Hello and welcome to Multiversity’s look at the “Best of the Rest,” where we try to summarize what’s coming your way from pretty much every other comic publisher besides Marvel, Dark Horse, DC, and Image for January 2019.
Get your pull lists ready to welcome in the new year because it’s time to see all the other stuff going on in comics.
10. Sonic Boom
Dynamite has gotten Kieron Gillen to come back for superhero work. He’s reteamed with his “Doctor Aphra” collaborator, Caspar Wijingaard. I felt his work is more restrained by Marvel in that book. Hopefully, Dynamite will allow Wijingaard to explore his work more openly and wildly. Like with any superhero work, it’s irrelevant what the character does; it’s more interesting to see what a creative team does with a character.
Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #1
Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated by Caspar Winjingaard
Published by Dynamite EntertainmentgHis level of genius is matched only by his heroics, and in humanity’s darkest hour, he’s the hero they need the most-alas, poor humanity. Peter Cannon-the man known as Thunderbolt-is only too happy to leave civilization to face its end. Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + the Divine) teams up with powerhouse artist Caspar Wijngaard (Doctor Aphra) as he returns to the superhero genre with a dark, humorous and relentless love song to the genre.
Well, “Love Song” in a Leonard Cohen Love Song kind of way. Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt: saving a world he hates.
9. The End of the Fucking Line
I’ll be honest with you, the title of this book was what brought me in. I’m not sure about the subject matter, but the story’s genesis and conception is an interesting story in its own right. You have Charles Forsman (“The End of the Fucking World”) and Max de Radiguès (“Bastard“) collaborating though, so there’s a good chance this might transcend its material.
Hobo Mom
Written and Illustrated by Charles Forsman & Max de Radiguès
Published by FantagraphicsHobo Mom was collaborated on and drawn simultaneously by two cartoonists across the Atlantic: Charles Forsman, author of The End of the Fxxxing World (now a hit Netflix series), and Max de Radiguès, winner of a prestigious prize at the Angoulême International Festival of Comics for his 2018 graphic novel Bastard. Both of their clean line styles fit together perfectly to tell a sober and intimate story about an emotionally damaged family and the price of freedom.
Tom lives a simple life as a single father of pre-teen daughter Sissy, but their estranged wife and mother has chosen a much different path. Natasha hops trains and has become a vagrant since leaving her family a few years earlier. After a dangerous encounter riding the rails, Natasha chooses to show up on the doorstep of the family she abandoned and finds an upset husband, although still deeply in love, and a little girl yearning for a mother. Can someone who covets independence settle down? Forsman and de Radiguès’s Hobo Mom explores the ideas of being trapped in domesticity and whether one deserves happiness, even at the cost of others.
8. Best Served Cold
This is a manga series, which means it’s probably going to run for 50+ volumes. Hopefully this plot can withstand the onslaught.
For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams
Written and Illustrated by Kei Sanbe
Published by Yen PressBlue is having a hard time moving on. He’s in love with his best friend. He’s also dead. Luckily, Hamal can see ghosts, leaving Blue free to haunt him to his heart’s content. But something eerie is happening in town, leaving the local afterlife unsettled, and when Blue realizes Hamal’s strange ability may be putting him in danger, Blue has to find a way to protect him, even if it means… leaving him.
7. And Death Does Thee Part
Strum uses a lot of the recent societal upheaval as a backdrop for this story of a disintegrating marriage. From the looks of it, this devastating tale won’t be too big on entertainment but will be full of human drama and truths. And probably some excellent craftsmanship.
Continued belowOff Season
Written and Illustrated by Jason Strum
Published by Drawn & QuarterlyJames Sturm’s riveting graphic novel charts one couple’s divisive separation through the fall of 2016, during Bernie’s loss to Hillary, Hillary’s loss to Trump, and the disorienting months that followed. We see a father navigating life as a single parent and coping with the disintegration of a life-defining relationship. Amid the upheaval are tender moments with his kids-a sleeping child being carried in from the car, Christmas morning anticipation, a late-night cookie after a temper tantrum-and fallible humans drenched in palpable feelings of grief, rage, loss, and overwhelming love. Off Season is unaffected and raw, steeped in the specificity of its time while speaking to a larger cultural moment.
6. Party in the Club with a Bottle of Red Wine
Maria Llovet is apparently throwing everything she can think of into this pot. Black Mask’s editors tend to push the envelope, creating some truly memorable works. This seems like it’ll be brutal and intense and a whole lot of fun.
Loud!
Written and Illustrated by Maria Llovet
Published by Black Mask ComicsThe LOUD nightclub. A latecomer stripper, a pissed waitress, a hitmen couple, a suspension bondage performer, a pregnant teenager, a clan of vampires, a pedophile, a lesbian junkie, a divorcing middle-aged woman, a sadistic dominatrix, and many other souls in search of love, drugs, and blood converge at the hottest club in town on a night that none will ever forget. If they survive.
5. Four New Names for God
This sounds like a Grant Morrison script but at this point, I’m interested to see how someone else might tackle the Morrison style, how they can make a story like this their own.
