Chad’s Comments (group member since Mar 22, 2018)

Chad’s comments from the I Read Comic Books group.

The Sixth Gun is one of my favorite series of the 21st century. I've read through it more than once. Supernatural Westerns is one of my favorite genres and this is one of the best.

Bunn weaves a compelling story, one that I couldn't wait to get more of. Brian Hurt's art seems a little cartoony at first, but it turns out to be a perfect complement to the story.

My review

OK TO AIR

Last week's adventures in comics.

The Last Witch: Fear & Fire ★★★★★
This was fantastic. It's got this Irish folktale vibe to it with some banging animation influenced art.

Eighty Days ★★
A queer romance set in the backdrop of psuedo World War II.

Dryad, Vol. 1 ★★★★
Kurtis Wiebe of Rat Queens fame does his best Saga impression and it turned out really good.

Shadowman: Book One ★★★
This is all about the art. Jon Davis-Hunt excels at drawing horror and that trend continues here. His creatures are always inventive and menacing.

The Silver Coin, Vol. 1 ★★
This was crap. People in different time periods randomly find a cursed coin, get possessed and kill people. That's the story.

Infidel ★★★
A politically charged haunted house story. Spirits lingering in an apartment building are fueled by hatred and racism.

The Good Asian, Vol. 1 ★★★
The detective story gets lost in the need to tell of the racism and injustice Chinese immigrants went through in the 1930's.

Beneath the Trees: The Autumn of Mister Grumph ★★★★
A beautiful children's book about Mr. Grumpf. He's always grumpy but also always goes out of his way to help his neighbors as winter approaches.

HAHA ★★
Six depressing stories about sad clowns, each by a different artist.

The EC Archives: The Haunt of Fear Volume 1 ★★★
Your standard 1950's tales of people murdering people and then getting what they deserve.

Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven ★★★
It's taken 3 books but the series finally seems to be headed somewhere.

Bacon and Other Monstrous Tales ★★
This one is only going to be for Troy Nixey completists. Most of the stories are unfinished. They are the odds and ends of Nixey's career.

Iyanu Child of Wonder Volume One ★★★
A tale set in an African fantasy world about a young outcast with special abilities.

Malika: Warrior Queen Volume 1 ★★★
A solid, fantasy story with African roots about a warrior queen in the area of Nigeria.

Bone: Quest for the Spark Vol. 3 ★★★★
I thought this finished well, maybe the best of the trilogy.

The Old Geezers: Volume 2 ★★★★★
This book is delightful. Three septuagenarians raising Hell in the French countryside.

X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #1 ★★★★
A very straight forward story from Hickman which is the biggest surprise at all. There's quite a bit of humor too.

Giant-Size Little Marvels: Infinity Comic #1 ★★★★
I checked out the first 6 issues of this Infinity comic and X-Men Unlimited. The vertical format is different but the artists make good use of the vertical scroll format. However, I can only get it to work properly on my iphone and not my ipad or through the browser on my computer.

David wrote: "I just started reading the Death of Wolverine (Charles Soule) and that’s keeping me occupied at the moment. Otherwise I’ve been borrowing a TON of books from ComiXology and really want to expand my..."

Don't bother with all the other miniseries centered around this. They are terrible. Death of Wolverine was solid though. The same goes for Return of Wolverine. The Hunt for Wolverine books other than the Tom Taylor one are awful cash grabs that bring nothing to the story.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Inferno #1
Sandman / Locke & Key #2
Batman Vs. Bigby: A Wolf in Gotham #1
Superman: Son of Kal-El #3
Wonder Woman: Black & Gold #4
Justice League #68
Crossover #8
Serial #7
Something Is Killing the Children #20
SWORD #8
Thor #17
Wolverine #16

Tom wrote: "Currently re-reading Strangers in Paradise, to be followed by a re-read of Echo/Motorgirl/Rising Rachel, and finally to be completed by a first time read of Five Years After

Looking forward to it!"

Nice Tom. Terry Moore is one of my favorite creators. He currently has a new comic coming out in single issues called Serial. It's about one of the characters from Rachel Rising.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Crimson Flower ★★
A girl sees her father murdered and goes after the assassin 30 years later.

