9.02.15 [#PicksOfTheWeek]

#PicksOfTheWeek is brought to you with generous support from my retail sponsor Yesteryear Comics. Make Yesteryear Comics your choice in San Diego for great customer service and the best discounts possible on a wide selection of mainstream and independent titles. Customers receive an attractive 20% discount on new titles during their first week of release. Yesteryear Comics is located at 9353 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard.

The book of the week is an easy selection when we have Greg Rucka and Michael Lark delivering Lazarus #19 (Image). Lazarus takes a little something called “selective amplification of the observed present” and extrapolates all of our current social paranoia around the distribution of wealth and dwindling resources to its terrifying set of conclusions. Throw in rapidly advancing bio-engineering and families functioning as consolidated Organized Crime Corporations and you have one of the best books of the year, and probably even a contender for the decade, with its balance of prescience, relevance, and outright coolness.

I’ll also be checking out the following titles, sort of ranked by descending level of interest.

We Stand On Guard #3 (Image)

The Dying & The Dead #3 (Image)

Tales of Honor: Bred To Kill #2 (Image/Top Cow)

Casanova: Acedia #4 (Image)

Plutona #1 (Image)

Miracleman By Gaiman & Buckingham #1 (Marvel)

Mockingbird: SHIELD 50th Anniversary #1 (Marvel)

8.26.15 [#PicksOfTheWeek]

#PicksOfTheWeek is brought to you with generous support from my retail sponsor Yesteryear Comics. Make Yesteryear Comics your choice in San Diego for great customer service and the best discounts possible on a wide selection of mainstream and independent titles. Customers receive an attractive 20% discount on new titles during their first week of release. Yesteryear Comics is located at 9353 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard.

The top pick for the week goes to They’re Not Like Us #7 (Image) by Eric Stephenson, Simon Gane, and Jordie Bellaire. I’m a big fan of these millennial takes on modernizing the basic X-Men concept of latent adolescent power manifestation, and with Gane’s intricate line work this really feels like something special.

I’ll also be checking out the following titles this week:

Prez #3 (DC)

East of West #20 (Image)

Low #9 (Image)

Stringers #1 (Oni Press)

Lando #3 (Marvel)

Hacktivist Volume 2 #2 (Archaia)

We Can Never Go Home #4 (Black Mask)

Scalped Book Two Deluxe Edition HC (DC/Vertigo)

8.19.15 [#PicksOfTheWeek]

#PicksOfTheWeek is brought to you with generous support from my retail sponsor Yesteryear Comics. Make Yesteryear Comics your choice in San Diego for great customer service and the best discounts possible on a wide selection of mainstream and independent titles. Customers receive an attractive 20% discount on new titles during their first week of release. Yesteryear Comics is located at 9353 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard.

It’s a small week for me, but there’s still a handful of great picks. I’m most excited for Manifest Destiny #16 (Image) by Chris Dingess, Matthew Roberts, and Owen Gieni. If the adventures of Lewis & Clark exploring the supernatural frontier doesn’t do it for you, might I also suggest:

Astro City #26 (DC/Vertigo)

Trees #12 (Image)

Oxymoron: The Loveliest Nightmare #1 (Comix Tribe)

If You Steal (Fantagraphics)

8.12.15 [#PicksOfTheWeek]

#PicksOfTheWeek is brought to you with generous support from my retail sponsor Yesteryear Comics. Make Yesteryear Comics your choice in San Diego for great customer service and the best discounts possible on a wide selection of mainstream and independent titles. Customers receive an attractive 20% discount on new titles during their first week of release. Yesteryear Comics is located at 9353 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard.

It’s easy to select the #BookOfTheWeek when Starve #3 (Image) is out from Brian Wood, Danijel Zezelj, and Dave Stewart. In some ways it’s the pinnacle of the Brian Wood creative ethos and instantly became one of the most unique books on the stands in recent memory, certainly a contender for the Best of 2015 lists that critics are already starting to consider. I mean, look at that fucking cover! There's Gavin Cruikshank like Prospero weaving his magic wand on that little island, bathed in syrupy ink as he slathers the head of a swine with some concoction of rosemary, thyme, and balsamic with the studio lights popping in the background! Where else are you gonna' find something like that!? 

There’s also Rebels #5 (Dark Horse) by Brian Wood, Andrea Mutti, and Jordie Bellaire, which is another example of something the writer does so well, crafting rich historical fiction that stays true to the times without being didactic, is engaging without being sensational white-washed nostalgia, and still plays relevant to modern social concerns. Each individual aspect of that last sentence is difficult to pull off, so wrapping all of them up in one package with the rich detail of an artist like Andrea Mutti and his gritty uneven line work is truly a thing to behold. I personally like the quirk of Starve, but you could certainly make the case for Rebels as one of the Best of 2015 as well. Wood is having a helluva year, and there’s still more to come.

It’s a great week with a lot of diverse material being offered, so I’m also going to check out the following titles;

Stumptown Vol. 3 #7 (Oni Press)

Letter 44 #19 (Oni Press)

Death Sentence: London #3 (Titan)

Star Wars: Lando #2 (Marvel)

Arcadia #4 (Boom! Studios)

Lantern City #4 (Archaia)

Descender #6 (Image)

Drifter #7 (Image)

Injection #4 (Image)

The Beauty #1 (Image)

Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #1 (Image)