Paul's Picks! - August 23, 2012

Well, it's that time again folks: Wednesday! And you know what Wednesday is?... Well, of course you do, you're reading a blog about comics, so you obviously know it's New Comics Day, a.k.a. Paul's favorite weekly holiday! And now for his much-anticipated pick-of-the-week...

Ah, Wednesday. That day that we comic fans look forward to all week long. Why is that? Why, it's New Comic Book Day of course. It's the day we take a break from our regularly scheduled lives and swing down to the LCS, or perhaps just browse the digital offerings and indulge on our tablets, laptops, or smart phones. No matter what your preferred method of reading, it all means the same thing: new comics. It's one of the joys of life, a chance to step outside of the mundane and escape to a fiction world where anything is possible. Yep. All that jazz.

With a thick stack of books from my local comic shop (Great Escape Comics, check it out if you're in Bowling Green, KY), there were a fair few of contenders for my Pick of the Week. Flash upped the ante this week with the Rogues. Batman: TDK continues to be great (and utterly terrifying). And, of course, the 50th Anniversary of Spider-Man brings us the origin of the Wall Crawler's new sidekick, Alpha. But remember, as in AvX (and Highlander), "there can only be one"...

Paul's Picks! - April 25, 2012

Well, it's that time again folks: Wednesday! And you know what Wednesday is?... Well, of course you do, you're reading a blog about comics, so you obviously know it's New Comics Day, a.k.a. Paul's favorite weekly holiday! And now for his much-anticipated pick-of-the-week...

Hello all! This was a big week for comics, with a slew of AvX tie-ins hitting the shelves, along with many of your typical favorites from DC, Marvel, IDW, Image, etc. I left my shop with a nice bag just full of books this week, anxiously waiting to dive in to some of my usual favorites from this week in comics. Since I'm certain that many of you are sitting there wondering which books are these "usual favorites," here's a short list: from DC, Flash and Aquaman, TMNT from IDW, not to mention my recent taking to New Avengers (although I'm not sure that one counts, as it's currently all about AvX, but who's judging?). Any way you look at it though, this is a big week for books. And so, with no more blabbering on, the definitive winner of this week's pick is...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #9 by Eastman, Waltz, and Duncan.

Note: SPOILERS WILL BE PRESENT! I typically try to avoid them for the most part, but the key component to this issue can't be addressed well without them, so if you haven't read it yet and you're going to, WAIT TO READ THIS UNTIL AFTER! Thank you.

Podcast Episode 9 - The Best Issue of 2012!

Hello everyone! Here's episode 9 of our podcast, where we reveal all of our opinions about the world of comics from this week. And just so everyone knows, our Pick of the Week was Avenging Spiderman #5, which we somehow managed to talk about for 10 minutes without ever mentioning the title... Enjoy! Comment! Rate us on iTunes!

Episode 7 - The One With the Take-It-Or-Leave-It-athon

For those of you that may have missed it on iTunes, Episode 7 is up from the Ancillary Characters Podcast! Here's an embedded version for your convenience. Enjoy!



Also, let us know what you thought! Come on, guys, where's the feedback?

Paul's Picks! - Feb. 22, 2012

Well, it's that time again folks: Wednesday! And you know what Wednesday is?... Well, of course you do, you're reading a blog about comics, so you obviously know it's New Comics Day, a.k.a. Paul's favorite weekly holiday! And in celebration of this weekly, well, celebration, Paul is here to give you his favorite book of the week.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #7 by Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz and Dan Duncan


Wait, no Aquaman? No Flash #6? I've been waiting on those two issues all month, looking forward to some really cool stuff that the Manupal/Buccellato duo have promised us from the Fastest Man Alive! Not to mention the really cool new arc that Johns set us up for last month with Arthur being stuck out in the desert. Yes, I know, very true, but the facts are the facts people, and out of a pretty tall stack of issues this week, IDW won it by a landslide. Those of you that have been with us over the last few months are surely aware of my adoration for the Heroes in a Half Shell, but please don't think for a second that I'm handing out this week's pick based solely on some pizza loving banter from my favorite turtle in orange. The truth is, there are so many things to love about issue #7 that there was really no other option than to give praise where praise is due.

Buy This! - Feb 23rd, 2012

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.


Forgive the lack of a new column last week and the lateness of this week's but I've just returned from a week-long vacation down in the swamps of Florida... or Disney World if you prefer. It's sort of a light week, almost to the point where I was going to bail on this week's column and instead write about my trip to the House of Mouse and how it was surprisingly Marvel-free. However, after a bit of searching I did manage to dig up three purchases that would be worth anyone's time.

Before I get to that I'd just like to take this opportunity to again commend Marvel on their omnibus editions. I just picked up the Wolverine by Jason Aaron one this past week and it's definitely impressive. Not only for the wonderful knack Aaron has for writing Logan and the stories he places him in but for the package itself. While light on extras I'm still pleased every time I open a Marvel omnibus. The books lays flat when opened (none of that page-bleeding-into-the-gutter crap that DC pulls) and they're printed beautifully in an oversized format. With artists like Ron Garney and Yanick Paquette contributing to the issues contained therein it's a great book to have in a larger scale like this.

Tales from the Long Box: Geoff Johns' Flash (or the rise of Geoff Johns)

In 2002, after an absence that lasted from my early teens into my twenties, I started reading monthly comics. I started with Batman, collecting every issue of No Man's Land and, despite not having a clue what had come before I enjoyed it immensely. From there I branched out into other corners of the Marvel and DC universes. Mostly I stuck to characters I knew like Spider-Man and Superman and the Justice League. I believe it was in a copy of Wizard magazine that I first read about this guy, Geoff Johns who was working his way up through the writing ranks on smaller characters. Stars and STRIPE and the Flash had already been overseen by him and he was knee deep in what would become one of my all-time favorite comics, the JSA. I read the article, liked what he had to say about superhero comics and decided to try out one of his books.

The first book I read with Johns name on the cover was a beat up trade paperback that I got at the library collecting a hand full of issues of the Flash. I remember being struck by the art of Scott Kollins and instantly recognizing that this Johns guy had something different than other writers. His Wally West was an easy guy to identify with, who worked a normal day job and struggled with everyday problems issue to issue. Under Geoff's pen Wally became DC's answer to Peter Parker in a lot of ways. Something I've always felt set the Johns earlier work apart from other guys is that he seemed to write like he had something to prove. He'd take on books like Stars and STRIPE and Flash or the JSA, characters who were second or third tier at best, and he'd turn them into best selling titles.

Paul's Picks! - January 25, 2012

Well, it's that time again folks: Wednesday! And you know what Wednesday is?... Well, of course you do, you're reading a blog about comics, so you obviously know it's New Comics Day, a.k.a. Paul's favorite weekly holiday! And in celebration of this weekly, well, celebration, Paul is here to give you his favorite book of the week.

Well it's time for another Pick of the Week, and I find myself on unsure ground. There are some weeks where the chosen pick is screaming at me, and then there are those weeks when everything runs together so much that I have trouble pointing out the "best" of them; this is one of those weeks. Don't get me wrong, there were some great books, and if I had to pick a favorite I'd go with The Flash #5 by Francis Manupal and Brian Buccellato, but I'm afraid if I spend this week's article outlining what I love about their incredible run on the series, I'll just be repeating what I've already made clear in weeks past. Instead, I want to talk about something other than a single issue that tickled my fancy. This week, my pick is Comics that Make an Impression.