By Eleanor Davis
40 pages, color
Published by Toon Books
The best kind of children’s book is one that adults can enjoy equally. Reading Eleanor Davis’s Stinky, the newest addition to the Toon Books line, I can’t help but feel that Davis would agree. When I was reading Stinky, my initial thought was how much I’d have loved this book as a child. My second thought was how much I was enjoying it as an adult.
Written by Jeph Loeb
Penciled by Ed McGuinness
Inked by Mark Farmer
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
I have to give Marvel Comics credit, hiring Greg Pak to write The Incredible Hulk a few years ago was fairly genius. His "Planet Hulk" story grabbed readers, when under a lesser hand it might have scared them away. The World War Hulk mini-series follow-up was tense, exciting, and wonderfully over-the-top in places. And now? Well, actually, he’s not writing The Incredible Hulk any more, he’s writing the enjoyable Incredible Hercules. Instead, Jeph Loeb now writes the all-new Hulk series. And all of those adjectives I used to describe Incredible Hulk? Well, I suppose "over-the-top" at least applies.
Written by Rantz A. Hoseley
Art by Matthew Humphreys
28 pages, color
Published by Image Comics
If you ask people what super-power they’d like to have the most, flying tops the vast majority of lists. It’s easy to imagine why; being able to just glide through the air is something that would have so many possibilities, as well as being something that will definitely be out of our personal reach for a long time to come (if ever). When it comes to Rantz A. Hoseley and Matthew Humphreys’s Vix!, getting that desire the fly out there is definitely the high point of the book.
By Yuko Osada
208 pages, black and white
Published by Del Rey
I think it was the cover of Toto!: The Wonderful Adventure that instantly grabbed my attention. It’s simple enough, a young boy pulling a pair of goggles on, with a dog on his shoulder, a map on his back, and the background being a map as well. But I have to give Yuko Osada credit, that was just enough that made me want to see more, promising some sort of rollicking adventure within its pages. And happily, that’s exactly what you find here.
Written by Mariko Tamaki
Art by Steve Rolston
176 pages, black and white
Published by Minx/DC Comics
Sometimes I can’t help but feel like fate is trying to tell me something. I’ve been meaning to read Mariko Tamaki’s graphic novel Skim for several months now, but keep getting distracted by other things. Then, at a recent convention, I ended up with an advance copy of Emiko Superstar, Tamaki’s new graphic novel for Minx/DC Comics with artist Steve Rolston. I’ve loved Rolston’s art ever since Queen & Country, and Emiko Superstar was just the right size for me to slip into my bag and take on the subway. Well, I almost missed my stop because of Emiko Superstar, but it was absolutely worth the sudden scramble if it meant I got absorbed by Tamaki and Rolston’s story of a geeky girl who tries to find herself on the stage of a freak show.
Written by Marc Andreyko
Art by Michael Gaydos
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics
If there’s a book that has the proverbial nine lives, it’s Manhunter. By my count it’s been cancelled twice now due to low sales—and then saved both times at the last minute. Clearly, DC’s editorial has a lot of faith in this book. And you know what? You should too. Marc Andreyko’s new addition to the long line of characters named Manhunter is one of the smarter super-hero books on the block, and now’s the best time ever to try it out for yourself.
Written by Joe Kelly
Art by JM Ken Niimura
32 pages, black and white
Published by Image Comics
It’s been a while since I’ve read a comic by Joe Kelly, but there was something about I Kill Giants that grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the illustration style, maybe it was the idea of a young girl being a giant-killer. Either way, I decided it was worth a whirl—and I must say, if the remaining issues hold up to the promise of the first one, this is going to become a new favorite. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a strong debut to a mini-series.
Written by Peter David
Penciled by Larry Stroman
Inked by Jon Sibal
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
I freely admit that when someone mentions “the Peter David X-Factor“, the first comic to jump to mind is not his current series. Instead, it’s his and Larry Stroman’s collaboration from the early ’90s, taking six characters that no one else really cared about (Havok, Polaris, Wolfsbane, Multiple Man, Quicksilver, and Lila Cheney’s bodyguard Guido) and turning the book into a fan-favorite. It was a really memorable book, not quite like anything else on the market, and something that I still think of fondly. With Stroman joining the current X-Factor as its new artist, can lightning strike twice?
By Akira Hiramoto
544 pages, black and white
Published by Del Rey
Robert Johnson was probably one of the greatest blues musicians of all time, his skills like no other and his influence continuing to musicians today. For that alone, I was interested in reading Akira Hiramoto’s Me and the Devil Blues, his story of the life of this amazing artist. What I probably should have done before I started reading the book, though, was pay a little more attention to the back cover copy. Had I looked at that a little more closely, maybe then I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised by its contents.
By Andrea Blasich, Nash Dunnigan, David Gordon, Michael Knapp, Sang Jun Lee, Kyle MacNaughton, Peter Nguyen, Vincent Nguyen, Jake Parker, Benoit le Pennec, Willie Real, Jason Sadler, Daisuke Tsutsumi, and Lizette Vega
240 pages, color
Published by Villard Books
One of the many great things that the Flight anthologies have done, it seems, is bring the modern comic anthology back to life. Every time you turn around, there seems to be a new anthology hitting shelves. One of the more recent works is Out of Picture, an anthology series from the artists of Blue Sky Studios. Out of Picture 2, the second volume of work in the series, is a beautiful, oversized volume that has one of the best production values of a comics anthology I’ve seen in a while. But do the stories themselves match up to the attention lavished into the book?
