Howdy folks! Summer’s in full swing here in the PNW, and with it come a host of new books for you to chill out and read while you beat the heat. So if you’re looking for something new for your subscription list, read on and let’s see what our team found for you!

Reviews and Recommendations

August’s reviews and recommendations, as always are brought to you by the friendly folks on Team Phoenix. This month you’ve got reviews from Nick, Max,and Sloane!  As always - if you do see something you want to order just reach out to us via the subscription update form, or send us an email and we'll get your order processed. Also let us know if you read a review that really sparked your curiosity next time you're in the shop. Feedback is always appreciated and welcome.

The Power Fantasy

Image Comics

By Kieron Gillen (writer) and Caspar Wijngaard (artist)

Okay before I get into the review itself you have to know that I had to call dibs on writing about this book SIX MONTHS AGO when it was announced at Emerald City Comic Con. I had to fight Sloane and Max for this and defeat them in single combat (which is hard cause Sloane knows her axes).

Anyways.

The year is 1945 and the first ‘extranormal’ individuals have appeared. Some described them as having “superpowers.”  

They were wrong. We now know that superpower has a specific technical meaning. 

To be a “superpower” means you possess the destructive capacity of the nuclear arsenal of the United States.

There are now six superpowered beings on the planet. Earth’s continued existence relies on them never coming into conflict.

That cute little synopsis is the premise behind The Power Fantasy. And it is just as awesome and intense as it sounds. Kieron and Caspar put out a pre-print preview of issue #1, and hot damn if it isn’t one of the best things I’ve read this year. It lays out its core concepts beautifully, and while never openly showing two of these superpowers coming into conflict, drops enough context to show you that true to form, if any of these folks really cut loose it would be bad for everyone nearby (and by ‘nearby’ I mean on the same continent). Their only recourse is a balancing act, meticulously maintained by a series of alliances and agreements between each other. 

The art in this book is gorgeous too. Caspar does such a fantastic job of giving each superpower a distinctive style. And the way each of them change as they escalate / power up is detailed beautifully in the opening of the book. It works seamlessly with Kieron’s writing to give this world a lived in feel that immediately had me re-reading the issue once I finished it hoping to glean just a few more details out of every panel. 

Please do yourself a favor and read this book? You’ll know it when it comes out. It’ll be the one with at least three “pick of the week” names on it, if not more.

- Nick

Red Before Black

Boom! Studios

By Stephanie Phillips (writer) and Goran Sudžuka (artist)

Okay honestly I feel like you can tell why I’m into this book just by looking at the cover. (Hint: I’m gay.) But the more I read about it and look at preview pages the more excited I am? On the surface, the book is a grounded crime story, about two women who get tangled up in the seedy underbelly of Miami and after they’re at first pitted against each other, they realize they have to band together to survive. They end up as a classic two-women-against-the-world crime duo – think Thelma and Louise, or Harley and Ivy – in a kinetic thriller. It’s a tale as old as time, and combined with art that perfectly matches the tone by Goran Sudžuka (Y: The Last Man) it already seems like a book that I’d be interested in.

But what’s really got me excited about this book is the third main character, Florida itself. A lot like store-favorite comic Nights, Red Before Black takes place in a version of Florida that’s not quite the one in our world. It’s heightened, and dials the weirdness up to eleven with magical realism like a commune of psychics, mermaids, and roadside alligator wrestling. Writer Stephanie Phillips is a Florida native, and the more unrealistic, surreal elements of the book are all based on her own experiences there. This extra level of swampy weirdness is what really pushes the book over the top for me. I’m excited to see how the narrative twists, turns, and coils from an intense crime comic into something strange. 

- Sloane

Gotham City Sirens

DC Comics

By Leah Williams (writer) and Daniel Hillyard (artist)

So I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The bad news is that if you’re reading Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, or Catwoman, they’re all going on hiatus for the month of August. The good news, however, is that every week this month we’re getting a book with all three of them – that’s right, Gotham City Sirens is BACK, baby!

For those of you who don’t know, the book is the newest incarnation of a classic team-up between the three anti-heroines, and this new version looks off-the-wall. Channeling a lot of the same irreverent ‘girl power’ energy as the recent X-Men spinoff X-Terminators, this book pits our titular trio against an array of villains that include Punchline, an evil energy drink corporation, and two shirtless-cowboy-himbo-henchmen (try saying that five times fast!) called ‘The Nasty Boys.’ With Leah Williams writing, and an alternating team of Matteo Lolli and Daniel Hillyard on art, this book promises to be a fun interlude for all of our favorite series.

- Sloane

Universal Monsters: Frankenstein

 

Image

By Michael Walsh (w/a/ca)

The Dark Universe prevails! Returning with another entry into the Universal Monsters anthology, Image has recruited Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin) to take on the big green guy. In this new vision of the horror classic, Dr. Henry Frankenstein hunts for body parts to create new life, unknowingly recovering the corpse of a father being mourned by his son. Each issue will cover Frankenstein’s journey to create the Monster, or whatever you want to call it, piece by piece.

Like I said in my look ahead for Creature from the Black Lagoon, I always have fun with classic monster stuff. I love how writers constantly have ever-evolving takes on the source material. I’ve seen Dracula used as a metaphor for religious perversion; The Mummy used to denounce colonialist archaeological practices; even the Wolf Man to convey the harrowing process of puberty and playing high school basketball or lacrosse depending on which Teen Wolf you watched. Super excited for this one! 

