Batwoman kicks ass!

Well actually it's really JH Williams III's art and Greg Rucka's writing that kick ass, but in Batwoman #1 (or as it's called on the cover, Detective Comics) Batwoman also does indeed kick ass. Not that I had any doubts, but in addition to some of the very finest art you'll see on a super hero comic, the story is really good also. Seriously, just look through this book at your favorite comic book store and it'll sell itself. The only people I can see not buying this book are people who don't like super hero comics or only buy Marvel titles (which I don't understand at all) - huge money back guarantee is what I'm saying here! The only two things wrong with Batwoman #1 is that it has ads and that it is standard comic book size (I wish it was a huge Life magazine sized comic)!
And remember JH Williams III and Greg Rucka will be here at my store and at Comic Oasis Saturday, July 11th!

George Sprott 1894-1975

George Sprott 1894-1975 is the new graphic novel by Seth (this was serialized in The New Yorker in the last year or two). Seth, one of my very favorite alternative cartoonists, isn't very prolific, but when he does produce a comic work it ranks at the top of the top shelf and George Sprott 1894-1975 is right up there with his excellent It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken. George Sprott 1894-1975 is an over-sized book, a format that beautifully showcases the excellent production values that comes with a Seth graphic novel.
George Sprott 1894-1975 , like It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken and his sadly unfinished Clyde Fans, is a work of fiction about a life lived. Over the course of the book we see George Sprott's life as a television talk show figure unfold through his musings and reflections and through others that worked with him and knew him in his personal life. George isn't an exciting character in any way, nor is he very well liked by others, but this in no way makes George Sprott 1894-1975 anything less than a thoroughly entertaining, engaging book that leaves the reader reflecting on their own life to date and how others may perceive that life. Seth is a very unique artist and his books are definitely worth checking out for anyone who likes Chris Ware's graphic novels and George Sprott 1894-1975 WILL be on many best of year end lists this year.

World Of Tomorrow?

Whatever Happened To The World Of Tomorrow? is a new graphic novel by Brian Fies (his first graphic novel, Mom's Cancer, was the first Eisner winner in the best digital comic category in 2005). Whatever Happened To The World Of Tomorrow? (which I'm going to shorten to World Of Tomorrow? for the rest of this entry because I'm lazy) is an excellent autobiographical and historical examination covering the New York World's Fair of 1939 up through NASA's space shuttle program of our current age.

The title of World Of Tomorrow? refers, of course, to the age old question that people have always had about what they were led to believe the future would look like, be it from works of entertainment or scientific discoveries that looked like we would all have personal rocketpacks and that extraterristial encounters were right around the corner. Well a certain amount of disappointment has occurred for people when their perceived expectations of the future (our present) didn't live up to what they were seeing from earlier technological advances or what they hoped would materialize from the science fiction or fantasy books or movies they'd enjoyed.

Brian Fies, in World Of Tomorrow?, relates this disappointment through the central character, a little boy, who first get excited about the possibilities of the future after going to the World's Fair of 1939 and continues to feel this excitement up through the U.S. landing on the moon. After a few other U.S. moon landings during the 1970's, NASA changed to the current space shuttle model and sending unmanned ships to other planets so for the central character of World Of Tomorrow? and many people around the world, space travel and what it promised wasn't as exciting as it once was.

World Of Tomorrow? isn't a depressing book about the failure of what scientific discoveries have delivered, rather it is a celebration of these advances and really challenges the reader to examine their expectations and to appreciate what we do have that's made our lives significantly better than life had been for most people in the past. Sure it can be argued that some of our technological advances are just fancy toys that distract us from actually living life or interacting with others and or that these scientific advances haven't yet reached most of the under-developed world's peoples, but as World Of Tomorrow? suggests, disappointment with advances largely comes about when there is a disconnect with unrealistic expectations and not being able to see the big picture of these advances.

Whatever Happened To The World Of Tomorrow? is a full color 200 page graphic novel for only $24.95 and when a person looks through the beautiful production values this book has, they'll appreciate that this price is the deal of the day.

JH Williams III & Greg Rucka t-minus one month!

As the cool flyer here details (with art by Charles Holbert Jr.), the new creative team for Detective Comics featuring Batwoman, writer Greg Rucka and artist JH Williams III will be doing a joint signing at Alternate Reality Comics (my store of course) and Comic Oasis on Saturday, July 11th. The fun starts at Alternate Reality Comics from 11-2pm and continues over at Comic Oasis from 4-7pm! The first issue of their Batwoman arrives in two weeks, on Wednesday, June 24th.
This is JH's cover for the third issue of Batwoman (Detective Comics).

To bring people up to speed on other books that JH Williams III's art has graced, he did the amazing Promethea (with Alan Moore), Desolation Jones (with Warren Ellis), Chase, Batman (with Grant Morrison), Justice Riders (a two issue JLA Elseworlds), and Son of Superman (a Superman Elseworlds graphic novel). For those of you unfamiliar with JH's art, this cover and the two page spread below from the first issue of Batwoman, should speak for themselves in respect to the level of quality and great eye candy you'll get when JH Williams III does his illustration magic. To check out upcoming JH art and news, check out www.jhwilliams3.com/.
Batwoman writer Greg Rucka, first came to the attention of comic book fans through his excellent Whiteout series (with artist Steve Lieber, collected into two graphic novels) and Queen & Country (collected into four graphic novels) from Oni Press. To superhero fans, Rucka is most known for his run on Wonder Woman and being one of the four writers on the weekly 52 series for DC. Presently in addition to Batwoman, Rucka is writing Action Comics and co-writing (with James Robinson) Superman: World of New Krypton and continues to write acclaimed best selling crime fiction novels such as Walking Dead and Patriot Acts. For more Greg Rucka info, visit his site: www.gregrucka.com/.

