BEST OF THE WEEK
What I bought and what I thought, week of May 7!
1. 100% 5
Romance, lust and love collide in the emotionally charged conclusion to the sci-fi epic! (From dccomics.com) Weeelllll...not exactly. Overdue and somewhat of a letdown in its low-key resolution, but still very well done and if it lacks drama, well, life's like that. Hopefully Paul Pope will revisit all these great characters in the future, and I'll be there when he does. A
2. NEVERMEN: STREETS OF BLOOD 3
If 100% was low-key in its finale, then this was high-key...outstanding resolution to one of the weirdest adventure comics I've ever read, full of odd but clever dialogue and most definitely full of "Hell to beat the band". I'd like to know exactly what happened to Winterbone... A
3. 100 BULLETS 44
Gripping continuation of the Loop/Lono in prison arc. As always, brilliant work by Azzurello and Risso. A
4. LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN V2 5
Despite a reprise of the somewhat hard-to-watch Quartermain/Harker tryst in #4, this was, in the parlance, ripping good adventuring. Moore and O'Neill seem to be having more fun this time around than in V1, and I thought they were having a ball then. I don't really want to think too much about Griffin's fate... *shudder* A
5. MR. GUM One-shot
I tried to warm to the Atomics, really I did, but I eventually lost interest and stopped buying it. But when I saw that Jason Bone was going to be illustrating, I decided what the heck, and I'm glad I did. Bone's work is stellar throughout, not only channeling his normal Timm and Kirby influences, but I swear I see some of Wally Wood's humor art in there as well. A
Wow! Five A's in one week!
6. TONY MILLIONAIRE'S SOCK MONKEY V4 1
There's just something about Millionaire's stuff that appeals to my weakness for weirdo whimsy, in both his Maakies strips and his Sock Monkey adventures. Another outstanding episode, marred slightly by an ambiguous and disappointing ending. But hey, plot's not all that important with this sort of thing anyway. A-
7. WOLVERINE/DOOP 1
Well, the good news is that Darwyn Cooke turns in another excellent art job, with help from that J. Bone fellow. The bad news is that it's wasted on a pointless, plotless story that doesn't make sense on a lot of levels. Pete Milligan's proved in the past that he can do better...but I don't know if I'll buy #2 to find out if he does. C-
8. AUTHORITY V2 1
Warren Ellis, come home. All is forgiven! Dull, derivative script paired with wretched, amateurish art. I'll admit that I wished the Authority book could continue somehow, especially after the sorry way it went down before, but good God almighty- this was nowhere near what I had in mind. D
MIA- My store got short-shipped again, so I didn't get CLOCK MAKER 3 or FILTH 10. Neither did any copies of SUPERMAN: RED SON show up...
I also picked up the new COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine, #24, which was devoted to the glory days of the National Lampoon, which I read a lot growing up. Several great interviews with the likes of Gahan Wilson, Frank Springer (an artist whose grubby, old-school style always kinda appealed to me) and Mary Kay Brown, but due to space limitations a Shary Flenniken piece I would have liked to have read got dropped. C'est la vie.
