8.20.14 [#BookOfTheWeek]

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Supreme: Blue Rose #2 (Image): There are several strong contenders this week. There’d be absolutely no shame in picking the flawless lush visuals and morality examination amid crumbling social structures in Manifest Destiny #9, the pop myth masterpiece of The Wicked + The Divine #3, Hemingway and his hemochromatosis upstaging the protagonist in The Life After #2, the overwhelming visual feast from Chris Mitten, Jordan Boyd, and Thomas Mauer in Umbral #8, or the perpetual outsider riff vis-à-vis pseudo-totalitarianism in Trees #4. Like I said, there’s a ton of great comics out this week. But, I’m inclined to give the nod to Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay’s Supreme: Blue Rose #2. The striking visuals are what first caught my attention (though I'll admit the sometimes inconsistent writing from Ellis has been far more "hit" than "miss" of late, just look at the 6-issue phenom that is Moon Knight), but honestly this is what Warren Ellis does best. It’s Warren Ellis channeling his inner Warren Ellis and ruminating on the act of the craft itself. Sure, the sci-fi message is about time as a non-linear construct, and with Lotay’s ethereal, slightly out of focus lines, the compelling premise is that if the loop has already occurred, we can message versions of ourselves from our current position. But, underneath the protagonist’s navigation of that structure is Ellis talking about process, the “protocolization” as one character puts it, similar to what Alan Moore starting doing toward the end of Promethea, a quasi-autobiographical infusion into the genre fiction. I’m feeling like this has the potential to be the best Warren Ellis creation since Planetary. That’s high praise considering I often tell people that Planetary is one of (if not “the”) best comic in the last 20 years. Grade A+.