You see what the search for casual sex does to you, dear reader? It leaves you in the most awful, bleak and brackish, post-coital come-down.
– Stephen on Lizz Lunney’s Cat Orgy Notebook
Naming Monsters (£12-99, Myriad) by Hannah Eaton…
“I assure you I am not showing off when I say I am the country’s pre-eminent teenage cryptozoologist. Actually, that isn’t the right word. I think a cryptozoologist might be one of those people who stand around in khaki waistcoats getting aroused about Yetis.
“I must be a monsterologist then. That’s no less embarrassing but it can’t be helped.
“I have known for a year or so – a year last April to be exact: monsters are all around us.
“And to be informed is to be prepared, I say. Bad things happen to the unprepared.”
I found myself reflecting on that particular line, long after I had finished this work, just as a pull quote on the rear, from no less a luminary than Ian Rankin, said I would. The first few pages are initially puzzling, detailing as they do the story of a small boy who encountered the black dog back in 1954 and promptly died overnight. Whilst reading them, and adjusting to the art style – more on that shortly – I really did find myself sighing inwardly, thinking I wasn’t going to enjoy this at all. I could not have been more wrong. What follows those opening few pages begins with the lines quoted above, as we are back in the near-modern day and thus introduced to Frances, who begins to set the scene of her life, and her nascent obsession with the particular, peculiar sub-branch of the supernatural involving the monsters of forklore.
She lives with her Nan, for reasons which gradually become clear, and is currently waiting for her ‘A’ level exam results with an equal mixture of excitement and trepidation. As each chapter begins with another evocation of a historical bogeyman, we then get more of her story as she passes the time in limbo, waiting on those pesky results, with her best friend Alex and her boyfriend Sam, or Needle-dick the bug-fucker, as Alex refers to him.
Hannah switches between two art styles for the myths and Frances’ story, both of which are intricate yet deliberately sketchy and rough, densely detailed yet also surprisingly delicate. Very distinctive in other words and the closest comparisons artistically would possibly be elements of BILLY, ME & YOU and more so DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER. I was also minded of the latter for the elements of earthy / puerile teenage humour that Hannah liberally applies, particularly when Frances and Alex are wiling away the time, frequently getting up to no good. I was also minded of former work, because there is a tragedy at the heart of NAMING MONSTERS. Whereas with BILLY, ME & YOU, we find out immediately the nature of the loss, here it is for us to discern, though this approach works ultimately just as sensitively upon the reader. So when we get to the sequence where Frances finally breaks down and is comforted by her Nan, I’m not ashamed to say I shed more a few tears. I have yet to read A MONSTER CALLS which Stephen thought was outstanding and extremely affecting, but I would also imagine there would be some comparisons to be drawn there. I shall say no more.
It’s hard to believe this is a ‘first’ graphic novel, it’s such an accomplished work, both in terms of the narrative and its structural composition, but indeed also the art. I admire her ambition in attempting something so complex and seeing it through with such aplomb. One last thing: do read her afterword, the final sentence of which has also stayed with me. It’s an intriguing and insightful comment on how the concept of naming monsters and ownership of such stories is an integral part of childhood, whether it is through the long-standing form of playground oral tradition or more recently online communication. Very interesting.
JR
Buy Naming Monsters and read the Page 45 review here
A User’s Guide To Neglectful Parenting s/c (£9-99, Drawn & Quarterly) by Guy Delisle…
“Ha ha! Joke of the century. We’ll be laughing about this for years!”
Heh heh, I did have to wipe a tear of mirth away after reading that one. I don’t want to spoil the punchline; suffice to say it involves a chainsaw and a rather shocked and distressed child. Good old Guy Delisle, when he’s not affectionately poking fun at foreigners ‘ peculiar habits, politics and approach to life in general – PYONGYANG, SHENZHEN, BURMA, JERUSALEM – it’s his own family that’s the subject of his ever-roving sense of mischief. I can relate, actually, as I think most parents will, to Guy’s continual verbal misdirecting, misleading and occasionally outright terrorising of his kids, whether it’s to stop them doing something they shouldn’t or just for five minutes of peace and quiet.
