Buy This! - December 7th, 2011

Every Monday Seth picks out three items that are due to ship on Wednesday and directs you toward your best bets for a quality purchase. Some times it's a single issue of a comic, other times a massive omnibus edition of a beloved series, and occasionally a figure or shiny bauble that caught his eye. Read on to find the three items you shouldn't leave your comic shop without this week.

Sorry this is a day late. My Monday was fraught with peril and Christmas tree buying/decorating. Other than that I have nothing to preface this with besides a warning that the Morning Glories deluxe hardcover, due to ship last week, has been delayed. Now, I read this on CBR earlier this week which makes the fact that I've already seen the hardcover on my local shop's shelf sort of bizarre. So, from what I can tell it isn't available at chain stores or on Amazon, but it might be at your local shop.

Also, I just want to take this opportunity to mention that, though I'll often link to Amazon in this column I'll always promote buying stuff from your local comic book retailer before you support the chains that are generating the majority of  graphic novel and trade sales. I realize Amazon and some other online retailers offer deep discounts but I managed to work out a discount with my local retailer and now buy a large portion of my superhero trades off him. Of course, some times the comic retailers just can't compete with the discount, so I get it. I'm just saying... support the little guy.

Onto this week's column...

Avenging Spider-Man #2: The number 1 issue of this series was brilliant, in my opinion. It captured the sense of fun that should be prevalent in a good Spidey comic, boasted fantastic art, and featured some dynamic action. It's also the book that lead the charge of Marvel books making the jump to my pull list last month. Zeb Wells is writing a great book with hilarious dialogue, and after hearing his name for ages I can finally see for myself what people dig about this Joe Madureira guy. Give it a shot.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Raphael #1: IDW's TMNT relaunch has been a blast of 90's tinged nostalgia-soaked fun. Now, following the format of the original Eastman/Lard comics, they're releasing a micro series to complement the ongoing. This issue focuses on everyone's favorite emo turtle, Raphael and seems to focus on what he was up to in his time apart from the rest of the group during the start of the new series. Pick this up if you're enjoying the ongoing or if you need a gateway drug to what IDW is doing with the characters.

Jurassic Strike Force #0: "What is this book and how did it make the cut?" I'm a sucker for dinosaurs. Just listen to the solicit for this book... "For over 165 million years dinosaurs ruled the earth...until the alien overlord Zalex discovered the planet 100 million years ago. In search of an army to conquer the universe Zalex finds the perfect candidates to mutate into his ultimate soldiers in earth's Jurassic reptiles. With his new army nothing can stop Zalex from ruling the galaxy and the universe beyond it..nothing but a team of mutated dinosaur heroes. Don't miss this exciting prequel issue featuring what's sure to be the hottest team of mutated reptiles to grace the four color world in three decades."

Now, I don't actually know anything about the creative time on this book but... guys, this is a book with gun-toting dinosaurs. I really don't think there's much more I need to say. Oh, and it's only 99 cents for this zero issue!


That does it for this week's column. For being three weeks out from Christmas there aren't a lot of trades or hardcovers out this week so I stuck to single issues. As soon as the Rocketeer Adventures hardcover comes out, though, I intend to rave about that book.

Happy shopping!