The theme for the week seems to be “DC’s imprints”, as everything that caught my eye for this column is either coming from Vertigo or the soon-to-be missed Wildstorm. Join me as I look at what I would buy, were I financially able to buy everything that caught my fancy.
Books I Want to Buy:
Vertigo Resurrected#1
by Warr
en Ellis, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello, Jim Lee, Phil Jimenez, and Bernie Wrightson, and others; Vertigo, $7.99
I haven’t seen any of the new DC Presents format for reprinting comics, so I don’t know how I feel about them from an aesthetic standpoint yet, but I am intrigued by this offering of unpublished or forgotten Vertigo single issues or shorts.
The big draw to this book is Ellis and Jimenezs’ Hellblazer story about a school shooting that was considered too controversial to publish in the wake of Columbine. Will it be any good? Probably.
I don’t know what else is in this book. Strangely, Vertigo’s website says nothing other than listing off who the creators are, so I don’t know if this would be worth getting or not. I’ll have to wait and look at it in the comic store, to see how much of it I’ve actually read already.
Victorian Undead TP
by Ian Edginton and Davide Fabbri; Wildstorm, $17.99
The way I see it, this can go one of two ways. There’s a good chance that this book, collecting the recent Wildstorm mini-series, is so ridiculous in its concept (Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies! it now says on the cover) that it is a complete mess, or this book is so ridiculous in its concept as to be a work of genius.
Given that this title didn’t get a lot more than some polite reviews, I’m going to guess that it lands somewhere in the middle, and is simply a competent comic written by a good journeyman comics writer, and featuring art by an artist whose been around for a while, but who I’m unfamiliar with.
Given the subject matter and that excellent cover, I wish that Tony Moore had done the interiors, but still, I think this book is worth checking out.
Astro City: The Dark Age Book 2: Brothers in Arms HC
by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson; Wildstorm, $29.99
I quit reading Astro City: The Dark Age either after the second or third mini-series, so there’s a chance that I’ve read some of what’s collected in here (this book covers the last half of The Dark Age). I didn’t so much drop the title as I made a conscious decision to trade-wait it; the books were now $3.99, and while enjoyable, were coming out way too sporadically and costing too much to stick with.
That’s generally my thing with Astro City – when I’m reading an issue, I love it, but as soon as it’s done, so am I. I have never felt like I needed to read every issue of this title, instead feeling like it’s very easy to jump on and off for an arc, depending on what is going on in the title, and how many other books are clamoring for my attention at that time.
What was cool about The Dark Age is that the two main characters were not super-heroes. Instead, they were two brothers, one a cop, the other a crook, who don’t get along, and who keep crossing paths with their powered neighbours. It was a very effective street view comic, and now that it’s being collected, I hope to finish the story.
The Book I Think You Should Buy:
Hellblazer India TP
by Peter Milligan, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Landini, and Simon Bisley; Vertigo, $14.99
I’ve found Peter Milligan’s run on Hellblazer to be decent, without really holding my interest, with the exception of this particular arc.
Constantine, accused of murder and once again needing to find a way to lay low, decamps for India, where he, of course, runs into trouble. This is a haunted, unhappy John, who is trying to find a way to correct the horrible mistakes he’d recently made which resulted in the death of his new girlfriend.
Milligan gives us a very interesting India as a background. He’s always had a tendency towards Orientalism in his writing, and he makes good use of it here. The story is full of interesting characters, and of course, very good art by Camuncoli.
So, what would you buy Were Money No Object?
