Paul's Picks! - April 18, 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...

Another week has passed, and with it comes a whole new slew of comics to keep us here at Ancillary Characters busy with writing, thinking, podcasting and stuff. With a long list of incredible books to survey from Wednesday, April 19th, I'm here as usual to give you my well-founded (or so I think) opinion regarding my pick of the week! For those of you who have been following us here at AC for some time now, you may be pleased to hear that, thanks to Seth and my recent acquisition of an iPad, my weekly Marvel intake has greatly increased (not to mention the Image titles I'm reading monthly now. And so, both in my column and on the show, our topics will be branching out more so from the DC-heavy stuff we've been covering since the arrival of the New 52. And so, you can definitely expect to see titles from all over the spectrum of comic book publishers from now on. With that being said, I must confess that this week's pick was so fantastic that my desire to expand the column into broader horizons has been somewhat dwarfed by the sheer awesomeness of the absolute winner...

Paul's Picks! - Feb. 2, 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.

Swamp Thing #6 by Scott Snyder and Marco Rudy

Oh, that's not ominous...

Hey guys! I hope you've had a great week so far, thanks for checking us out again here at Ancillary Characters. We're finally hitting the stride we've been striving for with our weekly articles, and our first Ancillary Characters podcast is live on iTunes! If you haven't gotten around to downloading it, I recommend you do so, and do us a huge favor: write a review on there! Anyhow, I just wanted to take a sec and thank all of you guys that keep coming back week after week to hear what we have to say.

Now on the the goods! Week one of the month is always an interesting one, with some of the heavy hitters coming out side by side. For this week, my pick could've gone one of two ways. Grant Morrison's Action Comics won the week last month with that fantastic issue about the destruction of Krypton, and he and Andy Kubert definitely came out swinging again this month with another exceptional issue. However, the winner of my Pick this week has to go to Scott Snyder and his supernatural Swamp Thing series.

¡Paul's Picks!

I'm sure many of you faithful readers have recently been asking yourselves, "I wonder what books have been Paul's favorite this month?" Well, for all of you curious readers, I'm finally coming around with my weekly picks for this month! Okay, so maybe I'm a little behind on the "weekly" part, but going forward I will be faithfully posting my weekly favs and reviews for you all, starting now!

(Wednesday the 26th). When I grabbed my pulls for the day, I knew it was going to be a tough choice, with 7 great titles to read. With a lot of DC #2's like Flash and Superman, I was more than excited to get my stack home and power through them.

However, while Flash and Aquaman were both fantastic, I must admit they were beaten out by a very narrow margin by the one comic I'm pulling outside of the Big Two (*that's DC and Marvel, for those rare non-comic readers that happen to be reading this): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3 from IDW.

For those of you that may be skeptical, let me just say that this decision was not made on a whim. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm typically a DC fanboy, but even with the incredible art by Ivan Reis and the really fresh look into Barry Allen's mind by Manupal and Buccellato, I had to give it up for the "Heroes in a Half Shell." (Alert: Some mild SPOILERS ahead!!)

I have loved the Turtles since my preschool days, and I am so thankful for what Tom Waltz and Kevin Eastman have given us here. This is a teenage-mutant-ninja-origin-story for the ages! Many of us might ask, why do these guys need an origin? We've all seen the movies, we get it. Turtles go in the ooze, get big, and have a natural affinity for pizza and butt-kicking. But what Waltz and Eastman have created is much more than that. There is the skeleton of the original story, with all new twists, and a great look into what made them who they are today.

Throughout the first three issues, W & E have been weaving the story back and forth between present day and flashbacks to the when the Turtles and Splinter were mutated. They manage to work between three different points of view seamlessly, masterfully employing the "show-don't-tell" that others often fail to accomplish. A couple of reviews online stated that they found this issue confusing, and that they had trouble figuring out where the authors were going with this. Personally, I found this issue to be the best out of the first three easily. Where there was some uncertainty before about Raphael and why he is separated from the other three with no knowledge of who he is or where he came from, we finally get a good view of the story from this one.

The dialogue flows great, with some funny moments between Raph and Casey

Jones, off on their own vigilante spree. On the other side, we see some great characterization between Donnie, Leo, and Mikey. If there was a fault in the first two issues, it was the shortage of characterization for the turtles (apart from Raph, who doesn't even know who he is). W & E hit their stride in issue three, giving us some very sincere dialogue between the brothers, slowly revealing to the readers (both old and new) what makes them who they are.

