We believe as a result of a traumatic event in his past

Merrick the Sensational Elephantman (2015)

Chosen by me at thought Bubble, though I guess I should mention I know the sister of the artist, after all, as Jon Polito in the great Miller's Crossing is fond of saying - "It's all about ethics".

As you may see from the cover it is probably impossible to write a review of this book without mentioning the spirit of Mike Mignola.

I've always thought it strange that Mignola did not have a more obvious following of artists trying his idiosyncratic style, but that could be my ignorance showing, and maybe pulling it off is quite hard.

In either case kudos to Luke Parker who manages to capture that mood and tone very well, his face work is not quite as good, lacking some definition that keeps the characters from becoming iconic but the panel layouts feel pulpy in an interesting way and whilst it might not exactly have forged it's own unique voice at this point it feels on it's way to something special.

I saw the David Lynch film of Merrick's life many years ago but dont recall much detail, I have some concerns over choosing a real life figure to create a pulp-hero origin tale around but the first issue mostly plays it straight and it may be fascinating to learn what true events Tom Ward has constructed his narrative around.

An unusual comic, playing with some old tropes given a distinctive look.

Everything happened slowly and awkwardly

Nicholas & Edith (2014)

Chosen by me whilst at Thought Bubble.

A sad short story with some lovely art.

The painted style gives the whole thing a washed out, dreamy look that marries well with the fable-esque tale of selfishness coming back to haunt you. Or how you can let grief destroy you.

It's stinger may be obvious to anyone with a passing ghost story knowledge but it's effectively told, both charming and morose.

More work by Dan Berry can be found at www.thingsbydan.co.uk

She does not know her place

Skies of Fire (2016)

Chosen by me at Thought Bubble. Because it has blimps. Blimps are cool

Achingly beautiful each panel is constructed with great care.

Unfortunately that is not always the case with the pages as a whole. Sometimes the flow of action is a little hard to decipher and the narrative logic of a panel placement does not always seem natural.

This is the first Thought Bubble book I've looked at that is not a complete story, and it is a bit of a slow burn, spending a few pages just delivering some coffee.

But, oh boy, it is pretty.

The story is not much in the first issue, a pirate, an undervalued Captain who does things their own way, a complacent military. But reasonably interesting in a sketched in way and some cool Alan Moore style back up material fleshing out the world.

Did I mention how gorgeous it was?

You can find details of the comic and it's creators at www.mythopoeia.us

BBRRIIPP

The Fox (2015)

Another Thought Bubble purchase made on a whim from walking around the stalls.

A 'silent' comic. Being a comic with no dialogue (there is the odd sound effect here and there).

The story-telling is clear and concise with only one moment where it seems to lack confidence in it's visuals being enough and cheats a couple of speech bubbles (with an image and question mark inside) but otherwise is strong and interesting enough to sustain it's 30 or so pages without overly anthropomorphiseing  the lead creatures.

The art is very sweet even when dealing with the viciousness of nature and the story takes an unexpected turn in it's last act that manages to give a sense of conclusion to a slight tale.

Rather adorable.

You can find Joe Latham's work at www.lookhappydesign.com

There are no right sounds. There are no wrong sounds.

Soundimals (2014)

Chosen by me from the fine selection of interesting creative types 

to be found at the UKs best comic convention Thought Bubble.

A rather charming book of simple illustrations of many animals and the onomatopoeic words we give to them in differing countries.

It begins as a straightforward whimsical delight aimed at children (there is even a reading comprehension quiz at the end) but there is an interesting sub-text (well it basically spells it out by the conclusion so hardly 'sub') of imparting that our differences as humans in various countries should not need to divide us and instead we can find joy in celebrating the ways we perceive the world. 

James Chapman's work can be found at www.soundimals.com

Oh wow, look at this sudden display of masculinity

The Feminist Superheroes vs The Meninists

Chosen by me at Thought Bubble by just wandering around 

and picking up things that caught my eye.

I find reviewing comics much harder than films. My critical faculties seem less sharp, I'm never sure how to talk about the art and writing as a piece together. This doubles down for small press stuff. 

So I dont really have much to say on this.

It's jokey on the nose title made me pick it up and it continues in that vein through the small 10 pages or so.

It's funny, filled with hot button issues and silly gags.

The art is simple but sometimes the crammed panel layout reduces the impact of a joke.

Still, a slight but fun comic.

You can find work by the creator here silviacarrus.com

The 100% true story about the time I did (not) have a threesome

Let's Watch Gremlins (2016)

Chosen by me, picked up from Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival

Honestly I saw this cover and just had to buy it. Who doesn't want to watch Gremlins?
The answer may shock and surprise you.

