Before someone becomes a monster, what were they? How did they become something so beyond the comprehension of most normal people without anyone apparently noticing?
– Jonathan on Dahmer, written and drawn by one of Dahmer’s classmates.
It’s book of bad decisions. Awful impulses acted on, and then immediately regretted. People lost, lonely, isolated and alienated, out of step with their times and under so much pressure in Japan of the 1960s where, as Tatsumi tells line editor Adrian Tomine, “Economic development was considered more important than the way people actually lived their lives”.
– Stephen on Abandon The Old In Tokyo.
Gone To Amerikay h/c (£18-99, Vertigo) by Derek McCullough & Colleen Doran, Jose Villarrubia…
“What’s that song, that one where you start off singing way up high, Johnny?”
“The Road From Ballycrovane.”
“Oh yes, yes, that’s it. I like how you start way up high, then Brian comes in lower, then you go down lower still… the way you go down on each other, it’s marvellous.”
Which is made all the more amusing given that Johnny and Brian are indeed lovers, for a time at least, and the panel in question is hilariously illustrated as Johnny is having to physically stifle Brian’s laughter with a hand over his mouth as Johnny’s unsuspecting landlady heads into the kitchen to fetch them their dinner. GONE TO AMERIKAY is an exceptional work, both in terms of the storytelling (well, that should be stories plural, I suppose, given that we have three interrelated tales all set in New York told from differing time periods of 1870, 1960 and 2010), but also in terms of the art which may well be the finest I’ve seen from Colleen Doran to date.
The overall story – part-historical fiction, part-detective story, and indeed even a little bit of spooky stuff thrown in for good measure – is gently unravelled for us using the conceit of Lewis Healy, an Irish billionaire who wants to find out more about the music that so enchanted him as a child. And thus we find out more about the life of one Johnny McCormack, a Galwaylad who arrives in the Big Apple in 1960 dreaming of bright lights and a singing career. He’s well versed in Irish folk songs and one in particular tells the story of a Ciara O’Dwyer, an Irish immigrant who arrived in the slums of 1870’sNew Yorkwith her young child, expecting her husband to follow after her shortly. But when her husband never arrives Ciara is forced to face the harsh realities of her new life alone.
I’m loath to give anything more away about the stories, actually, as there is a real joy in following the complex thread of the narrative and finding out more about the lives and circumstances of our various protagonists and sundry secondary but equally important characters. Derek McCullough manages to give this work such intimate depth and real emotional content that many supposedly worthy prose works struggle to achieve, and the weaving backwards and forwards in time to seamlessly tease out each plotline, making the connections between the three time periods gradually more apparent is so, so deftly done. Plus, as you can tell from the quote above, there’s certainly plenty of bawdy humour too. And then in perfect harmony – much like Brian and Johnny! – with the writing, is the art. The beautifully clean lines perfectly capture the privations and misery of 1870’s slum life whilst simultaneously dramatising the up-and-coming bohemian bustle of the Greenwich Village social scene of 1960. This is a fabulous work and I do just hope it doesn’t fall flat like some other Vertigo attempts to present their readers with something completely different have done before. That would be a real shame, as this is a mini-masterpiece.
JR
Buy Gone To Amerikay h/c and read the Page 45 review here
After We Shot The Grizzly (£6-00) by The Handsome Family & Dan Berry.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful: each and every page of this book is a compositional joy.
There’s some fiercely expressive cartooning in thrillingly tight, dark pencil and luxurious, black cherry washes as our not-so-merry men set about sabotaging their own expedition when they descend into Darwinian Hell. Whether doomed, albatross-like, by the titular crime, by the series of initial catastrophes or by their own subsequent, survival-of-the-fittest free-for-all, doomed they most certainly are. Although can I just waft in a comparison to Jordan Crane’s LAST LONELY SATURDAY while you’ll be unaware of its context? Thank you. Wonderful book.
The words are taken from The Handsome Family’s song of the same name, butBerryhasn’t simply illustrated each of the lyrics’ lines; he’s inferred extra narrative angles, apposite to each. That’s why I say each of these panels tells a story in its own right: for such a short read it makes for a long, lingering gaze.
Not only that, but the production values are gorgeous. Printed on thick watercolour stock throughout with an even tougher cover, it’s exactly what printed comics need to be in the age of the digital download: objets d’art you want to have and to hold forever.
