Image Previews Picks: January 2021
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Chu vol. 1: First Course
John Layman and Rob Guillory’s “Chew” was a lot of fun over the course of its 60+ issue run. It also tied things up pretty well at the end to indicate that Cibopathic detective Tony Chu’s adventures were at their end. So what’s the focus for this similarly titled spinoff series? That would be on the black sheep of the Chu family, Saffron. She may be a criminal, but I’m pretty sure that Tony’s family still likes her more than him. Saffron was only mentioned in passing over the course of “Chew” and now we get to find out why. I mean, we all know that Tony was such a straight arrow that he’d bust her if the opportunity presented itself. Yet, how did they get to that point? That’s what this first volume of “Chu” is all about.
John Layman returns as writer. Some may look at this as his attempt to cash in on a past success, but anyone who read “Outer Darkness” will know that he still has it and it is a GODDAMN SHAME that more people didn’t buy that series because I’d really like to know what happens next! …*ahem* Artist Dan Boultwood is the new artist and he has some gigantic shoes to fill in picking up where Rob Guillory left off. I think he stands a reasonable chance of doing that — Layman wouldn’t have recruited him for the series, otherwise.
HAHA #1: Writer W. Maxwell Prince knows what the world needs right now — sad stories about sad clowns! Yes, that’s what this series is about. It promises a sad, scary, and hilarious look at those who play the (circus) fool, with a new artist illustrating these stories each issue. Vanessa Del Rey gets the honor of kicking this series off, and best of luck to her and Prince with this series. The only way I can really see it working is if the writer finds a way to make the awful things that are going to happen to these clowns and those who get mixed up with them become unexpected in some way. In short, if I can see what’s coming then I can see my way out of this series. That said, Prince and artist Martin Morazzo have managed to keep their anthology series “Ice Cream Man” going for 23 issues now, so maybe the writer has a shot at doing the same here.
Rain Like Hammers #1 (of 5): Eugene lives on one of the walking cities that inhabit the desert planet of Crown Majesty. He mostly spends his days toying with old alien technology or searching out good fast food joints. This is until an unknown force starts destroying these walking cities, forcing Eugene out of his comfort zone and into the fire. So far, so good, right? Well, your actual interest in this series will be determined by how you feel about its creator Brandon Graham. At one point he was one of comics’ cult heroes after his work on series like “Prophet,” “King City,” and “Multiple Warheads.” Then word started coming out about how he was something of a sexual creep, especially towards trans women. He responded with a two-page comic “diss track” that effectively burned all of his bridges in the industry. That was a couple years ago and now he’s back with this miniseries. While “Rain Like Hammers” may wind up being a good comic, its quality is likely to be overshadowed by how Graham handles himself in public now and whether or not the industry, as well as his/its fans, are willing to welcome him back.
Rise of the Magi: I saw the solicitation for this and thought, “‘Written by Marc Silvestri?’ when did this happen?” Back in 2014 according to the publication dates. I’d have honestly thought that this was a new OGN if it wasn’t for the “Collects issues #1-7” at the bottom of the solicitation. It feels weird that a work from a creator as well-known as Silvestri (well, to anyone who remembers the founding of Image, at least) put out a comic that went straight into obscurity, but here we are. Maybe if he had illustrated it instead of only writing it…
Black Magick vol. 3: Ascension I: Okay. I can understand the logic of Greg Rucka (and Leandro Fernandez) waiting years to put out a new volume of “The Old Guard.” They clearly wanted to capitalize on whatever buzz the movie generated after it was released. It actually worked for them as the movie version of “The Old Guard” tripled sales of the first volume overnight. Now we have “Black Magick,” which is following a similarly lengthy gap between volumes, only without a movie to promote it. I’ll definitely be buying this volume, I’ve got good memories of vol. 2, but it really makes me wish that Rucka and artist Nicola Scott would get their acts together and put this series out on a more regular basis. Rucka does it with Michael Lark on “Lazarus.” It’s a quarterly schedule, but it’s a schedule nonetheless.
Dead Body Road vol. 2: Bad Blood: Will this feel more like a proper story than the numbing series of action scenes that the first volume was? I really can’t say. This feels like the kind of volume I’d pick up if I found it in the half-off bins at a convention. However, I had to stop doing that because my shelf space is depressingly finite. Oh, and they also stopped having conventions in real life. That’s been a real bummer… Wait. What was I writing about again? Oh, right, “Dead Body Road” vol. 2. I guess my thoughts on this volume amount to *shrugged*.
Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee vol. 2: Home Fire: Vol. 1 of this series really grew on me even as it didn’t offer up a whole lot of surprises in its storytelling. Well, not until its end. *SPOILER WARNING* That was when the story jumped ahead several years to reveal that Owen Johnson had walked away from his life in the mountain temple after having mastered the Fire Power. Now he’s living a normal life with his wife and his two kids, though those from his previous life haven’t forgotten about him. So far, so standard, right? After the first volume won me over, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that Kirkman and Samnee will be able to make this tired setup as engaging as the last one they worked with.
The Goddamned vol. 2: The Virgin Brides: The previous volume of this series came out over three years ago. I was all ready to assume that this series had fallen into the same pit that “Southern Bastards” has yet to crawl out of. Yet here we are with another installment of Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera’s Bible Stories. We’re back in the pre-Flood era, where most of the world is a sandbox of violence and depravity. Except for a hidden nunnery in the mountains run by sisters who train the orphaned girls who live there to be the brides for the sons of God. Anyone familiar with Aaron’s creator-owned work should be able to see where this is going to go. If you can’t, then go read the solicitation text as it’ll spell it out for you. While I can’t muster up a whole lot of excitement for a story that I have a pretty good idea about where it’s going to go, it still has one thing to spark my interest: Art from Guera. It’s been a while since we’ve seen his work and he’s real good at making violent depravity look impressive on the page.
Oblivion Song vol. 5: At the end of vol. 4, just about all of the humans from Oblivion had been rescued. Only one was left behind: Nathan Cole. I’d say he should be fearing for his life, except as the only human left in Oblivion he’s become incredibly valuable to the Faceless Men who are looking to invade the Earth. I’m sure he’ll be fine. So long as the one Faceless Man who likes killing humans doesn’t decide to start cutting off parts of Nathan in order to get him to talk. That would be bad…
Pulp: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ graphic novella gets a paperback edition. So if you’ve been holding out to read this story in this format, here you go. Me? I’ve got no regrets about buying it in hardcover. Just like their previous graphic novellas, this story was good enough to justify being published first in that format.