Hello everyone! Happy new Comics Day! And to the comic store staff across the world still with lower lumbar problems from last week’s stuff-a-lanche, sit down, get a coffee. Try some tiger balm. And don’t worry, this week is smaller.
Which is fortunate as there’s a ton of really good, long form stuff to catch up on. Manifest Destiny’s first year is a surprisingly funny, deeply bleak look at a very different version of Lewis and Clark. Saga, which is five volumes in at this point, is also definitely worth hopping aboard. It’s an epic science fiction story, a deeply personal look at a difficult relationship, completely horrifying and often very funny.
Wild’s End, which took the classic British idyll that John Wyndham loved setting fire to and crossed it with Wind in the Willows was really impressive. Enemy Within, the sequel series, looks set to plug the few problems the original had and fold in a really smart look at a very odd part of British literary history. And aliens.
Invisible Republic’s first collection hits this week and if there’s something absolutely essential on this list then it’s that book. Endlessly clever and bleak and unexpected.
Meanwhile over on the individual issue side of things, I caught up on Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl and Civil War. The first is effortlessly witty, funny and terrifying, especially for anyone who remembers the first few music videos to hit big in the UK. The second is an effortlessly clever, character driven piece of probable tragedy that embodies very nearly everything that’s worked about the Secret Wars mega-crossover. Plus it has one of the best She-Hulk panels ever in issue 4. As ever, click on the covers below to read my in depth review.
Something grabs your attention? Then here’s the UK List of Comic Stores and here’s Comixology. Enjoy.
Thanks as ever to Travelling Man for the review copies.