Dark Horse
Jan Strnad and Richard Corben are starting something called Ragemoor, a mini-series. I love Corben’s work, so I’m on board, with no need to even read the solicitation. I do wish they’d tell us how long this thing is going to be though…
Dark Horse is also publishing a new printing of 
Channel Zero – Brian Wood’s debut comic. Wood is an interesting, if kind of static artist, and there is more relevance in what he says about the media here than there was when this was written. This book also includes the Becky Cloonan-drawn Jennie One prequel. Good stuff – if you like Jonathan Hickman’s The Nightly News, you’ll probably like this too.
So I’m ordering 8 books from Dark Horse in March. I don’t think I’ve bought that many comics from this publisher in one month since they did their huge superhero line back in the day (Remember that? Neither do I, really, except for Barb Wire – I can’t seem to burn that out of my brain).
DC
I haven’t read or been interested in reading Justice League since the re-boot, but #7 is going to be drawn by Gene Ha. I may have to pick that up. Likewise, I’m very curious to check out Green Arrow #7. I’ve never liked the character, but I have fond memories of Ann Nocenti’s runs on Daredevil and Kid Eternity.
One of my favourite comics runs of all time was the stretch where Jamie Delano and Steve Pugh were on Animal Man in the 90s. I’m really happy to see that Pugh’s name is attached to the seventh issue. I’ve been enjoying the series, but not the art; Pugh would be a perfect fix for this.
I added Stormwatch to my pull-list last month, but with Paul Cornell being replaced by Paul Jenkins, I’m taking it off. I may pick this up in the store, but I’m not going to commit to it. I will add Demon Knights to my file though, as I’ve been enjoying it.
James Robinson coming onto Men of War has me interested (I’m enjoying his Shade), but Scott Kolins is drawing it. I don’t know why this book keeps getting artists I don’t like (first Tom Derenick, now Kolins). All of these are artists who receive acclaim, but their stuff doesn’t work for me. I guess Mark Bagley or Mark Brooks will be taking over this title next…
Night Force? Really? I know DC has the Midas touch lately, but this feels like they are really pushing their luck. Granted, if this lasts six issues, I suppose The Shade will make it through all twelve. Shade has Javier Pulido on art this month – that’s exciting!
Seven months into the New 52, and I’m a little surprised by the number of storylines that are continuing. It seems like DC is not just writing for the standard 6-issue trade anymore, and are instead crafting stories of varying length and complexity. This is a very good thing, and DC should be commended for it. Also, I’m surprised to see that none of the new titles have been canceled yet; I think this is a strong show of faith in the lower-selling titles by DC, and I believe it’s working, as I’m starting to add some of the more obscure books, like Demon Knights, to my pull-file.
Vertigo is launching a number of new titles this month, and I’m not sure if I agree with their approach. I would be more likely to try a new series each month, but this is perhaps too many starting at once, causing me to be a little more selective. Saucer Country looks promising, if a little like Xenoholics. It’s by Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly, so buying it is a given.
I love Fables, so of course I’m going to give Fairest a shot. It’s going to have rotating creative teams, and focus on the women of the Fables-verse, so I may not always stick with it, but I’m definitely on board for the first story, which is by Bill Willingham and Phil Jimenez, and follows up on Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty), who we last saw being abducted by Goblins.
I’m going to wait and see what happens with The New Deadwardians and Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child. The former looks like it may be good, but I’m not familiar with the artist, or Dan Abnett writing without Andy Lanning. As for the Voodoo series, the preview that was in the Unexpected anthology a few months back didn’t do much for me, despite my deep respect for Denys Cowan’s art.
Image
They basically had me at ‘Brian K. Vaughan’, but the solicitation for Saga makes me very excited. An on-going series by BKV and Fiona Staples (!), Saga is being described as Star Wars meets Game of Thrones. Also, the first issue is going to be 44 pages, with no ads, for only $2.99. Vaughan is terrific, whether he’s writing a book like Runaways, Ex Machina, or Y the Last Man. I expect this to be one of the best new series of 2012.
