Pre-Reviews And Hasty Judgment Calls For Comics Debuting The Week of May 23, 2007

DC

Encyclopedia Of Comicbook Heroes Vol 1: Batman – I’ve got the original version of this from the 70s and can’t recommend it highly enough. While it does suffer from being terribly out of date, there’s a lot of lunacy contained within, thanks to straight-faced explanations of Silver Age stories that will boggle those who were raised in the post O’Neil era.

Justice League Of America Vol 2 #1 (4th Ptg) – Really? Four printings? Golly, you’d think everybody that wanted it would have it by now, but maybe I’m being naive and assuming people really don’t need four copies of the same comic…

(I’m kidding. God, you people.)

Superman/Batman Vs Alien / Predator – Pages I’ve seen from this make it look completely bugfuck and something I’ll look forward to getting at a severe discount.

Image

Casanova Volume 1: Luxuria – I’m looking forward to reading this as a proper collection. Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba’s sampledelic ode to comics, sci-fi, and pulp was one of the purest (if frequently baffling, in a good way) pleasures related to the media I’ve had in the past year or so.

Fell Volume 1: Feral City – Ellis’s challenge to himself and the conventions of modern comics storytelling is fascinating. Even the issues I liked a bit less than others were still interesting for me to look at from a “writerly” angle.

Marvel

Doctor Strange: The Oath – I liked the first issue; will I like the series?

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane Volume 3: My Secret Life – It’s my favorite Spider-Man comic. The end.

Boom

Yes, already. Please buy it.
(A special note for locals who haven’t picked it up yet:
Comicazi in Davis Square will have more copies of #1 soon.
Call them at 617-666-2664 to reserve a copy, if you’d like.
I also spied copies of #1 at Comicopia in Kenmore Square.)

Fantagraphics

Arf Forum – Always worth a look, and this volume includes some classic Captain Marvel action.

Percy Gloom – Spurgeon reviewed this a while back and sold it to me with the phrase “I can’t imagine we’ll see a more assured and surprising debut this year.” High praise from someone whose opinion I value highly.

NETCOMICS

Let’s Be Perverts Volume 3 – Yes, let’s.