Don’t Ask! Just Buy It! – December 28, 2011: Going Gorillas

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week.

KEY:

* Spinoffs

^ Sidekicks

% Speed

¢ Shortness

¢ AN ANTHOLOGY OF GRAPHIC FICTION, CARTOONS AND TRUE STORIES VOL. 2, SALE EDITION

No idea what that description means, but Diamond's listing has this book at $9.99. Maybe it's been remaindered? In any case, it's a collection of art-comics work edited by Ivan Brunetti, and it's great -- the usual suspects are present, but there's also material by Laura Park, Fletcher Hanks, Harvey Kurtzman, etc. Ten bucks is a bargain for it.

* ^ ¢ AVENGERS SOLO #3

Jen Van Meter and Roger Robinson's Hawkeye serial continues.

* ^ ¢ CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY #625

After his vivid, Alex Toth-influenced Detective Comics and Black Panther work, anything Francesco Francavilla draws is going to catch my attention. This issue starts a new arc co-written by Ed Brubaker and James Asmus.

* ^ DC COMICS PRESENTS ELSEWORLDS 80 PAGE GIANT #1

Here's something we wouldn't have seen a couple of years ago, a reprint of one of the rarest modern mainstream comics--rare because most of the print run was pulped after some copies had already been shipped to the U.K. The offending story, Kyle Baker and Liz Glass's "Leticia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter," won an Eisner for Best Short Story and ended up appearing in Bizarro Comics. There's a lot of Ty Templeton-drawn material in here I'm curious about (as well as a late-model Bob Haney story about the Super-Sons). But since this format seems to be standardized at 96 pages, what will the other 16 pages be? Just repeating "Leticia Lerner" a couple more times, like they were Jay-Z and Kanye or something?

^ % ¢ THE FLASH #4

Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. That is a nice cover.

^ % HEALTH CARE REFORM

This is one of those really weird project-changes-after-it's-been-announced situations, as well as one of those really frustrating comics-presented-as-being-"by"-the-big-name-writer situations. Take a look at the originally solicited version of the cover: Jonathan Gruber (the big-name reform activist) is in big letters, Harvey Newquist (the writer I'm guessing actually... contributed substantially toward putting together the script) is "with" in smaller letters, and way down at the bottom we get "illustrated by Dean Motter." I have no idea what the cover art in that version (a parody of the cover of Mad #1) has to do with health care reform, but hey. On the final version , Gruber's name is still gigantic; this time Newquist's name is even tinier, and the "illustrated by" credit goes to (Xeric-winning!) Nathan Schreiber. Curious.

* MUPPETS PRESENTS THE TREASURE OF PEG-LEG WILSON

Six bucks for 80 pages' worth of Roger Langridge (reprinted from his miniseries of a few years ago), i.e. a no-brainer.

^ ¢ SMURFS VOL. 10: THE RETURN OF SMURFETTE

Peyo is the only credited creator on this one, which doesn't seem to correspond to any of the original French "Schtroumpfs" albums. Four stories.