This Isn’t A Library: Notable Releases Into Comics’ Direct Market



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Here are the books that make an impression on me staring at this week's no-doubt largely 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 works listed here. I might not buy any. You never know. I'd sure look at the following, though.

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MAR151283 D&Q 25 YEARS OF COMTEMP CARTOON COMIC & GRAPHIC NOVEL HC (MR) $49.95
Of course you want this. That's a really good price point, too. I wrote one of the profiles. I imagine my subject excitedly checking the table of contents for his name and then moving his finger over to the right and then sighing. But yeah, this is one of the few books guaranteed to be a book of the year the moment it came out. Lots of new stuff. Lots of weird stuff. Lots of good stuff.

APR150537 HUMANS #5 (MR) $2.99
MAR150616 WICKED & DIVINE #11 (MR) $3.50
MAR158540 WICKED & DIVINE #11 CVR B STAPLES (MR) $3.50
There's very, very little in the way of comic-book format comics that I read, so I can direct you to the latest issue of The Humans and the 11th issue (already!) of Wicked & Divine. Those are both solid crowd-pleasers, good summer comics.

DEC140130 COMPLETE PISTOLWHIP HC $27.99
This is a reformatting of two, maybe three different publications from creators Matt Kindt and Jason Hall. It has to be at least 300 pages, and I'd guess closer to 350 pages. This is a big, quirkily visualized, elaborate mystery -- and you don't see people doing books like anymore.

JAN150171 FRANKENSTEIN MAD SCIENCE OF DICK BRIEFER TP $49.99
I'm a fiend for Dick Briefer and the Frankenstein work in particular. It's one of comics' most underrated runs, even though you wouldn't say underrated if a presence on the Internet counts for anything.

JAN150136 USAGI YOJIMBO SAGA LTD ED HC VOL 03 $79.99
JAN150135 USAGI YOJIMBO SAGA TP VOL 03 $24.99
Stan Sakai is a good man and a better cartoonist. I'll buy anything he makes, in just about any format.

APR150576 CRIMINAL TP VOL 05 THE SINNERS (MR) $14.99
I very much like these Image re-releases of the Criminal trades. It's kind of like those L&R trades, the paperbacks, where the only thing that works about it is how well the acutal books feel in your hands -- they don't make sense as a pitch, in other words. This is typicallyi solid work.

APR151805 NARUTO GN VOL 70 $9.99
70! I'm old and just impressed by numbers now. I had two periods of reading Naruto: once when it first came out and was being serialized and one later on after they fast-forwarded the narrative quite a bit. My lingering memory is a pretty good grasp of how teens value peer-to-peer relationships and really imaginative fight scenes. It's

MAR151345 VERITY FAIR GN $24.95
This is one of those eyeballs I saw, the latest in a long list of contenders for a comics from the UK that recalls classic Love & Rockets with its large cast, mostly-but-not-entirely quotidian focus and soap opera style overlapping storylines. I will have to settle for reading it in its full glory rather than sampling an issue.

APR151899 AL PARKER ILLUSTRATOR INNOVATOR HC $44.95
I enjoy looking at Al Parker's work, and would stop and look at this book in a store for sure. Parker seems to me represented by that one overwhelming style, but I've read articles that point out he worked in a number of styles, mostly for commercial advantage. I'd love a book that instructed me well enough to figure out his variations on different styles.

APR151789 BORB GN $19.95
Jason Little's book contrasting old-timey joke set-ups (including those seemingly reserved just for alcoholics) with everything horrible we know about alcoholism now.

APR150475 BRAVO FOR ADVENTURE HC $34.99
There certainly won't be any more handsome book out this week, nor more handsome leading man. I only have a surface knowledge of this work. Toth's resurgence in popularity in the '80s and '90s came with a bit of a quandary in that he didn't have a great work out there that might fall in line with a growing appreciation for long-form, seriously-intended work: the graphic novel movement. This was one of his sustained efforts, so it got a bunch of the attention that was out there. I'll enjoy looking at it with eyes that are perfectly fine with beautiful trifles.

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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 so your shop may not carry a specific publication. There are a lot of comics out there.

To find your local comic book store, check this list; and for one I can personally recommend because I've shopped there, albeit a while back, 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. Ordering through a direct market shop can be a frustrating experience, so if you have a direct line to something -- you know another shop has it, you know a bookstore has it -- I'd urge you to consider all of your options.

If I failed to list your comic, that's because I hate you.

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