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JUSTIN’S PICK :: SUGAR BOOGER #1: If the title doesn’t say it all, that cover sure does. Potty humor intersects dark comedy in this technicolor travesty courtesy of Kevin Scalzo and Alternative Comics. I don’t know what this pick says about me as a person (and I’m kinda surprised that title wasn’t taken already), but 28 pages of full color glory await anyone daring enough to take the plunge.
MATT’S PICK :: HELLO KITTY: DELICIOUS: I believe I have a ten-year-old-girl living inside my brain! That is the only explanation I have for my recent comic reading preferences. With that out of the way, I suggest you pick up a copy of Hello Kitty: Delicious featuring art by Jacob Chabot, Jorge Monlongo, Ian McGinty, and Stephanie Buscema. I agree the stories featured within my not be the most Earth-shattering, senses-reeling prose ever written, but the art may be the most heart-warming, sincere work you see all winter, at least that is my hope. I don’t even like food, but I’m willing to read a book about a kawaii kitty and her just desserts, so there! When you are done with the book, you can pass it on to your niece. Your secret will be safe with me.
SETH’S PICK :: BLACK WIDOW #1: There are several new Marvel reboots/relaunches coming up in the next few months, and I’m anticipating a good number of them. We’ll see Felipe Smith and Tradd Moore starting a brand new car-driving Ghost Rider, Jason Latour teaming with Mahmud Asrar on Wolverine and the X-men, Kelly Sue DeConnick returning to Captain Marvel, and Mike Allred on Silver Surfer. Add to that list this week’s Black Widow #1 by Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto. Edmondson has a knack for collaborating with exceptional artists, and he’s done it again here. Who doesn’t want to see Phil Noto illustrate a Black Widow series? Start the year on a good note with this comic, and don’t forget about those other upcoming debut issues hitting the shelves soon. 
Happy New Year! We’ve been telling you about all the great creators coming to Charlotte MiniCon later this month but we can’t stop the HeroesCon 2014 guest announcement train from rolling! Let’s get to it…
MICHAEL CHO :: Cartoonist/Illustrator: Batman Black & White, Shoplifter, Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes
SHAWN CRYSTAL :: Artist/Podcaster: Fantomex, Deadpool, Inkpulp Audio
JEREMY DALE :: Writer/Artist: Skyward, NFL Rush, Marvel KaPow, G.I. Joe
JEFF DEKAL :: Cover Artist: Superior Spiderman, Inhumanity, Journey Into Mystery, Valiant
KEVIN MAGUIRE :: Artist: Justice League, Gaurdians of the Galaxy, World’s Finest
PHIL NOTO :: Artist: Black Widow, Ghost, X-Force
COMIC FANS! Tickets for Heroes Convention 2014 are on sale now!
CREATORS! Artists Alley tables are on sale now! These spaces are available first-come-first-served and they usually go fast! Reserve your space today!
JUSTIN’S PICK :: SAVIORS #1: It’s a light week this Christmas at the comic book store, with the usual suspects of the Justice League and the Avengers ready to stuff your stockings. But for those of you who like to wander off the beaten path, Saviors is a book that certainly deserves your attention. An unlikely team of fan favorite creators – writer James Robinson and cartoonist J. Bone – craft an interesting tale of small town boredom, fatal acceptance, casual drug use and a weird, alien menace. Your guide to Passburg is Tomas Ramirez, a prototypical slacker. When his idyllic life suddenly erupts into a bizarre chase, both he and the reader are caught in a literal cliffhanger. James Robinson requires no paltry accolades from a scrub such as I; J. Bone’s art is, as always, a thing of crystalline beauty. A perfect team on a great book, don’t let this gem get lost in the shuffle.
RICO’S PICK :: AVENGERS 24.NOW: New comics will be on our shelves a day early this week since we’ll be closed on Christmas Day. So get in here tomorrow and do some last minute Christmas shopping for friends and family or even for yourself! We promise we won’t be as overcrowded as the mall!
I don’t know what kind of number “Now” is but this Avengers issues is 24.NOW. This issue’s release is accompanied by some great variants. One set featuring X-Men paying homage to classic Avengers covers and the other set showing Avengers paying homage to classic X-Men covers. I just wanted to call attention to these because they’re great looking covers and they would be easy to miss on a holiday week! My favorite is probably the Arthur Adams Avengers #92 homage!
What a day! What a group! What a great idea! So, the Heroes Discussion Group met for our holiday session over at the Sunflower Bakery (yum!) and had a solid two hours of fun and revelry.
Here is a breakdown of the books that each Discussioneer brought to the Table:
Andy Mansell selected Peanuts 2000 and passed the book around so everyone could read the final Charlie Brown/Lucy/Football kick Sunday strip.
Then we moved –clockwise of course– around the table to Matt Plummer—aka Manga Man—and he selected the 70 volume One Piece and thrilled us all with the reasons it is one of the best-selling and beloved weekly comics in Japan.
Dana Lynch brought a few books by the great Norwegian cartoonist Jason, but selected as his discussion choice the 8 issue mini-series Enigma from writer Peter Milligan and artist Duncan Fregredo. This is a book that has dipped below the radar in recent years and Dana explained why it was such an important book for him as a comic reader. The discussion morphed into a roundtable of our favorite Milligan books—X-Force and Shade the Changing Man were mentioned.
