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Girls 6 (the Luna Brothers)
Um ... OK. Well. Yes.
I begin to suspect that either I'm not remotely the target audience for this title -- what with being entirely unmoved by the monthly naked girl on the cover -- or else the Luna Brothers have a sick sick sick sense of humor.
Or, you know, a little of both.
I mean, after that last image from the previous issue, which it turns out the people in the comic could see in its entirety ... People, it has a killer tail.
And it would appear that the town is being held captive inside a really really BIG ... ovum.
... Well, all righty then! Wherever it goes after this, I can't wait to see.
Revelations 3 (Paul Jenkins/Humberto Ramos)
The game's afoot, so it would seem. We've hit the midway point of the story, and we're beginning to see the shape of what's being hidden, if not what's being hidden itself. Of course, we the reader have been very slightly better informed than Our Detective, so we knew that much, at least; he's now caught up to us, more or less.
I still think the artwork isn't quite appropriate to the story, the characters a bit too cartoonic ... but man, it is seriously gorgeous artwork. (Speaking of which, I found interview with Ramos at Newsarama about how he developed the look of the artwork.)
Shadowplay 1/2
Have to say, if I hadn't seen Amber Benson listed as an author, I wouldn't have touched this story. I really don't generally like horror stories.
Shadowplay is actually two different titles bound together. The first, "Demon Father John's Pinwheel Blues", written by Amber Benson and illustrated by Ben Templesmith, involves vampire street children; "Shunt", vy Christina Z and Ashley Wood, involves a woman trying to uncover a human slavery ring run by vampires. (I feel safe in saying this much because it's what IDW said in their letters column that apparently runs across all of their titles.) Frankly, it's far more clear in the first two issues what's happening in "Demon Father John's Pinwheel Blues" than it is in "Shunt"; if it weren't for the "Plug This" blurb in the IDW common letters column, I would still be baffled as to what was going on in "Shunt"; it's largely silent, with a lot of ... not precisely abstract illustration, but not as easy to deciper as comics generally are.
Note that this title should really REALLY carry a mature readers label; while you can read the Pinwheel story in public without doing more than grossing people out with an illustration of a few extraneous innards here and there (and there, and there and on that wall over there...), "Shunt" has lots and lots and lots of drawings of nekkid womens. Breasts, pudenda, it's all there. (If you were to read this on mass transit, which I would not advise, you might surprise a gasp or two out of the elderly woman who is absolutely NOT reading over your shoulder.)
The Tick: Days of Drama
There's a new TICK! title! Keen! ... except ... well, I kind of think maybe I'm a bit old for the Tick these dayas. Either that, or "Days of Drama", involving The Tick trying to maintain order in The City when all the other heroes have gone to quiet, placid Blissburg, is really sort of ... eh.
A little of both, I suspect.
Astro City: The Dark Age, Book One
And finally, we know what happened to the Silver Agent, why, way way back in "Welcome to the Big City", the statue of the Silver Agent referred to "Our Eternal Shame". (As it should be. Astro City should be always and forever ashamed of itself for what it perpetrated.)
I really do like Astro City, and I like what they've done with this story arc. I like that we'll be following Royal and Charles williams through all 16 issues of The Dark Age. However, I would like to kick Busiek and friends in the shins for this: "We'll be back in a few months with the first character special ... and then shortly after that, Dark Age Book Two." The impression they gave before this story arc started was that there would be 16 consecutive months of Astro City issues. Why on earth can't they maintain a reasonable publication schedule for Astro City? If they can't do it monthly, then go to bimonthly. A regular publication schedule, that's the ticket.
The Book of Lost Souls 1 (writer, J. Michael Straczynski; artist, Colleen Doran)
Huh.
Huh.
A new Marvel Icon title, joining Powers as one of the few creator-owned titles being published under the Marvel shell, as they try to put Image out of business. Aside from the fact that the artwork is quite striking, there's not a lot you can say about this without giving away what little of the ball game Straczynski has shown us.
The question is, who and what exactly is Jonathan?
I'm guessing that the setup means that we'll be seeing Jonathan interacting with people in future issues in either one-off issues, or periodically in short series arcs that bear on the overall storyline/theme. It'll be interesting to see how they carry this off.
Loveless (Brian Azzarello/Marcelo Frusin)
Very very violent. And, what with the all the killing and the diddling and dalliance at the end, definitely for adults only.
Other than that ... I got nothin'. There's nothing in it that interests me enough to go for issue 2; as far as I can tell, the idea is that Wes Cutter and his wife run around killing people, partly because a lot of the people they kill are badduns, but partly because they like killing. There's clearly something else going on -- the last panel indicates as much (and I would assume that we'd discover the reason for the title, since it seems woefully inaccurate at this point) -- I just can't bring myself to care.
Jack Cross 3 (Warren Ellis/Gary Erskine)
Well ... I think the storyline kind of went off the rails here.
(WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW)
It's not that what he's positing couldn't happen; it's just that he's given the bad guys no real reason whatsoever to do what they're doing in this particular fashion. As far as I can tell, the idea is that what they're planning, if successful, will give the CIA a brief to operate domestically, and that just doesn't make a lot of sense in context.
It may be that issue 4, which closes this story arc, will make it all make sense. I hope so, anyway.
Really, "Jack Cross" ought to be a movie. This is the sort of story that should be taking place on the screen, and moving so quickly and so intensely from event to event that you never have time to think about it. It really would make a great action movie, I think.
