Image Previews Picks: October 2015
This year’s Image Expo was held the week before Comic-Con and, as you’d expect, featured a ton of new title announcements from creators who have worked with the publisher before and some new ones. These announcements include: Mark Millar and Rafael Albuquerque holding up new issues of “American Vampire” ordinary person who happens to be extraordinary series “Huck,” Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay’s supernatural coming-home series “Heartless,” Si Spurrier and Ryan Kelly’s multi-era magical hipster story “Cry Havoc,” and “Scalped’s” Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera re-teaming for their take on the Bible in “The Goddamned.” Also of note is Bryan Lee O’Malley (of “Scott Pilgrim” fame) and Leslie Hung’s “Snotgirl” which was described as “Sex and the City” meets “American Psycho” featuring a fashion blogger with allergies, hence the title. Said to get really dark really quick, it’s going to have to be excellent in order to get me past that title. Also, in a deal that was surely finalized before they announced it onstage, Robert Kirkman will be letting Brian Vaughan write “The Walking Dead” for his online imprint The Panel Syndicate in exchange for a print version of “The Private Eye.” It’s one of those deals where everybody wins!
Also, instead of last year’s trend of announcing stuff that hasn’t even come out yet, some of the titles that came out of this year’s con are being solicited here:
Axcend #1: “Superman: Earth One” artist Shane Davis gives us this series about a videogame that invades our reality and the gamer that has to save us all. Davis’ art has its merits, but he’s completely untested as a writer. The solicitation text also features an incredibly dumb comparative descriptor in the form of, “A sci-fi thriller that’s like ‘Tron’ meets ‘Inception’ with a cheat code!” Still likely to be better than “Pixels,” though.
Black Magick #1: From writer Greg Rucka and artist Nicola Scott comes a series about a practitioner of traditional witchcraft who also works for the Portsmouth Robbery/Homicide Division. Whether or not it’s going to be a supernatural police procedural, or if the procedural parts are just window dressing for a more in-depth supernatural story aren’t really clear here. Still, it’s a very solid creative team, and “Lazarus” shows that Rucka always does his best work when it’s creator-owned. Also worth noting is that each issue will feature original fiction from the writer. A bonus for those who don’t want to wait for the trade.
Casanova: Acedia vol. 1(?): Not sure why this latest series of “Casanova” is getting a “vol. 1” signifier, since it’s essentially vol. 4 of the series. Anyhow, the previous volume left off with protagonist Casanova Quinn crash-landing on OUR EARTH and this series picks up with the man adjusting to his new normal with no memory of what he’s done previously. Then the apocalypse begins and Casanova has nine days to sort everything out. Why? Because that’s how this Matt Fraction-written series rolls. “Casanova” has always been a crazy trip, but the thread of an ongoing story has always been present through these volumes. Even if it does get tangled from time to time. Back to illustrate this volume is Fabio Moon, while his brother (and original series artist) Gabriel Ba teams with writer Michael Chabon for a series of back-ups about the women who are hunting the title character through time and space. If this does sound interesting to you, don’t start here — go back to the beginning, or else…
Codename Baboushka: The Conclave of Death #1: New from “The Fuse’s” Antony Johnston and artist Shari Chankhamma. It’s a series about a wealthy Russian socialite who is also a top-tier assassin, blackmailed by the U.S. government into undertaking the jobs too dirty for the CIA. Johnston has shown with his current sci-fi police procedural that he’s good with worldbuilding and the details necessary to pull it off successfully. Also, he’s got some experience with spy stories in the arc of “Queen & Country: Declassified” he did several years ago. The premise may be old hat, but I think that it can be made to work here.
I Hate Fairyland #1: Skottie Young, the writer (and artist of the first arc) of “Rocket Raccoon” and the person behind all of those “kiddie” variants for Marvel Comics gives us a story he could never have done at that publisher. Featuring Gert, a six-year-old girl who has been stuck in Fairyland for the past thirty years and now wants to go home. To do that, she’s going to murder her way through its cute and cuddly inhabitants in the goriest ways possible (or at least that’s what I’m led to believe). It’s a setup that definitely grabs your attention. Problem is that seeing a little kid hack and slash her way through a bunch of cute and cuddly creatures seems like might wind up being a one-note joke in the end. Young’s vivid visual imagination will be able to carry it for a while, but I can see this growing old fairly quick if it winds up being an ongoing series instead of a mini.
Injection vol. 1: “Once upon a time, there were five crazy people. And they poisoned the 21st Century.” That’s what the solicitation text tells us about this new series from Warren Ellis and his co-conspirator on “Moon Knight: From the Dead,” artist Declan Shalvey. If you need more than that to get you to buy this book, then you’re out of luck. While I liked that volume of “Moon Knight,” it did show that Ellis standard dialogue tics are starting to wear out their welcome. We’ll see if the creators fare better here in the wilds of Image.
Low vol. 2: Before the Dawn Burns Us: I found that the setup of an optimist struggling to put her family back together and save humanity from its imminent demise played to writer Rick Remender’s worst impulses. Never missing a chance to break his characters down, or subject them to some new tragedy, the only way I’d consider picking up this series again is if vol. 2 was the last one. Now that it’s being solicited, I see that it’s only collecting issues #7-10. If this is the last volume, it’s not mentioned here. Also, I’m being asked to pay $5 more for a collection that collects two fewer issues than the volume I didn’t even like that much in the first place. I’m thinking that now, vol. 1 will be the ONLY one of this series that I’ll be owning.
Paper Girls #1: Brian Vaughan is back again, this time with “Wonder Woman” artist Cliff Chiang for a series about four newspaper delivery girls (it takes place in 1988, for context) who find out about an alien invasion. I could go on… but it’s Vaughan! Teamed with a fantastic artist in Chiang! What more could a new series offer in order to get your attention?
Southern Cross vol. 1: The last time I read a story about someone tracking their lost sister on a space colony, it turned out to be the decidedly underwhelming “Roche Limit.” This time, the story is coming from a creator that I like, Becky Cloonan. She’s flying solo as a writer here, as opposed to her work on “Gotham Academy,” so this will be a chance to see how well she fares there. Not too familiar with artist Andy Belanger, so we’ll see how he acquits himself with Cloonan’s script. That said, he already has one big strike against him: He’s not Cloonan.