Tag Archives: The Rob

Free Comic Book Day Rarities

by Jesse

Free Comic Book Day is one of the greatest comic-reading days of the year, but it’s not just

Looking for IDW’s Hostess Artist’s Edition? Get there early!

the free comics.  Sometimes publishers take the opportunity to introduce a new character, kick off a huge event (like this year’s Age of Ultron), or experiment with something new.  It’s always these experimental books that are the hardest to find. For this week’s LIST we present Rare Free Comic Book Day Issues.

  • Archie Presents: Moose and Reggie -

    The jock and the stomach get their own title at last!  But the real draw for this book was the rediscovery of the lost 1948 character Mr. Winklefarthing.

  • Geoff Johns’ The Darkening (Fanfic press, 2004)

  • Things We Found Digging in Alan Moore’s Rubbish Bin (Avatar)

  • The Liefeld Podiatric Sketchbook (Image)

  • Spider-Man: Night of the Lepus #0

  • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, A Gentleman # 0.5 of 50 -

    Dynamite Entertainment continues their unrelenting acquisition of public domain properties with this graphic novel translation of the most incomprehensible novel in the English language. Written and drawn by Tony Daniel with inks by Wade von Grawbadger.

  • Ben Grimm’s Man vs Food (2005)

  • Blinded by Scientology! The L. Ron Hubbard Story  (Bluewater Comics) -

    This marks the first in a series of bio-comics exploring the lives of famous figures in Scientology.

  • Cerebus, the one-volume edition -

    All 300 issues of the indie comic, in one free volume!

  • Portraits of Famous Beards (Arctic Press)

  • Bone: Year One -

    a fresh new take on a stale old classic!

  • The Cathy Sampler (IDW) -

    ahead of the release of Cathy vol. 1 (Nov. 1976 – April 1977), IDW presents The Cathy Sampler revisiting everyone’s favorite shopa-choco-holic. This 40 pg. sampler includes the controversial arc where-in Cathy ate pot laced brownies, ACK!

Tomorrow’s Comics

by Jesse

I’m so excited for this week, no preamble.  We’re jumping right in! Here are this week’s new and noteworthy releases.

Yes, that's a robot about to whack something with a tiny dinosaur.

  • ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #1 $2.75 - New Atomic Robo, and look at that price!  Many issues of AR include backup features written by Brian Clevenger and drawn by other available artists.  Real Science Adventures takes these from the backups and makes them the featured story.  I admit I always appreciate Scott Wegener’s art the most on Robo, partially because he’s just that good, but mainly because the quality of the guest artists tends to fluctuate pretty wildly.  Still, new Robo is new Robo, and you can’t go wrong for less than $3.
  • BLOODSTRIKE #26 - I am SO torn about this one!  On the one hand, it’s Bloodstrike, the main signal that the 90′s had gotten dangerously out of control (yeah, yeah, I read it.  Shut up.).  On the other, The Rob’s Extreme relaunch has been surprisingly good, so it’s got the virtue of being in good company.  I’m in for now.
  • DAREDEVIL #10 - I believe I covered this.
  • FF #16 - After finally finding FF #1, I’ve read the first year’s worth of stories now.  It’s technically good, but I definitely feel like it misses out on part of the appeal of Hickman’s run, namely that just about every story was a standalone but fed into the whole.  It was very artfully done, and after 12 issues a complete story hasn’t been told yet.  I think that’s pretty poor form.  Still, it’s solid FF’ery if you can be patient with it.
  • SNARKED #6
  • TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #8

I had planned to take this space to mention Greg Rucka’s new Punisher series, but that will have to wait until next week, when I’ll pair it up with Rick Remender’s new Venom.  So that’s it for this week.  What looks good to you?

Truly, this is the LIST of LISTS

by Jesse

Oh, we've THOUGHT about telling you where his nose went, but we kept it to ourselves.

We’ve been running our weekly LIST for a while now…82 weeks to be exact, which makes it one of our longest-running features..  We don’t give ourselves a lot of boundaries, but there are some things even we consider crossing the line.  For this week’s LIST we take you behind the scenes to LISTS We’ve Scrapped.  For one reason or another, these just were not  and could not make the cut.

