Review- Free Comic Book Day Offerings Part Three

Free Comic Book Day Offerings Part Three

Cirque Du Soleil: The Complete Collected Edition (Marvel, cover date February, 2015; softcover)

Collects Cirque Du Soleil #1-3

One comic shop that I went to was giving away this skinny trade, which states on the front cover that it is a “Custom Edition” and “Not For Resale”. From what I gathered in the 0.987 minutes that I spent researching it, this was a marketing stunt thought up by the Las Vegas promoters to get a male audience into Cirque Du Soleil. They launched it on Marvel's digital comics site and had some stupid contest. Zero marketing dollars were spent and it resulted in 5,000 Facebook likes for Cirque Du Soleil. That and five bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

It's slick and polished, but as a read it is crap. The story is just plain boring. Still, this dead stock was given away at one shop on FCBD so the only thing that it cost me was the time that it took to read it. I had no interest in Cirque Du Soleil before I read this book and I have no interest in it now.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 1 out of 5.

Skyward/ Fracture Halloween ComicFest Edition (Action Lab Entertainment, cover date October, 2013)

I thought that this was familiar when I read it, and that's because it is. It was dead stock from the Halloween ComicFest 2013 and was given away at Free Comic Book Day 2014, and I already reviewed it here. It gets the same rating from me two years later.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Atlas: Origins #1 (Dave Swartz Art, Kickstarter, cover date 2015)

Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, MI tends to explore the more out there and independent comic books available. While this particular comic book not my cup of tea I do enjoy seeing what is out there in the fringes of the medium from time to time.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Free 2016 (Retrofit/ Big Planet Comics)

Comic books can be anything under the sun. What appeals to some people does not have to appeal to others. While I am admittedly more of a capes and newspaper strips kind of guy there are bits and pieces of this sampler of indie comics that work, particularly Jacob Bladders And The State Of The Art. Not all comics are for everyone. I am okay with that.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2 out of 5.

BOOM! Studios 2016 Summer Blast (BOOM Studios, cover date May, 2016)

This is a sampling of six different BOOM and Archaia properties. None of them are making me open my wallet, nor were any of them awful.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.25 out of 5.

Doctor Who: Free Comic Book Day 2016 (Titan, cover date June, 2016)

It never ceases to amaze me how socially acceptable Doctor Who has become. In my fledgling nerd days in the 1980s even we nerds thought that Doctor Who was for nerds. Times change, and this beloved British icon has made inroads on this side of the Atlantic. My 9 year old son loves Doctor Who. There's a kid at his school who has a Doctor Who backpack for chrissakes. I know nothing about the character but found these short stories to be entertaining.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3 out of 5.

Review- FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014 offerings, Episode I

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014 offerings, Episode I

I get emails with links to review PDFs all the time, but to be honest with you, if it is not a dead tree edition I will likely not review it. I have read a few comics on my computer but nothing compares to holding a comic in my hand and reading it. It is one of life's simpler pleasures. I don't own a tablet and have no desire to read comics on my phone. In short, if someone wants me to review something for them, give me a physical copy...like publishers do on Free Comic Book Day every single year!

Mouse Guard, Labrynth And Other Stories: A Free Comic Book Day 2014 Hardcover Anthology (Archaia, cover date May, 2014)

The winner for the fanciest Free Comic Book Day offering once again goes to Archaia with their beautiful hardcover with sewn binding (Smyth sewn binding with 5 stitches per signature for you OCD types out there). This features samplings of six different Archaia titles: Mouse Guard, Rust, Labrinyth, Bolivar, Will O' The Wisp, and Farscape. My wife and kids enjoyed them all, especially Mouse Guard. She has talked about dipping her toe into the collected editions of that title. These titles were all tolerable to me but I won't be picking any of them up.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.75 out of 5.

Red Giant Entertainment Free Comic Book Day four pack (Red Giant Entertainment, cover date May, 2014)

The winner for the most bang for your FCBD buck goes to Red Giant. I thought that this comic which was shrinkwrapped to a piece of cardboard maybe had explicit content or something, but once I set out to crack it open I soon realized the truth: It had four split/flip comic books in it! So you get introduced to eight new titles all for the same low low price.

