We shouldn’t just collect or flip books, we should also read them. A good story can make your purchase well worth the money spent if you ask me. After all, we buy books to read for entertainment right? Even if you can’t flip them, reading is just as rewarding.
We tend to focus on mostly the floppy copies each week and kind of ignore the trades and hardcovers that come out week after week.
These can be one off books, collected editions or special editions. I go into these picks of mostly just the solicitations provided from the publishers. These are the ones that caught my attention coming out this week or within the next couple of weeks.
This first pick is for all those Sandman junkies out there.
From the pages of Newbery Medal winner Neil Gaiman’s THE SANDMAN comes the young, pale, perky, fan-favorite character Death in a new Absolute Edition collecting her solo adventures! Featuring the miniseries DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING #1-3 in which Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart.
THE ABSOLUTE DEATH collects the miniseries DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING and DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE together with “The Sound of Her Wings” and “Façade” from THE SANDMAN #8 and #20, the P. Craig Russell-illustrated “Death and Venice” from THE SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS, and the never-before reprinted stories “A Winter’s Tale” and “The Wheel.” This deluxe volume also features an introduction by The Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer as well as extensive galleries of Death portraits and retail products, sketches by artist Chris Bachalo, and the complete original script by Gaiman for THE SANDMAN #8.
I could only find this one listed on Midtown but this is for anyone who loved the 80s slasher horror movies.
Doll Island GN – Source Point Press
Set in the 1980s, Doll Island is an unabashed homage to teen slasher films of the same era. Located off the coastal beaches of an idyllic small town, a fabled island draws the curiosity of a tight-knit group of friends. Considered nothing more than a local ghost story, hardly anyone in the town gives more than a passing, shuddering thought to the strange dolls nailed to the thick, ancient trunks of the darkly wooded little isle.
The depth of its tragic history has allowed a nameless, deadly sadness to take root and grow among the forest, unchecked. Armed with nothing but a picnic lunch and a youthful enthusiasm for a macabre locale, four friends unwittingly put themselves in the path of the island’s long-isolated, long-forgotten groundskeeper.
This one looks great. They should have tried to release before Christmas but a murdering evil Klaus sounds awesome!
Kringle TP – Source Point Press
After the senseless slaughter of his reindeer, Santa Claus exacts bloody, magical vengeance on the small town of Hearth!
Now no one is safe unless the town librarian and the orphans of Hearth show him the true meaning of Christmas!
If they can stay alive long enough, that is. So be good for goodness’ sake. Also features back-up stories featuring Frostbite the Zombie Snowman.
This one looks like a great read, particularly since I’m a science junkie. I truly believe I should have been a scientist but that’s just too much school’ing for me.
Tamsin Kuhn Trakroo is a fourteen-year-old super scientist who has just started studying at The Prometheus Institute, the world’s most famous and prestigious science school.
She’s dealing with all the normal transfer student stress, weird classmates, crushing on her super-smart roommate, the holographic ghost of her father, a murder mystery, and oh yeah, a hole in the time-space continuum!
That’s it for this week for the trades and hardcover picks. Tell us what graphic novels, trades or hardcovers you got for the holidays in the comments if you feel the need to share.
Another violent Santa story doesn’t excite me, but a back-up story about a zombie snowman named Frostbite has my interest!