Image Previews Picks: February 2021
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Two Moons #1
Apparently the premise of, “Warrior of the gods resurrected as a scarecrow to fight his enemies in the present day alongside his white trash friends” wasn’t uncommercial enough for writer John Arcudi. Now he’s back, and teamed up with artist Valerio Giangiordano for a young Pawnee man fighting for the Union in the Civil War, whose shamanic roots reveal the actual ghosts and horrors haunting the war. It’s certainly possible that this could be the Next Big Thing in comics, but my gut is telling me not to get my hopes up. However, even though “Rumble” may not have had the most accessible premise, it was still a lot of fun and I was genuinely happy to see it come back for another round of fifteen issues after it looked like those first fifteen were all it had to give. So I absolutely think that it’s worth getting behind this series because it’d be great to see one of Arcudi’s creator-owned titles find widespread commercial success for once.
Radiant Black #1: Kyle Higgins and Marcelo Costa bring us this series about a thirtysomething whose life is currently in the crapper. That is, until he unlocks the cosmic force known as Radiant and the power to turn his life around in the process. Problem is that the alien gods who created the Radiant, well, they kinda want it back by any means necessary. So it’s like “God Country,” only (according to the cover) the giant sword has been replaced with what looks like Power Ranger armor. Okay, sure. Probably going to wait on this one.
Stray Dogs #1 (of 5): This story of a dog who wakes up in an unfamiliar house with some other dogs is described as “The Silence of the Lambs” meets “Lady and the Tramp.” Which is… certainly a description. Personally, I like the analogy offered by Bendis in his pull-quote description from the solicitation text: “The Secret Life of Pets” meets “Seven.” It’s a much more straightforward description of the kind of insanity this series has to offer. More appealing too since there’s no implication of romance in that analogy. Tony Fleecs writes and Trish Forstner illustrates.
Deep Beyond #1 (of 12): New Hotness Mirka Andolfo co-writes this maxiseries with David Goy while “Doctor Aphra” veteran Andrea Broccardo provides the art. This maxiseries takes place in a future Earth where the population has dwindled and continues to fracture along ideological lines. Despite all this, a small group of scientists are trying to find a way to turn humanity’s fortunes around. Their best bet for this lies at the bottom of a deep, dark, abyss that could just as soon destroy as well as save them all. Sounds all right. Andolfo’s “Mercy” is still on my “To Read” list, so I could wind up becoming more or less excited about this series after checking that title out.
Graphic Fantasy #’s 1 & 2: “Savage Dragon” creator and Image Co-Founder Erik Larsen gets around to re-publishing the Dragon’s earliest appearances in facsimile editions. These fanzine reprints hail from the 80’s, so if you’re a longtime fan of the character then picking these up is likely to be the easiest way of experiencing them. As for why it took Larsen so long to get around to doing this, your guess is as good as mine.
Write it in Blood: Two hitmen drive through Texas with someone their boss wants to see in their trunk. Hijinks ensue. This Coen-esque caper comes to us from writer Rory McConville and artists Joe Palmer and Chris O’Halloran. I’m not familiar with any of them, but McConville and Palmer are credited with working on “Judge Dredd” and “2000 A.D.” respectively, and the solicitation text contains enthusiastic quotes from Al Ewing and Rob Williams. English comic creators working in a distinctly American mileu? This could work…
Death or Glory: Prestige Edition HC: Oversized $40 hardcover collecting the 11-issue series from Rick Remender and Bengal. It’s worth picking up in this format if you didn’t read the two collected editions like I did. Even if it’s just to appreciate the utterly jaw-dropping action sequences the creators deliver in the last third of the story. No, really. They’re that good.
The Department of Truth vol. 1: The End of the World: They’re all true! Every conspiracy you’ve heard! About JFK! About the Earth being flat! About the alien shapeshifters that have infiltrated our government! ALL OF IT! Here to spill the beans on them are James Tynion IV and Martin Simonds as they show us what happens when a budding conspiracy theorist winds up getting a look behind the curtain. A familiar setup (Grant Morrison used it for “The Invisibles”) but still a compelling one to be sure. The thing is that experience has shown me that you don’t go to Tynion for unconventional storytelling. You go to him to see the conventional executed with a decent amount of craft applied to it. So while this setup may promise some craziness, my guess is that this volume will be lighter on that stuff than you’d expect.
Scene of the Crime: Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and Sean Phillips’ modern noir “whytheydidit” classic gets reissued again. This time in paperback. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this series before, when it was last reissued in hardcover, but it’s worth mentioning again because this miniseries is just that good. If you haven’t picked it up by now, don’t miss it when February rolls around.
Redneck vol. 5: Tall Tales: Admittedly, there were few bright spots to be had in 2020. For me, though, one of them was finally getting caught up on Donny Cates’ and Lisandro Estherren’s southern vampire family saga. The first two volumes were a bit of slow going for me, but vols. 3 & 4 had Cates delivering some expertly crafted twists and pathos that show you why he’s one of the best writers working today. Vol. 5 takes a break from telling the story of the Bowmans in the present day to show us where vampires come from, who this Demus character is, and how the humans and the vampires went to war. While I’m completely in the dark about those first two things, I might have a theory or two about the third and am very much looking forward to having it all explained to me in February.
The Wicked + The Divine vol. 8: Old is the New New: From the solicitation text, “Back in print.” Well why the hell did it go out of print in the first place?
Seven to Eternity #17: The final issue of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena’s fantasy epic. Will Garlis Slum show the dorks who’ve been chasing him why you don’t mess with the Big Dog? Will Adam Osidis mortgage the last part of his soul to save his own life? Will the people chasing Garlis realize that they’re in a Remender comic and say “To hell with this,” and go find a nice beach to retire on before they wind up dead or terminally demoralized? Answers: “I hope so,” “Highly likely,” and “HAHA NOPE!” respectively.