Actually, pretty much everyone will be amused because, frankly, we all remember the odd whopper our own parents told us, especially when we got to the age where we started to suspect we weren’t exactly getting the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Guy could definitely put out several more volumes of this type of chuckle-worthy material for me! Also, as ever, he never shies away from showing when he actually ends up being the butt of the joke as here, during a conversation with his son, where he never actually looks up from the book he’s trying desperately to read thus completely missing the intended context to hilarious effect…
“Dad! Dad! What does penetrate mean?”
“Penetration is when a man is sexually aroused and his penis gets all hard. That’s called an erection. And then the man places his penis into the woman’s vagina. That’s penetration.
“But I mean in Zelda… It says I need to penetrate the King’s defences and then I’m stuck.”
I won’t reveal how he manages to extricate himself from that particular situation, but it’s done without a missing a beat and in such a manner his son immediately forgets all about his impromptu sex education lesson. Very clever and very funny.
JR
Buy A User’s Guide To Neglectful Parenting s/c and read the Page 45 review here
Children Of The Sea vol 5 (£10-99, Viz) by Daisuke Igarashi…
“Close your eyes… now, this is the end. Your part in this… is over.”
….
….
….
“But… I want to see. I want to see what happens next.”
Me too! I’ve waited over a year for the concluding part of what is possibly the most mysterious and meandering manga that we stock. So, do we finally find out what Ruka’s connection to the aquatic world, and indeed the universe, is really all about? Yes, we do, in a truly epic, wordless sequence spanning well over half of this 328-page tome, the ‘real show’ which marine biologists Jim and Angelade have been waiting for as tension has been slowly and steadily building through the previous four volumes.
I have often described this series to people as one where frankly I had no idea what was really going on as fish around the world continued to turn into winking lights then vanish, the various adult protagonists scratched their collective heads, argued a bit, whilst the kids just got on with events, but it was wonderful to be gently moved around by the tidal ebbs and flows of the writing. Much like standing on a beach, enjoying letting the waves lap up eagerly past your ankles, then getting mildly perturbed as the outgoing undercurrent sucks the sand away from beneath your toes making you feel slightly unsteady. All is revealed, all does in the end make some semblance of sense, but as Soma, one of the titular mysterious children of the sea goes on to remark to Ruka, concluding their conversation of sorts quoted above…
“Whatever you see after that… you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. You must search for the meaning alone. Although the truth was made clear before you came here. As long as you keep your eyes open… one day… it will all come together.”
JR
Buy Children Of The Sea vol 5 and read the Page 45 review here
Pick A Unicorn Notebook (£2-00, self-published) by Lizz Lunney.
I am so excited! I don’t know which of these to review first!
This is brand-new territory for me. I’ve reviewed plenty of silent comics in my time – Eric Drooker’s stirring BLOOD SONG for a start – but never blank notebooks.
They’re basically mini-comics but with one potentially game-changing innovation which could send ripples throughout our entire industry: there are neither words nor pictures.
So you could, for example, choose to draw your own story in these forty blank pages perhaps inspired by the cast of blissed-up, equine mytho-steeds who grace the cardstock cover.
There’s John, Paul, George and Ringo; and there’s Ziggy Stardust, Glitter Breath and Sparkle Face! Oh, how I am reminded of Clopsy from Philippa Rice’s ST. COLIN & THE DRAGON; and oh, how I am reminded also of our new jittery and jejune crowd of all-too-flappable (and, I suspect, flammable) Bronies currently startling their way round our shelves in search of their latest dainty donkey tale. My favourite is Dream Boy. That’s my favourite unicorn, not my favourite Brony.
Alternatively you could go for a creative non-sequitur and instead fill this fist-sized funathon with some sort of pugilistic, superhero blitzkrieg. Or, subversively, an autobiographical trip down the local abattoir in which you satirise an assortment of Findus frozen meat products.
40 blank pages, measuring 8×14 cm, which will fit into any one of your pockets. I’ve field-tested it on all of mine except for the condom pouch in my jeans, and they fit without fail. Who needs a fucking Blackberry?
SLH
Buy Pick A Unicorn Notebook and read the Page 45 review here
Cat Orgy Notebook (£2-00, self-published) by Lizz Lunney.
Delightfully decadent notebook measuring 8×14 cm, perfect for your pocket of choice, whose 40 crisp white pages are just begging to be filled with shopping lists.