Um ... OK. Well. Yes.
I begin to suspect that either I'm not remotely the target audience for this title -- what with being entirely unmoved by the monthly naked girl on the cover -- or else the Luna Brothers have a sick sick sick sense of humor.
Or, you know, a little of both.
I mean, after that last image from the previous issue, which it turns out the people in the comic could see in its entirety ... People, it has a killer tail.
And it would appear that the town is being held captive inside a really really BIG ... ovum.
... Well, all righty then! Wherever it goes after this, I can't wait to see.
Revelations 3 (Paul Jenkins/Humberto Ramos)
The game's afoot, so it would seem. We've hit the midway point of the story, and we're beginning to see the shape of what's being hidden, if not what's being hidden itself. Of course, we the reader have been very slightly better informed than Our Detective, so we knew that much, at least; he's now caught up to us, more or less.
I still think the artwork isn't quite appropriate to the story, the characters a bit too cartoonic ... but man, it is seriously gorgeous artwork. (Speaking of which, I found interview with Ramos at Newsarama about how he developed the look of the artwork.)
Shadowplay 1/2
Have to say, if I hadn't seen Amber Benson listed as an author, I wouldn't have touched this story. I really don't generally like horror stories.
Shadowplay is actually two different titles bound together. The first, "Demon Father John's Pinwheel Blues", written by Amber Benson and illustrated by Ben Templesmith, involves vampire street children; "Shunt", vy Christina Z and Ashley Wood, involves a woman trying to uncover a human slavery ring run by vampires. (I feel safe in saying this much because it's what IDW said in their letters column that apparently runs across all of their titles.) Frankly, it's far more clear in the first two issues what's happening in "Demon Father John's Pinwheel Blues" than it is in "Shunt"; if it weren't for the "Plug This" blurb in the IDW common letters column, I would still be baffled as to what was going on in "Shunt"; it's largely silent, with a lot of ... not precisely abstract illustration, but not as easy to deciper as comics generally are.
Note that this title should really REALLY carry a mature readers label; while you can read the Pinwheel story in public without doing more than grossing people out with an illustration of a few extraneous innards here and there (and there, and there and on that wall over there...), "Shunt" has lots and lots and lots of drawings of nekkid womens. Breasts, pudenda, it's all there. (If you were to read this on mass transit, which I would not advise, you might surprise a gasp or two out of the elderly woman who is absolutely NOT reading over your shoulder.)
The Tick: Days of Drama
There's a new TICK! title! Keen! ... except ... well, I kind of think maybe I'm a bit old for the Tick these dayas. Either that, or "Days of Drama", involving The Tick trying to maintain order in The City when all the other heroes have gone to quiet, placid Blissburg, is really sort of ... eh.
A little of both, I suspect.
Astro City: The Dark Age, Book One
And finally, we know what happened to the Silver Agent, why, way way back in "Welcome to the Big City", the statue of the Silver Agent referred to "Our Eternal Shame". (As it should be. Astro City should be always and forever ashamed of itself for what it perpetrated.)
I really do like Astro City, and I like what they've done with this story arc. I like that we'll be following Royal and Charles williams through all 16 issues of The Dark Age. However, I would like to kick Busiek and friends in the shins for this: "We'll be back in a few months with the first character special ... and then shortly after that, Dark Age Book Two." The impression they gave before this story arc started was that there would be 16 consecutive months of Astro City issues. Why on earth can't they maintain a reasonable publication schedule for Astro City? If they can't do it monthly, then go to bimonthly. A regular publication schedule, that's the ticket.
The Book of Lost Souls 1 (writer, J. Michael Straczynski; artist, Colleen Doran)
Huh.
Huh.
A new Marvel Icon title, joining Powers as one of the few creator-owned titles being published under the Marvel shell, as they try to put Image out of business. Aside from the fact that the artwork is quite striking, there's not a lot you can say about this without giving away what little of the ball game Straczynski has shown us.
The question is, who and what exactly is Jonathan?
I'm guessing that the setup means that we'll be seeing Jonathan interacting with people in future issues in either one-off issues, or periodically in short series arcs that bear on the overall storyline/theme. It'll be interesting to see how they carry this off.
Loveless (Brian Azzarello/Marcelo Frusin)
Very very violent. And, what with the all the killing and the diddling and dalliance at the end, definitely for adults only.
Other than that ... I got nothin'. There's nothing in it that interests me enough to go for issue 2; as far as I can tell, the idea is that Wes Cutter and his wife run around killing people, partly because a lot of the people they kill are badduns, but partly because they like killing. There's clearly something else going on -- the last panel indicates as much (and I would assume that we'd discover the reason for the title, since it seems woefully inaccurate at this point) -- I just can't bring myself to care.
Jack Cross 3 (Warren Ellis/Gary Erskine)
Well ... I think the storyline kind of went off the rails here.
(WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW)
It's not that what he's positing couldn't happen; it's just that he's given the bad guys no real reason whatsoever to do what they're doing in this particular fashion. As far as I can tell, the idea is that what they're planning, if successful, will give the CIA a brief to operate domestically, and that just doesn't make a lot of sense in context.
It may be that issue 4, which closes this story arc, will make it all make sense. I hope so, anyway.
Really, "Jack Cross" ought to be a movie. This is the sort of story that should be taking place on the screen, and moving so quickly and so intensely from event to event that you never have time to think about it. It really would make a great action movie, I think.