them any more).
Still holding out hope for some Western epics one day.
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I normally use Amazon US for trade listing fishing and since the pandemic hit, there’s not been much. I assumed that was because publishers had cut back production, delayed things etc and that it still hadn’t picked up. But I just checked Amazon Canada, on a whim, and it turns out, not the case at all. There’s absolutely loads of advance listings running well in 2022 on there. Amazon US just isn’t showing stuff more than a couple of months in advance, for whatever reason. Some interesting things I’ve not spotted before:
Starman Compendium v1 – 1400 page trade of Robinson’s Starman. Because why do the rest of the omnibus paperbacks when you can start a whole new edition?
Jesssica Cruz: Unearthed – seems to be an Elseworlds style OGN.
Absolute Wonder Woman by Perez
New 52 10th Anniversary Deluxe edition – cripes, has it really been that long?
Fourth World by John Byrne omnibus
Superman by Tomasi and Gleason omnibus
Green Arrow: Connor Hawke – another 90s icon that will likely be left unfinished but at least they’re acknowledging his existence, I guess.
Young Justice book 5! – which actually came out a few months ago and I somehow totally missed (despite having looked several times)! The blurb says “the final book in Peter David’s Young Justice” and I thought, surely it runs longer than that. Do they mean the final one they’re bothering with? But no, it’s got up to #55 which was the end of the series. I’m amazed DC stuck with it, frankly.
Some (more?) Gail Simone Birds of Prey
Roger Stern Spider-Man Omnibus (think this is possibly a reprint, alongside reprints of various other Marvel omnibuses)
Thor Epic Collection with the end of the Eric Masterson stuff.
Post Kree-Skrull War Avengers Epic Collection
New paperback Masterworks (doing the usual early 60s stuff) with what look to be Michael Cho covers. Could have sworn the Epic Collection was intended to replace these.
Generation X Epic Collection v1
Golden Age Captain America Omnibus v2
Dan Jurgens Captain America omnibus
Wolverine Epic Collection with the start of Larry Hama’s run
Captain America by Rick Remender omnibus – his name may not be in the title, but I guess they’re treating Falcon & Winter Soldier as a Captain America event worthy of a lot of tie-ins same as a movie.
Captain America Epic Collection: The Captain
New Mutants Epic: Sudden Death
Doctor Strange Epic: Vampyric Verses
Peter David’s X-Factor (the first one) Omnibus
Iron Man Epic: In The Hands Of Evil
X-Statix Complete Collection v2 – which is a bit of a surprise because I thought the first one hadn’t materialised.
Peter Porker Spectacular Spider-Ham complete collection v2
There’s also reprints (on new ISBNs oddly) of various out of print Epic Collections, including Cap: Dawn’s Early Light (which was one of the first Epics and the first to go OOP) the first Wolverine volume, Marvel Two-In-One v1 and the first Doctor Strange Epic, which is notable because it was originally printed in very poor quality by Quad Graphics.
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Plot twist: Young Justice Book 5 doesn’t actually include up to #55. It’s missing #44-55. Does this mean DC made a mistake and will publish a 6th volume? Does it mean the blurb writer was told to play up the fact they weren’t doing any more volumes and mistakenly thought that meant it had the rest of the run in it? With DC, who knows?
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Department of Truth Volume 1 trade now going for £7.13 at BooksEtc – have nabbed a copy due to all the positive chatter here about it.
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Hope you enjoy it! I think it’s excellent.
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Ordered. Thanks!
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Couple of good reads:
Trent Volume 6 The Sunless County
This as a great complete little tale of life in the frozen north of Canada around 1900, of the perils of the environment and what happens when civilisations collide, positive and negative.
Naomi Season One HC
Heard much about this and it really lived up to that! Some will say this is Bendis being very Bendis, but when’s he’s on form? And here he absolutely is, being very Bendis is no bad thing. He is aided in this by Campbell, whose art and colours provide page after page of perfect visuals.
The only flaw here is that I’m sceptical we’ll ever get Season 2 and DC fails to realise what they have in this character.
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Dealer Alert
World of Black Hammer Library Edition Volume 2 – BooksEtc – £24.80
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I think there’s a Naomi TV series coming (or guest in one of the CW shows), and she’s going to be in Bendis’ Justice League.
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Adventureman Volume 1
Is stunning. Needs to be seen to be believed. Oversized hardcover is the way to go with this though.
Breathtaking stuff.
The sort of thing that makes waiting for the trade the best choice
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I just checked Amazon Canada… absolutely loads of advance listings running well in 2022 on there. Amazon US just isn’t showing stuff more than a couple of months in advance, for whatever reason.
So, yeah. I figured anything we’re ahead would only be by a matter of days. Doesn’t seem so.
I’ve seen Justice League of America: The Bronze Age volume 3 (JLoA #’s 147 – 181) listed for a long time, but nothing on the US site.
July 6th 2021
2 covers – but the second one (with JSA & LSH) says Jan. 2nd 2080
Seems a tad long to wait.
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Noir: A Collection Of Crime Comics HC
I finished this Dark Horse collection of short stories today after dipping in and out over the past few days.
I thought it was ok – like all anthologies, a mixed bag, but there were some decent stories in here and not many stinkers.
A couple felt a bit shoddily constructed in terms of late twists that came out of nowhere, but only one was a complete failure – an ambitious story by Alex De Campi that attempts something quite complex with split diverging timelines that just creates a confusing mess of panels on the page.
The book offers a decent selection of creators too, in terms of quality (Lemire, Brubaker/Phillips and Azzarello/Moon/Ba are among the creative teams) and also in terms of offering a variety of different styles of art and story.
Ultimately it made me realise what a skill it is to write a decent comics short story though. Some of them succeed in telling a very tight story in just a handful of pages (the Brubaker/Phillips Criminal short packs a lot into six pages) but some clearly struggle to make it work and fit everything in elegantly.
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Swing v.3
This third OGN in the Swing series – spunoff from the world of Sejic’s Sunstone via a slightly tenuous character connection – wasn’t quite as compelling as the first couple.
The first book was about a relationship growing stale and a couple tentatively exploring the swinging lifestyle, and the second was about them dealing with the problems and benefits that came out of that for their relationship. But this third book feels a bit more directionless, and ends up falling back on some slightly forced dramatic developments to find somewhere to go.
Like Sunstone, this has always been a book that tries to mix relationship drama with gentle erotica, but somehow both elements feel more clunky and forced in this third volume.
It still presents a fairly grounded and sweet take on what could easily become a sleazy-feeling topic if handled differently, and the central relationship still feels well-drawn; you still care about the family and want the marriage to succeed.
But there’s a stronger sense of “male gaze” this time around: the various hookups seem to exist mainly to please the man in the relationship with little care or attention given to his wife, and he also gets away with a lot of slightly dickish behaviour – taking offence at innocent perceived slights from his wife and complaining about her spending too much time at work – with virtually no comeback (other than a scene that shows him to be a stand-up guy because he chooses not to have an affair!). And despite him enjoying multiple encounters with other female partners throughout the book, it’s his wife who gets punished by the story towards the end when something goes wrong with a new male partner.
A final cliffhanger tries to build interest for the next volume, but is a bit of a cheap soap-opera twist (and one that on the face of it doesn’t quite make sense) – and I’m not sure at this stage whether I’ll be bothered to come back for more.
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That Texas Blood v.1
Just finished my readthrough of this in TPB after double-dipping, having really liked it in singles.
I enjoyed it even more the second time around, where I picked up on a lot more nuances of how the main story arc all fits together and how some of the early setups get paid off later. It’s always nice when a second read lets you see certain aspects of a story in a whole new light.
But I think I might enjoy that first standalone issue most of all, just for how it sets up the vibe of this world and its characters.
In general there’s a real confidence here from Condon, a measured pace and a willingness to be quiet and slow at times and tell the story in its own time, and take the time to build up the location and characters and make everything all the more meaningful.
And Jacob Phillips’ art fits perfectly, like a great cinematographer who knows how to capture his subjects and his landscapes in the most vivid and meaningful way. His ‘silent’ sequences are some of the book’s most powerful moments.
This is a great debut and I can’t wait for the series to return.
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Alan Moore’s Hypothetical Lizard
This was a bit of a weird one. It’s one of these Avatar adaptations of an Alan Moore prose short story, and while some of those have been quite successful in the past (like The Courtyard), this four-issue series didn’t work for me.
I think that’s because there’s an inherent ambiguity and an open-to-interpretation aspect to some of the key developments in the original story, particularly when it comes to the shifting identities and transgender issues at play throughout. And as soon as you try and present those aspects visually, you have to make definitive choices that eliminate some of that ambiguity, in this case in a way that slightly undermines the uncertain mood of the original story (which is reprinted in full here at the back).
Also, the plot itself isn’t made particularly clear by the art that replaces some of the descriptive text of the original, which means it takes a bit of rereading and deciphering at times. And in general there’s never really a sense of getting close to the characters, with a lot of the ideas feeling somewhat abstract and not tethered to people we actually care about.
So despite some intriguing ideas and some nice, atmospheric (if slightly murky) black-and-white art, it’s an interesting failure for me really.
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Had quite a time. It’s also notable in the case of the two series below, both suffered from the same defect first time around – incompleteness.
The Dreaming Volumes 1-3
Being able to follow the play through of the pieces set up in volume one across the next two made all the difference. As a 21-issue epic? This is well worth the time and investment, especially where its principal villains are concerned.
It’s also worth emphasising that this is not a Sandman sequel in the sense of it bei9ng a story about Dream, it’s about those in the Dreaming. On that basis, it is a sideways sequel to Sandman that is very clever in what it does while also being emotionally satisfying.
Lucifer Volumes 1-4
Again, the follow-through to volume two aids this series greatly. I say to volume two because after that the second half is very much it’s own story. And after that? I could easily be wrong on this, but after this series? I’m not sure there’s anything left to do with the Lucifer character – this feels like a very final story.
And talking of finality, the Volume 4 trade no longer has Vertigo on the spin, just the Black Label logo, which feels a bit of shame. Still, it does make it rather official that whatever Vertigo was it no longer is.
Hellblazer Volume 1
Well, it’s a real shame some bawbag in a suit axed this series so damn fast. Of the new set-up, Nat is a hugely fun character. The stories here are good, the art is excellent, all this series needed was some corporate patience that it never got.
Oh and there’s some very sharp one-liner about the current state of things in the UK.
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The Department of Truth Volume 1
Well, this lived up to its reputation. This is a very clever and well-executed psychological horror, with one of its strongest cards being Simmonds’ art. Splash pages sometimes have a bad reputation, but here there are numerous examples of how good they can be in telling a story.
All in all, it feels a bit like Gideon Falls. Not really sure what the story is here or where it is going but I’m willing to trust Tynion and Simmonds have it all in hand.
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This arrived today. It’s the omnibus of the Morrison Action Comics run – exactly the same content as the three HCs, but oversized and in one volume (of a similar size to his Batman omnibuses).
A decent chunky book and I’m looking forward to rereading this run as it’s been a while.
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Yesterday they had copies of the Geoff Johns Flash Omnibus 2 for £43 but those can go very fast.
Apt.
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Punk Rock Jesus – Deluxe Edition HC
This week I reread Punk Rock Jesus in its deluxe hardcover edition, and I enjoyed it a lot better this time around.
The first time I read it I liked the art but wasn’t sure about how all the disparate story threads came together. But this time it felt a bit more cohesive somehow.
I think I also appreciated the balanced approach to religion more this time around. I think it’s a book that asks as many questions of hardline atheists as it does of fundamentalist believers, and doesn’t try to over-simplify the issues by presenting easy answers.
Plus I thought a lot of the social commentary around the reality TV aspects was quite well done when this stuff can often be heavy-handed.
Great art too – I just love Murphy’s style, particularly when it comes to vehicles and real-life details in the environment that help to bring a space to life. And it really sings in black and white.
There’s also a huge amount of extra material in this deluxe edition – it makes up around a third of the page count of the book – so if you like commentary and story development and art process stuff you’ll be in heaven.
A really great package all round, and it makes me keen to see how his latest project, The Plot Holes, turns out.
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I’ve been reading the old paperback collected editions of Penny Arcade the past few days. It’s a bit weird now that the books themselves are older than the comics were when the books were written. Gives it a dual layering of nostalgia, I guess. It’s a slightly bitter-sweet one, because I stopped reading the strip about a decade ago, (longer than I was reading it regularly) for various reasons but not least because the art evolved into a style very unpleasant to look at.
I know PA has a divisive reputation – which is fair given the amount of feuds and controversy they’ve gotten into (many of which I didn’t even pay attention to back when I read it, let alone after) – but most of the stuff in here holds up. Sure, some of its crude and occasionally a tad petty or impenetrably in-jokey when featuring people they know, but it’s frequently funny.
Anyway, the aforementioned nostalgia had me morbidly curious to see what the strip’s like these days and, well…
Don’t think I’ll be going back any time soon.
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Deadly Class v.1 TPB: Reagan Youth
I checked out this book on recommendation (having vaguely heard about it previously as part of conversations around Rick Remender’s work) and I thought it was pretty good.
Wes Craig’s art was the real star for me. There’s some brilliant and quite innovative stuff done here with the angled layouts and dynamic panel design that really makes the action scenes sing. The book flows beautifully and a lot of that is down to the art.
I also love the deliberately flat old-school colouring by Lee Loughridge (which feels fitting for the ’80s setting). I wish more modern books were confident enough to embrace that consciously flat 2-D style.
The story itself is ok, but loses momentum a little bit after the very exciting first issue as it slows down and starts to get more into the characters. Weirdly I didn’t find the school-of-assassins setup that exciting but the smaller character stuff is pretty well done.
I’ll probably pick up volume 2 at some point.
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I have read through Deadly Class Vol 4, Dave. It’s definitely worth continuing with. The whole series is about the messed up relationships between the characters. The way they twist and turn as the series progresses is fascinating. The events of vol 4 take a pretty sharp left turn that throws everything up in the air. I’ve bought vol 5 (and upwards) already but haven’t read it as yet.
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Blade Runner 2019 v.3: Home Again, Home Again
This was a really solid final arc to the Blade Runner 2019 series. Each of them has been good and has built on what has come before, and this one brings everything together nicely while also setting the stage for what’s to come next in the sequel series.
It’s that rare licensed property that delivers on the spirit of the original movie without being beholden to it or slavishly imitating it. There are references to certain characters and ideas and there’s definitely a through-line that ties this book to that film, but at the same time this comic is very much telling its own story in its own way, with a great central character of its own.
The writing is tight and without flab, the plotting is solid and the art is excellent- detailed and real-feeling without coming off as static and undynamic.
It’s as good as licensed comics like this get. Hopefully there’s a nice big collection of all 12 issues at some point.
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From what was said on the vid, X Of Swords has already gone out of print! More hazy on UXM Omnibus 4.
Problem is it is entirely case by case. Some turn up, can be grabbed but others do not. Ones that have very difficult to impossible to get in the UK over the last few months have been:
– War of the Realms
– Incredible Hulk Peter David 2
– Excalibur 1
Inferno is due end of March, Inferno Prologue due Sept or Oct, presumably Fall if the Mutants later still.
Hopefully, by then things will still be more stable.
One reason for optimism: The Slott She-Hulk omnibus was hard to get in the UK but SpeedyHen sent me my copy. So timing will be more variable but they might pull it off.
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I don’t mean to poop on your fire. fingers crossed things will get easier
I got X-men omni 4 fine from the speedyhen, pre-order, lovely price. I was worried but all okay. Same with New Mutants I think.
