Happy New Comic Wednesday - ALL of the comics came out edition!

 Yup, it's Thanksgiving week, so that always means there's a plethora of comics that hit to insure that you've got sequential art entertainment to enjoy after your foodfest! Always a bang zoom day when Saga and Walking Dead come out! This week's new Image title, Black Science, is written by Rick Remender and we have a special cover edition as well! Second issue of Damian Son of Batman (an Elseworlds story) and we see what Barry (Flash) was doing during Zero Year!

 Infinity concludes this week and there's a lot of titles such as New Avengers, Infinity Heist, Infinity Hunt, and the Wolverine and the X-Men Annual (not pictured, but on the bottom right here with the camera flash, is the new issue of Wolvie and the X-Men)! Nova #100 (!?!), Superior Spidey (Doc Oct against Venom!), and a new issue of All New X-Men!

The Sandman Overture comic on the bottom left is the special edition that has behind the scenes on how this comic came together, with transparent lettering that really shows how amazing JH's art is! This Deadpool Annual has an art style that evokes what the new Hawkeye series looks like (and the new issue of Hawkeye is out!) so I can't wait to read it (and I don't usually read Deadpool, even though I've heard this new run has been a lot of fun)! There's really way too many comics that came out this week for me to talk about and I have to get back to reading some of them, so I hope to see a lot of you in a couple of hours!

Black Friday Sale, Alternate Reality Comics style! We'll be open from 6am-7pm with FREE Ronalds Donuts, FREE beverages, and the following sale specials detailed in the Ich Liebe Comics! blog entry below this entry!!

Black Friday Alternate Reality Comics Style!

Here's how we're gonna do up Black Friday this Friday (naturally - grin!), November 29th!:

We'll be open from 6am-7pm!

Start off your day with FREE Ronald (vegan) donuts & FREE beverages!

Here's the sales details that will be happening from 6am-noon!:

EVERYTHING 20% off!! That means comics, graphic novels, statues, t-shirts, pop vinyls, back issues, & more!

Here's the sale deals happening all day (6am-7pm)!!

50% off all variants!

50% off all one dollar & two dollar back issues!

50% off all comic book sets!

HUGE restock of $10 graphic novels!

20% off all graphic novels!

$20 gift certificate for every $100 spent!

We'll also have a BIG display of specially priced holiday items, such as action figures & other  pop culture items!

(% off sales do not apply to already on sale items)

Hope to see many of my Alternate Reality Comics friends!

New Comics Wednesday 11/20/13 - A Voice in the Dark & Afterlife With Archie edition!

 A Voice in the Dark, written and drawn by Larime Taylor is one of the best debuts I've read in a really long time! I'm pretty sure that anyone who picks up the first issue will be eagerly awaiting the next issue! Two other new series favorites have new issues out, Afterlife With Archie and Sex Criminals (and we still have the preceding issues)! The book on the bottom left is a new Fairest original graphic novel, with a who's who of great comic book creators contributing (and how about this awesome cover!?)! Harley Quinn #0, a lot of people have been awaiting this!

 The first Nowhere Men collection - can't wait to read this, I've heard so many good things about this title! Look, it's the other cool cover of the second issue of Afterlife With Archie!

Yes, I've got A Voice in the Dark #1 in two spaces up front this week because it's that good and I want to make sure people don't miss it (end of hype, can't wait to talk to people about this title!)! Also today, there's a GORGEOUS new over-sized hardcover original graphic novel from Dark Horse called The Fifth Beatle The Brian Epstein Story!

Woman Rebel The Margaret Sanger Story; Peter Bagge

Woman Rebel The Margaret Sanger Story is a new graphic novel biography written and drawn by cartoonist Peter Bagge (Neat Stuff, Hate, are two of his previous alternative comic series), published by Drawn + Quarterly. 

Margaret Sanger was a pioneering feminist who championed women's rights to birth control. Peter Bagge's biographical graphic novel on Margaret Sanger spans her birth in the late 19th Century, her role as a mother, wife, nurse, and educator. Margaret Sanger traveled the world promoting birth control and went on to found Planned Parenthood (the name of the organization was one she wasn't entirely happy with). Peter Bagge is mostly known as a cartoonist whose exaggerated art style one wouldn't think initially would be well suited for a serious graphic novel, but Margaret Sanger wasn't always a serious person and many of her "adventures" in her home life and traveling to promote birth control are humorous. Additionally, Peter Bagge's unique art style turns what could have just been an average biography into a graphic novel that is every bit as lively as Margaret Sanger appeared to be.

Happy New Comics Wednesday 11/13/13; Zero Year / Walking Dead edition!

 Another great Zero Year issue of Batman! With Zero Year tie-ins this week in the second issue of Arkham War, Batgirl, Nightwing, and Green Lantern Corps! Second issue Superman / Wonder Woman and the collected first arc of Injustice!

 Galactus is still hungry in Cataclysm, we get a new issue of All New X-Men (they get new outfits), and a GIANT size collection of new X-Men stories in X-Men Gold (so titled because of the creative talents involved)!

Okay, issue #115 of Walking Dead set up All Out War, but with this issue, things REALLY get in gear! And a new Walking Dead collection, volume 19, for those of you who get your WD comic fix this way! Unity #1 is out, starting up a big event in the Valiant universe and Manifest Destiny, a new image title looks really good! There's also some great graphic novels this week including a new Adventure Time hardcover and an over-sized Hip Hop history original graphic novel published by Fantagraphics!

War Brothers; Sharon E. McKay & Daniel Lafrance

War Brothers is a new graphic novel written by Sharon E. McKay, from her novel about child soldiers in Africa and drawn by Daniel Lafrance. While War Brothers is fictional, it is based on real events happening in Uganda and elsewhere around the world (sadly).

Everyone probably remembers the name Kony, from 2012, as his name was all over social medium platforms as the horrible leader of abducted child soldiers. The children central characters of War Brothers are abducted by Kony's soldiers from their school (which was protected, but they were overwhelmed) and forced to become soldiers for Kony's Lond's Resistance Army, really just a a more self important name than what Kony really is, a thug of the vilest order. While the children abducted in this story have to make some horrible choices to stay alive, like their real life counterparts, War Brothers is also a story of hope and courage in the face of evil, and shows that even if a child emerges from this nightmare, they still have a difficult road in front of them.

Reading War Brothers is difficult, put it should be read and is definitely one of the most powerful graphic novels of 2013. Here's a little video which uses art from the book to give you a better idea of War Brothers: http://vimeo.com/60125256

Palookaville Number Twenty One; Seth

 Palookaville, written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist, Seth, started off as a very irregularly published comic book, now it's an irregularly published handsome hardcover graphic novel series. Seth is one of my very favorite cartoonists (It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken being one of my all time favorite graphic novels) and I'm loving Clyde Fans, which we get another chapter of here in Palookaville Number Twenty One. As much as I love Clyde Fans, which is a fictional story about a traveling electric fan salesman, I wonder how much longer the story is and how long it'll take Seth to complete this story (maybe he's having a "race" with another great cartoonist, Jason Lutes, whose epic comic book narrative, Berlin, started probably about the same time as Clyde Fans, also has one wondering when we'll see the conclusion of said story - the race being who can hold out for the end appearing longer).

 

The above sequence is another story from Seth's Palookaville Number Twenty One, titled, Nothing Lasts, which is exactly about what it sounds like it's about. This story is drawn in Seth's more simplistic style, but it's no less a great reflective narrative on what most people would call mundane things occurring in life. The third "story" in this newest Palookaville book is called Rubber Stamp Diary and is more semi-biographical (?) musings by Seth, drawn using a few rubber stamps he had made, with really bad lettering (of which Seth apologizes for). I'd have to say that Rubber Stamp Diary is the only thing Seth has done, that I can remember, that doesn't resonate with me on any level.

Palookaville Number Twenty One is pricey ($21.99), but it is a gorgeous production (except in my opinion, the Rubber Stamp Diary middle section) and it is a good, long read that you'll want to revisit in the future if you like auto-biographical, slice of life sequential art narratives. For those of you who aren't already rapid Seth fans as myself, I'm sure there will be an uber nice collection of Clyde Fans whenever it gets completed and I'm sure that will be regarded as one of those benchmark works of this medium.