Friday 12 June 2015

Atoll Comics Round 20

Or changes to my Top-Ten comics

Due to my spouse seeing how much I spend on comics and an urge to buy better comics, I have decided to be super-selective about which superhero comics I read. Harnessing the Awesome Power of Maths, I have determined that I can afford to read 10 ongoing titles. So I get to read 10, and only 10, titles published by either Marvel or DC as well as one trade paperback a week of my choosing.

A complication of this is that I am forced to drop an on-going title if I want to try reading a new on-going title, an act of very tough love. Being financially responsible is the worst.

I will be adding Howard The Duck and dropping Secret Avengers.


Why Howard The Duck: mostly because it’s something different. Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones are two creators that I’ve always enjoyed as slightly idiosyncratic. Chip Zdarsky in particular has an oddly earnest and just, uh, odd sense of humour that seemed like it would fit well with an oddball premise like an alien duck-man (man-duck?) trying to fit into a world of disgusting ape creatures by working as a down-n-his-luck private investigator. I also thought he would bring the funny. And so far Howard The Duck hasn’t disappointed being an amusing weird comic filled with duck puns. Which has made for a fun change of pace in my pull list. I do wonder, a little bit, if Howard The Duck has the staying power to be a comic I’ll read longterm, or if it is a fun premise I’ll enjoy for a while before moving on to something else. Still, for now, fun stuff.



Why not Secret Avengers: because Secret Avengers is over. This is another comic that had its moment in the sun, told its story, and finished it in a satisfying and enjoyable way. Ales Kot, Michael Walsh, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles delivered a consistently uncouth, often funny, and deeply earnest comic filled with some really powerful moments and some really smart comics.  I will miss this book both as a reader and as an art critic. I’ll also deeply miss Secret Avengers take on MODOK whose combination of brilliance, insanity, and passionate sincerity has been a revelation and something, in a way that I find kind of worrying, I found myself really relating too. So goodbye Secret Avengers, goodbye noble Science mutant!

Previously:

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