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Podcast Episode 99: July 2016 Solicitations w/ George Hanna

Eric P. I.Leave a comment

 

I talk with George Hanna of the George and Tony Entertainment Show about the July 2016 advanced solicitations. Along the way, we discuss Free Comic Book Day 2016, DC Rebirth, the upcoming LBR Episode 100, and so much more.

Please send your comments to longboxreview@gmail.com, chat with me @longboxreview on Twitter, or visit longboxreview.com. Please subscribe, rate, and review the show via iTunes.

Thanks for listening!

Links:

Direct Download (2:36:54)

Podcast Episode 97: June 2016 Solicitations + DC Rebirth

Eric P. I.Leave a comment

 

I talk about some of the June 2016 advanced solicitations and go over the announcements from the DC Rebirth panel that happened on March 26, 2016, at WonderCon.

Please send your comments to longboxreview@gmail.com, chat with me @longboxreview on Twitter, or visit longboxreview.com. Please subscribe, rate, and review the show via iTunes.

Thanks for listening!

Direct Download (1:16:32)

Previews! (November 2015)

Eric P. I.1 Comment

Here are some recommendations from this month’s Previews catalog for product shipping mostly in January. You can also see some pix that I took of other items from the catalog at my Instagram page (#previews).

Dark Horse

  • Hellboy gets a Winter Special one-shot, featuring art by Michael Avon Oeming and Tim Sale. Writing credits to Mike Mignola (natch!), Chris Roberson, and Chelsea Cain. I’m not big into Hellboy, but this looks like some potential wintertime fun.
  • But I am into Leaving Megalopolis by Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore, and there’s a sequel called Surviving Megalopolis. The first volume was a high octane survival tale in its own right, so I’m very interested to see where this six-issue tale in this universe takes me.

DC Comics

  • There’s a new Green Lantern Corps six-issue limited series: Edge of Oblivion. I like this idea of doing focused stories as limited series in lieu of an ongoing, sort of like how the Brits do short tv seasons.
  • Wonder Woman gets the obligatory origin story with the 9 issue Legend of Wonder Woman by Renae de Liz writing and arting, along with Ray Dillon. The preview image looks lovely.
  • There’s another miniseries with Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death by Amy Chu and Clay Mann. I’m not as enamored with this character as many I’ve seen online are, but I support DC focusing on other characters besides Batman with these limited series.
  • This is interesting, and yet another six issue series: Suicide Squad Most Wanted: Deadshot/Katana. This appears to be two distinct stories in this first issue focusing on each of the titular characters, so I wonder if the rest of the series will be this way? I wonder why DC is doing this? It’s too soon at the front end to somehow tie in to the Suicide Squad movie, but the series will end close to the release. Why not start the series right before the movie? Perhaps they have other titles in the works.
  • Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Kelley Jones is the second DC miniseries that I will be getting. It’s Len Wein returning to his character along with the perfect artist for this.
  • Titans Hunt #4 features Hawk and Dove! I’m very excited about this because I love those characters.
  • Speaking of returning to the past, Batman/Superman #28 starts an arc examining one of the early adventures, and I’m a sucker for those ever since the New 52 began. It’s only three issues, so it’s not a huge commitment.
  • Robin War #2 ends the titular mini (?) event.
  • I didn’t read these but heard from many who enjoyed the Bat-Mite and Bizarro miniseries. These are now collected into trades.
  • If you’re newer or younger to comics and didn’t get into Dark Knight Returns like this old fogey but you’re interested because of the hubbub surrounding DK III, well, there’s a new edition of the trade for DKR.
  • The superhero fun of the Darkseid War in Justice League gets its first hard cover collection.
  • Speaking of Justice League, there’s a new trade collecting the initial Silver Age adventures of the team, if you’re so inclined.

IDW

  • If you’re a fan of George Perez’s Avengers run from the last century, then the Marvel Artist Select Series hardcover is for you. There will only be 999 copies made (and signed!), so order now!
  • DC gets similar treatment in an Artist’s Edition hardcover featuring the Best of DC War. This will feature material by Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, John Severin, and Alex Toth.
  • The four issue miniseries Gutter Magic by Rich Douek and Brett Barkley looks interesting. I may not wait for the trade.
  • The Orions get the spotlight in a two-part tale starting in Star Trek #53. Also, the next John Byrne Star Trek: New Visions photobook features Mr. Checkov’s early days on the Enterprise.
  • If you were a fan of the webcomic Insufferable by Mark Waid and Peter Krause, or just knew of it but didn’t want to shell out the $4 per month entry fee for Thrillbent access, now you can get the first print collection of the series, which is pretty good.

