Welcome to an “It’s Been A Slow Week” edition of Graham’s Grumbles! Comic books, people. Unlike American politics, it just can’t be scandal after scandal all the time. So, this week I’m going to focus in on some recent purchases. The last couple of weeks have seen a lot of stores do March Break sales in honor of kids running wild with their parent’s money for a few days. Here are some of the books I snagged on the cheaps.
Alias Vol. 1
This series by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos and lasted 28 issues. This trade paperback in particular collects the first 28 issues. It’s been a long time since I read any of it, but it introduced Jessica Jones to the Marvel universe. She’s a private detective with a bit of a mysterious past. She’s friends with Ant-Man and Luke Cage, and makes use of her connections to solve mysteries in the Marvel U. Another thing that sets it apart is that it was one of the first Marvel Max books, meaning it could play around with some “R” rated material. Like sex. ENJOY!
Gotham Central Vol. 1
A lot of the stuff I end up buying in collected editions are DC titles. I’m invested enough in Marvel that I get most of the major storylines in single issue format. DC, though, I feel like I can wait on. This is a series I’ve been meaning to get for awhile. I’ve read some of the issues years ago, but never got around to getting it. It was co-written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker who are now two of the biggest names in comics. Rucka is also the writer of an excellent series of novels about bodyguard Atticus Kodiak which I highly recommend. Anyhoo, the nitty gritty of it is about police officers trying to fight crime in Gotham City. Obviously this is not the easiest task when common criminals are Joker and Mr. Freeze and you’re constantly being upstaged by a certain super rich vigilante.
Flash Rebirth
Another one of those DC storylines that I was willing to wait for a trade paperback collection before buying. This series has the same principle creative team as the very cool Green Lantern Rebirth – Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. Both series revolve around the reincarnation of a beloved silver-age superhero. In this case, it’s the second Flash, Barry Allen. I don’t know too much about it, but Johns is a serviceable writer and Van Sciver is an AMAZING artist. I’ll let you know what I think when I’m done. It’s a date!
Unwritten vols. 4 and 5
This is a series I’ve been reading since the summer in trade format. It’s really good and I can’t wait to see where it goes. The creators are Mike Carey and Peter Gross with fantastic covers by Yuko Shimizu. I’m not really sure how to describe it without spoiling things. Suffice it to say, it’s about the life that fictional characters can take on outside of their creators. It’s about when fiction and reality collide. And it’s kind of about Harry Potter. I’m totally blown away by it, and this is from a guy who’s never really liked much of Mike Carey’s work before this. I never really got into his X-Men stuff, and despite loving Sandman I couldn’t really get into his Lucifer series. Every trade so far has had some sort of cool twist, and it never goes where you think it will. Highly, highly recommend it, and can’t wait to see where it goes.
So, there are just a few of the comics I got during the holy days of March Break. What else do you think I should get?
Graham Becksted’s got some reading to do. He is the author of Graham’s Grumbles the second blog by that name that is listed in Google results when you search for Graham’s Grumbles. If you would like to be his 58th follower (thank you, bots), he can be followed on Twitter @GrahamBecksted.
