On The Shelves: 10/04/06, by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Reprinted courtesy of Comic Book Commentary.

Reading is fundamental. Don't waste your time reading bad comics out of habit!

I finally stopped by Midtown Comics last night and got caught up on four weeks of comics, including Civil War #4, which pretty much sucked as bad as many people are saying. After a six-week hiatus, my weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 10/4/06, returns. Hopefully I'll start here and ease back into a groove over the next few weeks, at least until NaNoWriMo starts! The full shipping is list available at ComicList.

[NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure to take advantage of it. If not, find another one; or try Khepri.com or MidtownComics.com]

PICK OF THE WEEK


Strange Girl #11


AK ENTERTAINMENT INC
Aya #5, $2.95
Jalila #5, $2.95
Rakan #5, $2.95
Zein #5, $2.95

The appealing Middle Eastern slant aside, the first issues of all these felt a bit amateurish and I haven't checked them out since. It'll be interesting to see if AK has plans for collecting them as trades and whether or not that raises their profile some.

BOOM! STUDIOS
Savage Brothers #2 (Of 3), $3.99

The first issue of this one was pretty good, but I think my hiatus from the blogiverse might have cost me my spot on Boom!'s comp list, so no advance reviews this week.

DARK HORSE COMICS
Emily The Strange #3, $7.95

My wife picked up the first issue of Emily the Strange one day while accompanying me on an impromptu visit to Gotham City Comics last year, attracted by the artwork, but hated the writing.

DC COMICS
Detective Comics #824, $2.99
Jonah Hex #12, $2.99
Mystery In Space #2 (Of 8), $3.99

One thing about picking up your haul twice over a seven-week span is you end up culling your pull list when faced with the sticker shock that comes from an unhealthy stack of comics. Left a few DC titles at the store last night, but missed out on a few that I'd wanted to check out, like Mystery In Space. Any reviews of the first issue out there?

IDW PUBLISHING
Fallen Angel Idw #9, $3.99

I'm enjoying this series quite a bit. That is all.

IMAGE COMICS
Cross Bronx #2, $2.99
Fear Agent #8, $2.99
Strange Girl #11, $2.99

Picked up Cross Bronx #1 last night but haven't read it yet, but Brandon and Oeming together should be a good mix. If they pull a Fort Apache on the Bronx, though, I'll have to write them off. Fear Agent moving to Dark Horse is great news, and while Remender has said it's not in the works, I'm wouldn't be disappointed at all if Strange Girl made the jump, too. If you're not reading the latter, check out this interview on Newsarama.

MARKOSIA
Done To Death #3, $3.50
Scatterbrain #4, $3.50

Part of me expected to have heard Markosia had gone under by the time I got back around to blogging again, but it's good to see D2D and Scatterbrain hitting the shelves this week.

MARVEL COMICS
Criminal #1, $2.99
Incredible Hulk #99, $2.99

Ed Brubaker is the man, and excepting X-stuff, I'll pick up anything he writes. Planet Hulk continues to satisfy.

VIPER COMICS
Dummys Guide To Danger #2 (Of 4), $3.25
Villains #4 (Of 4), $3.25

Dummy's Guide... #1 was a fun read, and Villains has been one of the more intriguing bad guy-perspective comics in a while.

Books
Writing For Comics With Peter David SC, $19.99

I usually prefer the group perspective for writing books like these (though Stephen King's On Writing is an excellent read), but David's Fallen Angel and X-Factor are so damn good that I just may check this one out.