Image

  • Image starts the new year with new story arcs on many titles, starting with Bitch Planet #6.
  • Even better, Nowhere Men returns with a new story arc starting with #7. Those first six issues were a hoot, and I’m happy to see this return after a 2+ year hiatus.
  • The Walking Dead #150!!! ZOMG!
  • I haven’t yet read the conclusion of Nameless by Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham, and Nathan Fairbairn, but I’m going to recommend you get the hard cover collection because its a trip.
  • Every Invincible trade collection that I order I ask myself if this is the last one, and I wonder the same thing with volume 22, Reboot.

Marvel

  • Bunch of new number ones and Star Wars comics that I’m not interested in.
  • The long awaited Captain America: White by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale gets a hard cover collection. I think I’ll wait for the trade.
  • However, this hard cover I will be getting: Miracleman: The Golden Age, Book 1 by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. We’re getting closer to new Gaiman Miracleman stories!
  • Do you like the early Spider-Man and X-Men stories? Then you’ll want the new omnibus printings.
  • Hmm, I might be interested in the Black Widow collection (Itsy-Bitsy Spider) of stories from 1999 and 2001 by Greg Rucka, Devin Grayson, J.G. Jones, and Scott Hampton.

Other publishers

  • Master comic storyteller Terry Moore has a new issue of Rachel Rising.
  • ZOMG! Boom is launching The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with a zero issue and 7 different covers featuring each Ranger.
  • Remember Classic Illustrated? Well, they’re back with a vengeance in this month’s Previews with 10 titles! I wonder if the Les Miserables trade comes with a soundtrack?
  • First Second’s series of Greek god spotlight trades appeals to the younger me.
  • Supporting character Faith from Valiant’s Harbinger series gets a spotlight miniseries. Faith was a breath of fresh air in that series.

What are you ordering this month?

Previews! (October 2015)

Eric P. I.Leave a comment

Here are some recommendations from this month’s Previews catalog for product shipping mostly in December.

Dark Horse

  • I am sorely tempted, but even Greg Rucka isn’t enough of a draw to get me to buy the Dragon Age: Magekiller miniseries.
  • Brian Wood’s The Massive returns with a prequel miniseries titled Ninth Wave.
  • Brian Wood’s other DH series, Rebels, has a done-in-one story featuring the character Stone Hoof if you were waiting to jump on the series (I guess?).
  • Hmm, Matt Kindt’s Past Aways couldn’t make it past issue 9. I wonder why?
  • I spoke of the new miniseries on the podcast, Mystery Girl, and I still like the sound of it, though, with a protagonist who knows everything, where’s the narrative tension?
  • Angel & Faith begins the final arc of the season with issue #21.
  • The Spirit gets a new collection featuring stories from Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and more (you know, hacks…).

DC Comics

  • Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles team up. ‘Nuff said, right?
  • I won’t be getting the aforementioned team-up book, but I’ll be trying the Harley’s Little Black Book bimonthly series. It has art by Amada Conners, so that’s a good thing.
  • The mini-event Robin War begins in December with the first of two bookends, and continues on through all of the Bat books and Teen Titans. I’m all in!
  • Swamp Thing shows up in Constantine #7.
  • Remember, Omega Men #7 is NOT the final issue, despite what Previews said.
  • Damn, if I’d known that Validus was going to show up in Telos, I might have bought the series from issue 1.
  • So, Vandal Savage has a connection to Krypton, and he’ll now be a Superman villain (Superman Annual #3)?
  • From the I never saw that coming (/sarcasm) department, Gotham By Midnight bows out with #12.
  • However, I’ll be sad to see Sensation Comics ending with #17 (though, the last few issues have been a little too preachy for my taste).
  • Just in time for the debut of the new Supergirl series on CBS, DC is giving us the Girl of Steel trade–3 months later!
  • Do yourself a favor and buy the two Grayson trades that are solicited. You are welcome.
  • The Sheriff of Babylon Vertigo miniseries by Tom King and Mitch Gerads sounds really good.
  • Lucifer is back! I really dug the old series, so I’m curious what Holly Black and Lee Garbett (!) can do with this favorite Vertigo character.

