New Comic Book Day: Put the Whole 401k in Comics!

Retrofit Comics

The company formerly known as CTM Media Holdings, now IDW Media Holdings, announced a 10-for-1 stock split yesterday, and you know what that means: it’s time for the finance industry to make an entirely comic book-based financial instrument. Let’s pile together all the Disney, IDW, and Time Warner shares we can get our hands on, stuff them with shares from Platinum Studios and foist them on unsuspecting grannies looking to hip out their 401ks. Then we can short sell the living shit out of them ugh every time I try and do one of these financial crisis bits I just end up getting lost in an Investopedia hole. Let’s just review comics and leave the creative financial instruments to other people who don’t know what they’re talking about but have college degrees in money-based bullshittery, shall we?

This week in comics: Marvel gets around to collecting one of my favorite runs of all time; DC translates the spirit, if not the letter, of my favorite Justice League episode; Dragon Age gets turned into a casino; we look at a self-published book; Boom flips the script on a hot-button issue; and Gillen, McKelvie and Wilson take on…me. But first, have you ever thought about getting a Jacob’s Ladder tattooed on your junk? Don’t do that.

Ink for Beginners (Retrofit Comics)

I live my nerdy body art dreams vicariously through my brother – I gotta keep my skin clear in case I ever need to go undercover. But I do love his nerd ink – the eye of the Crimson King on one arm, the Imperial crest on the other, “Speak, friend, and enter” in Sindarin over his ass crack. So Kate Leth’s new comic isn’t aimed directly at me, but it is informative and useful and fairly entertaining.

What To Think If You Want To Ink Ink for Beginners is more like a long infographic than a comic. It lays out what you can expect if you’re going in for a new tattoo – everything from what will probably hurt the most (your junk, obvi, but also places where the skin is closest to the bone) to whether and how much you should tip your artist. [“Crimson King tat is right leg. Fullmetal (ouroboros) is right arm, assdick” – Update from my brother] Leth gets to stretch her art muscles in slightly different ways than she normally does from stuff we’ve looked at – the people are still expressive and funny, but she gets to show off a really solid design sense in how she lays out the infographic-ey parts. This was a fun read, and absolutely worthwhile if you’re a fan of body art, or if you’re thinking about getting inked.

You can pick up Ink for Beginners at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

Amazon

Black Panther by Priest (Marvel Comics)

You might have seen me quietly raving about this in Monday’s Fantastic Four/shared universe post, or on Twitter, but it’s really worth repeating: this is without a doubt the best collection of Black Panther stories ever. This is being collected now likely because of T’Challa’s role in next year’s Captain America: Civil War (where Martin Freeman is rumored to be playing Everett Ross, a character introduced here), but it has almost nothing to do with what’s likely going to be on the screen.

This collection is the first in a series gathering together Priest’s stories from the Marvel Knights era, back before Joe Quesada was in charge of the whole company, when he was just a creator-owned guy who got brought in to run his own line of gritty, artsier takes on heroes that had fallen into disuse. I probably don’t need to run down the entirety of what that produced, but in addition to the definitive Black Panther stories, we also got Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s “Welcome Back Frank” story with the Punisher; the best thing Kevin Smith’s ever written; and brought in guys who would end up being critical to Marvel’s resurgence at the turn of the millennium. Priest’s BP was a chance to explore the political Marvel Universe, and in addition to being great superhero stories, was also really funny. I only just recently got into Quantum & Woody, but it’s really easy to see how the guy who wrote that also crafted these stories. Do yourself a favor and go pick this up.

You can pick up Black Panther by Priest at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

Action Lab Entertainment

Archon #1 (Action Lab Entertainment)

Archon was awesome. Last week, I was a little bit down on Looking for Group, arguing that the humor wasn’t quite sharp enough to justify another zany fantasy comedy. Archon, on the other hand, was funny as shit. John Perez sets up an Earth where the Dragon Age fantasy stuff is actually (probably; It’s still a first issue, but I think this is where he’s going with it) a secret history of the real world, and the dragons and elves and nymphs that fought in the great battle against evil are now adrift and opening casinos on the Vegas strip.

It works in large part because of Marco Maccagni’s art. The straight fantasy section that opens the book has a strong Joe Mad/Darksiders look to it, but he’s just as solid when the story switches to 1981 Las Vegas. His body language does a great job of helping the absurdity of the story land effectively.

Were I a gambling man (and :clutches pearl necklace: of COURSE I am not), I’d bet that the prominent inclusion of Reagan’s inauguration in 1981 is probably a hint that he’s the returned dark lord from the fantasy history at the beginning of the book. That’s pretty solidly in line with the tone of the rest of the book, which delights in its own ridiculousness in a way that most fantasy comedies don’t really have the self-confidence to pull off. I LOVED this issue.

You can pick up Archon #1 at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

Image Comics

Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #1 (Image Comics)

Despite feeling like I missed something for about the first half of the issue, this was really good. It’s no surprise, coming from the Young Avengers/Wicked + the Divine/original Phonogram team, but in none of those that I read did they ever do straight up horror like this, and I didn’t expect them to do horror so effectively.

The first couple of pages are more or less a straight Poltergeist rip, and the last couple where it comes back around to that are genuinely scary. Phonogram, for those of you who haven’t read any of the previous series (like me, and this is where I had trouble with the issue) is urban fantasy about magic-wielders in England who channel their fantastic powers through music. Kieron Gillen, the writer, has described it as (rough paraphrase) “uncomfortably autobiographical,” based on a lot of his own experiences as a music writer.

While it helps to have read the first two series, they’re not really essential. About halfway through the issue, it stops mattering and you just fall into the story like you’ve always been there. Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and Matt Wilson form one of the best creative teams in comics. They are wonderfully effective storytellers, and Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl looks like it will be another great series from them.

You can pick up Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #1 at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

DC Comics

Justice League United #12 (DC Comics)

Jeff Parker took over for Jeff Lemire after Convergence, and despite the title having “United” in it, I think what he’s really trying to do here is draw HEAVY parallels with the other JLU. His first issue had Alanna Strange, Equinox and Stargirl gathering mission-specific teams to fight what I assume to be holes in reality caused by the recreation of the unlimited multiverse, though that’s just speculation right now. I figure the whole story behind the team’s mission will be revealed shortly.

The first team they gathered is designed to fight an ecological catastrophe in the great lakes, so they pulled in Mera, Poison Ivy, Swamp Thing, Animal Man and Etrigan. Last issue ended with Swamp Thing’s connection to the Green being severed and him being turned by the evil force. It was great, and I’m psyched to read more, but I’m even more excited for where the story is going. Take a look at the solicit text for the next few issues: remember the Seven Soldiers episode of JLU? It’s basically turning into that. If that doesn’t make you squeal with joy, you must not have been watching the same Teen Titans/JLU tacit crossover that I was.

You can pick up Justice League United #12 at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

BOOM! Studios

Americatown #1 (BOOM! Studios)

I really wanted to like this, but Americatown had a couple of problems that made it difficult to recommend the first issue.

The premise is interesting enough: it takes place at an indeterminate point in the near future, where, following an economic collapse, Americans are now illegally immigrating elsewhere for work. It’s trying to put a twist on immigrant stories happening today, with coyotes taking Americans in submarines from Havana to Buenos Aires. The problem I had with this issue isn’t really with the setup, though. It’s with the execution.

This book is a little bit of the flip side of the colorist golden age we’re in right now. I’m so used to timeline cues being communicated by color palates (Jordie Bellaire is really good at this) that the palate drift here spun me around. There isn’t really a unified color theory embedded in this story – some of the police chase scenes are bright red, some washed out in blue, and even a panel inside a cop van that’s green. There’s a flashback early in the book that’s a brownish-yellow, but then a couple of pages later there are current-day panels that are close to that same color. Similarly, the action is quick, a bit confusing and difficult to follow – like, one more panel in a lot of the movement would help clarify some of the action, though I don’t know how much of that is intentionally designed to convey the chaos of the situation and how much of that is just trying to tell the story faster. Those complaints aside, like I said, the premise is interesting and Bradford Winters and Larry Cohen clearly understand the story they’re trying to tell. I just worry that their previous experience (Winters used to write for Oz, and Cohen worked on Phone Booth) has them writing a TV show, not a comic.

You can pick up Americatown #1 at your friendly local comic shop or online via Comixology.

ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Every week there are way too many comics for me to read and keep track of. So in every column, I’m going to take a look at a book that came out in the last few weeks, but that I only just had a chance to read.

Nerd Nation Publishing

This week, it’s Gateway Runners #1, a book by Gene Hoyle and Aaron & Kitty Pierce funded largely through Indiegogo, and a really pleasant surprise. My column planning usually involves trying to find something in the shipping lists that I’ve got some background awareness of, something I know either I or you guys are predisposed towards (or something I know I’ll hate – someday I’ll devote an entire column to Superman: Earth One). With Gateway Runners, Hoyle reached out directly, and reading though the first issue, I found it to be interesting, engaging and very entertaining.

The art was solid – there could be a little more polish on the figure work, but the fundamentals are all sound: panel layout, pacing, the core of the facial expressions and the camera angle choices are all good. But where Gateway Runners really stood out was in the dialogue: Hoyle’s created interesting characters, and given them very natural voices. The story is about a group of people in a semi-utopian future society who can sense micro-wormholes, and use those “gateways” (get it?) to traverse the solar system. I’m looking forward to more from this team.

You can pick up Gateway Runners #1 by reaching out to Nerd Nation Publishing on Facebook.

That’s what I’m reading this week. What are you picking up?