Marty's Pull List 05/11/07

Heres the books I'll be picking up this week.

(COMICS)
Astonishing X-Men #23 (Marvel)
Criminal #10 (Icon)
Immortal Iron Fist #10 (Marvel)
Lobster Johnson The Iron Prometheus #3 (Dark Horse)
Omega The Unknown #2 (Marvel)
Scalped #11 (Vertigo)
The Order #4 (Marvel)
Y The Last Man #59 (Vertigo)

(GRAPHIC NOVELS)
Lower Regions (Top Shelf Productions)

Marty's Comic Of The Week 05/11/07

I've been a fan of Kyle Baker's work for years. And this book happens to be the best thing he's done in years. A Black Comedy that takes several swipes at the US Military. This more than makes up for the huge disappointment that was his revamp of DC's Plastic Man.

Comic Reviews

Forgive me father, I haven't posted for a long time.
Busy doing other things. Oh, such is life.

Anyway, have some reviews......

Scary Godmother
Doktor Sleepless
Crecy
Phonogram

and finally, a series of posts on the Birmingham Comic Show 2007.

Jason Aaron Will Go Far

Jason Aaron writer of Scalped has been anounced as being the writer of both "Wolverine" and "Ghost Rider" at Marvel come February. Jason is the writer of the acclaimed "The Other Side" and the incredible "Scalped" and will hopefully inject some life into the dying "Ghost Rider" book. We can assume his "Wolverine" will be fantastic after his one off issue #56.

Jason thinks "Scalped" is so good he posted this on his myspace:
"I'm so proud of my new Veritgo series, SCALPED, that I'm now offering a money-back guarantee on the first trade paperback collection, "Indian Country." If you buy a copy and don't like it, just mail it back to me and I'll refund the price, plus the cost of your shipping. It's as easy as that. So now you really have no excuse for not trying SCALPED, the gritty crime series that's been hailed by critics, fans and the industry's top creators as the best new comic of the year."

I have loved "Scalped" since the first issue and I urge everyone to give it a try especially now!

Hellboy Hardcover Library Begins In 2008

Dark Horse are to start publishing Mike Mignola's Hellboy as Oversized Hardcovers in 2008. Each volume will reprint two tradepaperbacks along with a wealth of unpublished Art, Pin Up's & Sketches. None of the bonus material has ever been avalible before, not even in the Art Of Hellboy Book.

Wanted Trailer

I've just watched the first trailer for the Movie Wanted which is based on the fantastic Comic By Mark Millar & J G Jones, and it looks stunning. From what i can gather from the Trailer, they have only changed a few things here and there. I'll post the trailer up as soon as it's on Youtube.

Marty's Pull List 01/11/07

Here's the few books I'll be picking up this week.

Daredevil Annual #1 (Marvel)
Justice Society Of America #10 (DC)
Special Forces #1 (Image)

A very light week. I'm looking forward to JSA as it's the start of the sequel to Mark Waid & Alex Ross's Epic "Kingdom Come". And the new Kyle Baker Book "Special Forces" looks like it could be pretty funny.

"Northlanders" By Andy Kubert

Andy Kubert is providing Variant Covers for Brian Wood's new Vertigo Book Northlanders. This is the cover for issue two.

Brian Wood's "Northlanders"

Coming this December from Vertigo.

"Ultimate Universe" By David Finch

I'm a big fan of David Finch's work. I think he's really giving Jim Lee a run for his money these days.

Captain America Returns

Look for the brand new Captain America to make his debut in January's Captain America #34. The new costume was designed by Alex Ross.

Crecy good Doktor Sleepless not. More reviews.

I lieu of actual content have a review from the FPI weblog wot I wrote.
(fuck off, I've got a job, homework, college course, homework, life, child, comics reviewing and another blog to feed!)

Warren Ellis' Crecy & Doktor Sleepless.

Around these parts Doktor Sleepless was feted as the next great Warren Ellis book. Not just me. I know Marty was all up for putting on his best of 2007 list before even reading any of it.
Sadly it's not even a passable attempt at a bad Warren Ellis book. It's far too forgettable for that.

Crecy on the other hand is bloody great.

"Spider-Woman" By Alex Maleev

The Ultimates Volume 3 December 2007

By Jeph Loeb & Joe Madureira.

After Seven Years Of Writing It......

Garth Ennis is leaving The Punisher. And it's about bloody time too. He's been writing the fucking book about six years too long as it is. For me the best work he did was "Welcome Back Frank" with Steve Dillon. It's the only Punisher book you will ever need to own.

Read The New Daniel Clowes Comic For Free

Read Part One of Mr Wonderful here.
www.nytimes.com/ref/magazine/funnypages
And then read a new strip every Sunday until January 20Th 2008. It's good stuff and how cool is it that a newspaper does stuff like this. What do we get in our Sunday Rags what some Cunt out of Big Brother did this week.

Warren Ellis - Crecy

Warren Ellis' historical graphic novel. One of the best things he's written in a long time.
Full of all the bile and nastiness you've come to expect from Warren. The whole thing is presented as a first person lecture with one of the English longbowmen talking directly to you, the 21st Century reader. And whilst other writers might have completely fucked it up and bored the arse of you, Ellis keeps the whole thing moving and still manages to educate whilst entertaining.

Full review at some point over at PROPAGANDA at the FPI weblog or on the Fictions weblog, but for now, a scene setter: Page 1 dialogue......

“This is a story about the English and the French and why the English hate the French.
Which is because they eat frogs, they smell bad, and they’re twenty five miles away”

“I am, of course, a complete bloody xenophobe who comes from a time when it was acceptable to treat people in the next village like they were subhumans. On the other hand, the French make sausages out of horse’s arseholes and have a history of using England as their toilet.”

“So we call the French snail-eating cunts and they can fucking like it.
There’s a word you’ll have to get used to. Cunt. This is a word that many people do not like. But you have to understand the English.
In England, the word cunt is punctuation.”

My Comic Of 2007 : Green Arrow Year One

A modern update of Green Arrows origin By Andy Diggle(Hellblazer/Gamekeeper/The Losers) & Jock(Faker/The Losers). I'm a massive Green Arrow/Oliver Queen fan and this little beauty just ticks every box on the origin checklist, without ever getting caught up in cliches or being cheesy. I'll post a full review when the series ends, but for now go to your local comic shop pick up the issues and enjoy.

THE Comic book of 2007? Fuck off. A review.*

It wasn't even the comic book of the bloody week it was published.
(That was probably Y The Last Man. But Love & Rockets was out in the same week as well so that puts this into an easy 3rd.)

But despite being no more than a flaccid little story designed to inject a little temporary chaos into the Marvel Universe, Mark Millar's Civil War #1 has just been voted the comic of the year 2007 by the Harvey Awards. Despite usually avoiding the big crossovers, I actually looked at this one. It had all those classic symptoms of being written to order. I imagine someone tossed Mark Millar a brief to do a big crossover and he let loose with what is, effectively, a Cap vs Iron Man slap fest with a little added teenage politicing.

No I didn't like it, why do you ask?

Now what's that spinning noise coming out of Harvey Kurtzman's grave?

* Actually this review could have simply consisted of the picture, a tag line of 2007 best single issue and "fuck off" written over and over.

Laura Howell

Just posted this post on the FPI weblog in my Propaganda reviews section. Go look.
It's all about Laura Howell, currently working on Hunt Emerson's Ratz strip in the Beano, One look, no matter how fleeting at her website will show you she's incredibly talented and well worth a couple of hours bowsing time.

(Above: panel from the Bizarre Adventures of Gilbert & Sullivan by Laura Howell.)