IDW

  • There’s a new Judge Dredd series for those into that character.
  • Also, a new Rocketeer miniseries, with some nice looking Dave Bullock art.
  • On the Star Trek front, there’s a new miniseries exploring Starfleet Academy with the familiar characters and some new ones.
  • Also, there’s the Star Trek: The John Byrne Collection trading a bunch of his miniseries.
  • I’m tempted to get The X-Files X-Mas Special if for nothing else than to maybe find out how the Lone Gunmen survived their fate from Season 9.
  • Hey, give The Eighth Seal a try. I read the comic via Thrillbent and enjoyed it.
  • Dusty Higgins and Van Jensen created what seems so obvious in hindsight: Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer.
  • Long touted as good comics, Essex County gets a limited edition slipcase offering.
  • I’m very tempted to buy A Hero’s Death OGN by Ricardo Sanchez and Mark Texeira.

Image

  • The at-first-digital-only series The Private Eye finally comes to paper.
  • Missing your supernatural Western fix from The Sixth Gun? Well, pardner, look no further than Black Jack Kethum.
  • Odd, there’s usually more I spotlight from Image…

Marvel

  • Bunch of new number ones that I’m not interested in.
  • Except Daredevil, of course. He’s sporting a new black and red costume, and Matt’s back in New York apparently as a D.A.?
  • I am thinking of trying out the new all-ages Spidey book.
  • Also, Squadron Supreme. Take a bunch of alternate versions of the Squadron characters and put them together to see what happens. The premise of the team reads like The Authority, though.
  • If you haven’t read it, go get the Thor vol. 1 trade. It’s good fun.

Other publishers

  • Aftershock Comics is a new player on the block, with Mike Marts as editor-in-chief. It’s launching four new titles: Replica, InSeXts (with a cool cover by Ariela Kristantina and Bryan Valenza), Super Zero, and Dreaming Eagles. I think I might try the second one.
  • If you missed out on the Archie relaunch but don’t want to wait for the trade, then try the Collector’s Edition collecting the first three issues. The best part of the new series? The original Archie reprints in the back.
  • Boom Studios’ Venus is a big want for me. Colonization of another planet in an interplanetary arms race? Sounds like fun.
  • Want to help out a comic creator? Buy The Whisper Campaign to benefit Norm Breyfogle’s recovery.
  • Every time I flip through Dynamite’s section, I stop to ponder The Precinct, a steampunk cop story.
  • I just read Joelle Jones’ Lady Killer and had a lot of fun. Because of her, I’m thinking of getting 12 Reasons Why I Love Her from Oni.
  • Valiant has a new Doctor Mirage series–I keep eyeing this book because of the awesome cover by Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic.
  • Oh, bummer. Ivar, Time Walker is ending with #12.

What are you ordering this month?

Previews! (September 2015)

Eric P. I.Leave a comment

Here are some recommendations from this month’s Previews catalog for product shipping mostly in November.

Dark Horse

  • If you missed the Midnight Society miniseries, you can get the trade collection. I was pretty surprised by a turn of events in the second issue, and I was already interested in the story I thought I was getting.
  • Westerns seem to be making a comeback or sorts (if only to try to mimic the success of Sixth Gun), and Kingsway West is one of those. The preview art in the catalog shows what look like mutated jackalopes and a small dragon. This ain’t your Daddy’s Old West, son.

