This Isn’t A Library: New and Notable Releases to the Comics Direct Market



Here are a few books that jump out at me from this week's probably mostly accurate list of books shipping from Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. to comic book and hobby shops across North America.

I might not buy all of the following -- I might not buy any -- but were I in a comic book shop I would likely pick them up and look at them, potentially resulting in mean words and an angry stare from my retailer.

*****

MAR070024 BPRD GARDEN OF SOULS #3 (OF 5) $2.99
MAR070029 CONAN #40 (MR) $2.99
I don't read either of these comics, but it occurs to me that with pulpy fantasy series like these, Dark Horse smartly buttresses their Star Wars efforts a bit in terms of shop saturation and does their part in a recent, slow and perhaps doomed resurgence of publisher interest in the traditional comic book format.

MAR070173 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #5 (RES) $2.99
I'm trying to think of a comparison here, where a popular, almost iconic talent like Frank Miller dives into work that is a Benny Hill-like series of slaps to the back of the head for so many of his fans. I'm totally coming up empty. Late because it's funnier that it's late.

FEB070235 PLAIN JANES $9.99
I think this is the first comic from DC's Minx line aimed at teenage girls. According to my college football position coach, I qualify.

MAR073498 30 DAYS OF NIGHT EBEN & STELLA #1 $3.99
Another spin-off of Steve Niles' vampire property, another writer destined to get a lot of comics work over the next five years (Kelly Sue DeConnick, co-writing this with Niles).

DEC063306 ARTESIA VOL 3 ARTESIA AFIRE HC (MR) $24.95
I can't be the only one baffled by Artesia.

DEC063568 MISERY LOVES COMEDY HC (MR) $24.95
A collection of Ivan Brunetti's self-demolishing early issues of Schizo, a comic book series that would have been the last word in 1990s autobio except that it's hard to form words where you're howling straight from the gut. Frequently brilliant, always lacerating material where even the parts you dislike you remember 13 years later. This thorough collection includes the funniest letters page of the last 20 years, from issue #2.

FEB073160 MOUSE GUARD VOL 1 FALL 1152 HC $24.95
An extremely popular comic that reads like a children's book where instead of text blocks you get more illustrations that work in all the sequential ways you come to expect from the funnybook form. This has a chance to be quite handsome, so I'd pick it up to see how it was designed.

MAR073436 THINGS JUST GET AWAY FROM YOU HC $24.95
Walt Holcombe had the worst timing of any cartoonist in the modern age. He came along ten years too early to capitalize on today's market for whimsical tales of sweetness and longing. He hit first with a book called The King of Persia long before bookstores were equipped to take a book like that and turn it into a runaway hit. The first issue of his Poot was a post-Chris Ware design mis-step that looked more like a mini-comic than a proper and distinctive series launch. The period of his greatest artistic output perfectly spanned the era of the Direct Market's greatest combination of hostility towards arts comics and general sales free-fall suckage. This new, beautiful-looking book not only rights some personal wrongs done Holcombe, it should all by itself be enough to ensure him a comics legacy.

*****

The full list of this week's releases, including some titles with multiple cover variations and a long, impressive list of toys and other stuff that isn't comics, can be found here. Despite this official list there's no guarantee a comic will show up in the stores as promised, or in all of the stores as opposed to just a few. Also, stores choose what they carry and don't carry.

To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, try this.

The above titles are listed with their Diamond order code in the first field, which may assist you in finding comics at your shop or having them order something for you they don't have in-stock.

If I didn't list your new comic, it's probably just because I missed it. It could be because our tastes differ. It's not because I hate you. I love you.
 
posted 9:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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