Valiant

If you're a fan of Valiant's Faith --- and you should be, she's great --- then you're in for a pretty good time next Wednesday. Not only does July 20 see the release of the all-new Faith ongoing series from Jody Houser, Pere Perez, Marguerite Sauvage and Colleen Doran, which picks up where the fantastic "Hollywood and Vine" miniseries left off and introduces an all-new supervillain, but we're also going to see her in a pretty significant guest appearance. In A&A: The Adventures of Archer & Armstrong #5, by Rafer Roberts, Mike Norton, and Allen Passalaqua, Faith and Archer are finally going on their first date, and if you thought seeing Archer trying to use emojis was cute, wait'll you see the conversation they have over dinner. Of course, given their night jobs --- and the fact that there's a shady dude watching them over mozzarella sticks --- I'm going to guess that the night might not go as smoothly as they'd like. Check out a preview!

If you've been keeping up with the events of Bloodshot Reborn, then you already know that Ray Garrison isn't the only person to ever be modified into the unstoppable soldier known as Bloodshot. In the current "Bloodshot Island" story arc, readers have seen prototypes that date back almost a hundred years --- including a dog named Bloodhound, which is a pretty solid contender for the Sensational Character Find of 2016. But in October, it seems that writer Jeff Lemire and artist Doug Braithwaite are taking that idea to the next level with Bloodshot USA, a four-issue miniseries that finds Project Rising Spirit releasing its nanites on New York City --- and turning the entire island of Manhattan into Bloodshots.

A new hero of the future is getting her own one-shot from Valiant Comics this August, courtesy of writer Fred Van Lente and artist Tomás Giorello. War Mother has previously appeared only as a cameo in last summer's Harvey-nominated Book of Death limited series. Readers will learn more about who she is and what she's up to in 4001 A.D.: War Mother, a spin-off of Valiant's current 4001 A.D. event.

I'm pretty excited about virtually any new comics project from Fred Van Lente, but I'll admit that I've been having a little trouble getting an idea of what Generation Zero, the new book from Valiant by Van Lente and Francis Portela, is all about. Really, the only thing I knew was that it was going to feature someone spraypainting a school bus, and really, that could be anything from wacky high school hijinx to something that happens during the Purge. Now that I've read a preview and gotten a look at the solicitation, though, I think I get the high concept: It's The A-Team for #millennial #teens. Check out a preview!

The Nominees for the 2016 Harvey Awards have been announced, and Valiant Entertainment is definitely well-represented this year. The publisher dominates the fields with 50 total nominations. In the categories of Special Award for Humor, Best Graphic Album Previous Published, Special Award for Excellence in Presentation, and Best Domestic Reprint Project, all of the nominees save one are from Valiant. There are of course books from other publishers also doing well, with Marvel's The Vision and Boom's Giant Days both receiving multiple nominations. Standbys like Saga and Lumberjanes are also represented.

The Valiant Universe of 1,985 years in the future is an ever-more fascinating place. That's clearer than ever in 4001 A.D.: Shadowman #1, written by Jody Houser and Rafer Roberts, with art by Robert Gill and colors by Michael Spicer. It seems that there's a city on this future Earth occupied by the dead, a last outpost left behind from a war between the dead and the living. The city of the dead has been at peace with its human neighbors for centuries, but that piece is falling apart.

The question most often asked of the ComicsAlliance staff is a variation of, “Which comic books should I be reading?” or, “I’m new to comics, what’s a good place to start?” The Wednesday deluge of new comic books, graphic novels and collected editions can be daunting even for the longtime reader, much less for those totally unfamiliar with creators, characters and publishers, and the dark mysteries of comic book shopping like variants, pre-ordering, and formats. It’s with these challenges in mind that we’ve created Best Comic Books Ever (This Week), an ongoing guide curated by the ComicsAlliance staff. This is where new comics readers and seasoned Wednesday shoppers alike can find our picks of the best books the medium has to offer.

Here's the thing about unlettered preview pages: They are, by their nature, incomplete, so you're only really getting half of the story. Still, since comics are first and foremost a visual medium, you can still sort of follow along with sequential art. Unless, of course, you're reading a book like A&A: The Adventures of Archer & Armstrong. If that's the case, well, your guess is as good as mine. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the storytelling is bad. Far from it, in fact --- the art by Mike Norton is great. It's just that this book gets so weird, so fast that one second you're reading about jogging in the park, and the next you're seeing a monkey in a top hat, a frog with a crown made of fire, and a bunch of circus strongmen who may or may not be failed clones of Armstrong. That's just how it goes in Clowntown.

In Britannia, Peter Milligan, Juan José Ryp and Jordie Bellaire tell the story of the world's first detective, a Roman centurion with an unusual understanding of psychology. When something that defies his knack for logic causes a murderous kind of trouble in the far reaches of the Empire, he's sent away from his home in the city to a colony far to the north --- and given the title of the series, you can probably guess which one. To find out more about the series, which launches in September from Valiant, ComicsAlliance spoke to Milligan about his approach to introducing a "detectioner" into the ancient world, the challenges of creating a character who combines modern sensibilities with Roman society, and the historical facts that informed his story. We also got an exclusive look at pages from the upcoming issue.

It was only last month that Comixology launched Comixology Unlimited, a new subscription-base service with a Netflix-style model that gives access to a library of titles to read for a flat monthly fee. Since then, there's been one major question among readers: What exactly are we going to get on there? Now, a month after the launch with titles from Image, Dark Horse, Valiant and IDW, the digital comics platform has announced the first wave of additions, set to hit Unlimited on June 27 --- including the first three issues of Afterlife With Archie, the first five of Ryan Browne's God Hates Astronauts, and the first eight issues of Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered.