Todd Rundgren sang:

“Hello, it’s me…”

Staind offered:

“It’s been awhile…”

I’ve been turning pages all along, just haven’t had time to write about them.  Well, guess what I found between the couch cushions along with some Cheez-Its and loose change.  That’s right: sand–a bit too much sand.  We’re beach people, sure; so some sand’s to be expected–but enough to find Abraham Lincoln circa 1994 buried up to his E plurabis unum?  Yeesh!

So, yeah: symbolism.

Back to business: here’s what I’m looking forward to this week.

• Crude #4 (Image)
• East of West #38 (Image)
• Evolution #8 (Image)
• Gideon Falls #5 (Image) I&N Demand Through four issues, Gideon Falls is flawless.  Thanks to Andrea Sorrentino’s slick artwork and innovative layouts,  Jeff Lemire’s patience is parlayed perfectly into panel-to-panel and page-to-page paranoia–so much so that I’ve p’ed myself just writing about it! Sure, it was sad to see Bunn and Crook’s Harrow County come to an end; but as Gideon Falls continues to rise, it’s clear that the horror genre is in evil, evil hands.

• Ice Cream Man #5 (Image)
• Infidel #5 (Image)
• Mage: The Hero Denied #10 (Image)
• Royal City #12 (Image)
• Skyward #4 (Image)
• The Weatherman #2 (Image)
• Ether: The Copper Golems #3 (Dark Horse): I&N Demand Ether is lit!  Oh, yeah, it’s got me feeling Jung again: Matt Kindt’s exploration of the “collective unconscious,” as seen through the exploits of the brave and bold Boone Dias, is a masterful extension of the literary legacy that has brought us all here, to this book, to this point in our lives–as individuals, and as a part of the weCloud that we all draw and write from.  The masterful David Rubín amplifies the conflict at the core of the story–science (and its reliance on reason) vs. magic (analogous to art in all its mystical and mythical forms, of course)–by joyfully leaping from traditional panel work to otherworldly layouts that are visually arresting and liberating at the same time!  All together, this is a reader’s read, and I can’t wait to read #3.  Highest of praise: through the first two issues of this second volume of Ether, I’m brought back several years to how I felt while reading Spurrier and Stokely’s literary love letter Six-Gun Gorilla.  And considering Kindt’s premise, that makes all the sense in the world.

• Batman #51 (DC) I&N Demand I had trouble conveying my relationship with #50 to my wife of 8 years—partly because I was broken man and partly because she didn’t care. See: I read it at around 1 a.m. on the 4th and got so lost in it: I fell in love with having fallen in love with the idea of Bruce and Selina; and then, predictably, I got so pissed off with the impossibility of their coming together–even though it made all the sense in the world; and then I was all WTF with the last page; and then, tired and wired, I considered a crazy coupling of King-sized consequences: dethroning and deification of the true mastermind behind it all.  For having felt all of this, I realized that I loved the issue and–as my wife suggested during my unsolicited attempt at Bat and Catharsis–I loved Tom King and wanted to marry him.  See what Bruce is going to miss out on!  So, since things didn’t work out so well, particularly for the hubby-not-to-be, I’m sure there will be some Bat-sized consequences coming up in “Cold Days.”  It might take Weeks–whose gritty style will serve as a terrific contrast to the clean computer art of his predecessor, Mikel Janin–but I trust that King will work it all out and my wife still won’t care.

• Deathbed #6 (DC/Vertigo)
• The Wildstorm #15 (DC)
• The Immortal Hulk #3 (Marvel)

That didn’t hurt nearly as much as I figured it would.

Thanks for reading.

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott