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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Comic Books The Best Three Comics I Read This Week

Posted by Erik Henriksen on Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 1:45 PM

While we cover a ton of graphic novels and collected comics in the Mercury (like here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and...), we don't showcase individual issues that often. With that in mind, here are three of my favorite single issues I read in the past few days; depending on my less-than-predictable levels of motivation, who knows, maybe I'll try to do this more regularly.

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  • Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #155 by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Samnee

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #155 by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Samnee. For—jesus christ, really?—a decade, Bendis' Spider-Man series has the only ongoing superhero book I've been consistently impressed by. Last week's issue, in which Bendis teamed up with artist Chris Samnee, was one of the long-running series' highlights. Plot-wise, it tied up a lot of plot threads that've been dangling for the past few months, but even if you're new to the book, it's worth reading this issue: Samnee's art is striking and expressive (and Justin Ponsor's colors are excellent), while Bendis' dialogue is sharp, clever, and insightful. This is a book that's less about Spider-Man and more about Peter Parker; reading it, it's impossible not to remember what it was like to be a teenager, with all of the accompanying excitement and awkwardness. Oh, god, the awkwardness.

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  • THB: Comics from Mars #2 by Paul Pope

THB: Comics from Mars #2 by Paul Pope. This one's been out for a while, but my lazy ass just barely got around to reading it. Collecting a couple of different stories—it's billed as "a six-act fiction, larger than life, and still sweeter"—Comics from Mars kicks off with its strongest story, "1977," in which a little kid asks a very important question: "Is Ziggy Stardust really a man from Mars?" What follows is a trippy, dense, confusing, and visually overwhelming smorgasbord of comedy, science-fiction, and action. If you like Paul Pope—and if you like comics, chances are you do—well, here's some more rad, crazy, cool Paul Pope stuff for you. Enjoy.

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  • The Guild: Tink by Felicia Day, art by Kristian Donaldson and Evan Bryce

The Guild: Tink by Felicia Day and (deep breath...) Kristian Donaldson, Evan Bryce, Jeremy Bastian, Wellington Alves, Jason Gorder, Tim Seeley, and Adam Warren, with covers by Ron Chan and Peter Bagge. I've been pretty public about my affection for The Guild, Felicia Day's webseries about a bunch of MMO gamers, but what I don't think I've said is that I think Day's comics based on the show are some of the best books on the shelves at the moment—they're funny, charming, and a little bit sad. Thanks to a massive and schizophrenic collection of artists crammed into a mere 22 pages (including Kristian Donaldson, who worked with the Mercury's Ann Romano in MySpace Dark Horse Presents #20), The Guild: Tink doesn't flow as well as some of the previous Guild comics, but still, like I said: funny, charming, and a little bit sad. And! Bonus points for containing the phrase "Die, anachronistic, medieval game environment! DIEEEEE!"

 

Comments (5) RSS

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1
I´ve always thought that at some point in one of the songs in which Ziggy Stardust is mentioned, it refers to Hendrix. Don´t remember which-line-in-which-song. But it´s said that in different songs it refers to different musicians or artists of the 60´s 70´. Appart from being one of many Bowie´s own Characters.

The last comic looks pretty cool. Today I went on my search of X-Force bunk downloads, but found it hard to come up with more than one. I have a few in physical but I need to read since #1 on onwards which I own. I know, there´s like 16 years of reading the series plus composite plots, but if I have to read a comic book...
Posted by Leaky on March 17, 2011 at 4:55 PM · Report
2
Oh, the second one looks wicked as well...
Posted by Leaky on March 17, 2011 at 4:57 PM · Report
3
"...it's impossible not to remember what it was like to be a teenager..."

You may be right, but it's a worthwhile goal...
Posted by Todd Mecklem on March 17, 2011 at 8:01 PM · Report
4
Yes, Erik, do this every week please.

The only new comic I bought this week was Ed Brubaker's Fear Itself prologue, Book of the Skull. Any story that combines WWII, Evil Nazis, and the Occult (Hellboy, Ultimate Thor) is gonna be pretty great. I loved it, and can't wait for the full Matt Fraction-penned mini. Marvel does events right. DC's are so convoluted by their own dull mythology that I don't even bother. Did ANYone enjoy Darkest Night / Brightest Day?
Posted by Zed on March 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM · Report
5
@Zed. I haven´t read em, but am gonna look for em. Sounds like fun.
Posted by Leaky on March 18, 2011 at 4:32 PM · Report

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