The Johnny Bacardi Show

Thought I'd give you guys a break from DHL and package box-related pics this time. Yes, it's time once more for that least essential feature, IMA GET NEW COMEEKS THIS WEEK!, in which I waste a good five minutes of your life and tell you what comics I'm expecting in my bi-weekly DCBS shipment, as well as provide a little commentary on the ones that I can find something to remark upon. And these be them:

MEAT CAKE #17: I was thinking the other day about why I buy certain titles, and leave others alone, and this one is one of the biggest headscratchers in my experience. I do have a weakness for Early Americana and/or Victorian-styled whimsy, not that I really get to scratch that particular itch all that often, so I guess this qualifies on that score...and I especially like it when it's created by an attractive female, on which count Dame Darcy certainly does qualify. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the quirky cast she's created to populate her book, and her accounts of the exploits of Wax Wolf, Richard Dirt, Strega Pez and others are usually always the highlight of every issue in which they appear. Guess this is another example of #22 on Spurgeon's list (which seems to be missing from his site right now).

MANHUNTER #35: Watch out boys, she'll chew you up. Oh, wait. that's Maneater.

THE BOYS #23

TOP TEN SEASON TWO #1: Yes, I know I already reviewed this one over at PopSyndicate.com. How is this possible? Confession time: I downloaded it. Yes, that's right, I took advantage of one of those multitudes of sites that offer that shady service. It's just about the only way I can read new comics in time to review them, m'kay? Anyway, lest the jackbooted officers kick down my door and confiscate my computer, I deleted it after I was done, and as you can see, I did buy a copy. So there. I liked this myself; I thought it was a decent continuation of Moore's original series. Maybe not as witty or as keenly observational, but a solid B+/A- work.

B.P.R.D.: THE WARNING #4: Every time I see this title, I think of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" and its "Don't push me 'cause I'm over the edge" lyric. No, I don't know why. Actually "Warning" is an old Black Sabbath track. And I'm rambling.

100 BULLETS #96: One of these days I'm going to dig my singles out of storage and read them all in one sitting. Well, actually probably two or three sittings- I recently tried to reread my run of Major Bummer and only got to issue 11 or so. Distractions, distractions. A nagging little thought keeps entering my brain- "Sell your singles, Dave! Take the money and buy the trades!" This thought enters my mind about a lot of books these days.

HAWAIIAN DICK #5: The grande finale to the "Screaming Black Thunder" arc. Boy, this one's taken quite some time, hasn't it? I've enjoyed it, though...as with Meat Cake (and that's the ONLY way these two are connected, except by quality of course), I guess I just like the setting and the characters that much, and it keeps me entertained and buying. B. Clay Moore's been mulling some future format experimentation on Twitter (and I'd assume on message boards and such), and that sounds intriguing. I think I'd prefer buying Dick as a series of all-in-one annual graphic novels, or something like that. For what that's worth.

FABLES #77

Also, I made out my DCBS order a couple of days ago, and it goes a little something like this:

100 BULLETS #98
FABLES #79
HELLBLAZER #250
JACK STAFF #20
DAREDEVIL #114
SCALPED #24
AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #6

TERRA #'s 3 & 4 (It's the Amanda Connor art, OK? Not to be confused with Terro.)

MADAME XANADU #7
THE BOYS #25
TOP TEN SEASON TWO #3
UNKNOWN SOLDIER #3

UMBRELLA ACADEMY: DALLAS #2 (Yes, I should wait for the trade. I am weak and worthless.)

MANHUNTER #37
SANDMAN: DREAM HUNTERS #2
PATSY WALKER HELLCAT #5

INCOGNITO #1 (In which Brubaker and Phillips try to do Sleeper again...except they don't.)

COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND PRINCE OF NOWHERE (Hooray, new Courtney!)

WASTELAND TP BOOK 03: BLACK STEEL IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS (Here's a series I'm following in trades, partly because Oni used to send them to me. Guess I'm on my own now.)

APOCALIPSTIX GN VOL 01 (Been interested in this for a while now, missed it when it was originally solicited.)

HELLBOY: THE WILD HUNT #1 (OF 8) (By Mignola and Duncan Fregredo, which sounds pretty damn good to me.)

BLUE BEETLE #34

And finally, items of note that are coming out this week:

THE COMICS JOURNAL #293: Featuring an interview with JBS favorite S. Clay Wilson. If the Journal didn't depress me so, I might try to buy it 'cause I sure would like to read that. Maybe they'll put it online before I die.

FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #2 and FINAL CRISIS: ROGUES REVENGE #3 are the latest issues of Final Crisis tie-ins I'm interested in. The latter, especially, was surprisingly readable.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #19, another series I've developed a casual interest in.

SCALPED VOL. 3: DEAD MOTHERS is the newest Scalped trade, and if you're not reading it already here's where you start. Hopefully, you'll break down and get the first two as well, and be mostly caught up. Right now, Scalped has my vote for best comic being published by the Big Two.

THE SPIRIT ARCHIVES VOL. 25 is supposed to collect the Spirit daily newspaper strips, which I think I've seen somewhere before but damned if I know where. If I ever hit the lottery, I'll order the whole set of these Archives, just you wait and see- or at least #'s 2-25. I already have #1.

Anyway, that's all I got, I suppose. Here's Diamond's shipping list for this week so you can make your own. Cheers!