BOOM! Bar: Watercolours! Anime Heirs! Girl Stuff!

BOOM! Studios logo 2017

Future-news:

David F. Walker and Christopher Mooneyham have been paired on a new Planet of the Apes mini starting in January next year; all about that one mean guy with the big hat. Says Mooneyham,

“[General] Ursus, to me, is just an old soldier, with no more wars to fight. He’s lost a lot, and given even more. He’s a super-prejudiced gorilla who’s just looking for a reason to keep on going. Personally, I think David has nailed Ursus’ character with this series, and I absolutely love that I get to help tell this story.”

The month after that, with issue #14, BOOM!’s WWE series will begin an arc covering the recent rise to stardom of the “Four Horsewomen,” some of the WWE’s most bankable women. It will be by “[t]he acclaimed team of writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Serg Acuña,” and, do you know what? Those ain’t women. And neither are any of the variant cover artists listed in this press release. Here’s a clipping from that:

“It’s been amazing to watch women in WWE make history night after night over the past couple years, and we’re so excited to give the WWE Universe even more of the Women’s Evolution,” says Chris Rosa, Associate Editor, BOOM! Studios. “The team is ready to give fans a new look at the incredible moments and matches that have inspired so many.”

Oi, Chris Rosa. USE YOUR NOGGIN. You have to appreciate how disrespectful it is to take this narrative further out of the hands of women.

I’m not including the provided cover here, because the women on it have all had their pelvic flesh yanked. The vagina is not a vacuum, my darling Dan Mora!

This week at BOOM! Studios

Lazaretto (two of four) takes a turn towards the recognisable, as the cute rakish RA turns predatory and the quarantined dorm block turns hedonistic. The art is still a treat–I’m loving BOOM!’s commitment to pairing watercolours with body horror (look for a review series on The Unsound, soon).

Grass Kings: a fairly empty eighth issue that repeats part of a previous scene and takes in a new direction, following the character who was previously left behind as he thinks back on what he didn’t tell in that same conversation. The book has drawn criticism over its use of Native characters (actually non-characters, thus far) and this issue’s protagonist is framed, I think, as an indigenous man.

The Woods reaches its final issue! Goodbye, goodbye, you 90s OVA. (Seriously, there’s a “he pushes up his glasses and they flash” moment and everything. You watched this on video on a Saturday afternoon…)

Mech Cadet Yu #3 Publisher: BOOM! Studios Writer: Greg Pak Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa
Mech Cadet Yu #3, BOOM! Studios, Greg Pak, Takeshi Miyazawa, Triona Farrell, Simon Bowland

In Mech Cadet Yu‘s third issue, GET READY TO CRY, because children are going to war in their cute little grown-up uniforms and shiny shiny shoes. This is tragedy straight out of Starship Troopers, and Stanford Yu’s mama sharing home cooked food with his friends–his military cadet peers–only makes it sharper. This book is fantastic.

This week at BOOM! Box

Coady and the Creepies, of which we have a short, pithy halloween review coming and a longer examination, plus this Cover Girls feature, is out in softcover collection this week. Scrappy band on the road! SOMEONE IS A GHOST! Collection four issues for fourteen ninety-nine, buy it for the cross teen that you know, or use a copy to do a seance and find out once and for all if punk is dead. Haw haw.

SLAM! The Next Jam‘s second issue proves its devotion to actually really being “a roller derby comic” and continues the fallout-storyline that follows the climax (I think) of the first SLAM! miniseries. So it’s still a dodgy read for somebody who hasn’t caught that first collection. But we see practice, we see the love of the sport, we see the social politics within teams, and we see the personal fears and sacrifices women have to face in order to try and keep as much of their strength as possible. And the colours are delicious. And there are cute cats in this issue.

Also:

A Ladycastle softcover (collecting all four issues) and two Adventure Time books: the second part of a Regular Show crossover, and a Halloween special. Look for more coverage of the latter in the coming month!

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Claire Napier

Claire Napier

Critic, ex-Editor in Chief at WWAC, independent comics editor; the rock that drops on your head. Find me at clairenapierclairenapier@gmail.com and give me lots of money

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