Coming This Week: "I Don't Know What The World May Need, But I'm Sure As Hell It Starts With Me"

Were I to complain, I guess I could say that the release dates seem to vary and there’s really no telling if Sea Donkey will get Wasteland: Apocalyptic Edition: Volume Two (Oni Press) in this week. Amazon lists October 12 as an availability date, the Oni Press web-site lists September 29, while Diamond is indicating it’ll ship this week on September 22. In any case, it’s a real treat to see Oni Press get behind these great series with the oversized hardcover treatment. They did it with Brian Wood’s Local and the first volume of this book was a total surprise. I have fond memories of picking up my signed copy at last year’s San Diego Con directly from Antony Johnston and Christopher Mitten. I’m happy to see the follow up come out quite promptly. This edition includes issues 14 to 25, the “Walking the Dust” prose stories from Ankya Ofsteen, new art pieces, and a color cover gallery from Ben Templesmith. Issue 25, in particular, was really a landmark achievement from Mitten, with some breathtaking colors. It’s a little bittersweet considering it was one of Mitten’s last great hurrahs on the title before exiting stage left. Johnston recently let slip that he’s got an end point plotted out around issue 60, so we should still be in for a few years of this genre shattering work, despite some artist rotation. That’s my long preamble to say that Wasteland is highly recommended and you should check it out. Buy the singles, buy the trades, buy the Apocalyptic Editions. Pick a format and dive in. It’s a thin week for me, with the only other title I’m marginally interested in being Uncanny X-Men #528 (Marvel). It really is a polar opposite experience from what I get out of Invincible Iron Man. Both written by Matt Fraction, both high profile Marvel U properties, but one is consistently written well, one is not, one has a stable art team which I enjoy, one does not, one focuses on a single character and a cohesive plot line, one offers all kinds of characters and a maze of unwieldy and rarely resolved plot lines. With the $3.99 price tag on top of it, Uncanny X-Men is continually losing me and is the number one contender for being dropped at the moment.