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While I don’t like the implications of Justice League: Generation Lost #19‘s cover, it’s pretty hard to beat Dustin Nguyen when he is just BRINGING IT.
This is beautiful, simple, pared down and incredibly effective. The use of limited color, basic shapes, composition, positive and negative space…it’s just exceptional.
Any other week John Cassaday’s clever Superman #708 cover would have had a great shot at “best”, but Nguyen just nailed it.
Tags: comic covers, comics!, Cover Of The Week
Part two of the second phase of Ladies Comics Project is up on She Has No Head!
Illustrations for The Ladies Comics Project by Tara Abbamondi
She-Hulks #4 gets lucky with a very weak week in my comics reading, and as such picks up panel of the week with a nice splash page by Ryan Stegman of Jennifer and Lyra getting their butts kicked but doing it while well-dressed (and well-drawn).
This was my least favorite issue of the series, as it felt rushed and unsatisfying, and all the emotional beats fell completely flat, possibly in part because this was cut from an ongoing to a mini-series early on and the plotting may have been adjusted to fit that new schedule, but the art was still really good throughout. It would have been nice to see this series, which had serious potential, given a chance. I could have done with fewer bubble baths, cruise line crashes, and Jennifer and Lyra looking a little different (and definitely different ages!) but the costume choices were smart and well-considered throughout and the art overall was very pretty and easy to follow. Too bad it was cut short.
Tags: comics!, Panel Of The Week
Easy pick this week if only because my pull list was so slim. So an easy win for iZombie #10 by Mike Allred.
Bonus points for it being based on/inspired by this fantastic photograph as commenter JRSM pointed out a few months ago on Cover Solicits.
Tags: comics!, Cover Of The Week
Head on over to CSBG for the latest episode of 3 Chicks Review Comics, as well as a write up of what’s inside!
Sue, Maddy, and I are also actively looking from some listener feedback – so leave any comments you have in the comments on CSBG if you can. Feedback is much appreciated! Thanks all!
Tags: 3 Chicks Cast, 3 Chicks Review Comics, comics!, podcasting
Ladies Comics Project is back! Head over to She Has No Head for the first installment of Ladies Comics Project, Phase II!
So for the second iteration of The Ladies Comics Project – aptly called, Ladies Comics Project: Phase II – I had women (32 of them this time!) picking from my own library of graphic novels and trades for their reading and review. Below are the books they had to choose from.*
Beyond being limited by what I already owned, I limited the selection further by selecting only titles that I felt confident were female friendly. Additionally, for solely financial reasons (this project cost a pretty penny out of my own pocket) I removed some larger/heavier books that I would have otherwise liked to include (Black Hole, Blankets, Box Office Poison, and Local were some of the great books sadly left out due to sheer size and heft).
The books are listed roughly alphabetically and you can click (and actually double click) to enlarge all images to readable sizes.
For what it’s worth, I think the ladies picked very well. Though many of their selections surprised me, just as they did last time. If there is one big miss for me in the selections it’s that nobody picked Beasts Of Burden, which is a beautiful engaging book that I think any one of these ladies would have loved…and been really surprised by how much she loved it. But maybe next time! Who knows what future Ladies Comics Project iterations will bring!
*Please note that Secret Science Alliance (which totally should have been on the list anyway!) and Scratch 9 (which should have been on the list, but which I don’t own), are both being read by young participants of The Ladies Comics Project Phase II, despite not being pictured above.
Tags: comic covers, comics!, great books, ladies comics project, she has no head!
So we’ve got a tie this week, mostly cause I just love me some Emma Frost and Chris Bachalo. First is this great splash page panel by Daniel Acuna of Luke Cage (POWERMAN!) and his wife Jessica Jones (POWERWOMAN?) having dinner in New Avengers #8.
I love it. It’s really fun and smart and has great attention to detail from the clothing of our heroes, to the one slightly falling sock of our waitress…it’s just damn fine looking comics. And really, this scene goes on for several pages and with the exception of one very weird Jessica Jones expression panel it’s pretty fantastic. I miss Stuart Immonen like crazy on this book already and am horribly disappointed that he’s no longer on the book…but Acuna is a good replacement if I have to have one. I’m really bummed that I have to drop the book when Deodato (and Chaykin?) come on board…but maybe Acuna will stay? Maybe I can keep reading? In fairness to Deodato, I thought his cover to New Avengers #8 was pretty good, and very restrained in his depiction of Jones…which is usually where he loses me (his depiction of women).
click to enlarge
But I couldn’t resist Chris Bachalo’s great cartoon-y fun take on the X-Men and especially Emma Frost in this panel from X-Men #7. Apologies to Mr. Bachalo for the liberties I took (I had to crop a bit as it was an unwieldy shape – also the crease is terrible – double sorry!) but look past it please to the beautiful extremely detailed personality filled artwork there. The combination of lights and darks, the highly complex detailed work, the great composition, character design and acting. FABULOUS. Also, Emma, you so funny. 
Click to enlarge!
And now for the fun stuff…
Apparently Emma’s clothing is SO CRAZY all the damn time, that even though Bachalo has made an effort to put Emma in pants (and thank you for that Mr. Bachalo) colorists DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS PANTS.
They probably went to color it and were like…”No…just regular pants? That can’t be right…This is EMMA FROST! I bet it’s some kind of weird underwear thigh-high boots situation…!”
And that is how you end up with something that looks like this:
Yeah. That’s just wrong. Even for Emma.
Tags: comics!, Panel Of The Week
Fables #101 came close to taking it this week but this Uncanny X-Men #4 cover by Esad Ribic is just too cool not to win. It’s not PERFECT, but it’s very interesting to me with the shapes and movement and composition. It also manages to, despite being a style that looks very stiff and slick to me, have great movement and energy thanks to the composition and patterns.
Ross made a comment a while back in cover solicits that this cover would be even better if Psylocke’s skin was lighter here because it would further re-inforce the pale colors and dark patterned shapes – and I agree – but it’s still very cool.
All these covers are pretty interesting actually, but this is my favorite that we’ve seen so far.
Sorry folks, life has been busy busy chaos…so no time to “promote” 3 Chicks today…but here it is, in all it’s glory and in case you haven’t listened yet!
Head over to CSBG for the write up this week’s episode, and the link to the cast. Enjoy!
Tags: 3 Chicks Cast, 3 Chicks Review Comics, comics!, podcasting
