Image Previews Picks: August 2020
Image’s solicitations are also a mix of old and new titles. Among the new, however, is one that I’ve been waiting a while to see…
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Cruel Summer HC
Like a lot of other people, I’ve been waiting for the latest “Criminal” series from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips to be collected. While twelve issues have been solicited at the time that I’m writing this, only two have been collected. And expanded upon in the “Bad Weekend” hardcover. That was one of the best comics I read last year and it’s left me chomping at the bit for more of this latest incarnation of the series that Brubaker and Phillips have been most committed to over the years. So not only are we getting a new collection in August, it’s also going to be the largest one for a new storyline to date. That’s because while the collection is titled “Cruel Summer,” the storyline it’s collecting was called “The Last Days of Teeg Lawless” while it was being solicited. So it’s the biggest storyline of the series and likely to be the most pivotal to the only recurring cast of characters this series has: The Lawless Family.
Oh, and while I’m finally glad to see this collection solicited, it’s listed as collecting issues #1 and 5-12. “Bad Weekend” collected issues #2 & 3, which leaves the question of when we’ll see #4 in a collection.
Big Girls #1: Jason Howard has illustrated “The Astounding Wolf-Man” and “Super Dinosaur” with Robert Kirkman and “Trees” and “Cemetery Beach” with Warren Ellis. Now he’s striking out on his own with this series about a girl named Ember. She likes reading and poetry, and is also a 300-foot tall monster hunter. She’s just one of several Big Girls who are standing between our world and annihilation. Howard’s a talented artist and I hope that this follows closer to the high-octane action of “Cemetery Beach” than his other collaborations. I’ll give it a shot to see if that’s the case, and if he’s as good a writer as he is an artist.
Lost Soldiers #1 (of 5): Ales Kot is back again, with a relatively normal-sounding series by his standards. Three Vietnam veterans find themselves embroiled in a new kind of conflict in Juarez, circa 2009. While I say this sounds normal, Kot’s execution tends to go off in some weird, esoterically literary directions. That could still be the case here, so consider yourself warned. Luca Casalanguida illustrates.
Hedra: A 56-page one-shot about an astronaut who leaves a world ravaged by nuclear war in search of life. The rest of the solicitation text is filled out by comparisons to Chris Ware, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and some glowing praise from Warren Ellis. While I’m not familiar with creator Jesse Lonergan, Ellis’ recommendation is good enough for me. The point of comparison is Simon Roy’s engagingly weird sci-fi cannibal odyssey “Habitat.”
Head Lopper #13: Woohoo! “Head Lopper” is back! Or just Norgal if you’re a friend of his. This time he and the head of Agatha are on the hunt for something called Mulgrid’s Stair. Where does it lead? Who knows? I just know that I can rely on Andrew MacLean’s series for some quality sword-and-sorcery action whenever it shows up. Also returning in these solicitations is…
Sea of Stars #6: Which is good, really. I mean, I’m glad that Jason Aaron, Dennis Hallum, and Stephen Green’s science-fantasy series is returning. If for no other reason than it spares Aaron from having another creator-owned series go MIA on us. It’s just that I thought the first volume was fine, and not much more than that. I’ll still check out this arc once it’s collected, though it’ll have to be a substantial improvement over the first one to get me excited about subsequent volumes.
Outer Darkness/Chew: Fusion Cuisine: If not for “Cruel Summer” then this would’ve been my Above-the-Board Recommendation for this month. Because I liked “Chew” and I really liked the first two volumes of “Outer Darkness.” So these two great tastes should taste great together, right? Given how weird “Chew” got, seeing its protagonist Tony Chu wind up on the Charon seems downright plausible. Writer John Layman consistently walked a fine line between the absurd, comedic, and dramatic in both of his series, while their artists — Afu Chan and Rob Guillory — are also back to illustrate this crossover. Even if this is a stunt meant to generate more interest in “Outer Darkness,” I’m perfectly fine with that and sure that it’ll wind up being a great read regardless.
November vol. III HC: The last installment of the graphic novella trilogy from Matt Fraction and Elsa Charretier. Advance-solicited for October. Which means we’ll get the omnibus edition collecting all three sometime next year, right?