And if all that wasn’t enough (and it really, really is), Dan has kindly signed and sketched in every one of our copies – elaborately so! Each sketch is completely different, and in watercolour or ink wash. I’d be bloody quick about it, if I were you.
SLH
Buy After We Shot The Grizzly and read the Page 45 review here
Cat Island (£6-00) by Dan Berry.
Signed and sketched in for free! Cat sketches: you want!
Dan Berry does love his production value: thick, silky smooth stock this time, showcasing a fine pen line and glowing, autumnal colours. There are trees and leaves galore in this suburban battle for territorial supremacy between one feather-ruffled man with a freshly cleaned car and his muddy-pawed moggie. You know who’s going to win, right? But wait; add to the domestic drama a newborn baby with its routine-wrecking demands and anything could happen. Anyone who’s ever had a baby will roll their eyes with recognition.
“As far as anybody could tell, the baby had three modes: 1. Crying because she was tired. 2. Crying because she had pooped. 3. Crying.”
Really, I think our Jonathan should have been reviewing this.
So what exactly is the CatIsland? Nope, no clues, but fans of Jeffrey Brown’s CAT GETTING OUT OF A BAG AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS and CATS ARE WEIRD AND MORE OBSERVATIONS will instantly fall for Dan’s lithe, leaf-chasing and occasionally petulant puss who obviously steals the show, while its insouciance put me in mind of Lizz Lunney. Superb, silent punchline that will have you roaring with laughter.
SLH
Buy Cat Island and read the Page 45 review here
Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c (£12-99, D&Q) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.
“Excuse me. I seem to have lost my way.”
Rarely have I found a quote more apposite to kick off a review.
It’s book of bad decisions. Awful impulses acted on, and then immediately regretted. People lost, lonely, isolated and alienated, out of step with their times and under so much pressure in Japan of the 1960s where, as Tatsumi tells line editor Adrian Tomine, “Economic development was considered more important than the way people actually lived their lives”. In lieu of actual conversations, so often the male protagonists remain silent while they’re being talking at by their mothers, girlfriends or co-workers. People feeling dragged down and trapped…
And over and over again things are thrown away. Not just worn-out yet still serviceable household objects, but marriages, people and pets. There’s a scene in a zoo involving monkeys which you simply will not believe. Also, jobs are lost, limbs are lost and businesses go under. Sex is far from celebrated, either, but an object of obsession or revulsion. It’s pretty dark but far from bleak, such is the beguiling quality of each short narrative; I don’t think comparisons with Eisner are out of order. Occasionally an element of horror creeps in, but even then it’s in service to the thematic content summed up beautifully here:
“Please help me… I fell down this hole… I can’t get out.”
We also have new softcover editions of THE PUSH MAN AND OTHER STORIES and GOOD-BYE as reviewed by Tom. I don’t know why we never got around to reviewing ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO before. It begins with a man on the toilet; it ends with a man down the sewers.
SLH
Buy Abandon The Old In Tokyo s/c and read the Page 45 review here
Dororo: The Omnibus Edition (£18-99, Vertical) by Osamu Tezuka ~
Supernatural fantasy set during the “Warring States Period” (5th Century BC).
Daigo Kagemitsu, a Samurai aspiring for total dominance overJapanoffers parts of his unborn child to 48 demons for the realisation of his selfish dream. Discarding the “deficient” newborn into a river, Daigo soon forgets about his terrible acts. But somehow the boy survives. Calling himself Hyakkimaru he roams the country looking for the 48 demons and his missing body parts, aided by incredible prosthetics, telepathic powers (as he has yet to find his eyes/ears/mouth) and an irritating boy-thief named Dororo who wants the blade hidden in Hyakkimaru’s arm.
Not quite as epic or deep as BUDDHA or PHOENIX, this is nonetheless excellent Tezuka and the relationship between Hyakkimaru being a man physically in pieces and Dororo, a boy whose mind is in a similar state, is fascinating.
TR
Buy Dororo: The Omnibus Edition and read the Page 45 review here
The New Deadwardians #1 (£2-25, Vertigo/DC) by Dan Abnett & Ian Culbard.
“How are you this month, Chief Inspector?”
“Very well.”
“Do you require any dental attention?”
“I had them filed back the week before last.”
“Good, good. So… have you been having any tendencies?”
Haha! Aristocrats are vampires and the lower classes are all mindless zombies: everyone’s prejudices satisfied, then.
From our very own Ian Culbard (AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, SHELOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR etc.) and good ol’ Dan Abnett interviewed about THE NEW DEADWARDIANS here comes a series featuring fick Laaandan accents and the first reference to the scavenging Mudlarks I’ve seen since… well, since I acted in a version of the film’s screenplay. Completely forgotten about that.
London 1910, and quite what happened during the hinted-at war to turn the aristocracy Young and the proletariat Restless, we don’t yet know, but whole zones are barricaded off to keep out the ravenous riff-raff, and quite right too. Unfortunately Chief Inspector George Suttle has had a break-in, and lost one member of his household staff to a curiously pin-striped zombie with another bitten and in danger of turning. To save her, Suttle takes Louisa to receive the Cure while he receives a booster of blood himself.
Meanwhile overnight a body has washed up on the banks of the Thames. Or, more specifically, it’s been dumped on the mud right in front of the Houses of Parliament and the Albert Memorial Tower. Is someone making a statement, do you think? The body is male, naked, had his right hand chopped off and in his mid-forties. Well, he might be, or he might not. Because he’s recently had his teeth filed too.
“That’s not possible, Chief Inspector. For a fatal case, there are none of the three causes present: impalement of the heart, decapitation, incineration. None of them.”
“Quite so. I didn’t say I could explain it, Doctor. But somehow, someone has managed to murder that which was not alive.”
Abnett has packed so much in to this seemingly simple package. Even the reference to The Young And The Restless TV show with its mixed financial fortunes works perfectly. I’ve no idea if I’ve caught something salient in the pin-stripped, three-piece suit or whether I’ve thrown you a red herring. Certainly there are political stirrings like the Zone-B union protestors. For those familiar with Ian Culbard’s work, you’re in for a bit of a surprise: his lines here are far slimmer and crisper than usual and that works rather well for this particular project. His tour de force, however, is George’s bedridden mother, whose hooded eyes and pursed lips in one silent panel of what-on-earth-does-that-matter disdain are an absolute scream. It’s my single favourite Culbard moment so far.
“My breakfast is inordinately overdue, George.”
“I’m sorry, mother. There was an incident below stairs this morning.”
Cue silent panel.
“I am quite beside myself with hunger. I think I may perish.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever perish, mother.”
SLH
Buy The New Deadwardians #1 by telegraphing page45@page45.com, sounding the horn on 0115 9508045 or just shambling in off the streets. Current copies at the time of typing are all signed by Ian himself.
My Friend Dahmer (£11-99, Abrams) by Derf Backderf…
“Derf! It’s me! It’s going nuts in the newsroom! There’s a big story breaking.”
“Yeah? Whassup.”
“This guy in Wisconsin killed a bunch of people! He had sex with the corpses… and ate some of them!! Derf, this guy went to Revere! He was in your class!!”
“What!?! Who!?!”
“Well… who do you think it was? Guess!”
“Figg!!”
“Um… no, that isn’t it…”
“Dahmer!”
“Yes! Dahmer! Yeah, that’s the guy!”
That’s right… Dahmer was my second guess…
Before someone becomes a monster, what were they? How did they become something so beyond the comprehension of most normal people without anyone apparently noticing? In retrospect, were there warning signs that were ignored by authority figures like parents and teachers? And by their friends? Written and illustrated by a classmate of Dahmer’s who was probably the closest thing he actually had to a friend in high school, this work certainly sheds some light on the peculiar teenage years of the boy who would go on to become America’s most infamous mass murderer, but also leaves several questions hanging rather disturbingly unanswered. And indeed perhaps makes you realise they are in the end utterly unanswerable, even to Dahmer himself.
Certainly in the interrogations after his arrest Dahmer was at somewhat of a loss to understand how his life had taken the course it had, whilst also displaying some not inconsiderable regret for his victims. But as to whether it was nature or nurture that him made into a sociopath, that isn’t immediately apparent, and perhaps in the end, for Dahmer at least, it almost certainly was a combination of the two. Even from early adolescence his sexual urges included the desire to have sex with corpses, and the lack of virtually any parental engagement, positive or otherwise, meant he was left to grapple with his very considerable inner demons entirely alone.
His social network at high school consisted of those, like the author, who were prepared to tolerate his social awkwardness, which often manifested itself in bizarre mannerisms or verbal absurdities that became known as Dahmerisms and were much copied and repeated as colloquialisms by the author and his friends. In fact Dahmer became almost something of a mascot to them, and whilst not exactly wholly part of their social circle he certainly wasn’t excluded.
It was only as Dahmer’s demons began to take a deeper and deeper hold and he resorted to drinking massive quantities of alcohol daily, presumably to numb himself and keep his urges in check, that he began to drift away from the author and his friends completely. They were aware of his drinking, but just put it down to Dahmer’s incredibly difficult living situation with his warring parents, including his most definitely mentally ill mother. But perhaps because they were also subconsciously aware that there was something just not quite right with him, they never made any effort to reach out to him or offer help. Astonishingly his teachers seem to have been completely unaware of any of what was going on.
This work is the perfect combination of truly fascinating biography of the teenage Dahmer, combined with the unique autobiographical perspective of the creator, whose own insight into the troubled teen makes for uncomfortably gripping reading. The final revelation that the last time the author or any of his friends saw Dahmer, the body of his first victim was probably in the boot of his car that he was driving the particular friend home in, is disconcerting to say the least! Derfbacker’s art style, possibly influenced by Robert Crumb a little, may not be to everyone’s taste, but I actually thought it helped to get me in the appropriate ‘70s highschool state of mind. (Actually, Crumb provides the pull quote on the front cover, so perhaps the observation regarding artistic influence is justified.)
JR
Buy My Friend Dahmer and read the Page 45 review here
Secret Avengers vol 3: Run The Mission, Don’t Get Seen, Save The World h/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Warren Ellis & Jamie McKelvie, David Aja, Michael Lark, Kev Walker, Alex Maleev, Stuart Immonen.
Bang, bang, bang. Science fiction at its swiftest.
Like Ellis’ own GLOBAL FREQUENCY this contains six self-contained bursts of frantic covert activity which rely not one jot on any previous knowledge of this series or who these people are.
As drawn by Moon Knight’s Alex Maleev, the time-travel episode starring the Russian superspy Black Widow was so jaw-droppingly clever (and funny, and sad) that I read it three times, each time gleaning an extra nugget of clever. I think there may be one crucial panel missing – or at least a button that needed pressing on camera – but still…
It’s all gone catastrophically wrong: against overwhelming odds and some seriously high-tech weaponry, the Secret Avengers have failed. Sharon Carter, Steve Rogers and War Machine are dead. Reluctantly the Black Widow retreats – five years into the past – taking with her a responsive time-travelling device seemingly designed to tease her to death with hints about what she can and can’t do. What she cannot do is materialise behind the bad guys three minutes before she left with a bloody big gun.
“The flow of time must be preserved.”
What she can do is use her knowledge of the past to her maximum advantage and change time in such a way that it appears not to have changed at all… to fill in the gaps, as it were, with what she wants to happen. It is, as I say, ridiculously clever, right down to where the Shadow Council originally sourced their high-tech weaponry from. It’s all so self-fulfilling, Natasha cleaning up after herself beautifully. On top of that there’s a stand-out sequence of three-panel daily syndicated newspaper strips called ‘The Black Widow’ designed to look time-aged and repurposed with new captions in the word balloons just as Natasha herself is “repurposing” history.
In addition, Michael Lark provides some magnificent city snow scenes in Symakaria (borders on Latveria, Serbia and Transylvania, geographical fact fans) with the sort of rough textures we all loved in GOTHAM CENTRAL, while at the other end of the spectrum Jamie McKelvie (PHONOGRAM, SUBURBAN GLAMOUR, X-MEN: SEASON ONE) delivers a subterranean, futuristic cityscape on a breathtaking scale with the clairest of lignes imaginable.
Warning: the cover looks nothing like this. Which is a shame.
SLH
Buy Secret Avengers vol 3: Run The Mission, Don’t Get Seen, Save The World h/c and read the Page 45 review here
Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol 4 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas & Don Heck.
“Beware of the man who sets you against your neighbour!”
“For, whenever the deadly poison of bigotry touches us, the flame of freedom will burn a little dimmer.”
Bravo! In 1966 Stan Lee took a brief break from his stream-of-sexism to tackle racism, and did so with commendable directness and fairly robust language. In AVENGERS #32 and 33 he introduced the Sons Of The Serpent, Marvel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan, seen here spitting their white supremacist venom to a crowd which laps it up:
“Our enemies must know we will show them no mercy! As the original serpent drove Adam and Eve from Eden… so shall we drive all foreigners from the land!”