- Max

S.I.R.

Boom Studios

By Fell Hound (writer/artist)

It’s motorcycle jousting. 

MOTORCYCLE JOUSTING. 

Need I say more?

Well I’m going to. IT’S ALSO GAY.

I am an avid reader of anything sapphic and anything ridiculous, and this is a blend of both! Looking for a new chance at love with her ex-girlfriend, Avery throws herself into the world of Motorcycle Jousting when she joins the Seismic Ironclash Roulette! Writer and artist Fell Hound has said this comic is a “re-imagining of Fight Club as a 90s Shojo Anime…on motorbikes!” 

- Max

From The Ashes - An X-Men Relaunch

Alrighty folks. We’ve gotten a number of people asking about this, so here’s the rundown on the X-Line relaunch that’s happening. Based on the information we’ve been seeing here at the store and in the industry, we’ll be getting a core group of 3 books, a secondary line of 3 more team books that may or may not be mini-series, and a bunch of 4-6 issue mini-series. If that sounds a little intimidating - don’t worry too much! The core line and the secondary team line-up will be all that’s coming out for July and August, and you’ve got til September to decide which of the mini-series you’ll want to follow.  Anyways, here’s the full roll-out as we have it currently:

Core Team Line

• X-Men (Jed Mackay / Ryan Stegman) - July
• Uncanny X-Men (Gail Simone / David Marquez) - August
• Exceptional X-Men (Eve Ewing / Carmen Carnero) - September

Secondary Team Line

• X-Force (Geoffrey Thorne / Marcus To) - July
• NYX (Collin Kelley / Jackson Lanzing) - July
• X-Factor ( Mark Russell / Bob Quinn) - August

The Mini-Serieseses

• Phoenix (Stephanie Phillips / Alessandro Miracolo) - July
• Dazzler (Jason Loo / Rafael Loureiro) - September
• Wolverine (Saladin Ahmed / Martin Coccolo) - September
• Mystique (Declan Shalvey) - October 
• Sentinels (Alex Packnadel / Justin Mason) - October
• Storm (Murewa Ayodele / Lucas Werneck) - October

One-Shots & Graphic Novels

New comic series not your bag? That’s okay! We’ve got a few new fun one-shot comics and new graphic novels here for your perusal too. This month features some silver sprocket fun times, a cute new rom-com manga, and the blood curdling first volume of a new horror series. Enjoy!

PeePee PooPoo #1

Silver Sprocket

By Caroline Cash

Caroline Cash has been writing my favorite queer auto-bio comics for years now. They perfectly capture the spirit of the old, weird underground comics magazines from the 60s and 70s, but update it for a more modern audience by being gayer, more irreverent, and less skeevy towards women. She writes about days you’ve had, or people you’ve met at a party, with expressive doodles that bring to mind comic strip classics like Calvin and Hobbes or Nancy. This is going to sound like an exaggeration, but I have never seen my experience as a grubby little city queer reflected as accurately (or as humorously) as it is in her work. 

PeePee PooPoo #1 is the newest installment of the PeePee PooPoo series, and it’s simultaneously somehow the fourth issue and also the first. It’s got comics about gender roles, Caroline’s first date since the pandemic, and of course pee pee and poo poo. I am not kidding when I say this and every issue are must reads if you like… idk, comics at all honestly. They really capture the joy, humor and surprise that are integral to so much of the medium. Like as stupid as I’ve maybe made them sound, these are genuinely some of my favorite comics around, and it’s a joy every time a new installment comes out.

It’s a real poo poo pee pee world out there.

- Sloane

Pupposites Attract

 

Kodansha Comics

By Sei Kamiizumi (writer) and EDO (artist)

I’m always in the mood for a feel-good romance. I’m also always in the mood for a good enemies-to-lovers story. I also miss my dog, Olive. She’s not dead, my mom just moved to Spokane and took Olive with her. This new manga from Kodansha is weirdly all three at the same time! Chiharu, along with her scaredy-cat rottweiler Tsubu-Chan, keeps running into Kiyotaka and his outgoing pomeranian, Monjuro. At first, they’re like oil and water. However, as their chance encounters happen more and more, their feelings change. Enemies become friends, and friends turn into…I don’t actually know with these romance mangas, it could really go either way. I guess we’ll have to read it! 

- Max

Feral Volume 1

Image Comics

By Tony Fleecs (writer) and Trish Forstner (artist)

Okay you trade-waiters - Feral is here! If you like cats, survival horror, and a steadily increasing feeling that nothing will ever be okay BOY DO I HAVE A COMIC FOR YOU. If you missed my earlier coverage of this book, here’s a quick summary - in the middle of a great big terrifyingly contagious rabies outbreak, a truck ferrying a bunch of domesticated and stray cats crashes and lets them loose into a big forest. Think Milo and Otis but all the animals are out to murder them AND a single scratch could prove fatal.

- Nick

And that's it for our August look aheads! Next month's look aheads should be up by early-mid August for September. Thanks for reading, and if you saw something you wanted to add to your pull (or want to start a subscription for the book), use our handy little google form and submit that request! We'll get right on that.