New Comics Day

Yes, it's that time again. I haven't read any of this yet, so these are just first impressions, and general rambling about What I Bought This Week. Try not to act too excited.

Mome #1 (Fantagraphics Books, $14.95)
This looks like the most interesting book this week, a new quarterly collection from about 10 indie comics creators spanning a range of styles: included are Sophie Crumb, Jeffrey Brown, John Pham, Paul Hornschemeier and others. The thing about this anthology is that it will feature the same lineup each issue, so every few months, you get to see the same old faces develop. From my brief glance inside, it looks like there's a subscription available, for $10 off the cover price of 4 issues. I'm considering doing that, since there's plenty of artists that I'm already a fan of, and plenty more that I've heard only good things about.

100 Bullets #63 (DC Comics, $2.75)
I used to be obsessed with this title, but that's sort of subsided. And I miss that. For some reason, I don't find it as compelling as I used to. Mind you, we're getting into some interesting territory, and starting to pick up a few loose threads from a year or two back, but the overall plotline doesn't feel as tightly wound, and much more is implied than shown or even told, leaving the reader to keep track of a lot of double-crosses and affiliations in order to make sense of the current state of affairs. Risso's artwork is even becoming broader and more exaggerated, especially notable in the development of the character design for Lono. I still enjoy this book, I just don't feel like it's at the consistently high level it used to be at. We'll see if this issue changes that at all.

Y: The Last Man #36 (DC Comics, $2.99)
Another title that's hit a bit of a rut, but we may be getting an injection of freshness, judging by this issue's cover. If Yorick's girlfriend Beth becomes more involved, and less of a background concern, then things could be taking a very different direction. But if this storyline ends with another female antagonist giving a speech about some historical feminine greivance before being gunned down, I'll...well, I don't know what I'll do, but it won't be pretty.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #194 (DC Comics, $2.50)
Man, the 13-year old me would kick my ass for buying all these DC comics. Where's your X-Men comics, Dylan? Huh? Traitor!

But I Digress.

This is passable superhero comics made more palatable by excellent Seth Fisher artwork, and some rather light touches by writers J.H. Williams III and Dan Curtis Johnson. So far, we've had a lot of setup for this re-telling of the origin of Mr. Freeze. I'm not too familiar with how DC's Batman line breaks down, but from what I can tell, this must be the continuity-free, anything-goes Batman book. Which essentiall means we get great playful moments like Batman giving out business cards and gathering a team of crime fighters who he briefs via 2-way video conferencing. It's Batman starting a vigilante corporation, which is sort of an interesting idea given his "real" background as Bruce Wayne, multibazillionaire playboy. Fun, lightweight material spruced up with an artist whose work I'd love to see much, much more of.

Blood Orange #1 (Fantagraphics Books, $5.95)
Another Fantagraphics anthology book, this one an oldie from Spring 2004. I just read the third installment of this series, and although I enjoyed it enough to backtrack and try to dig up the first two (the second issue is still MIA), I wasn't sure what, if anything, the unifying theme was supposed to be. There's a lot of experimental, sort of fringe work int he third issue, and lots of playing with form and media, but there's also more straightforward work. I'm not sure if this has any sort of "mission" as an anthology, other than spotlighting the included artists. Now, I'm not saying every anthology book has to have an ironclad theme running through every piece of material it publishes, like, say, Project: Superior or Autobiographix, but it does make it easier to consider the book as a whole. Why are these particular pieces grouped here? What does the reader and/or artist gain from experienceing them as a collection? Maybe issue one will put a bit more focus on that question for me...