Err… really, it didn’t: that was God. But then these are racists, so of course they’re stupid. Instead the serpent poisoned the mind of innocents – and with that double whammy we’ll notch the scene up to a Serendipitous Stan. Coming back to the commendable directness there’s another scene in which the hate-mongering tosspots set about ethnically cleansing a section of the city by beating the living crap out of a man while successfully intimidating neighbours into doing absolutely nothing:
“We warned you not to move into this neighbourhood!”
“But it’s a free country! I’m a law-abiding citizen! You have no right –“
“You dare speak to us of rights? You – who were not even born here!”
Up above:
“Henry! What’s the commotion outside the window?”
“It’s the Sons Of The Serpent! They’ve cornered Mr. Gonzales! We – we have to do something –!”
“No! Come away from there! It’s dangerous to get involved! It’s none of our business!”
Well, isn’t that so often the way? Lest some of his readers learn the wrong lesson (bear in mind a lot of them were young and impressionable), Stan takes a moment to emphatically sneer at the couple’s cowardice:
“Thus we take our leave of Henry and his wife – two less-than-admirable citizens who feared to get “involved”…”
Again, bravo! This is, after all, a book about getting “involved” – that’s what the Avengers do – and they’re not slow off the mark voicing their own disgust after Goliath catches the racists attacking Bill Foster outside his lab. I think that may be the first appearance of Bill Foster (he went on to become Goliath himself), and it’s certainly Steve Rogers’ first trip to the S.H.I.E.L.D. H.Q. buried under a barber shop. This is also the era when Hercules signs up as an Avenger and the Black Widow signs up to S.H.I.E.L.D. having spectacularly failed to win a place with the Avengers. Meanwhile Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have lost their powers but Stan The Man has lost none of his way with women. The Wasp speaks last:
“If you wish to see Captain America alive once more, you are to follow these instructions to the letter! You will report to the next meeting of the Sons Of The Serpent, at the following address – “
“They can bet on it – we’ll be there!”
“I’d like to see someone try to keep me away!”
“Oh dear! I haven’t a thing to wear!”
*sigh*
SLH
Buy Marvel Masterworks: Avengers vol 4 and read the Page 45 review here
Supercrooks #1 (£2-25, Icon/Marvel) by Mark Millar & Leinil Yu.
From the creators of SUPERIOR, one of my favourite books by Mark Millar to date, comes a news series that will eventually be set in Spain. And if the architecture on the front cover is anything to go by, I cannot wait until they get there! Want to see what I mean? It’s right at the top of this illustrated Mark Millar interview.
Yes, it’s all a bit Ocean’s Eleven, isn’t it? Deliberately so! Imagine trying to run a casino in world of telepaths and precogs.
Five years ago Johnny Bolt was busted. Again. With four of his similarly empowered mates he’d attempted a diamond heist but was dispatched by the Patriot in, oh, about seven seconds. Five years on, he’s finally out but his fiancée’s no longer speaking to him. Why? That jewellery store robbery Johnny fucked up was pulled on the morning of they were supposed to get married. It’s only when their old friend Carmine collapses in front of them owing one hundred million bucks to a casino he’d tried to fleece that Kasey reluctantly relents and takes them both in. Now, to help Carmine, they’re going to do something both incredibly stupid and really quite smart. Johnny’s going to call in the old gang to pull off the biggest job of their careers. It’s incredibly stupid because, well, look at Johnny’s track record:New York City is with superheroes. But Spain? Not so much.
Way too early to give you much more than that, but you don’t often see this sort of thing from the supercrooks’ side, do you? I’m looking forward to the strategy sessions.
SLH
Buy Supercrooks #1 by emailing page45@page45.com or phoning 0115 9508045.
Axe Cop vol 3 (£10-99, Dark Horse) by Malachai Nicolle & Ethan Nicolle.
“All right. I’m inside the mouse’s imagination. It’s full of unicorns and cheese.”
Of course it is.
Hyperactive crime and punishment as dreamed up by a seven-year-old and meted out by a cop in a cat suit (occasionally). Guess what his weapon of choice is? In addition to Dinosaur Soldier, this time there guest-stars galore include Army Chihuahua, but there are emphatically no girls allowed:
“Sorry, no girls allowed on my team. Girls are not good fighters.”
