April 11, 2024

Well, yesterday was NEW COMIC BOOK DAY…sort of.

If you saw the EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week post on Wednesday, you know what happened. The new comics shipment to Comic World was lost in the mail. Last I heard they had no idea what had happened to the shipment and they were waiting on a replacement order. The only books that arrived were the DC and Image books. There are a very limited number of DC books that I get, so this week was going to be a down week for comic issues.

I did get a few Image books and so the 91st edition of the Comic Cavalcade will press on.

This actually worked out pretty well for me as Todd had picked up a bunch of Amazing Spider-Man back issues for me. I had told him that I was going to start filling out my ASM collection with issues that I was missing since I had gone through my Amazing Spider-Man box , reboarding and re-bagging them. This allowed me to see the issues that I already had, which had always been the hold back for me buying back issues. There was a time that Todd had thought that I did not like back issues, but that was never the case. I just was never sure what I had already owned. As my project to re-box, re-bag and re-board all the older comics, while inventorying the books on CLZ has been moving forward slowly, I knew what was missing in the ASM camp.

Todd did go a bit in depth with his search for these back issues and came back from Des Moines with a pile of books (41 in all) for me to buy over the next several months. Since I did not have much in the pull list this week with the great comic box disappearance (was this worse than the truck/fire thing from last year… probably not because no one died in this. More inconvenient than anything else), I intended on buying the whole lot. Todd wouldn’t let me.

I am not sure why, but he held back most of the higher priced ASM books he had and even went a far as to keep the books with him to prevent me from circling back and buying them from one of the others at Comic World. I guess I appreciate Todd’s zeal to protect my bank account.

Anyway, I have a large group of Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 issues mostly in the four hundreds, but a few lower. I do love Spider-Man and having these are really cool. I’ll get those other ASM books one day, though next week looks to be a double week, with the books from this week and the books from next week. Oy.

Here are the few sparse books this week:

The Last Mermaid #1-2. Written and drawn by Derek Kirk Kim. I actually got The Last Mermaid #2 last week, but I could not read it because I was waiting for #1 to come in. I had missed it and Todd picked it up for me in Des Moines, so I got the chance to read them this week and I loved these two books. Absolutely gorgeous art on the interior of the book. I loved the different shape of the book. I would not want every comic to be this size, but this make this series feel different and original. It was a fun little story of a wasteland future time with a mermaid in a mech-suit in search of usable water. This was some beautiful visual storytelling and I just loved what has been given to us so far. I actually gasped at the end of issue two. I am surprised how connected I am to this mermaid and her little axolotl companion after just a couple of issues. This is wonderful so far.

Rat City #1. Written by Erica Schultz and drawn by Ze Carlos. Cover art by Ze Carlos (Bronze Medalist). This is a book taking place in the future with a character that has lost his legs in his military service and has been given state-of-the-art prosthetics. This is connected to the multitude of new Spawn books coming too. Honestly, this was okay, but it did not grab me enough to want to continue to follow this story.

Napalm Lullaby #2. Written by Rick Remender and art by Bengal, who also did the cover art (Silver medalist). Unlike the previous book, I found this to be an awesome issue. In fact, this really picked up from an okay issue #1. I really dug the story of Sam and Sarah and their father and their beginning of a trek to kill the Magnificent leader.. which led them into…Heaven? I am in.

Phantom Road #10. “Billy Bear One” Written by Jeff Lemire and art by Gabriel H. Walta, who also did the cover art (Gold Medalist). This is the end of Book Two, but it was clearly not a end of this series. Very compelling books, kind of a mix between The Walking Dead and The Langoliers. Jeff Lemire is one of my favorite writers currently working today and I will read most everything that he writes.

Transformers #7. Written by Daniel Warren Johnson and art by Jorge Corona. Soundwave vs. Starscream. Oofta! Who is the leader of the Decepticons? And what is going on with Optimus Prime? This issue brings several questions to the front and keeps the momentum of this series moving on.

That’s it for new books this week. Next week is a huge week with the Marvel/Boom! Studios/Etc. from this week and everything from next. More Amazing Spider-Man? Who knows.