So post a note on your fridge or pick up one of the spanking 4 x 6 cards promoting the event at Alternate Reality Comics or Comic Oasis for what's sure to be a great time as JH Williams III and Greg Rucka share stories about their creative process (and more announcements about the signing will be forthcoming within the next few weeks so stay tuned)!

Color of Water

This week The Color of Water arrived and it is a great follow up to The Color of Earth. The Color of Water is the second volume in this trilogy, with the third, The Color of Heaven, to follow in a couple of months (I've got a blog entry on the first book, The Color of Earth, posted on Wednesday, April 8th).
>The Color of Water is written and drawn by Korean manhwa artist, Kim Dong Hwa, and continues the themes from The Color of Earth, coming of age, love, and a mother and daughter's relationship. Ehwa, the daughter, in this second volume, is now entering her early teenage years and her appreciation and understanding of what love and longing will do to a person intensifies. Ehwa's mother is in love with a traveling salesman and in The Color of Water, there's a progression on that front as well. Hwa writes and draws The Color of Water so beautifully that the subject matter doesn't succumb to the sappiness or cliches that often plagues the romance genre, making this trilogy a true ode to love.

I Kill Giants

I Kill Giants was a seven issue comic series by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura from 2008 which was recently collected into the handy trade paperback format by Image for only $15.99.

"I kill giants" is the war cry / mantra of Barbara (she's about twelve years old and probably has played too many role playing games), the central character of I Kill Giants. The first impression a reader of I Kill Giants will get is that this book is funny (which it is) and that Barbara is odd. Humor isn't the only thing that writer Joe Kelly wants to leave the reader of I Kill Giants with and it's that other thing that's ultimately going on in this book that will stay with the reader long after they've read I Kill Giants and artist, KM Ken Niimura, is equally at home rendering the funny, the kinetic, and the other things going on here (as anyone who's a long time reader of my blog knows, I don't like to talk about specific story elements, thinking they're better upon self discovery for others thinking of reading the books I flag).

Darwyn Cooke getting his crime on

This July IDW is publishing Darwyn Cooke's hardcover graphic novel The Hunter, an adaptation of Richard Stark's 1962 crime fiction novel of the same name. Scott Dunbier, special projects editor at IDW, last week was facebooking that "it is done" and I somehow weaseled a preview copy from him that arrived yesterday! Following is my spoiler free review / impressions / shout out for The Hunter:






Richard Stark, who wrote The Hunter novel, is the pseudonym of Donald Westlake, who was a very acclaimed crime fiction / mystery novelist (he died at the end of 2008). The Hunter is the first of the Parker (the central character of said novel) series of which two movie adaptations were made, 1967's Point Blank with Lee Marvin and 1999's Payback with Mel Gibson. I haven't seen either movie or read the original novel, but if I still had time to read "real" novels, The Hunter would definitely have been right up my alley.

Anyone who's already familiar with the artistic wonder that is Darwyn Cooke already will pick up anything he does. Cooke's first big comic book production was Batman Ego, a 2000 graphic novel which was an excellent year one Batman story. His next big project was the Catwoman Selina's Big Score graphic novel, but it was his silver age Justice League series The New Frontier (collected in two graphic novels) that put Darwyn Cooke on the map for most comic fans (Cooke was also heavily involved in the animated adaptation). Cooke went on to do some Spirit comics for DC, which was the perfect lead in title for The Hunter, the culmination of Cooke's obvious love of the crime fiction and noir genres.

Not having read The Hunter novel, I can't say how Cooke's adaptation compares, but from reading Scott Dunbier's introduction (which I'm not sure will be in the on sale version), Darwyn Cooke has nothing but the highest regard for Richard Stark's work (and conversed with him several times before his death) and now, upon finishing Cooke's The Hunter, I'm sure that anyone who likes crime fiction / noir, Cooke's art, and or the Stark / Westlake novels, will thoroughly eat this book up. Even if the story wasn't great (which it is as it is also written by Cooke who writes most of the books he draws), The Hunter is another dose of gorgeous eye candy that only Darwyn Cooke can deliver with a rich blue duotone color scheme perfectly suited to the noir sensibilities of The Hunter.

Parker (he just goes by the one name like Cher), the central character of The Hunter, is a tough as nails, no nonsense character, and to say he's not one of the good guys is an understatement. Parker is a very volatile character, which makes The Hunter a rapid fire reading experience. Reading The Hunter reminded me of Eugene Izzi (Booster, King Of The Hustlers, Invasions) crime fiction novels (back when I read crime fiction novels fairly regularly) that were populated with hard characters with their own codes. Anyone who has read Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' great crime comic Criminal, after reading The Hunter, will appreciate that Stark /Westlake was a huge inspiration (if I remember correctly, they've even stated this within the back pages of Criminal).

Darwyn Cooke's The Hunter will be debuting at the San Diego Comic Convention July, 22nd (where it's sure to be one of THE must have books) and at finer comic stores everywhere around the same time.