They are, in fact, all on The Dumb List. Of course it’s sexist: it’s written by a seven-year-old boy! Well, most of it, because this time the proceedings are fleshed out by ‘Ask Axe Cop’, a feature in which internet readers pose soul-searching questions or demand the floor plans to Axe Cop’s secret headquarters (it’s very well defended), and the best single page here is in fact written by a five-year-old called Nicholas. It’s in answer to the question, “What would you be if you weren’t an axe cop?” and almost every single sentence is priceless.
“I would be a ninja. I would have a sword instead of knives because swords aren’t sharp. I would get my degree fromTikiBeach, the best ninja school in the country. Octobie is the first bad guy I would steal from [he steals his pants]. I would solve world peace by spying on people… mainly girls. The way to spy on people is by punching them into the air. I would make three dollars.”
That’s it, beginning to end. There’s a Christmas-coloured special in green and red, Vikings, pirates, rocket ships, dating tips, and radical solutions for housing the homeless. Also, an AXE COP spin-off pitch by UBU BUBU’s Jamie Smart. For details on how this is all actually created, please see AXE COP VOLUME 1. Dismissed.
SLH
Buy Axe Cop vol 3 and read the Page 45 review here
Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy
Reviews to follow or already up. You can check by clicking on whichever you’re curious about: all the titles have been linked to their relevant product pages.
Rachel Rising vol 1: The Shadow Of Death (£12-99, Abstract) by Terry Moore
Flex Mentallo, Man Of Muscle Mystery h/c (£16-99, Vertigo) by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Thank Goodness For Herald Owlett #1 Ver 2.0 (£4-99) by Nicola Stuart
Thank Goodness For Herald Owlett #3 (£4-99) by Nicola Stuart
Fragile Things s/c (£8-99, Headline) by Neil Gaiman
M Is For Magic s/c (£6-99,Bloomsbury) by Neil Gaiman
Crazy Hair s/c (£5-99,Bloomsbury) by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean
Joe Golem And The Drowning City h/c (£19-50,St. Martin’s Press) by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden
Saga Of The Swamp Thing vol 1 s/c (£14-99, Vertigo) by Alan Moore & Steve R. Bissette, John Totleben
The Wolf Man: Graphic Freud (£14-99, SelfMadeHero) by Richard Appignanesi & Slawa Harasymowicz
Pandemonium (£14-99, Humanoids) by Christophe Bec & Stefano Raffaele
30 Days Of Night: The Beginning Of The End vol 1 (£13-50, IDW) by Steve Niles & Sam Kieth
Farscape vol 7: The War For The Uncharted Territories Part One s/c (£9-99, Boom!) by Rocke S. O’Bannon, Keith R.A. Candido & Will Sliney
Star Wars: The Old Republic vol 3: The Lost Suns (£9-99, Titan) by various
Batman: Gotham Shall Be Judged s/c (£14-99, DC) by David Hine, Fabian Nicieza, Peter Calloway & Cliff Richards, Guillem March, Freddie Williams II, Andres Guinaldo, Lorenzo Ruggiero, Walden Wong
John Carter: A Princess Of Mars (Digest) (£10-99, Marvel) by Roger Langridge & Filipe Andrade
Shattered Heroes hardcover (£14-99, Marvel) by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jeph Loeb, David Lapham, Chris Yost, Fred Van Lente, Brian Michael Bendis & Butch Guice, Adam Kubert, Salvador Larocca and many more
Ultimate Comics Ultimates vol 1 s/c (UK Ed’n) (£12-99, Marvel) by Jonathan Hickman & Esad Ribic
Spider-Man: The Return Of Anti-Venom s/c (£11-99, Marvel) by Dan Slott & Giuseppe Camuncoli, Ryan Stegman, Humberto Ramos
Rin-Ne vol 8 (£6-99, Viz) by Rumiko Takahashi
Bleach: Masked (£9-99, Viz) by Tite Kubo
Spice & Wolf vol 6 (£9-99, Yen) by Isuna Hasekura & Keito Koume
The Drops Of God vol 3 (£10-99, Vertical) by Tadashi Agi & Shu Okimoto
GTO: 14 Days In Shonan vol 2 (£8-50, Vertical) by Toru Fujisawa
There will be new SCOTT PILGRIM colour hardcovers. Bigger, better and beautifully coloured. Reserve yours NOW!
Also: Malley talks about his career to date here.
Right, I’m off to meditate on the legend that is Bryan Talbot in preparation for my interview on camera tomorrow for the Talbot DVD. Pants-wettingly terrified, thanks for asking.
– Stephen
