Well, it’s Tuesday night, which means tomorrow is Wednesday.

If you’re anything like me, that means you’re checking and rechecking previewsworld.com for the Diamond shipping lists, making a checklist, getting your official New Comic Book Reading easy chair ready for the big day and greedily rubbing your hands thinking about how great tomorrow afternoon is going to be.

And then you’ll go to the comics shop, see that new books are actually delayed a day due to Thanksgiving, sadly return home to curl up in your New Comic Book Reading easy chair and cry for a few hours, occasionally shaking your fist at the sky and cursing the pilgrims and Native Americans for ever having had dinner together in the first place and beginning the chain reaction that lead to this comic book-less Wednesday and then you’ll eventually read some Showcase Presents or Essential reprints, which act as a sort of methadone to your unhealthy super-comic addiction.

If you’re anything like me.

Well, here’s a look at some notable releases that are coming out on Thursday—not Wednesday, but Thursday—this week…

Batman #682: Well, that was fast. Right on the heels of last week’s much talked about conclusion of Grant Morrison’s “Batman R.I.P.” story comes the first half of a two-parter by Morrison and Lee Garbett.

Fall of Cthulhu Vol. 3: The latest collection of Boom Studios’ Cthulhu ongoing comes out the same week as Boom’s own Necronomicon #3 and Transfuzion Publishing’s trade paperback The Miskatonic Project: H.P. Lovecraft’s Whisperer in the Darkness. Kids today sure do like H.P. Lovecraft.

Haunted Tank #1: A World War II tank commander haunted by the ghost of Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart, who helpfully guides him and his crew through the war has got to be one of the craziest comics ideas to see print. It’s hard to tell while reading the original Robert Kanigher-scripted stories because they’re such a kick, but man, when you take a step back and think about it… Anyway, DC’s launching a new five-part series based on the concept, this time as a Vertigo book. It’s based in modern day Iraq, which doesn’t sound like much fun, but with art by 2000 AD alum Henry Flint and a Joe Kubert cover, it should be worth a look. And DC, if you want to use this as an excuse to release a tread collection of Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s Haunted Tank story from their Demon run, I won’t stop you.

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #1: Artist Duncan Fegredo joins Mike Mignola for an eight-part Hellboy story sent in Britain. Three-page preview here.

Hercules: The Thracian Wars Vol. 1: Steve Moore and Admira Wijaya’s miniseries about a post-Labors Hercules and crew gets collected as a hardcover. The production values on this Radical Publishing series were high, and I liked the first issue okay, but I greatly prefer Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente and company’s more lighthearted take on everyone’s favorite hero of Greek myth in Incredible Hercules.

Hulk Family #1: If it’s good enough for Spider-Man, it’s good enough for the Hulk. This $5 one-shot includes stories featuring She-Hulk, Skaar, the daughter of the Hulk and Thundra (do I even want to know about her?), and Scorpion who is not Mac Gargan. Fred Van Lente, Paul Tobin and Greg Pak write, and Jheremy Raapack, Benton Jew, Scott Clark and Jonboy Meyers draw. She-Hulk also appears in an oversized  one-shot by her regular writer Peter David, entitled She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision. It’s drawn by Mahmud Asrar and features Shulkie teaming up with the Lady Liberators and some of the gals from Guardians of the Galaxy.  Finally, the eighth issue of Jeph Loeb’s Hulk will be out too, if you like that sort of thing.

Jingle Belle: Santa Claus Vs. Frankenstein: Top Cow Productions is the latest home for Paul Dini’s Jingle Belle comics, which started out at Oni Comics before moving to Dark Horse for a time. Dini and artist Stephanie Gladden tell the tale of Jing’s dad coming face-to-face with, well, it’s all right there in the title. Here’s an article by Dini himself from the mother site, and Comic Book Resources has a preview. Dig that Greg Horn cover; it’s Jing as you’ve never seen her—realistic-ish!

Marvels: Eye of the Camera #1: Hey remember that miniseries that young turks Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross did together? The one that looked at Marvel Universe history through the eyes of street-level civilians, rather than super-combatants? Remember how there’s long been talk of a sequel of some kind? Well here it is, sans Ross. Artist Jay Anacleto has the unenviable task of filling Ross’ shoes, although he also seems to have the skill at photorealistic art to meet the challenge as well.

The Mice Templar Vol. 1: The Prophecy: The first six issues of Michael Avon Oeming and Bryan J. L. Glass’ story of sword-wielding mice get collected into a 200-page, $30 hardcover.  In other rodents with swords releases, there’s the newest issue of the current Mouse Guard series, Mouse Guard Winter 1152 #4, and the second issue of Pirat Tales: Legend of The Cat O’Nine Tales, the conceit of which is pretty self-explanatory (But here’s a crash course if you need it)

Presidential Material: Barack Obama (2nd Printing): To the victor goes the second printing.

Secret Invasion #8: For good or ill, this is going to end up being the best-selling and most talked-about book of the week. One of Brian Michael Bendis’ weaknesses has always been his tendency to end story arcs with whimpers rather than bangs, so it will be interesting to see if SI wraps up in a more satisfying manner than House of M did.

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade #1: If Landry Walker  and Eric Jones’ all-ages Supergirl comic turns out to be only half as good as Tiny Titans and Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, the it’s going to be awesome and well worth a look.  For classic tales of Superman’s younger, blonder cousin, the second volume of Showcase Presents Supergirl will also hit shops this week.

X-Infernus #1, X-Men Noir #1: X-Fans will see two new miniseries start this week. In the former, writer C.B. Cebulski and pencil artist Giuseppi Camuncoli pit Marvel’s merry maudlin mutants against Darkchylde With A Y, formerly Colossus’ innocent little sister, now a crazy-looking sex-demon and the ruler of Limbo. In the latter, Van Lente and Dennis Calero try to reinvent the mutants as noir-style characters in an out-of-continuity, What If…? type experiment, which should at least prove interesting, whether it turns out well or not.

The War at Ellsmere: Faith Erin Hicks of Zombies Calling fame’s new book is set at a girls’ boarding school and promises Mean Girls-style social conflict and a mysterious mythological monster. Publisher SLG had me at “Faith Erin Hicks” and “girls’ boarding school.” Preview pages here.

Watchmen #1: I believe this is a comic book adaptation of that new superhero movie Zack Snyder is making next year. Ha ha, just kidding! Um, I’m not sure what the appeal of getting the first issue’s worth of a story everyone’s already read in graphic novel format over and over these last few decades is exactly, but at least DC’s making it affordable: It’s priced at just $1.50, the original cover price of the original Watchmen #1.

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