Featured | Ash Avenue Comics

Go Ninja Go: All About TMNT and Naruto!

Posted on August 15, 2024 | by Super Robot Lifeform

November 2024 marks a turning point in American life as readers and collectors turn out in droves to make an important choice: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #1—which variant should I get? Also that month: Elections. But if this is the first you’re hearing about this crossover, you’re probably so excited you can’t even remember who’s running! Or is that just wishful thinking?

A team-up between the TMNT and Naruto seems so natural it’s a wonder that no one thought of it earlier. They’re all teenagers. They’re all ninjas. Naruto is just a splash of mutagenic ooze and a pet store away from being the Fifth Turtle. His name even ends in O!

Right now, some of you out there may be saying to yourselves, “Gosh, I know nothing about one or both of these cultural powerhouses, but I’m uncomfortable admitting it to my friends and loved ones.” Kiss that anxiety good-bye! One of our mottos here at Ash Avenue Comics is: There Are No Stupid Questions. For you, the TMNT and/or Naruto newcomer, we present this helpful primer on the basics of each series.

WHAT IS NARUTO?

Naruto is a popular Japanese manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto, drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese culture, samurai films, and the ninja genre. It debuted in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine (I wish I could bottle the sense of accomplishment I felt after figuring out how to make that O with the line over it) in 1999 and was later adapted into a hit anime series. Our hero, Naruto Uzumaki, is a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the leader and strongest ninja of his village.

Naruto became one of the best-selling manga series in history, with over 250 million copies sold worldwide. Its success led to a massive franchise that includes movies, video games, and merchandise out the wazoo. It’s like the Hokage of Manga Village.

In Naruto‘s world, ninjas (known as shinobi) are organized into villages. Naruto, an orphan, lives in the Hidden Leaf Village. Other villagers view him with suspicion because he carries within him the Nine-Tails, a powerful and malevolent fox spirit that once attacked the village. Naruto’s father, the Fourth Hokage, sealed the Nine-Tails inside the newborn Naruto to protect the village.

WHO’S WHO

Naruto Uzumaki: Our main man. Naruto is a loud, energetic, and determined young ninja. Despite being ostracized by the other Hidden Leafers, Naruto remains optimistic and works tirelessly to gain recognition and achieve his dream of becoming the Hokage.
Sasuke Uchiha: The boy sidekick. Naruto’s rival and a member of the Uchiha clan, one of the most powerful and tragic clans in the village. Sasuke is driven by a desire for revenge against his older brother, Itachi, who massacred their clan.
Sakura Haruno: The girl sidekick. A fellow member of Naruto and Sasuke’s team. She is intelligent, determined, and harbors a crush on Sasuke.
Kakashi Hatake: The mentor. Leader of Team 7, which includes Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Kakashi is a highly skilled and mysterious ninja with a laid-back attitude but a deep sense of responsibility for his students.

IMPORTANT STORIES

Naruto is divided into two main parts:

Naruto (Part I): The first part focuses on Naruto’s early days as a ninja and his training in the Hidden Leaf Village. It covers his missions with Team 7, his rivalry with Sasuke, and the ongoing conflicts between various ninja villages. Naruto and his crew must face the Chunin Exams, where young ninjas compete to advance in rank, and maybe, just maybe, do some growing up in the process.
Naruto: Shippuden (Part II): Set two and a half years after Part I, this part follows Naruto as a teenager. The story becomes darker and more complex, focusing on the Akatsuki, a group of rogue ninjas seeking to capture all the tailed beasts, including the Nine-Tails within Naruto.

Following the conclusion of Naruto Shippuden, the story continues with Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, which focuses on Naruto’s son, Boruto Uzumaki, and the new generation of ninjas.

**WHAT IS TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES?**

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) are four anthropomorphic turtles—Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael—who were mutated by a mysterious ooze. They were trained in ninjitsu by their rat sensei, Splinter, who also mutated from the same ooze. They were created in 1984 by artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who self-published a run of 3000 copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 using a tax refund and a loan from Eastman’s uncle. They called their publishing company Mirage Studios because they had no real studio—just their living room.

