Shiv/Dov/Cotton, anything else in the realm of The Walking Dead, Hack/Slash? I dig both of those.

this might be way off base, but I think Locke & Key is pretty excellent for psychological horror type stuff. Not as violent as those (though still violent), and has a bit of a fantasy base, but is really one of the best series' out right now.

will do

I'd back this up.

Dale, there's a bunch of stuff out there in in this vein, but it really depends on what you like about these?

I've never read it, but I've heard that Umbrella Academy is amazing (if you ignore that the dude from My Chemical Romance writes it). The art is incredible. They've also done some great Hellboy stuff.

Shiv (and others) tells me American Vampire is absolutely worth checking out. Steven King co-write the beginning of it, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing (King's son writes Locke & Key).

Not sure if you ever finished Crossed, but there's a new miniseries from that out now (Crossed Family Values)

There's assloads of Zombie books, although imho Walking Dead is the best. Still, there are some good ones (the first Marvel Zombies was a lot of fun, with a zombie spider-Man eating Captain America's brains). There's also -if I remember correctly- a porn-themed zombie book called Crawl Space XXX.

The art is great in Umbrella Academy, but I felt like there really wasn't much there otherwise.

Way/Ba have done Hellboy stuff?

I would possibly, maybe recommend 100 Bullets. Not horror, obviously, but pretty good comic crime noir with great art. (Somewhat similar art to Umbrella Academy.)

I want to check out American Vampire as well and will hopefully get to it soon. People keep recommending Scalped which I also plan on starting soon, and I'm gonna check out Locke & Key as well, based on these recs.

And speaking of zombie books, I picked up the first few issues of iZombie, and it seems like maybe it could be fun in a kind of campy horror version of Fables sort of way. Can't go too wrong as long as Allred is drawing it, anyway.

yeah, they did I think a Hellboy one-off or something, and then they did BPRD 1945 and BPRD 1947, both of which were incredible. There's also an Abe Sapien story that was drawn by Jason Shawn Alexander that's some of the best art I've ever seen. It's got a weird Jae Lee quality to it.

I really like iZombie, but it's more funny and quirky than scary. Still, I love the explanation given for how zombies/vampires exist. Still hate the title, though.

Scalped has been hands-down one of the best books going for the past 5 years. The story itself doesn't sound all that riveting, but it is a monster.

Pigeons From Hell by Joe R. Lansdale is really good.

Lots of good books out today.

How awesome is this cover?

Yeah, I was just looking at that. Still hoping that book wraps up relatively soon. It really hurts me paying $4 for a book like Highland Laddie.

There are about five books from this week that I'll be picking up. Still sticking with Mystery Society and trying to decide if I like it or not. Finally got around to reading the first issue of Scarlet and really enjoyed it. I guess I was expecting it to be another Spider-Woman so I wasn't very excited about it. Also iZombie and Batman & Robin.

I'm looking at:

Batman & Robin #16
Superboy #1 (Jeff Lemire!)
Wolverine #3
Sweet Tooth #15
Invincible #75
Secret Six #27
iZombie #7
Baltimore Plague Ships #4
The Boys #48
Iron Man/Thor #1
Serenity: Shepherd's Tale
28 Days Later #16

and maybe this new Punisher mini

the art for highland laddie is just awful.

Yeah, same guy who did Herogasm. Dude must be super cheap.

I liked some of McCrea's Hitman stuff, and his Preacher issues were okay.

I want to like that series, but I just can't. I got to the dude in the gas mask and realized that it was a little too Ennis-y for me.

I've started to focus more towards TBPs this year but I'm still enjoying singles. I really like Sweet Tooth, Darkwing Duck, Bulletproof Coffin, Scalped, Sixth Gun, Unwritten and Chew.

Almost done with Fluorescent Black which is incredible and about to start up Duncan the Wonder Dog which looks unbelievable. There's a new Parker book from Cooke and I actually forayed into manga a bit by reading 20th Century Boys.

So I dug it. I guess it wasn't AMAZING but I am sad it's done. Need to see if the library has more.

I realize that my appreciation of comics is limited enough that I barely qualify to assess them, but I have been enjoying me some Ministry of Space this week. The art's great, plus, c'mon, space race.

Hey thanks for mentioning that. I'd never heard of it. Ellis does - and continues to do - so many obscure little mini-series that it gets hard to keep track. I think I need some more Warren Ellis in my life right now, so I might pick that up.

I go back and forth with Ellis. He's obviously a talented writer and with new and interesting ideas, but then some of his books go the depravity-to-the-point-of-insulting route, and it bores the living shit out of me. That or he gets waaay ahead of himself technologically. Or both.

Ministry of Space is a great piece of his work because it's a tribute to the idea of space exploration, and done sincerely. I actually forgot how much I like this after reading all of his weird Avatar work with Van Ryp and Jacen Burrows.




on an entirely unrelated note, my new desktop (from Mignola's Lord Baltimore: The Plague Ships):

Yeah, I've mostly given up on following his Avatar stuff for reasons somewhat like this. I have problems with the very limited and repetitive ways that he writes characters/dialogue and the generally disappointing endings to all of his books.

But his best work still stands up just fine, and I can even enjoy some lesser things like Ocean. It helps a ton when he's got a good artist working with him. That's another reason why I don't follow the Avatar stuff anymore.

I really like Ellis's Avatar stuff. It's been a little hit or miss, but I personally think there has been some really quality stuff: Black Summer, the first Wolfskin mini, No Hero, Ignition City, the first few arcs of Doktor Sleepless before it went into Planetary-style slo-motion release schedule. Also, a few of the single issue trade paperbacks like Crecy and Frankenstein's Womb have been good. Gravel has been up and down.

I can see your point about the depravity-to-the-point-of-insulting comment at times, but it's not like he's Garth Ennis. For the most part, when Ellis goes over the top with the violence/depravity it makes sense for the point he is trying to get across. No Hero is probably the most outlandish, Ennis-like of his Avatar stuff, but I felt like it worked as long as you're not too squeamish.

Ellis is probably my favorite comic writer, though, now that Bendis is always balls deep in Avengers shit and Brian K. Vaughan doesn't actually write comics. Brian Wood is probably a close second.

big week this week. Bruce Wayne returns (for like the 3rd week in a row) and an Avenger dies. Fun!

Is it necessarily an Avenger that "dies", or could it be Drs. Voodoo or Strange or even Hellstorm?

It's Thor week for me. Ultimate, Regular, and For Asgard. Plus Avengers Prime. Christ, that guy's in like half the books I buy now.

Also, Children's Crusade this week! And the final issue of Thanos Imperative.

So Dr. Voodoo died? eh.

(at least) 2 Grant Morrison Batman books out today (Finch AND Paquette?!!!), so I'm pretty psyched to stop by the shop on the way home. Also, another Morning Glories and Red Hulk becomes an Avenger, which I frankly don't care about.

Also, was anyone else aware that there's a potential We3 movie? Jesus...

I browse the comic book shops when i have a chance and see tons upon tons of stuff I'd like to check out, but the time to dit is just not there....Unfort, I have nothing else to suggest.

I thought I read about that awhile back. Not sure how they'll market that.