Avatar: The Next Shadow ★★★
A solid continuation of Avatar.

Kabuki Omnibus Volume 4 ★★★★★
Collects the two miniseries that were about other assassins of the Noh, Kabuki: Masks of the Noh and Kabuki: Scarab, Lost in Translation.

Honor and Curse Vol. 2: Mended ★★★
I liked how the series was based on Japanese folklore and used shinto and tengu but the story was convoluted and difficult to follow.

The Collected Toppi Vol.6: Japan ★★★★★
Sergio Toppi was one of the great European comic artists. This collects his short stories set in Japan, mostly based on Japanese folklore.

Crueler Than Dead, Vol.1 ★★
Your straight up, standard zombie apocalypse fare. There wasn't much of a story, plot, or characterization.

Abbott: 1973 ★★★★
I love the setup for Abbott. Elena Abbott is a black, lesbian reporter for a Black newspaper in 1970's Detroit. She also stumbles into the fact that she's the Lightbringer, with supernatural powers she doesn't really understand.

Outlaw: Relentless: A Marvel Heroines Novel ★★★
The little-known Marvel mutant Outlaw gets a prose novel. Pretty solid actually.

White Ash ★★★★★
Egad, I loved this. It's about a mining town in Pennsylvania where a mysterious threat from the town's past returns. I don't want to spoil anything else about this one. A great read for Halloween.

Garlic and the Vampire ★★★★★
A delightful, all-ages graphic novel about an anthropomorphic garlic bulb that tends a witch's garden along with all the other enchanted fruits and vegetables. When a vampire moves into the nearby abandoned castle, she's elected to confront him.

F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack: Scar-Lip Redux ★★★
Even though this series has been around for decades, this was my introduction to Repairman Jack. It's that type of Urban Fantasy where a private eye type takes care of monsters and that's all I really need.

The Darkness vs. Eva: Daughter of Dracula ★★
This is just not very well written. Eva's deal isn't explained at all. I've never heard of her before although I guess being the daughter of Dracula, her deal is more or less self-explanatory. The Darkness at least gets some of his origins explained and I was already familiar with him.

Kirby Genesis: Dragonsbane ★★★
Some Jack Kirby influenced Norse Gods ala Thor. If you like the early Thor comics, you'll probably enjoy this too.

Kirby: Genesis - Silver Star Volume 1 ★★
Dynamite continues the story Jack Kirby created for Pacific Comics back in the 80's.

James Bond: Origin, Vol. 2 ★★★★
Jeff Parker and Ibrahim Moustafa continues James Bond's training in the midst of World War II.

Danger Girl and the Army of Darkness ★★★★
This was a pleasant surprise. It was a blast. The book is funny and full of action and Deadites.

Swamp Thing: New Roots ★★★
Mark Russell writes the main story where Swamp Thing goes to war with the Sunderland Corporation. Surprisingly, it's lacking any of the social commentary or humor Russell is known for.

The Last Witch: Fear & Fire ★★★★★
This was fantastic. It's got this Irish folktale vibe to it with some banging animation influenced art.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 5: The Biggest Bad ★★
The last thing this book needs is a 3rd slayer and yet here comes Faith and Wesley.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Vol. 6: Secrets of the Slayer ★★
This volume is even smaller than normal. Two issues and a one-shot. I'm assuming so they can lead up to a story where something actually happens in issue #25.

Kabuki, Vol. 6: Scarab, Lost in Translation ★★★★★
Both a companion piece to Kabuki: Metamorphosis and an origin story for Scarab.

Amazing Spider-Man by Nick Spencer, Vol. 12: Shattered Web ★★★
I found these issues about the fallout from Last Remains better than Last Remains itself.

Morbius: Old Wounds ★★
Most writers that take on Morbius seem to want to tell the same story, his origin story. Morbius shoddily works up a new formula to cure himself and makes it worse.

Marvel Comics #1000 ★★★
This was a neat idea for a comic. 80 one-page comics. One for each year, all by different creative teams.

