The last time anyone had heard about Marjorie Buell's legendary Little Lulu, it was when Lulu was adapted for television, on HBO of all places, several years ago, with Tracey Ullman attached to the project.
Today, Drawn & Quarterly, an independent publisher, has acquired the rights to the original Buell stories drawn by John Stanley. I remember reading some Little Lulu when I was a little fella who'd buy anything--DC, Marvel, Gold Key, Harvey, Archie, Charlton--at the newsstand. Subtitled, "The World's Best Comic Book", this volume collects some choice reprints from early in the run at Dell. The issues I had nearly 50 years ago were from Gold Key, and likely were reprints themselves.
It's a nice introduction for a new generation of readers. However, D & Q will likely stick with trade paperback format releases going forward.
Rating: A.
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DC introduces their DC Zoom line with a sampler from the forthcoming graphic novel, Dear Justice League, due out in August. DC Zoom is aimed at elementary school kids, and the fan letters certainly fit the demographic stereotype. Parents, I'd invest when this comes out.
Rating: A.
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American Mythology Press, the current home to cartoon icons Underdog & Pink Panther, has added Casper to the roster. Casper's Spooksville premiered last month, and award winning artist Eric Shanower, better known for his adaptations of the Wizard of Oz books for Dark Horse, has adapted his style to replicate the works of artists who came before him, such as Warren Kremer and Ernie Colon. The series also allows Hot Stuff, the "little devil", to interact with Casper and his bewitching bestie, Wendy, something that I don't think ever happened at Harvey. They went to the body switching gimmick in the second story, which allows for something else we'd never seen at Harvey, this involving Casper & Wendy. You'll see what I mean.
Rating: A+.
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After what seemed like forever at Dark Horse, the licenses for Buffy, The Vampire Slayer & Angel have moved over to Boom! Studios. Their entry offers a sample of what's to come in Buffy's book, as well as another Joss Whedon creation, Firefly, which Boom! also acquired, and are pushing to the moon. Fans of both series will love this.
Rating: B.
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Canada's Captain Canuck makes his annual appearance, but, copying what Marvel has done with Captain America, there's a new guy in the suit. Chapterhouse isn't getting as much attention with this franchise as they should, and there is a sense of been there, seen that.
Rating: B-.
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It's also an annual tradition at Titan Books to preview a forthcoming story arc for Doctor Who. If you faithfully follow the franchise, which has been around since 1963, they're on the 13th incarnation of The Doctor, this one a female. This is good stuff. In this entry, the Doctor visits a carnival that isn't what it seems. Standard fare.
Rating: A-.
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Marvel's Avengers entry is two previews in one, the main title and the new Savage Avengers, which was the excuse to bring Conan the Barbarian to the 21st century, just so Marvel can over-milk Conan like they do their own properties. Not impressed.
Rating for both: B--.
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Marvel, you know, is not alone in holding a license for "Star Wars". Idea & Design Works (IDW) has the other license, and continues with Star Wars Adventures as a kid friendly entry level book. Derek Charm comes over from Archie Comics (he had been on Jughead before that series was inexplicably cancelled), and helps spin a yarn from Han Solo's earlier days.
Rating: B+.
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IDW is also home to the comic book version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which marks its 35th anniversary this year, as IDW itself turns 20. Standard fare, co-written by co-creator Kevin Eastman, and the artwork reflects the original concept behind the series.
Rating: B.
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Marvel can be accused of a bait & switch with their Spider-Man entry.
While Venom gets the lead feature to promote the forthcoming reboot of "Maximum Carnage" as an event this year, Peter Parker & Miles Morales square off over.........pizza. And you expected a clash between two heroes? How cliched! How fun!
Rating: A.
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Dark Horse is home to an adaptation of Netflix's popular Stranger Things. If you don't follow the show, you probably won't get the story. The backup feature is Jeff Lemire's Black Hammer, as Dark Horse is continuing to build a new superhero universe, and this is a little better than the lead feature.
Rating: B+.
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As Riverdale wraps its 3rd season on CW on May 15, Archie Comics begins a Season 3 adaptation in the comics. If they could get away from some of the creepier elements of the TV show, they'd be fine.
