By Dustin Cabeal
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023 - Keeping this short this week! I have four books to cover with you and that's about all. It's back to being quick and easy to enjoy. Also, be sure to answer my question at the end of the show!
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Review: Batman: White Knight #3
By Ben Snyder
Joker-centric stories have left a long legacy of being some of the best stories told in the Batman canon. Dating to older series such as A Death In the Family and The Killing Joke to more modern interpretations such as Scott Snyder’s Endgame arc and Brian Azzarello’s Joker mini-series. This theme has even infiltrated other mediums as many consider The Dark Knight to be one of the greatest superhero films of all time. While not quite on par with many of these classics, Sean Murphy’s Batman: White Knight still has been an enlightening read and delves deeper into the relationship between the Joker and Batman. Batman: White Knight #3 continues the story as Jack Napier, and Harleen Quinzel dig deeper into the corruption of Gotham in an attempt to oust Batman, and while it does continue to be a good read, entry #3 suffers mainly because it doesn’t offer any further insight into the mind of Jack/Joker.
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Review: Lizard Men #1
By Dustin Cabeal
Have you ever read a comic that is good, but still just not quite for you? That’s where I am with Lizard Men. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s well-written, and the creators understand the medium and produce a professional work. It just didn’t vibe with me.
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Review: No. 1 With a Bullet #2
By Cat Wyatt
No. 1 With a Bullet is a relatively new series by Image, the first issue setting up a certain series of events, which this issue then focuses pretty heavily on. Nash, the main character, works at a tech industry and had been a big believer in the whole “if you don’t want it on the internet, then don’t do it” belief, until it happened to her. The series poses the question of what will happen when the barrier protecting our privacy begins to shatter. We’re already seeing it happen; this story simply explores the idea in a more drastic light.
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Review: Rocko's Modern Life #1
By Justin McCarty
After twenty years Rocko’s Modern Life is back. Its last new episode was in 1996 and the comic was last published in 1994. Originally a failed comic pitch in the eighties, Rocko’s Modern Life became one of Nicktoon’s most loved shows. I haven’t seen an episode of RML since the nineties, I have very fond memories of it but it might not have been as good as I remember. This comic reminded me of all the reasons I loved it. It’s surreal and droll, while still being silly. I had a lot of fun reading this comic.
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Review: Barbarella #1
By Justin McCarty
I picked up Barbarella because of the cover alone. Wow. Just wanted to get that out of the way. I am familiar with the Barbarella comics, and the movie. But I have never read Barbarella before or watched the movie. I don’t know why I haven’t seen the movie. Just never got around to it, I guess. That means I don’t have any reference point for what this comic should be. What it is, is a campy sci-fi social commentary on sexual empowerment and ignorant religious dogma.
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Review: DC Holiday Special 2017 #1
By Jonathan Edwards
It’s December, so that means ‘tis the season for holiday specials like this one, and ‘tis the season for starting reviews off with the phrase “’tis the season.” In the wake of Rebirth last year, I was looking forward to DC’s DC Rebirth Holiday Special #1. It seemed like a great way to celebrate the season and the overall success of the relaunch. Unfortunately, if my LCS had gotten any copies (I didn’t ask, but I’m sure they did), they’d sold out of them before I got there. This was also before I started reviewing for Comic Bastards (if only barely), so I didn’t have access to any review copies. Oh well, I told myself, and I figured it maybe wouldn’t have turned out to be that good of a read anyway. In retrospect, that seems like an unnecessarily sour attitude to take during the most wonderful time of the year. And, the best way I can think of to make up for that is to take an optimistic look at DC Holiday Special 2017 #1.
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Review: Sleepless #1
By Ben Snyder
Upon finishing the initial couple of pages in Sleepless #1, I couldn’t help but feel a magical quality about the book and that feeling didn’t let up for the rest of the issue. It’s not that Sleepless intends on revolutionizing the wheel, but more so that it succeeds in all that it sets out to achieve. Sleepless #1 introduces the reader to a story involving politics within the royal class of a far-off land, an assassination, and a mysterious bodyguard class to the royalty.
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Review: Dragon Ball Super E. 118
By Erika Suarez
In case you forgot, Goku has obtained a power far beyond Super Saiyan God Blue, and it’s called Ultra Instinct! It’s incredible and something unimaginable to my eyes. I was doubtful to how they can top a power much more than a God, but the show definitely achieved this challenge. Dragon Ball Super has gone a long way starting very slow in its beginning season, but it’s made its way to delivering us with that intense and accelerating battles we enjoyed watching from Dragon Ball Z. In this week’s episode universe 2 and 6 faced defeat in the Tournament of Power and ended with sad farewells.
