By Jacob Cordas — The best gothic romances are atmospheric The narratives will drift by on a layer of fog, haunting you less by what is said than what isn’t. The genre is about frightening you with implications, and It Eats What It Feeds #2 understands that perfectly.
Read MoreBy Larry Jorash — We see a triumphant return this week to the world-building that writer Jonathan Hickman is known for. As has become a norm with this series, this oversized issue features multiple pages of dazzling art and infographics…before we even reach the narrative. Decorum #4 then takes an eccentric turn and drops us into a cold open sequence, and once again the reader is asked to swim in the deep of this young book’s heavy lore.
Read MoreKeigen Rea — A boring question to ask oneself when experiencing a story is, “Why is this the story that is happening?” It’s boring because it almost always leads to a boring answer, and because I pretty much always ask it out of boredom. Why does this matter? Has The Ludocrats #4 driven me mad? Have I been destroyed by the events of the issue? Maybe.
Read MoreBy Benjamin Morin — Once and Future has long been a series I’d been meaning to get around to reading, but I haven't had a chance due to my ever expanding backlog. I have only heard great things about this book, which is no surprise considering the creative talent behind it, so this weekend I finally sat down to take it all in and I came away extremely fulfilled. As someone who loves mythology and legends of old, this series taps into the heart of what makes these myths so fun and gives them a modern twist. This latest issue, in particular, immediately swept me up in its Arthurian adventure and did not let go.
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — Stephanie Phillips (Butcher in Paris, Devil Within), Craig Cermak (Red Team, Voltron: Year One), John Kalisz (JSA, Future Quest) and Troy Peteri (7th Sword, Doberman) have found their muses for A Man Among Ye #2 in the tale of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. They have all made wonderful work on their own but here each person is bringing the best out of the others.
Read MoreBy Zach Rabiroff — Dads of messiahs have never had it easy. Poor Joseph famously has a grand total of zero lines of dialogue in the New Testament, while his wife and son walk off with starring roles and Michelangelo sculptures. What kind of resentment must it breed to stand on the fringes of prophecy, watching your offspring achieve what you never could? And how much worse must it have been for Joseph if he were a career supervillain on the mend?
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — The issue opens with flies. Lots and lots of flies. The first page is swarmed with them, leaving mostly blackness. As it opens up, the visual is a magical reimagining of the setting we are familiar with from the last issue, but now the page is overwhelmed with sinister pinks and silence. The only noise being the sound of sleep and flies giving the opening scene a dream like quality - a nightmare that overwhelms the world.
Read MoreBy Bruno Savill De Jong — Philadelphia was one of America’s foundational cities, home of the Liberty Bell and where Independence was first proclaimed. Aside from the pun-title, it is the perfect location for Killadelphia, which tells a story of the American Dream turning into an undead nightmare. Philadelphia is now shown as a corrupt and crime-infested place, detective James Sangster observing “Hell Hall”, once prosperous low-income housing ruined through the crack cocaine epidemic, “a cold reminder of what could have been”.
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — Old Haunts #3 has the best start of any comic I read this week. The opening three pages are a perfect short story of abuse, revenge and the bonds that let us survive childhood. The rest of the comic, however, just doesn’t live up to the expectations set by this masterful opening sequence.
Read MoreBy Larry Jorash — Nobody needs to be told that a horror-themed comic will have real substance and emotion when writer James Tynion’s name is attached. From his daring work on the Detective Comics story, “Night of the Monster Men,” to his brilliant, indie-debut on, The Woods, Tynion has displayed a subtle and delightful craftsmanship in the genre. Something is Killing the Children continues this trend in a gut-wrenchingly excellent way.
Read MoreBy Benjamin Morin — Stealth is one of those ongoing titles that does not seem to be getting the buzz it deserves. It totally flew under my radar until a good buddy of mine gave me the first issue, and from there I was hooked. This series started off with an extremely fresh concept and has consistently delivered fun and engaging issues. Stealth #4 is no different as it builds off of the tense conclusion of the previous issue and delivers an action packed story.
