Saturday, July 14, 2012

Smatterday 07/14/2012

SDCC EDITION
This weekend is, obviously, San Diego Comic Con. And while I am not one of the bazillion attendees this year, there's no escaping the overwhelming outpouring of news and announcements coming out of the convention. So below are a small handful of things that interest me personally from SDCC '12 so far.

Undoubtedly Gorgeous New Sandman Material
Neil Gaiman announced that he would be returning to Sandman in 2013 (the series' 25th anniversary) to write a brand new story illustrated by J.H. Williams III. I saw a fair amount of naysaying online when the news broke, people calling it "Before Sandman" and whatnot, but as far as I'm concerned this is unequivocally good news. An amazing writer returns to an amazing character with an amazing artist. I'm celebrating.

David Marquez In Your Face
I've never been shy about my adoration of David Marquez's work on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, so any new project with him on art duties is bound to draw my attention. But a nutty sci-fi family adventure series done entirely in 3D by Marquez? That I will absolutely be buying. The Joyners in 3D is, so far, the title I'm most excited for that was announced at SDCC this year. And really, how could anything hope to top a gimmicky, beautiful, three-dimensional space romp?

The Eisners
Of course the Eisner Awards are always a major piece of comicbook news, and last night the winners were announced. Mark Waid and Jim Henson's Tale of Sand led with three wins apiece. I have not read Tale of Sand but it moved up my "to read list" considerably after last night. And Waid definitely deserves the win. He's a killer writer working on creator-owned and Big Two series in both digital and print. Also a big fan of the decision to give Francesco Francavilla Best Cover Artist. That dude is one of the strongest artistic talents currently working, and deserves to be acknowledged for it. Overall a satisfying year of Eisners.

Some Other Stuff I'll Likely Read
I am a huge Books of Magic fan and am already following Justice League Dark, so the announcement that Tim Hunter would be joining the series was something I definitely noticed. I don't know if I would describe myself as "excited" for it, but I'm curious to see how Jeff Lemire handles the character and how different Hunter's experience will be dealing with the JL Dark rather than the four cosmic powers from the original series. Constantine carries over, but the New 52 Constantine is a wildly different guy than the Vertigo one, so that barely counts.

Because I like Nathan Edmonson a lot and am also reading all of Marvel's current Ultimate titles, I expect I'll read Ultimate Comics Iron Man come October. The "Divided We Fall" crossover might turn me off before then, as events are wont to do, but barring that I think I'll make the four-issue commitment.

Lastly, I suspect I'll pick up Masks when it comes out. My experience with Chris Roberson is pretty limited (still haven't cracked open any iZombie but I read his Cinderella mini) but Alex Ross is a tremendous talent and, I don't know...a "pulp crossover event" just sounds like something I want to read. Dynamite has a great track record of late, and this is, in theory, meant to bring new readers to a bunch of its titles, so Masks will likely be an excellent series.

No comments:

Post a Comment