Giant-Size Action #0 features Tesla on one side and Wayward Sons on the other. Tesla features the heroic exploits of Nikolai Tesla. While well done, it was not my cup of tea. Wayward Sons is highly entertaining and might bear further investigation when the eventual collected edition is released.

Giant-Size Adventure #0 features The First Daughter on one side and Magika on the other. The First Daughter is comic book amateur hour and a complete waste of time. Magika has that highly polished, all ages, aimed at Scholastic Book Fair “graphic novel” vibe to it. Go where the cash is, I suppose. It's not horrible but it's not something that I would ever pay for.

Giant-Size Fantasy #0 features Pandora's Blogs on one side and Duel Identity on the other. Both of these are well written and well drawn ready for prime time concepts.

Giant-Size Thrills #0 features Darchon on one side and Shadow Children on the other. Darchon is the winner out of all eight of these concepts. A marriage of Doctor Strange, Doctor Spektor, Nightmask, and The Phantom Stranger, this has stuck with me a week or so after I read it. I will definitely pick up a trade paperback of this if it ever surfaces. Shadow Children has that all ages vibe and, like most of these Red Giant concepts presented here, has good production values.

I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of this line of comics. Now I have one, possibly two more books to pick up in the future. Dear publishers: Stop making appealing new comic books! You are killing me (and my wallet)!

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5.

The Intrinsic: Singularity Zero Free Comic Book Day (Arcana, cover date 2014)

Hey, it's The X-Men featuring Hellboy! Fail.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 1 out of 5.

Free Comic Book Day 2014: Sherwood, Texas & Boondock Saints (12-Gauge Comics, cover date May, 2014)

Another split book. Sherwood, TX was forgettable while Boondock Saints was enjoyable enough that I might check out a trade paperback if one ever surfaces.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Ipso Facto Free Comic Book Day Issue One (Automatic Press, cover date 2014)

Interesting well polished and entertaining stuff.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 3.75 out of 5.

Fubar Free Comic Book Day MMXIV (Fubar Press, 2014)

This comic features two comics: The Ace Of Spades by Chuck Dixon and Zero Dead Thirty. While mildly entertaining and most certainly readable, there is nothing here that would make me buy either one of these black and white zombie mash-ups. Quite frankly, all of these zombie themes are getting tired.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 2.75 out of 5.

I will have plenty more FBCD reviews in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned!

Review: Free Comic Book Day 2012 offerings

Free Comic Book Day 2012 comic books

Here's what I thought of this year's offerings.

Voltron Force: Shelter From The Storm (Viz Media)

Writer: Brian Smith

Artist: Jacob Chabot

While this is clearly aimed at children who watch the animated series, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Not enough for me to buy it, but I would not hesitate to get this for my son if he knew who the heck Voltron was.

Avengers: Age of Ultron 0.1 (Marvel)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Bryan Hitch (pencils) and Paul Neary (inks)

Wow, this is actually pretty damn good for Bendis. I only winced once at his dialogue. This is a huge set-up issue for the Age of Ultron arc, and it looks great. Hitch's artwork is tremendous. I am looking forward to reading a Bendis book, believe it or not. I have several in my backlog to get through first, so maybe I should get cracking. Now don't go thinking that I have gone all soft on Bendis or anything. The vast majority of his stuff that I've read has sucked. It's just that I feel that if I am quick to condemn his shoddy work, then I must be equally quick to praise his successes. Credit where credit is due and stuff.

DC: The New 52 #1 (DC)

Writer: Geoff Johns

Artists: Jim Lee and others.

This is a sampler of the various genres of the New 52, and aside from the first 3-4 page story, I am uninterested in any of it. What can I say? I'm more of a Marvel guy.

Spider-Man: Season One (Marvel)

Writer: Cullen Bunn

Artist: Neil Edwards

So Ultimate Spider-Man isn't good enough for the Millennials? How many reboots and re-tellings of Spider-Man's origin do we need? This is okay for what it is, but I'll stick with Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's origin story, thank you very much.

Mouse Guard, Labrynth, And Other Stories (Archaia)

Writers: David Petersen and others.

Artists: David Petersen and others.

