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.

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.