No time to waste!  Let’s go!

• Cemetery Beach #2 (Image)
• East of West #39 (Image)
• Evolution #11 (Image)
• Gideon Falls #7 (Image): I&N Demand Re: #6: Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino have opened the dark doorway to phantasmal madness!  The latter’s layouts are mind-bending, sending the narrative deep into the id of a fractured Father Fred, into the bowels of the still abstruse Black Barn.  I love the insistence at the very end: Norton insists, “The Black Barn…we’re going to build it.  And you’re going to help me…”  See: “we,” “you”–that’s me: a boy with a farming pedigree.  Let’s do it!  Let’s build it!  I’m ready.

• The New World #4 (Image): I&N Demand I’ve loved the way Aleš Kot has manipulated time ever since Zero #1; so you know I loved #3.  But there was plenty more love to go around–mostly for the Moores: the he’s Tradd-ass lines and layouts and the she’s face-melting colors; and kinda for the kitty–specifically the sneaky “SSSNNNIKT” and the cat-fu that follows.  It’s a new world, indeed–full of politics and impulsivity, violence and–wait.  OK, well, it’s a world.  It’s the world.  It’s our world.  It sure as fuck is.

• Skyward #7 (Image): I&N Demand Re: #6: See, now: it’s the look–that look: Willa’s face in the last panel of the second-to-last page.  Her face shows everything she’s learned, everything she knows to be true about herself and the Low-G world.  She’s not going to let a little girl–a lot like a little Willa–lose her dad; so, despite the big-ass bugs, she’s going out the train door, into a forest full of freakishly large dragonflies, like a goddamned superhero.  Cue page turn.  Beautiful work from Lee Garbett with striking colors from Antonio Fabela.  Well played, Mr. Henderson.  Well played.

• Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses #39 (Image): I&N Demand Re: #38:  What a fucking trip!  It hit me so hard that I had to write a 22 I&N 22 like right away–and here it is: Stray, stray, gang’s all here–in sub-space! Ay mi! Mother of a race to the top, learning: to get ahead, let (e)go.  God, I soooo wanted to shout Love Yourself! to the fucking moon, but, ugh, I didn’t want to spoil it for all of my fellow Love Yourself fans; I wanted them–and they’re out there, man–to experience the euphoria I felt when that dredlocked son-of-a-bitch was there on the last page turn, standing next to hospital bed-bound Beth.  That’s a good dude right there; and I can’t wait to see him kill some more bad folks.
  

• Black Hammer: Age of Doom #6 (Dark Horse): I&N Demand Re: #5: Well, spit in my eye and call me Spit Eye Guy!  Everything is revealed and it all adds up to nothing.  Say what?  Oh, but never before has nothing been so Anti-Goddamned satisfying.  Isn’t that something?  Certainly expecting Rich Tommaso to do his thing–be it any, some, every, no?  Oh, yes: Jeff Lemire–I&N Double Demand this week–has detonated a nostalgia bomb, leaving our displaced heroes–wallowing in the weird fallout of fate–in some super-secret, heart-crushing crisis.  And I’m Spit Eye Guy!  Collaterally damaged–and loving it!

• Batman #57 (DC): I&N Demand Re: #56: Like most guys, I’m a sucker for father-son stories, particularly those that recount dysfunctional relationships that remind of my own effed-up relationship with my father–a really interesting fella who’s lived an enviable life, if I’m being fair–and a total shit as a dad. Yup: I’m a “Cat’s in the Cradle” kid, tears and all. But KGBeast and his dad? Why would I give a dump about that? Why did I? Why do I still? Characterization? Motivation? Juxtaposition? Sure, there’s that.  (C’mon: one father who’ll do anything (take on ninjas and the cooky Kanto, the craziest baddy I ever saw), go anywhere (Volgograd–go Dad!) vs. a father who sits–yeah: a total sit as a dad!) But it’s more: it’s how Tom King tells a story–any story, really.  But this one: It’s his honesty. His humanity. His fearlessness. His taking shots. A father and son taking shots. Shots to forget. Shots to remember. Add Tony S. Daniel’s best Bat-work to date, and ta da!–I&N Demand.

• Cover #2 (DC/Jinxworld): I&N Demand Cover 2–my favorite defense, particularly because my team’s got two solid safeties.  Throw in some top-notch corners and a hungry d-line and what’s it all mean? I’ll tell you what it means: don’t pass on Cover 2. No, really: the concept is terrific, the execution makes it matter.  Bendis! is at his clever best; and David Mack is back making magic.  A Con artist with a cover: artist?  Fun, fun!  In fact, when I met Mr. Mack at NYCC, I fancied myself in the comic as I handed him a blank sketch cover of Cover #1 and asked for a sketch to complete the cover and I got lost in the layers and loved every minute of it.  I tried to explain the fantasy to my wife–about my being a part of some secret spy scheme that’ll change the course of the world–and she was like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Well played, honey.  Well played.

• Pearl #3 (DC/Jinxworld)
• Daredevil #609 (Marvel)
• Black Badge #3 (BOOM!): I&N Demand Re: #2: Matt Kindt, Tyler Jenkins, and Hilary Jenkins’ Black Badge is the perfect escape.  It’s engaging; it’s gorgeous.  It simmers and explodes, simmers and explodes–yeah, it’s quite a ride; you know, like being on a train with your fellow Black Badges and then Young Canadian Mounties show up and you’re not sure what’s going to happen and then the plans go KABOOMY! and then Bond-ing over snow mobiles and a tiger, some storytelling inside the story, and an end that’s a right riot, right?  That’s one Badge-ass comic, y’all.

• Captain Ginger #1 (Ahoy!)
• Strangers in Paradise XXV #7 (Abstract Studio)
• PATIENCE! CONVICTION! REVENGE! #2 (AfterShock)

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott