Welcome to Catch it at the Comic Shop, where the Panel Patter team looks at what's coming out at your favorite store or digital device this week. Each one of us that participates picks up to five items due out this week, with a little bit about why we like them. (NOTE: We use solicitation material for this, so if we miss creators, please talk to your publisher!) Sometimes we might only have a few items to share, other weeks, keeping it to five will make for hard choices. Here's what the team wanted to highlight this week...
James' Picks:
Human Target #1 by Tom King and Greg Smallwood, published by DC Comics
I've been SO excited for this comic ever since it was announced. I'm a huge fan of almost everything that Tom King has written (I really enjoyed Strange Adventures and I am LOVING Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow). But I've gotta be honest, the real draw for me is artist Greg Smallwood. GREG. SMALLWOOD. Smallwood is an artist that does absolutely stunning work. I was such a huge fan of his work in the Moon Knight series he did with Jeff Lemire and Jordie Bellaire (read me going on and on about it here). He has a clean line, and immaculate character work, and his panel payout is incredibly interesting and innovative. You should also read his work in this Marvel series of stories. That Marvel series feels like it might have been something of the inspiration for the new Human Target series. I'll be honest, I don't know anything about the character of the Human Target. But, everything I've seen of this new series gives it this bright, stylish, sexy 60's spy vibe, which is more than enough to sell me on this series. This one is sure to be a delight.
Vault has had some excellent horror series (like The Plot, Deep Roots, and Black Stars Above) and The Rush looks like it is going to continue in the tradition of those great books (links to all of my reviews above). Like Black Stars Above, this is a story of horror in the remote, 19th-century Canadian wilderness (which seems like a great horror setting and a ROUGH place to be). And I already know that I love the art in this first issue, having given it a read. It's gritty and detailed and grounded, but also weird and imaginative. The team of artist Nathan Gooden and color artist Addison Duke make for a fantastic combo. Duke uses some very washed-out, sepia-toned colors, and gives all the pages of the story a really fun weathered feel, so this definitely feels like an artifact from a long time ago. I loved this same art team earlier this year, in the Vault series Barbaric. So what I'm saying is, this book is great, Vault books are generally pretty great, and you are going to want to check this out.
I've read Newburn #1 and I can tell you it's an excellent comic. It's the story of a former New York police officer that now works as a private investigator on behalf of various mob families. He walks a delicate line, as he works closely with criminals, but also maintains his contacts and relationships with the NYPD. The first issue is fun and engaging, and creates a character that feels different than ones that I've seen in crime comics previously. But I'm not surprised, as it's from an excellent creative team. Chip Zdarsky has been on an amazing comics run. Note that long ago, I knew him as the hilarious illustrator of Sex Criminals, who, along with Matt Fraction, was just a really wild and crazy guy. But it turns out that Zdarsky is an incredible comic writer as well - he's written various Spider-Man comics have all been excellent, as has his Daredevil and independent books such as Stillwater. And Jacob Phillips has been doing absolutely excellent work in That Texas Blood where he is both line and color artist. That's another crime comic (albeit one with a very different feel) that I would highly recommend. Anyway, Newburn is a strong debut and a lot of fun for anyone interested in genre crime or detective stories.
The Waiting is the follow up novel to Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s award winning graphic novel Grass. Just like Grass it is a heart wrenching, somber and important read. It tells the story of families torn apart by war, of people separated forever, never knowing the fate of sisters, brothers, children, and parents. The Waiting was inspired by the true story of Gendry-Kim’s mother who was separated from her older sister at the beginning of the Korean War. All of Gendry-Kim’s mother’s family made it out of North Korea, but her sister missed the last train out of Pyongyang. And just like that her sister became a ghost. Graphic novels like the Waiting should be required reading, for me it hit as deeply, if not more so than wartime classics such as The Wars, A Diary of Anne Frank, and Obasan. Just make sure you have a box of Kleenex near by.