I wanted to make a concerted effort to pick up some small press stuff from T-Bubs (as almost certainly no-one actually cool calls it). I havent been for years, but it was my favourite UK con. The atmosphere just felt a bit more refreshing from say the Bristol or Birmingham ones I had been too. But mostly my anxiety would get the better of me, and I'd always end up not going. 

This year a friend basically went "this is the coach, this is the hotel. Book it and come". So clearly I just need a social secretary. 

Gremlins (and especially Gremlins 2) is a favourite of mine. So that did the job of getting me to pick this up without knowing anything about it.

Of course the first panel had the dialogue "You hate Gremlins?!" given by someone to the author of the piece (it's an autobiographical tale). 

You would think this would not put them in my good books.

But the slim book is a charming, funny tale about how Joe Dante's masterpieces just keep getting in the way of a hookup with an attractive couple.

It is more of an anecdote than anything substantial, the person the tale is being told to is not named and has little depth but the coda still manages to be sweetly comedic.

There is a real sense of great comic timing, repeated panels are well used to sell the joke and an image of the attractive couple high-fiving is massively funny.

You can find Capitalette's work here www.capitalette.com

I pick up the stink of violent need

Daredevil Vol.2 #1 (1998)

Chosen by me from my shelf as part of Daredevil week.

Daredevil had been languishing and struggling for a while.

Along came Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada (later, alongside Bill Jemas, massively influential in shaping Marvel's future, with effects seen felt today) and put him on the map again.

Smith was the nerd's nerd. His films poems to geekdom. And his big weakness as a film-maker was visuals so letting a supremely talented artist handle those details should have made this a slam dunk.

It kinda did. 

This was the first Daredevil book i ever read. At a time when I still had little in interest in many comics, certainly super-hero ones.

At the time I found it a bit dull. And more than a bit silly. There was a shift in my brain that hadn't quite happened yet and stories like this could not find purchase.

That also occured with Buffy around the same time. Couldnt get past the name. Couldn't get past the silliness. Hated the first and only episode I watched (A first season one about a witch that isnt really that great) but thankfully I kept hearing good things and came back to that. Suddenly the valley girl dialogue clicked into place, I got the joke, and it remains a firm favourite.

A similar thing happened with super stuff.

And the second time, a year or so later I re-read the trade of Guardian Devil I owned and enjoyed the over the top narration, the rather ludicrous plot and all the men in silly costumes running around and beating each other up.

There are definitely some flaws with the storyline as a whole (its treatment of women is tiresome) but the first issue despite a two page sequence with Karen Page writing a Dear John mostly avoids that.

It doesn't hold up against the best of the Daredevil arcs, most of which I've briefly looked at here, and is - like a lot of people who come from a different medium to comics - overly wordy not always trusting the art to sell character moments. Which is a shame because the art is absolutely terrific. Quesada with Jimmy Palmiotti on inks and Dan Kemps colours positively radiating off the page.

Still is holds an important place in my personal history with Daredevil, the character I own the most issues/books of hands down.

To get up every day, to try to live--just feels masochistic

Daredevil #254 (1988)

Chosen by me from my shelf as part of my Daredevil theme week

Ann Nocenti's run is perhaps overshadowed by some of the more famous ones I've already covered but it's good stuff and worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the others.

It'd been a while since I read any of it though and I had forgotten how bleak in tone it was.

Nobody is happy in this issue.

Matt Murdoch is single minded, obsessive and forgets that he is not blind in the same way everyone else is. A young kid eloquently points this out to him. Which is a sometimes needed wake up call for a book that often only pays lip service to blindness. The kid doesn't need to 'see' like daredevil does, he needs to get on being himself.

The issue also sees the introduction of Typhoid Mary a potentially problematic riff on multiple personalities but so far removed from reality (she has telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers) that it seems less a commentary on mental health and more a mixing up of some horror and super-hero tropes.

She's such a weird, strong presence that she threatens to unbalance the issue as you kind of just want the whole thing to be about her.

This was also Romita Jnr at the height of his powers. Kingpin and Mary couldnt be more different but both present raw strength in compelling ways (I could also almost want to spend the issue just watching Fisk play squash) that contrast yet again with Daredevil's more lithe athletic movements.

She never cries.

Daredevil #168

Chosen by me from my shelf for part of my theme week.

Yes they spelt her name wrong on the cover.

Yesterday I teased today would be a look at the first time Daredevil became great, which is very unfair to some of the fun stuff that happened in the 166 issues between this one and the first. Especially some of the great art Gene Colan gifted the book with.

But daredevil often struggled with some lousy villains (Man Bull is not all that many issues before this one) and a sense, especially in the Stan Lee days, that character wise he wasn't really all that different from Peter Parker.

Frank Miller's work on this issue writing and art wise is astonishing. The fight sequences are fluid and interesting, the stakes seem clear and high.

It inserts a flashback in-between panels from the first issue, deepening Murdoch and quickly sketching a fascinating new character in Elektra Natchios (at this point repeatedly called a bounty hunter rather than Assassin).

The kind of hard boiled prose that would become Miller's stock in trade is evident in the captions running through the story but it hasn't corrupted into self parody at this point and attached to a story with likeable characters makes it more bearable than a lot of his Sin City nonsense.

A couple of issues later he would take a rather moribund Spider-man villain and give Daredevil his all time best foil. 

It's a really great run.

Her voice is like music! She's five-feet-four, young, and I know she's lovely

Daredevil #1 (1964)

Chosen by me from my shelf (essential volume so in black and white) 

as part of my Daredevil theme week.

Look how busy this cover is. Spidey and the FF are 100% not in this issue.

Daredevil is frequently one of my favourite superheroes. 

A boy blinded because of his selfless heroism, a man who works the law from in the courts and on the streets as a vigilante. It's a potent combination that isnt particularly taken advantage of in the first issue. Indeed his lack of sight is instantly ignored by 'plot powers' (later writers would approach this with more tact) and his legal profession barely features at all (he's quite happy Foggy has turned down a client that he had earlier beat up and tricked into given a confession).

Bill Everett's art is muscular and interesting, his villains the Fixer and Slade looking more like Dick Tracy characters than something from 1960s New York.

It's obviously a product of it's time, with Stan Lee's usual purpleness shining through and the odd bit of Marvel Style writing meaning major moments like Matt's accident not quite having the impact it should (we are told by a character looking at the scene that a canister has fallen off the truck and hit Matt but there is no canister to be seen and the truck itself is in barely more than two panels).

It's fun stuff for the most part but doesnt quite get how good a character it has on it's hands and pretty much treats him as a second rate spider-man. Something that wouldn't really change for many years (cue suspense music leading into my next review...tomorrow).

DD K.O.s Spot P.O.s Mob

Daredevil Vol.3 #1 (2011)

Chosen by me from my shelf because I've decided it's Daredevil week or something. I dunno.

Coming off of the back of a run which was basically Matt Murdoch having a nervous breakdown (the Bendis years) being in prison (Brubaker) and a mess of a story I barely remember (the normally reliable Diggle) Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin's relaunch was a breath of fresh air.

Straight forward but not condescending, old school but not wallowing in false nostalgia the first issue and it's back up story get busy with a back to basics approach and a firm grasp of character delivered with panache art wise.

It's still a crime book, starting with a Mob wedding but the shift in tone is evident as it doesn't wallow in misery at all and the pulp is more heroic than noir.

It may get lost in the great runs Daredevil has had (always going to be hard to beat Bendis/Maleev for me but the next volume was another of comics great double acts Waid/Samnee) but it's good stuff and well worth looking at.

today we hire mutant assassins and ninjas and half-man-half-god-knows-what--

Daredevil Vol.2 #26 (2001)

Chosen by me from my shelf. Another of the books that got me into Marvel comics in a big way.

I just didnt really think Super-hero comics could be like this.

It's seven pages before we even see Matt Murdoch, seven pages of a slime-ball gangster, more suited to The Sopranos waxing pretentiously about Julius Ceaser and being more than a little cynical about, well, super-hero nonsense. There is an inciting incident here, more than just talk (and I had read some of Frank Miller's Daredevil before this so was aware of the Kingpin enough to realise the events importance) but it's another six pages before we see Murdoch in the red. Chasing down Nitro (who would have a much more prominent role in one of Marvel's epoch defining series about five years later) the sequence is excitingly illustrated enough but a little dramatically underwhelming with a slight damp squib of a cliffhanger (i cant recall exactly, but I'm pretty sure I came to this run a touch later so probably picked up some back issues and read in one go meaning this wouldn't have been a problem at the time I read it).

Reading this now, it seems a little underwhelming but it has the weight of being one of my favourite runs of a comic ever on it's back I suppose and it's still really, really good.

Maleev's more photo-realistic dark art suiting Bendis' writing perfectly creating one of the great writer/artist teams (they may have done some Sam and Twitch together before this, I'm unsure of the timeline, but I read that many years later).

I understand your revolt

Persepolis #1 (2000)

Chosen by me from my shelves after a suggestion from Chantal, I think, to compare the book and the film but I couldnt find a copy of the film to watch.

A sweet, funny, sad and often caustic look at a turbulent childhood shoved around by history.

Satrapi's art is deceptively simple conveying a deep emotion through a few ink lines.

The story is split into small chunks each titled, small vignettes that add up to a portrait of a country in turmoil.

