A new 3 Chicks Review Comics, the Best of 2011 Cast is up today. Head on over to CSBG and check it out!
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Two new reviews are up on CBR:
Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1
“My kingdom for more superhero comics by Brian Wood. Don’t get me wrong, I still want all his great independent, creator-owned, non-superhero stuff (since I’m greedy), but the plain fact of the matter is that the superhero world is a better place with Brian Wood writing stories in it. “Wolverine and The X-Men: Alpha & Omega” #1 is a great comic, the kind we need stacks and stacks of…”
“The penultimate issue of “X-23” is another great one, the kind of outing that makes you thoroughly depressed that it is the next-to-last issue and not just “issue #20.” However, pairing up Marjorie Liu and Phil Noto again this month and next (with #21 due in March) is a wonderful way to end the series if it has to end, as they have showed the true potential of this book, and how much it will be missed from the Marvel comics landscape. ..”
As always, likes and retweets are much appreciated and you can read all my CBR Reviews thus far here.
Tags: marjorie liu, marvel comics
Very cool, very creepy offering, and a great illustration all around from Sean Phillips for Image’s new Fatale #1:
So over on She Has No Head! I mentioned that two categories, “Best Cover” and “Best Single Issue” were incredibly hard to decide this year thanks to an influx of great stuff I had trouble deciding between. As a result I decided to do a top 25 “Best Single Issues” for 2011 on 1979. As I noted on She Has No Head! there are some notable absences here, largely due to gaps in my reading. Off the top of my head I’d say the most glaring absences are DMZ, Scalped, and Daredevil, all of which I am significantly behind on. Because I have written about almost all of these issues elsewhere, I’m not going to do paragraphs on each of them. You can find detailed CBR Reviews for 17 of the 25 below at this link. And if you have questions about any other titles I didn’t do reviews for, just ask and I’ll be happy to talk about them in the comments.
All that said…these are my “25 Best Single Issues of 2011″…
025. THE RED WING #1 by Brian Hickman, Nick Pitarra, and Rachelle Rosenberg
024. HELLBOY: THE FURY #1 by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, and Dave Stewart
023. WOLVERINE & JUBILEE #1 by Kathryn Immonen and Phil Noto
Tags: comics!, she has no head!
So over on She Has No Head! I mentioned that two categories, “Best Cover” and “Best Single Issue” were incredibly hard to decide this year thanks to an influx of great stuff I had trouble deciding between. As a result I decided to do a top 30 covers for 2011 on 1979. As always with these cover posts, I stick to Saddle Stapled North American releases, since that is what I have the most access to, and because I don’t feel a monthly comic should be rated against a graphic novel or trade.
Without further ado…these are my “30 Best Covers of 2011″…
030. HELLBOY: THE FURY #1 – Mike Mignola
So simple and yet so effective. When you have a character as wonderfully designed as Hellboy you really just need the confidence to let him command the page, and Mignola obviously has that. With a limited Black, Red and Grey-ish white color palette, single figure (with a big ass axe) and a lot of white space you have powerful imagery that also creates amazing positive and negative shapes. Gorgeous stuff.
029. AVENGERS ORIGINS: VISION – Marko Djurdjevic
The limited color palette with a big swath of yellow and a small pop of red is inspired. Almost as much as Djurdjevic’s use of wonderful simplified graphic elements and shapes with ah highly rendered and realistic figure. A cover absolutely deserving of Vision!
028. JOHN CARTER: A PRINCESS OF MARS #3 – Skottie Young
This is wonderful on so many levels. The composition has such energy and creates such great shapes, both positive and negative. The size and complexity of the tentacles while still remaining graphic and simple – how in places it devolves into just basic shapes is wonderful. The color choices, as always with a Young cover are inspired and subtle. Huge bonus points for it being one of the first tentacle covers I’ve ever seen in comics that doesn’t feel “kinda rapey”.
Tags: comic covers, comics!
Tags: comics!, she has no head!
My first CBR Reviews of the new year…read ’em and…well…just read ’em!
“Warren Ellis has been absolutely killing his run on “Secret Avengers,” writing some of the smartest and best superhero comics of the last year with brilliant standalone stories that tell surprisingly complex tales with satisfying results. It doesn’t hurt that Ellis has had a rotating cast of unbelievably talented artists to help him deliver these stories, and Alex Maleev on this issue is no exception…”
“Despite how much I’ve been enjoying “Angel & Faith” thus far, I was hesitant about this issue — even with the always exceptional Phil Noto as guest artist — since it guest-starred arguably my least favorite Buffy Universe character, Harmony. Those fears were averted however, as Christos Gage and Noto do great work delivering a fun issue that manages to keep things moving forward while still taking a little breather…”
““Justice League Dark” continues to be the title of the new DCU that I desperately want to like more than I do. It’s a good book, but with so many fantastic characters crowded together, largely unused, too much of the book is falling flat…”
As always, likes and retweets are much appreciated and you can read all my CBR Reviews thus far here.