Next up was Discussion Group regular Charles Skender and he pulled out his two runners-up Fables March of the Wooden soldiers and Miracleman: Olympus.
But he settled on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s tour de force Preacher. He described Preacher as his gate way book into more challenging comic fare. We also mentioned that it is high time we did Fables for a future discussion and insisted to everyone that they need to give Miracleman a read in the next few months.
Then newbie Chuck Harris offered up Manhattan Projects as his #2 and presented us with his current fave, the All ages book Cowboy—A Boy and his Horse. Passing the book around the pastry-laden table, we were all smitten with the art. The group recommended Bone, Snarked and Herobear and the Kid as kindred spirits of Cowboy and ideal follow up books.
Mark Sullivan aka Mr. Vertigo—whom you can read at mrvertigocomics.wordpress.com was 
up next. His runner-up was Daytripper by those boys from Brazil Ba and Moon. We had spotlighted this series a few years ago and agreed it is a multilayered gem. Mark’s choice for favorite was Hold Me–the classic issue of Hellblazer from Gaiman and McKean. What a moving choice. I can’t speak for the rest of the group, but I had to re-read that beautiful story later that same day.
Joe Rauch—one of HeroesCon’s budding Panel Moderators selected a favorite story arc from his early teen years—Waid and Larroque’s The Flash: Return of Barry Allen. This got the ball rolling as we talked at length about the appeal of super hero comics and how certain books become embedded in one’s subconscious.
A perfect segue for the choice of Laurel Phillips who showed us some of her favorites: Hellboy-Wake the Devil and Soulfire but selected as her go-to book Waid and Ross’ Kingdom Come along with Robinson and Smith’s The Golden Age.
Alex Ramirez was up next and presented our band of sweet tooth readers with Shazam: Monster Society of Evil (which was quickly recommended to Chuck), Sandman World’s End and The Golden Age. But his favorite was the Morrison/Quitely gem of gems All Star Superman. This was the topic of our second Discussion Group back when the world was young. It was an ideal place to finish up since this 12 issue min-series encompasses a love for comics.
As I said, what a great time we had, I was barely able to mention my choice for best book—The Cartoon history of the Universe by Larry Gonick.
But one thing is for sure, we have to do this kind of discussion again. It was a blast and most importantly, I wanted to get home as quickly as possible and read some comics. And isn’t that the point? Merry Christmas to all!!
JUSTIN’S PICK :: WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED #45: I am fascinated by curios. I blame my grandmother, and her dragging me through area Goodwills and the antique shops of Waxhaw on a regular basis. So when a title like “World War 3 Illustrated” crops up in the week’s new offerings, my eyes perk up. The cover only reinforces that curiosity. Upon further investigation, WW3I is a sporadically published political anthology, founded by comic book artists Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman, and painter Christof Kohlhofer. [1] #45’s theme is the afterlife, and the contributor line-up is a cornucopia of names I don’t recognize (with the exception of Mumia Abu-Jamal), but Peter Kuper’s work is always worth a look, and I won’t mind that cover haunting my coffee table for a couple months.
HONORABLE MENTION :: BUZZKILL #4: I’m aware the year isn’t over yet (at least not in practice; mentally, that’s another story), but I’m calling Buzzkill superhero book of the year. And it rounds out 2013 nicely with its fourth and final issue this month. The creative team fires with a perfect synergy, and the “high concept” doesn’t interfere with the characterization, or dictate the plot. It’s smart, it’s clever, it’s the kind of thing superhero comics need to do more of: short form, dazzling entertainment. Yes, dazzling. There. I said it.
[1] Wikipedia, yo.
ANDY’S PICK: This GN collects DC COMICS PRESENTS #27-28, 36 and 43 and SUPERMAN ANNUAL #11. So way back when–after Kirby defected to DC to mastermind The Fourth World Saga, Marvel wanted their own Darkseid, so they turned to newcomer Jim Starlin who in turn created Thanos who proved to be one of the most enduring villains in the Marvel Line-up. A few years later when Starlin left Marvel and came to DC, he joined Len Wein for a short but terrific run on the Superman team-up book DC Comics Presents. They needed a big new baddie for Supes so they invented their own version of Thanos; this time they colored him yellow and called him Mongul.And once the smoke cleared, Mongol and Darkseid proved to be nothing alike except the size and shape of their heads and their over-all evil demeanor. Darkseid was a despot– a world destroyer and a Fallen God. And Mongol was just a big unlikable violent thug who ruled over a rotten planet called WARWORLD. But this Mongul is still tough– you can’t take this big guy down with an exploding CandyGram. These stores by Wein and Starlin were about as good as main stream DC got before the British Invasion. Speaking of which, this volume concludes with one of the greatest single issues in superhero history: For the Man Who has Everything by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. If you haven’t read “Everything” yet, stop what you are doing and pick it up.I can sum up the greatness of the issue in one word– “Burn” It is that good (and it is yet another reason why a lot of us of a certain age loved Jason Todd as Batman’s sidekick)
