Are you ready for another batch of comics? August has arrived and with it new series and new trades, all hand-picked by the crew of your friendly local comic shop. This month features reviews and recommendations from Elise, Sloane, Madison, and Nick, so read on and check out what caught our eyes. Who knows, maybe it’ll catch your interest too?
Reviews and Recommendations
Not to spoil anything, but if you’ve been reading Batman you should definitely take a look at Elise’s guide to the big upcoming crossover with it and Poison Ivy. It’s got coverage of the whole crossover, from August to October. We’ve also got a real fun variety of books arriving this month, from a new Rick Remender occult-heist-gone-wrong comic, the return of a new Miles Morales ongoing, and so much more.
Quick reminder: If you see something you want you can always reach out to us and ask us about ordering it or setting it aside for you, or head over to our subscription page and add it to your pull! Anything in these look aheads are ready for you to order.
Batman: Bad Seeds Reading Guide
Batman: Bad Seeds is an upcoming event for DC that will run from August until October and will be crossing over between Batman, Poison Ivy, Detective Comics, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, Nightwing, and Harley Quinn, and several new mini series and one-shots. With Poison Ivy as mayor of Gotham, trouble is growing in the form of an apocalypse of prehistoric plants taking over the city. DC describes the event as “... a Gotham City-wide crossover event told over one long, dark night of chaos and survival.” The lead up to this event started in Poison Ivy #45 at the beginning of June but it doesn’t kick off in earnest until this month.
Bad Seeds - Sunrise and Sunset seem to be the main books and essential reading to keep up with this event as well as Poison Ivy, Batman and Detective Comics. Matt Fraction’s Batman readers TAKE NOTE! Batman #13 and #14 will lead directly into Detective Comics #1113 and #1114 respectively so you may want to jump on Detective Comics for this one.
The new books you need to know about are:
Batman: Bad Seeds - Sunset (8/26, one-shot)
This is the true start of the event as Poison Ivy overtakes the city in a desperate grab for power with prehistoric plant life and Vandal Savage takes advantage of the chaos to try to take out all his enemies in one night.
Batman: Bad Seeds: Gotham General (Premiers 09/09, two-shot)
This is the book in this event I’m probably the most excited for. I love a really grounded story in a superhero setting. I love characters who are just some guy. I know what I’m about, I’ve read No Capes AU fanfiction. We’ve seen Gotham Central stories before but this is our first book focusing on Gotham General and it’s even being written by Greg Rucka! This is a story about a critically overwhelmed hospital in the craziest city in the country on one really bad night. It’s like The Pitt but Batman.
Batman: Bad Seeds: Gotham Central (Premiers 09/09, two-shot)
Christopher Cantwell is taking on Gotham Central as the only good cops left in Gotham are left to stand alone against the encroaching chaos. Vandal Savage is diverting GCPD’s resources to the fight the Bats and the Bats have their hands full with Poison Ivy so that leaves officer Gordon (the world’s oldest beat cop I swear to god) and his partner to try to keep order in Gotham’s streets.
Batman: Bad Seeds: Streets of Gotham (10/07, one-shot)
Eisner award winning writers Mariko Tamaki and Matt Fraction team up in this one shot anthology about average citizens of Gotham answering the call and stepping up to the plate as street level heroes in their right - protecting their families and neighbors and making the hard choices even when they’re scared.
Batman: Bad Seeds - Sunrise (10/28, one-shot)
The finale!
And the titles being crossed over are:
- Batman (#13-14)
- Poison Ivy (#47-49)
- Detective Comics (#1113-1114)
- Batgirl (#23-24)
- Batwoman (#7-8)
- Catwoman (#91-92)
- Nightwing (#142-143)
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Harley Quinn (#66-67)
Chachu
Image Comics
By Iman Vellani (writer), Marianna Ignazzi, and Jordie Bellaire (artists)
The year is 1979. Pakistani-Canadian teenager Laila strikes out on her own for the first time and heads to Los Angeles to reconnect with her estranged uncle. A semi-retired private eye, the two have to take an impromptu road trip when his wife goes missing. Part coming of age story, part period mystery, what’s really striking about this book is that it’s written by Iman Vellani, a young Pakistani-Canadian who moved to LA as a teenager and is writing at least in part from her own experience.
Iman Vellani is the actor who plays Ms. Marvel in the MCU. While she’s written a few comics before with other writers, this is her first series as a solo writer, and her first original story. She says the book “grew out of this tension between mourning my youth while I still have it, and an incessant urge to come-of-age already,” which I think are things a lot of us have felt. While a lot of actors turned comic writers feel like they’re doing it as vanity projects, Vellani has a long-standing passion for comics (part of how she got her job acting in comic book movies), and it feels like she actually has something to say.