Read MoreBy Keigen Rea — Big Girls could be good, maybe even great, but I have no idea what it really is because I can’t tell what it wants to be. The good stuff is pretty good though. Jason Howard’s art, while not necessarily improving from previous books, is nice to look at, and his storytelling exceptional. He does excellent work with perspective that’s great to look at. The energy in this issue feels fairly unique in American comics, with the movement and choreography feeling closer to manga than anything else. The art is great, which extends to the lettering and the coloring, although much of the issue’s palette is more dull than I’d like. The use of orange and reds later is nice though.
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — Seven Secrets will almost certainly be a fantastic series. Tom Taylor hasn’t written anything I don’t like. He has an incredible knack for taking tired concepts and weaving them into gold. He was able to turn a video game tie-in comic into a must-buy. He was able to take super hero zombies, a concept that has never worked before, and make the best elseworlds DC comic since Multiversity. He’s turned Suicide Squad from a comic I uniformly ignored to one of the best ongoing titles at DC (behind only DeConnick/Rocha’s Aquaman and Spurrier/Campbell’s John Constantine: Hellblazer).
Read MoreBy Bruno Savill De Jong — A major and vague question is how are we to engage with the world? Do we stand upon our own principles, or negotiate compromises from living within society? Is the cost of living in a state an obedience to it? These are the dilemmas evoked by The Machine Never Blinks, an informative if dense history of societal surveillance told through graphic novel.
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — There came a moment in Finger Guns #4 when our two protagonists are in the kind of fight you only have in high school. They are returning from a field trip to an aquarium sitting separate on the bus and sending texts to argue. This text argument is done over one panel with no border and no backdrop color. You can’t even see our main characters. All you see is a school bus moving forward regardless of limitations or directions with text boxes surrounding it. It’s quiet and personal. It’s sad and lonely. It’s everything I remember about my high school experience pushed into one boundless panel. It’s all the best parts of this comic rolled into one little moment.
Read MoreBy Gabe Gonzalez — Within horror stories, perhaps no monster has reached the heights and become as commonplace around the world than the vampire. For centuries, vampires have stimulated the imaginations of billions, first appearing in Germanic poetry in the 1700s. From those earliest appearances, vampire stories have seeded a sexual nature and erotic proclivities into the fibers of the beast, helping the creatures to become steadily-appearing figures in the world’s gothic horror stories.
Read MoreBy Larry Jorash — There is a very good chance that a video game release will lead to a corresponding comic book adaptation these days. With the popularity and success of Guerilla Games’, “Horizon Zero Dawn,” and the recent news of a sequel, “Horizon: Forbidden West,” it was only a matter of time before we saw the beautiful landscapes shown on Playstation translated to comics pages in print.
Read MoreBy Benjamin Morin — The Ice Cream man’s heinous brand of horror knows no bounds in this latest installment. This series has made a name for itself through its clever writing and excellent artistic style and issue #20 continues this trend. It seems with each issue Prince and Co. find new and unique ways to unsettle readers, which has worked wondrously to the series’ advantage. And issue #20 sets the vile Ice Cream Man’s sights on classic children’s books.
Read MoreBy Keigen Rea — Sex Criminals #30 delivers a narration-heavy plot-dense issue on the tail of a narration-heavy plot-dense arc. Fraction describes it as “the MOST un-drawable issue,” in the letters column, and it feels like it in places. It’s an issue that pulls the series together thematically and provides a satisfying cap to the plot. It isn’t overly predictable, confusing, or unpredictable, but it wasn’t as whole as I would have liked. I am very happy that Sex Criminals #30 isn’t the end of the series.
Read MoreBy Jacob Cordas — On The Stump is a comic that should not work. It has the kind of on-the-nose idea that seems like a rejected South Park pitch: politicians now brutally fight each other over issues instead of debating them. I was morbidly interested but didn’t expect much when I asked to review this. But then I opened the book.
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