In what is clearly the most elaborate Free Comic Book Day item ever, Petersen and Archaia give us this digest sized hardcover with a sampling of the various titles in the line. This must have cost them a fortune, as it even has sewn binding. I enjoyed The Mouse Guard story but have been reluctant to buy it for fear of being sucked into still another title.

The Hypernaturals (Boom)

Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Artists: Brad Walker, Tom Derenick, and Mark Irwin

The future, where heroes are everywhere riff recycled so many times that it's almost fresh. Almost.

Worlds of Aspen 2012 #1 (Aspen)

Nothing here makes me want to buy anything by this company. Not my cup of tea.

Image 20 (Image)

Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton has piqued my interest. I'll be in for the eventual collected edition. Near Death seems okay, but I can already tell that if I buy it that I will only read it once and then dump it on eBay in one of my purgings, so I will save myself time and money and just borrow it from a friend or the library.

Valiant 2012 (Valiant)

This is very polished stuff. I can appreciate fine craftsmanship, even if the stories are not what I am looking for. I wasn't around for their first pass 20 years ago, so I have no nostalgic longing to see these concepts reworked for the 21^st century.

Transformers Regeneration One #80.5 (IDW)

Writer: Simon Furman

Artists: Andrew Wildman (pencils) and Stephen Baskerville (inker)

Much like what IDW has done by bringing back Larry Hama on G.I. Joe, IDW has brought back the creative team for the back half of the Marvel run, continuing the Marvel continuity and numbering from the '80/90s. I enjoyed this quite a bit, and will try to resist the urge to buy this. Try to.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Vertigo/DC)

Adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel by Denise Mina

Artists: Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti

This seems interesting. This genre isn't really my cup of tea, but Manco's artwork makes this more appealing to me. I passed this on to my wife, who is a huge fan of the books. I might check this out or, better yet, buy it for her and read her copy.

Also picked up Dinosaurs Vs. Aliens (Liquid; not pictured above) for a friend, and read it. While it is written by Grant Morrison and lushly illustrated, I will be passing on it. It's lame.

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DC has made strides in fixing the problem of their books not laying flat. Join the cause page if you want make sure that DC keeps up the recent good work on their hardcovers. Don't do it for me, do it for the children. Won't somebody please think of the children??

Review- THE DARK CRYSTAL: CREATION MYTHS VOL. 1

THE DARK CRYSTAL: CREATION MYTHS VOL. 1 (Archaia, copyright 2011: Actually released in 2012; Hardcover)

Original graphic novel; also reprints the Free Comic Book Day 2011 8 page story in the back as an extra.

Writer: Bryan Holgiun and Brian Froud

Artists: Lizzy John, Alex Sheikman, and Barbara Kesel

This is the prequel to the 1982 classic, The Dark Crytsal, and is being crafted by original production artist and Jim Henson collaborator Brian Froud. I loved this movie as a child, but haven't watched it since seeing it at the theatre. This book works as a stand alone read as well as informing the origins of the events in the movie. In other words, it's perfect.

This deals with story behind how the Gelflings and the Urskeks came to know one another, the nature of their early relationship, and some of the back story of the crystal. This is the first of three graphic novels to be released, but I haven't heard anything about Volume 2 yet. I hope that it won't be too long for the other two to be released. 

The OCD zone- This is a super high quality affair. Nice, thick paper, sewn binding, and the book lays flat. OCD sense is not tingling. There is a layer of icing and a cherry on top though, because the hardback has a nice, elaborate die-cut logo, textured coating that gives it an old book feel, and the image is screen printed on the book itself. It also has a plastic band around the back cover with the ISBN and other information on it. You could remove it to make the book look more elegant, or if you're like me, you'll keep it there because your OCD has made you completely insane and you couldn't live without it. Either way, you win!

I have the cover shown above, while there is another cover shown on some websites. I do not know the hows or why to this, as I don't recall it being solicited with two different covers. The other cover could be a second printing, or perhaps a bookstore market variant. I bought mine at a comic book shop, so my cover could be a direct market variant. Who knows? Who cares! Ah, who am I kidding, we OCD sufferers care a lot about this sort of thing. Either way, you lose!