I went into Sainsbury’s the other day and my shopping list basically boiled down to white wine and cat food. Yes, I AM that old lady and my house may well smell of wee. I really wouldn’t know, I smoke 60 JPS White a day: I have no sense of smell.
But now that I have secured, through crafty retail and product placement, a life-time’s supply of said cigarettes (albeit a life-time substantially shortened by those dark and satanic smokes), let us attend more studiously to this Item of Interest.
It is possibly Lizz Lunney’s ultimate socio-political statement. Like Art Spiegleman’s MAUS, Lunney has cannily co-opted the feline form to express more than you might expect about the life we humans live and – in this instance – our all-too-casual attitudes towards sex and our desperate determination to get a leg-over at all costs.
See those cats cavorting on the cover in their blues and their burgundies? It’s not really burgundy but more of a plum, yet that sentence was going so well; and burgundies á la undies sounded like street slang for pants Anyway, it all seems perfectly delirious, yet between the covers all is empty. And hollow. And blank.
You see what the search for casual sex does to you, dear reader? It leaves you in the most awful, bleak and brackish, post-coital come-down.
Oh, sorry, this is a notebook. As you were.
SLH
Buy Cat Orgy Notebook and read the Page 45 review here
Falling Cats Notebook (£2-00, self-published) by Lizz Lunney.
Oh, these cats, they are falling! Falling from the heavens and only you –
Morning!
I have just woken up from a dream in which I arrived late for work. Unfortunately reality concurs, for it is half-past nine and I’m not even dressed.
I don’t know what it is I love most about these brilliant beasts, measuring a svelte 8×14 cm and containing 40 blank, make-your-own-flick-book pages but I for one have used this particular edition as my grand diary for 2013. 40 pages: that’s how much heavy-duty shit is going down in my life.
Oh, I can hear what you’re saying: “What if we do more than you. Where will we put it all?” “Don’t you have any graphic novels to review?” “Why are you so lonely?”
And I hate you. You know that, right?
Yet, while the cats are falling, falling as if in a trance, you have the opportunity here to make your mark, sow your seed and possibly even bare what passes for your misbegotten soul within this slim, slight and (thanks to your thoughts) potentially erudite tome. Lizz Lunney has given you this golden opportunity by leaving all the pages inside unsullied by her own deep well of stark and sullen sangfroid. There is a space!
Although there is also a rumour circulating Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction that this work was supposed to contain comics and @lizzlizz either forgot to include them or the printer fucked up, which is why Lunney is fobbing them off as blank notebooks instead.
SLH
Buy Falling Cats Notebook and read the Page 45 review here
Conan vol 13: Queen Of The Black Coast (£14-99, Dark Horse) by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan.
Mesmerising. Cloonan’s infused the book with a sensual, sexual exoticism, most alluringly and arrestingly on the appearance of raven-haired Bêlit, the sub-titular Queen Of The Black Coast. With her eyes afire and tongue thrust out between ruby-red lips spitted with blood, she’s like a silent Siren with the seduction of a snake and our young, steel-willed stud of Cimmerian is completely in her thrall. The final six pages, coloured to perfection by Dave Stewart are disorientating as hell, and don’t bode well for Conan.
None of which would have worked half so well had Wood not successfully built the barbarian up first as a charismatic and capable man of action: a natural, gifted storyteller far more likely to do the charming than be charmed himself, and more than a match for a capital city’s finest elite guards. As the story opens, after a run-in with Messantia’s corrupt courts, Conan has made a swift exit by sea which is far from his natural element. This has made the captain and crew of the boat he boarded by force personae non gratae on those particular shores, but when they turn their trade elsewhere they hear word that Bêlit, infamous pirate and captain of The Tigress, is circling the waters off coast of Kush like a hungry shark. For Tito and his crew that means sailing those seas is an unacceptable risk; for Conan it’s an irresistible challenge. He’s young, impetuous and about to discover that he’s completely out of his depth.
Best-drawn Conan since Sir Barry Windsor-Smythe’s. The sharks are petrifying.
SLH
Buy Conan vol 13: Queen Of The Black Coast and read the Page 45 review here
Avalon Chronicles Book One: Once In A Blue Moon h/c restocks (£14-99, Oni) by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir & Emma Vieceli.
