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...
Sean’s Picks:
Anytime you mention the Peanuts gang I’m all-in. The gang that the legendary Charles Schulz created are timeless American treasures that will be among the most beloved characters every child will grow up with for endless generations. It doesn’t end with those holiday TV specials, but it sure does begin there. After reading and rereading the dozens of collected volumes there are plenty of moments to cherish and enjoy. Never did I imagine I’d live to see new stories from Charlie Brown and the gang. Not until today, that is. BOOM! Studios is publishing a brand new adaptation of a newly discovered storyboard from the Schultz studios and is brought to us by the people behind Adventure Time Comics and Scooby-Doo. This time Charlie Brown convinces his friends to travel abroad so that he can meet the love of his life, a pen pal from Scotland. That rare moment of self-confidence, found here in this new Peanuts story, is what we have always hoped for in the epic sage of the perpetually sad Charlie Brown. In all those years reading along with Chuck and his gang, we’ve managed to see him muster up enough confidence to embarrass himself into a silly situation where readers of literally all ages can enjoy.
Heaven No Hell HC by Michael DeForge and published by Drawn & Quarterly
Heaven No Hell is a collage of DeForge parables that exhibit perspective from one of the best modern day storytellers we have right now. As with most of DeForge’s work, these comic shorts come across as ambiguously atmospheric and often darkly humorous, but they always land with that familiar abstract realism we’ve come to expect and adore. This one is for the coffee table. The book guests will peruse and be catalyst to many conversations that will follow.Home #1 by Julio Anta, Anna Wieszczyk and Bryan Valenza, published by Image
Home is a story about a mother and her son seeking refuge at the United States southwest border. Right from the start we witness Mercedes Gomez and her son Juan going through motions, traveling from Guatemala to the Reynosa-McAllen International Bridge in Mexico. There they hope to register as refugees and live with Mercedes’ sister-in-law in Houston as they make for a better life for themselves. Unfortunately for them, this new series from Image was clearly conceptualized during the refugee-unfriendly Trump-era seeing the blatantly obvious xenophobia and active dialogues separating child from family. I know nothing of this creative team but I am excited to get acquainted. The foundation to this coming-of-age story is so incredibly real that it hurts. It seriously hurts real bad. Reason for recommending this title is not so that you can be reminded (again) of how awful our border policy has been in recent years, but rather is because of the redemptive spin on the tragedy that the team add to it. This debut issue focuses almost entirely on the specific refugee story of a mother and son, and upon final page reveal you are introduced to the supernatural caveat that this miniseries is going to embrace. Clearly this book was written with a purpose, and that purpose is to give a voice to the voiceless.Man in the Painters Room GN by Jamison Odone and published by Black Panel Press
I wrote about this graphic biopic last year shortly after its successful Kickstarter campaign. Now it will finally have a wider release with it being available at bookstores. If you’ve ever wondered about the life of Van Gogh in his later years then this read should be of interest. It shakes off the excess and focuses on a very specific period late in the artist’s life. We see how he befriends a young child and becomes fascinated with a very specific routine. I found this book especially enjoyable and it’s great to see it getting more exposure this week.I know I'm supposed to remind you of how great Home Sick Pilots has been (haunted houses that are also mechs are extremely my sh*t) and to pick up it's new issue this week. Or how Cantwell's turn on Iron Man has been a welcomed grounded change from the usual grand futurists arcs we've been reading from other writers the last few years (also this week). But there's this thing where two of my favorite series' of all time are combining for a crossover and I can barely focus on anything else in my life at the moment. Locke and Key/Sandman: Hell and Gone #1 releases this wednesday and the more you think about these two mythologies, it only feels natural that they would eventually meet. Though the events of this series happen under the Sandman Universe DC banner of titles, L&K creators Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez are firmly in the driver's seat telling this story. So on top of getting to watch them continue to build on the Locke family chronicles, we will see them tackle Neil Gaiman creations like Roderick Burgess and The Corinthian. Expect chills, tears, and me never shutting up about it.
Chariot #2 by Bryan Hill, Priscilla Petraites, and Jeff Dekal, published by AWA Studios
Two issues in and this is a very fun series. It's a story about a super-futiristic car from the 1980's, and a badass woman whose consciousness seems to have merged with the car, and the lucky (or unlucky) guy who found and restored this incredible, weird car (like Knight Rider, if KITT were alive and a sexy 80's woman who appeared as a ghost sometimes and had a no-nonsense attitude). I really love the vibe of this series - while it takes place in the present day, it still very much has an 80's vibe to it. A very fun read so far.
Minky Woodcock: The Girl Who Electrified Tesla 1 by Cynthia
von Buhler, published by Titan Comics
I loved the original Minky tale, a great blend of history and
a legend tied together by some absolutely stunning art that looks far more like
an oil painting or stained glass window than any comic has the right to.
Buhler, well known in various avant-garde circles, returns with her proto-feminist
Minky for another noir romp. Having tussled with Houdini prior, Minky will find
herself caught up with none other than Nicola Tesla this time around. There is already
a rich history of mythologizing Tesla, and many authors have used his story as
a jumping off point. I’m intrigued to see how von Buhler, who utilized both history
and myth surrounding Houdini, folds Minky into this world.
Home Sick Pilots 4 by Dan Watters, Casper Wijngaard, Aditya
Bidikar, and Tom Muller, published by Image Comics
There is a ton to be said about this series, and, frankly, I
think it all comes down to execution. For me, it’s the way the creative team
blends concepts authentically without out any of the essential elements. Home
Sick Pilots is many things at once. It’s a coming of age story, a haunted house
tale, and a mech narrative all informed by 90s punk rock sensibilities and
vocabulary. What is impressive – and I truly think this is a hard feat to pull
off – is that HSP can be these things without feeling like it pays lip service
to any of them. Much of that credit belongs to Wijngaard and Bidikar who seem
to keep the book tight and effortless despite the near breakneck pace Watters
established for the series. With each issue, Watters peals away layers of
backstory while continuing to build the tension of the story. This entire first
arc has been composed of frenetic rising action, and it’s a testament to
exactly what good genre work can do.
Lonely Receiver by Zac Thompson, Jen Hickman, and Simon
Bowland, published by Aftershock
I am rife with anticipation to re-read this story as a collected
edition. Thompson’s narrative lent itself well to the serialized format because
it functioned almost as a series of vignettes as opposed to a linear narrative.
And such a choice works well for a breakup story, one where you’re replaying
events in your head and wondering if they happened the way you remember in some
sort of forensic accounting of your romance. There are questions of reliability
here, and Hickman lends a sense of paranoia to her illustrations. I’ve said it
before, the burgeoning subgenre of cyberpunk love is going to explode at some point,
and Lonely Receiver is a great indication of not only a particularly thoughtful
work in terms of it’s philosophical implications, but also is an exemplar for
how both genre fiction and sequential art aide the assessment of those
implications in a way traditional realistic fiction falls short almost by design.
Since the days after Annihilation I've had somewhat of love/hate relationship with Guardians of the Galaxy stories. Annihilation is one of my all-time favourite stories and one that hasn't been beat since...within the Marvel Cosmic universe before anyone questions me. So yeah, I've not been grabbed by any Guardians storylines for a hell of a long time. Thankfully I have a good friend who has a bigger passion for the Guardians than I have and he's informed me that this could be the perfect jumping on point. Al Ewing's writing is definitely a major plus point, as his current We Only Find Them When They're Dead (Boom) is a wonderful indie space opera of a story along with his huge Immortal Hulk run the Guardians are surely in good hands.