X-Men Milestones: Necrosha ★★★★
I like how they did this X-Crossover. With all the X-Titles dealing with the same big bad but you don't have to jump from book to book to book. You can just read each book straight through.

X-Force, Volume 4: Necrosha ★★★★
The Black Queen, Selene, is back and she's resurrected a ton of dead mutants and X-Villains from the past, all under her control. It's like The Blackest Night for the X-Men.

X-Men Legacy: Necrosha ★★★★
This was really cool, especially if you're a long time X-Men fan. Rogue is a badass with her powers fixed.

Yesterday's run to the LCS.

X-Corp #5
X-Men #3
X-Men Legends #7
Batman: The Detective #5
Nightwing #84
Once & Future #20
X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation #1
TMNT: The Last Ronin #4

Lenny wrote: "I would like to nominate The Sixth Gun, Vol. 1: Cold Dead Fingers by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt!

One of my all-time favorite series."

I second Sixth Gun! It's one of my favs too.

Ed wrote: "The other two I've read are both from Wilfrid Lupano
The Old Geezers: Volume 1 is the story of some old geezers who were pro-worker activists in their younger days. They meet at the funeral of one of their wives. The information she leaves behind in a letter to her husband presented with her will leads them on a new adventure."

I really enjoyed The Old Geezers. I've got volume 2 checked out now.

Last week's adventures in comics. Can you tell my Hoopla Bonus Borrows were expiring?

Steeple ★★★
John Allison tries to recreate his Giant Days magic with this new series about a not-so-good female priest and a not-so-bad female Satanist who become besties.

Steeple, Volume 2: The Silvery Moon ★★★
Even having Billie the priest from the Church of England become a priestess for the Church of Satan and her cohort Maggie switching back to the Church of England can't liven up this series.

The EC Archives: MD ★★
Kudos to Dark Horse for putting all these EC Comics back in print, but there's a reason this only lasted 5 issues.

Kirby: Genesis, Volume 1 ★★★
Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross took a bunch of Jack Kirby's creations that he still owned and forged them together into a cosmic adventure come to Earth.

Kirby: Genesis: Captain Victory Volume 1 ★★
When Kirby created this character for Pacific Comics in the 80's, Captain Victory was meant to be the Grandson of Darkseid.

In Search of the Fog Zombie: A Mystery about Matter ★★★★
A great science comic for kids. They get to learn science tricks and facts while also solving the mystery of the Fog Zombie.

Wake Up, Spring (Hotel Strange, #1) ★★★★
A cute little comic about a hotel for monsters that has problems when Mr. Spring goes missing leaving snow on the ground into March.

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Under the Spell ★★★
Three stories set in the world of Labyrinth.

Monster War ★
This was terrible. Witchblade, The Darkness, Lara Croft, and Magdalena from Top Cow fight Dracula and Mr. Hyde as they try and bring the Elder Gods back.

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters Vol. 1 ★★
A failed relaunch of the most successful clone of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic of the 1980's.

Armor X ★★★★
An emotionally troubled teenager who's planning on bringing a gun to school finds an alien suit of armor. The armor is sentient and has a corruptive influence.

Bring the Thunder ★★★
A soldier gets sonic powers when he uses an advanced weapon. Then he takes back the streets of Chicago and stops a member of the Taliban with similar powers.

We Served the People: My Mother's Stories ★★★★★
The story of one woman's perseverance as she navigates the "rustification" of China during the Cultural Revolution of the late 60's and 70's.

No Ivy League ★★★
A coming of age autobiographical story about a homeschooled teenage girl working her first summer job removing English Ivy for the Parks Department in Portland.

A Bag of Marbles ★★★★
The true story of 2 young Jewish brothers who escape Paris when the Nazis invade. Their father sends them off on their own to cross over into "free" France where the Vicky government is in charge.

I Moved to Los Angeles to Work in Animation ★★★
This would be a fantastic resource for any artist looking to break into the animation industry, for everyone else it's going to be kind of boring.

The Joe Shuster Story: The Artist Behind Superman ★★★
A biographical comic of Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel, the creators of Superman, based on other stories and articles.

The Provocative Colette ★★
The dull biography of a fascinating woman. She became a best-selling author in France, ghostwriting for her husband before setting out on her own.

