Too many comics!

[avram]

Ever since I pretty much stopped buying big-company superhero comics and comics in pamphlet format, I often find myself complaining that there’s nothing new for me to buy at the comics shop on Wednesdays. These past couple weeks, I’ve had the opposite problem. Enough has come out that I not only have a backlog of unread comics, but there’s stuff I still need to buy that I haven’t because I don’t want to carry that much weight home all at once. Here’s some of the recent stuff:

Bought and read

Fell, vol 1: Feral City by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith
Cop gets transferred to the seamy side of a fictional city. More likable than most Ellis protagonists; in this book it’s the setting that provides the over-the-top nastiness. As with Global Frequency, each chapter is a stand-alone story, which doesn’t matter as much in a collection as it did in pamphlets, but as long as Ellis is following the pamphlet-then-book business model, that seems like a good plan. Templesmith’s art looks like low-rent Sienkevitch, and I eventually figured out that all the characters’ hands aren’t all spindly and crippled-looking for a dramatic reason, Templesmith just draws hands that way. Can you tell I’m not a Ben Templesmith fan? Still, the art mostly serves the setting well.

The Clarence Principle by Fehed Said and Shari Chankhamma
Cute goth comic. Clarence seems to have killed himself — he wakes up in the afterlife in a bathtub with slashed wrists. Much quirkiness follows, leading to an ironic ending that wasn’t really sufficiently supported by the preceding material. Maybe it would have seemed more plausible if I were an antisocial teenage goth.

The Homeless Channel by Matt Silady
Drama about a 24-hour cable TV channel devoted to the homeless. The writing is pretty good, especially the dialog, but the art (high-contrast photo-based) is crude enough that I had trouble telling the major female characters apart for much of the book. (There’s only one major male character, which is pretty unusual in itself.)

Bought, but not yet read

• The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar
• The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
• Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan

I’d been waiting for The Rabbi’s Cat to come out in paper for, I dunno, I guess a year now, yet I went ahead and bought The Three Paradoxes and Exit Wounds in hardback. I picked up Ivan Brunetti’s Misery Loves Company in hardback too. I think I’ve jumped some internal hurdle that kept my from buying these things in hardcover. Price may also be an issue — Exit Wounds is only $20, and The Three Paradoxes is $15.

Not yet bought, but I’m planning to

• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (out in paperback, sez Amazon)
• Casanova, vol 1: Luxuria by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Bá (maybe; it’s a $25 hardcover, a bit pricey for seven issues)
• Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian