Wednesday is the day that all comics companies send out new books to the local shops. When I tell people that I buy comics every week, they look at me like I'm nuts, probably because they don't understand the way it works. Let me try to explain it to you as best I can.
Comics are essentially serialized storytelling and comparable to TV shows in a lot of ways. Only instead of getting a new episode every week, there is only one a month. New books come out every week, but not every book comes out every week. Each title is generally monthly (bi-monthly on occasions and bi-weekly on rare occasions), but since comic companies publish so many titles, they stagger the release dates. Iron Man may be released the first Wednesday of the month and Captain America on the third. So there you go. That's why I go to the comic shop each week.
My list is getting smaller and smaller as time goes on just because, as I've stated before, I love comics but I hate storing comics. Seriously.
But beyond that, I still buy at least a couple every week. From now on, I'm going to post what I buy and do a quick review of each one. Also, I just finished a "What I Learned About Comics in 2010" article that should be hitting City Weekly soon, so keep an eye out for that. But since those are few and far between, you can get a little bit of a weekly comics fix here too.
And you wanted that, didn't you?
Northlanders #35I've always loved Brian Wood's work. His writing is great and his art is even better, in my opinion. Back when we were prepping We Are The Revolution, the Cherem record we released a few years ago, we tried to commission him to do the artwork. He agreed, but shortly after, his series DMZ took off and he became far too busy. We were bummed but understood. Still, it would have been awesome to have a Brian Wood designed Cherem record, right?
Anyway, his viking series Northlanders is always great. The only problem I have with it is the same problem I have with most of his ongoing, in that it always reads better in trades as a complete story, so I rarely pick up the single issues. This new story though, is only a two-parter and probably won't be collected for a bit, plus it's got Becky Cloonan on art, and her stuff just keeps getting better and better. The story is about an old man that finds a dead girl "buried" in the lake by his home and tries to discover what happened to her without anyone finding out. It was a great first issue, and I'm equal parts bummed and relieved that it's only two issues. I'm looking forward to next month.
New Avengers #7I've only been reading Avengers related titles since Brian Michael Bendis took over the line a few years ago, so a lot of the history of the team is lost on me. That said, Bendis still does a pretty good job keeping the uninformed reader like myself up to speed. But I just don't know how much longer I'm going to care about this team.
We just spent six issues readdressing the mystical side of the Marvel Universe, and I don't think there is any aspect of any comic book universe that I care less about than the mystical realm. I struggled through all six issues and the only reason I picked up this one is because I forgot to take it off my hold. This issue was a little better, but I'm still weary of where this is headed. I'll give it a couple of more issues.
Wolverine: The Best There Is #1I love Charlie Huston's novels and Juan Jose Ryp's art is great in the fact that it's so incredibly detailed that I'm amazed at how much he's able to pack in to a single panel. And even with both of those things going for a new book like this, it just reinforces how little I actually care about any member of the X-Men. I was so incredibly bored reading this issue that by the time I was done, I was sorry that I'd picked it up (I even debated about it at the shop, but went for it on the creative team alone). Huge let down.
Fables #100
There was a point that this would have been at the top of my reading list, but ever since The Great Fables Crossover last year, I've been lukewarm to everything that's happened. Hopefully this issue makes me fall in love with the book all over again. I'll get to it tonight.
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