I came away from the store with no less than 6 new books today, all of them more or less regulars with the exception of one impulse buy. So what did I get?
It is a bittersweet circumstance that this comic has been coming out less and less frequently since it first hit the scene several years ago. I've been on board since issue 1 and I'm always eager to consume a new issue. The fact is simply that the book's writer, Antony Johnston, has been in high demand and while Wasteland is his labor of love, I get the feeling it doesn't quite pay the bills. Luckily he's got work at Marvel and oh ... he wrote the script for the first Dead Space game as well. Still, it's nice to get a new issue of Wasteland. As a story he's had in his head since he was a teenager, I don't think he'll be letting it go anytime soon. It would be nice to see more than a few new issues a year, but whatever he and Chris need to do in order to put out a quality book is fine by me.
This is the second series for Incognito, a sort of noir/hard boiled take on the anti-superhero genre. It's rare that I get into superhero stuff these days, but as Incognito is self-contained and takes a nice twist with it's crime drama edge, I've been into it.
Yes, this is the comic book adaptation of the story in the Coheed & Cambria albums. I understand that there is limited appeal here, but as a huge Coheed fan this falls squarely in my wheelhouse. Honestly, since Claudio paired up with veteran scribe Peter David, the books have gotten a lot better. I think David imposes an improved sense of pacing and fleshed out detail in the dialog that Claudio was missing in the previous series. As the album we know the least about (in terms of official story explanations) it's been a treat for me to see the tales behind the songs illustrated for the first time with In Keeping Secrets.
I don't remember why I first picked this book up several years ago, but I did and what at first seemed like a Harry Potter satire with a real world twist, turned into something much more. Tom Taylor is a real world adult. Tommy Taylor is the boy wizard in his estranged father's best-selling novels. Tom wants as little to do with Tommy as possible, even though fans of the book revere him as much as his namesake. But what if Tom and Tommy are the same person? What if the story became a real person? That seems to be the initial concept behind the whole plot and we still don't know for sure that Tommy and Tom are one and the same. All we do know is that in Unwritten, stories are much more than they seem and there are those who may have been using the power of stories to manipulate the real world for a very long time. Is Tom the key to unraveling the mystery or is he a pawn in a bigger game? This is what keeps me coming back every month. This is DC/Vertigo quality in the tradition of Sandman and Trensmetropolitan. Go read it ... now!
When this book started it seemed like Brian Wood writing DMZ except set in medieval Norway. I think he's since grown with the series and now feels much more at home in this time period. Northlanders isn't one big story, but rather multiple stories all set in roughly the same time and place: medieval Europe. It's got a definite pulp feel to it and I think that's something Wood has really embraced as the series has grown. What initially seemed like another set of stories about angst-y teens and 20-somethings fighting against "the man" has turned into a varied collection of tales running the gamut from action to drama, with even a little comedy sprinkled therein. It's just good, brutal fun, and who doesn't like vikings?
I usually don't by movie, TV, or video game tie in comics. Usually these books end up being nothing more than advertisement, typically handed off the the new guys to rush out the door. I don't know that this book is the same deal, but it looked decent enough (good art, not too wordy ... as is often the case with these types of books)
and I hunger for any information I can get about the world of the new Deus Ex game. It's a great fiction that was created in that universe and any reason to go back there is worth the price of admission.
Hey Brian,
ReplyDeleteGlad you're (still) enjoying Wasteland, but I assure you, the delays aren't because I'm slacking off in favour of higher-profile work (And by this point, WL actually does pay OK, thanks to sales of the collections). See here: http://www.antonyjohnston.com/index.php/2010/12/24/2010
I'm glad Wasteland does turn a profit and while I'll still be a little sad when there isn't a new issue on the shelves every month, whenever you and Chris get them out I'll enjoy them and continue to tell others to get other there and enjoy them as well. And honestly I loved Dead Space. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized you had been involved with that project.
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