I Remember Beirut ★★
Short random anecdotes about things the author remembers from growing up in Beirut during the war between Christians and Muslims.

Taskmaster: The Rubicon Trigger ★★★
Taskmaster is framed for Maria Hill's murder and must work with Nick Fury to clear his name.

Rick and Morty, Vol. 1 ★★★
A decent extension of the cartoon. Gorman has the spirit of the show down if not the humor.

Shang-Chi by Gene Luen Yang, Vol. 1: Brothers & Sisters ★★★
A solid reintroduction of Shang-Chi into the Marvel Universe. Shang-Chi is again in conflict with his family.

Doc Savage: The Ring of Fire ★★★★
Doc Savage and his team head to the South Pacific when a volcano destroys a naval base. I like how it tied into Amelia Earhart's story as well.

Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir ★★★
Liz Prince's memoir about growing up a tomboy. The difficulties of wanting to play with the boys and not being accepted by either gender, the bullying, the learning to grow into your own skin and accept yourself.

Crystal Cadets ★★
An all-girl team comic that will only appeal to the youngest of girls. It almost felt like this was made by a toy company.

Green Almonds: Letters from Palestine ★★
Two Belgium sisters correspond for a year when one of them moves to Palestine to work with an NGO for a year.

Two weeks of comics from my LCS.

Hellboy 1957: Family Ties
Black Widow #11
Batman / Catwoman #7
Blue and Gold #2
Suicide Squad #7
Suicide Squad 2021 Annual
Swamp Thing #7
Excalibur #23
X-Force #23
Justice League #67
Justice League: Last Ride #5
Rorschoach #12
Superman and the Authority #3
Marauders #24
Seven Secrets #12
Spider-Woman #15
The Trial of Magneto #2

Last week's adventures in comics. If I didn't mention it before, Scout Comics are now on Hoopla.

Leonardo 2 ★★
A weird sci-fi story about the last humans in the far future cloning Leonardo da Vinci so that he could save them from an alien race out to exterminate mankind.

Backtrack, Vol. 1 ★★★★
The Fast and the Furious and Time Travel.

Sensor ★★★
Some of Junki Ito's best art paired with his worst writing.

1000 Storms ★★★
A strange story about a girl coming of age who walks in and out of our world into one full of beasties who come here to attack the children.

Girl on Film ★★
YA author and comic book writer Cecil Castellucci's memoir is a slog of a read.

Captain America Epic Collection Vol. 9: Dawn's Early Light ★★★
The first half of this is by Roger Stern and John Byrne and it's fantastic. The rest, not so much, although Mike Zeck does draw most of the latter half.

The Forever Maps ★★★★
This reminds me of a random story that would appear in a Sandman comic. It's about a man in the 1700's who comes across a map that leads him to another map. This goes on forever and as long as he looks for the maps every so often he doesn't age.

Moon Knight by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev ★★★★
This was a pretty great setup from Bendis. Moon Knight in L.A. fighting an old villain trying to set himself up as the kingpin of L.A.

Hellblazer, Volume 10: In the Line of Fire ★★★★
Constantine begins to realize it may have been a bad idea to split his evil side off at the end of the last volume, now he's only his good half. It's nice to see these issues finally collected.

Project Superpowers: The Death Defying Devil ★★★
Good art, slapdash story.

Form of a Question ★
A terribly disjointed memoir of an introverted young man who appears on Jeopardy.

Scott Pilgrim Color Collection Vol. 1 ★★★★
This is one of those books that I always knew was out there, but never got around to reading.

The Great Pyramid (Magical History Tour #1) ★★★
An educational comic for kids about the Great Pyramid.

Girl in Dior ★
Gorgeous art, worthless story.

Last week's adventures in comics.

The EC Archives: The Vault of Horror, Vol. 1 ★★★
Some horror stories and morality plays from some of the greats of the Golden Age.

The Electric Black ★★★
A horror anthology series set in a cursed antique shop that appears in different times and places.