Eastman and Laird were two struggling comic book artists who shared a small studio apartment in Dover, New Hampshire. They were both passionate about comics and were inspired by popular titles of the time, including Daredevil and Ronin by Frank Miller, and Cerebus by Dave Sim.

One night, while brainstorming ideas and making each other laugh, Eastman sketched a turtle standing upright, wearing a mask, and wielding nunchaku. Laird liked it and sketched his own version of the turtle. Eastman then drew a group of four turtles, each with different weapons, and labeled them “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” The idea so tickled them both they decided to move forward with producing and publishing a book based on the characters.

In 2000, Laird bought Eastman’s share of the franchise, and in 2009, Laird sold the rights to TMNT to Nickelodeon, although both still participate in creative roles for TMNT titles in various ways.

WHO’S WHO

Leonardo: The leader. He wields two katanas. Leads.
Donatello: The smart one. He has a bo staff. Does machines.
Raphael: The angry one. He has a pair of sai. Cool, but rude.
Michelangelo: The fun one. He uses nunchuks. A party dude.
Splinter: The turtles’ sensei and father figure, a mutant rat who teaches them ninjutsu. He’s a radical rat.
The Shredder: Leader of the Foot Clan and Splinter’s archenemy. These Turtle boys don’t cut him no slack.
April O’Neil: A close friend of the turtles, a scientist or journalist (depending on the version) who aids them in their fight against crime.
Casey Jones: A goalie mask-wearing vigilante who fights crime using sports equipment.
The Foot Clan: A criminal organization of ninjas led by Shredder, frequently battling the turtles.

IMPORTANT STORIES

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Vol. 1) #1-12 by Eastman and Laird: These issues introduce most of the cast members, locations, alien races, and ideas that go on to inform every other version of the Turtles. I particularly love the Fugitoid/Triceratons arc from issues 4-6.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Vol. 1) #19-21 (“Return to New York”) by Eastman, Laird, and Jim Lawson: The Turtles, having been run out of New York by the Foot Clan, return to settle the score with the Shredder once and for all. Fantastic, moody storytelling by Jim Lawson, a sorely underappreciated artist. Chock-full of great Raphael/Leonardo rivalry material. The climactic Shredder vs. Leonardo battle is one of the best-choreographed fight scenes of the 80s.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Vol. 1) #50-62 (“City at War”) by Eastman, Laird, and Lawson: Following the Shredder’s death, the Turtles are drawn into a power struggle within the Foot Clan while they (along with April and Casey) confront the realities of growing up and making your own way in the world. This story introduces Karai. A guy named A.C. Farley did great covers for most of these issues.
The Last Ronin by Eastman, Laird, Tom Waltz, Esau and Isaac Escorza, and Ben Bishop: In a crumbling, post-apocalytic New York City, the last Ninja Turtle pursues a lonely mission of justice for his fallen brothers.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles x Naruto #1

TMNT x Naruto #1 goes on sale on November 13! Be sure to pre-order your copies here so you don’t miss out:

There’s Always Next Week: March 15, 2024

Posted on March 15, 2024 | by Super Robot Lifeform

_{by Paul}

Welcome back to There’s Always Next Week, my weekly feature that hasn’t been posted in a few weeks! I did my best to keep it up, but between putting up all of the March 2024 pre-orders and shipping out an overwhelming amount of books (thank you all so much for trusting us with your orders!), I haven’t been able to get back to it the way I hoped. I’ve shuffled around my work week so that I have more time to write this, so going forward we should be weekly again. And if I do have to miss one for whatever reason, I’ll keep my head up, tweak the formula and try again. After all… There’s Always Next Week!

Before we delve too far into next week’s releases, I want to share the news that starting with all May-shipping titles, you can save 10% on all pre-orders (except for special order items) with our Early Bird Discount. The discount lasts through final order cut-off, after which titles can only be purchased at full price, so order early! The expiration date for each title’s discount can be found at the bottom of its product entry.