The preview pages for this are gorgeous by the way. Mariana Ignazzi’s linework is simple, yet flowing and expressive, really capturing the point of view of a slightly naive, starstruck teenage girl, and Jordie Bellaire’s colors wash the art in the beautiful warm ochres and oranges of the SoCal sun. I’m sure I’ll be waiting with baited breath for every issue of this as it comes out.
- Sloane
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #1
Marvel Comics
By Bryan Hill (writer) and Nico Leon (artist)
Following his part in the resolution of the recent set of Ultimate Universe books, Miles is back with a new creative team and fresh first-issue. The perfect jumping on point for anyone looking to get started with the character who’s probably already familiar with the basics of his origin story. Which is, honestly, great. Miles has always kinda suffered from his creation within the ultimate universe and subsequent Secret Wars shenanigans that merged him into the main 616. People come looking for his origin story here at the shop…and no such book really exists (not really, not unless you’re willing to read a chunk of continuity involving the death of the ultimate universe Peter parker and everything that follows).
I think what Marvel is doing here is the right thing for the character – give him a solid, easy jumping on point that’s makes it easy for new readers to get on-board, while also giving the book over to someone who knows Miles’ own backstory well enough to take the character forward and keep building on the groundwork laid by the previous long-running writers. All that said, a quick and important note – this is gonna get treated like an entirely separate series from the previous one, so if Miles Morales: Spider-Man was one of your subscriptions before, make sure to add the new series to your box!
- Nick
Hammerfist
Image
By Rick Remender (writer) and Steve Epting (artist)
I love a heist. I’ve also got a soft spot for grouchy guys whose inner monologue sounds like they don’t know Max Payne is kind of a pathetic loser. I’ve been getting quite a bit of that latter vibe from Rick Remender’s other latest series, Escape (which I love), and it turns out he’s got a knack for that. He also understands that a heist isn’t interesting if something doesn’t go wrong, and in Hammerfist it goes REALLY wrong.
The first issue goes very quickly from Heat to Hellboy, complete with satanic rituals and a maybe-magically-infused giant gauntlet, the titular Hammerfist. Remender hits a lot of the classic tropes of this genre mash-up and hits them well, adding his own little touches to keep them fresh. If nothing else, I’m hooked for the second issue, and if Rick’s other work is anything to go by, I’ll stay that way until it’s wrapped up.
- Madison
Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy
DC/Vertigo
By Ram V (writer) and Mike Perkins (artist)
I have yet to read The Many Deaths of Laila Star (much to the chagrin of my coworkers), but I have read Ram V’s frankly excellent Dawnrunner, a slightly more introspective take on the mecha v. kaiju genre. Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy takes aim at magical secret societies ingrained within British intelligence agencies, protecting humanity from all sorts of esoteric nonsense. Of course the mentor of our would-be magical protagonist is named “Alistair.”
A mix of spy thriller and demonic horror, Black Tower seems as delightfully up-my-alley as giant mechs and wood-cut prints. Mike Perkins backs up Ram V with dark, gloomy art occasionally pierced by bright purples and oranges, sorcery and flames. A perfect fit for magical espionage. I’ll be reading this one from behind mirrored sunglasses and while practicing pagan witchery.
- Madison
Realligator
Bad Idea
By Robert Venditti, Brockton McKinney (writers) and Manix Abrera (artist)
Look I know I can be kind of a pretentious comics bastard sometimes, and I stand by that, but sometimes you want to read a comic that feels like it was doodled in the margins of a twelve-year-old boy’s science notebook. Drawn by Filipino cartoonist Manix Abrera, who has drawn primarily newspaper comics for the last 25 years, this book is that. It’s fun, it’s goofy, and it’s absolutely brimming with energy.
A man known only as The Hunter ventures deep into the African savannah to track down an undead beast that’s thought to be only a legend, but soon he and his crew realize that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Then they get merced by a giant reptilian zombie. Every panel is an insane messy drawing filled with blood, gore, sound effects, and evil undead alligator. SKRAAAASH! The monster lurches onto the page! SHWOK! SLOOOOOP! It swallows a man whole. BRATATATABLAMBLAM! The hunters fire at it with their rifles, but – SWOOOSH! – it slices them in half with its razor sharp tail!
(These are both real things that happen in the book and also real sound effects that they use. Other sound effects include “BLORK!”, “SPLORCH!” and “GOBBLE GOBBLE.” If that, like, sweetens the pot for you at all.)
I genuinely don’t know how to describe the gonzo energy that this book brings in every single panel of the preview I read. It probably has to do with Abrera’s background as a newspaper cartoonist, but the whole thing manages to be over-the-top, silly, and engaging the entire time. It’s easy to forget that comics are supposed to be fun with how serious so many of them are, but this one is a joy to read and look at. Sometimes you just gotta turn off your brain and read about a giant evil undead crocodilian, ya know?
