Coming This Week: "This Is The End, Beautiful Friend"

I must be feeling a little cynical this week, because I don’t think I’m actually going to buy anything. I can’t remember the last time that happened. I’ve come close a few weeks recently, buying only one or two books, but there hasn’t been a complete shut out in quite some time. Surveying the offerings, I was met by a nauseating feeling, like being lost in a thick fog of toxicity. Over at DC, your choices range from a Wetworks book (groan), to reprints of old material, to the very lackluster Detective Comics and First Wave books. IDW is hot with licensed properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers, which I’ll be skipping because, well, I’m not 10 years old. Image has some Witchblade stuff and more of their Pilot Season dreck, which has been pretty consistently panned. At Marvel it’s the same influx of Avengers relaunch pap and some tired X-Men vs. Vampires attempted cash-in. Further down on the listings, Avatar Press continues their endless variant covers, with special editions of things like Crossed, Captain Swing, and Supergod. These are all fine books, but I’d rather have the next issue of the series, most of which are late, than yet another variant cover. Dark Horse’s Bettie Page merchandise takes up about 3/4th of the listings. The only real bright spot that I can recommend is the DE: TALES Hardcover (Dark Horse). I already own the softcover of this book, so if you missed it the first time around, this is Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon’s out of print collection of short “Stories from Urban Brazil.” Fans of the recently wrapped Daytripper should especially take note, since this is sort of an indie precursor to that type of reflective and beautifully rendered story. More info here from Dark Horse, and my quick review back in 2006 here. Enjoy!