May 5, Cinco de Mayo, and also Free Comic Book Day for 2007. The shop
was packed (including a dozen or so little kids, which was heartening), so I
just grabbed a bunch of stuff and left. :)
As in previous years, I'm not going to review these as themselves...in
other words, I'm not really aiming at whether you should pick up these
specific books. After all, they're free, if you can find 'em and are the
least bit interested (and your shop lets you grab more than one title), just
snag 'em. Rather, seeing these as the advertising that they are, I will
decide whether I think you should consider picking up the regular titles, or
books by this publisher in the cases where these aren't tied to specific
titles. In some cases, of course, I will be biased by my existing buying
habits (BUY AMELIA RULES!), and in others I may recommend you look at it even
if I don't plan to buy it myself...after all, I know that there's plenty of
good stuff out there that simply doesn't strike my fancy.
In any case, keep in mind that these all interested me at least enough
to pick 'em up for free and write a few lines about, which puts 'em ahead of
a lot of books.
Heroclix: This year's FCBD figure is Batman from the upcoming
[correction: recently relesed...shows how much I follow Heroclix anymore] DC
Origins set, with the Detective Comics #27 costume. It's a big figure,
showing some scale creep in the line, but the sculpt is pretty good. The
stats, at least, aren't horribly inflated. Might be worth picking up a
couple boosters if this line is heavily retro-themed instead of just salted
with a handful of these sort of figures.
Star Wars Miniatures: A 9 point orange-trim Republic Clone Trooper from
Ep3 is the freebie this year. The overall quality of SWMinis doesn't seem to
have really changed, and they're still made of a rubbery plastic that's hard
to modify. I really just grabbed this to stand next to my Lego Clone
Troopers. Oh, and it has the "Order 66" special ability.
The rest of the comics are in a very rough "how interesting do I think
they'll be" order, although I keep the two Marvel books together and have the
smaller-sized books on top for reasons of stacking ease. :)
Choose Your Weapon Sampler: Tokyopop - Standard manga-collection digest
size, hence being first. :) Samples of Archlord, Gyakushu!, Phantom,
Utopia's Avenger, and Warcraft: the Sunwell Trilogy (all from volume 1's
except the last, which is from volume 3). Strictly speaking, most if not
all of this is not manga, it's manhwa (Korean stuff). Archlord looks to be
pretty standard fantasy-comedy, and Gyakushu! is some sort of horror fantasy
revenge thing, neither interested me. Phantom feels like an attempt to mix
Gundam with Patlabor...moderately interesting, but nothing I plan to pick
up. Utopia's Avenger is incoherent demon-slaying action with art I found
nearly impossible to follow. And the Warcraft thing was mostly just a big
battle scene that meant nothing to me and was almost as hard to follow at
times as UA.
The Black Diamond Detective Agency: :01 First Second - Chapbook-sized
with victorian penny dreadful looks to it. Eddie Campbell's new work, a turn
of the century terrorism mystery in which a train is blown up, taking with it
much of a small Missouri town. This appears to be simply the first third of
the upcoming book, and as a mystery it seems Campbell is deliberately trying
to make things confusing at the start. While this would work well for the
complete book, it's a bit frustrating in this teaser, in that there's stuff
that might be more confusing than it needs to be (in the, "wait, who's THAT
character?" sense). Interesting, but not enough to get me to order the full
thing.
Comics 101: How-To & History Lessons From The Pros: TwoMorrows - This is
a sampler of TwoMorrows' various magazines, such as Draw, Alter Ego and the
Kirby Collector. So there's a mix of creation tips and comics history. The
art stuff is, as one might expect, a bit too short to really be useful, but
Fingeroth's "Top Ten Tips For Writers" is helpful. I hear that if you go to
twomorrows.com on May 5-6 you can even download free PDFs of the latest
issues of the six magazines excerpted here, a good idea if you're interested
in learning how to become a comics pro.
How To Draw: Free Comic Book Day Booklet: Wizard - Promos for a quartet
of How To Draw books Wizard is putting out. Some interesting stuff, most of
which I've seen before, but except for Calafiore's piece on roughs it shares
the usual "how to draw" problem of being a mix of "too basic to help any but
the rankest beginner" and "too complex to be absorbed by any but a
near-pro".
Comic Genesis: Didn't see a Keenspot book this time. As usual, a
sampler of a bunch of webcomics from what used to be Keenspace and is now
Comic Genesis. The only one of the batch that I already read is the sadly
on-hiatus Green Avenger (if you don't read it, go to www.green-avenger.com
and catch up!) [Later note: So, of course, Abby updated on FCBD!]. The table
of contents looks helpful at first, but since there's no page numbers in the
actual comic, it's not as useful as it might have been. The level of art
varies wildly, from total crap through Indy Cred Scratchy or Manga Wannabe
and up to some really well-polished stuff. A lot seems to run towards
fantasy and slice of life (and at least one furry slice of life...am I jaded
to want furry comics to actually be something other than regular comics with
animal heads? Like, to have the species thing matter in the story? Bill
Holbrook has spoiled me.). Having gotten through the whole thing,
unfortunately, I wasn't tempted to go to a single one of the webpages for the
comics inside.