BATMAN/SUPERMAN: WORLD’S FINEST #25 (DAN MORA WILLIAM SHATNER CAMEO VARIANT)

Art: Dan Mora, Steve Pugh | Story: Mark Waid (DC Comics, $5.99)

I’ve never spotlighted a specific variant of a title before, but Batman/Superman: World’s Finest found an interesting niche for itself a few years ago when someone realized that Dan Mora can draw flattering pictures of elderly Boomer celebrities that are still true to the way they look now in their dotage. He did it first with Jerry Seinfeld early in the run, and then later drew a fun Christmas cover featuring Paul McCartney singing karaoke with Superman, a character who I suspect has Spotify’s This Is Matchbox 20 playlist on repeat at all times. Now here’s William Shatner, drawn unmistakably as himself in old age, taking a momentary pause from posting wrongheaded observations on social media to look commanding next to Superman and Batman. I predict this cover will become the basis of future caption contests in which the text of Superman’s speech bubble is replaced with things like, “Green Lantern, remember when you said the only book you ever finished was Tekworld?” Send your best caption to admin@ashavecomics.com and I’ll send you a special discount code.

PRE-ORDER IT: Dan Mora William Shatner Cameo Variant

NACELLEVERSE #0

Art: Diogenese Neves, Francis Portela, Rahmat Handoka, Rhoald Marcellius | Story: Melissa Flores (Oni Press, $5.99)

With Skybound’s Transformers and associated Energon Universe proving to be big successes, Oni Press and the Nacelle Toy Company^™ have dug deep into the toybox and come up with a bunch of old favorites sure to have many 80s kids saying, “I think my cousin had one of those.” I was kind of tickled when I saw they were doing this. Top-billed Robo Force is obviously the star property here, and most people upon seeing that name again will be thinking, “What the hell is Robo Force?” I remember having one or two of these guys and they were great. They were these kind of Robbie the Robot-looking characters and the gimmick was that you would stick them on something, push a button on top of their heads, and they would suction to the surface. They all looked like household appliances from The Jetsons and were predictably trounced by the likes of Transformers and Go-Bots. I liked the ones I had though. I always used them as things like space librarians when the Transformers and Go-Bots and Voltron needed information for some kind of quest, or space waiters when they needed to go somewhere to eat. Robo Force were kind of your average-Joe workaday robots. The Sectaurs I never liked, because they were gross bug guys out of some nightmare and I wanted no part of them. I knew a kid who had a Sectaurs creature that was a giant fly that haunts me to this day. The Biker Mice from Mars I remember a little bit as one of the cartoons that was marooned on Sunday morning during church, so it always seemed like a treat to get to watch it when I got to stay home sick even if I didn’t really like it. They were TMNT clones, I think. Power Lords and The Great Garloo are things I have never heard of in my life. If this Nacelleverse thing goes down the tubes, they’ll probably get blamed. But it’s the Sectaurs, I tell you. They’re horrible.

PRE-ORDER IT: Marco D’Alfonso Main Cover | Logan Lubera Variant | InHyuk Lee Variant | Livio Ramondelli Variant | ~~Blank Sketch Variant~~

MAN’S BEST #1

Art: Jesse Lonergan | Story: Pornsak Pichetshote (Boom! Studios, $4.99)

I’m not a person who’s given to cry very much, and only one comic has ever gotten me to tear up: We3, by Frank Quitely and Grant Morrison, about a cat, a dog, and a bunny rabbit who escape a lab where they’re being turned into cybernetic war machines and try to find their way home. Even thinking about those little guys gets me choked up. Now here comes Man’s Best by Jesse Lonergan and Pornsak Pichetshote, and I already have the feeling I’ll need to read this series late at night after my wife falls asleep so that no human eyes witness the single manly tear roll down my cheek while I read about these four-legged friends fighting for their lives in heavily-armed mech suits. I have a good feeling about this series.

PRE-ORDER IT: Jesse Lonergan Main Cover | Trish Forstner Variant | Jae Lee FOC Reveal Variant

DAWNRUNNER #1

Art: Evan Cagle | Story: Ram V (Dark Horse Comics, $4.99)

Since losing the Star Wars license (mostly), Dark Horse has made a good go of things by pursuing video game adaptations. Dawnrunner sounds like an adaptation of a video game that hasn’t been made yet. The plot is kind of a re-hash of Pacific Rim (no bad thing, I love Pacific Rim) with an Incan twist. Humans piloting giant robots vs. giant monsters. The big draw here to me is Evan Cagle’s art, which looks like it has the right amount of mechanical detail without becoming overwhelming. Looking forward to this.