Long Lost, Book One ★★★★
Two sisters are pulled back to the town of Hazel Patch when this creature kidnaps Piper's dog and tells her they must go to their estranged mother's birthday party to get it back. Some f'd up witchy things happen, but it looks like I'll need to read volume 2 to see exactly what's going on.

Long Lost, Book Two ★★★
The second half of Long Lost unfortunately doesn't completely deliver on the promise of the first half. More and more weird things are introduced without explaining most of it.

It Eats What Feeds It ★★★★
A short, gothic romance about a young man who goes to work for an older woman with some large skeletons in the closet at a southern mansion and enjoys some unsaid benefits.

The Jewish Brigade ★★★★
In the waning days of World War II, the Jewish Infantry Brigade was formed as part of the British army. While in their downtime, they'd hunt down Nazis in hiding and help Jews make it to Palestine.

The Witcher, Vol. 5: Fading Memories ★★
Geralt investigates a town plagued by foglets, but these foglets don't act like foglets. This volume is light on action and heavy on confusion.

Campaigns & Companions: The Complete Role-Playing Guide for Pets ★★★★★
A quick and funny read of scenarios with pets playing Dungeons and Dragons. If you're a tabletop gamer and pet owner, this book is a must get.

Black Cat, Vol. 1: Grand Theft Marvel ★★★★
This is what comics should be, a whole lot of fun. The story follows Black Cat and her crew as she goes around robbing Manhattan.

Black Cat, Vol. 2: On The Run ★★★★
If you liked volume 1, volume 2 is more of the same. This book oozes charm and delight.

Black Cat, Vol. 3: All Dressed Up ★★★★
This is a small volume as the series was cut short by COVID. Luckily, Marvel started up a new series with the King in Black event and Jed Mackay is still writing it.

Captain America by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vol. 4: All Die Young ★★★
Sharon Carter takes center stage while the war with Selene comes to a head.

Morbius: The Living Vampire: The Man Called Morbius ★★★
This started off really strong with Morbius going to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville to hide out from the cops. Ultimately, this devolves into a D-List Spider-Man villain making a play to gentrify the neighborhood.

Gotham City Monsters ★★★
A bunch of D-List monstrous characters band together to stop Melmoth from sacrificing billions to save the Multiverse from all that nonsense with Perpetua that Scott Snyder has been working on over in Justice League for a long time.

Dungeons & Dragons: At the Spine of the World ★★★
A fun Dungeons & Dragons adventure taking place in Icewind Dale of Forgotten Realms. It's written by A.J. Mendez Brooks, who my friend who is into wrestling informs me used to be a wrestler and is married to C.M. Punk who wrote a Drax comic and is a wrestler too.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow ★★
A pointless story where almost nothing happens and nothing is explained. It's what I've come to expect out of Mariko Tamaki, crummy comics.

Star Trek: Voyager: Seven's Reckoning ★★★
As a stand alone sci-fi story, this was pretty good. But setting it in the Star Trek universe made it problematic, particularly Starfleet's Prime Directive.

Bone: Quest for the Spark, Vol. 2 ★★★
An OK prose novel for middle schoolers set in the world of Bone.

Superman: Godfall ★★
As with most comics written by the gents over at Aspen Comics, this is more about the pretty pictures than the complicated, poorly written story.

Project Superpowers: Hero Killers ★★★
A more humorous and irreverent deconstruction of superheroes ala the Seven from The Boys or Rick Veitch's Brat Pack.

Captain America: War & Remembrance ★★★★★
Roger Stern and John Byrne's short Captain America run. The stories are great and Cap has never looked better.

Yasmine wrote: "I just finished and am saddened to read about Marvel's confirmed cancellation of this series :(

Here's my review"

Rainbow Rowell is switching over to a new She-Hulk comic. https://www.marvel.com/articles/comic...

This week's trip to the LCS.

Aquaman 80th Anniversary
Wonder Girl #3
Black Hammer: Reborn #3
Dark Ages #1 <--- Tom Taylor's dystopian Marvel book
Fire Power #15
Hellions #15
New Mutants #21
We Only Find Them When They Are Dead #8
Geiger #6
Demon Days: Cursed Web

Nancy wrote: "I nabbed it from Hoopla! Which would be better to read- the Bendis or Lemire stories?"

