Hello, comic book adventurers. It’s me, Rosie, back once again with your regular Dynamite comics roundup. We here at Women Write About Comics are dedicated to unpacking the complex parts of the industry and unwrapping the underwhelming gift that is comics so we can all enjoy/despair about it together! So here we are, with our monthly collection of all things that are going on at Dynamite Entertainment, home of the sexy variant cover, unexpected creative team, and occasionally great licensed comics.
Welcome to Rosie’s Dynamite Roundup✨
This month is another smorgasbord of wild licensed comics, including a book that Dynamite is really getting behind this month. That book is Barbarella #1, marking the comics return of the great Mike Carey (W), who I really bloody love. He and Kenan Yarar’s (A) new version of the classic French comics character looks pretty cool, but it’s a fucking all male creative team AGAIN. Like how hard is it to just hire women to create books about women? This is very stressful to me man. Plus it looks like Dynamite have a desperate need for pre-orders on this book as not only are there EIGHT standard variant covers to choose from, but there are FIVE MORE retailer incentive variants that retailers can only get if they order above a certain amount. This means there are 13 covers in total, a roundup record! Dynamite are really leaning into all the worst parts of the Direct Market model with this one.
Ongoing titles take up most of the solicits this month, including James Bond: Kill Chain #6, The Librarians #4, Bettie Page #6, and Shadow/Batman #3. Which begs the question: where are Dynamite’s original books? Aside from rebooting Barbarella, is Dynamite actually publishing any creator-owned work? If this month’s previews are anything to go by, the answer is a resounding “not really,” with only one book fitting into that category (which is Light’s very nice looking Skin & Earth #6, written and drawn by the singer as an accompaniment to an album).
In what must be an attempt to do nothing more than make me super mad, Dynamite has an astounding FOUR separate Pathfinder #1 one-shots that are all priced at a ridiculous $19.99 each, which with tax means you’re paying almost a dollar a page for a 24 page story. Hey! Maybe it’s a great book? And in an ideal world creators would be getting a hell of a lot more money. But let’s be real; we all know this cash is not going to Erik Mona (W), Christopher Paul Carey (W), or Roberto Castro (A). I’m intrigued by this trend of publishers marking up the prices of their own single issue books rather than selling them at cover price and allowing the customer/speculation market to decide the going rate. I guess they wanted to get in on that sweet sweet speculation money, which honestly makes me think they’ve all forgotten the ’90s already (it crashed!). So good luck to ’em.
If you want a more affordable choice, Dynamite has a 96 page collection of their recent Garfield / Grumpy Cat crossover, which at $12.99 is almost half the price of a 24 page RPG tie-in book…so you work that one out. Does Grumpy Cat hate Mondays? Are they both fucking the dog? Do they cook lasagna together and complain about SJWs ruining comics? For only thirteen of your hard earned dollars you can find out.
Who doesn’t love Bob’s Burgers? The sweet, kind cousin of adult animation, everyone’s favorite TV family! But how much do you love them? Do you love them enough to spend $19.99 on a limited-to-500 copies variant cover? Dynamite sure hopes so because their FIFTH specially priced $19.99 comic this month is Bob’s Burgers #16. No one knows why #16 is a special expensive cover…probably because there are only eleven single issue comics in this month’s solicits! Anyway the cover is really lovely and is drawn by Maggie Harbaugh, one of only three women in these Dynamite solicits (two of whom are on this book)!
In strange things we didn’t expect this month, we have 10 Frames Per Second: An Articulated Adventure, which appears to be a coffee table collection of Instagram photos by Johnny Wu. The photos are pretty cool posed shots of action figures in epic scenes, and at $29.99 for 224 pages, it’s also easily the best value thing you can get from Dynamite in December.
If you’re really into things that are not good value though, don’t worry Dynamite has you covered too, because this month you can buy a super gross “J. Scott Campbell” Vampirella statue for the bargain price of $275 !! The sculpture was sculpted by a man named Jason Smith, who seems to be very talented at his craft, but alas, it’s crafted from a J. Scott Campbell drawing, so it’s the terrifyingly proportioned sexy horror show you’d expect. Lots of creepy concave ab muscles you know? Also where are the men of Dynamite books? And who would that even entail? ACTUALLY…WHERE IS MY SHIRTLESS/PANTSLESS JOHN WICK STATUE COMPLETE WITH TATTOOS AND SCARS, WHERE HE’S RUBBING HIS ABS WITH TWO BIG GUNS? Hmph.
Anyway that rounds up this month’s look at Dynamite Comics wares, which has left me feeling a little dirty this time tbh, a sad thing to say when we’re seeing the wonderful Mike Carey’s return to comics for the first time in a while. Just do better, Dynamite. Put out some more original books. Just hire some women to make your products please Dynamite. Actually, hire women of color please. Thanks!
Yours sincerely,
Rosie Knight