Sometimes the naive sensibility of seeing it through a child's eyes works to examine the horror in an interesting way, at others it seems (logically) reductive, but maintaining her young voice can keep it from too much misery and also illustrates how people can adapt to the situation around them (especially the young - in a neat bit her mother can't get used to the way inflation has rocketed prices which Marjane takes in her stride).

Well don't look at me! I'm not gonna rim or blow him!

Clerks (the comic book) 1998

Chosen by me from my shelf. One of my early non-2000ad related comic purchases.

Covert Art by Gilbert Hernandez

 Very, very juvenile and casually homophobic in the manner of a lot of 90s comedies.

It is often, those moments aside, still incredibly funny with the throw away sounding dialogue Kevin Smith uses great at capturing smart people talking about pointless things.

This issue covers the collectibles market, getting a few digs in at the bad shit that was happening to comics at the time (the variant cover scourge is still a thing now, but most collectors have stopped caring) but mostly stays focused on Action Figures - toys for folks with disposable incomes.

It's all incredibly wordy, no surprise to any who's seen a Smith film but Jim Mahfood's art is dynamic and exciting even when it's just two people arguing over a 'Leia-Porking Ewok'.

It holds an important place in my heart, part of the tapestry of things that led me into the wider world of comics, so despite it's weaknesses I still really love it.

Eagles will eat anything if they're hungry enough. we all do.

Monstress #1 (2015)

Chosen by me from my store's shelves because I had flicked through it on first release 

but not read it properly.

One of the most achingly beautiful books I have read in a long time. 

Every page, every panel seems crafted with such care and astonishing detail you could use almost any of it to be the front cover.

The story left me a little cold, it's the start of one of those fantasy epics with lots of names and world building I find hard to keep track off and I'm not really sure I care about any of that yet. 

But it works in the micro for sure.

It blends fantasy and horror and for fans of such things it should hit home hard.

okay, this is starting to get a little Eyes Wide Shut...

Runaways #1 (2003)

Chosen by me from my shelf because I reviewed the brand new Runaways (in good shops and others like mine right now) yesterday.

Covert art by Jo Chen

What if you found out your parents were supervillains?

Such a great simple hook. And the amount of kids whose eyes would light up when I told them that was the premise to sell the small manga-ish digest they used to publish was amazing.

Part of a Marvel initiative called Tsunami (terrible name) designed to combat the increasing market share of the massive influx of Japanese and korean books appearing in America, this was the only real lasting success (though Mystique and Sentinel were very good) even if it struggled to sell month to month (it was cancelled and relaunched within it's first couple of years).

The first issue is the usual strong Brian K. Vaughn start. He elegantly and concisely introduces each of the six kids and their parents so that they are all immediately distinct and unique. Not just from each other but also within their position in the general Marvel Universe.

Ably partnered with Adrian Alphona, on one of his first comic books, his art is crisp and  Christina Strain's colours bright and poppy setting this up as a sunny california cousin to the normal east coast super-hero shenanigans.

And a kicker of a cliffhanger (another Vaughn staple) that even I, who has read it many times before, had to continue on for a few pages before doing this review.

what do you call a runaway with nowhere left to go?

Runaways #1 (2017)

Chosen by me from the new releases out today.

Runaways never quite got the following it deserved. And Marvel tried, putting some great talent on board once the original creators had gone but the main premise had, ahem, run it's course and it floundered a little despite still being pretty solid.

It's hard to say from this one issue if it can recapture what made the Vaughn and Alphona run so magical but this is a very confidant start.

That said it has some problems as a first issue. It presumes a knowledge of the previous stuff that despite filling you in on the details feels a little confusing.

And only three of the Runaways appear. Which probably means this will read much better as a trade.

However, it does allow the issue to focus on one character in particular and dig beneath her skin.

The look at Nico's life is sad and complicated. It plays on her history, including with the fun book A-Force. It does a good job at getting into Chase's current mindset too. So if the format of this run is to zone in like this on each Runaway maybe it can be forgiven.

Kris Anka's art is not quite as iconic and instantly adorable as Alphona's but has a clean sense of storytelling and keeps the body types and faces distinctive and clear.

A must read if you're a fan of the old series, but maybe a little too inside baseball if you know nothing about them.

What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?

Giant Size X-Men #1 (1975)

Chosen by me from my shelves because sadly Len Wein, writer and editor of this comic, and many more, died very recently.

One of the most influential issues of a Marvel comic ever. 

The usual Marvel notes were there, squabbling heroes, spending as much time arguing with each other as fighting the big bad, an overwrought purple prose style that whilst perhaps very dated is charming in it's own way, a sense of turning over the past and bringing in the new (if the internet existed back then i'm pretty sure these upstart x-men would be raked over the coals of hell for daring to replace the originals - minus beast who is mentioned as being elsewhere).

