ANDY’S PICK :: ART OF DISNEY GOLDEN BOOKS HC: Chances are good that the first book you ever held in your hand, ripped its pages, drew in, or drooled on was a Golden  Book and if your parents were anything  like mine and in as much of a hurry to buy a Golden Book to shut me up that they only noticed and bought the  one’s that featured familiar Disney characters, well sir (or madam) this is the book for you. These books have inspired generation after generation of budding animators and cartooists.  Now comes The Art of Disney Golden Books.  It is a beautiful hard cover book celebrating eighty years of the marvelous Disney character art that every kid spent time tracing, copying or spilling juice on.  Either way, Golden Books are an essential link in the chain that eventually can lead to …comic books!!  Enjoy! And good luck keeping it ‘mint’.

JUSTIN’S PICK :: BOHEMIANS GN: Being sequestered in the sticks as a teenager, and being something of an inherent weirdo, I took some solace in my creative side, and also developed a healthy fascination with the Beats (i.e. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and my personal favorite, William S. Burroughs). Bohemians promises to chronicle the predecessors of America’s original counter-pop-cultural movement. If this is an area that interests you, I’d also heartily recommend the late Harvey Pekar’s Beats Graphic History (mostly illustrated by Hip Hop Family Tree’s Ed Piskor, among others, but happy hunting…it’s out of print!). Hopefully, Bohemians will take a similar tack to Pekar’s examination, and dispose with the glamorizing of its subject matter. The lives lived under the radar, by their own rules, are easily romanticized with the benefit of hindsight. In all honesty, it’s a lot more squalid than that. Either way, I’m reading.

ANDY’S PICK :: DOOP #1: Back in 2001, Peter Milligan and Mike Allred turned the mutant world on its backside by re-imagining X-Force a super-team that eventually morphed into X-Statix. Replacing the old X-Men reliables like Cable, Deadpool, Warpath et.al. , Milligan and Allred turned a team of misfit super-heroes into well… a bunch of reality star super-powered misfits.  Now the key players on the team were Dead Girl, Phat, U-Go Girl, Anarchist and my personal favorite Doop who looked like the love child of Proty II and Slimer from Ghostbusters. Milligan returns with artist David LaFuente (and covers by Allred!) for a five issue mini-series that is sure to be one of the gems of this summer.  And if you have never read the Milligan/Allred Mutant series, pick up a book or three from Heroes– it is a great read.

JUSTIN’S PICK :: FLASH GORDON #1: Fortunately for you, it’s tough to translate singing to type, so you’re spared a lousy, off-key reprise of the Flash Gordon theme song. But rest assured, it will resound throughout the store on Wednesday. Batman 66 scribe Jeff Parker joins forces with Evan Shaner (who drew one of the best one shots ever, last year’s Buddy Cops) to celebrate the 80^th anniversary of one of sci-fi’s most enduring icons. It’s not Flash fandom that draws me to this book; rather, I like Parker’s unobtrusive scripting, and Shaner’s clean, crisp art is highly enjoyable in its own right. I expect these gentlemen to turn in a fine adventure of the Man from Earth. Now, off to practice that falsetto…

HEATHER’S PICKS: It’s a two for one staff pick for me this week thanks to Marvel debuting solo books of two of my favorite characters this week.  That’s right, both Doop and Nightcrawler are getting their own series this spring.  I’m not sure how one week is going to be able to contain so much awesomeness.

DOOP #1: I was excited about the Doop mini-series from the moment it was announced.  Then I saw the previews for the first issue and I nearly punched someone, my excitement was so great.  Those pages from David Lafuente look amazing.  It’s also good to see Doop in the hands of one his creators, Peter Milligan.  I am so glad I only have to wait less than a week to read this book for the first of what is sure to be a million times.

NIGHTCRAWLER #1: Jason Aaron was one of my favorite writers before he brought Nightcrawler back, but the return of one of the best blue guys in comics earned him a permanent spot on that list.  I’m looking forward to Chris Claremont and Todd Nauck taking on Nightcrawler’s return to the X-Men.  I hope he has many new adventures in store (especially pirate adventures…).

RICO’S PICK :: DEAD LETTERS #1:  I’ve seen a black and white preview of this book and it sucks you in immediately. It’s a great first issue. The story begins as a classic amnesia fiction so we are learning what’s going on right along with the main character Sam. Writer Chris Sebela and artist Chris Visions will BOTH be at HeroesCon this year. You should probably get your copy of Dead Letters #1 signed and get a sketch from Visions this year before the rest of the world catches on to his greatness and he’s hard to meet, his bold art won’t stay a secret for long!

ANDY’S PICK :: EDGAR ALLAN POE’S PREMATURE BURIAL ONE SHOT: Is there anything more frightening than being buried alive?  not in my book.  Two of the most terrifying short stories by Edgar Allan Poe–The Cask of Amontillado and The Premature Burial–focus on this awful subject have been adapted by that living (and unburied) legend Richard Corben.  These adaptations should prove to be exciting and beautifully rendered.  Just look at the Cover!  And if anyone asks, when the time comes (and not before!) I demand to be cremated.

RICO’S PICK :: EMPOWERED SPECIAL #06 INTERNAL MEDICINE: Only Brandon Graham could give Adam Warren a run for his money with puns visual and otherwise. Empowered #6 will be a battle to the death by these to manga influenced American creators! No one is the loser here but the winners will be fans of wacky, beautifully drawn superhero action.

What could be funnier than uniting a Moose and Squirrel to fight the cold War villainy of Boris and Natasha (fresh from their triumphs in War and Peace) and their fearless leader, FEARLESS LEADER? What if you engage the comic book legend and current scribe of the vastly under-rated Garfield comic book Mark Evanier along with perhaps the finest big foot comic illustrator in the business Roger Langridge?  If that isn’t  enough to get you to try this 4 issue mini-series from IDW? Well…. Here’s one thing you don’t see everyday Chauncey–What’s that Edgar? A long overdue Jay Ward Studios cross-over as the denizens of Frostbite Falls, MN meet everyone’s favorite Mountie Dudley Do-Right! Will Snidely Whiplash co-operate with Boris Badenov? Will Natasha fall for Horse and make Nell jealous.  That’s kinda weird.  Anyhoo…  Perhaps a Quisp and Quake cameo? We can only hope.These comics are guaranteed to be a total riot.

SETH’S PICK :: ALL NEW GHOST RIDER #1: Admittedly, Ghost Rider has never been a book for those seeking multi-layered depth of character and plot.  It’s always been a fairly straightforward idea.  There have been exceptions to that – notably in the excellent, under-read run of Jason Aaron – but mostly, it follows a reliably simple formula:  a motorcycle rider gets inhabited by a spirit of vengeance and brings holy hell down on evils both supernatural and human.  This week’s All New Ghost Rider looks to build a new layer onto this formula.  No, it’s not just because this incarnation drives a ’69 Dodge Charger instead of the time honored motorcycle.  This Ghost Rider is an 18 year old gear head named Robbie Reyes, who is navigating the violence he’s grown up around.  I applaud Marvel for introducing another minority as a title’s main protagonist, but am also thankful that they brought this particular creative team together.  Felipe Smith and Tradd Moore’s collaborative designs for this character (in and out of the Ghost Rider form) represent a very modern aesthetic, which matches the new energy they seem to be aiming for.  While I’ve long appreciated the art of Tradd Moore, his work here not only looks more kinetic than anything he’s done before (and that’s saying a lot), but it looks like he really enjoys working on this book.  I love comics where the creators’ enthusiasm for the work seems to run off the page.