Dark Horse Penguin Picks: August 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Fortune & Glory: The Musical
I’ve written and talked before about how I think the original “Fortune & Glory” is one of the best things that Bendis has ever done. His adventures in the screen trade in dealing with attempts to make movies out of “Goldfish” and “Torso” contain some of his most focused, funniest, and sharpest writing, while also showing he was no slouch as an artist as well. While that was a complete tale, he’s mentioned elsewhere in years since that he’d like to do a version of this for his Marvel Years at some point.
This isn’t that, but it could be just as good. That’s because it’s the story of his job as a consultant on “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” the ill-fated Broadway musical that was beset by disaster after disaster almost from the jump. I honestly didn’t know that he was a part of it until this project was announced, so the hope is he’s got some juicy behind-the-scenes details to impart with the same level of energy as the original series. While I know that his recent output has been decidedly uneven (to put it charitably), the hope is that by invoking the name of one of his signature works he’s ready to bring back his A-Game along with artist Bill Walko.
If that doesn’t turn out to be the case, well… *starts sharpening knives*
Duck & Cover #1: Described as “A manga-influenced” teen adventure set in the strange post-apocalyptic era… of 1955.” Mind you, that’s not the future as we saw in in 1955 (that would make it “Fallout”) but if the world ended in 1955 and these kids have to sort it out. Also, while calling something “manga-influenced” isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker with me, I’d really love to know what about their story that writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque think fits that description. Though this is coming from the creative team of “American Vampire,” I can’t say that series wrapped up well enough to make me invested in future collaborations from them.
Groo: Minstrel Melodies #1 (of 4): The Wandering Minstrel and his daughter Kayli wander from town-to-town singing stories of the Cheese Dip Wanderer’s adventures. That doesn’t sound like much, but the impression I’m getting from this solicitation is that we’re finally getting back to the classic style of done-in-one stories for the character. Which, if you’ll recall, gave us his best collection of recent stories in the “Friends & Foes” series. Let’s see if writer Mark Evarnier and artist Sergio Aragones can deliver the goods again.
Turtles of Grayskull #1: Wherein the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team up with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sure, why not. It’s really only surprising that this hasn’t happened before now. Veteran of Eternia-based stories Tim Seeley writes while veteran of Ninja Turtles crossovers Freddie E. Williams II illustrates.
Survival Street: The Radical Left #1: The original “Survival Street” miniseries was something that I wanted to like more than I actually did. While its take on “What if the cast of Sesame Street were freedom fighters in a post-corporate hellscape America?” was good for some laughs, it eventually succumbed to preachiness by its end. So I’m honestly surprised to see writers James Asmus and Jim Festante, and artist Abylay Kussainov return for a second go-round for the concept. Surprised, but still intrigued as this next go-round offers them the chance to get its brand of satirical storytelling right this time.
Cat + Gamer vol. 6: Still just Musubi and Soboro in this volume. Riko hasn’t succumbed to the desire to get another cat yet. The first four volumes have been adorable and I don’t see that changing with this one.
Dracula vol. 1: The Impaler: Writer Matt Wagner and artist Kelly Jones detail the history of the legendary character before the start of Bram Stoker’s novel? Sure, sign me up for that. This is the first of four planned volumes, and this first one was funded through the power of Kickstarter. So let’s hope that the final product is good enough to make us want to see the rest of those volumes produced.
Innocent Omnibus vol. 3: I read through vol. 2 on my flight home from Fanime and I thought it was better than the first. I’ll have a full review eventually, but the artistry demonstrated in the first volume was just as strong while the story became more interesting. Mangaka Shin’ichi Hiramoto also introduces a compelling new character as a foil and rival to his protagonist that will require a measure of suspension of disbelief from the reader. In that they’ll have to accept that an eleven-year-old can comport and articulate themselves with the capacity of someone twice their age. Still looking forward to seeing how it all wraps up with this volume, though..