Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

It's only a few episodes deep, but there's already something very clear about FX's new X-Men spin-off show Legion --- it's staunchly independent in it's execution and vision, and very clearly the work of showrunner Noah Hawley (of the excellent Fargo), and feels at odds with a lot of more recent comic adaptations. For that, we should be grateful.

Striking imagery in any visual medium can only really come about when taken in isolation. You could have a comic that is full of stunning pages, image after image of the most gorgeously rendered scenes ever, and it can lose context in book form. By overloading incredible imagery, it becomes commonplace, and you have to work even harder to sell a visual that you might need to be particularly stunning. If you could take a single image out of said book and present it in isolation, that beauty would flood backs to it. You can achieve this effect pretty easily in comics when you restrict your style to a set look and feel, and then bring in small changes when necessary to create a massive change to the images. For an example, check out the new book Death be Damned, by Ben Acker, Ben Blacker, Andrew Miller, Hannah Christenson, Juan Useche, and Colin Bell.

Mahershala Ali has been in just about every great thing over the past twelve months. Netflix fans probably first noticed his work in House of Cards on Netflix, in which he played lobbyist and presidential chief-of-staff Remy Danton opposite Kevin Spacey's unctuous Francis Underwood. That's a scary enough proposition for even a veteran actor, but Ali gave a stellar performance, and followed it up by being easily the best thing about another Netflix series, Luke Cage. Ali has established himself as an intriguing and formidable force, and a name to keep an eye on throughout 2017. And I'm loving every moment of it.

I loved every page of the first issue of Jason Latour, Chris Brunner and Rico Renzi's Loose Ends. There was a whole load of storytelling tricks and techniques to unpack, but I want to look at one that has sprung up before with Jason Latour in Southern Bastards, and it's the use of red throughout. This time coloured by Renzi, he starts to drop a very saturated red tone in various stages of the story.

There might never be a more perfect time to read Jaeger, the digital comic by Ibrahim Moustafa, published on the Stela app. It's a spy story in the mold of James Bond, only its protagonist is an Arab chasing down the Nazis who imprisoned him. The Nazis talk of the myth of Der Jaeger --- The Hunter --- even as our hero Idris tracks them one by one, leading up to the man he hates the most, Kammler. It's a therapeutic, heart-wrenching, white-knuckle story that moves at breakneck pace.

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, is one of those comics that seems to have almost universal appeal. I've recommended it to so many friends who have never really tried comics, and the feedback is almost always the same; "Where do I find more?" There's a simplicity to its premise that is powerful, in that the power of love can unite even the worst of foes.

The biggest barrier for comics entry, specifically with the direct market, seems to be actually getting people into comic shops. The first comic I ever read was a black and white reprint of the first 20 or so Spider-Man comics, in the "Essentials" phonebook-sized comics Marvel used to print. It was good, in that it was my first taste of the medium, and the silly stories and characters and larger-than-life fights and situations were a lot of fun. But it didn't make me want to get up and go find a comic shop. That changed when I discovered The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard.

Terry Moore continues to make some of the best and oddest comics found on store shelves --- odd especially in their merging of genres, such as in Motor Girl, which seems to stretch from PTSD sufferer's story to spy thriller; and best in that he really has an understanding of conveying character and moments.

It's Music Week here at ComicsAlliance, and I wanted to take some time to dive into a very particular relationship between music and comics. Comics obviously are silent, so musical numbers are particularly tough to pull off. Getting the actual sound across, the lyricism, the melody - it's a challenge. I want to take a look at three examples of music in comics that all use a particular approach with notation. By using the staves of sheet music, and placing notes on the page, these three comics manage to provide an extra depth to their storytelling.

I love the fun Marvel books, like last week's Unstoppable Wasp. It reminds me why I started reading superhero comics in the first place, and the whole thing is a blast. You can tell the creators --- Jeremy Whitley, Elsa Charretier, Megan Wilson and Joe Caramagna --- are having tonnes of fun, too. It starts to bleed into the way they present the story, with some non-traditional layouts on quite a few pages. The comics form is often limited to just regular panels, gridded pages and the like, but it's not the only way to draw a story on a page, obviously. So when you see an example like Nadia recounting a story of her father --- Hank Pym --- and it's told through the mask of Ant Man, that stands out. It breaks the normal mold of what you'd expect, and it does a couple of things that help tell a story.