Where Shawn looks at the New Releases and lets you know which books she is most excited about!

1) Siege #1

All your favorite Avengers team up to take down Norman Osbourne and restore order to the Marvel Universe! Also out this week is Seige Embedded #1. It focuses on Ben Urich and the media coverage of the events in Siege. Chris Samnee is on art and Brian Reed is on words.

2) Life & Times of Uncle Scrooge HC

Boom! Studios re-releases this collection as a lovely hardcover. It collects some of the best Scrooge stories out there. Plus it has gold embossing hidden beneath the dustjacket. Classy!

3) King City #4

Kudos to Image for picking up Brandon Graham‘s King City after Tokyopop dropped it in 2008 when they cut back on their titles. The first six issues of the Image series are reprinting content from King City vol 1 TP, along with some extras and back-ups thrown in for good measure. But starting with issue #7 there will be all new story.

4) Weird Western Tales #71 and Suicide Squad #67

DC is resurrecting dead titles this month as tie-ins to the Blackest Night storyline. First up is Weird Western Tales (with Jonah Hex!) and Suicide Squad. Check out the back several pages of Blackest Night #6 for all the covers of the resurrected books. I think it is a really cool idea, especially once I got over the initial frustration of how to order them.

5) Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD HC

Dash Shaw‘s art in this book is amazing. Compared to his work on Bottomless Belly Button it is really experimental and abstracted. I am really excited about reading it! And then after I read it I am going to check out the IFC animated web series based on the book.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We know everybody’s either groaning out of bed, or just relaxing and sleeping late, or even at their computers blogging (sigh), but to all of you Happy New Year! And this should make you feel good about 2010: Shelton has decreed that any reserve customer that comes in and buys everything in their bag until Tuesday January 5, 2010, will get 25% off ANY new comic or book in the store! All you have to do is clean out your bag, no matter how big or small, and you’ll get 25% off all the books in your bag and any other new book you want to add on that! Had your eye on one of those fancy Absolute Sandman hardcovers? Marvel Masterworks? 25% off!

And most crazy of all, we will be GIVING AWAY a free copy of the new Blackest Night #6 to anyone who spends at least $20 (before tax)! What? And before you ask, yes–this includes discounted books, sale items, whatever. Just buy $20 worth of stuff and you can have the new Blackest Night issue for free! Plus we’ll have the Marvel Origin of Siege handbooks available for free, and a free Marvel 2010 calendar, both part of the Marvel “New Year’s Eve Eve” promotion we’re taking part in. Here’s a list of all the stuff we’re getting tomorrow:

ANGEL #28 10 COPY VIRGIN FRISON INCV
ANGEL #28 20 COPY DENHAM INCV
BLACKEST NIGHT #6
BLACKEST NIGHT #6 VAR ED
BLACKEST NIGHT #6 VAR SKETCH ED
FALL OF HULKS ALPHA NYEE MCGUINESS VAR
MARVEL ORIGIN OF SIEGE GIVEAWAY
NEW YEARS EVE EVE PROMO CALENDAR

As if that weren’t enough, just as further enticement and thank you to our regular customers, Shelton has turned this into a full-fledged store-wide sale, like a sequel to our recent Holiday Sale! Deals will include:

● New Dollar Stock including nearly 10,000 back issues, sorted in alphanumeric order, just a buck apiece! Ask at the store for special “load a box” deals on both short and long boxes of dollar books!

● Selected statues on sale–look closely throughout the store for some insane deals on some great statues, with discounts up to 90% off!

● Lots of new BOGO (buy one get one) deals and 50% off trades and hardcovers!

● Plus a whole rack of 75% off trades and hardcovers!

● Select toys marked down to giveaway prices!

● Spend $100 and Shelton will give you a free T-shirt of your choice from our in-store inventory!

All this is just our way of saying “thanks” to our regular customers, while still making it easy for new customers to get their toe wet in comics! Happy New Year to everybody–don’t miss this chance to start 2010 with some great deals and free books at Heroes!

Shelton sent me a note about our customer Hick’ry Hawkins, who besides being one of the few customers or ours who regularly sports a great big cowboy hat with a black leather biker jacket, is also a local musician. Turns out that Hick’ry wrote a song called “Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find” which sounds suspiciously like the name of a certain friendly neighborhood local comics shop. I was going to upload the song here for you, but it turns out the file is a million times too big to upload to our little ole blog.

But listen! You can can check ole Double-H out yourself tomorrow at Puckett’s Farm, opening for the Straight 8′s. Who knows, maybe you’ll see old Sheltonious out there too! If you can’t make it, don’t despair–there’s plenty of music at Hick’ry’s MySpace page.

Has anyone else noticed that Image Comics seems to be on a roll these days?

The creator-centric comic company that was maligned in the past (like when they first launched in 1990s) for churning out crappy and late comics has been, as of late, publishing some really great books.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was reading so many Image books — or the last time I actually got excited about the company’s offerings.

I mean, I was digging The Walking Dead and Invincible (both written by Robert Kirkman) before, but my love for Kirkman’s work led me to his newest books: Murderer (part of Top Cow’s Pilot Season program) and Haunt (which he works on with Todd McFarlane). I loved Murderer, which got me interested in other Top Cow comics. And I fell for Haunt, which got me taking a second look at Todd McFarlane again — so I started reading Spawn after a looooong break. And that led me to Image United, the crossover blockbuster that’s drawn by all the Image founders.

Finally, to top it all off, my favorite comic of 2009 turned out to be an Image title — Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory; that’s the first time an Image comic landed that slot on my reading list — and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Looking at the solicitations for 2010, it seems they’ve got a lot of good stuff planned, such as: Fractured Fables, an all-ages book from Jim Valentino’s Shadowline imprint; Turf, a new sci-fi book drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards; 50-Girls by Frank Cho and Doug Murray; and much more.

All that said, if you’re one of those readers who swore off Image years ago, do yourself a favor and give the company another look.