Sunday Funnies

Okay, let me apologize for the title. While this is a post about comics, its about the type you find on a newsstand, not a newspaper. This started out as a reply to a post on the CCN message board by a local ghost-buster (which had nothing to do with ghosts.) He wanted to know what comics everyone was reading and I started to get wordy, as usual, and I realized that I was writing a blog entry so, here it is: What the Bombastic B is reading in comics:

Thanks to my unfortunate home situation, I have a lot of spare cash so I've been able to go to the comics store and buy at least one new comic for every week in the month. For the most part I stick with mini-series since they're easier to pick up since its just three to six comics to tell one complete story.

However, I've dived completely into and am now lost in Bill Willingham's Fables. It's my current comics obsession and has almost everything I like: werewolves (sorta), multiple worlds, magic in modern settings, boobs, sacrilege, a focus on characters over plot, and artwork that puts everything else in comics to shame just based on how its presented. I've bought every trade paperback including the new hardcover. However, I've stopped buying the individual comics until the next TPB comes out at which time I'll either pick them up again or just resign myself to trades. Fables, for me, might work better as a trade than as individual issues.

I'm also picking up lots of She-Hulk comics. Funny that, even though I'm a Hulk fan, I don't read the Hulk himself since I find most of his comics boring. The lack of jellyfish floating in the desert does it for me. She-Hulk, however, is way too much fun. Dan Slott does what I want to do with superheroes: he has fun with them. Nothing is too terribly serious here and Slott chooses to focus more on character (do you see a trend?) than galactic battles and funky villains. The book is weird and I love that.

The two mini-series I'm on are about to finish: Secret Six, Gail Simone's continuation of work on Villains United, and The Escapists which is a loosely based sequel to Michael Chabon's incredible novel, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Both have been quite entertaining and I'll miss both. However, I'm hoping they both spawn full series if possible. I'd read them.

Last, but not least, I'm just starting out reading the new Juggernaut arc on New Excalibur. The book itself doesn't interest me as most anything X-Men feels ruined after House of M(ess.) But Juggernaut is a favorite character of mine and I want to see if he stays a good guy or goes back to evil as well as whether or not he'll get his powers back--or get new ones.