There be dragons! 
And griffins! And a certain degree of mind-bending, literary paradox!
Timed specifically to coincide with my adventures on Skyrim, it seems, THE AVALON CHRONICLES is the fresh resurrection of the BLUE MOON high fantasy from the writers of THREE STRIKES with a brand new artist for the saga, DRAGON HEIR’s creator and VAMPIRE ACADEMY’s illustrator Emma Vieceli. That means a lot of clean lines, whooshes of fine, flowing hair and bursts of cute comedy, manga-stylee.
But The Avalon Chronicles was also a book which Aeslin’s parents used to read her at bedtime. Aeslin became obsessed with the legend of the Prince and his beautiful Dragon Knight bride until the day her mother demanded she put away childish things and broke the bad news:
“Dammit, Aeslin! We don’t live in that kind of world. There are no happy endings and we don’t ride off into the sunset on the dragon. Your father and I…”
“Mom… where’s Daddy?”
Many years later and Aeslin’s Mum is a politician on the verge of an election and Aeslin’s on the brink of a date with hilariously self-regarding school heart-throb, Michael. He’s invited her to watch him play football tonight. It’s at this point, however, that Aeslin and best friend Meg discover a new shop that’s seemingly sprung up overnight, and in it a copy of Once In A Blue Moon, the sequel to The Avalon Chronicles written by the original author’s son. It costs them everything they have, but Meg is determined to rekindle a reluctant Aeslin’s interest in the series she once loved so dearly. A single stray thought later, it works.
Now Aeslin’s truly immersed in the book. Literally! She’s been sucked into Once In A Blue Moon, only to discover that it’s all about her. She’s even met its author, playwright Will Redding there. But she’s just not cut out for its contents.
“Go home? But Aeslin, you have a grand destiny. You’re supposed to be our Dragon Knight.”
“Me? There’s got to be some mistake.”
“No mistake. I’m charged with chronicling your adventures, like my father was for the last Dragon Knight.”
“I’m not a Dragon Knight. I’m not a fighter. Why not pick Cassidy?”
“Because Cassidy’s not supposed to be the Dragon Night.”
“If you’re writing the book, then change it.”
“That’s not how destiny works. I chronicle the story. I add a certain dramatic flair, if you will. But I don’t change the facts. And the fact is, this is your story.”
“Well, if it’s my story, then I decide. And I want to go home.”
Back home, Aeslin meets up with Meg, but when they open the book again, it’s very bad news.
“Holy crap!!!”
“Is that me?”
“Wow… You don’t come off so good.” “She left Avalon in its hours of need.””
“That Will! He’s doing this on purpose. He’s trying to make me look like a selfish — “
“Will? That’s the playwright, right? So when he writes in his book, it appears in this one. That so cool!”
“Cool?! Michael could read this. He’ll think I’m shallow.”
“Really? Michael… reading? You’re kidding, right?”
Whatever will Aeslin decide to do? Will she embrace her destiny in the hope of embracing Michael? Will she accept the challenge of the Dragon Knight to save a kingdom on the brink of war? Why is Aeslin destined to be the Dragon Knight anyway? And will she pass her maths test on Monday? Lastly, what happened to Aeslin’s Dad? No, I mean what really happened to him? Reading Once In A Blue Moon may be the only way to find out. Hmm. I really didn’t use capitals there, did I? Heh.
There is so much more to this black and white beauty than I’m prepared to giving away right now – plenty of surprises for Aeslin in the book itself – and it’s going to go very well in our young teen section. Probably to adults, if past performance is anything to go by.
AVALON CHRONICLES VOL 2: THE GIRL AND THE UNICORN out now!
SLH
Buy Avalon Chronicles Book One: Once In A Blue Moon h/c and read the Page 45 review here
Preacher Book 1 new edition (£14-99, DC ) by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon.
DC are repackaging, 
and this contains the whole of the original PREACHER VOL 1 and half of PREACHER VOL 2, both of which we still have at the time of typing. If what I write below grabs you then I would grab those then run through the rest before they go out of print, because waiting for a publisher to tidy it all up can be painful.
So….
