It’s that time again, to check out titles being offered, or reoffered, from smaller, independent, and alternative comic publishers. Welcome to the Best of the Rest!
1. Big Lede
In an age where journalists are regularly attacked by racist groups who have convinced themselves they are victims of culture, beheaded by Saudi princes, assassinated by Isreali forces, and imprisoned by American corporations, there’s something assuring about seeing them as the focus of a comic adventure. No doubt Erik Skillman and Miklós Felvidéki channel Lois Lane for this romp, but without the confines of the DC editorial offices, they’re able to take their story in all sorts of wild directions. Here’s hoping for imagination, here’s hoping for wacky antics, here’s hoping for an empathy to the fifth estate.
Action Journalism #1
Written by Erik Skillman
Illustrated by Miklós Felvidéki
Published by Oni PressAs a sinister alien armada looms over the earth, New Arcadia’s favorite intrepid reporter, Kate Kelly, has just two hours to infiltrate the fleet, uncover their most scandalous secrets, land the interview of the century, and avert interstellar war-and not necessarily in that order. The fast-paced, genre-hopping adventures of the Action Journalism team start here!
2. Forged
I don’t think Michael DeForge ever sleeps. This must be why he continually produces such absurd, surreal, and bizarre imagery. The pages churn out and the nightmares never end.
Big Kids
Written and Illustrated by Michael DeForge
Published by Drawn & QuarterlyBig Kids follows a troubled teenage boy through the transformative years of high school, as he redefines his friends, his interests, and his life path. When the boy’s uncle, a police officer, gets kicked out of the family’s basement apartment and transferred to the countryside, April moves in. She’s a college student: mysterious and cool, she quickly takes a shine to the boy. Eerie and perfectly paced, Michael DeForge’s Big Kids muses on the complicated, and often contradictory, feelings people struggle with in adolescence, the choices we make to fit in, and the ways we survive times of change.
3. Hearts of Glass
One or another, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti have created this comic biography of one of the greatest bands of all time. The story is rapturous, the theme atomic. The book is structured around an oral history of the group, with Conner and Palmiotti providing vivid illustrations of some of the band’s songs in an exploration of all their parallel lives. If nothing else, this book will have you hanging on your phone, scrolling through Blondie’s back catalogue.
Blondie: Against the Odds
Written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti
Illustrated by John McCrea
Published by Z2 ComicsCombining an imaginative take on an oral history of the band, interspersed with artistic interpretations of 10 songs from Blondie’s catalog, Blondie: Against The Odds captures the grit and friction of NYC as the band fought their way to prominence, as well as the power and energy contained within their song that fueled their rise.
4. Death by Dough
Balazs Lorinczi’s work is constantly in motion. His characters run, jump, skip, and bounce. Even if they’re stationary, something flows or twirls around them. They bristle with kineticism. Expect that same entropy to make its way into this graphic novel about two witches trying to use their powers to just exist.
Continued belowDoughnuts and Doom
Written and Illustrated by Balazs Lorinczi
Published by IDWBeing a teenage witch-or rock star-is tougher than it looks! Flying brooms and electric guitars set hearts aflame in this fantastically fizzy graphic novel. When Margot meets Elena, emotions run high, magic is in the air, and doughnuts… float? One is a stressed-out witch trying to get her potions business off the ground, the other is a struggling rock musician whose band is going nowhere. Neither of them are having a good time! No wonder things quickly escalate from words to literal sparks flying when they first meet. Could this be the start of a delicious new relationship… or is a bad-luck curse leading them to certain doom?
5. Across the Oil Fields
One of Kate Beaton’s earlier works, a sketch comic detailing her time working in the oil fields, gets collected in a fantastic new edition from Drawn & Quarterly. Beaton’s humor is top-tier, as usual, but there’s a sadness, a loneliness, and a desire for connection sprinkled through this work. It’s a different perspective, a different vibe, but something that’s still entirely Kate Beaton and, in the end, strangely beautiful.
Ducks
Written and Illustrated by Kate Beaton
Published by Drawn & QuarterlyBefore there was Kate Beaton, New York Times-bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush-part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.
6. At the Serkis
Andy Serkis helped create this series, tracing the mystery of Zeus’s killer. It will probably take itself too seriously, probably dabble in the dark and brooding atmosphere that’s so predominant in these revisions, and, judging by the sheer amount of names on the cover, will be pulled in a dozen different directions. BUT, it sounds goofy enough and crazy enough to provide a wild ride.
