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Top Five Picks…Buy These Right Now.
1. Zombies: The Cursed #2 (Zenescope).
2. Elephantmen #50 (Image).
3. The Wake #2 (Vertigo).
4. Trinity of Sin: Pandora #1 (DC).
5. The Final Plague #1 (Action Lab).
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Hello folks. As I write this, I am down south near the equator admiring the palm trees and elephants. The occasional water buffalo. No, I am not at SDCC (or the San Diego Zoo). Nor, sadly, am I on vacation. I am doing the wicked work of screening comics on your behalf in the tropics. I just have to do it from here because I need to keep on the move – if I stay in one place too long, they will find me. I am sure you can relate. So for a few weeks it is coconut water for me (directly from an actual coconut, not a plastic bottle), then I move on to hiding out in a mountain cabin for a while, then it is back to cow country for the Fall. Reading horror comics all along the way.
Happy summer.
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Screwed #2 (Zenescope). In 1992, I was unemployed and trying to think of something to do with my life. The best way to analyze my options, I decided, was to drink cheap beer (Meister Brau) and watch movies on cable. At the time, cable TV was still kind of a novelty in rural Indiana, at least among my peer group, so it was not as bad an idea as it might seem now. One movie that was on at least once a day was called Frankenhooker. The plot concerns a medical student whose girlfriend is decapitated. To solve the problem, he decides to drink cheap beer and watch movies on cable. No. He saves her head and decides to build a new body for her out of pieces of streetwalkers. It is a weird little black comedy that at once is not a terrific film but is also entirely unforgettable. Reading Screwed, the first thing that leapt to my mind was Frankenhooker. The comic is about a young woman who wakes up to find her body covered in scars, like she has been sewn back together after somehow coming apart. [See…] The book follows her attempt to figure out what happened. The story is straight-forward, and the artwork, somewhat surprisingly, is in a detailed, gothic groove. The fine line work of Keith Thomas creates a synergy with the script and puts this book ahead of its fellows. While Screwed is not breaking a lot of new ground, the six issue mini is one I will want to keep and will read more than once. Recommended.
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Grimm Universe #5 – Unleashed Part 4 (Zenescope). Zenescope’s Unleashed crossover is nearing its end. The delightfully magical tale of universal destruction has been better than I had hoped. The story has taken an annoying hopscotch path across a number of books, but that is the marketing angle of these events, isn’t it, so complaining about the structure is an empty exercise – if a reader is confounded by the premise then it is best not to start the journey. Barreling now toward the inevitable conclusion (wherein, let me guess, everything is not destroyed after all), Sela and company plod toward a showdown with the Being. This necessary episode has a few surprises but no sharp turns in plot. One nice little feature of the issue is a separate back-up story, “Haunted,” in which a minor point is made.
If you are already on board with Unleashed, you might as well push through to the end. If you have not started buying any issues in the event yet, you might as well wait for the collections now, picking up in the meanwhile any of the other enticing Zenescope offerings to tide you over.
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The Strange World of Your Dreams (IDW). I had no idea that there was a comic in the 1950s that advertised it would buy your dreams and dramatize them. “We will buy your dreams!” the tag line read in the short-lived book, The Strange World of Your Dreams, the life and death of which is detailed in a new collection of the same name. This release includes the entire four-issue run of the original comic along with an introductory essay by Craig Yoe, a cover gallery, and a nice excerpt from another comic, Black Magic, that also concerns “true” dreams. I am a huge fan of golden/silver age comics but I realize not everybody has an appreciation for what some see as “primitive” art and “basic” scripts. Even if you are not big on older comics, this collection is fascinating because of its unusual content. At least give it a flip-through before deciding whether to buy it. The sociology of how dreams were interpreted by the writers, editors, and artists at this publication in the early 1950s is absolutely fascinating. Highly recommended.
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Four.
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Buy These Too…
Oz #1 (Zenescope). Do we really need another take on Oz? If they are like the new Zenescope series, then yes we do. The final eight pages will leave you breathless. Grab it and go.
Godzilla #13 (IDW). The chapter closes on this arc with the decimation of King Ghidorah (by systematically removing its heads, as usual) and the cerebral entangling of the Big G himself. Great giant lizardly fun.
Aquaman #22 (DC). For the most part I have enjoyed this latest version of Aquaman, now running up on two years’ worth of issues. The stunning artwork of Paul Pelletier continues as does the exceptional storytelling of Geoff Johns. And don’t forget, despite the perceived fishiness of the book, there is a surprisingly large amount of horror content. Recommended.
Grimm Fairy Tales #87 (Zenescope). And here is one more not to forget about: Zenescope’s flagship on-going book, Grimm Fairy Tales. In the latest issue, the Dark Queen rises in firey rebirth. Beautiful artwork and a fine horror storyline.
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GAME, the new novel by Jack Cadillac and Jimmy Eldorado, is available now: http://www.amazon.com/Game-Jack-Cadillac/dp/1489508309/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369771572&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=game+cadillace
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