How To Be Late and Over Budget When Writing About How To Enjoy Comics For Under $20

Yeah yeah yeah... I am a bit late on this week's "How to..." column. Damn those Olympics! I have no excuse for my tardiness. I only offer my apologies. Here's a quick update for those who care: the future wife and I found a place to live. We now await notification on our move-in date. Hooray! It is a nice, large, one bedroom apartment not far from my place of employment and one fine comic shoppe where it is rumored to have non-creepy employees. Having worked there and known most of the employees of said comic shoppe for many years, I tend to disagree with that rumor. I guess you just have to know them.

Onto why we are here. It's a new week and that means... Oh wait. I used that last week. Ok. Hmmm... How about we skip this and just get to the pull list for August 18th, shall we?

Incidentally, I went over budget this week. I had a little extra cash in me pocket and decided to give a couple of books a try. Hey, what better time to maybe expand the pull list?

• Spider-man #5 (Marvel Knights series) $2.99- Ok this is the book that bastard Mike told me about last week after I had spent my budget. So, it went to the top of the pile for this week. In the previous column, I metioned how I love Frank Cho's art, I had never really seen him try anything in a superhero vein. Now that I have, I am pleasantly surprised. His art style really works for a Spidey book. My one, small complaint: every woman he draws looks like his character, Brandy, from his Liberty Meadows strip. It really didn't bother me much, though, as I was reading this to see how he draws Spidey. Wow. Very nice job. Mr. Cho has a clean style, one that drew me in initially to his work: thick, bold outline with clear detailing. On first glance, it almost seems too cartoony, but, upon closer inspection, his illustrator background shines through. Fine job. I especially enjoyed the "Spidey as human carjack" part, which shows a nice melding of writer and artist. Speaking of which, I haven't read much Mark Millar outside of The Authority, but he has a keen grasp of mainstream comics. Sure looks like I will continue with this series, and may even pick up the back issues. Hopefully, I can find them, considering Marvel's no reprint policy. Big time recommend on this one. Plus, there is an ad for the most articulated Spidey toy I have ever seen! I so want it!
  
• Daredevil #63 (ok how about real life issue #443?) $2.99- Let's get this out of the way. Last week, I said the Flash was my favorite character ever. My favorite Marvel character ever? Daredevil. Hands down. The very first back issue I ever bought was Daredevil #41 (original numbering) "The Death Of Mike Murdock". I bought it without ever reading any other DD issues. It was purchased solely on the Gene Colan cover. Once I cracked it open, I discovered a character with one of the coolest powers: blind, but all his other senses were heightened. At eight years old, this struck home with me. I immediately searched out anything I could find. After discovering the Frank Miller stuff, that was it. I dropped it for a while in the 90's, but got on the Marvel Knights bandwagon with his "relaunch". I have never been a fan of renumbering old books, but at least they continue the old numbering underneath the new numbering, albeit in smaller print. Matt Murdock has been through hell, but still fights on, and has never been afraid to be brutal when he needs to be. So, the current issue continues the return of Black Widow storyarc. Brian Michael Bendis must delight in torturing DD. He writes a damn fine comic. Just enough superhero stuff to keep the fan's interested, with enough crimebook stuff to keep himself interested. Alex Maleev should stay on this book until the end of time. His art style fits with the "gritty" style that seems to work best for Daredevil. As always, fine stuff.
• Rogue #2 $2.99- My girl is an X-men freak. She knows more about them than I do and Rogue is her favorite character. (My top three favorite X-men characters? Kitty Pryde. Longshot. Lockheed.) She didn't even have to tell me to buy this book. It was understood. This book is ok. She likes it. The future wife says it is better than the previous Rogue miniseries and I trust her opinion. Let's move on.
• X-men #160 $2.25- Every few years, I get an itch to collect X-men books. We all know that Marvel continuously bombards us with numerous X-men titles. Stuff like that turns me off to titles. I hate having to read every book in a line to keep up with a story. That was why I dropped the Superman and Batman titles. At least this time around, one does have to buy a new X-book a week to keep up. So, this particular series has be ok. Not great, but decent. I like Salvador Larocca. Chuck Austen... Ehh. Sometimes, he is good and sometimes, it just doesn't click. I will give the next storyline in this title a chance. The only one I am enjoying is Astonishing X-men. It is really too bad that Morrison's run is being so completely ignored. Marvel took a chance with him and it paid off, both with readers and critics. Soon as he is gone, back to crap storytelling.
• Simpsons Comics #97 $2.99- This book is a big-time guilty pleasure of mine. If there is one thing I am fan of more than comics, it is The Simpsons. I have so much Simpsons stuff, it is almost scary. One of my prize possessions is a collection of comics with a hand-drawn Bart Simpson done by none other than head of Bongo Comics himself, Bill Morrison. For that, Mike gained possession of my soul. Now, I can't fog up the glass on the ice cream freezer case at my local convenience store with my breath. Simpsons Comics combines my two great obsessions into one convenient package. It's just as funny as the show and actually a little more so, since it can revisit moments and characters that just isn't possible on the show. Additionally, the writers and artists can "play" more in a printed medium. I don't need to tell you what happens in this issue. Go buy it and enjoy. It could be any issue. All are good. And now my favorite characters: Of the family: it has to be Grandpa (Fighting Hellfish forever!); of the main townsfolk: Mr. Burns and Krusty; of the secondary characters: Bumblebee Man and Kang and Kodos; and the very minor, obscure characters: the Tallest Man in Town. Y'know, the one who makes Nelson cry.
  
• JSA Strange Adventures #1 $3.50- I have been looking forward to this book. It is good stuff. The cover has Starman and Green Lantern fighting a Lovecraftian monster. How cool is that? This one has promise, with a neat subplot surrounding Johnny Thunder trying to be a pulp writer. The main story has strange, fascist villains. The JSA are in their prime. And zeppelins! Giant, evil zeppelins! Hooray! I can't wait to see where this goes.
• Books Of Magic: Life During Wartime #2 $2.50- Ok I am getting into this book. Neat little alternate reality stuff and now that I think that the John Constantine in this book isn't really our reality's John Constantine, I like it all the more. Unlike most #2 issues that have come out recently, this one advances the plot. I am a little confused though. I have the original Books Of Magic miniseries and several early issues of the first ongoing, but I have no clue what is going on with Tim Hunter now. Did he forget about his magic? Is he purposely hiding it? Do I have to buy back issues now? God, I hope not. Anyway, the art is cool and the story is solid. We'll ride this one out for a while.
• Manhunter #1 (current series) #1 $2.50- This one piqued my curiosity. I didn't really know anything about this book. My only knowledge about anything Manhunter was the weak series in the Eighties and that, at one time, there was a bunch of them and they were like the Green Lantern Corps (thanx History Of The DCU miniseries, by Wolfman and Perez!). Man, am I glad I bought this. After reading it, I looked on the cover for a "Mature Audiences" tag. Not there. Cool crime book with nice, gritty, gory art. Me want more!
  

Can you tell I was starting to lose steam towards the end of this? After all of this, and the local bloodletting tax, my total came to $24.36. Eek. I had the extra money and I got to try out two new books that were entertaining. That more than makes up for it. The success rate? Six for eight, with X-men getting a neutral. Not bad.

By the by, I wrote this while listening to a legally downloaded live Primus concert. They have a website where you can pay to get any show from their past two concert tours. Ten bucks got me 2 1/2 hours of fine music. Go check it out. They do a show with Adrian Belew. Lots of strange covers all over the place, with the particular show I got showcasing two Rush songs, all of Frizzle Fry, and In The Flesh by Pink Floyd.

See ya soon, True Believers!