Who Wants To Be A Superhero?: Dark Horse - This is just a slim booklet
with the first few pages of the upcoming and long-delayed Feedback comic. I
guess they decided to push it back to coincide with the start of season two.
The Stan Lee writing is about as corny and dated as you'd expect, and the art
is murky and badly colored. I don't intend to pick up the regular issue.
Ape Entertainment's Comic Spectacular: Ape Entertainment - Anthology
showcasing several of Ape's books, with ads for the rest. Athena Voltaire is
a pretty standard "female Indiana Jones" sort with decent art, nothing really
grabbed me. White Picket Fences seems to be shooting for retro 50s archness,
and feels like it's pushing things too hard. The Goblin Chronicles is
promising, a fantasy series that, at least in this story, features a young
techie goblin prodigy. If the regular series is also about this kid, I might
well buy it. Teddy Scare is "spooky cute" stuff, nothing to write home
about. Go-Go Gorilla and the Jungle Crew has a sort of Captain Carrot feel,
but tries too hard to be camp. Bizarre New World could be interesting, but
it's solid narration with no actual dialogue, creating a sense of remove that
dampens any interest it might have generated.
Digital Webbing Jam 2007: Digital Webbing - An anthology, with E-Man,
Bloodrayne, The Fist of Justice, Zombie Highway and Punks. I had no interest
in Bloodrayne to start with, and this comic doesn't change that. Fist of
Justice has some nice Anthony "I want to be John Byrne" Castrillo art, but a
storyline that treads an overused downer path. The E-Man piece is mainly a
flashback on his origins and early adventures, eh. Zombie Highway has a nice
bit of character stuff, but doesn't tempt me into buying it. And the Punks
piece is just bad-stupid.
Liberty Comics #0: Heroic - Four done in one tales featuring the Golden
Age Liberty Girl, reprinted from various other recent comics. I pretty much
dropped Heroic's line over the past year, and none of these really inspires
me to return.
Nexus: Rude Dude Production - A collection of notable scenes from past
issues of Nexus, to help promote the relaunch this summer (well, it'll be
#99, so I dunno if "relaunch" is precisely the right word). The snippets
focus more on look and feel, although some of the background is included.
Each is introduced by a column of text presumably written by series writer
Mike Baron. Nexus is one of those titles I've dipped into once in a while,
mainly as a result of crossovers and events (I read a lot of other First
Comics books back in the day), but it never really grabbed me. Seemed too
full of "weird for its own sake" stuff. And while I'm sure some people will
be thrilled to see it return, I won't be picking up #99.
Justice League of America #0: DC - Eh, what the heck, it's free. :)
This bounces between "yesterday" scenes set in what's probably the new
rejiggered JLA history and "tomorrow" ones set in possible futures, with a
pile of artists contributing. Some good bits, but neither Meltzer's writing
nor Turner's contributions to the art (which are pretty bad IMO) inspire me
to pick up the regular series.
Buzzboy/Roboy: The Buzz & The 'Bot! #0: Sky-Dog Press - Some light and
frothy tales. One each with Buzzboy and Roboy, one in which they more or
less team up, and a bit of autobio from series creator John Gallagher.
There's also a short "how to draw robots" piece that focuses on really simple
retro "pile of shapes" robots. Decent, but I'm not really interested in
seeking out any of the series promoted.
Owly Helping Hands: Top Shelf Productions - This is one of those books I
recommend in general without actually buying it myself...but I do pick up
every FCBD copy. :) The main Owly story this time is, as usual, wordless
(but with symbol/picture word balloons), and has Owly helping a friend with a
gift idea. The backup is Korgi, a dog that can apparently light fires with
his mind, I think. Owly is a little too cutesy for me, which is saying
something. Korgi doesn't interest me at all.
Free Comic Book Day 2007 Marvel Adventures #1: Marvel - MA Iron Man and
Hulk stories, plus a Franklin Richards story. Within the constraints of such
a short piece in a "making up new continuity as we go along" setting, Van
Lente turns in a reasonably clever story. I might give MA Iron Man #1 a look
when it comes out. Paul Benjamin's MA Hulk story isn't as interesting,
though. And the Franklin Richards piece was...ehn.
