Author: Greg McElhatton

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Crogan’s Loyalty

By Chris Schweizer
184 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press

It’s nice to be dependable, and that’s a word I’d used to describe Chris Schweizer’s Crogan’s Adventures series of graphic novels. Debuting in 2008 with the pirate romp of Crogan’s Vengeance and continuing in 2010 with the Foreign Legion desert adventure of Crogan’s March, I’ve liked the idea of every two years getting a new volume. That trend’s continued with this year’s American Revolution story of Crogan’s Loyalty. And when I said that Schweizer was dependable, I wasn’t just talking about his publishing schedule; I know by now that each new story in the Crogan family tree is going to be a good, solid graphic novel.

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Legends of the Dark Knight #1

Written by Damon Lindelof
Art by Jeff Lemire
20 screens, color
Published by DC Comics

DC Comics has been entering the digital comics realm more and more over the past year; with the arrival of their new digital series Legends of the Dark Knight, there’s now a new original digital comic available each weekday from the company. It’s been a nice surprise to see that these aren’t comics getting tossed out for the sake of having something in the digital realm, though. With this new Legends of the Dark Knight comic, the first installment is by Damon Lindelof and Jeff Lemire, two talents hardly worth sneezing at. And at 99 cents a comic, it feels like a steal.

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Harbinger #1

Written by Joshua Dysart
Art by Khari Evans
32 pages, color
Published by Valiant Entertainment

When the original Valiant Comics published Harbinger back in the early ’90s, it was a title I found myself uninterested in right off the bat. The characters seemed a little too nasty and horrible to one another, and while I’m not against the idea of a less-than-admirable protagonist, it had felt a little too rough. It was one of the biggest hits for the company, though, and with the new Valiant Entertainment re-launching some of the original properties, it seemed like a good chance to see how the new version of Harbinger was shaping up. What I found was a book that deliberately doesn’t make things easy for readers.

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Marathon

Written by Boaz Yakin
Art by Joe Infurnari
192 pages, sepia-tone
Published by First Second Books

It’s no secret that I’ve been a distance-runner for a little over a decade; I ran my first marathon in 2001, and have run 11 of the events (plus numerous half-marathons and shorter distance races, and more recently a handful of triathlons). A comic about the origin of the marathon, as a result, should be the ultimate attraction to me as it mixes two of my obsessions. What I found in Marathon by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari, though, was a graphic novel where one of the creators does all of the heavy lifting.

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Vol. 5

By P. Craig Russell
Adapted from a story by Oscar Wilde
32 pages, color
Published by NBM

When I’d reviewed The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Vol. 4: The Devoted Friend and the Nightingale and the Rose back in 2004, I’d commented that it had been 6 years since the last volume and that I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them. With hindsight being 20/20, I now realize that I’d cursed myself for an 8-year wait for The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Vol. 5: The Happy Prince, and that this time around I should just say, "Hurrah! A new P. Craig Russell graphic novel!" Because ultimately, that’s the response you should have to just about any book by Russell, and The Happy Prince is no exception.

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Superman Family Adventures #1

Written by Art Baltazar and Franco
Art by Art Baltazar
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

After a 50-issue run on the all-ages series Tiny Titans, I was a little sad to hear that Art Baltazar and Franco were wrapping up the title. Fortunately, they’ve promptly moved over to a brand new comic, Superman Family Adventures. And like Tiny Titans, it’s a book that I think really does appeal to all ages; little kids will like the fun adventures, while more comic-savvy readers will get a good chuckle over some of the inside jokes aimed at them.

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Judge Bao & The Jade Phoenix

Written by Patrick Marty
Art by Chongrui Nie
160 pages, black and white
Published by Archaia

While I’d never read any of the historical Judge Bao stories before, while in high school we did read some other retellings of classic Chinese "judge" stories. In most of them, a traveling Judge would enter a town, discover a great wrong, and together with his assistants find the corruption inherent in the town’s government and right all the wrongs. That’s what we have here with Judge Bao & The Jade Phoenix, the first in a series of Judge Bao graphic novels originally published in France that take a classic Chinese character and create graphic novels around him. And all in all, it’s something not quite like anything else in the North American comics market right now.

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Mind MGMT #1

By Matt Kindt
24 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

I’ve been a fan of Matt Kindt’s comics ever since his big debut with the graphic novel Pistolwhip, so the lure of a new ongoing series written and drawn by Kindt was an instant must-read for me. With just one issue, it’s often hard to get a good grasp on just how a comic series is going to be; that said, Mind MGMT #1 made such an instant impression to me as a reader that I feel safe to say that I know I’ll be reading it for quite some time to come.

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Dark Horse Presents #12

Written by John Layman, John Arcudi, Carla Speed McNeil, Steve Niles, Evan Dorkin, Tim Seeley, Francesco Francavilla, Dean Motter, Mike Baron, Harlan Ellison, and Mike Russell
Art by Sam Kieth, Jonathan Case, Carla Speed McNeil, Christopher Mitten, Evan Dorkin, Victor Drujiniu, Francesco Francavilla, Dean Motter, Steve Rude, Richard Corben, and Mike Russell
80 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

Dark Horse Presents is a title that I perpetually feel should be a blockbuster seller in today’s comics industry. It offers up so much of what readers say they want; an anthology of different types of stories, with a mixture of old and new creators bringing their A-game to the page. With this latest issue, I think it’s as good a sign as any on how well the series has settled into its format, and finding just the right material for everyone to enjoy something.

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Bloody Chester

Written by J.T. Petty
Art by Hilary Florido
160 pages, color
Published by First Second

One of the things that I appreciate about First Second’s graphic novel line is that they don’t seem to ever confine themselves to one specific genre or mood. It means that there’s room for books like Bloody Chester by J.T. Petty and Hilary Florido, a Western about a teen who agrees to go on a mission to burn down an abandoned town in order to break free from his tormentors, but finds just as many problems at his destination. It’s an odd little book, but one that grew on me the more I thought about it.

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