God of Bad Men #1
Written by Colleen Douglas
Illustrated by Chris Zero
Published by Amigo ComicsRaymond Landy, an alcoholic with a crumbling screenwriting career and an inoperable brain tumor, meets inmate Makro Nomac, a space fugitive, at a maximum security asylum. Makro insists Ray’s tumor contains the origin of God. That’s when things take a turn for the worse; Ray learns his tumor is a malfunctioning data bullet placed there by Makro and he has only seven days left to live.
4. Prehistoric Mayhem
A “Ninja Turtles” artist takes on some “Age of Reptiles” ambitions in this new graphic novel through Oni. The solicit promises this book features up-to-date scientific research. And that’s cool, but to be real, we’re here just to see dinosaurs stomping around. Can we collectively acknowledge, as a society, that we will withstand a lot just for the chance to see dinosaurs stomping around?
Cretaceous
Written and Illustrated by Todd Galusha
Published by Oni PressWhen a Tyrannosaurus Rex is separated from its family unit, it embarks on a harrowing journey to reunite with them before the raw, real dangers of the Cretaceous Era separate them for good. This heart-wrenching story takes to the skies and dives into the sea-and explores everywhere in between-in this research-based, fictional account written and illustrated by Tadd Galusha (TMNT/Ghostbusters 2).
3. Come On Grab Your Friends
Like “Adventure Time: Season 11,” this miniseries takes place after the Adventure Time finale. For those of you who can’t stand to see something end (and okay, when it comes to Adventure Time, I’m an absolute sucker), here’s some more! The big thing here is that Marceline herself, Olivia Olson, has written the script.
Continued belowAdventure Time: Marcy & Simon #1
Written by Olivia Olson
Illustrated by Simon Fabert
Published by BOOM! Studios• After the events of the Adventure Time series finale, Marceline and Simon have finally reunited! Now together, Simon asks Marceline for help in making amends for his time as Ice King, which leads them, Finn, and Jake to one of the most dangerous places yet…the Nightosphere!
• Written by Olivia Olson (Marceline on Adventure Time) and illustrated by Slimm Fabert (Adventure Time) is the perfect story for any fan of the Vampire Queen or the former Ice King!
2. On the Sunnydale Side
It seems like BOOM! Studios has only been too happy to pick up the licenses Dark Horse has been hemorrhaging. Here, we have a staple of mid-’90s/early-’00s supernatural teen adventure make its return. There’s a lot of hype going on here but I’m not sure if this is picking up after Season Seven or some other unspecified date.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #1
Written by Jordie Bellaire
Illustrated by Dan Mora
Published by BOOM! Studios• Go back to the beginning as the critically acclaimed pop culture phenomenon Buffy The Vampire Slayer is reimagined under the guidance of series creator Joss Whedon.
• This is the Buffy Summers you know, who wants what every average teenager wants: friends at her new school, decent grades, and to escape her imposed destiny as the next in a long line of vampire slayers tasked with defeating the forces of evil.
• But her world looks a lot more like the one outside your window, as Eisner Award-Nominated writer Jordie Bellaire (Redlands) and Russ Manning Award-Winner Dan Mora (Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers) bring Buffy into a new era with new challenges, new friends…and a few enemies you might already recognize. But the more things change, the more they stay the same, as the Gang faces brand new Big Bads, and the threat lurking beneath the perfectly manicured exterior of Sunnydale High confirms what every teenager has always known: high school truly is hell.
• WELCOME BACK TO THE HELLMOUTH, FOR THE FIRST TIME!
1. Hitting it Hard
Comicsdom lost something, maybe part of its soul, when “The Comics Journal” ceased publication. So it’s fantastic Fantagraphics are bringing it back. Expect the same in-depth interviews, brutal criticism, and deep insights into this medium we all love. A reminder that there’s more out there than whatever the superhero companies are trying to shove at you.
The Comics Journal #303
Edited by R. J. Casey & Kristi Valenti
Published by FantagraphicsThe most award-winning, internationally acclaimed comics and graphic novel magazine in the medium’s history returns to print!
The Comics Journal, which is renowned for its in-depth interviews, comics criticism, and thought-provoking editorials, features Gary Groth in frank and often hilarious discussion with the satirist and children’s book author Tomi Ungerer. Ungerer talks about the entire trajectory of his life and career: growing up in France during the Nazi occupation, creating controversial work, being blacklisted as a children’s book author due to a backlash against his erotica.
This issue, the first in its new twice-a-year format, covers the “new mainstream” in American comics – how the marketplace and overall perception of the medium has drastically shifted since the “graphic novel boom” of the early 2000s and massive hits like Persepolis, Fun Home, and Smile. It also includes sketchbook pages from French-born cartoonist Antoine Cossé, an introduction to homoerotic gag cartoons out of the U.S. Navy, Your Black Friend cartoonist Ben Passmore’s examination of the role art and comics have in gentrification, a reconsideration of the comics canon by Eisner Award-winner Dr. Sheena C. Howard, and more.
Well, that was fun! And let me know what books YOU’RE excited for in the comments section.