Free Comic Book Day 2007 Spider-Man #1: Marvel - An all-new Dan Slott
and Phil Jimenez Spidey story, woot. Plus a preview of the upcoming
throwdown between Spidey and Iron Man. The main story may or may not be in
continuity, it's hard to tell (it feels like it's post-Back In Black, but
it's hard to say for sure, especially given that at least one dead guy shows
up alive in a crowd scene). Still, Slott puts together a fun story with
great Jimenez art...except that's not Overdrive, that's Crosswise! (This
moment of Transformers geekery has been brought to you by the Bugatti
Veyron.) The preview of Amazing #544 was okay, but I doubt I'll go back to
picking up that title regularly.
The Astounding Wolf-Man #1: Image - Oddly, this is the only version of
the first issue that's coming out, with the regular for-pay #2 solicited for
July. Kirkman and Howard do a decent job of setting up the premise, although
I feel like I've seen it before enough times that I don't feel much desire to
get that #2. It also has some short previews of other Image books, including
a monthly Brit by someone other than Kirkman.
Amelia Rules FCBD 2007: Renaissance Press - Sometimes, I think that FCBD
doubles the output on this title. :) But Gownley always puts new stuff here,
so I make sure to get it. A decent introduction to the main kids of the
title, although it leaves out a few of the second-tier kids (like Violet) and
all of the adults. It also features one of the most elaborate Reggie
definitions to date. There's also a backup of one of Gownley's favorite
comics, Apathy Kat, which is relaunching soon. It had some good points, but
felt too inconsistent, like its creator was splicing several different
premises together. It's also kinda disturbing that Ap wears no clothes and
physically behaves like a regular cat (curling up on a windowsill, for
instance) when all of his friends are more anthropomorphized (clothes,
upright posture, etc).
Unseen Peanuts: Fantagraphics - Dude, Peanuts strips from the 50s and
60s. This is one worth seeking out on its own merits, even if you have to go
to eBay or something to do it. Why? Well, if reprints over a hundred strips
that were never reprinted prior to Fantagraphics' Complete Peanuts series,
and even has a few that their collections haven't gotten to yet. Plus,
there's notes speculating on why a particular strip was never reprinted,
ranging from "it just wasn't very good" to "obscure topical references" or
"took the characters in a way Schulz later went counter to".
Dave Van Domelen, "I swear, you've gotta be the WORST bad guy I've ever
met! Seriously! Who owns a car in the city?! Insurance, upkeep, the price
of parking...no wonder you've turned to crime." - Spider-Man
Update: Titles added on May 9 -
Drawn & Quarterly Activity Book: D&Q - An excerpt from Lynda Barry's
"What It Is" scheduled for spring 2008, according to the cover. It has the
look of a schoolkid's doodling on various workbook pages and diary sheets and
so forth, and just screams "indie comic" in jagged, hard to read letters.
Not that the letters of the actual comic are hard to read, just the layout.
It's not so much a story itself as it is about the process of trying to come
up with a story. Barry seems to be attacking her writer's block with the
verbal equivalent of Vicious Whispers' "army of scribblies" here. Part
guidebook, part diary, part writing just to get something on the page and
avoid total freezeup. My first impression was pretty harsh (along the lines
of "pretentious indie crap"), but I erased a lot of my original review after
getting a few pages in. It still gives a bad first impression, but it's a
decent read if you can get past the surface features. It's an odd mix of
structure and imagination, which I suppose can help some people improve their
writing, but didn't really speak to me. In other words, I won't be picking
up the full book this is excerpted from, but you might find some stuff in
here useful.
Daystar Studios 2007 Previews: Daystar Studios Entertainment - A few
pages and cover images from each of several Daystar books. The Quest looks
to be a fantasy comic with a somewhat bludgeony religious message. The art
is okay, but the storytelling jumps around enough to be annoying. The fact
that the cover for Love Gun has the artist's signature in a little fake
scroll tells me all I need to know about it...avoid. It's some kind of
future cyberpunk Spawn imitation crap. The other titles mentioned only show
a cover, if that. Daystar's slogan on the cover is, "We Make Movies You Can
Read." More like movies I can avoid even on cable.
Love and Capes #4: Maerkle Press - This is the regular issue 4, not a
reprint or anything. The inside front cover introduces the main charactes,
who at first glance look to be yet another set of Superman/Batman/Wonder
Woman pastiches, although a Spider-Man copy shows up this issue. It calls
itself a super sitcom...and given that I generally don't watch sitcoms (or
particularly like them), that's a bad sign. The half-transparent speech
bubbles are another bad sign, as they make it just that little bit harder to
read when the background is busy. Despite all that, it's okay. Among the
various cliches (both superhero and sitcom) there's some good bits here and
there. Not enough to get me interested in picking up further issues, but
enough I don't regret the time spent reading this one.
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