Pretty watercolors are maybe not the best reason to buy a comic book, but that's the best reason to pick up the first issue of Sky Pirates of Neo Terra (Image), a five-issue miniseries that features lovely, lovely work by artist Camilla D'Errico. Simon Bork did the colors.
The character designs are in the classic manga style; the story by Josh Wagner is merely serviceable, introducing the amusingly-named Billy Boom Boom, a glidewing pilot, and his friends. (The villain, the Pirate King, comes next week, I presume.) The comic book concept was dreamed up by Sean Megaw and D'Errico; Megaw proceeded to pitch it as a computer game, which is due out in the spring. So Sky Pirates could be considered a mere marketing device, but its very simplicity, and child-friendly approach, is oddly appealing.
Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu (Marvel) is a comic character who has been around since the early 70s. The new one-shot features 48 pages "in glorious black & white!" for $3.99, which would be a bargain if the book were any good. Four stories are included, with half the pages devoted to an overly pedantic, incredibly wordy, and dull tale by Jonathan Hickman, as Shang-Chi teams up with Deadpool to undertake a road race and ... I never saw the point. No spark, no sparkling wit, no nothing. Two other stories are OK, while the fourth turns out to a text treatise on Kung Fu. Not recommended.
The third issue of the long-delayed Bad Dog (Image) by Joe Kelly and Diego Greco finally appeared, a very pleasant surprise as I'd almost lost hope that the depressed titular character would ever make another appearance. Greco's art is wonderfully detailed and precisely savage, Kelly's writing conveys the existential crisis that Bad Dog is facing while jacking up the inventive profanity to new highs. I'm enjoying the ride.
I've loved the snappy writing of Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges ever since I re-entered the world of comics nearly a year ago. Jack of Fables #38 (Vertigo) rocks along nicely as we follow Jack's son Jack Frost on his quest to become a hero. Good and sharp. The parallel tale with Jack himself is a bit weird and unsatisfying; we'll see how they develop the second half of this four-issue arc.
On the other hand, I was all set to drop Justice Society of America from my pull list until I heard that Willingham and Sturges would be taking it over. I waited and waited, and now with JSA #31 (DC) we're two issues into their run, and I don't know why I'm buying it. Maybe the appeal of the JSA is beyond me, but they look like a motley crew of second-tier superheroes whose powers I can never keep straight, and all they're doing right now is bickering. Bleh.
I've got a handful of other titles I picked up this week from DC and Marvel, but that's all I've read so far. What comics have you been reading lately?
The character designs are in the classic manga style; the story by Josh Wagner is merely serviceable, introducing the amusingly-named Billy Boom Boom, a glidewing pilot, and his friends. (The villain, the Pirate King, comes next week, I presume.) The comic book concept was dreamed up by Sean Megaw and D'Errico; Megaw proceeded to pitch it as a computer game, which is due out in the spring. So Sky Pirates could be considered a mere marketing device, but its very simplicity, and child-friendly approach, is oddly appealing.
Shang-Chi Master of Kung Fu (Marvel) is a comic character who has been around since the early 70s. The new one-shot features 48 pages "in glorious black & white!" for $3.99, which would be a bargain if the book were any good. Four stories are included, with half the pages devoted to an overly pedantic, incredibly wordy, and dull tale by Jonathan Hickman, as Shang-Chi teams up with Deadpool to undertake a road race and ... I never saw the point. No spark, no sparkling wit, no nothing. Two other stories are OK, while the fourth turns out to a text treatise on Kung Fu. Not recommended.
The third issue of the long-delayed Bad Dog (Image) by Joe Kelly and Diego Greco finally appeared, a very pleasant surprise as I'd almost lost hope that the depressed titular character would ever make another appearance. Greco's art is wonderfully detailed and precisely savage, Kelly's writing conveys the existential crisis that Bad Dog is facing while jacking up the inventive profanity to new highs. I'm enjoying the ride.
I've loved the snappy writing of Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges ever since I re-entered the world of comics nearly a year ago. Jack of Fables #38 (Vertigo) rocks along nicely as we follow Jack's son Jack Frost on his quest to become a hero. Good and sharp. The parallel tale with Jack himself is a bit weird and unsatisfying; we'll see how they develop the second half of this four-issue arc.
On the other hand, I was all set to drop Justice Society of America from my pull list until I heard that Willingham and Sturges would be taking it over. I waited and waited, and now with JSA #31 (DC) we're two issues into their run, and I don't know why I'm buying it. Maybe the appeal of the JSA is beyond me, but they look like a motley crew of second-tier superheroes whose powers I can never keep straight, and all they're doing right now is bickering. Bleh.
I've got a handful of other titles I picked up this week from DC and Marvel, but that's all I've read so far. What comics have you been reading lately?
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