Your family might get on your last nerve, and your might be tired from holiday sales, and being stuck in traffic, but at the end of the day, we always have comics, and these reviewers tell us which ones to look out for and which ones to avoid.
mrmister (when not on a reunion/flashback tour with REO Speedwagon and Starship) is caught up on The Walking Dead #55, and he likes where things are going.
Story: 5 / Art: 5
For some reason I rarely find myself concerned with a story’s main character, but this book is an exception. As well-rounded and enjoyable the cast of characters is Rick remains my favorite. So, it is almost bitter-sweet to see the spotlight on him as he falls further down the path to insanity.
Lewis, despite all pre-existing circumstances, has had his imagination incarcerated by Welcome to Hoxford #4.
Story: 5 / Art: 5
First off let me say I’m not a horror fan. I don’t like horror movies and I don’t read horror comics. But then there’s Welcome to Hoxford. On our good friends at iFanboy’s recommendation I picked up the first few issues of this series and I was hooked.
ohcaroline finds herself drawn to the next issue, even though X-Force #9 didn’t garner high marks. The X Plague continues unchecked.
Story: 2 / Art: 5
I’m not sorry I bought this issue; the cover really is that pretty (I may have ripped it off and put it up on my wall as soon as I got home, which is the literal point of a pinup), plus Mike Choi and Sonia Oback’s interiors look damn good, as well. And there was a decent amount of Domino in this issue; the cover wasn’t deceptive on that point, although (so far) there’s no sign of her hooking up with Wolverine.
TheNextChampion, while acknowledging some slowdown on Brubaker’s other titles, thinks Captain America #44 is still going strong.
Story: 4 / Art: 4
As much fun it was to read the flashbacks of Bucky’s days as Winter Soldier (a comic I would love to see actually), more of the fun came from him trying to find out who is after his secrets during the Cold War. It’s a nice touch to see that this new Captain America isnt going to be as good natured or more friendly then Rogers; Bucky is going to be hard boiled and eager to punch someone in the face.
And that will do for this week. Get on with your real life for the next couple weeks, when the holidays will once again drive your life into disarray and over-eating. But again, we’ll still have comics. Always comics…
Oh yeah, the rest of the reviews are here.
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It *is* a disease. I would have bought much worse comics with that cover, is all I’m saying.
Fortunately, I think the original art team is going to be back soon, removing pretty much all my temptation to buy X-Force.
Unless, like, they put Cable in it or something.
Nice reviews this week to the ifanbase. I’ve been slacking of late, because well, life has been balls to the walls crazy. My hope is to get some quality reviews this week.
NextChampion and ohcaroline are some of my favorite iFanboy reviewers, becaurse they are tough and fair; critics and fans. The current incarnation of X-Force is not a book I would ever follow for exactly the reasons ohcaroline pointed out. And if, somehow, the team morphed into an ops unit headed by Cable and including a bunch of mercenaries and former New Mutants, I would love it again.
Brubaker is great, but even he slips into the realms of mortal men once in a while. The current storyline is fine; it just seems pedestrian when compared to the fantastic stories of the prior year. I suspect that TheNextChampion was a bit more generous with this one than I was (he certainly was about the art).
@coltrane:
‘NextChampion and ohcaroline are some of my favorite ifanboy reviewers’
*gives him a sack of money* Thanks 🙂
I though I was pretty balanced with my review, the story was fun but nothing ground breaking. But I thought the art was good, I understand Ross isnt the most dynamic artist out there…but it worked for me.
@Neb: Yeah, this was the first week in a while I have been able to get reviews up because I’m so busy with work. The school I’m teaching at is awful [mostly the administration but SOME of the kids add to the awfulness] so on top of that I tutor at another school to remind myself why I love teaching which means no free time for anything except a little Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead!
Also
@Josh: I had no idea Mr. Mister was the name of a band, the name has to do with my job as a teacher ha.
@coltrane Thank you, that’s nice of you to say! And I’m glad I was able to contribute something beyond "Domino is HAWT in that picture".
@ohcaroline~ That cover is pretty awesome. I didn’t scope it out till just now, but I can see the definite love of it.
@Neb – If it makes you feel better, I’ve been out of the game for close to 6 months and have gotten to the point where my calendar actually has written on it, "write at least 2 reviews" for Thursday. I need to get back into the game. I was at a point where I may have reviewed what? 6-8 books in a week?
What’s Black Friday? Something to do with Thanksgiving?
@Mart- It’s the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season when all the retailers offer big sales. It’s always the day after Thanksgiving, and people stand in line for hours just to get the bargains. People have been shot and trampled to death so far this year.
Good gosh, thank you Kory. But why black? I shall investigate, and stop being so lazy!
I was in NY for Thanksgiving a couple of years back and some poor girl was hospitalised by a Dora the Explorer balloon.
The "official" explanation for ‘Black Friday’ in the media is that it’s when retailers hope to make money and "go in the black." But the more colloquial use is from a shopper POV, "Oh God, the malls are so crowded." I actually first HEARD it from — and think it may have been coined by — people who work in retail/service industries and have to deal with a lot more headaches without making any more money. I suppose you can read it any of those ways depending on what an entrepeneur/consumer/socialist you are.
I used to work for a large retailer that sold electronics. Man I hated Black Friday, and to this day I have an allergic reaction to Christmas.
Thanks ohcaroline. I hate crowded shops, that time I went into Macys . . . brrrr.
Too bad for you it’s spreading.
In Israel people try to start it but call it blue friday. It’s the answer to the extreme prices some games have like 400 NIS for PC games etc. A chain store did it recently but without much publicity since it was organized in a few days.
Also there are some people trying to pass laws regarding publishers and book stores and a sale of books gave them a lot of publicity when a certain book chain had a sale if books for 1 NIS which is several cents and doesn’t cover the production costs or gives the writer much money if at all.
There are some people pro it saying it will give exposure to more writers, but small publishers say they can’t compete with that.
I’m talking about 300 paged books and more with a nice printing and cover – in Israel publishers never caught on the cheap production books that publishers like Penguin produce to make them cheaper or even best sellers like the Discworld series.
So that means a good printing, write, designer, photographer sometimes or a stock photo, proof reading, sometimes a translator. And sometimes the shady practice of paying book store chains to place many copies in the front window and in a centrally located table.
I doubt with 1 NIS cover price something will trickle down to the writers, but some writers are pro it since it means exposure since most books here are around the 70 NIS price point, and used is 20, 10, 5 NIS. Penguin books of classics are 15 and used to be 12. It’s funny but there are translated copies of some of the Discworld books that cost only 52 NIS for some reason – it was translated and it is sometimes hard to translate, it’s in a nice printing and the original cover and a famous series so that must have meant money for the ability to translate it and use the original cover drawing.