  • Things found in Alan Moore’s beard

  • Superheroes’ Favorite Numbers

  • Heroes that are also Urban Dictionary Entries

  • Other Things Hank Pym Has Hit

  • Crimes that would land you in the Phantom Zone

  • Mutants Based on Kama Sutra Positions

  • Characters and Titles that never made it past the Comics Code Authority

  • Fish Aquaman Has Only Commanded Once

Wanna know the weirdest things ever found in these envelopes? Trust us, you don't.

  • Where to hide a body in Gotham City

  • Other characters Bob Kane has taken credit for

  • Aunt May’s Favorite Sex Toys

  • Distances measured in units of Wolverine

  • Ant-Man’s Trophy Room

  • Things Rob Liefeld Can Draw Better Than Anyone, Ever

This Week’s Comics

by Jesse

Another week, another strange half-dozen assorted comics.  There’s this week’s new and noteworthy titles.

Not your daddy's Prophet comic!

  • PROPHET #21 - The Rob’s Extreme relaunch begins here!  When comicdom’s best writers like Warren Ellis and Rick Remender praise Liefeld’s comics, you KNOW they’re going to be something special.  Prophet looks to be the best of them, as John Prophet’s story picks up years after the original Stephen Platt series and promises a more more European-style book.  I don’t know how much it’ll appeal to me, really, but I’ve GOT to check out such a drastic revamp.
  • STEED AND MRS PEEL #1 (OF 6) - This one is new to me, but it looks like a new Grant Morrison series, so I’m in.
  • SUPERIOR #7 (OF 7) - I picked up the first handful of issues before last year’s experiment and I’m astounded to see it hadn’t wrapped up yet.  And it looks like I hadn’t missed it that much.  
  • THUNDERBOLTS #169
  • VENOM #12 
  • VOLTRON #2 - The Voltron relaunch wasn’t especially good.  Give it a miss unless your love of the big guy won’t let you do otherwise.

If your area is anything like mine, Fatale #1 got a lot of press and sold out quickly.  And with good reason.  Brubaker and Phillips’ latest is essentially a Hellblazer noir title, and the mystery is pretty intriguing.  While the seemingly-endless run of new mysteries is unquestionably producing more misses than hits, this isn’t one of them.  These guys have a great, established track record and I’ll be picking this one up for a while.

That’s it for this week.  What’s looking good to you?

This Week’s Comics

by Jesse

There is just a huge amount of Marvel titles I’m looking at right now, both due to quality and an addiction the New 52 isn’t filling.  Here’s this week’s noteworthy titles.

  • AVENGERS #17
  • DAREDEVIL #4 - By all accounts, Mark Waid is knocking this one out of the park.
  • HULK #41
  • MARK TWAINS AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1910-2010 HC - Michael Kupperman’s new book finally makes it out this week!  Even though I miss Tales Designed To Thrizzle, getting a new OGN makes it all worthwhile.
  • RED WING #3 (OF 4) - I confess, Jonathan Hickman’s time travel epic hasn’t done a whole lot for me, but it’s still worth seeing where it goes.
  • TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #2 - I picked up the first issue last month and it was pretty solid.  I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, but I’m 90% sure this is an entirely new continuity. Worth picking up if you’re a fan of the Turtles.
  • THUNDERBOLTS #163 POINT ONE
  • X-MEN SCHISM #4 (OF 5)

The Rob and Robert Kirkman’s Infinite #2 shows a marked improvement over the first issue, although Rob, whose work is improving, still needs to focus on his consistency, as the pouches, pockets, straps, and miscellanea change with characters from panel to panel.  Even worse, the inconsistency occasionally spreads to Hi-Fi Design’s colors.  Kirkman’s story, though not revelatory, is solid and serves the story.

One benefit to waiting until Saturday to get new comics is that you have the opportunity to review your pull list between Wednesday and the trip to your comic shop.  After reading several positive reviews I decided to pick up Pigs #1, by Nate Cosby (former Incredible Hercules editor and source of that titles amazing onomatopoeias), Ben McCool, and Breno Tamura.  It’s not a perfect start, but it is a very good start.  I could have done with less pages of an old man on a bicycle — who only exists to get killed off — and more explanation of who the talking heads are, especially the Cuban family.  The investigators also reminded me more of TV police officers rather than federal agents.  Still, the intrigue of a KGB Cuban sleeper cell in the US is intriguing enough to keep me coming back through the first arc.  I’m hoping this book turns into The Losers, though that may just be the influence of the beautiful cover by Jock.

That’s it for me. What are YOU looking at?

