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Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol Vol. 1

Written by Arnold Drake with Bob Haney
Art by Bruno Premiani and Bob Brown
520 pages, black and white
Published by DC Comics

Of all of the Showcase Presents books from DC’s low-cost black and white reprint line, the one I’ve been looking forward to the most has been Showcase Presents: The Doom Patrol. I’ve heard so much about Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani’s original run on the characters that it’s been a must-read in my mind. But as someone who never read Doom Patrol until Grant Morrison’s revamp of the team in the late ’80, I couldn’t help be a little worried. Was I setting myself up for disappointment?

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Parker: The Hunter

Original novel by Richard Stark
Adapted by Darwyn Cooke
144 pages, two-color
Published by IDW

Depending on how you look at it, I’m either the right or the wrong choice to review Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of the Richard Stark novel The Hunter. Stark (a pseudonym of author Donald Westlake) was the star of no less than 24 novels, and The Hunter was adapted into two movies, Point Blank and Payback. Of those, I’ve read and seen none of them. But I love books like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal, or Jamie S. Rich and Joëlle Jones’s You Have Killed Me. And in the end, I decided, surely that must be enough to get a good read on Parker: The Hunter and see just what Darwyn Cooke ended up bringing to life in comic book form.

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Chicken With Plums

By Marjane Satrapi
96 pages, black and white
Published by Pantheon Books

I don’t think there’s any denying that Marjane Satrapi didn’t so much arrive in comics as she burst onto the scene with her autobiographical Persepolis graphic novels. A huge success (both commercially and creatively) in both comic and movie format, it’s safe to say that Persepolis will be a work that leaps first to mind for most people when they hear about Satrapi. While she’s released two books for adults since then, though, they seem to have slightly fallen under the radar. So with Chicken With Plums just being re-released in paperback, it seemed a good at time as any to see what Satrapi’s been up to since Persepolis.

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Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

By Alison Bechdel
416 pages, black and white
Published by Houghton Mifflin Books

I have a confession to make. For years, I picked up a copy of The Washington Blade free weekly newspaper but often didn’t read a single article. Instead, I’d flip right to the back and read the latest installment of Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For. So while some people have Bechdel’s excellent autobiographical graphic novel Fun Home on their bookshelves, mine is flanked with a complete collection of Dykes to Watch Out For collections (except for the one that went missing) as well as her artbook. So it was almost a certainty, then, that I’d end up with her massive best-of collection, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. But for people who have only read Bechdel’s Fun Home, though, it’s a great way to see just what else you’ve been missing.

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Resurrection v2 #1

Written by Marc Guggenheim
Art by Justin Greenwood
32 pages, color
Published by Oni Press

A couple of years ago, Oni Press debuted Resurrection, a title that detailed just what would happen after the end of an alien invasion, once the planet is finally free. After six issues and an Annual, the book went on a temporary hiatus. Now it’s back, and this time in full color. But in an effort to bring in new readers, I fear that Marc Guggenheim is trying to push too much too fast into its new first issue.

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Last Days of Animal Man #1

Written by Gerry Conway
Penciled by Chris Batista
Inked by Dave Meikis
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

I’ll admit it, I don’t get it. Of all of the titles to come out of DC Comics in the past year, one of the most puzzling ones is The Last Days of Animal Man. It doesn’t really tie into an event, the character isn’t terribly "hot," it just seemed to show up without a trace. About the only reason I can see for it being published, quite frankly? Gerry Conway and Chris Batista have put together a good, comic. And how often does that seem to be a green light these days?

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Rin-ne Chapters 1-5

By Rumiko Takahashi
black and white
Published by Viz; available online at The Rumic World

I remember when, back in the day, if you got a foreign comic or television show within six months of its release elsewhere, you were doing pretty good. Now all sorts of media are getting legitimate releases on different continents closer and closer together, and I couldn’t be more pleased about that. One title to add to the list of simultaneous releases is Rin-ne, the new manga from powerhouse and superstar Rumiko Takahashi, which has new chapters go live online in English the same day they hit the stands in Japan—and for free. Who said you can’t get something for nothing these days?

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Benny and Penny in The Big No-No!

By Geoffrey Hayes
32 pages, color
Published by Toon Books

There’s something very comforting about the absolute best children’s books; even if they’re brand new, they can somehow make you feel like you’re back in your childhood, reading a book that you’d loved way back then. Over the years, a lot of children’s books have come across my desk, and ones from Toon Books (with their synthesis of children’s books and comic books) have been some of my favorites. With Geoffrey Hayes’s Benny and Penny in The Big No-No!, once again the rest of the world stopped as I sat down to read a truly excellent children’s book.

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Kool Aid Gets Fired

By Tim Piotrowski
28 pages, color
Published by Glitchworks

One of the things I love about self-publishing and mini-comics is that if someone wants to say, write a story about corporate greed starring Kool Aid Man, they can just do it. Tim Piotrowski’s Kool Aid Gets Fired might not have any grand revelations about business culture or the discarding of commodities, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s really darn funny while having a serious message, and it’s a mini-comic that made me really happy when it’s all said and done.

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You Have Killed Me

Written by Jamie S. Rich
Art by Joëlle Jones
192 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press

It doesn’t take a detective to know that author Jamie S. Rich writes movie reviews for all different sorts of publications, but even without that piece of information I think it’s safe to say that Rich is a fan of movies. Reading his and Joëlle Jones’s new collaboration You Have Killed Me (their first full-length book together being 12 Reasons Why I Love Her) makes me feel like I’m actually watching an old crime noir film. Fortunately, it’s not one that I’ve seen before.

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