Pull List – November 2020

14/11/20

  • Wolverine Black, White & Blood #1 (of 4) (W) Various (A) Various
  • Fire power #5 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • Crossover #1 (W) Donny Cates (A/CA) Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe (L) John J. Hill
  • Origins #1 (of 6) (W) Clay Chapman (A/CA) Jakub Rebelka, Patricio Delpeche (L) Jim Campbell
  • Girl TP (W) Peter Milligan (A/CA) Duncan Fegredo, Nathan Eyring (L) Ellie De Ville
  • The Scumbag #1 (W) Rick Remender (A/CA) Lewis LaRosa, Moreno DiNisio (L) Rus Wooton
  • Grit #1 (W) Brian Wickman (CA) Mark Laszlo (A) Kevin Castaniero, Simon Gough (L) Micah Myers
  • Hellboy & The BPRD The Seven Wives Club (W) Mike Mignola (A) Adam Hughes (L) Clem Robins (CA) Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart
  • Stillwater #2 (W) Chip Zdarsky (A/CA) Ramon K. Perez, Mike Spicer (L) Rus Wooton

Wolverine Black, White & Blood has firmly rekindled my early nineties obsession with the art of Adam Kubert, still undoubtably one of my favourite artists on Wolverine. Weapon X has never looked so good in “The beast within them” (below), I mean look at those pages, 32 panels of sheer jaw dropping detail, AMAZING! As a teenager, the Kubert’s were my comic art GODS, the image of Magneto ripping the adamantium from Logan in X-Men #25 by Andy is permanently seared into my brain along with the page by Adam in Wolverine #79 when Cyber smashes the Ol’ Canucklehead’s bone claws.

The limited colour palette is such a unique selling point for this book and the creators show real restraint with the application of red to draw the eye or create mood, etc. When red features on a panel or page its genuinely striking, for example, in “Cabin Fever” by Declan Shalvey you really feel the flash of machine guns in the page above.

Great to see Shalvey’s use of grey wash so clearly here as well, it’s something I’ve enjoyed in his work since the early days of Eclectic Micks and also the short story “Ball Park” published in Tripwire Magazine, 2009 (page one, page two & page three are available on his old dshalv blog).

21/11/20

  • Oblivion Song #28 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Lorenzo De Felici, Annalisa Leoni (L) Rus Wooton
  • Barbalien Red Planet #1 (W) Tate Brombal (A/CA) Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Jordie Bellaire (L) Aditya Bidikar
  • The Autumnal #2 (W) Daniel Kraus (A/CA) Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie (L) Jim Campbell
  • Frank at home on the farm #1 (W) Jordan Thomas (A/CA) Clark Bint (L) Lettersqids
  • Sea of Sorrows #1 (W) Rich Douek (A/CA) Alex Cormack (L) Justin Birch

I’ve been looking forward to Barbalien Red Planet since the early solicits. I’m a huge fan of the Black Hammer books by Lemire and Ormston so I’m always particularly interested in anything related to that series.

This is a fantastic first issue that expands on the back story of Barbalien and his personal struggle with identity during the 80’s, highly recommended!

22/11/20

  • The Plot #1-6 (W) Michael Moreci, Tim Daniel (A) Josh Hixson (C) Jordan Boyd, Kurt Michael Russell (L) Jim Campbell (CA) Various

Tim Daniel kindly sent me a pdf copy of The Plot #7 after he offered the issue up on twitter. I’ve been curious about the series for some time and was hooked straight away, I pretty much tracked down issues 1-6 immediately after reading issue 7.

I buy trades fairly regularly so it was a pretty satisfying experience to sit down with six single issues from a series like this and read them all in one sitting.

The story of The Plot is hugely compelling, I love the characters and the creeping feeling of dread that practically oozes from every page.

28/11/20

  • Rick and Morty presents Jaguar (W) Marc Ellerby (A/CA) Marc Ellerby, Leonardo Ito (L) ccrank

Jaguar was one of the more memorable characters from Season 3 so I couldn’t wait to read Marc Ellerby’s take on the highly skilled rebel fighter.

I laughed like an idiot pretty much all the way through this issue, Marc deserves an award for this panel (above) of ‘barista’ Jaguar serving coffee.

One of the BEST moments in a comic for me this year!

Pull List – October 2020

03/10/20

  • GIANT SIZE X-MEN TRIBUTE WEIN COCKRUM #1 MOORE VAR (W) Len Wein (CA) Tradd Moore (L) Clayton Cowles

Looks like everyone had a blast reinterpreting this classic, fantastic stuff from everyone involved!

05/10/20

  • OLYMPIA TP (W) Curt Pires (A) Alex Diotto, Dee Cunniffe (CA) Christian Ward (L) Micah Myers

Loved this! The pages positively krackle with silver age Kirby energy! Read the first issue online here and be sure to check out the process by Alex Diotto in the DEC 2019 issue of PanelxPanel.

07/10/20

  • WALKING DEAD DLX #1 CVR C ADLARD (MR) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Tony Moore, Dave McCaig (CA) Charlie Adlard (L) Rus Wooton
  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE #4 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson (L) Rus Wooton

Hadn’t intended on picking up the Walking Dead deluxe… but dayum! that cover by Charlie Adlard is awesome! I originally read this series in the collected hardbacks so it was refreshing to read issue one again as a single. I always really loved the black and white aesthetic of the walking dead (especially the greyscale work by Cliff Rathburn) so I was surprised how much I also enjoyed the fantastic colours by Dave McCaig. It’s staggering to think that McCaig has been steadily working on these deluxe issues for the last FOUR years! Whatever your feelings on the recolouring of the book, that’s a gargantuan undertaking, McCaig has completed 100 issues so far! There’s also new lettering by Rus Wooton to replace the original treatment by Robert Kirkman and a fresh design by Andres Juarez. Other additions include a variant cover gallery and a fascinating script breakdown by Kirkman in the back matter.

  • AUTUMNAL #1 CVR A SHEHAN (W) Daniel Kraus (A/CA) Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie (L) Jim Campbell

The latest title under Vault‘s NIGHTFALL imprint is a dark atmospheric folk horror that oozes with the rural pagan weirdness of cult films like The Wicker Man (1973) and The Kill List (2011). If you’re not familiar with artist Chris Shehan I’d highly recommend reading MANDIBLE an eerie 3 page horror story about a dental practice mannequin written by Dillon Gilbertson with lettering by Cristian Docolomansky, just don’t have nightmares… chok chok.

14/10/20

  • DC THE DOOMED AND THE DAMNED #1

Fantastic halloweeny special from DC including the stand-outs “Baytor vs Darkseid” (W) Garth Ennis (A) PJ Holden, John Kalisz (L) Rob Steen and “From Humble Roots” (W) Amedeo Turturro (A) Max Fiumara, Dave Stewart (L) Aditya Bidikar.

  • TRUE LIVES FABULOUS KILLJOYS NATIONAL ANTHEM #1 CVR A ROMERO (W) Gerard Way, Shaun Simon (A/CA) Leonardo Romero

Lookit that art by Leonardo Romero, soooooo good!

30/10/20

  • SLIME TUNNEL by Gavin Fullerton

Visceral, claustrophobic… deeply unsettling storytelling available on Gavin’s gumroad.