Landry Q Walker

If you missed the announcement a few weeks ago, Comixology's new Unlimited service is being touted as Netflix for indie comics. Subscribers pay a flat monthly fee, and they get access to a library of titles from publishers like Image, Valiant, Archie and more, including smaller self-publishers. And, like Netflix, new stuff is showing up on a monthly basis to keep readers hooked. This month, as we roll into August, Comixology has announced the addition of another 25 titles --- and if you're looking for a good place to start, I've got a couple of suggestions. Starting today, you can read the entirety of Jody Houser, Francis Portela, and Marguerite Sauvage's Faith miniseries from Valiant, and the first volume of Eric Jones and Landry Q. Walker's amazing Danger Club.

As you've probably heard by now, everyone is really, really excited about Supergirl this week. That's something that DC and Comixology have set out to take advantage of with a big sale on Supergirl comics that's running through November 2, and there's a ton of great stuff in there. Silver Age classics, team-ups with the Legion of Super-Heroes, Bronze Age stories that rarely see reprints, they're all in there, and if digging through digital dollar boxes is your thing, there are plenty of pretty great issues to find in there among the 321 titles they've got on offer. But for the single best deal --- and the single best story --- you can get in the sale, there's one thing that stands out over everything else: Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones's Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, which is on sale for $4.99, and worth a whole lot more.

You know things are pretty bad for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when Shredder, an evil ninja who is literally dressed in knives, is the least of their worries. That's the situation in the first issue of IDW's TMNT: Amazing Adventures, in which Cluckingsworth, a super-intelligent mutant chicken from their time at April O'Neil's family farm, has returned to New York City and is apparently bringing a whole lot of trouble with her. But while that is certainly a pressing concern, Landry Q. Walker, Chad Thomas and Heather Breckel's lead story isn't the only thing worth noting, because this is also the issue where we finally get to see the Ninja Turtles in a story by James Kochalka.

Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones's Danger Club was one of the most promising new comics of 2013. A brutally violent story about the sidekicks left on Earth after the world's superheroes died fighting a cosmic threat in space, it was astonishingly bloody and phenomenally clever -- and absolutely nothing like their previous work, the cheery, all-ages Supergirl's Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade. Unfortunately, after the fifth of eight issues, the series vanished from the stands, and I just sort of assumed it had an exceptionally down ending. In January, however, Danger Club returned with the long-awaited 6th issue, setting a schedule to finish the series in its entirety in March, so I took the opportunity to talk to Walker and Jones about the unexpected hiatus, the influence of Teen Titans, and what it was like to build a universe that felt like it had been there for 50 years in only a few pages.

Listen, I don't want to get up on a soap box here, because that's not what ComicsAlliance is about, but there's something that really bothers me at this time of year. I've read a lot of holiday comics, and very, very few of them even touch on the true meaning of Christmas. Sure, there's a lot about the spirit of giving and being a good person, but that's the kind of stuff that superhero comics are always about anyway. There's something more behind Christmas, something eternal, something that a lot of people want to ignore for the sake of being "inclusive" or whatever nonsense reasons they have this year. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but let's be real: There's a reason we have Christmas, and it's time we acknowledge that. And that reason is that Batman reversed time to stop the Earth from being blown up by antimatter.

To say that I was a big fan of Supergirl's Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, an all-ages Supergirl miniseries published by DC Comics in 2009, is a pretty big understatement. I firmly believe that it's the single best Supergirl story of the past 20 years, with exactly the kind of fun, action-packed adventure that DC needed to offer younger fans...