The whole issue moves super fast introducing 7 new, or new to the X team, characters in quick succesion before they go off to fight a giant mutant energy fed living island. Which gets blasted into space by magnetic powers opening a molten core powered explosion causing gravity to cease. Or something. it's pretty bonkers. And great.

The new characters are all drawn from diverse backgrounds, a far cry from the WASPish original 5.

This is sometimes uncomfortable - Thunderbird and Storm are a little charicature but allows for an interesting, more pointed spin on X-Men's 'protecting a world that fears them' biz.

An era defining super-hero tale with excellent art from the reliable Dave Cockrum, giving everyone distinct mostly cool costumes (Banshee's perhaps falls a touch too much towards the goofy, like his faith and begorra accent quirks).

yeah, duh, you're my best friend

Ultimate Spider-Man #13 (2001)

Chosen by me from my shelf, breaking with the format a little here by not choosing the first issue of a run. But this is a special comic.

Remember Smallville where the main character was an arsehole who lied to everyone he loves?

Remember the episode of Buffy where her mom had died and they deal with that but still had a fight with a vampire?

Ultimate Spider-man issue 13 is the counter to those things that annoy me*.

Set for it's entire 23 pages inside Peter Parker's bedroom with just him and MJ for the bulk of it (May makes a funny appearance getting a couple of good jokes in and one of MJ's parents is off panel, the other end of a phone call). There's a tiny use of his powers, no fights and all the conflict comes from Aunt May worrying about "hanky panky".

And it is as gripping, hilarious and dramatic as any superhero comic could be.

Of course Parker, a teenage boy, can't keep his being Spider-man a secret from the person he loves most in the world. And her reaction is adorable. 

Bagley's work here is exquisite - selling each bit of acting required perfectly (look at Peter's face on the two panels of the last page) and some fine comedy chops (MJ falling off the bed is as good a physical pratfall as a static image could do).

Bendis' writing is top of his game. The characters are all likeable, real in their own way - even with his slightly stylised approach to dialogue.

Of fucking course Parker tells Watson. How could he not?

*I really like The Body, and I get the argument that just because she is in mourning doesn't mean vampires stop happening in Sunnydale but it cheapens the moment and says this is a genre teevee show where certain things have to happen each week.

are you evil, or are you really happy

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (2004)

Chosen by me from my shelf to tie in with a movie screening I went to tonight (by the delightful Fortune and Glory Film Club)

The first volume of Scott Pilgrim came out I think within my first year of working for Travelling Man. It was immediately obvious how good it was (and to everyone else, ordering it back in at that point was a pain in the arse). The final volume came out within the first year of owning my own comic store. So it holds a weirdly personal place in my heart, warts and all.

The biggest wart of all is definitely how much of an arsehole Scott Pilgrim is.

That certainly becomes a big point in the later volumes but re-reading the first one for this blog, 13 years on from first doing so my tolerance for him as a person is much, much less.

As the book is framed through his reality of video games and slacking it constantly tells us how awesome he is. Literally. In captions.

Knives Chau, his younger girlfriend, is a cool conquest (there is a nod to the western orientalism fetish though it is never criticised) for him to forget about as soon as a proper (white, older) woman, Ramona, comes along. You cant side with him, and the book - at this point - doesnt really pull him up on it. 

The sour taste that would leave is thankfully alleviated by a couple of things. 

One - Scott is shown as horribly immature (in the movie adaptation - to be covered on my sister blog Mondofilmaday very soon - that actually causes an imbalance as he seems a much better fit with Knives than Ramona).

And two - it's super funny and likeable in almost every other regard.

The jokes are terrific, pointed references, very quotable. Almost every character vivid and interesting. Kim Pine, the drummer for Scott's band Sex Bob-Omb, Wallace, the room-mate, and others feel like they could have whole books about just them.

The book mixes a very real grounded feel for Toronto with super silly stuff like magic powers and video-game logic and works it into a satisfying whole.

Wotcher 'Arry

Button Man (2000ad #s 780-791 - 1992)

Chosen by me from my shelf, in collected form.

I touched on a lot of books from the period in the early 2000s when I first started getting into American comics in a big way. But there were things I read before then. Bit of Alan Moore and Gaiman. Most especially 2000ad (and as a very young child Action Force/G.I. Joe). My first issue as a regular buyer (I had bought one previously a couple of years before and it seemed an exciting, barely understandable look into cool things adults probably wouldnt let me know about) contained the second part of this story. 

I was not to know that it was an unusual fit for the more sci-fi bent anthology.

But it's immediate brutality (a man gets a pitchfork thrown into him) and beautiful artwork made it a clear favourite of mine.

Arthur Ranson's art is even now astonishing. A Terrance Malick movie in seven page episodes with it's focus on the landscapes and nature just as important as the well defined action and clear story telling.

The story itself is a slight Most Dangerous Game knock-off but well told with short bursts of interesting characters at the sides (and even the main character, pretty much the dullest of the lot, has a skewed amoral notion of self control that was revelatory to me at the time) with a conclusion that is obvious but still packs a punch.

let us handle this one by ourselves

Gotham Central (2002)

Chosen by me from my shelves.

One of the things that was happening as I really got into comics is an influx of crime writers into super-hero books. Bendis, Azzarello and Brubaker and Rucka. All massively important with shaping my tastes in comics. 

And this is one of the best.

Like the previously reviewed Top Ten, this is greatly influenced by Hill Street Blues and it's ilk. 

A cop procedural that just happens to be set in the super-hero ridden Gotham.

How do police do normal detective work in a city filled with people like Mr. Freeze (Michael Lark's art is so good at conveying the more moribund cops and how terrifying a goofy guy with a freeze gun could be) and Batman (not seen in the first issue, and indeed most of the run, but whose presence is felt keenly)?

The dialogue has that crisp directness of a pulp but is filled with character and those little details that fill in a world.

Tense, funny, beautiful. DC has not had it's equal since it finished.

we're not using that name

Kim & Kim #1 (2016)

Chosen by me from my store's shelves. It's the first review of a book I havnt read more than one issue of and knew almost nothing about before picking up.

Cover art by Tess Fowler and Kiki Jenkins

A pure blast of bubblegum silliness.

Great fun, though with that slightly annoying over-the-top enthusiasm that can be grating this skirts that with a strong sense of character and design.

In the mold of anarchic books like Tank Girl or Rat Queens it zips along with punk glee, stopping for a cutesy and not overly clunky campfire talk setting up some of the "queer as fuck" (as the trade paperback advertises it) backstory and emotional beats. 

I can't wait to read the rest.

Writer: Magdalene Visaggio

Pencils and inks: Eva Cabrera

Colourist: Claudia Aguirre

Letterer: Zakk Saam

You can probably stop doing that now.

New X-Men #114 (2001)

Chosen by me from my shelf.

There is an element of "not your parents X-men" going on here that possibly rankled some fans (a line about costumes from wolverine, similar to one in the first Bryan Singer movie, irritates a little) but New X-Men 114 (they didnt relaunch with number ones quite as casually then) was, and still is, a blast of fresh air.

The costumes may have had a more movie inspired look but they really pop on that cover and the X-Men had never looked cooler.

It gave Scott Summers a bit of a personality beyond, stick in the mud, turning a moribund goody two shoes with red head issues into something more interesting.

Emma Frost isn't in this issue but if she isn't your favourite after this run, we may not be on speaking terms.

Frank Quitely, an artist I wasn't massively into from his Judge Dredd Megazine days quickly became my favourite. The book looked like nothing else on the stands, super-hero or otherwise.

Cassandra Nova may be a touch too complicated (this is Morrison writing after all) to be as iconic as a Magneto or even an Apocalypse but she is fascinating and unusual and scary as all hell.

I had read a bunch of Claremont/Byrne (and others) stuff for X-Men but despite thinking they were ok never really got on with them. After this run had been going for a short while I went back and revisited. 

Suddenly they all really clicked. 

It just took a sideways glance to get me to appreciate.

Writer: Grant Morrison

Penciller: Frank Quitely

Inker: Tim Townsend

Colourist: Brian Haberlin

Letterers: Saida Temofonte, Comicraft

I have a giant-size man thing call 555-3281

Top 10 (1999)

Chosen by me from my shelves, though a couple of friends mentioned it in response to the Y: The Last man review.

Cover Art by Alex Ross

A large love letter to shows like Hill Street Blues where the crimes can be interesting but the people policing them more-so.

It sort of functions like a police procedural version of Moore and O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen full of in-jokes, pages packed with references but it's less cynical and misanthropic than that book can be.

Well observed and very funny, it probably stands as my favourite Alan Moore work who is ably partnered by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon.

You're brilliant and funny and your favourite movie is Miller's Crossing

Y: The Last Man (2002)

Chosen by me form my shelves. This was one of my favourite first issues ever at the time and still ranks highly.

cover art by J.G. Jones

It could have been horrible. A set up that includes wiping out every mammal with a y chromosome, leaving only one man and his pet monkey as survivors of that plague. Thankfully it was generally told with grace, humour and a healthy dose of feminism. 

There seemed to be a great push in the early 2000s of kick-ass, interesting women in comic books. I reviewed one yesterday. This one has a few, and yet the product was still coming from mostly male creators. And it's hard to not be critical of that as a systemic problem. Gail Simone, one of the few big name female writers from Marvel/DC at the time has talked of Marvel's toxic boy's club mentality but thankfully Y: The last Man had it's own kick-ass female onboard with the supremely talented Pia Guerra.

