Hey there friends! Summer is here and with it comes a cavalcade of new comics! Check out our team’s recommendations for new series, ones shots, and graphic novels coming out this July, from our team to you.
Reviews and Recommendations
The height of summer isn't usually a big jumping on point for a lot of comics, but Sloane, Nick, and Madi found some great books for you to take a peak at. DC and Ignition both have some really cool new books launching, and Marvel's got a ton of one-shots and summer specials (including the new Marvel Swimsuit special that dropped at the very top of the month). So have a read and see if any of them appeal to you!
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.
Clayface: Celebrity Dirt
DC Comics
By Jude Ellison S. Doyle (writer) and Fran Galan (artist)
If I’m going to read body horror comics, I want trans people to be writing them. I mean think about it. Maybe we’re not melting into puddles of goo, and don’t have aliens bursting out of our chests, but gender dysphoria is basically a low grade body horror that I have to deal with every day. Some of the shit that my body is doing is just wrong. It’s not the right shape or size. It grows hair in ways or places it shouldn’t. I have a slightly more intrinsic understanding of body horror because I’m living it every day.
If I were a betting person, I’d guess that the only reason that DC is publishing a Clayface comic right now is to cash in on the upcoming movie, but that doesn’t mean I’m any less excited for it. I don’t care about the movie, but what I do care about is that DC has tapped Jude Ellison S. Doyle to write the book. Doyle’s been writing smart, transy horror comics for a while now, and while I don’t have any expectation that Clayface is going to be overtly trans, I can’t imagine that his experiences as a trans person won’t inform his writing here in the same way they inform the rest of his comics. Doyle feels like a perfect choice to write a character who can change his form at will but is struggling more to pin down his own identity.
This mini-series follows horror-movie-actor-turned-supervillain Basil Karlo in what DC’s press releases describe as “a twisted tale of fame, transformation, and self-destruction,” as he escapes from Arkham Asylum only to discover that someone else has assumed his identity and has been living and working as him while he was locked up. In addition to whatever interesting things the script has to say about identity, what really cinches this book for me as worth reading is the art. The preview pages toe a delicate line between classic monster movies, a cartoonish take on film noir à la Batman: The Animated Series, and gross-out, gory body horror. They’re a joy to look at, and leave me so excited to check this book out when it’s finally released. I frankly couldn’t care less about the upcoming movie, but if it’s the reason we get this comic I’m excited for it.
- Sloane
Sicko
Ignition Press
By Tini Howard (writer) and Amilcar Pinna (artist)
I was a massive MASSIVE fan of Tini Howard’s Marian Heretic from late last year, enough so that it put her name on my radar for any of her future projects. Yes, I came for the lesbian battle nuns, but I stayed for the anti-fascist feminist action romp that had me smiling in delight the whole way through. Sicko will be the second series from Howard that I will have the chance to read on release, and from what I’ve seen it’ll be my grossly considerable pleasure to do so.
Conceptually, Sicko follows Valentine Virago, a sufferer of a rare, unclassified auto-immune disorder. Even more unfortunately for her, her immune system isn’t content with keeping its attacks internal. One can imagine that someone whose body has turned itself into a bio-weapon isn’t likely to be left alone by the world at large. Promising disgusting bodily horror, conflict with the American medical system, and a surrealist take on the connection between our sense of self and fragile bodies, Tini Howard has locked in on something incredibly interesting, if not potentially immensely potent and timely.
- Madison
Dark Knights of Steel II
DC Comics
By Tom Taylor (writer) and Otto Schmidt (artist)
I do love me a Tom Taylor book, and the original Dark Knights of Steel series was just an incredibly fun read. It’s classic DC Elseworld material (DC’s version of the “What If…?” series but with whole story arcs to develop the idea) that imagines a version of heroes in a medieval setting brought about by the crash-landing of Superman’s family’s spaceship. Jor-El and Lar-El were king and queen in the original series with Clark and Bruce as prince and knight respectively. Without going too much more into the plot of the original series, I enjoyed it immensely and it was clear from the writing that Tom had a lot of fun playing with different takes on some classic Justice Leaguer origin stories.
And now he’s back for a second round! This time focusing on a conflict with Atlantis. Because let’s face it - Atlantis and Aquaman slot super easily into a fantasy setting. I’m really looking forward to more of this book, and i can’t wait to see where Tom Taylor takes it. I’m a little sad that the original artist Yasmine Putri couldn’t return to work on the sequel, but that said Otto Schmidt’s art over on DC vs Vampires was great and I’m genuinely curious to see how he adapts his style to a fantasy setting.
- Nick
Minotaur
Ignition Press
By Simon Spurrier (writer) and Michael Dowling (artist)
I, like many others, really really like Terminator (the first two at least) and the Matrix (all of them, they’re all good). The only relevance that has here is the sort-of foundational background of those movies being that a supercomputer takes over the world, and humanity is either on the brink of extinction or used as human batteries. These kinds of stories have existed for a very long time, and even the earliest examples don’t often have there be a middle-ground of existence between humanity and whatever mechanical menace has set its sights on us (yes I know that does happen in Matrix 4, spoilers). Minotaur seems to address that discrepancy in a fascinating way.
