Newseed Comics: California Burning, Oct. 3

While Grady is still running all around SoCal trying to figure out what's happening with his life, I find that I suddenly have an afternoon to kill up here in the beautifully green (and orange, and red, and yellow) state of Oregon. An incident like the one currently unfolding in San Diego, Malibu, Irvine, etc... really makes one take stock of their own surroundings. I truly love the Pacific Northwest and would be devastated to see it fall victim to the type of destruction California has seen the last several days. My prayers are out to everyone effected by this shitty shit.

Enough real life though, lets get on to the damn picture books! New releases drop here in about three hours and I've just finished catching up on my back reading. Here are some quick thoughts about a number of the issues from the foot-thick stack I have spent the last few days plowing through. I apologize for the lack of more mainstream Marvel/DC hero titles, I'll try to pick up some of the books Grady usually covers when I go out today. Not that we cover much DCU round here anyway.

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Quick Hits:

The Umbrella Academy #2
Dark Horse
Written by: Gerard Way
Art by: Gabriel Ba
5/5

I enjoyed this even more than the first issue, which I awarded plenty of praise. The focus here is on character development and posturing, though a decent helping of laugh-out-loud spazziness from floating joke buckets the Terminauts and a bunch of witty one-liners keep things congruent with the tones from the first release. The production is as good or better than what got me freaking out last month and the solicited art for next issue is just sickeningly good. Start reading this.

Criminal #9
Marvel
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Art by: Sean Phillips
5/5

I think I enjoyed this the most so far of this arc's issues, which is saying a great deal considering this series has never once put out anything less than incredible. Brubaker is really starting to move his pieces around here and next month's conclusion could not come sooner. If you've read this series at all you understand why further elaborating on what happened in this issue isn't necessary. Just read it and experience it for yourself.

Atomic Robo #1
Red 5
Written by: Brian Clevinger
Art by: Scott Wegener
4/5

This was great looking and a lot of fun to read. Red 5 don't skimp at all on paper/print quality apparently. The story itself was, again, definitely fun and entertaining. It shoots for humor the entire time and while some lines miss the mark a bit it succeeds far more than it doesn't. Unfortunately at this point the experience is somewhat disposable as, although a fun read, the story is shallow outside it's charming presentation and humorous dialogue. Time will tell if this is to change or not, but either way I'll be sticking around to see just how charmingly funny this can become once the creators get their feet on the ground.

Red 5 seem to suddenly be offering a bunch of readable material. Did anyone get to read the debut issue of The Abyss? I missed that one and would be curious to hear some thoughts.

Black Summer #3
Avatar
Written by: Warren Ellis
Art by: Juan Jose Ryp
4.5/5

This is another one where I'm not going to say too much about what actually happened because so much of what makes it good is in the telling. It still feels like Warren Ellis is in complete control of this series and knows exactly where he's going. In Black Summer he's bringing all his twisted ideas and masterful plotting to the table, but so far has left out the constant grandstanding his characters seem to often be bogged down in. This is some of the cleanest, most succinct work he has done. There's Ryp as well who takes his art up another notch in this issue and looking at his work on all the various technological gadgetry, holoscreens, etc... it becomes obvious why he was the perfect fit for this title. Mark Sweeney, also, is one of the people who often make me feel stupid for not listing colorists in the credits of issue reviews. I would, however, prefer ten more pages of comic and ten less pages of Avatar catalog. Then again, I guess this is probably better than the ads between pages of the actual story like so many other publishers do. So noyeahboooray to what they're doing there.

Ex Machina #31
Wildstorm
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
Art by: Tony Harris
4/5

Mayor Hundred's trip to the Vatican is underway and is naturally chock full of intrigue. Throw in some exciting flashbacks to his days as the Great Machine and we've got another terrific installment of Ex Machina. I'm very interested to see what Vaughan has to say in the remainder of this arc as his ability to discuss controversial topics with insight and intelligence are about to be put to the test yet again, something this series does quite frequently. He hasn't disappointed me yet.

Astounding Wolf-Man #3
Image
Written by: Robert Kirkman
Art by: Jason Howard
3.5/5

This is going to turn out to be a good one. Kirkman has been advancing the superhero werewolf threads, but has also been focusing on the home/marriage environment of this character, bringing interpersonal politics and private conflicts to the center of the story in similar fashion to what he's become known for in his other titles. It seems there have been some people skeptical about this one, but I think Wolf-Man is going to end up being not only a hell of a lot of fun but perhaps even moving.

Awakening #2
Archaia
Written by: Nick Tapalansky
Art by: Alex Eckman-Lawn
4.5/5

Another book that's slowly but surely proving its worth. While I loved the first issue of this mixed-media zombie tale I was a bit nervous things were going to descend into mindless horror scenes and a bunch of hyper-stylized nothing. This second installment has laid my fears to rest. Awakening is a wonderfully moody spot of detective intrigue that's more focused on its mystery narrative and exploring the identities of the people in the story than it is on violence and gore. Very promising.