DC Comics

  • Erm. Dark Knight III is here y’all. Yippee? I talked about this a bit in episode 87 of the podcast, but I’m not too excited about this, though I’m very certain it will be a huge money maker for DC.
  • What I am excited to read is Superman: American Alien. Writer Max Landis made an empassioned plea for his story on Twitter, and that tipped me in favor of preordering this limited series.
  • Despite Jim Lee’s involvement in issue 1, I won’t be getting Batman: Europa either.
  • Wow, Scooby-Doo Team-Up #13 features some ghostly DC characters: Deadman, Spectre, and Phantom Stranger. Ruh roh!
  • If you’re a fan of Neal Adams’ Batman art, then DC has an omnibus for ya with over 1000 pages!
  • I want to get that Demon: Hell’s Hitman trade featuring stories by Garth Ennis.
  • Lex Luthor gets the 75 years omnibus treatment. I still hate the DC won’t tell us what issues are in these 75-year celebratory tomes.
  • Ok, I highly, highly recommend the Superman: Secret Identity deluxe edition HC. It’s  a great Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen story. Get it, read it, love it.
  • Because DC knows that I’m a sucker for all things classic Titans, I’ll be gladly paying for the DC Comics Presents: Titans Hunt 100-Page Super Spectacular. At least I’ll have better quality versions of the early Teen Titans stories.
  • Of the new Vertigo books (which all sound interesting), I’ll be spending my money on Red Thorn because, you know, Scotland.
  • Capitalizing on the success of the iZombie tv show, DC is giving us the titular comic in omnibus form.

IDW

  • Do not pass Go, do not collect, er, wait, DO get this wonderful collection of Infinite Loop. It’s probably going to get my vote for best limited series of 2015.
  • If I wasn’t already at my budget limit for this month’s comics, I would be buying Alex Robinson’s Box Office Poison and his new trade Our Expanding Universe.

Image

  • Jason Aaron has become a comic book creator like Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, and Brian K. Vaughan where I will seriously look at, if not preordering, anything that he is involved with. Case in point, The Goddamned. It also does not hurt that the artist from Scalped, R.M. Guera, is back with Aaron on this series.
  • When Monstress was announced at the Image Expo, I really liked the cover image. The preview art also looks good, though darker (in composition, not tone) than I expected (despite the title).
  • Mark Millar’s Jupiter’s Circle gets a volume 2, delving into the past of the characters introduced or mentioned in Jupiter’s Legacy. I enjoyed both Legacy and Circle volume 1 a great deal, so getting this was an easy choice.
  • And Millar is trying really hard to clinch those movie deals by giving us another new series that sounds pretty interesting: Huck. It’s about a superpowered guy who tries to do good deeds anonymously. You can imagine that things don’t go his way. The Rafael Albuquerque art looks amazing.

Marvel

  • This will mostly be a list of those All-New, All-Different series that I’m adding to my pull list. Case in point: Avengers. It’s mostly for Mark Waid, but I like many of the characters on the team, including Thor, Vision, and Spider-Man.
  • I really like alternate universe stories, and Web Warriors gives me a bunch of Spider characters, including Spider-Girl and Spider-Ham! C’mon!
  • I like Tom King, but this take of the Vision as a family man with his synthezoid family (based on the cover image) has got me wondering (if I’ll like it or not). Is this a comedy or parody? I guess I’ll have to read and see (see what I did there?!).
  • The Ultimates and Illuminati seem to be flip sides of the same coing, but either way, I’m interested.
  • More of Jason Aaron writing Thor? Yes, please. Take all of my monies.
  • Interesting. Marvel is releasing a prose adaptation of Civil War, but it also has illustrations. Hmm, if they added more illustrations, they could rerelease a trade collection of the comic book. (I don’t get this–who wants to read a prose version of Civil War?)
  • I will be getting the second complete collection of Christopher Priest’s Black Panther series.

Other publishers

  • Will Eisner is celebrated by Paul Levitz in Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel book.
  • Terry Moore is releasing a trade collection of SIP Kids. If you haven’t read these stories and you’re a fan of Strangers in Paradise, you are missing out.
  • Action Lab is trying its hand at an event series with Actionverse. I’m mostly getting it for the Molly Danger inclusion.
  • I don’t know why, but the Mother Russia trade from Alterna Comics keeps catching my eye.
  • I love Grant Morrison, but I don’t know about his take on Santa Claus in the new Boom miniseries Klaus. Maybe I’ll ask for it for Christmas.
  • James Bond returns in the new series by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters (and right before the new film that I’m dying to see!).
  • Finally, don’t forget to order the newest Alter Ego and Comic Book Creator magazines. The former features an interview with Jim Shooter, and the latter spotlights Gil Kane.

What are you ordering this month?