Attitude on a stick, reading this series is like listening to Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads. It’s brutal and bloody and fucking hilarious. It stars a wayward preacher whose parish has been nuked by a force from Heaven and Hell which gives him the power of God’s Word. When he uses The Word his eyes glow red, and you will do what he tells you to no matter how anatomically improbable. Now he’s off in search of God to make Him apologise for abandoning His creation, and along for the ride are his ex-alcoholic ex-hitwoman ex-girlfriend and a vampire with an uncanny resemblance to Shane MacGowan. I’m not saying Shane MacGowan necessarily drinks blood, but look at the bloody state of him!
Along the way they’ll bump into Jesse’s own family, the vituperative Herr Starr who loses at least one limb per volume, impressionable Kurt Cobain fan Arseface who tried to emulate his idol and is now left with a gaping hole in his mouth and a subsequent speech impediment, plus the last remaining bloodline of Christ who is a delinquent and drooling moron.
Deliriously funny, spectacularly violent and highly blasphemous to boot, this nonetheless boasts at its heart a strong moral core: it’s about friendship, loyalty and doing the right thing.
Exceptional character acting by artist Steve Dillon.
(Have some fun: print this out, bring it in without telling me and ask me to describe this series on the shop floor. I’ve used exactly same words ever since it first came out!)
SLH
Buy Preacher Book 1 and read the Page 45 review here
Drowntown Book One h/c (£14-99, Jonathan Cape) by Robbie Morrison & Jim Murray…
When you’re alone 
and life is making you lonely you can always go…Drowntown!
Professional minder and semi-professional loser Leo Noiret finds himself figuratively and indeed literally dumped into a bigger pile of shit than his usual collection of woes entails. Hired by a shadowy femme fatale with a big reputation in the underworld to uncover her own amnesiacly challenged origins, he quickly starts to find there are more than a fair few bad guys, of all social standings, from the typical low level pond life up to some rather more affluent, well connected and indeed dryer characters, ready to sink his investigation and send him off to a stagnant watery grave. Not that there are any other kind in this flooded London, where the sea level now seems to be somewhere in the vicinity of the top of Tower Bridge and the Thames pretty much merged with the English Channel.
There are two things which set this excellent opening salvo apart from other crime books, the first of which being the speculative fiction element which provides not only the intriguing setting, which has been caused by climate change, but also the various other dubious goings-on revolving around classic future fiction staples such as genetic tampering, and the second is Jim Murray’s brilliant art. Yes, Robbie Morrison’s writing is as wittily engaging as you would expect from a 2000AD stalwart, but it is the art which elevates this out of the gutter into… errr… a higher gutter! Now I’m no clean freak, but I did find myself subconsciously reaching for the antibacterial hand gel more than a couple of times as Leo yet again finds himself right back in the proverbial, such is the overpowering sense of atmosphere, and sewage, that Jim generates! Looking forward to reading the next volume, in which Leo hopefully has the good sense to don a wetsuit before squelching out of his office door, or at least a pair of waders…
JR
Buy Drowntown Book One h/c and read the Page 45 review here
Superman Unchained #1 (£3-50, DC) by Scott Snyder & Jim Lee, Scott Williams, various…
Easy to see why 
DC have let Scott Snyder loose on Big Blue as his extremely popular, and more importantly excellent, run on BATMAN continues unabated. Whether he can replicate that success on what is a rather more… one-dimensional character (and indeed supporting characters – I really am tired of seeing Lois Lane written as highly strung and career-obsessed, Perry as the gruff editor with a heart of gold, and not forgetting comedy relief and donut delivery boy Jimmy Olsen) remains to be seen, but we’re off to a good start here, even if Lois is full-on multi-tasking mode, Perry yelling at all and sundry to meet deadlines and Jimmy off on a donut run…
Okay, secondary characters aside, I did really enjoy this. It’s an interesting enough set-up with multiple satellites falling from the sky, possibly at the behest of Lex Luthor, currently en route to a super-max prison facility, though he does find time to make a brief show-stealing cameo, showing he has nerves of steel, if not the skin to match. And of course, only Superman can catch them all and save the day, except it seems one additional satellite was stopped from falling… But if Superman didn’t do it, nor following his initial investigations any member of the Justice League or other heroes, then who did? Our glimpsed answer, privy only to us fourth-wall breakers (if not Source Wall – sorry crap DC in-joke), shows that Snyder has already got a potential belter of story arc up his sleeve. Promising…
What of the art then? Well, I must say, since Jim Lee’s relatively recent return to DC and subsequent current run on JUSTICE LEAGUE, written by Geoff Johns, I have been reminded just how good his art can be, when he’s actually illustrating something I’m bothered about reading, like ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, which always helps. Also, this issue features a crazy fold-out page right inside the front cover which gets things off with a bang. It doesn’t entirely work in that once you’ve folded it out, you realise it’s a double page spread on reverse sides of the huge page. I have to admit I did grab a second copy just so I could see what it looked like together in all its glory and who knows, maybe that’s what DC are intending, for everyone to buy two copies, precisely for that reason. Can’t quite imagine how on earth it’s going to work in the trade either, but anyway, it’s a nice touch.