Like, we get it. Jughead and Betty have been repackaged as a couple, since the show's writers don't want to deal with the eternal triangle between Betty, Archie, & Veronica. The latter are a couple on TV. If it wasn't for the soap opera aspects of the show, I'd be more into Jug as a detective. There's a lot of potential that's being explored in the current Archie book as well.
Rating: B.
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While The Tick's creator, Ben Edlund, has been in Hollywood for a while, his superhero parody is in the hands of writer-artist Ian Nichols, who doesn't quite have the knack for satire. Amazon's adaptation of the series has been renewed for a 2nd season, which is more than Fox did for Tick.
Rating: B--.
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Dynamite has the license for Vampirella, who begins a new solo series, while also being paired with Red Sonja in a mniseries crossover with Archie Comics' Betty & Veronica. Christopher Priest will script the new Vampi solo book, but for once, I fear that Priest, a veteran writer with over 40 years experience (he started at Marvel as Jim Owsley), may have finally laid an egg.
Happily, a 1993 reprint from Harris Comics, written by Kurt Busiek, has Vampi and her mentor, Pendragon, dealing with some strange bugs, and the predictable hysteria of a small town. Plus, Busiek opted to let Vampi talk in her bat form, something she hadn't done at Warren, and I'm not sure about more recent stories.
You do know that Archie's parodying Vampi with Vampironica, right?
Rating: B.
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DC's big summer event is called "Year of The Villain". I'm not impressed. A new character is introduced by DC, but this time, it's not a requirement to buy every issue tied into this event. Thank God! At least they now know better.
DC also has something called Event Leviathan, which is a 6 issue miniseries, debuting this summer, and is also being previewed. That could be even better. I am not, however, so sold on the Batman Who Laughs, an alternate universe mashup of Batman & The Joker. Check your brain cells at the door anytime you see this guy.
Year of The Villain merits a B.
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After all the hype surrounding writer Tom Taylor's latest opus, DCeased, ye scribe comes away from issue 1 unimpressed.
In the last decade, we have seen zombie apocalypse stories from Marvel, DC, Image (The Walking Dead is still going strong), and Archie. Zombies have been popular for a while, but, while CW's iZombie is in its final season, just started, Walking Dead shows no signs of slowing down, but there's no rush, it appears, for another show about zombies. SyFy's Z Nation was cancelled not too long ago.
The fact that the modern era creators depict zombies as being a little bit faster afoot in some cases, contrary to the legendary George Romero movies of days gone by might have something to do with the interest in zombie apocalypse. iZombie is the exception, since it's a supernatural crime drama, fronted by the cutest, hottest zombie around, Liv Moore (Rose McIver). Since Afterlife With Archie is locked in turnaround while series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa shuttles back & forth between Hollywood & Vancouver (where Riverdale & Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and virtually everything else produced by Greg Berlanti, are filmed), why not develop a new, standalone zombie book at Archie that doesn't require Aguirre-Sacasa? Just sayin'.
Meanwhile, DCeased reminds us again of how modern creators have had some sort of issue with Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters. DeSaad, for example, doesn't look human anymore. Instead, it seems some idiot at DC decided to put the Apokoliptian scientist's mind in the body of a Dominator. He doesn't need all those teeth. Kirby envisioned DeSaad as if he'd been modeled after the late comedian-actor Marty Feldman, who was a big star in the 60's & 70's. So not digging. I thought this was going to be something special. It isn't.
Rating: C-.
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WWE's Rusev (real name: Miroslav Barnyashev) and his wife, Lana (Catherine "CJ" Perry, "Pitch Perfect"), are shopping around a comics project entitled, Dark Country, with veteran writer Jason Starr attached. They're looking for an artist to work on the project. In a recent interview with Newsarama, Lana revealed she in particular is a fan of the Punisher. Who isn't? They'll find a landing spot soon enough for the book, but I've a feeling Boom! Studios, which has the license for WWE comics, could be in the running.
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Mark Russell & Richard Pace's superhero/religious satire, Second Coming, has found a home at Ahoy Comics, with the first issue out in July. In a recent interview, Russell acknowledged that while it was meant to be ongoing, as it'd been solicited at Vertigo/DC before moral zealots got in the way, they'll go with a 4 part miniseries to start. Good idea to take the temperature of the readers before going full bore.
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