Comics I read and Chris Roberson's "Memorial" comes out on Wednesday

As a reminder, Chris Roberson's hotly anticipated new series Memorial starts on Wednesday. If you're in Austin, he'll be at Austin Books and Comics in the afternoon from 1-4 to sign copies (I'm getting my copy signed).

If'n you haven't read any of Chris' work, this is a great opportunity to jump on and see why I keep talking about this guy.

Some other stuff:

Tintin - Secret of the Unicorn: I'm the guy who keeps going "oooooooooh...!" at the trailer for the new Tintin movie, and so I read the book Secret of the Unicorn this week.  Its a very manageable volume, but also, apparently, part 1 of the story.  So, while I was a bit thrown by the fact that the story didn't actually end, I also just emailed Austin Books to see if they had a copy of the subsequent volumes.

As you know, I'm a Scrooge and Donald Duck fan, and this is in roughly the same sort of vein of high adventure, but with a lot of goofy stuff happening around the characters and our heroes being a bit off-kilter themselves.  Its also amazing how much of a master of the form Hergé was as far back as these stories first appeared. Today's action strip artists could most certainly learn quite a bit about pacing and scene management from Tintin.

Incorruptible Volume 4: I've been a fan of Mark Waid's "superhero" work at Boom! with the pairing of Irredeemable and Incorruptible. I did fall a bit behind on my reading of these series, and I'm now trying to catch up, but I hadn't forgotten how much I like how Waid's exploring the central thesis in each book of the hero turned mad/ WMD, and the villain who, in a world gone crazy sees the only sensible thing to do is fight on the side of the angels, even if he has no idea how that works and the people around him are all terribly, humanly uneven in their own approaches to life.

Just a great series for the superhero fan who can't deal with another reboot, civil war, etc... Its some dark stuff, but its smartly done and is genuinely building a coherent storyline. Someting I'm not sure you can say about most of the New 52.


Billy Tucci's A Child is Born: I actually bought this to hand off to my mother and forgot to bring it to her house, so guess what she's getting in her stocking... No surprises here for content if you've been to an advent or Christmas Eve service and paid attention. But its a wonderfully drawn comic (even if I don't always agree with Tucci's page layouts).

The Ray #1: This was a sharp, funny read and a revamped DCU hero, but don't let that scare you off. Its also an origin story, but a little off-the-wall, and without trying to lay too much ground work with men in armor, etc... and a charming protagonist with a good-natured approach to the completely bizarre circumstances of his new state as a being of living light. Good stuff.

Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #4: A very ridiculous book that embraces its abso-ludicrousness, still one of my top favorite New 52 releases. Now that we've got the band together and see what their world is like, I hope Lemire begins circling back to making us actually care about the characters.

Star Trek/ Legion of Super-Heroes #3: Man, this books is sort of the ultimate nerd payoff. A wild mix of the two distinct universes that smartly understands and articulates how and why these two separate teams would be able to mesh quickly even after an initial misunderstanding. Clearly writer Chris Roberson knows his Trek and Legion. Sure, its non-canon for both, but its still a surprisingly fun read and knows the canon well enough that it fits right in.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7: Mr. Kupperman, you were away far too long, but we are glad to have you back. I may not cry from laughing at this series anymore the way I did when I picked up my first issue (Snake n' Bacon no longer take me utterly by surprise), but the same punchiness is still there, and the same absurd sense of humor that's making Kupperman's Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 such a great read is all here in this issue. Only with more Quincy, ME.