A day devoted to putting comic books in the hands of the masses for absolutely no cash.
My LCS, Comics Cubed, runs many sidewalk deals while the masses wait to gather free comics. This year I acquired a Fearless Defenders trade paperback for $3 as well as an original Dick Tracy tpb for $1. With deals like this on top of free comics, how could I stay away?
Luckily, Madman was able to grab the first spot in the line for us and we had our choice from the word go, something to which I could get accustomed.
Let’s dive into the floppies I nabbed.
Barrier #1
Creators: Brian K Vaughan, Marcus Martin, and Munsta Vicente
Barrier #1 is a masterfully written two-prong story starting with a character named Liddy, a ranch owner in Pharr, TX. She is worried about a corpse of one of her horses, found skinned and its eyes removed, and whether it is a message from a Mexican drug cartel. The other prong of the story follows Oscar from Honduras into the United States.
Even though the story of each of these people is not overly important for what is about to happen, it is still very compelling. The writer and artist come together like peanut butter and jelly. From pages 36 to 43 we see Liddy on the left side of the page in peaceful scenes, Oscar on the right side shown in various visions of danger, and with a central neutral image. This central image gets narrower as the pair get closer much like a count down.
The artwork and colors are downright fantastic. There is an image on page 29 of a train being charged by several immigrants that is midblowing.
Barrier #1 was a free prize being handed out, and I hope you grabbed one. This issue had 51 pages of content which is just down right generous for free. Barrier is a weekly five issue mini-series, so time is short to get on this train (pun intended).
The Amazing Spider-Man
Artists: Cliff Rathburn and Ryan Ottley
I grabbed this title for no other reason than to see how Marvel is going to pimp out Spidey and other characters. In this issue I found that Kitty Pryde and Colossus are due to get married. My reaction was, “Ew”.
Anyway, in this issue Spidey intercepts four villains who have just robbed a museum. Three of the four are Boomerang, Electro, and Rhino, but I am clueless as to the identity of the fourth. I have been out of Marvel for too long. I was appalled to see a woman as Electro and realized I have been out of the loop for a while.
The story was ok. It seemed wrong to me on several levels, for instance finding a new apartment with Randy Robertson. Also the whole story seems just a little to wordy for a Spider-Man comic.
At the end of the issue there is a Guardians of the Galaxy…story? It really read like memoirs of many of the heroes and villains from the Guardians comic books. This was completely boring, and I failed to finish it.
Strangers in Paradise
Cover: Steve Hamaker
What is wrong with me? Please don’t answer that.
Terry Moore has been writing this for awhile, and I had not read any of this series until now. This was a very good book comic book and story was greatly intriguing even though it confused me in parts. What I like the most is the black and white artwork. This style is wonderful if done well, and this series is a prime example.
This story centers on an explosion that occurred at a secret government hadron collider in Alaska that was sabotaged to prevent a global catastrophe. There is a woman who is being hunted as a collaborator in the event, giving the story a spy feel, and that is a marvelous thing.
Finding more of this title is now a new goal of mine.
Creator: Jason Lutes
This is another comic using black and white artwork and, like the previous book, accomplishes it very well. As a matter of fact, there is an amazing cityscape featured on page 14.
The story starts on a train with a woman, Marthe Muller, and a newfound friend, Kurt Severing. The story is 24 pages long, but I was only able to stick it out for 18. This story was dry, dry, dry.
Marthe was a very likable character, especially in respect to the detail of her preference to keep a sketchbook as a diary and a composition notebook as her sketchbook. This was very relatable.
Invasion
Art by: Leonard Kirk
Colors by: Vaneda Vireak
Letters by: Andrew Thomas
Cover by: John Gallagher
This is a prelude to a new series from Chapterhouse Publishing and starts their Invasion Mega Event. It looks like this publisher is trying to be like the Big 2 and this comic looks to be the core series in the mega event.
This company and its creators are obviously Canadian and do not have a very high opinion of the U.S. That is something I will not tolerate, especially from any Canadian. Besides, this all seemed like an Avengers knockoff.
Capt. Canuck, my ass!
Relay #0
Artist: Andy Brown
Colorist: Can Brown
Letterer: Charles Pritchett
This is a preview of Aftershock’s new series, due out in July. It is a science fiction story in which a man lands his space craft on an alien world, starts a farm and befriends the locals (somewhat). After some time he activates a robot that constructs a monolith that serves as a conduit for information between all of the worlds possessing a monolith.
The best part of this comic book is the art. The lines are very detailed and the color pops in a manner words don’t seem to do justice. This will have to be put on my pull list for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment