3.02.11 Releases

It’s a bit of a snoozer this week, but here are a few gems that sparkled amid the detritus. Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1 (Dark Horse) marks the print outing of the web-comic sensation written by a kid, and illustrated by his older brother. Holy crap! I’d forgotten all about this book, but it’s the last issue of the mini-series, with Joe The Barbarian #8 (DC/Vertigo) finally shipping months later. Though I certainly believe in voting with your wallet and not supporting such ridiculous scheduling, it’s surprisingly coherent for Grant Morrison, and Sean Murphy’s art is usually worth the price of admission alone. I’m not a huge fan of Jeff Lemire’s Vertigo work, but with art contributions by Matt Kindt and Nate Powell, I’ll probably be picking up Sweet Tooth #19 (DC/Vertigo), which has taken an experimental turn of late. On the graphic novel front, we’re FINALLY getting a collected edition of Wildcats Version 3.0: Year Two (DC/Wildstorm). This is a Joe Casey joint which uses the type of prescient futurism that Warren Ellis has built a career on and pre-dates the type of corporate paradigm shifting drama that Matt Fraction has built his run of Invincible Iron Man on, only Casey did it years ago in the Wildstorm Universe, proof again why it was a fertile breeding ground allowing the type of creative freedom The Big Two only seem to arrive at a decade later. It’s got art by Dustin Nguyen and Sean Phillips, collecting issues 13-24. My strongest recommendation this week is probably Lewis & Clark (St. Martins Press), a feature length GN from Nick Bertozzi, the only doubt will be if it's the type of book Sea Donkey will have the foresight to have ordered.