Son of How To Enjoy Comics For Under $20 A Week

Hello there.

It has been a busy few days for the Flesh-head household, leading me to be unable to find the time to post in this here blog thingy. It is looking quite positive for my future wife and I on the apartment hunt. In fact, we could have very well found a place that is in our price range and size. We like it. Let's hope that it likes us.

It is a new week and that means...
NEW COMICS!
I am enjoying this new weekly feature here in the Treehouse of Random Goodness. It is almost a game for me. Today, I went to My Third Favorite Place On The Planet and had a $20 bill. That's it. One title was sacrificed as a result but that bastard Mike didn't tell me about it until I had already spent the money. Besides, there's always next week, right? Anyway, here we go with my pull list for August 11th:

• Runaways #11 $2.99- This one is for my fiancee. I tried to get into this title and just couldn't do it. She likes it, though, so on the pull list it stays. Needless to say, I didn't read it.
  
• Bite Club #5 $2.95- Another one that was requested by the girl, but this series I am actually reading. I think this is only the second series by Howard Chaykin I have read, with the first being the early Eighties miniseries The Shadow: Blood & Justice. I have a fascination with The Shadow and bought that collection because it was where the DC series from the Eighties started and loved every page. Just so brutal and well told. Bite Club had vampires in it, so it was another case of the (future) wife saying "I want that!". Both of us are digging this story and it has led both of us to have more interest in Chaykin. Dorian recommended Black Kiss for the girl, as it has tranvestite vampires in it. She likes that kind of stuff. Back to Bite Club: this series is finely crafted. I like how the coloring is one dominant color for each section. It gives it an interesting feel and mood. The pencilling is clean and almost cartoony. Fantastic title. Highly recommended.
• DC Comics Presents: The Flash $2.50- My favorite character ever is The Flash. The ability to move really fast just seems like a useful, cool power. Maybe my love for it stems from my hatred of lateness. I would always prefer to be early. Or maybe it is the fact that The Flash extended family and rogue's gallery is one of the best out there. My respect for Golden Age stories comes from The Flash. The whole line straight through just has almost a "familial" feel to the books. The one piece of jewelry I wear every day is a solid silver replica Flash ring. I bought Flash #1 (current series) new on the stand and have kept with it almost the entire run. Can you tell how deep it runs for me? On to this book. This was the first one of the Julius Shwartz tribute books I bought and it was joyous. Julie even figures into the plot of the second story! Fantastic book from cover to cover. The Alan Moore-written obituary at the end was quite nice. It was nice to read a early Barry Allen story. And Iris Allen seemed to be quite the dish when she was younger!
• Alpha Flight #6 (current series) $2.99- Ok I don't know if I am in the minority on this series, but I am actually enjoying it. Sure, it's silly and only features one of the original members. So what? Everyone need a little bit of the silly now and then. Methinks this series isn't going to last long, so I want to get it while it is here. Nothing really happens in this one other than the original team showing up. Good to see Puck, though.
  
• JSA #64 $2.50- Easily, my favorite series published today. I have every issue of the run and, with the exception of maybe two or three issues, it stays strong. My Main Man Corey said today that this is how the current JLA should be. He's right. Big stories that grab you and don't let go. Lots of respect shown to Golden Age characters. Updates on characters who haven't really been handled properly until now. I cannot stress this enough: this is how superhero comics should be witten. Early on, I worried about this series' longevity, but now I am delighted that it has caught on. Geoff Johns made me a believer. Go get the collections. They are a cheap and easy way to get started on this. Once you start, you won't be able to stop.This particular issue is the conclusion of the "Sand returns" two-parter. Great stuff. Jerry Ordway rules. Geoff Johns rules. Mike McKenna rules.
  
• Identity Crisis #3 $3.95- OK I am not going to get involved in the debate about this series. I don't care if it should have a "Mature Readers" tag on it. I just want a good story with pretty art out of a comic. Instead, let's just focus on the book. The murder mystery deepens and weirdness is abounding. So far, I like this story. It's interesting to see these dirty little secrets of our heroes come out and how all the gaps in between older published stories are far stranger than we would have expected thirty years ago. Let's just hope that it doesn't end in a nonsensical way. Like the killer is Gar from Teen Titans or someone else that doesn't make sense.
  

So, all told, after local taxes, I spent $19.18, well under budget, and not a book in the pile that disappointed me. Hooray! Oh, that book that the evil Mike told me about after I had spent my money? It was the new issue of Spider-man that has Frank Cho art. I looove older style "illustration" artwork and Frank Cho is one of the best out there today. Plus, he love to draw monkeys and that is a big bonus. Monkeys rule!

See ya next time, True Believers!