Her work is so strong, an interesting mix of characters with distinct looks and equally good in dealing with horror, action, drama or comedy beats.

The first issue is packed full of great detail and sets up the world with quick strokes, not only setting up some of the character dynamics but also introducing many (some silly, some less so) potential hooks for why the plague had happened. Science or Curse. An apocalyptic backlash against the violence perpetuated on womankind. It sort of doesnt matter. But within each vignette is a great deal of information and exposition but doled out carefully, almost stealth-fully with elan from Vaughn and Guerra.

It offers up so much intrigue that I cant imagine anyone would read that first issue and not want the second immediately.

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan.

Penciller: Pia Guerra.

Inker: Jose Marzan Jr.

Colourist: P_amela Rambo.

Letterer: Clem Robbins 

I just want to feel something different

Alias #1 (2001)

Chosen by me from my shelf. One of the books that really got me into comics in general and marvel comics specifically.

Cover art by David Mack

The early 2000s were an interesting time for Marvel. They had just come out of a bankruptcy and the tail end of that weird Image comics influenced era where Liefeld ruled all. There was a lot of bad comics around (and a lot of good stuff too, as it ever will be) and Marvel in particular looked tired, hokey and irrelevant. 

In came Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada and really shook things up in a way that is still felt today.

Part of their initiative was given books to interesting creators and sort of letting them run wild. I'm sure I will be looking at a number of these comics before long, like the incredible Milligan/Allred X-Force run, Ultimate Spider-Man, New X-Men and lots more.

This was the time I started really getting into comics. I had read a few key books because my home town library had quite a good selection of trade paperbacks - Sandman, Watchmen, Miracleman Claremont/Byrne X-Men stuff but i was still mostly snobby about superheroes. Couldnt understand the point of them. Read a lot of 2000ad and judge dredd the megazine.

Couple of years before Alias' first issue came out I went to university and suddenly I had a local comic shop, never had before, and the world of sequential art opened up. 

To begin with I mostly got licensed stuff, Star Wars and the like. But books like the Kevin Smith Clerks issues got me onto Whiteout (leading to Queen and Country), Preacher led me to Hitman and onto the Batman books which at the time were being written by Rucka and Brubaker. New X-Men, a few months before Alias really got me into the marvel universe. 

It's a period in comics I hold a great fondness for and will return to a lot for these posts.

But today's is about one of my all time favourites. With one of my all time favourite characters.

Alias (which, whenever I mentioned it to friends I would have to say was not related to the Jennifer Garner teevee show) starring Jessica Jones.

Jones was a brand new creation, part Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, part Jim Rockford. The excellent maxi series from a year before - The Sentry had pulled a gag where it was claimed to be a Stan Lee hero everyone had forgotten about and Alias does a similar thing. Jessica is a part of the history of the marvel universe but she is entirely separate from it. Which was just perfect for a cynical newbie like me. She was my gateway into these baffling, silly characters with powers. She was funny and interesting but brittle and off-putting. If she could do the right thing and not allow for the humiliation of Captain America maybe I should give him a second look (and a couple of years later Brubaker and Epting's amazing run on that title would begin). but some of that would come later. 

The first issue just blew me away. 

The first word is "fuck". Now that may be a low bar way of differentiating yourself from the rest of Marvel's superhero output but it's impact is undeniable even now.

It's frank about how much of a screw up Jessica Jones is, not as part of an after school special on addiction or some such but just as part of her character.

From the very first scene she takes no shit from a man, who is dismissive and misogynistic (unsubtly he is portrayed in a 'wife-beater' vest), the next she uses a good man for sex (heavily implied to be anal) and refuses to feel guilty for it and then gets on doing her job.

Bendis' writing ticks and quirks are very evident, the Mamet style patter, repeated patterns and panels but had never really been applied to comics like this and offer a amazing window into the world of this drunk private eye. 

Gaydos has a great eye for character, Jessica feels real from the very moment we see her, and pages like the one where we have a collection of panels spilling down the page reflecting Jones taking in details of her client are beautifully simple but detailed. Showing you the way she thinks without having to rely on words telling you.

I simply love this book so much.

˙uᴉɐɹʇ ɐ s,ʇᴉ 'ɥo

The Tick (1988)

Chosen by me from my shelves at home. Which is why a lot of these are super positive.

The Tick begins it's life with a really well defined hero. The pompous voice, the desire for heroics, the general piss take of superhero tropes - all solidly in place in the very first issue.

If you come to it from the cartoon or even the first short-lived live action show you might be surprised by the darkness around the edges (a little swearing, some grim death - but only ninjas) but it's silly sense of fun is in place (we get a Clarke Kent parody for a couple of issues before any appearance of Arthur however).

