SETH’S PICK :: THE SPIRE #1: Start July on a good note this week with the latest collaboration between Si Spurrier and Jeff Stokely. You may remember their post apocalyptic sci-fi western Six Gun Gorilla from a few years ago. That book won a lot of deserved critical acclaim, and I enjoyed it immensely. The Spire features a similar apocalyptic scenario, but trades the western motifs for fantasy this time around. It also adds a murder mystery into the mix, and a protagonist who must solve the crimes as she navigates a racist and xenophobic society. Spurrier telling a fantasy story with plenty of modern societal parallels, plus an array of monsters, strange machines and characters rendered as only Stokely can? That’s enough to sell me (and you) on this new series. 

Bonus Pick: Autumnlands vol. 1 TP: Tooth and Claw: This affordable debut collection (just $9.99) by Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey features some of my favorite anthropomorphic fantasy storytelling in years. Dewey’s depictions of endless humanoid animal creatures is remarkable, and Busiek does a fine job of building an accessible narrative for a new world in this excellent first volume.

HEATHER’S PICK :: A-FORCE #1: So Secret Wars, things blow up, worlds collide, Heroes had a really cool variant cover.  You now have the sum total of my knowledge of the wars of secrets.  That’s my comics confession, I rarely do the big events.

In spite of that, I can’t wait to pick up A-Force #1. Marvel’s got my number on this one.  A comic loaded with female superheroes written by one of my personal favorites, G. Willow Wilson. (Side note: Are you reading Ms. Marvel?  If no, then why the *$@! not?!? Pick up a trade or two when you’re in this week for singles.)

Written by Wilson and Marguerite Bennett with gorgeous art by Jorge Molina and Craig Yeung as well as colors by Laura Martin and Matt Milla, out of Secret Wars (I think) comes Battleworld, part of which is protected by a team of lady Avengers.  Based on the cover and previews of interior pages, the team includes some of my favorite Marvel characters: She-Hulk,  Medusa,  Hellcat, Jubilee,  and SpiderGwen.   There are a ton of other great characters in case our favorites don’t coincide.  This looks like a good one to pick up, especially while so many titles hit pause for the summer.

ANDY’S PICKS :: ROBIN THE BOY WONDER A CELEBRATION OF 75 YEARS HC

(W) Bill Finger & Various (A) Bob Kane & Various (CA) Jim Lee, Scott Williams
Happy Birthday Dick/Jason/Damien and according to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there are some who call him…..Tim? Regardless he still looks great…nice gams! And you have to tip your hat to the enduring concept of the Super-hero kid side-kicks. Again, I know nothing about the contents, but these DC Diamond Jubilee editions have been consistently good. And I’d be willing to bet $.15 (Sterling!) that a whole lot of Teen Titans can be found somewhere between these hard covers.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Pixilated Parrot (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 9)

(W/A) Carl Barks
Two hundred pages of comics by the greatest of the great Carl Barks. You get Donald Duck, his Uncle Scrooge and his nephews Huey, Dewey & Louie, great gags, break-neck pacing, exhilarating adventure that ads up to comic storytelling at its best. What more do you need? How about brief, insightful essays on every story from a number of knowledgable critics, authors and academics. Buy this volume or any volume. Buy some Barks NOW!

JUSTIN’S PICK :: MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK FACSIMILE COLLECTION: (phew) Like most fans of my generation, I am a victim of nostalgia. No industry exploits that propensity quite like comic books. Alongside a cache of Silver Age treasures and unreliable TV reruns, Marvel/Mattel’s Secret Wars toy line was one of my earliest touchstones for the characters I grew to love. In anticipation of its Big Summer Event incarnation, Marvel is releasing this activity book facsimile collection. I don’t think I even had this as a kid, which makes owning it now even more imperative. ‘The specifics weren’t important,’ reads a particularly illuminating appendix in the trade paperback collection of the original Secret Wars series, ‘as long as it featured unique designs that could be made into toys, and as long as it was called “Secret Wars” – two words Mattel had found tested well with adolescent boys.’ Creepy as grown men dispassionately analyzing children may be, the marketing works: thirty years on, and I’m still buying this stuff. Score one for target demographics.

RICO’S PICK :: RUNLOVEKILL: Anytime Eric Canete takes time from his busy schedule of animation work to draw comic books, I’m checking it out. The 1st issue of this 8 issue series comes out today and if you’re into science fiction, explosions and great art you should check it out. You can tell Eric how much you love this when you meet him at HeroesCon in June.

BONUS PICK :: SENSATION COMICS #9: Don’t miss today’s Sensation Comics featuring 2 great looking Wonder Woman stories. The first features art by HeroesCon family member Mike Maihack and the second is a Lois Lane and Wonder Woman story with art by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story and Jordie Bellaire all wrapped in a great cover by Ben Caldwell.

ANDY’S PICKS ::ASTRO CITY FAMILY ALBUM TP NEW ED

For my money, this is the best Astro City collection. Family and Home are the connecting theme. Two stories stand out. A family moves to Astro City and has to adjust to a world with wall to wall super-heroing and super-villainy. Then Busiek and Anderson focus on the Furst Family-their homage to the Fantastic Four as well as other families of Heroes. And it comes wrapped by a great new cover from Alex Ross.

And wait ’til you meet the dread Mr. Smarty.

NEW YORK HC

Milt Gross was perhaps the most popular comic artist/humorist during the first half of the past decade.  This volume reproduces one of the first graphic novels of all time. The two principle characters from Gross’ successful Sunday strip ‘That’s My Pop’ run wild through the streets of the Big Apple. Yankee Stadium, The New York Public Library and Coney Island along with many other points of interest will never be the same. Gross was a true master. Don’t miss the recovery of this lost gem.

MIRACLEMAN PREM HC BOOK 03 OLYMPUS
Collecting MIRACLEMAN #11-16 and ALL-NEW MIRACLEMAN ANNUAL #1. It’s finally back in print, the final story arc from Alan Moore. It is quite simply the most startling, exciting, violent and eventually transcendent comic books ever created. This volume also includes stories from Grant Morrison and Joe Quesada and Peter Milligan and Mike Allred from the Annual. A must-read for all as well as being the future topic of a Heroes Discussion Group.

JUSTIN’S PICK :: KAIJUMAX #1: This is one of those comics > movies things. Giant Monster Prison might be kind of awkward on the silver screen, but on the paneled page, flowing from the pen of creator Zander Cannon, it just works. With obvious echoes of Godzilla and Ultraman, but also notes of Rampage (one of my favorite arcade/8 bit diversions of yore), exploitation cinema, and 90s gangsta rap, this comic promises to synthesize a lot of disparate elements into a delectable confection. I can’t really say why you should buy this book, other than I don’t know why you wouldn’t.

(PS Bryan Lee O’Malley variant!)