Another week, another ass-load of comic books for me to peruse. Here are some quick looks at stuff I’ve been reading lately:
Diary Comics No. 1: It’s taken me a minute to get around to reading local boy Dustin Harbin’s collection of autobiographical strips, but I’m glad I finally picked it up. Harbin successfully captures the mundane humor and horror of everyday life (along with the joys of Totino’s Pizza) — and he manages to squeeze in a ton of Charlotte-centric moments. It’s always cool to read a comic and say: “Hey, I’ve been there!”
Spawn No. 200: If you like plodding, uninteresting comics that feature tons of exposition and are totally based on more than a decade of continuity, you’ve got to pick up Spawn No. 200. Sure, creator Todd McFarlane handles interior art chores this issue after taking a long hiatus; however, unless you’re a diehard collector, avoid this comic.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer No. 40: Writer Joss Whedon wraps up Buffy’s official “eighth season” on a somber note … but that’s not an insult. Over the last few years, Whedon and a slew of other writers found a way to translate the feel of the show into the pages of a comic book — and that’s not an easy feat. If you watched the show at all, you owe it to yourself to read this issue … and then go and hunt down the trade paperback collections of the entire series.
John Byrne’s Next Men No. 2: I was actually excited about the return of this comic, which hadn’t been published for more than a decade. But after reading the ultra-confusing first issue and then reading the second — which contains one of the most senseless and offensive scenes I’ve ever seen in a comic — I’m pretty much through with Next Men.
Brightest Day No. 18: I’m still loving DC’s big biweekly series (much more than the other biweekly book, Generation Lost), but damn — why did they have to kill … OK, I won’t spoil it. But … damn! Hopefully writer Geoff Johns can clean this up before the book ends in a few months.
Some reviewed materials provided by Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find: www.heroesonline.com.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2011.
