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Skyscrapers of the Midwest #1

By Joshua Cotter
56 pages, black and white
Published by AdHouse Books

For better or for worse, a familiar theme in comics seems to be about the trials and tribulations of childhood. Most of the time you see the subject matter coming a mile away, resulting in good but still fairly predictable stories. Maybe it was the imaginative title of Skyscrapers of the Midwest, or perhaps the cute anthropomorphic cats that make up its cast, but I have to say that in many ways this is one of the few books that genuinely surprised me in quite a while.

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Little Lulu: Lulu Goes Shopping

Written by John Stanley
Art by John Stanley and Irving Tripp
128 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

I have a confession to make, and for some comics readers it’s probably pretty unforgivable. Up until this year, I’d never read John Stanley’s critically acclaimed Little Lulu comics. Oh sure, I knew who the character was, and that Stanley’s work on the character was reportedly fantastic. For whatever reason, though, the comics never made their way in front of me. Now that I’ve read the first of Dark Horse’s Little Lulu reprints, though, I’m definitely going to be fixing this rather unfortunate gap in my comic-reading knowledge.

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Sequential

By Paul Hornschemeier
256 pages, black and white, with two-color
Published by AdHouse Books

Think back to the first time you tried to do something that requires talent, something that over the years you’ve improved at greatly. Are you cringing? That’s a reaction that most of us have; when you’ve gotten good at something, it’s tough to look back at those earlier, faltering steps. I think that’s what initially intrigued me so much about the new Sequential hardback collection. Paul Hornschemeier’s comics like Mother, Come Home and Return of the Elephant completely enchanted me, so a chance to see his earliest self-published book made me wonder: was Hornschemeier always this good?

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No Dead Time

Written by Brian McLachlan
Art by Tom Williams
132 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press

It’s tough to work with idiots. That’s a thought that has probably run through the head of every person to ever hold a job. It’s a little disdainful, sure, but often it’s the truth. I think that’s what initially grabbed my attention about No Dead Time. So often people are overly sarcastic and put others down with no good reason. In the case of Nozomi and Seth, though, you really can’t blame them one bit.

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Awakening

Written by Neal Shaffer
Art by Luca Genovese
112 pages, black and white
Published by Oni Press

Neal Shaffer’s last graphic novel, Last Exit Before Toll, was a book that could best be summed up as one that concentrated more on mood and tone than plot. That’s not a bad thing, although if you aren’t expecting it, the end result can be a little startling. That’s more or less the same feeling I got from his new book The Awakening; this is a book where the most important thing is the feeling Shaffer’s trying to evoke from the reader, and that feeling is one of dread.

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Sandman Mystery Theatre Vol. 1-2

Written by Matt Wagner
Art by Guy Davis, John Watkiss, and R.G. Taylor
112 pages & 208 pages, color
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

I have a confession to make: when it was first published, I stopped buying Sandman Mystery Theatre after six issues. In 1993 I didn’t have much money to spend on comics, and comics quickly got dropped off of my list of things to buy if they lost my attention. Now that DC Comics has released the first 12 issues of the series in two collected volumes, though, I figured it was time to see if, a decade later, my tastes had matured a bit more and it would be more to my liking… or if perhaps I was right the first time I decided that the book was not for me.

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One Step After Another

By Fermin Solis
40 pages, black and white
Published by AdHouse Books

The world of comics is getting smaller, and that’s a good thing. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have imagined that having Spanish comics translated into English would not only be happening on a regular basis, but getting to the point of it being little more than a footnote in the release of a book. One Step After Another‘s hook isn’t that it was originally published in Spain, but that it’s just a genuinely good comic.

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Louis: Dreams Never Die

By Metaphrog
48 pages, color
Published by Metaphrog

There are books which are easy to sum up in a few words, and those that straddle the lines between one classification and the next. The comic-creating duo of Metaphrog’s series of Louis graphic novels not only does that, but it seems to take great glee in doing so. And really, that’s part of the joy of this unique series.

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JLA: Classified #1

Written by Grant Morrison
Penciled by Ed McGuinness
Inked by Dexter Vines
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

I loved Grant Morrison’s issues of JLA. They had a great mix of action and crazy, larger-than-life ideas rampaging through the pages every month, and it’s something that was able to hold my attention on a regular basis. It’s been some time since those issues, though, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his opening storyline for JLA: Classified would be able to hit those same levels. Silly, silly me.

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Karas #1

Written by Phil Amara
Penciled by Nuria Peris
Inked by Sergio Sandoval
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

It’s a strange feeling, reading a comic that you don’t realize is supposed to tie into an existing product. Most people who are reading it are already fans of the tie-in property and have an idea of what’s going on, but those who just scoop it up blindly are in for a strange surprise. That was what I thought was going on when I first read Karas from Dark Horse; by the time it was over I was convinced that it was actually connected to a PlayStation2 game. Turns out it’s not. Oops.

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