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Vampire’s Christmas

Story by Joseph Michael Linsner
Art by Joseph Michael Linsner and Mike Dubisch
48 pages, color
Published by Image Comics

With the month of December comes a lot of different holidays, among them Christmas. When it comes to Christmas, you can probably find more stories about it than any other holiday (although Halloween certainly comes a close second), most of them cheerful and upbeat. Maybe that’s what Joseph Michael Linsner had in mind when he created The Vampire’s Christmas, a graphic novel that is ultimately anything but upbeat.

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Subatomic

Written by Patrick Neighly
Art by Jorge Heufemann
136 pages, color
Published by Mad Yak Press

A couple of years ago, the contents of Subatomic might have seemed a bit more far-fetched. But in the year 2003, where we have a part of the government officially named the Department of Homeland Security, anything seems possible. And that’s exactly the wave that writer Patrick Neighly has decided to ride.

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Beast of Chicago

By Rick Geary
80 pages, black and white
Published by NBM

Many people assume that brutal or senseless murders did not really happen until the 20th century, but that’s hardly the case. All throughout history, people’s lives have been shattered by the ruthless killings of each other, both in public and in secret. Cartoonist Rick Geary has shown in his Treasury of Victorian Murder that modern conveniences are hardly necessary in order to kill—and his latest volume, The Beast of Chicago, shows just how crafty a killer in the 1890s could be…

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Ruule: Ganglords of Chinatown #1

Written by Ivan Brandon
Penciled by Mike Hawthorne
Inked by Rick Remender
48 pages, color
Published by Beckett Comics

It’s tough in this market to launch a new comics company and make an instant impression. Beckett Comics is certainly giving it the old college try, so to speak. Their first releases, licensed Terminator 3 comics, brought to mind some of Dark Horse’s earliest licensed books that helped push the company into the spotlight. Now Beckett’s releasing Ruule, a five-issue prestige format full-color mini-series… at $2.99 an issue. Now that’s bound to get some people’s attention.

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Crush #1

Written by Jason Hall
Art by Sean Murphy
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

There’s something special about the passage from teenager to adult. It’s more in the mind of the teenager that’s about to turn 18 (or however old adulthood is in one’s particular country), that somehow they’re going to wake up and everything has changed. The reality of the situation, of course, is that it rarely does. You wake up and still have to go to school, or take out the garbage, or whatever thing it was you’re dreading. That’s part of the fun of Jason Hall and Sean Murphy’s Crush; the idea that when you turn 18, something special will happen. If you want it to, that’s another story entirely…

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Blanche the Baby Killer #0

By S. Kwon
72 pages, black and white
Published by Bong’s Quality Meats

A title and a cover is all it can take, sometimes. I’m not sure which grabbed me first: the title of the book being Blanche the Baby Killer, or the image of Blanche in a factory-worker’s outfit splattered in a black substance. Now I know, you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover; that way often leads disaster. But what can I say? Sometimes, that’s all the lure you need.

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Drawn & Quarterly Showcase Book One

By Kevin Huizenga and Nicolas Robel
96 pages, two-color
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

One of the great things about the original Drawn & Quarterly anthology was how each new issue would introduce new and upcoming talents in comics who may not have received wider exposure in the comics industry. While the new annual anthology volumes still do that, it’s great to see Drawn & Quarterly taking a new proactive role in bringing this talent to the forefront. That’s where Drawn & Quarterly Showcase comes from, helping identify and celebrate the new superstars of comics. But are the choices for this first book the real deal?

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Supreme: The Return

Written by Alan Moore
Penciled by Chris Sprouse and Rick Veitch, with Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, Matt Smith, Jim Baikie, Ian Churchill, and Rob Liefeld
Inked by Al Gordon and Rick Veitch, with Jim Starlin, Rob Liefeld, Matt Smith, and Norm Rapmund
260 pages, color
Published by Checker Book Publishing Group

The sales of one of your comic books—a thinly disguised incarnation of Superman—are lackluster. General interest in the book is down pretty low. What do you do? In the case of Rob Liefeld and the comic book Supreme, the answer was to hire Alan Moore to come on board as writer and completely revamp the series. No one seemed to really believe that Alan Moore was going to write Supreme, but it worked. In many ways a precursor to Moore’s various America’s Best Comics titles, his run on Supreme is now collected into two volumes for those wondering just what they missed the first time around…

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Alice 19th Vol. 1: Lotis Master

By Yû Watase
192 pages, black and white
Published by Viz

In the past half-decade or so, it’s been fascinating to watch the rise of Yû Watase in America. Her series Fushigi Yûgi: The Mysterious Play became a huge hit on both print and video, and the follow-up Ceres, Celestial Legend isn’t doing too shabbily either. Now a third series from Watase is hitting stores in the form of Alice 19th—and it just goes to show that Watase keeps getting better with age.

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