- Sloane
Bug Wars: the Coming of the Wardoom
Image
By Jason Aaron (writer) and Mahmud Asrar (artist)
I was never a particularly big fan of Conan or any of its derivatives. Intense machismo, aggressive masculinity and muscled half-naked men are just not my vibe, so unless the “barbarian warrior” archetype is being filtered through a character like Red Sonja (thanks Gail Simone!) it will often be a hard pass for me. I had the same feeling about Bug Wars during the series’ initial run, but on a particularly boring day, I gave the trade paper-back a chance. What I got was a surprisingly delightful bug-filled adventure.
Part Conan, part Ant Bully (frankly shocked I remember enough about that movie to recall it in fondness here), Bug Wars lacks the aforementioned machismo I despise through the main character being a dorky little bug-nerd teenager, less interested in fighting than he is being friends with his pet beetle. Coming of the Wardoom is a continuation of the series that I’ve been looking forward to for the months since its announcement, and I can’t wait to stick my head back into some dorky bug violence.
- Madison
One-Shots & Graphic Novels
Just Another Summer
Maverick Studios
By Tilly & Susan Bridges (writer) and Giulia Rinaldo (artist)
I’ve got to admit, when I read through this initially I said, “Oh this is something Elise would probably like, but it doesn’t super look like the kinda story I enjoy.” And then Elise went on to write that huge Batman: Bad Seeds coverage instead of other reviews this month instead. Out of curiosity, I did some digging and what I found amused and kinda got me genuinely interested in reading this book, whose general premise is “celebrities do a dumb thing and get exiled to the countryside for the summer.”
And like…if that were it, I’d be a hard pass. But it’s got some cute queer characters and is disability inclusive in a way that you really just don’t see very often in YA books. By the time I finished doing my research, it was giving big queer hallmark movie vibes (but in the summer time) and y’know I’m kinda down for that. Plus Maverick has published a few other queer books that I super dig (see also both books of Last Session) and the Bridges have written a ton of other queer media. So yeah, thank you Elise for not writing about this. You’ve accidentally broadened my horizons (and reading pile) just a bit more!
- Nick
Fungirl Forever
Silver Sprocket
By Elizabeth Pich
As a horny irresponsible idiot bastard-mess who’s also a woman, Fungirl is probably the one of the most relatable characters in comics for me. I’ve been a fan of the character since the original Fungirl book back in 2021 where she fumbled her way through life in a series of gross-out, silly misadventures that would really only work in comic form. The art is simple and animated, and the plotlines are the kind of lowbrow that lends itself especially well to the level of abstraction that comes with the medium.
To drive that point home, here at some things that have happened in previous Fungirl books that you couldn’t get away with in, say, a tv show:
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Fungirl has an accident at her job at the funeral home and has to chase a coffin (and the cadaver that’s still in it) as it rolls away downhill.
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Fungirl drops her sandwich in the trash of a public bathroom. It ends up covered in used pads and condoms, but after picking them off Fungirl says, “It’s not bad.”
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Fungirl rides a man’s face so hard she rips it off with her vulva.
Despite Fungirl’s inherent trashiness, Pich’s talent as a comics artist really elevates what could be a bunch of cheap throwaway gags into what I think stand up as some really well-made (if obviously slapstick) comics. The pacing and timing of the jokes are perfect, and the art is kinetic not despite, but because of its simplicity. They’re just solid, well put together comics, the kind of thing I’d show someone if I wanted to sell them on the idea of the medium, and I’m excited to read their first full-length collection in five years.
- Sloane
Upcoming Comic Catalogs
Wondering where we find all of these books? We go through a number of upcoming comic book catalogs, which you can find below. If you want to do some digging for something we might have missed, please have a look! If you find anything you want, just head over to our subscription page to place a preorder or update your subscription.
(Quick word of caution - the Next Phase catalogs are very large and may take a while to download!)
June Comic Catalogs (August Releases)
DC | Marvel | Image | Dark Horse | DSTLRY | IDW | Boom | Oni | Titan | PRH Panels | Next Phase
July Comic Catalogs (September Releases)
DC | Marvel | Image | Dark Horse | DSTLRY | IDW | Boom | Oni Press | Titan | PRH Panels | Next Phase
August Comic Catalogs (October Releases)
DC | Marvel | Image | Dark Horse | DSTLRY | IDW | Boom | Oni | Titan | PRH Panels | Next Phase
And that’s a wrap for August! Thank you for reading, and we hope that a couple of these books piqued your interest. If you see something you want please reach out to us and ask us about ordering it or setting it aside for you, or head over to our subscription page and add it to your pull!