I completely missed War of the Realms, but that was cos I dithered, after it came out (there was still a copy on amazon for under cover price a month ago), I got a copy off ebay this week, new and sealed for a little over cover price.
What I’m after is Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus 1 – goodness that one – I thought it would be easy! Getting the League of Gentlemen Absolutes would be easier!
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Hey, I’ll happily nab the books!
I have UXM Omi 4 on order with SpeedyHen but not yet despatched hopefully they pull it off.
War of the Realms seems to be a case of being in the right place at the right time.
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It looks as though the Cinema Purgatorio collection might finally arrive. Gosh Comics are offering a bookplate edition due the end of March.
https://goshlondon.com/cinema-purgatorio-collection-tp-bookplate-edition/
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Whats the final verdict on X of Swords? Get the Hardcover or read in digital? Is it one for re-reading?
I gave my review the other day in the X-Men thread.
X of Swords to start with is an extremely well constructed crossover. It can’t be easy to do a 22 chapter story like that across many writers and artists and have it feel like a very cohesive story. There was one sub plot with the Hellions where I thought they’d dropped the ball and forgotten it and then you find out that’s deliberately left late in an amusing twist. It does though cover a lot of Hickman tropes, if you have read his Infinity and East of West a lot of elements are very familiar.
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Whats the final verdict on X of Swords? Get the Hardcover or read in digital? Is it one for re-reading?
Dragged on a bit, a chunk of the ending is pretty obvious based on a couple of things that happen early on. Pretty good art for the most part, some fun bits. Overall I thought it was good but not great.
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I initially thought it would be a rebinding of either issues or collections – but looking at the size – it looks omnibus dimensions and to my knowledge, the MM FF issues were never collected in an oversized form.
As far as I know you’re right. Same for the Fantastic Force and 1985 issues that are also collected there.
To have those issues at omnibus page size I assume you’d have to custom print them yourself (or have someone do it for you) – which is probably relatively easy today given that you can get hold of those issues digitally – and then get them bound.
But I’d be a bit wary of print/paper quality if it hasn’t been done professionally.
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So I just checked my open orders on Amazon.
One item is Vertigo: A Celebration of 25 Years, purchased in January of 2019.
Did this get cancelled and I (and Amazon.ca) missed it?
Or just pushed back indefinitely?I remember something about it should’ve come out in 2018 (to be 25 years).
Maybe they’ll push it back to 2023 for 30 years.Edit: Hmmm, considering the line is dead then more likely this project is dead.
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Hey Sean- love your new avatar. Is that George Perez’ Superman?
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The Green Lantern: Season Two, v.1 HC
I read through this over the past few days. Like a lot of Morrison’s monthly stuff it reads better in a bigger chunk – you can follow some of the more obscure threads from issue to issue a little more easily – but even then this is a bit uneven, with some story ideas more interesting and well-executed than others.
It’s Liam Sharp who is the real star here though, with a chameleonic ability to match his style to the story being told. There’s crazy detailed old-school alien stuff that’s like something out of 2000AD or Moebius one issue, then the next it might be a much more rendered painted style, then the next it might be a silver age throwback… he’s a really versatile artist and he manages to make it all hang together despite the changing styles.
With the twelfth and final issue of this second “season” due out very soon I might try and reread #7-#11 first so that it’s all fresh in my mind.
Oh, and this contains the Blackstars three-issue mini too (which is a lot of fun and gets a fair amount of mileage out of gently taking the piss out of recent DC stories and creators), so a nice chunky nine-issue hardback.
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Got to be good odds for an OHC collecting the entire 15 issues.
I’d bet more on an omnibus collecting all of season one as well – that’d be 27 issues.
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Yes it is (George Perez Superman).
Why that came up in a search for Kingdom Come Superman I don’t know, but I loved it and stopped searching.
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It’s odd that he only gave you the tracking number afterwards. And that it doesn’t show the destination. You could try checking it on an independent site (this one, say https://parcelsapp.com/en) and see if it gives more or even the same details.
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