| Trusty Henchmen

Reading Pile: 5/18/12

0

Tick #100: Tick Meets Invincible-Benito Cereno and Les McClaine are both great creators, so there are numerous reasons you should check this out besides the obvious. They have a lot of fun and even call back to the last cross-company mini meeting between Invincible and Spider-Man, so the fact that they recognize that continuity of events without being bogged down is great. They even have a fake gore fight scene that totally pokes fun at Invincible. While the $6.99 is a bit painful for only twenty-four pages of story (with a crapton of back-up material), I would still prefer to give that money to the Tick. A-

Reading Pile: 5/17/12

1

Queen Crab HC- $12.99 is sort of ridiculous for forty-seven pages of story. The story itself wasn’t badly written, but there wasn’t much of anything to draw me in and captivate. The character isn’t terribly likable, the mystery is never really explained which would be fine if I cared for the characters, and the art is fine but nothing to write home about. I appreciate that Palmiotti likes to do these little self-contained one-shot stories and more power to creator owned projects, but if I had donated money to this Kickstarter Project I would think twice about what I invest in for the future. C+

Reading Pile: 5/16/12

0

Dan The Unharmable #1- It’s sort of like if the Big Lebowski was invulnerable and was a PI. Conceptually there wasn’t much to it but it seems like Lapham and Ortiz just want to have violent fun. The $3.99 cover price is a bit much for twenty-two pages of story, but that’s the usual Avatar package and there are no ads. It seems like it can be a fun run in the wrong sort of way, but I still get wary at that price point. B

Featured Artist: Felipe Massafera

0

You ever get the feeling that the industry gets a little oversaturated by Alex Ross sometimes? Would you like to see a Dynamite cover that’s NOT by Ross at some point in the history of the company? Or would you just like to see a nicely painted cover by someone else? Massafera has a very clean and exciting painterly style that is obviously influenced by Ross, but I actually feel like his layouts and sense of motion are a bit better to a certain degree. Check out more at his DeviantArt page.

Reading Pile: 5/12/12 Pt 2

0

Transformers Regeneration One #80.5- I ended up remembering to grab only two FCBD books this year because I was just too busy, but one of them was definitely going to be this as I used to read and reread the last dozen issues of the Marvel run when I was a kid. I was just obsessed with the stuff back then, so please understand that I’m fairly biased in a positive light towards anything Transformers. No matter what complaints I may have about IDW at times (EXPENSIVE SINGLE ISSUES), they do have fun with this property and I enjoy the show they put on. Although this makes for like over eight separate Transformers continuities to keep track of, I’m been hotwired by DC and the multiverse to the point where I almost find it fun now to try and figure this crap out. A very nostalgic grade of A.

Reading Pile: 5/12/12

0

Epic Kill #1- Kudos to anyone who writes and draws their own comic and gets it published, but this is sort of the type of project that I wish the creator spent some more time on before releasing it. The art, while clean, is very stiff and comes off rushed at times. The anatomy needs some work as well as the back cover seriously has the main character depicted with two left feet. Unless that’s a super secret ninja move we’ve never heard of, that kinda means ‘back to the drawing board’ to me. The story has some potential but at the moment it reeks of the usual ‘sexy killer girl with amnesia on a mission’ scenario we’ve seen so many times, probably most from Image as well. Still, it’s twenty-four pages for $2.99 so it’s doing better than its competitors for content per dollar. C+

Reading Pile: 5/11/12

0

Earth 2 #1- While I am infinitely disappointed in how the multiverse has not turned out with this 52 relaunch, I want to give this a chance because I have a little faith in James Robinson as long as he is into what he is currently writing. For example, his current Shade is fantastic while his Cry For Justice and JLA runs just fell apart into a giant heaping mess. One of those projects he was interested, the others you can tell there was some editorial interference. Despite that, this title both vexes and intrigues me as it’s decidedly not what I was hoping for but potentially offers an interesting story. What makes the pill a bit easier to swallow as well is that I really do love Nicola Scott’s art and she brings a lot to the title. I’m looking forward to the possibility of Robinson having a new sandbox to play in with his overly melodramatic style, but secretly hoping this is still all a ruse to us getting back to the previous DCU at some point. A-

Reading Pile: 5/10/12

0

X-O Manowar #1- So far Valiant has done a fairly good job of marketing and pushing their new product, and I actually do hope they have a successful relaunch as long as they don’t oversaturate the market wih too many titles all at once like Virgin or Crossgen. The one thing they do lack is big name talent, and while I personally really like Cary Nord I don’t think his name will draw in a huge amount of people. Robert Venditti’s writing is solid if this issue is any indication and it’s probably best that they went with a complete relaunch and reintroduction of the concept. The $3.99 price tag is a little steep but it does have twenty-nine pages of story, so right there it beats out a lot of Marvel books. Overall I found it well produced but it lacked a certain momentum. It was good when it needed to be great, but hopefully they will build over time and create a solid brand. B

Featured Artist: Mahmud Asrar

0

Asrar’s style has some hints of the watercolor style painting of Dustin Nguyen along with the line art of Raphael Alberquerque. His art has impressed me since the 52 relaunch of Supergirl as he has a great sense of storytelling and layouts along with a great style and sense of design. Check out more of his work on his website. Read more about Featured Artist: Mahmud Asrar

Reading Pile: 4/29/12

0

Trusty Henchmen

Your favorite comics, graphic novels, artists, and all things superhero

You are here