This Week’s Comics

by Jesse

There’s a lot to talk about this week, including how strange it is to take a look through Diamond’s new releases and see so many #1′s. Which brings be to a question I’m throwing out to our reading public. Not that many folks have been following my experiment to pick up new releases on the cheap, but if you have, should I keep including DC books throughout this year for the purpose of the experiment?

It’s been going exceptionally well, picking up books a couple months later for under cover price, and if left to my own devices I would just drop all the DCU titles and be done with it. But I’m concerned that it would throw off the results, and I’m wondering if I should keep up the list with DCnU titles through the year for the sake of the experiment. If you have any thoughts, or just want to berate me for such a dumb stunt, hit us up in the comment section.

Meanwhile, here’s what’s noteworthy for this week.

  • 27 SECOND SET #1 (OF 4) - The first series had some promise but just never really jelled with me, unfortunately.
  • DAREDEVIL #3
  • FEAR ITSELF #6 (OF 7)
  • FEAR ITSELF HULK VS DRACULA #1 (OF 3) - I wonder if my ditching DC titles is going to lead to my making up for it with other books I would never otherwise pick up. This is a good case in point. I’m really just sucked in my the high concept, partially due to the Dracula/Sgt Fury WWII story I’m currently reading in some old Marvel Comics Presents. Ah, what’s the worst that could happen?
  • GHOST RIDER #3
  • GLADSTONES SCHOOL FOR WORLD CONQUERORS #5 - It’s strange, but I really think this is the title I look forward to most each month. Just an all around excellent title.
  • HERC #7
  • INFINITE #2 - I admit it, Infinite #1 wasn’t great. It was just too vague in all respects. Still, The Rob has had two books come out in two weeks, which means he’s put out more books in 8 days than Todd McFarlane has put out in the last decade.
  • NEW AVENGERS #16
  • UNCANNY X-FORCE #15 - My Rick Remender love continues unabated.

In other administrivia, you can now email Matt and I directly at matt or jesse at lemurcomics.com. We also have a fledgling Twitter feed up. Check out @LEMURComics for all the minor thoughts that enter our brain but aren’t enough for a full post.

Well, that’s it for me. What are YOU looking at?

This Week’s Comics

by Jesse

Another big week!  Here’s the new and noteworthy shipping from Diamond.

  • DC RETROACTIVE BATMAN THE 80S #1, DC RETROACTIVE THE FLASH THE 80S #1, and DC RETROACTIVE WONDER WOMAN THE 80S #1
  • FLASHPOINT #4 (OF 5)
  • HERC #6
  • HEROES FOR HIRE #10 - I managed to snag the first few issues and liked this a lot.  Good, solid superheroics in the street-level Marvel U.
  • HULK #38
  • INFINITE #1 - Robert Kirkman and The Rob have put together a book that promises to be a step out of 1994 like Prophet.  But that’s okay.  If there’s anything a recent re-reading of books like Brigade and Bloodstrike has taught me, it’s that in a sea of imitators Rob Liefeld still has something unique and valuable to offer.  Although how he’s going to draw this AND Hawk and Dove at the same time has me somewhat puzzled.
  • PUNISHER #1 - I’m just curious to see what Greg Rucka has in store.
  • ROGER LANGRIDGE SNARKED #0 - To be fair, even if it didn’t cost just a dollar I would buy anything after the words “Roger Langridge,” even if it was “Buries Jesse In A Shallow Grave”.
  • SHIELD #2
  • THUNDERBOLTS #161
  • WOLVERINE #13

In unrelated news, Marvel has jumped on the “put your shop on our cover” bandwagon.*  Figuring it worked for IDW with their cover of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1, Marvel is printing up variants of Amazing Spider-Man #666 with comic shop logos.  Which — don’t get me wrong — is a great gimmick to steal, but whereas IDW actually created minor changes to their art, Marvel is just copying and pasting image files.  Not quite as good a concept.  For what it’s worth, Mile High Comics is offering one of their variants FREE with any $20 order, as long as you ask for it in the comments section.  That’s a pretty solid deal.


Not much else on the list for this week.  That’s it for me.  What are YOU looking at?

*This is much like how they put out the 9-cent Fantastic Four issue after DC did the Batman: 10-Cent Adventure.

Random Links For Your Weekend

by Jesse

Random Links For Your Weekend

by Jesse

Wow, it’s been a while since we had a good link roundup.  Don’t worry, I’ve been saving them up.