PRE-ORDER IT: Evan Cagle Main Cover | Matias Bergara Variant

ON FOC THIS WEEK

Click here to see all titles on FOC this week.

HERCULES #1

Art: George Kambadais | Story: Elliott Kalan (Dynamite Entertainment, $4.99) | FOC: 3/18

THE CHAMPION OF OLYMPUS RETURNS!

The Greek gods don’t really get why Hercules chose a mortal life over the opportunity to join them on Mt. Olympus, but since he proved his mettle as a hero many times over, they’re happy to enlist his help with missions that require interventions in the earthly realm. So when Aphrodite grants an artist’s wish that his sculpture be brought to life, Herc gets the call to clean things up when the newly conscious artwork proves to be more bone-crushingly lively than expected!

But after discovering that the rogue statue is just misunderstood, and a little rambunctious (much like himself as a youth), Hercules returns to explain the situation to Aphrodite – only to find her temple empty and abandoned. Is the goddess of love just pouting, or is something more sinister afoot? If you know anything about classic mythology, you know it’s going to be the latter!

GET READY FOR A WHOLE NEW HERO’S JOURNEY!

George Kambadais Main Cover
Matteo Lolli Variant
Francesco Tomaselli Variant
Alessandro Ranaldi Negative Space Variant
George Kambadais Foil Variant
George Kambadais Foil Virgin Variant
Blank Authentix Variant
Francesco Tomaselli Limited Edition Virgin Variant
Matteo Lolli Metal Premium Variant

MOON MAN #2

Art: Marco Locati | Story: Kyle Higgins, Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi (Image Comics, $3.99) | FOC: 3/18

As Ramon tests the limits of his new abilities, the astronauts return to Janus for more assessment—and the world begins to react to the news of a real-life superhero.

Marco Locati Main Cover
Erica D’Urso Variant
Greg Tocchini Variant

UNCANNY VALLEY #1

Art: Dave Wachter | Story: Tony Fleecs (Boom! Studios, $4.99) | FOC: 3/18

Oliver is a seemingly typical 12 year old boy… except for a mysterious family history that seems to start and end with his mother, and unexplainable powers, that is.

He can do things other boys can’t, to the point of landing him in some trouble. Baffled by the surreal cartoonish nature of his abilities and followed by a murder of peculiar crows, the mystery behind Oliver’s family history finally unfolds!

Written by fan-favorite writer Tony Fleecs (Stray Dogs, Local Man) and illustrated by acclaimed artist Dave Wachter (Punisher, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), discover what makes Oliver special and strange as he searches for his place in the world.

Dave Wachter Main Cover
Tony Fleecs Variant

There’s Always Three Months from Now: February 16, 2024

Posted on February 16, 2024 | by Super Robot Lifeform

^{by Paul}

There’s Always Next Week needs a breather this week, so we’re going to the bullpen and bringing in its sister feature to throw some heat. Say hello to… There’s Always Three Months from Now! This is a semi-regular feature you’ll get to enjoy whenever a distributor’s new catalog comes out, typically on a Friday, the same day I write this column. I try to get all of the new catalogs up on the site the day they come out, which means spending the day hunched over the computer pouring over endless spreadsheets, much like Batman does in the Batcave. Yes, that is what he’s doing down there. They don’t dwell on it too much in the comics, but his greatest crimefighting tool is Microsoft Office. He uses Robin’s student I.D. to get a discount on the license. Just because he’s a billionaire doesn’t mean he’s not cheap.

Since I, like Batman, am buried up to my codpiece in spreadsheets, let’s use this opportunity to take a whirlwind tour of some of the exciting books you’ll be able to read in three months from DC, DSTLRY, Image, Magma Comix (?), and others. You can pre-order them now, here, on this very website! In fact, here’s a little secret—don’t tell Drew this—but you can save 10% on purchases of $25.00 or more on all pre-FOC titles by using the code PREFOC10 at checkout. If you order $50.00 or more of pre-FOC, you can save 15% by using the code PREFOC15 at checkout. If you order $75.00 or more of pre-FOC, save 20% with the code PREFOC20. And at $100, you get free shipping! You can’t afford not to!