Instead of a world where the machines have already won, or are in the terrifying process of winning, Simon Spurrier imagines that the nightmare almost happened. Unfortunately for us, before being shut off, the Skynet-like supercomputer was halfway successful in bringing about the AI apocalypse. Bits of the future, terrifyingly advanced, plague the present and herald in their own sense of horror.
I love science-fiction, and Spurrier’s vision for this kind of future is one I’m very interested in seeing.
- Madison
One-Shots & Graphic Novels
What if…? Jessica Jones #1
Marvel Comics
By Justina Ireland (writer) and David Messina (artist)
When I was younger the Marvel character I related most to was Spider-Man, but these days I feel like the only one I still see myself in is Jessica Jones. So imagine my surprise to see that Marvel is putting out a title this month that rolls both characters into one! This special issue imagines a universe in which Jessica got bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker. (This could have happened! Canonically, Earth-616 Jessica and Peter went to school together.) The sensational Spider-Girl was active when she was a teenager, but now she’s retired to working as a bartender and is doing her best to be done with her old life. But when the Green Goblin returns, she discovers that maybe the old life isn’t quite done with her. Echoing a lot of the classic Alias series with a spiderly twist, this is a definite must-read for anyone else who’s followed the same “gifted teenage boy to thirty-something female burnout” pipeline that I have.
Also, secretly, this look-ahead is a backdoor to remind all the Marvel Fans out there that we have a whole mess of other What If…? comics coming out in June as well! More issues featuring Spider-Man, Secret Wars, and an alternate version of “Kraven’s Last Hunt” (by the storyline’s original writer!) are all coming out this month too – so if you’re in the market for fun, alternate-universe Marvel titles, now’s the time to get them.
- Sloane
X-Men Hellfire Murder
Marvel Comics
By Saladin Ahmed, Jed Mackay, Gail Simone, Eve Ewing, and Erica Schultz (writers) and
Tony Daniel, Federica Mancin, and Luciano Vecchio (artists)
Marvel is continuing its tradition of summer Hellfire events for the X-Line and this year it’s a closed-door murder mystery with Wolverine and Jubilee charged with solving the murder of an iconic mutant power-player. This year’s theme looks like a masquerade event, so expect high-mutant fashion, weird masks, and a classic whodunnit mystery all wrapped up into one issue. This is also an anthology book that wraps up and caps off plots and story from across the x-line, so if you’re reading any of the current x-books I would definitely consider picking this one up. If for no other reason than the really cool costumes and gallery pages that inevitably make it into this book.
- Nick
Kloud 9: The Star Soldier
Top Shelf Productions
By AJ O. Mason (writer) and Dominic Bustamante (artist)
It was pointed out to me a few months ago by one of our regulars that (at least when it came to queer comics) all of the books I was ordering and recommending to people were about trans people and lesbians because that’s what I was intrinsically interested in as a non-binary lesbian, and that as a cis gay man he was kind of underserved by our selection. I’m really glad he pointed that out to me, and it really caused me to consider the ways that I really haven’t included cis men enough not only in my thinking about the store’s queer section, but also my life in general. Since then I’ve resolved to go out of my way to order more comics about cis gay men – to really make more space for them here in the shop and ensure that they don’t feel left out. And I think that our selection and our community are better for it.
That said, this was one of the graphic novels that came across my radar in my hunt for more books about gay boys, and it genuinely looks super cute. It reminds me a lot of the kind of stories I used to read when I was in my early teens: a regular young adult gets swept up in a galaxy spanning adventure where there are relatable characters, real problems, and a little bit of romance. A lonely teenager named Kal meets an alien soldier named Cosmo who’s crash landed on our planet, and the two form a quick connection. When Cosmo’s past catches up with him, Kal is forced to decide between staying home on Earth or following his crush into space.
It’s sometimes hard to sell me on sci-fi, but I do have a little bit of a weakness for gay space operas. (Some of my favorite comics are Invisible Kingdom and On a Sunbeam.) There’s just something to be said about falling in love against the backdrop of exotic planets in the vast expanse of space. The book hasn’t gotten a tremendous amount of press so far, in part because its creators are both pretty independent, but it’s AJ O. Mason and Dominic Bustamante’s debut graphic novel after years of more indie stuff, and is slated to be the beginning of a trilogy if it does well. I just wanted to feature it here because it looks adorable and deserves every bit of press it can get.
- 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!)
May Comic Catalogs (July Releases)
DC | Marvel | Image | Dark Horse | DSTLRY | IDW | Boom | Titan | PRH Panels | Next Phase
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
And that’s a wrap for July! 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!