Broken Frontier

Lee Newman, the man who pops out reviews at Broken Frontier with more regularity than Wolverine pops out his claws, begins a new monthly feature this week. Join Lee as he scours the pages of Previews to pick out the most interesting projects out in June...

Hey everybody. I’m the new kid in town and just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I’m the guy shooting out reviews left and right, but I also happen to manage a comic shop. I work for Ultimate Comics in North Carolina. We are a small local chain based in Chapel Hill and Durham. We have a huge subscriber base and three stores that cater to very different customer bases.

All righty, so once a month there is a book released that is more fun for me than any other comic related product that comes out. It is Diamond’s monthly Previews catalog. This phone book-sized book is a showcase for all the comics that may (or may not) come out in about two months time. As a retailer it is the single most important tool we are given. It is what we use to gauge orders. How do the companies show off their product? Do they grab our eye? It gives the diligent customers a chance to add things far in advance to their pull lists. Towards the end of the month, each of the company’s managers takes time to go through it and let the ordering manager know how many shelf copies of each title they think will be able to sell through in 30 days.

Frederik, the great editor-in-chief of this very website, noticed that I have an eye for a broad variety of comics and I guess he thought I would be as good as anyone to highlight the books for folks who may not want to spend the hour or two it takes to comb through it. So, here’s how this will work. DC, Marvel, Image and Dark Horse have those bright pretty and fairly large sections in the front and do a good job drawing your eye to their product. I really plan on only hitting one or two items from them. Between the coverage in Lowdown and Headlines, I am sure most of their books will be visible to you in the coming month. Most of my time will be spent in the back, checking out all those Indie books that you have never heard of and letting you know why this one or that one is worth checking out, and maybe occasionally tell you why to avoid a particular book like the plague.

So here goes nothing…

Marvel

Thumbing through Marvel’s little separate catalog there are only two things that stand out to me. The first is Eternals #1 (right). I am a Kirby nut, so that is a plus there. I am also a Gaiman nut, and this run is based on his mini with John Romita Jr. (another surefire way to get me to read a book is to have him draw it). Finally, it is written by the Knaufs, who have made Iron Man a compelling read since Ellis left. Art by someone as arresting as Daniel Acuna is a good thing as well.

The other thing of note is the Marvel Premiere Classic Hardcover of Marvels. This one hits me in all the right spots. First of all I absolutely love the format, have them all and will continue to get them all until they start doing things like Marvel Premiere Classics of The Clone Saga. Secondly, I didn’t read comics for most of the Nineties, so I missed out on the book and have not gotten around to picking it up yet. I know enough about the book to be able to sell it to the right customer, but have never actually read it myself.

DC

Action Comics #866 - Action has been my favorite Geoff Johns project since he became DC’s "go to" guy. I love Booster Gold and Green Lantern, but something about his entire run on Action just makes me happy. It has been solid and consistent from the beginning. This issue is the start of a new storyline, featuring Brainiac and I get to see Frank draw Kandor, so it’s all good to me. Really, Johns on Action has been the reason that I have come to love Superman.

The other shining spot in their slate for June is a shocker to even me. Minx is not a line targeted at me. My daughter digs them, but I have not been able to trudge through one as of yet. This all changes in June when Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, the indie auteurs behind Local, one of the best comic book series ever, bring us The New York Four . The solicitation talks about what it is, but who cares? It's the guys who made Local!

DC/Minx's The New York Four, Dark Horse's Indiana Jones and Image's War Heroes

Dark Horse

It’s all about the licensed product with them this month. There is a new Indiana Jones movie so there is a new Indy Comic, sold. The other is this giant Luke Skywalker Omnibus thing, also sold. Well it's hardcover and omnibus – so it’s already kryptonite to my one collector bone left, but then there is also Dark Empire in it, which is the ONLY thing outside the original Star Wars trilogy that I truly love.

Image

Image is trying to make it all hard on me with a whole slew of #1s, but the thing that stands out to me is War Heroes. I have greatly enjoyed all of the Millar World stuff thus far – that reminds me, I need to read Chosen – so this is obviously at the top. For Millar to be bandying about that this is the culmination of where he was going with books like The Authority and The Ultimates, means he is calling me out. It helps that there is art by Tony Harris who works another personal fave entitled Ex Machina.

And the rest…

Superior Showcase #3 (right) from Adhouse books, spinning out of their highly acclaimed Project: Superior, this book was the highlight of my first Free Comic Book Day a couple years ago. Three years later and the third installment of the best superhero anthology ever hits the stands.

American Terror Volume 1: Confession of a Human Smart Bomb from Alterna Comics, got to give to the new guys for thinking up good concepts. After a war that turns the world peaceful a veteran wants people to remember. Sounds like a post-apocalyptic V for Vendetta to me.

I’ve never heard of Bighead Press before, but Roswell, Texas is in that Scott Pilgrim manga-like format and tells of an America that is significantly different than ours. Any book that has Nazis and half the world chasing down the Aliens in Roswell, well that’s got to be fun right?

The most impressive new publisher in the last couple of months has to be Radical Publishing. With an art director by the name of Steranko and impressive looking number ones in Hercules and Caliber, plus the most beautiful FCBD book I have ever seen, these guys want your money bad. This month in addition to the second installment of their monthly launch titles mentioned previously, there is a gorgeous rendition of Mozart’s Magic Flute adapted and illustrated by Yoshitake Amano (Sandman: The Dream Hunters) entitled Mateka.

Viper is one of my favorite publishers as they produce odd & highly entertaining books ranging from Dead@17 to The Sleepy Truth. They are one of the companies I always keep my eye on and this month they hit with Kid Houdini and the Silver Misfits (right) from Dwight MacPherson. Besides being a really nice guy… MacPherson impressed me with Edgar Allen Poo. Seems here he will give the same kind of zany all-ages approach to the greatest escape artist the world has ever known.

Zenescope continues its onslaught of horror books this month with an adaptation of the Michael Marshall novel Straw Men and a new Grimm’s Fairy Tales spin off that looks to be the most exciting yet in 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad.

What about Manga? I admittedly am not a big fan of the genre, but there is usually one or two that catch my eye. This month Viz Media starts Real. This book sounds like it might be the more mundane kind of book that I sometimes gravitate towards. A kid who plays basketball to keep himself grounded is paralyzed in an accident.

Alterna's American Terror, Bighead's Roswell, Texas and Viz's Real

Eye Catchers and Oddities…

There is nothing better than an artist who is unafraid to try new things, so IDW gets a nod with the third installment of Ashley Wood’s D’Airain Aventure anthology.

Innovative Kids enters the scene with three Phonics Comics books – comics teaching kids to read – what a novel concept.

Cartoon Books is putting Stupid Stupid Rat Tails and Rose back into print!

Classic Comics getting republished is worth checking out – there is a complete collection of Frank Bellamy’s Robin Hood strip. Checker continues its goal of dominating the field with the first volume of Beetle Bailey.

In the "Why not?" category this month – Catastrophic Comics makes a splash with Sparks (right) written by William Kat, aka TV’s The Greatest American Hero.

Lee will be back in just a few short days with picks for July from the pages of Previews...