COMING IN MAY 2024

There's Always Three Months from Now: February 16, 2024 - Ash Avenue Comics

BATMAN: GARGOYLE OF GOTHAM #3 (OF 4) JAMIE HEWLETT VARIANT

How many money trucks did DC back up into Tank Girl and Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett’s driveway to get him to do this variant? I was stunned when I saw this. Has he done anything like this before? I don’t remember it if he did.

ONE FOR SORROW #1 (OF 3)

This is Jamie McKelvie’s new project from DSTLRY and I am psyched. Everything DSTLRY has published so far has been an amazing package, and we haven’t seen McKelvie stretch his wings like this in a while.

TOXIC SUMMER #1 (OF 3)

Derek Charm, who did some fun Archie stuff, brings us this new horror series from Oni that reminds me of one of those late-80s campy USA Up All Night horror movies, like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama. This one will be on my pull list.

GROMMETS #1 (OF 7)

Rick Remender’s team-up with Andy Samberg on The Holy Roller has worked out pretty well, so he’s decided to roll the dice with another chucklehead—Brian Posehn, this time, who is not a stranger to comics—for Grommets, a book about how kids were awesome 40 years ago compared to the sucky phonesters of today. That’s probably reductive. It’s an 80s coming-of-age tale. Love that cover.

THE BOY WONDER #1 (OF 5)

I was surprised to see this—it’s a kind of fairy-tale take on the Robin story by Juni Ba, whose Monkey Meat series from a couple years ago I really enjoyed. People love Robin. Any Robin. I think this will be very popular, with reach beyond the normal comics crowd.

THE SCALE TRADE #1

“In a modern-day world one step removed from our own,” reads the solicitation for The Scale Trade #1, “dragons are a highly respected—and highly endangered—species, but poaching is an existential threat.” That is a lot of steps removed from our world, Scale Trade makers! Dragons! I ask you. Megan Huang, who’s done some nice covers lately, teams up with Steve Orlando from Marvel’s Marauders here. Could be fun.

There’s Always Next Week: February 9, 2023

Posted on February 9, 2024 | by Super Robot Lifeform

_{by Paul}

We offer this statement on behalf of the Overwhelmingly White Comics Retailers of America (O.W.C.R.A. for short. How’s that for irony?) : We really blew it when it came to ordering Ultimate Black Panther #1. There was an appetite for this comic and local comic shops slept on it. Drew probably ordered twice as many copies as most retailers and it still was not nearly enough. Mea culpa. Final order cut-off for the second print of UBP #1 is Monday night, and we’ll order accordingly, but if you want to be absolutely sure to get your copy, or copies, please place your orders before then (links are at the bottom of the page as well). In the meantime, we can’t promise this situation will never happen again, but we can promise we’ll sure as hell try harder to anticipate demand from all corners. We had some Ultimate egg on our faces this week, but we’ll learn the lesson and try to do better, because… There’s Always Next Week!

SINISTER SONS #1 (OF 6)

Art: David Lafuente | Story: Peter J. Tomasi (DC Comics, $3.99)

I thought this was a nice one to highlight for Valentine’s Day because it’s about Sinestro’s son doing stuff. Sinestro’s son. He found a woman to have his baby. He has a grown-up daughter, too! So it happened twice, decades apart. Please please please let it be consensually, or I’ll get such mail. (I read his and his daughter’s Wikipedia pages and the word “wife” got thrown around a lot, so I think I’m on safe ground here. But I’ll take my medicine if I need to.) There are a lot of strikes against him. He has poorly-judged facial hair. He has a face like an old catcher’s mitt, at least on this cover. If he’s not neurodivergent, no one is. His name is Sinestro. “I can’t put my finger on it, Sinestro, but sometimes I feel like you don’t have my best interests at heart.” But there was still someone out there for him. You just have to keep putting yourself out there, like I assume Sinestro did. I really hope it’s not a gross story, how he had his kids. I just remembered Geoff Johns wrote a lot of Sinestro stuff and now I have beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead. But I’m at least confident that David Lafuente and Peter J. Tomasi won’t mention anything like that in this book. They’ve both carved out niches for themselves doing these kinds of kid-hero stories, so we should be in good hands here.

