Busy Bees

The Planet's mad hectic, to use the parlance of our times, gearing up to be a hecticker fall, and our hectickest Holiday Season. That's right, I wrote "Holiday Season". We've been doing this long enough to know that if you don't start preparing in August and September for it the season will sneak up and bite you in the boondoon. And that means a lot of hard work and long hours. And that means I'm gonna need some imaginitive literature, art, and toys to keep me afloat on these tumultuous seas. Luckily I know just the place to procure these items...

Releasing 8/15

Booster Gold #1 - For my money , this is the most intriguing of DC's recent projects revolving around various crises and 52. Titular character and 52 hero/breakout star adventures through time and space, to the greatest moments of the DCU that have ever happened and will happen, righting a time stream in shambles and set to guest star everybody under the sun. I love me some Booster, having followed the charcter since I was a young'n Sounds kinda like a superhero Doctor Who. Cool.

Recently Released and Notable:

The Ganzfeld 5 - One of our most cherishered new books. The Ganzfeld returns with a special issue devoted mostly to Canadian and Japanese artists. From Japan, legendary animator and designer Keiichi Tanaami contributes a 20 page section of new work (my favorite material in the book), while cartoonists King Terry, Shigeru Sugiura, Yuichi Yokoyama, and Tanioka all are represented with substantial amounts of their work printed in English for the very first time. From Canada, Marc Bell, Julie Doucet, Scott Evans, Marc Connery and Destroyer's Dan Bejar will all be featured, while artist Jim Shaw conjures a section of his visionary dream drawings and British illustrator Will Sweeney renders a brand new comic story. This issue is filled out by articles on record cover designer Barney Bubbles, mushrooms, and Steve Gerber (the creator of Howard the Duck).

Tripwire Annual 2007 - As much as I enjoy comics, I enjoy reading about comics -- their creation, the effort and imagination instilled in them, the business, and what's forthcoming. I especially enjoy British publications, as they tend to have a much more insightful and critical slant than, say, Wizard -- Comics International and Tripwire being tops among them, though the latter is now defunct as an ongoing periodical. Thankfully for geeks around the world the fine folks at Tripwire have decided to plow forward with super shiny annual editions, bringing they're wonderfully skewed vision of comicdom to all the boys and girls like Father Christmas. This annual features captivating articles. original art, and interviews with the likes of Mike Carey, Guillermo Del Toro, Duncan Fegredo, Roger Langridge, Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Matt Wagner.

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo v.1 - New Hardcover Edition from Checker- While not nearly as bodacious, huge, gnarly, and beautiful as So Many Splendid Sundays (the oversize $120 Hardcover collecting color Nemo Sunday strips that's graced our shelves these last few years) this glossy HC showcases the complete story of Little Nemo from the first episode (1905) until August 15, 1909 for a much more do-able Fiddy Bucks.

My manic schedule last week just recently afforded me the time to read and reread the following, which I will now recommend to you all:

Watchmen - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons seminal masterpiece and perennial best-seller never quite knocked my socks off as it has so many of you throughout the last two decades. And, like William Gibson's similarly genre bending/defining Neuromancer, I am ashamed to admit that it has taken me multiple readings since its release for me to finally appreciate it. If you've never given this a chance, it's time to. Never been enslaved to the damn thing like so many of your friends? Give it another shot, just remember to maintain your identity and independence.

Batman #667 - Morrison (w) & Williams (a). This is easily the best Bats issue of the last year. The last ten pages are exhilarating and engrossing to the nth degree.

JEFF