Weekly Comic Shopping List 11/18/09
So next week I'm traveling to Michigan for the holiday, planning on packing away a couple of books to take with me to read on a mini vacation. Pluto and Wasteland are both on my list of possible traveling books but unfortunately, I probably won't have my copies of these newest collections until after I get home.
- Adventure Comics Vol 2 #4-- My first Blackest Night ring. I can't believe we're only on the fourth issue and I feel like the book is being horribly interrupted by a cross over. It barely feels like this story has found out what it wants to be and now it's being put on hold. The big Legion story that I think is coming up can't happen fast enough for me at this point.
- Flash Rebirth #5-- I think I've liked the individual issues of this miniseries much more than I like it as a whole. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled out the first four issues and whatever story Johns and Van Sciver are trying to tell barely hangs together from issue to issue. Maybe it's the lousy schedule of this book but it's feeling very fractured right now. The pieces are good but there's nothing yet bringing it all together. At this point, I'm looking forward to Flash: Blackest Night just to see more Scott Kolins artwork.
- Green Lantern Corps Emerald Eclipse HC--Chaos. Destruction. Mortality. And Blackest Night hasn't even begun yet.
- Phonogram 2 Singles Club #5-- I've already talked about this book here and here. I like it. It's good.
- Dominic Fortune #4-- Nothing that Chaykin has written in the past 10 years has felt nearly as strong as his work during his 1980's heyday but Dominic Fortune comes close. This book may actually be a bit of a departure for Chaykin as his leading character isn't as wishy-washy as a lot of his leads are. This has actually been a fantastic pulpy adventure and one of the most enjoyable stories Chaykin has written since the days of Blackhawk and The Shadow.
- Wasteland Book 5 Tales Of The Uninvited TP-- I really need to catch up on my post-apocalyptic reading. This collection reprints a number of the side stories that Johnston has done between the larger stories, with a number of different artists. These stories have given Johnston the room to build a larger world for Wasteland than he's done in the main story.
- Tezukas Black Jack Vol 8--Black Jack is Tezuka's medical procedural story even if most of the medicine practiced is fiction. This is another one of those series that aren't being collected in any kind of chronological order so you don't get a lot of character development but you do get strong characters. Tezuka's Black Jack is a renegade, a rogue and a man with his own, oddly just moral code. He's part Quincy, part Indiana Jones and part The Man With No Name.
- GoGo Monster-- I'm not too sure when this book comes out. Viz says it's 11/17. Amazon lists sometime in December and I haven't seen it on any comic shop list yet.
- Oishinbo A La Carte Vol 6 The Joy Of Rice TP-- Here's another series that I really need to catch up with. Since this is a collection of related stories rather than one, continuous ongoing narrative, I haven't felt the need to read this one every time a volume comes out. Unfortunately, that means I haven't read much since the second volume. The artwork isn't the greatest but it's wonderful to read a great story about food. All I know is that after the first volume, I was in a mood for Japanese food for a good, long time.
- Pluto Urasawa x Tezuka Vol 6 TP-- Quoting David Brothers from Twitter: "It's impossible to oversell how good Pluto is, because Pluto is better than your favorite comic." Unlike Monster or 20th Century Boys, there's a fantastic calmness to this book. Actually, "calmness" may be the wrong word. There's a reserved energy in this series as Urasawa patiently doles out the story.