8.15.12 Releases

I’m excited to check out The Victories #1 (Dark Horse) from Michael Avon Oeming. If it’s anything like his old collaboration with Neil Vokes called Parliament of Justice, it has the potential to be one of my favorite dark superhero deconstruction bits ever. Next up is X-Men #34 (Marvel) from Brian Wood and new series artist Roland Boschi. Honestly, Boschi wouldn’t be my first choice for this, not even my tenth, but I’ll admit the art samples I’ve seen look much better than what I remember from their recent Wolverine & The X-Men: Alpha & Omega collaboration, almost as if he's aping the style of the amazing David Lopez. The guy at my new LCS was telling me that sales on this book have been picking up, so I’ll be curious where it (and Wood for that matter) end up in this whole new Marvel Now! re-shuffling of talent. The only other sure buy for me this week is Saga #6 (Image) and, uhh, anecdote alert, I guess? When I worked at a Fortune 100 company a few years back, the CEO always had this saying that you get more blame than you deserve for things that go wrong, and you also get more credit than you deserve when things go right. I guess that’s my way of saying that I think this book is good, but that it gets more hype than it probably should. At this point, I basically put it in the guilty pleasure category, sort of an offbeat soap opera. But hey, there's a reason General Hospital has been on the air since 1963. It’s worth pointing out that Saucer Country #6 (DC/Vertigo) is also out this week, but I’ve basically decided to trade-wait this series to see if it peps up. If I was still buying company owned, I’d be all over Batwoman #12 (DC), which sees the return of JH Williams III on art duties, and thank the heavens for that. It’s basically the only book I miss since I quit non-creator owned Marvel and DC fare. On the GN front, I give The Making Of (Drawn & Quarterly) my highest recommendation. I picked this HC up at SDCC from Drawn & Quarterly and fully expect to see this new Brecht Evens project on My Thirteen Favorite Things of 2012 list at the end of the year. It should be getting all of the buzz that Asterios Polyp got the year the critics went crazy for it, only with a level of warmth and accessibility that outshines the sometimes clinical feel of Asterios Polyp, essentially highlighting the process of creating art, or the journey, being far more important than the end result, or the destination. Buy it.