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Review: Witchblade v2 #1
By Justin McCarty
Twenty-two years after the launch of Top Cow’s iconic series hit comic store shelves it has come back. The gauntlet has found a new host. I read the comic off and on for years in high school, following the dark and sexy drama of Sara Pezzini. Turner’s artwork is still so much fun to look at. The whole Witchblade mythos and universe was very cool. Unfortunately, the look was very much a product of its time. The Witchblade has found a new host and the series looks like it completely fits into the contemporary style and tone of comics. While solid, and while all we have is one issue to go on, it has some work to do to live up to the original. That means I am excited to see how this series shapes up.
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Review: The Gravediggers Union #2
By Daniel Vlasaty
I really enjoyed the first issue of this series. I thought it felt like a fresh and exciting entry into a genre of comic books that’s – for lack of a better phrase – bloated with a lot of crap. Wes Craig is telling an interesting and exciting story. And, while yes it kind of sucks that Craig’s not doing the art on top of the writing, Toby Cypress’s art is great and unique and really adds to the story. So how does issue #2 stack up compared to the first?
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Review: Green Lanterns #36
By Cat Wyatt
Issue 36 picks up exactly where 35 left off, almost to the second. For those concerned, let me assure you now that the unique names keep on coming; we have the continued presence of Boff and Bolphunga, as well as Singularity Jain. I still can’t get over any of their names (and don’t even get me started on their titles).
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Review: Punchline #1-3
By Dustin Cabeal
If there’s one thing I’ve written over and over in reviews, it’s that I don’t care for indie superhero stories. Lately though, at least this year, I have found several titles that I have in fact liked. I will have to retire that old statement. It may not be a genre I seek out in the indie world, but damn, some of these creators are delivering while the big companies continue to deliver the same old shit.
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Review: Penumbra #1
By Oliver Gerlach
Johnathan Lewis and Chalk Yeso’s Penumbra #1 feels like a bizarre throwback. Everything about it feels oddly familiar, but not in any particularly positive way.
This is a story about a lady secret agent with an inexplicably constantly-changing costume. There isn’t very much plot, and what there is, is as simple as “she has to steal a thing.” There’s not much going on in this at all, and none of it is outstanding and interesting. This is, to put it bluntly, a very bland comic. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about at all, just that there is nothing exceptional about it.
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Titan Announces Bloodborne Comic
Press Release
Discover the terrifying secrets of Old Yharnam in a brand-new Bloodborne comic series from Titan Comics, which spins out of JAPAN Studio and Fromsoftware’s critically-acclaimed Bloodborne videogame!
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G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Comics Sell Out Upon New Female Snake-Eyes Debut
Press Release
Who is DAWN MORENO? She’s the new SNAKE-EYES and break-out character of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero! Scripted by legendary G.I. JOE writer Larry Hama, with art by incoming artist Netho Diaz (Aquaman), issue #246 marks the beginning of the “Dawn of the Arashikage” storyline, which sees Dawn, a Mexican-American teenager, take on the mantle of Snake-Eyes, one of the most iconic members of the G.I. Joe team. This pivotal issue in Hama’s long-running G.I. Joe saga has now sold out at the distributor level, as have the preceding issues #244 (featuring Dawn’s first appearance in costume) and #245 (Dawn’s first cover appearance in costume as Snake-Eyes).
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NEW AfterShock Title RELAY #1 Just Announced
Press Release
A perfect future of intergalactic travel and community. Every newly discovered planet is unified culturally through a monolithic structure known as the Galactic Relay. Although the towering monument is meant to inspire conformity of ideas, technology, and progress – many resent the foreign structure. Jad Carter, a Relay employee, must keep the peace and act as an emissary to new civilizations. But when he finds the Relay’s mythological creator, Hank Donaldson, his idea of reality and the universe shatters.
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Famed Comics Creator Ed Brisson Writes'The Ballad of Sang' for Oni Press
Press Release
Oni Press is excited to announce that Ed Brisson (X-Files Conspiracy, The Field, Comeback, Old Man Logan) is joining Italian artist Alessandro Micelli and colorist Shari Chankhamma (Codename Baboushka, The Fuse) for a new action/adventure series, The Ballad of Sang.
Read MoreVIZ Media Details New December Digital Manga Update
Press Release
VIZ Media celebrates the holiday season with an array of new digital manga titles set to debut during the first half of December.
Readers are invited to dive into the masterful suspense series, THE PROMISED NEVERLAND this December. The title has been thrilling fans in the pages of WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and has become one of the publication’s most popular titles of 2017. Other notable digital releases for the first half of the month include DRAGON BALL SUPER Vol. 2, and the digital exclusive release of the latest volume of THE CHILDREN NOWADAYS (Vol. 7).
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Athena Voltaire and the Sorcerer Pope Historical Variants Censored
Press Release
ATHENA VOLTAIRE takes place during historic WWII with the heroine fighting Nazis and punching Adolf Hitler on the cover. Diamond refuses to print cover art with a Nazi swastika, including historically accurate uniforms and forced us to censor the ATHENA VOLTAIRE cover to be printed in Previews.
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