Variant freaks, please note, we do some of the variant covers for this issue available on the shelves at time of typing.
JR
Buy Superman Unchained #1 and read the Page 45 review here
Stormwatch vol 1 s/c (£14-99, DC ) by Warren Ellis & Tom Raney, Jim Lee.
Washington DC, America:
“What the hell is this?”
“Two of yours, Mr. President. These are the explosives experts who murdered one of my officers last night. You either have no knowledge of this, or you will pretend you don’t. It doesn’t matter. You, or one of your creatures, have decided for no good reason to commit an act of war against Stormwatch, and therefore the United Nations. There will be a reprisal. And then we shall see where we stand. Do not test us. We have received your message that we are not wanted or safe in your country. Stand ready for ours.”
This is it: this is where the real Warren Ellis voice finally emerged from its corporate restraints on a title far enough off the radar for anyone to be bothered to bleach it. He inherited a numbskull, run-down Image superhero title and turned it into a literate, Yukio Mishima-referencing, fast-paced, geopolitical, science-fiction action thriller starring a madman called Henry Bendix, the Weatherman, who ran the satellite-based Stormwatch from its platform’s Watch Hall with clipped, military precision.
Like THE AUTHORITY this title grew into, Henry Bendix wanted to change the world whether it liked it or not. And like THE AUTHORITY he quickly discovered that the United States government was amongst the first to stand up and oppose him. Unlike THE AUTHORITY, his methods grew increasingly utterly ruthless. But Stormwatch should have guessed the second he foisted upon its metahuman officers a certain Rose Tattoo, a weapons expert who could drive a man irretrievably mad just by having sex with him.
What astonished me when rereading this 11-issue repackaging of the first two softcovers, is how swiftly Ellis nailed his ambition. I count one page of slightly awkward exposition and that’s it. Like Bendix himself, Ellis swiftly reconfigured the existing Stormwatch to his own tastes and ends, ruthlessly rejecting several of its extant officers, repositioning others and bringing in his own new recruits (Rose Tattoo, the lemon-sharp Jenny Sparks and city-centric Jack Hawksmoor who could commune with his urban environment:
“In situations like these, Jack always checks the windows first. In cities, windows hold images for longer than you’d think.”
It was ridiculously full of new ideas and relevant, news-headline issues, setting the strategically split three teams against Japanese Death Cults, America’s paranoid, racist and deluded militias (claiming to protect its indigenous citizens from the Federal Government by bombing them both into oblivion), and rogue states like the fictional Gamorra funding terrorists to bring down planes over Britain. We are, of course, talking Lockerbie and Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi dressed like the legendary Fu Manchu. Throughout the book it’s all-out mutagenic warfare, while Bendix cleverly, covertly, moves his pieces into place while covering his tracks in the process.
There’s one particularly clever issue in which the ageless, no-nonsense Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20th Century (“I won’t wear one of those damnfool spandex body-condom things. I don’t have the bust for it.”) finally reveals her 96-year-old history. And hats off to Tom Raney for each decade is drawn in its relevant, predominant comicbook style, successfully mimicking the 1920s’ scientific romance of Flash Gordon, the 1930s’ invention of Superman, Will Eisner’s THE SPIRIT in the 1940s, Kirby, Crumb and then finally Dave Gibbons’ WATCHMEN. Parenthetically, I should just add that there’s a nice (precise) juxtaposition at the end of that sequence of black Battalion’s optimism for the future and the harsh, racist reality he encounters the very next issue. These are not accidents.
