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Soliciting Multiversity: Image’s February 2013

By | November 20th, 2012
Posted in Columns | 4 Comments

It’s that time of the month again, when we sit down and take a look at some of the best and worst of the February 2013 solicits rather than give you all of them. Why? Because everybody likes commentary! That’s why we buy extended Blu-ray releases, to listen to the commentary. Right? Anyone? No?

Well, consider this our extended Blu-ray anyway. This month, we start out the gate with Image Comics. For the full Image solicits, check them out at CBR.

Five #1’s

This month Image is going to be kicking off four books and relaunching one. We’ve already had a lot of giggles over “Uncanny Skullkickers” #1, but what else do we have?

Well, for starters, Andy Diggle and Jock’s “Snapshot” will finally come to America in a 4-issue mini, now with full color! Any excuse to buy Jock art is one to take, and this is just part of Andy Diggle’s 2013 comic take-over. Solicit:

SNAPSHOT 1 (of 4)
story ANDY DIGGLE
art / cover JOCK
FEBRUARY 6
32 PAGES / FC / T+
$2.99
Jake Dobson is your typical nerd; works at the Near-Mint Rhino comic-book store in San Francisco. But when he finds a lost cell phone, he’s horrified to discover it’s full of snapshots of a murder victim. Suddenly he finds himself hunted by a vengeful hitman who wants his phone back… and Jake in a body bag! And then things start to get *really* complicated…
Don’t miss the first ever creator-owned thriller from the team behind THE LOSERS and GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE!

In addition to that, that Jimmie Robinson book teased last week, “Five Weapons,” will be released, featuring kid assassins at a kid assassin school kid-assassinating each other. Robinson’s a great illustrator and storyteller, so this should be a lot of fun. Solicit:

FIVE WEAPONS 1 (of 5)
story / art / cover JIMMIE ROBINSON
FEBRUARY 27
32 PAGES/FC/ T
$3.50
13-year-old Tyler finds himself in a specialized school where assassins send their kids for education and training in one of the five deadly weapons. Tyler doesn’t have a weapon or any fighting skills, but he still plans to graduate by beating every weapon master in the school because he has a powerful ability that nobody can match: his razor-sharp mind! JIMMIE ROBINSON twists the insanity of BOMB QUEEN in a fun new series that will keep you guessing to the end.

Here’s one I did not know about but am excited to see — Stjepan Sejic, the fantastic cover artist for Top Cow’s Witchblade/Artifacts series, will be stepping into his own as writer/artist with his first ever book, “Ravine.” I don’t even need to know what it’s about, I’m sold entirely on the art. Solicit:

RAVINE 1
story / art / cover STJEPAN SEJIC
FEBRUARY 13
128 PAGES / FC / T+
$9.99
“THEY ARE A POWERFUL FOE, BUT THEY WILL FALL!”
In a fantastic world far from our own, an ancient magic spell almost split the world in two and left an endless ravine in the north. One man, Nebezial Asheri, driven by the deaths of his wife and daughters will attempt to reclaim that magic and bring his loved ones back to life. The forces of an entire city, Paladia, will rise to oppose him, but his greatest foes will be a ragtag band of an outcast wizard, a dragonrider, and their allies.
Artist extraordinaire STJEPAN SEJIC (ARTIFACTS, WITCHBLADE) branches out into his first ever creator-owned and original property for Top Cow! Presented in a perfect-bound, dramatically oversized issue format, RAVINE is an epic about the lengths one man will go to to reconstruct his family, and the forces of good who must stop him at all costs.

And last but certainly not least, we have “Son of Merlin” by a team unknown to me, Robert Napton and Zid. But I can tell you what I do like: stories that take place in Boston! Well, and science. And magic. Ok, I’m easy to please. Solicit:

Continued below

SON OF MERLIN 1
story ROBERT NAPTON
art ZID
cover A ZID
cover B STJEPAN SEJIC
FEBRUARY 6
32 PAGES / FC / T+
$0.99
THE BATTLE BEGINS ANEW
Simon Ambrose is a brilliant young professor at MIT. Always somewhat out of sync with the rest of the world, Simon is a man of science and does not put much stock in faith. When he discovers that he is the bastard son of the world’s greatest wizard Merlin, he is forced to put his skepticism aside and embrace a world of magic and the mayhem it embodies.
Science and magic collide in this introductory priced first issue! For $1, you can’t afford to miss this next step in a battle that has been waged for ages!

Something for everyone next year. That’s the nice thing about Image — no matter what you’re into, whether it be teen dramadey, epic fantasy, gritty crime or some combination of magic and science, they’ve got you covered.

Plus, there’s all the rest of the stuff we’ll cover today as well. You lucky folks, you.

Trades To Watch For

There are quite a few collections coming out in February, but I thought I could add a new feature in this column focusing on a few trades that personally come with the Matt Seal of Approval. I’m just super lucky that the first time I choose to do this, there are only two trades to choose from — and I recommend them both! I’m such a comic glutton.

So what are your choices? Simple.

You’ve got the collected “Debris,” the latest collaboration between Kurtis Wiebe and Riley Rossmo which should sell itself from the creative team alone:

DEBRIS TP
story KURTIS J. WIEBE
art / cover RILEY ROSSMO & OWEN GIENI
FEBRUARY 6
PAGES 128 / FC / T
$14.99
In the far future, humanity has doomed planet Earth to rot and decay, covering her surface with garbage. Now, ancient spirits called the Colossals rise from the debris and attack the remaining survivors, forcing the human race to the brink of extinction. After an attack leaves their people without water, Maya, the last Protector, sets out on a journey for pure water, to save the world before the monsters bring it all to an end.

And the third collection of “Super Dinosaur,” the latest collaboration between Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard which should — again — sell itself from creative team alone:

SUPER DINOSAUR, VOL. 3 TP
story ROBERT KIRKMAN
art & cover JASON HOWARD
FEBRUARY 6
112 PAGES/FC
$12.99
Escape from Inner-Earth! Derek Dynamo is a prisoner of The Exile — who has taken him deep into Inner-Earth. Now Super Dinosaur must assemble a team to save his best friend, but along the way, he will learn the secret of Inner-Earth — something that could bring about the fall of human civilization!
Collects SUPER DINOSAUR #12-17

My Favorite Covers

To simplify things even more, another new subsection! There are always a lot of great covers from Image’s solicits, so it gets hard to pinpoint things down. But, hey, how about a Top 5? Yeah? Yeah.

Just feast your eyes on “Bedlam” #5 variant (I assume it’s a variant since Frazer Irving is the main cover artist) by Riley Rossmo, because it’s essentially the pure embodiment of the book’s interiors:

“Change” #3 by Morgan Jeske, because it’s beautiful:

“Comeback” #4 by Michael Walsh, because these have all been fantastic:

“Hell Yeah” #7 by Ricken, because wow:

And “I Love Trouble” #3 by Mark Robinson, because I’m a sucker for covers with dialogue:

Those are some damn fine looking books.

Oh, Just One More

I seriously love these Spawn parody covers. They’re all kinds of great.

But Wait, There’s Two More — And They’re Spoiler-tastic

Now, I’m ferociously anti-spoiler, so consider this your only warning. Doing these columns comes at a certain disadvantage for myself since I essentially do a lot of cover-browsing (as opposed to actually reading the solicits for books I enjoy), but there are two covers that will spoil something. How bad will the spoilers be? I don’t know, yet. But if you like to make assumptions and speculate on things like I do, then… well…

Continued below

You’ve been warned. Do not click these if you’re afraid of what you might because of the implication.

Saga #10’s Cover

Walking Dead #107’s Cover

Oof.

The End of Glory

We’d known that “Glory” was heading to an early conclusion due to sales (Keatinge had said he wanted to get the series to 100+ issues before leaving it), but now we’re really knocking on the gate. “Glory” #33 marks the series’ penultimate issue, and Keatinge promises lots of pay-offs on his tumblr, but also seems to tease that this may not be the end of “Glory” in general. We shall see. It’ll be such a shame to see this comic go after just over a year.

And All That Other Goodness

This column in particular is often hard for me to do because, really, I mostly read Image Comics. Granted, they pay me to I do it voluntarily because they have a lot of great titles, but it’s hard month to month to re-point to things I have already gone on record as recommending without sounding like a broken record.

So I’ll be a sped up record and do it in a run-on sentence: “Chew” #32 has milkshakes and should be fun because OMG did you read #30 yet no of course you didn’t I’ll say no more and “Creator Owned Heroes” #9 looks great and so does the latest from “Epic Kill,” “Fatale,” “Guarding the Globe”, “Haunt” (I LOVE “HAUNT”), “Hoax Hunters,” “It Girl,” “Luther Strode,” “Mara” (can’t wait for this one”, “Mind the Gap,” “Nowhere Men,” “Prophet,” “Revival,” “Thief of Thieves,” “Where is Jake Ellis,” “Witch Doctor” v2 and I am probably missing other stuff and will probably recommend more by the time March’s solicits roll around but for the meanwhile I will just type this into the search browser while scrolling through options because that’s how professional we are here at Multiversity.

Ahem.

And there you go.


Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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