Shucks howdy!, everyone. This is your friendly comic book column. You know, the one where I, the blather monster tell you all the comic books I’m interested in this week. You wrestle with your distaste for me, and ideally then let me know what you’re diggin’ on in the comments box.
Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! This is the feature I use as an excuse to showcase the various debris that’ll be keeping my brain-bone lubricated so as to avoid jamming up at the hands of the workweek. Some Mondays, I write a little story beforehand as a creative writing exercise and preface the post with it. On other Mondays, I start the post by jotting down an amusing anecdote
And then there’re those Mondays when I’m so tired that my eyes are burning and I don’t have any goddamn coffee filters so kickstarting my creativity with a caffeine-defibrillator isn’t an option and all I want to do is pass out and wake up in 2013 so that I can laugh at all those fucking doomsayers and tell them that their apocalypse wasn’t even worth being awake for.
Guess what kind of Monday today is.
Quit’yer dinkin’ around, let’s do this.
Every Wednesday I’m granted a brief reprieve from the quiet of my own mind. Every Wednesday in the form of images and words I’m given a myriad of different Universes to momentarily inhabit. Bulging muscles and metaphysical pontifications. Heroics and psychological demons. Every week. What a gift.
This is Variant Covers. Comic book column. The comics I’m snagging on a given week, or stoked upon. What are you reading? I’m interested.
With the stink of Memorial Day weekend-promoted seared animal and sunshine still on my flesh, I bustle to bring you this week’s Variant Covers. Summer time always smacks of considerable events, the now common deluge of superhero flicks, and a good excuse to read some funny books in front of that big shiny star looming down at us. Per usual, I encourage readers to share their pull lists for the week. I can’t read everything, haven’t heard of your favorite niche comic but I’m interested, and often just like to look at slicing swords and telekinetic knives.
Hit me!
Ride me with! We have ourselves a rootin’ tootin’ motherfucking pull list to spit about. This is Variant Covers, the weekly column where us of the nerd predilection spout off the comic books we’re snagging tomorrow.
After a hiatus last week in which I graded final exams, wrote my own bullshit papers, and generally wept at the Sky Gods for forging such an unfavorable existence, I’m stoked to be back. There is a good goddamn backlog of comics I haven’t gotten to, and I’m using the semester break to tear gleefully into the ass of my Stack’o'Funnies. I’m coming for you, Detective Comics, Cowboy Ninja Viking Vol. 2, Black Hole, and hopefully others.
But this week, let’s gab about this week.
If it ain’t Wednesday, I ain’t happy. This is Variant Covers, the weekly comic books column where I unfurl my pull-list and let you see what I’m eager to check out. I can’t snag every comic book worthy of purchase, being a poor bastard with little time. So with that in mind, hit the comments section with your own favorites for the given week.
Today is seeing the accumulation of posthuman nano-madness, incensed heralds of the apocalypse, horny murdering school kids and more. I’m ready to fucking rock.
It’s not usually a struggle for me to pick my favorite comic of the week. More often than not, a single funnybook will stand out, whether because of an incredible story, moving visuals, or some other quality. But on more fortuitous weeks, I’ll be presented the wonderful dilemma of having multiple candidates in my stack o’ panels. This is one such week.
And since both contestants are so damn appealing, I’m going to give both of them the grand prize! Open the vault, Seymour, these two are both going to spend a fabulous week at Images & Words! See, isn’t it great when one’s success isn’t defined by some other sap’s failure?! Ta-dah! Pop the champagne and slap a stripper’s ass! Huzzah!
Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #2 and Casanova: Gula IV are both phenomenal books and you should buy them. As soon as possible, dingbat! Don’t sit on your ass! Oh, what’s that, you want to know why they’re worth your hard(ly) earned cash?
Okay then, follow me into a diatribe that looks like that kooky cave on Dagobah….
Yo! Welcome to Variant Covers. This is the weekly column where I kick you my pull list for the week, and you spit back at me with yours. There’s too many titles to keep up with and buy on a weekly basis, so don’t nerdfroth if your favorite comic isn’t here. It’s part of the fun, send the recommendation my way.
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Breakneck #1.
Comic books are a crapshoot. The market is flooded, and as I’ve often intimated, there’s too much good shit out there. Sometimes things fall by the wayside, and I’m not a perfect dude! Take for example Breakneck #1. I came across the title when searching for a sweet header image. I thought the artwork was fantastic, and pressed I carried on my way. Snagged it, cropped it, didn’t think of even promoting it until a reader pointed out the douchery behind that in the comments section. Douchery, indeed. My bad.
Dropping this week, Breakneck a superhero title daring to exist outside of the gauntlet of Marvel and DC titles. The indie offering by writer Mark Bertolini and artist James Boulton is an inversion of the superhero motif, deciding to fixate on the workings of a bottom feeding supervillain. What’s the world look like to someone peering through the opposite side of the looking glass? Superheroes as menacing bastards, the supervillain as enterprising down on his luck protagonist. Don’t be like me, deciding to feed the machine while simultaneously bemoaning it. Check this out.
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Infinite Vacation #2.
I really dug the first issue of this series by Nick Spencer and Christian Ward. It strums up the zeitgeist of the modern dude or dudettes: we’re never happy, we’re always searching, we are missing life in search of something better, newer, faster. Vacation seems to posit that we can be perfectly happy if we just sit down and appreciate the moment. All done through the conceit of multiple dimensions, and modern technology, riding a couple of our other obsessions.
I don’t know if that’s something that rings of the Man Stuffing Us Back In Place, or as I imagine Spencer hoping, as a life-affirming notion.
This issue continues the main character’s search for the killer who is wiping out him out across dimensions. Gulp!
Around The Horn:
Casanova: Gula #4 is coming out, and it concludes the collections of Fraction’s first two stories in the Casa-verse. This summer the title will kick off new content. Then there’s Northlanders #39. I’m not really feeling this Northlanders storyline, but that’s the beauty of the title. With smallish storylines, you need just wait a couple of issues for something new to be introduced. Also, let’s face it: Wood’s lesser storylines carry more heat than most people’s fastballs. I just mixed all sorts of metaphors.
New releases! Trade paperbacks! Splash pages! These are a few of my favorite things. Man, what a clichéd way to start a column, no? Jesus Christ and then I followed it up with a rhetorical question. This is Variant Covers, the place where I puke up adolespeak about the comics I’m most excited about this week. Not a Be All List, I encourage you to let me know what you’re reading.
I got myself a stack of the fat ass funny books. ‘Stead of reading them, I have to blather to you interbeings about the shit that is dropping in the world of comics tomorrow, and I’ll be goddamned if that ain’t proof Leibniz didn’t know shit. Most perfect of all worlds? My fucking ass! Pizza gets you fat and your fucking colon kills you.
Bullshit.
This is the world of Variant Covers, a preview of the comic books coming out this week. Hit me with your pull-list.
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