And the hits keep coming. Turning the page, there’s a new on-going by Jonathan Hickman and his Red Wing collaborator Nick Pitarra called The Manhattan Projects. It looks like an alternate history series, where the Manhattan Project was used to create other things than just the atom bomb. This should also be great.
Hell Yeah, by Joe Keatinge and Andre Szymanowicz, looks interesting – it’s about the first post-super hero generation, and what it’s like growing up in the shadows of metahumans. It’s worth checking out, I think.
My god I buy a lot of Image books these days. There are 20 on my pull-list for March. They are the most exciting publisher in comics though…
Marvel
Am I the only person finding it hard to care much about Avengers Vs. X-Men? I feel like its existence just means that the end of Avengers Children’s Crusade, and whatever happens in Generation Hope for the next few months, just won’t matter at all. Also, I’m starting to not trust Brian Michael Bendis much for these sorts of projects, and I feel that his talkative Avengers will be a bad mix for Jason Aaron’s more action-based, light humour X-Men. Sadly, I’ll probably end up buying this despite the fact that I’m trying my best to drop the core Avengers titles.
Check out Ed McGuinness’s cover for Avengers: X-Sanction #4. At first I thought that Colossus got turned into a Hulk instead of a Juggernaut, but then I realized that it’s techno-organic virus-ravaged Cable, whose hair somehow turned black in the process. This is easily one of the worst covers of the New Year (and, since the comic is written by Jeph Loeb, we can guess that the quality of the contents will only match that of the cover). Definitely staying far away from this one…
Hey great! Just as I’m finally starting to find that the cons way outweigh the pros in Bendis’s Avengers books, Marvel decides to give him a third monthly Avengers comic, Avengers Assemble. What makes this one stand out? Well, it forces the cast of the movie onto one team, so that the fifteen or twenty people worldwide who decide that the movie makes them want to read comics will have a book to pick up. It will be polybagged, the solicitation tells us, so they won’t know until they get it home that it’s going to be twenty pages of people standing around talking, with bad Mark Bagley art. Why not just reprint the first Ultimates series? It’s the same thing, but with better art.
On a more positive note, Marvel is only double-shipping one title on my pull-list in March; Uncanny X-Men. They are double-shipping X-Men Legacy as well, but I’ve been on the fence about that comic (waiting to see what it’s like when Christos Gage comes on board), and the frequency with which it gets double-shipped becomes a good argument in favour of dropping it.
I’m going to give Super Crooks a try, even if it does sound just like Wanted. Mark Millar’s recent comics have been pretty decent. I wonder if it will come out on time?
I see that Marvel are continuing to bury their Season One graphic novels in the back of the book, between Marvel Masterworks and the Shattered Heroes hardcover. I wonder how surprised they will be when these things don’t really get a lot of push in comics stores. For the record, the only one that interests me is X-Men Season One, and only because Jamie McKelvie is drawing it. I won’t be buying it though.
Boom!
I guess Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t completely finish off its story, because now we are seeing Exile on the Planet of the Apes, from the same writers. It’s unfortunate that Gabriel Hardman isn’t drawing this as well, but I imagine Secret Avengers sells better, so you can’t blame the man. Still, Betrayal is very good, so I’ll be buying this.
Drawn & Quarterly
I’ve recently been getting interested in literary manga, and have enjoyed the two books by Yoshihiro Tatsumi that I’ve read (A Drifting Life and The Push Man). Now D&Q are publishing Fallen Words, a collection of manga adaptations of traditional oral stories from Japan. It sounds lovely.
Oni Press
The Coldest City, a new hardcover graphic novel by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, sounds great. It’s an espionage story set against the backdrop of the last days of Communism in East Berlin. Johnston is a great writer, so I expect this to be very good.
I’m also pretty intrigued by The Secret History of DB Cooper, a new series from Brian Churilla. Cooper, the man who hijacked an airplane, stole a ton of money, and then jumped out never to be seen again is a modern American legend. Churilla’s story involves a fringe CIA group, and should be pretty cool. I’m not the biggest fan of his art, and don’t like that there are monsters on the preview pages, but I’m definitely going to check this out.
Well, that’s what my March will look like. What would you buy Were Money No Object?
