Star Wars Adventures: Forces of Destiny – Princess Leia Elsa Charretier (Writer and Artist). Pierrick Colinet (Writer), Sarah Stern (Colourer), Tom B. Long (Letterer) IDW January 3, 2018 Since 2015, we have had the pleasure of receiving a new Star Wars film every year. This is exciting for established fans who now not only have…
WWE Royal Rumble #1: Gettin’ Pretty Weird in this Station Wagon, YEAHHH!
WWE’s Royal Rumble match is a major yearly event, heralded as “The Beginning of the Road To Wrestlemania.” The match itself is massive: 30 participants, two starting the match, and the other 28 entering at 90 second intervals (give or take). The goal is to be the last person standing after everyone else has been…
Leslie Stein’s Present is an Abstract Treasure
Present Leslie Stein (Writer and Artist) Drawn & Quarterly October, 2017 Leslie Stein’s Present has garnered the kind of praise that an artist can only dream of. “Like Kandinsky illustrating Virginia Woolf” reads a blurb by The Globe and Mail on the back of the book. Everyone everywhere, from Paste magazine to The Comics Journal…
Shiver: Junji Ito Collected Stories’ is a Nightmare You Never Want to End
Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories Vol. 1 Junji Ito (Writer and Artist) Viz December 19, 2017 Junji Ito’s work was some of the first manga I ever came across. When I was 12 we moved to a new part of London, one that was utterly detached from the place I’d grown up. But it was…
Quarry’s War and the Inescapable Trap of Convention
Quarry’s War #1 Max Allan Collins (Writer), Szymon Kudranski (Artist), Guy Major (Colorist), Comicraft (Letterer), Charles Ardai (Consulting Editor) Hard Case Crime / Titan Comics 29 November 2017 If you’re like me, you may not be overly familiar with Quarry, the series of novels that inspired this comic, or the fact that it has also…
The Comic Book History of Comics #1: Fun, Detailed but Limited
The Comic Book History of Comics: Comics For All #1 Fred Van Lente (Writer and Letters), Ryan Dunlavey (Artist), Adam Guzowski (Colours) IDW December 20, 2017 We all know the term “graphic novel.” Most of us have graphic novels on our bookshelves. But where did this term originate? How did comic strips lead to comic…
Little Tails on the Farm is French Family Fun
Little Tails on the Farm Frédéric Brrémaud (writer), Federico Bertolucci (artist), Mike Kennedy (translator) Lion Forge Comics January 2018 Little Tails on the Farm is perfect for the parent who is tired of board books, but whose child isn’t ready for Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur just yet. Little Tails follows pals Squizzo and Chipper on a grand…
Sword of Ages Stars An Epic Heroine
Sword of Ages #1 Gabriel Rodriguez (Writer and Artist), Lovern Kindzierski (Colorist), Robbie Robbins (Letterer) IDW November 29, 2017 The first issue of Sword of Ages reminds of my childhood, partly because it combines, without contradiction or explanation, the mythic register of high fantasy with spacefaring technology, and partly because the protagonist, Avalon, is exactly…
Small Press Bites: Faves of 2017 Edition
Another year has come to a close, and in-between experiencing an existential despair heretofore unknown to me, I read a bunch of great comics. And so did our bevy of wonderful writers! And some of those comics happened to come from small presses, indie creators, self-publishing, and the internet. We’ve written up a collection of…
Adventure Time Vol. 13: Genuinely Mathematical
Adventure Time Vol. 13 Christopher Hastings (Writer), Ian McGinty (Artist), Maarta Laiho (Colors), Mike Fiorentino (Letters) BOOM! Studios December 26, 2017 Adventure Time Volume 13 is an epic story involving dungeons, space-time paradoxes, personal sacrifice for the greater good, and a look into the past. It starts with a visit to Finn’s childhood dungeon that his adopted dog-father…
Wolfenstein: Who Knew Killing Nazis Could Be This Boring?
Wolfenstein, Vol. 1 Dan Watters (Writer), Piotr Kowalski & Ronilson Freire (Artists), Brad Simpson, Greg Menzie & Thiago Ribeiro (Colorists), Jonathan Stevenson (Letterer) Titan Comics December 19, 2017
