So we started reviewing some of the suggestions from the Venom #3 Giveaway and a few suggestions were to move our picks a little earlier. So we’ll see how Monday’s go for our picks.
It’s the second to last Wednesday in July, SDCC is behind us now with what I’d call a lot of buzz on existing books that is creating people to scramble looking for books in back issue bins at the local shops.
So what’s in store for us this week? Not as exciting but we can never be totally sure as a book could surprise us.
DC Pick
Batgirl #37 is my first pick. Great looking cover art if you ask me. There’s also the possiblity there’s a new Oracle coming. New, old, worthy of keeping an eye on.
Batman Curse of the White Knight #1 (of 8) is the other pick out of DC. I love Sean Murphy’s style of art and his last White Knight series was a great read which also introduced the new Neo Joker that saw some heat.
Maybe this series will unveil some new characters or surprises as well.
Marvel Picks
Guardians of the Galaxy #7 is already selling out online due to the buzz that it’s the death of Rocket.
House of X #1 (of 6) is suppose to be one of the books that will forever change the X-Men, making them relevant once again in the Marvel Universe.
I sure hope Marvel and Hickman know what they’re doing. The hype they’ve built around this book could backfire if they don’t deliver as promised. This will likely be the first X-Men book I’ll be picking up to check out and read in many moons..
And for those who have a huge spending limit (lucky you), you can buy some of the big boy variants at TFAW. There’s the Virgin Connecting Variant by Mark Brooks that’s only $399.99 after $100 off they’re retail price. They also have the Pacheco Variant at a cool $159.99 from their retail price of $199.99. If those are too rich for your wallet, perhaps the Hidden Gem Variant at $79.99 is more enticing? It’ll certainly be interesting to see how much these go for on the secondary on release day and people start to list these.
The last mention goes to Valkyrie Jane Foster #1 which they claim will have everyone talking! I guess we’ll see. It’s Aaron and Ewing teaming up on writing duties. Maybe some ground breaking story telling will create some buzz for this book but only time will tell. It’s just a book to watch for sure.
Indie and Small Publisher Picks
Aliens: Rescue #1 is a definite pickup for any Aliens fan. I’ve been enjoying these mini-series they’ve been pumping out from Dark Horse and as an Aliens fan myself, I’m not going to miss out on some great alien stories with some potential cool artwork.
It’s not a huge week for indies and small publishers, so the next pick goes to what I think will be a pretty cool read if done right. That pick is Monster World Golden Age #1 (of 6).
Now on with the dreaded “avoid” pick, every writer and artist worst nightmare when it comes to selling their hard work.
Avoid most of the DC card stock covers. For a dollar more to pay for the card stock, the artwork on most of these aren’t worth the extra buck.
House/Power of X looks decent with decent artists . But have you seen the solicits for the new X-Men and New Mutants titles that comes after ? Yuck .
Yeah, if the X-Men reboots are a success from Hickman, I likely still won’t budge to pick them all up. I was never a big New Mutants fan, back in the day or now..
If Hickman bombs Xmen after talking smack about everyone who has done the X-men series after him, it will be hilarious he will be pulled after 10 issues and X-men rebooted again.
10 issues between them all? Cause the first two are 6 issues series.. 🙂
The X-Men need a dark arc story. I think that will be the only way to get them back on top.
I would welcome that.
The short ‘Uncanny Xmen’ thing after Secret Wars 2014 was pretty dark. No-one read it either.
I think I picked up the first issue of that series but never read it.
“Avoid most of the DC card stock covers. For a dollar more to pay for the card stock, the artwork on most of these aren’t worth the extra buck.”
Amen to that .. I think DC saw the popularity of the B covers and decided to do card stock for a premium price .. just keep the B covers as they were, please .. comics are getting expensive enough as it is ..
Yeah, I won’t pay a buck extra just for the DC “B” covers. Screw that. I agree with you.
As a shop that actually sells back issues (we have roughly 40,000 on the tables at any given time including 2,000 Silver Age, and last year back issues represented 29.9% of our revenue): I hate the B covers.
They are incredibly difficult to sort in boxes and they annoy pretty much every customer trying to complete runs.
The first 4 months our customers thought they were awesome and everyone wanted to switch. Since then every month I get folks switching back to cover A because they hate the grief just looking through their own collections. “Oh is this Aquaman? Nope. That’s Justice League.”
If they were just as virgin as they are now, but the title and issue number were moved from the bottom to the top, we would probably see 40-50 subs switch to them. Because they are definitely pretty. But not pretty enough for the aggravation the next 20 years flipping through boxes at shops and cons.
Willie, I couldnt agree more. The ‘virgin’ cover is such an annoyance.
Yup. I can’t stand not being able to identify a comic by its cover because of no title or issue number