NIGHT THRASHER #1

Art: Nelson Daniel | Story: J Holtham (Marvel Comics, $4.99)

This week Marvel welcomes back Night Thrasher, a character best known for recklessly causing the fiery deaths of hundreds of innocent people, including a busload of schoolchildren, in pursuit of footage for a reality television series. If I so much as accidentally cut off a schoolbus in traffic, I would agonize over it for weeks because something bad might have happened. I guess that’s why I’m not a hero.

I mean, you would imagine the loved ones of all the people burnt to a crisp that day, upon hearing that Night Thrasher is back on the streets with no supervision or accountability, would say, “Excuse me. Can we re-visit this Registration idea again?” For that matter, it’s hard to imagine they would ever stop. That’s the problem with doing a story like Civil War. For it to work, after months or years of anonymous masked lunatics fighting amongst themselves, causing incalculable amounts of property damage and probably loss of life, the everyday citizens of the Marvel Universe, like a dog who’s been blinded in one eye, all have to look at each other and say, “Well, I guess this is just our lives now,” when the status quo is restored. As if they would have nothing to say about it.

It’s crazy that Night Thrasher—who died in that explosion, let’s remember—was brought back to life at all. Other Marvel superheroes went to a lot of trouble to bring him back. Time travel, all sorts of things. What about everyone else who died in that explosion? I assume they’re all still dead. So Night Thrasher deserves to live and they don’t? Maybe this series will reveal that all the civilians who died were psychopaths who murdered their families at the breakfast table that morning, so actually, it’s a good thing they were all killed. I mean, what in the world.

It’s Black History Month, of course, and this book is likely timed for release with that in mind. But even though there aren’t nearly as many Black superheroes as there ought to be, there are still more than there used to be—enough, anyway, that it might have been better to let one with Night Thrasher’s baggage rest.

IF YOU FIND THIS, I’M ALREADY DEAD #1

Art: Dan McDaid | Story: Matt Kindt (Dark Horse Comics, $7.99)

I single out this one because it has my favorite title of this week’s releases (rivalled only by Sweetie: Candy Vigilante Vol. 2, disqualified on the grounds that we didn’t order any copies) and because it’s a non-standard trim size (about 8″ x 11″ from the look of it). I am a big mark for comics in weird sizes, which can appear anywhere at anytime in my house because I have no clue where to put them. If You Can Find This, I’m Already Dead has a cool premise about an embedded war reporter who has to fend for herself in some kind of sci-fi setting after the unit she covers is wiped out. It sounds like one of those cool oversized Epic Comics GNs I used to pick up for cheap in high school and read to death. Dan McDaid’s cartooning has a cool, inky Paul Pope kind of line that I really respond to. Looking forward to this one.

THE DISPLACED #1 (OF 5)

Art: Luca Casalanguida | Story: Ed Brisson (Boom! Studios, $7.99)

The Displaced explores what happens when all traces of evidence that survivors of a missing Canadian town exist vanish. Spoilers: It suuuuucks. Say good-bye to your budding influencer career, because you are never getting those followers back. Say good-bye to talking about your budding influencer career to anybody, because everyone who humors you because they love you doesn’t remember you anymore. Tik Tok doesn’t remember what you like so you keep getting fed clips of people with affectionate lizards. The HBO Max works about the same, though.

ON FOC THIS WEEK

ULTIMATE BLACK PANTHER #1 (SECOND PRINTING)

Art: Stefano Caselli | Story: Bryan Hill (Marvel Comics, $5.99) | FOC: 2/12

NIGHT PEOPLE #1 (OF 4)

Art: Brian Level | Story: Barry Gifford, Chris Condon (Oni Press, $4.99) | FOC: 2/11

TORPEDO 1972 #1

Art: Eduardo Risso | Story: Enrique Sánchez Abulí (Ablaze Publishing, $3.99) | FOC: 2/12

There’s Always Next Week: January 26, 2024

Posted on January 26, 2024 | by Super Robot Lifeform

_{by Paul}

With last week’s bizarre feeding frenzy on the widely-mocked John Cassaday X-Force #48 variant, are we now on the cusp of a bizarre new trend in comics? Will we see publishers encourage artists to draw poorly on purpose to command attention from social media commentators and speculators? Will we see a new class of outsider artists become the kings and queens of the variant cover scene, drawing ludicrous rates for childlike renderings of beloved characters? Will we all have sobering moments of self-reckoning and reflection should we find out John Cassaday or one of his loved ones has had a catastrophic health crisis? Can we all come to grips with the simple idea that even the greatest artist might lay an egg now and then, which is why no one ever performs William Shakespeare’s King John? Shakespeare didn’t let it get him down, and neither will John Cassaday, because they knew—and now you know—There’s Always Next Week!