Eternus #1
Written by Don Handfield & Anastazja Davis
Illustrated by Karl Moline & Andy Owens
Published by Scout ComicsFrom creators Andy Serkis and Andrew Levitas! 360 CE. The great god Zeus is long dead, brutally murdered in his own temple some thirty years prior. Heracles, Zeus’s son and champion, spends his days drunk and depressed as the old gods struggle to stay alive after decades of Christian disruption. When Athena’s Temple is sacked by a mysterious Centurion looking for a powerful relic that once belonged to Zeus, the old gods are convinced they have found Zeus’s killer. Now the mighty Heracles must sober up long enough to keep the lone witness, a 9-year-old blind priestess, alive long enough to identify the killer and finally find justice for his dead father. The main cover features beautiful Rob Prior wraparound artwork!
7. Open the Gates, Free the Island
Zander Cannon’s “Kaijumax” series was one of the best monthly comics. It finally wrapped up earlier this year, in a pressure cooker of violence, pandemonium, and passion. Cannon’s love of the genre and his characters comes through with every panel. His staging is impeccable and the work he did to build up his narratives pays off in dividends. Now you have a chance to read the whole thing from beginning to end with the final trade collection. It’s sad to see it end, but it’s amazing to see it so realized.
Kaijumax Season 6
Written and Illustrated by Zander Cannon
Published by Oni PressFINAL SEASON! From across the galaxy, a terrifying alliance of alien warships enters our atmosphere. Inmates of both Kaijumax prisons suit up for the filthy, dangerous work of battling the alien threat out in the world, all in a bid to lessen their thousand-year sentences. Amid the fiery chaos, offspring will be reunited with their parents, antediluvian grudges will be fulfilled, and new, monstrous crimes will be committed. Wade into the fray with Electrogor, Whoofy, Go-Go Space Baby, Dr. Zhang, Ding Wing, Daniel, and all the rest as Kaijumax’s final season reaches its explosive conclusion!
8. Rebel Rebel
Utopia is David Bowie. David Bowie is utopia.
Continued belowRed Lightning
Written by Marco B. Bucci
Illustrated by Riccardo Atzeni
Published by AblazeIt is the morning of January 10, 2016, and thirty-year-old Samuel is ready to leave the house and live another day of his ordinary existence. As soon as he arrives on the street, he learns about David Bowie’s death. The news strikes him so hard that he is stunned, and his are not moments of bewilderment, but hours, days, years, and centuries…he finds himself catapulted across space and time.
He awakens hundreds of thousands of years later, in a society of the future-in the year 200016-not so different from his own, although he is surrounded by people dressed as dinosaurs, integrated biological technologies, and there is a global well-being. Is it perhaps the utopia of the future? Samuel will have to try to find out and find his own dimension in the process, without losing himself.
Red Lightning is a touching tribute to David Bowie. Six years after Bowie’s death, Marco B. Bucci redefines science fiction with a graphic novel masterfully illustrated by the talented Riccardo Atzeni. Long live the White Duke!
9. The Force Will Be With Us
Some of the biggest names writing Star Wars right now contribute to this anthology series. This one feels like a Clone Wars episode from Amanda Deibert and Lucas Marangon. I don’t know what it means to see the Star Wars banner next to the Dark Horse logo, or why LucasFilm is spreading their comic titles across three different publishers, but everyone has something to contribute to the galaxy. Except racists. They can go jump off a bridge.
Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories #1
Written by Amanda Deibert
Illustrated by Lucas Marangon
Published by Dark Horse ComicsWhen the members of a Republic mission led by Senator Padmé Amidala are abducted by the ruthless Separatist General Grievous, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi jump to the rescue. But the operation quickly goes awry, and the Jedi find themselves cut off and surrounded by an army of battle droids! Danger and deception at the height of the Clone Wars, in Star Wars: Hyperspace #1.
o Series features fan-favorite heroes, vile villains, and unexpected twists and turns, brought to you by all-star authors Cecil Castellucci, Amanda Deibert, and Michael Moreci!
o All-new all-ages adventures from throughout the galaxy!
10. Rev Those Engines, We’re All Doomed
This is where America is going. Though when we do arrive at the inevitable post-apocalyptic hellscape brought on by massive corporations, religious fervor, gun nuts, and people who cannot see beyond their own skin color, it won’t be nearly as fun.
Survival Street #1
Written by James Asmus & Jim Festante
Illustrated by Abylay Kussainov
Published by Dark Horse ComicsSurvival Street is a unrepentant action satire tearing through a dystopia packed with economic and humanistic cautionary tales.
After an unbridled wave of corporations take over America, the country is left completely deregulated and effectively carved up into feudal states where billionaires and businesses make their own laws. Among the wreckage, mass privatization shuts down public broadcasting, forcing all the beloved “edutainers” out on the down and dirty streets. One group of them stick together, determined to keep helping kids across the country and do it by becoming an A-Team-esque band of mercenaries fighting for (and educating!) kids in the crumbling, corporate war zone of New Best America.
o James Asmus is the lead writer and five-time Harvey Award nominee currently writing Rick & Morty: Corporate Assets, Transformers/My Little Pony crossover miniseries, and more!
Let us know what you’re excited about in the comments.