Like another indie that hit big (much bigger) with a kids adaptation - TMNT, this functions as a satire of Frank Miller's Daredevil run (some of the dialogue could almost be used straight in the later Sin City when Miller basically became a parody of himself anyway), we have mention of the Elektra analogue Oedipus but don't get to see her in the first issue and it has plenty of ninja.

The best ninja. 

My favourite ninja of any pop culture.

not from issue one but one of my favourite comic panels ever

The art is sharp and crisp, cleaning selling the absurdity but with enough room for grace notes like The Tick's determined face as he is leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Elegant and powerful he could almost fit as a straight superhero except he will never quite hit that landing perfectly, but hey there is always a flagpole or two to snap off on his way down.

Writer/Artist: Ben Edlund

Letterer: Bob Polio

serves you right for falling in love with a person

Jughead #1 (2015)

Chosen by Chantal. And picked up off the shelf from my shop. This is the first review for a book I hadn't read previously.

For a while I considered I may be asexual. 

It would have made a sense of some of the confusion in my life. Even now I can be uncomfortable with people touching, especially hugging, me. I've never had any proper relationships. 

But I found I liked sex. Even given how bad at it I am (and normally when I'm bad at something I cant be bothered trying to be better but at board games and sex I'll keep plugging away, so to speak, as they're fun). Still, even now, in the middle of being a beast with two backs I can find myself in a strange sort of existential fugue, sort of like when you say the same word over and over and it loses meaning. A heightened reality where all the sweaty, grunting just seems so silly and weird. 

I'm not asexual, but Jughead is a hero for our age.

Jughead's disinterest in canoodling is never exactly a punchline, it can be funny - but because he is funny not because asexuality inherently is. 

And the first issue of the Archie comics relaunched for a more canny all ages market Jughead book is very, very funny indeed.

Zdarsky and Henderson work brilliantly together (the second Henderson book I've reviewed for this blog - she's really one of the greats right now), the character work is impeccable and the jokes thick and fast. A Game of Thrones parody may be a little low bar (and odd considering the child readership aspect of Archie comics - though that speaks to Thrones domination of pop culture I guess) but the flights of fantasy that continue into the next issues with differing flavours (a time travel one, a James Bond one) are great bits of silliness and deepen Jughead's character without being too on the nose.

A whimsical delight.

Writer: Chip Zdarsky

Artist: Erica Henderson

Letterer: Jack Morelli

It's not the bullet that has your name on it you have to worry about...

Queen & Country #1 (2001)

Chosen by me as it was from the period when I was really getting into comics and still seems like an exciting golden age to me as everything had the thrill of discovery.

Cover Art by Tim Sale

Just a beautiful 22 pages or so. Clean, smart, concise - it get's the job done (much like it's main character) with a minimum of fuss but is exudes of intelligence and confidence. 

Rucka throws in enough character details in in this first issue that stop it from being a boring exercise in sub-Tom Clancy spy-jargon but throws in enough verisimilitude that it distances itself from a lot of the James Bond knock-offs and walks it's own interesting path.

Rolston's art is bold and dynamic (and I can vaguely recall a bunch of criticisms over it's 'cartoony' nature at the time but now it seems just perfect, fresh and modern) selling the character acting as much as the action. 

Just really strong stuff and I miss this book being around (the last issue was about 10 years ago though a couple of novels came after that point I think).

Writer: Greg Rucka

Illustrator: Steve Rolston

Letterer: Sean Konot 

Man, Kraven better not have messed up my courses too

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (2015)

Chosen by Chantal.

Welcome to my new review blog 'Is It Wednesday Yet?' where I will look at some comics in brief (if you've somehow stumbled onto this without having seen my filmaday reviews - they tend to be short, light on information snaps of how i felt about a movie rather than what it is about, and feature way too many parenthesis). I'm not sure if I will do this daily (very unlikely) but for those who don't know, American comics tend to come out on a wednesday, hence the title of this blog and not necessarily a release schedule. 

A friend had been asking me to do something like this for a while so the first comic reviewed is one she asked for.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is pure joy. And not that I would want every super-hero comic to be like this but by golly I wish more were.

It has a fun done in one (most modern American comics are multi part stories) plot with as much emphasis on character building as action. The gags fly fast (it squeezes more in by having little punchlines at the bottom of each page) and the art and colour just pop.

It is very much a part of the Marvel world with neat jokes about the Avengers and a fun villain, who gets defeated by both brawn and compassion, which is a smart trick and marks this take on Doreen green/Squirrel Girl as something special.

Writer: Ryan North

Artist: Erika Henderson

Colour Artist/Designer: Rico Renzi