Buy These Flippin’ Comics!!! (6.08.2016) – The Realpolitik of Injecting Vikings Into Your Brain
Eh! What a fucking stupid article title. But here we are, here we are. No time for being clever when a column is three days late. No time for pretending to be clever, when you’re actually not clever. Buy These Flippin’ Comics! The weekly injection of my poor taste, my poor writing, my poor self into your comic book buying diet! ##SelfFlagellation. Missed a week. Then stuttered three days. But I haven’t been completely idle, oh, no! I haven’t. In fact, most of my free time lately has been spent mainlining comic books. Stumbling around, freshly woken from my comic books slumber. A year’s worth of comic books unread is hard to rally back from. Stumbling around, frosted Pepsi Max biscuits hanging from my beard. Reading title after title after title, crossing out the backlog of some of my favorite series. Stumbling around, feeling the walls, trying to grow accustomed to the comic book world as it is.
It feels good, man. Awash in the world of sequential artwork.
It feels overwhelming, man. Awash in the backlog of the world of sequential artwork.
I’ve consumed so many titles in such a short period of time that they’ve all congealed into some amorphous Comics-Entity. Overlapping. Characters and narratives bleeding into one another. Moon Knight dick-punching the Sheriff of Babylon while Nighthawk hangs out with Death in the wasted western apocalypse of East of West while Warren Ellis does Warren Ellis things in the urinal of my Mind.
I imagine I’ll double back, at some point. Reread some of the titles I’m enjoying the most. Redefining them in my memory, introducing boundaries, cell-walls around their tales. Separating them from the myriad other enjoyments. But for now? For now I’m just glad I can say I’m actively participating in the world of the funny book. Supporting creators, supporting my imagination, supporting a slice of pizza on my tits, as I read the latest laying down my couch, on my iPad. Crumbs and smiles. Crumbs and smiles.
So here we are! Here are are. Buy These Flippin’ Comics! I’m about to blast your optical-input info-receivers with the comics I purchased (as opposed to, you know, looked forward to purchasing, because I’m tardy) this week. Then, you respond! You retort! You kindly inform me of the titles I should augment my already acquired list with. Fair deal? Fair shake?
Onward!
If you don’t know what dropped this week, here’s a goddamn list!
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Injection #10 (Image)
Writer: Warren Ellis Art: Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire Cover: Declan Shalvey
Is Injection peak-Warren Ellis? The answer is yes, it’s peak Warren Ellis. But in this instance, it’s fucking okay, and I will cop to the reality that there are instances when it is not. I went on Good Reads and some dude was lambasting the title for in fact, being peak-Warren Ellis. I imagined him a smug little shit. So I spat on the screen. Extending my fingers towards his nom de internet. And cursed the fucker. I hope he’s enjoying the explosive diarrhea coming out of his cock and nose. Fucker! Ha!
Seriously though. I have to say that I wish Ellis went with this second story arc for his first, or at least interwove the two of them. Issue #10 sees the conclusion of the current story, and it is a tale more deeply rooted in action, and clarity. The first five issues were more “here is a vague and disconnected world, filled with a mystery.” Which is dope, okay. It’s dope. But it cost the reader some forward momentum while unfurling the Universe. This arc? We have a man who needs a photograph back, because it allowed him to fuck the ghost of his ex-wife, a cult searching for the Philosopher’s Stone, and a lot of really beautiful action.
It’s still peak-Warren Ellis. But that’s fine.
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Head Lopper #4 – Image
Writer: Andrew MacLean Art: Andrew MacLean Cover: Andrew MacLean
I was generally agitated to see Head Lopper completely fucking absent from a lot of the “Check Out These Comic Book Release!” lists I read on a weekly basis. I mean, it’s a fucking quarterly beefy bastard of a title, featuring a character whose appointed title is Head Lopper! A brutal, beautiful Viking Violence Fest featuring the talking head of a witch. How is this not registering among the infinite amount of DC Rebirth titles being plugged? The latest Civil War II spin-off titles? Man. Oh man! May Amon Amarth pillage your fridge and face with this oversight, errant knave writers.
At the uh, same time though, I’m sure I miss titles on the regular that are worth reading. True. Fine. Fair. You’ve caught me.
But in this instance, I must bridge the gap. I must plug the lack. Head Lopper is fantastic fun, for anyone who understandably respects vikings, villages, decapitations, and heavy metal thunder (among other things).
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Sheriff Of Babylon #7 – Vertigo
Writer: Tom King Art: Mitch Gerads Cover: John Paul Leon
Tom King is the fucking hotness. If you’re not reading The Vision (also out this week, by the by! but I’ve only read the first two issues, and so I can’t really even pretend to speak to it specifically), you should. He’s also leading the charge on Batman over at DC, picking up where Scott Snyder left off. Tom King is the fucking hotness, so fucking hot, in fact, that I actually had Batman: Rebirth: Rebirthed #1 in my hands at the local cape-peddling store. I was going to buy it, oh was I going to buy it. But I asked myself.
“Ian?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to commit to this title, on a monthly basis, in perpetuity?”
The title was back on the shelves. Not a slight on Flying Rodent Billionaire, or Tom King, or the rest of the creative team. Just being honest with myself and my desire to commit to a perpetually dropping cape comic. I’m not there right now in my life, if it ain’t quirky,
But I am surfing the glory that is Sheriff of Babylon. Granted, I’m behind on this title, too. But only by about two issues. It’s reductive and lazy to compare it to DMZ, but I’m going to do it anyways. The title spends its time investigating the intertwining of humanity, practicality, and war through the eyes of a cross-section of the peoples populating post-invasion Iraq, and as such it reminds me of the latter title. Brutally viscous at points, beautiful in others, it’s an interesting examination of the costs of conflict, without cherry-picking a team to root for, or a culture to uncomfortably Other. It strokes my Political Glands, as well as bringing to life a pretty engaging detective story.
DopexDope.
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Around The Horn
Other titles that are of note, but I haven’t snagged. Both Wonder Woman and The Flash get new #1 issues this week, and both are drawing buzz. May cave on The Flash. I don’t know what the fuck Joy Ride is, but it looks fun. Punk-rock science-fiction featuring gorgeous artwork? It’s calling to me from my comic-reading application procurement device. For those of you still looking to ingest Force Awakens content, the most gorgeous pilot in the galaxy, Poe Dameron, gets a new installment of his title. Finally, Lumberjanes Gotham Academy #1 reminds me that I need to, in fact, read Lumberjanes.
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That’s it for me this week, friends. What are you going to buy? What did you buy? What title(s) did I miss, that I absolutely must procure?