Thursday, August 05, 2010

IDW Previews Review for October Part 1 of 2

Lee: I thought this would be a light month for IDW but I’m not so sure. They seem to keep mixing it up with so much old and new material that I end up loving all of it.
Jim: IDW is fast becoming a favorite publisher for me. The new Dave Stevens art book was phenomenal and a high quality piece.

RICHARD STARK'S PARKER: THE OUTFIT
Written, art and cover by Darwyn Cooke.
Cooke is back and following up the New York Times best-selling Hunter with a heart-pounding sequel: The Outfit. After evening the score with those who betrayed him, and recovering the money he was cheated out of from the syndicate, Parker is riding high, living in swank hotels and enjoying the finer things in life again. Until, that is, he's fingered by a squealer who rats him out to the Outfit for the price they put on his head... and they find out too late that if you push Parker, it better be all the way into the grave! 160 pages, $24.99, in stores on Oct. 6.
Lee: Cooke last Stark book, The Hunter, was outstanding. There really isn’t much positive praise left to be said about the last book that hasn’t already been said. If there was ever an easy buy, this was it.
Jim: This is a no-brainer. If you are a fan of Criminal, Scalped, Killer or other noir type books you owe it to yourself to pick this up.

FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #252
Written and art by various, covers by Guy Davis and William Stout.
The revival of the No. 1 monster fan magazine continues with our Halloween issue, featuring a "then and now" look at Hammer Films, with a special focus on the upcoming Let Me In! Revisit Clive Barker's Nightbreed! An in-depth analysis of the gloriously restored silent classic Metropolis! The heart-stopping work of Joe Hill! A peek behind the scenes of monster builders Moebius Models! The winners of the FM Beauty Contest held at our summer convention! 128 pages, $12.99, in stores on Oct. 27.
Lee: It’s interesting that IDW has decided to start publishing this again. There is some cross over with the comics world but this was primarily text and screen caps of old monster movies. I’m passing but I have to admit the ‘FM Beauty Contest’ sounds very interesting. Monster cosplay maybe???
Jim: If I was into monster movies and their ilk I would be on this big time. It is very obvious to me that IDW is a publisher who looks for markets and is not concerned with living and dying hoping then can win the direct market.


STAR TREK: LEONARD MCCOY, FRONTIER DOCTOR
Written, art and cover by John Byrne.
Space, the final frontier... And on that frontier and beyond, humans and aliens alike need medical care. Enter Leonard McCoy, Doctor of Space Medicine, later of the U.S.S. Enterprise! Now delight at John Byrne's tale set in the period before Star Trek: The Motion Picture! Featuring appearances by Captain James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott, and other familiar faces! 104 pages, $17.99, in stores on Oct. 6.
Lee: I’m not a huge fan of Star Trek or John Byrne these days but both hold a special place in my heart. That nostalgia mixed with the positive buzz this book had means that I’ll give it a try.
Jim: I have been a huge Star Trek fan and loved the recent movie, but the Star Trek comics and novels never did anything for me.


EDGE OF DOOM #1
Written by Steve Niles, art and cover by Kelley Jones.
Discover the true meaning of terror as fright-masters Steve Niles and Kelley Jones bring this all-new series to life! In this issue, we watch as a very sad and lonely man reaches the end of his rope, only to discover he's in way deeper than he ever imagined. It seems there's an army of little demons in his garden, and he's their next sacrifice! 32 pages, $3.99, in stores on Oct. 6.
Lee: Two masters of horror comics join forces in a new series! This is awesome. If you like horror comics then this is a sure fire winner.
Jim: All true, but I have grown leery of all of Steve Niles stuff being 3 or 4 issue mini-series and then he moves onto the next thing. I want a character that last and has more then one story in them.

CLASSIC JURASSIC PARK, VOL. 1
Written by Walter Simonson, art by Gil Kane, George Perez, cover by Michael Golden (c) Relive the magic and majesty of JURASSIC PARK in this re-presentation of the 1993 series from Topps. Adapted to the comics page by Walter Simonson, Michael Crichton's best-selling, genre-expanding story comes to vivid life in this collection. With art by Gil Kane and George Perez, this is a gem from the recent past that you'll want to grab before it's extinct! 104 pages, $17.99.
Lee: This is a book that I am not really sure what to do with. The Topps line of comics was very, very short lived and I don’t remember it being all that good. There were some good books but not many. I love the names attached to it but I just can’t remember if it was any good.
Jim: Not my type of beer.

4 comments:

  1. Jim, is there a magic number for appearances by a character? You're waning on Niles because he's telling short, compelling stories and then moving on to other characters, but you carp often about the continued use of the same characters, over and over, in the Big Two's superhero books, pining for new blood under a mask, if not a new character altogether. Is there a happy medium or are you just a jangle of contradictory impulses on this topic?

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  2. Thomm - Id does sound contradictory, but I have read the series with the dead detective, the Ghoul, a Vampire guy (at Dark Horse) and others and it is very apparent these are the first story arcs for these characters. So my feeling is I never get a complete story from Niles. I still love his writing but don't want to invest in another test of a new character only to get another ultimately incomplete story.

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  3. Having read some of them fairly recently for one of my Dinosaur Weeks, I can confirm that the Jurassic Park comics weren't good at all.

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  4. Siskoid-

    Thanks for the heads up. I was really considering it because of the art... but now I shall pass.

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