MOON MAN #1

Art: Marco Locati | Story: Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi, Kyle Higgins (Image Comics, $3.99)

Recording artists venturing into comics have a checkered history. Sometimes you get a weird misfire like the Evanescence comic from a year or two back where it was a series of, I think, short pieces illustrating song lyrics that were like comic adaptations of music videos, only without the music. Or the video. Sometimes you get goofy junk-food comics where the likes of Twiztid battle ghouls and ghosts armed with nothing but sick, sick rhymes. Once in a while—at least once, anyway—you get an acknowledged classic like Umbrella Academy. But for the most part, you’d no more want to read a musician’s vanity comic than you’d want to listen to an album called John Byrne Sings The Carpenters.

Happily, though, Moon Man, Kid Cudi’s new series from Image, looks poised to land on the Umbrella Academy end of the spectrum. Even though it’s clearly a vanity project, starring as it does a character who looks just like Cudi and shares Cudi’s middle name of Ramon, this is clearly a story he’s had gestating for a long time (he’s recorded three separate albums called Man on the Moon). He’s helped by comics pros who are really executing here, particularly Marco “Kid Cati” Locati, whose pacing and scratchy linework capture a creeping sense of dread that reminds me of Ted McKeever. I have feeling that this is a series we’ll remember when it’s time to make Best of 2024 lists. Off to a good start here.

JILL AND THE KILLERS #1

Art: Roberta Ingranata | Story: Olivia Cuartero-Briggs (Oni Press, $6.99)

Jill and the Killers is about teenage girls who are playing one of those catch-a-killer subscription games that are always being advertised on those soul-eroding true-crime podcasts I shouldn’t be listening to all the time, but they’re just so interesting. Then they slowly begin to realize that the game is… ALL TOO REAL.

This is one of my favorite premises for a new series that I’ve heard for a long time. It’s a little bit like Only Murders in the Building if it had been made by people who hadn’t exhausted all of their real-life experience decades ago. Also, I love love love the Jill and the Killers logo. There are very few logos right now in comics that I would want a sticker of to put on my laptop or my bullet journal, and this one is at the top of the list. I have a good feeling about this book. It’s sticker-worthy.

SIRENS OF THE CITY #6

Art: Khary Randolph | Story: Joanne Starer (Boom! Studios, $4.99)

If you haven’t been reading Sirens of the City I don’t know why you would start with this final issue, but I’ve been kicking myself because I forgot to put it on my Best of 2023 list so I wanted to mention it here. This is a storytelling masterclass from Khary Randolph, for my money the best cartoonist working today. This book throws a lot of characters at you fast, but Randolph stages the action so that it’s always clear who’s doing what and where. The visual conceit of this book is that it’s in black and white, but each faction of supernatural characters has their own spot color, and when they all start mixing together with Randolph’s strong blacks it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

#6 may not be where you want to jump in, but fortunately you can pre-order the collected edition here. In fact, I’m such a believer in this book that, now through February 12, we’ll sell it to you at a discount of $16.99, $3.00 off the cover price. Take a chance on this one.

ON FOC THIS WEEK

GHOST RIDER: FINAL VENGEANCE #1

Art: Danny Kim | Story: Benjamin Percy (Marvel Comics, $4.99) | FOC: 1/29

SPAWN #350

Art: Brett Booth, Carlo Barberi | Story: Rory McConville, Todd McFarlane (Image Comics, $4.99) | FOC: 1/29

WOMEN OF MARVEL (2024) #1

Art: Various | Story: Gail Simone et al (Marvel Comics, $5.99) | FOC: 1/29