Of course, any comic reader knows that a book can't stand on words alone: the art needs to ROCK. And Dan Duncan draws the TMNT like no one else! His art is gritty but beautiful, creating a world that is absolutely perfect for these characters. This is my first run around with the guy, but his art is reminiscent of some of the pencillers with a more distinct art, like Francis Manupal and Scott Kollins. As a matter of fact, I'd say he's kind of a blend between the two, but still making his own distinct print.

Even in a week with heavy hitters like Flash and Aquaman, TMNT #3 stands out as an issue that heralds an amazing story ahead of us. For the old fans, we have a rare opportunity to see this world reborn in a way that I've personally been wanting for years! Right now we're seeing their beginning, but what next? An origin for Rocksteady and Bebop? Baxter Stockman? Crang? And if you don't know any of these characters, now is the perfect time for a new reader to order a pizza, grab this fantastic book, and watch as these guys raise some shell.

Pulling the New 52

So the wait is finally over, and the results are in: the New 52 was an apparent success. DC is raking in some very high numbers on these new issues, and there is a definite energy around the market that has been somewhat missing for a little while. Of course, there's no telling just how long these powerful sales will last, or for that matter if DC has truly managed to pull in new and/or stagnant readers, but you can't argue with the fact that this first month has been a success for the company on paper.

However, as a comic reader and buyer, I must admit that the monetary success of DC was not my primary concern with this "soft-reboot." Of course I want them to do well financially (after all, no money, no comics), but I"ll admit I spent most of my time wondering how it would all turn out in print! And now that the launch is behind us, I can reveal to all of you readers which books made the cut, and which books got the cut.

In choosing my list, I attempted to cut it down beneath 15 regular pulls. However, after strenuous difficulty in deciding which to keep, I decided to keep a portion of books that are on the "probation list." I'm going to follow these titles through their first arc, and see where they take me. In other words, I'm tempted but not quite sold. I really wanted some of these titles to be better than they were (Superman), but then some of them turned out to be much better than I anticipated (Batman). Overall, I felt this was a great start with a lot of great (or at least promising) titles, and I can't wait to see where DC is going to be taking us over the next year.

And so, with no further blab, I give you, "Paul's Fabulously Fantastic Pull List of the New 52!!"

Official Pulls:

1. Action Comics - It was fantastic, although I'll admit I wasn't crazy about Morales' drawing of Clark Kent at times. Everything is, top notch. You can expect great things here.
2. Aquaman - Wow Ivan Reis, just wow. You rocked Blackest Night, and you still got it.
3. Batman - Scott Snyder knows Batman, that's all I can tell you.
4. Batman and Robin - This one was iffy for me going in, but Tomasi did something here he failed to do with GLC: he pulled me in. I'm not sure about the regressing Damian, but I'm on board for now at least.
5. Batgirl - I really liked seeing Barbara on familiar ground that felt unfamiliar to her, it was compelling.
6. Demon Knights - Paul Cornell, you teased me with that first issue, but after reading the second, you hooked me. You got skills sir.
7. Detective Comics - I don't know what I expected here from Tony Daniel, but it wasn't this. And I like it.
8. The Flash - Barry Allen has arisen as one of my new favorite characters, and while I'm sure I'll miss Johns on the writing, Manupal is definitely familiar with the character and is giving him justice. And he's an artistic Beast.
9. Green Lantern - This was fantastic. I'm back on board with GL like I haven't been since Sinestro Corp and Blackest Night. Kudos Johns.
10. Justice League - Two words: Lee and Johns. Are you gonna pass this up? I didn't think so.
11. Swamp Thing - This one surprised me, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it. After some pondering, it was good, I'm in for now.
12. Teen Titans - I want to read cool stories with these characters, even if the first issue was a "?" for me. I'll wait it out.
13. Wonder Woman - Very good stuff. I liked what JMS did before, but I think this could be something special.

Probational Pulls:

1. Batman: The Dark Knight - This was the bottom of the Bat books, but I'll give it 3 issues.
2. Green Lantern: New Guardians - I want a cool story with the different corp, which we have yet to see post-Blackest Night for me. Let this be it.
3. Nightwing - This was a good book, just not solid enough for certainty. We'll see.
4. Red Lanterns - I like Ed Benes. And I like Atrocitus. I'm hoping for something better going forward.
5. Superman - I want to pull this. And Perez is already off in a few months, so I'm going to stick it out and see where it goes.
6. Stormwatch - Another Cornell book, it's yet to blow me away, but I'm going to see where this arc goes anyway.

So officially, that's 19 books (not counting TMNT which I'm also pulling). I plan on knocking it down to 15 after the first arc, so we'll just have to see who can make the cut by then.