No, really. There is actually a one-shot coming out this week entitled Wolverine: Under the Boardwalk. It’s by Stuart Moore and Tomm Coker, and it’s about the same exact thing every Wolverine comic is about. Personally, I won’t be satisfied until they name one of these random Wolverine one-shots Wolverine: Slush Pile.
More comics set for release this week, most of which have less-goofy titles, after the jump.
Azumanga Daioh Collected Edition: Before there was Yotsuba, Kiyohiko Azuma told short, funny, four-panel strips featuring a group of school girls with a tone and sense of humor rather similar to that of his more recent, more famous work. If it’s like the previous omnibus edition, then this Hachette Book edition should collect the whole, short series in a single, almost 700-page, $25 package. For more current Azuma manga, the seventh volume of Yostuba&! is also coming out this week.
Batman: The Cult:This Jim Starlin/Bernie Wrightson miniseries from the late eighties is something of a minor classic, an attempt to follow The Dark Knight Returns with a story of similar darkness and import. Obviously, it never became the next DKR, but as Batman miniseries go, it’s a pretty big one. This new printing is a $20, 210-page trade. If you’d like to hear someone smarter than me expounding on the series, you should check out Joe “Jog” McCullouch’s 2007 piece about it here.
Crossing The Empty Quarter and Other Stories: If you’ve been reading comics long, you’ve probably heard the name of artist Carol Swain, even if you’re not familiar with her work. Dark Horse can rectify that with this $25, 200-page hardcover featuring 30 short stories (two of which are brand new). The publisher calls Swain’s comics “The ‘graphic lit’ love children of Gabriel García Márquez and Raymond Carver,” but a pictures worth a thousand words, right? So here, take a look.
Dark Reign: The Underside: This is an interesting, sort of unexpected move. Rather than collecting each mini as it’s own trade, Marvel took three thematically similar ones—Dark Reign: Lethal Legion, Dark Reign: Zodiac and Dark Reign: Mr. Negative—and put them all in the same book, making for a sort of anthology of various Marvel villains under the “Dark Reign” status quo. It’s $25 for a 250-page trade paperback. Interesting and unexpected, but, for me personally, a little disappointing—I was kinda interested in checking out a slim Zodiac trade at some point, given how cool Nathan Fox’s artwork looked.
Day Tripper #1: In what is probably the floppy release of the week, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá launch a new, ten-issue limited series from Vertigo about their native country of Brazil, the subject of their previous collaboration, De: Tales. Vertigo has an interview with the pair here
DC Holiday Special 2009: Like DC’s Halloween special and recent 80-Page Giants, details are scant on this. It’s definitely $5.99, it will definitely feature Deadman and B’wanna Beast, and its contributors include many of the usual suspects, plus Fred Van Lente (wait, he’s not exclusive to Marvel?) and Sweet Tooth aritst Jeff Lemire.
God Complex #1: Michael Avon Oeming does more mythology, this time with co-writer Daniel Berman and artost John Broglia. Preview here.
Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of The VHS Box: This isn’t a comic book, but it’s published by a publisher of comics, it’s being distributed by the North American market’s comics distributor, it will be on sale in comic shops this week. Oh, and it looks totally awesome.
Return of King Doug: This $15, 185-page original grpahic novel from Oni Press has an interesting premise. You know how fantasy lands are always recruiting chosen children from our world to save them? Well Dough was one of those, but rather than stand and fight, he got the hell out of there. Now, as an adult, he returns.
Scooby-Doo #151: Is this the scariest Scooby-Doo monster ever?
Spider-Man and The Secret Wars #1: Marvel’s first huge crossover gets reinvented as an all-ages Spidey miniseries by Paul Tobin, Patrick Scherberger and Terry Pallot. Tobin’s all-ages Marvel work is usually pretty good, so this could turn out to be a whole lot of fun.
Tank Girl: Dark Nuggets: Tank Girl co-creator Alan Martin teams with artist Rufus Dayglo for a $3.99, 32-page one-shot featuring a trio of tales featuring the foul-mouthed, badly-dressed heroine. Preview here.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Yes, there is indeed a one-shot called WOLVERINE: UNDER THE BOARDWALK. It’s written by me and drawn by the incredible Tomm Coker, and it definitely is not about the same thing as every other Wolverine comic. There’s an eight-page preview here — judge for yourself!