But really, let’s get back to the main man Bendix and the madness in his methods. He’s speaking second.
“Torture me, drug me, beat me… won’t do any good. You’re not getting a thing out of me.”
“Torture you? Dear God, you are living in the Dark Ages. No, all we’re going to do is strip your scalp, drill a hole in your skull and push scanning needles into your living brain. We’ll extract the necessary information from your brain quite painlessly.”
“Unless we forget the anaesthetic. Hi, I’m the surgeon, and I’m drunk.”
Elsewhere, Jenny Sparks:
“Don’t ever touch my beer again.”
SLH
Buy Stormwatch vol 1 s/c and read the Page 45 review here
Arrived, Online & Ready To Buy
Reviews already online if they’re new formats of previous books. Otherwise the most interesting will come under the microscope next week, while the rest will remain with their Diamond previews acting in lieu of reviews.
Saga vol 2 s/c (£10-99, Image) by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
The Suitcase h/c (£8-99, Blank Slate Books) by Dan Berry
The Ocean At The End Of The Lane h/c (£16-99, Headline) by Neil Gaiman
A Matter Of Life h/c (£10-90, Top Shelf) by Jeffrey Brown
Sweet Tooth vol 6: Wild Game (£12-99, DC ) by Jeff Lemire
Burning Building Comix h/c (£14-99, Top Shelf) by Jeff Zwirek
Crater XV h/c (£14-99, Top Shelf) by Kevin Cannon
Witch Doctor vol 2: Mal Practice s/c (£10-99, Image) by Brandon Seifert & Lukas Ketner
Mind The Gap vol 2: Wish You Were Here s/c (£10-99, Image) by Jim McCann & Rodin Esquejo
Adventure Time: Marceline & The Scream Queens vol 1 (£14-99, Boom Entertainment) by Meredith Gran
Avalon Chronicles vol 2 h/c (£14-99, Oni) by Nunzio DeFillipis & Emma Vieceli
7 String vol 1 new, larger format (£10-99, Zetabella ) by Nich Angell
Teen Titans vol 2: The Culling s/c (£12-99, DC ) by Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza & Brett Booth
All New X-Men vol 2: Here To Stay s/c (UK Ed’n) (£10-99, Marvel ) by Brian Michael Bendis & David, Marquez, Stuart Immonen
Avengers vol 4 s/c (£14-99, Marvel ) by Brian Michael Bendis & Walter Simonson, Mike Deodato
The Incredible Hulk vol 2 s/c (£18-99, Marvel ) by Jason Aaron & various
Invincible Iron Man vol 11: The Future s/c (£14-99, Marvel ) by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca
Deadpool vol 10: Evil Deadpool s/c (£12-99, Marvel ) by Daniel Way & Salva Espin, John McCrea
Marvel Masterworks: The Mighty Thor vol 4 (£18-99, Marvel) by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Marvels s/c (£18-99, Marvel) by Kurt Busiek & Alex Ross
One Piece vol 67 (£6-99, Viz) by Eiichiro Oda
Blue Exorcist vol 10 (£6-99, Viz) by Kazue Kato
Bleach vol 57 (£6-99, Viz) by Tite Kubo
Sleeping Moon vol 1 (£8-99, BL Sublime) by Kano Miyamoto
Puella Magi Madoka Magica vol 2 (£8-99, Yen) by Magica Quartet & Hanokage
Puella Magi Madoka Magica vol 3 (£8-99, Yen) by Magica Quartet & Hanokage
Attack On Titan vol 1 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama
Attack On Titan vol 2 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama
Attack On Titan vol 3 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama
Attack On Titan vol 4 (£8-50, Kodansha) by Hajime Isayama
ITEM! Stunning original art by Christoper Mitten inside an Antony Johnston WASTELAND book.
ITEM! Nominees for the British Fantasy Awards includes Sean Phillips. See also graphic novel category!
ITEM! There are no staff photos this week. I cannot even believe I published last week’s in which I was basically a screaming skull.
– Stephen
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