I preferred the Bendis run, but they were both pretty good.

Nancy wrote: "I thought I'd give some Moon Knight books a read after I'm done with Invincible. My library has some MK graphic novels by Lemire that I thought I would start with. I'll definitely tune into the series with Oscar Isaac & Ethan Hawke, so I want to have some background knowledge beforehand.."

If you hurry, the first volume of Bendis's Moon Knight run was a bonus borrow on Hoopla this month. You've got until midnight.

Last week's adventures into comics.

Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger's, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color ★★★★★
The story of a young French woman who finally realizes she has Asperger's and learns how to cope with it, readjusting her life to meet her needs.

The Mythics, #1: Heroes Reborn ★★★
a formulaic kids' comic about some children getting powers and fighting evil.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952-1954 ★★★★
A new focus on showcasing Hellboy's early cases with the BPRD.

Grimm Tales from the Cave ★★★★
The stories are modern takes on fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm.

The Visitor ★★
Paul Levitz has written a lot of great comics over the last few decades. This is not one of them. It does tie in with the beginnings of the 4001 AD Valiant universe.

Pin-Up Vol. 1: Remember Pearl Harbor ★★★
Set during World War II, Pin-Up is the story of two star-crossed lovers separated by the war.

The Shadows ★★
A refugee in a stark Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka type world sits before a bureaucrat telling his story of hardship.

Perihan The Girl without a Mouth ★★★
A strange Turkish comic about a girl born without a mouth.

Chunky ★★★★
Hudi is an overweight kid with one lung, an overactive imagination and a crackling wit. His parents want him to lose weight and sign him up for sports, switching to a new one after each colossal failure. This was really funny for kids and adults.

The Little World of Humongo Bongo ★★★
A childrens book by George A. Romero. Yes, that George Romero, creator of Night of the Living Dead.

Unsolved Case Files: Escape at 10,000 Feet: D.B. Cooper and the Missing Money ★★★★★
This kids book is perfect for the story of DB Cooper. It's a fascinating story.

The Enchanted Chest ★★★
The full page illustrations remind me of Gustave Klimt.

Operation Dragon ★★★
The kind of wacky idea that works best in comics. Imagine Jurassic Park set during World War II.

Target: Kree: A Marvel: Crisis Protocol Novel ★★★
A prose novel featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers.

Future State: Superman ★★
I've read all of the Future State books now and DC made the correct decision in ditching 5G.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Collection, Vol. 2 ★★★★★
These original TMNT comics were great. Highlights include the crossover with Dave Sim's Cerebus and the tribute to Jack Kirby.

Elvira: The Shape of Elvira ★★★
This was so much better than I ever expected an Elvira comic to be. Elvira is hired to act in a homage to The Shape of Water.

X-Men: Second Coming ★★★★★
This was one of the best times for the X-Men comics outside of Chris Claremont's run.

Static Shock, Vol. 1: Supercharged ★★
For something that's supposed to be a new jumping on point and the reboot of the universe in New 52, this references a ton of events that happened in the past without explaining them. Somehow Static's sister has been cloned and it's a major ongoing plot that's barely explained.

The Death Defying 'Devil: Our Home ★★
I gotta say I was somewhat disappointed with this Gail Simone book. It's about one of the characters Dynamite resurrected from the scrapheap, the Death Defying Devil.

Bone: Stupid Stupid Rat-Tails ★★★★
The founder of Boneville, Big Johnson Bone, gets his own miniseries.

This week's trip to the LCS.

King Spawn #1
Wonder Woman: Black and Gold #3
Wolverine #15
Thor #16
Strange Academy #12
Something Is Killing the Children #19
Once and Future #19
Black Widow #10
Alien #6
Echolands #1 <--- JH Williams III's new comic. It's bound at the top instead of to the left of the comic. Still standard comic book size, just turned 90°.

Ed wrote: "My real-life comics club picked Jupiter's Legacy Vol. 1. I didn't read it before our meeting, and now I think I won't do so. It seems it is a prequel and is only of value if you already know these characters."

You're better off reading those in publication order so I'd read Jupiter's Circle first.