Love Letters #1

In my eyes, the biggest barrier to entry for people trying to get into comics is how endlessly negative large sections of the community can be. This has been both of our experiences, and the experience of lots of people we get to talk to. Like a lot of fandoms, comic book fans can be quick to pile on top of anything that doesn’t play to their exact tastes, and when those people have a ton of followers on social media, suddenly you end up with waves of people quick to bash specific books, characters, story tropes and entire companies based on what someone else said about a book that they never read themselves. Yuck.

Every book is written for someone, whatever you would consider to be the worst book is going to have fans out there. I get really exhausted with the people who only want to talk about the things that don’t work for them, so I want to go in the polar opposite direction. I’m going to use this blog to talk about my favourite comics I’ve read in the past month or so (whether they were actually released in the past month is a different story…). Maybe they’ll all end up being big name blockbusters that everyone enjoyed, maybe they’ll be smaller books out of the spotlight. I don't intend to write full reviews of anything, I just want to gush about stuff I find cool once a month, so with that in mind…

The Ultimates #5

Writer: Deniz Camp, Artist: Juan Frigeri, Colour Artist: Federico Blee

I’ve been loving Marvel’s Ultimate line this year, and the head and shoulders standout has been The Ultimates. I’m a sucker for a “building the team” storyline, and this one looks to be the final puzzle piece for this team. This issue is all Captain America and Hawkeye, they spend almost the entire book fighting, with Hawkeye monologuing their backstory and motivation the whole time with a “cowboys and Indians” through line that plays really effectively. Ultimate Hawkeye is a total badass and I’m really looking forward to seeing where this story is going to go now that the gangs all here.

The Creeping Below #1

Writer: Brian Azzarello, Illustrator: Vanesa Del Rey, Colours: Hilary Jenkins

Speaking of badass, I loved the black-metal, eldritch, ancient horror of this one. The colours are so dark throughout the whole book that it feels like someone turned the lights off in YOUR house when you’re reading it; it’s really effective at setting the tone of the whole book. Once the story is set up in the first half, we’re in a very creepy forest at night for the rest of the issue and that primeval, ancient dread sinks in. There’s a great scene where we get a pretty dark reveal through the eyes of a character as they start to open their eyes after coming back to consciousness, and a beautiful page of a massive “guardian of the forest” type monster that really stuck with me. It looks like this one might be headed in a revenge-story direction and I’m very much here for it.

Helen of Wyndhorn #5

Writer: Tom King, Art: Bilquis Evely, Colours: Matheus Lopes

Helen of Wydhorn has absolutely been one of my favourite books of this year, every issue builds on the last in such great ways, my only problem with it is that it’s ending in issue 6, because I could stay in this world for years. A massive reason for that is the incredible art by Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, and this issue shows it off so well as it starts with more grounded scenes inside Wyndhorn manner, then moves into an emotional scene at night with a backdrop of fluorescent fairies and starts, and finishes with an epic monster fight in a swamp. Everyone’s firing on all cylinders here, and every page truly feels epic. I’m gonna miss this one when it’s over.

Absolute Batman #1

Writer: Scott Snyder, Art: Nick Dragotta, Colours: Frank Martin

All of my favourite books make me smile when I read them. They’re created by people who are clearly having a blast doing what they’re doing, they don’t hold anything back and commit to their premise, and they’re so much fun to read. All of that encapsulates the way I feel about this book. I have a love/hate relationship with action movies, you’ve got the “so bad they’re good” ones, then a massive amount of boring/generic/repetitive ones, and then you’ve got the top of the mountain ones that fly by in the blink of an eye and you can’t wipe that smile from your face afterwards. Absolute Batman is the comic book encapsulation of that feeling. There has been so much praise for this issue already that anything that could be said is just adding to the pile at this point, but honestly if you have ANY interest in either Batman, super heroes in general or action, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t give this a shot.

If you got this far, thanks! Regardless of whether anyone ever reads these or not, it makes me feel great to revisit the really positive feelings I had about these, and I’m already looking forward to doing it again. It’s actually really difficult nailing it down to just a few books, there are so many that I could rave about, but there’s only so much time in the day. Comics are in such an awesome place right now, you can find incredible series all over the place, which is going to make writing something like this very easy for me!