Comics

After decades upon decades of the Big Two being the place to go for comics, with distribution ranging from the classic spinner rack at the corner drug store to a direct sales market structure, a new way of getting comics has been gaining traction: Crowdfunding. Whether through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or other means, creators have found ways to take charge of their ideas and bring them to the masses without having to dilute them through the traditional channels.

One of those projects that's been generating a lot of buzz is LITTLE GIRL LETHAL, starring the enigmatic and sexy Sugar Lightspeed. But as intriguing and arousing as the artwork appears, what is LITTLE GIRL LETHAL all about?

We sat down for a chat with Sugar's creator, "Slick" Jimmy Love, to get an in-depth and personal look at the world next door -- a world of sexy assassins where seedy sins aren't necessarily hidden in the shadows; the world of Sugar Lightspeed."

There are too few all-ages books on the shelves these days, and even fewer that feature characters which parents can recognize and, thus, feel comfortable about when selecting comics for their kids.

Dynamite Comics holds the potential to make some great headway into this market with their licensing of the franchise RAINBOW BRITE, and utilizing the characters to create a superheroic mythos.

Young Wisp has disappeared from Earth, having been chased by monsters that were eating -- of all things -- the color blue from items in her neighborhood late at night. Meeting up with the friendly creature known as Twinkle, she ends up teleporting to Rainbow Land -- which is nothing at all like it's name, having been drained of all colors by the King of Shadows and his ally, Murky Dismal, a scientist who has found a way to mine color for fuel. The King of Shadows has found ways to drain the light from everyone in the land, turning them to creatures of darkness.

For the better part of the last year, the face and voice of Comicsgate has been Ethan Van Sciver, whose YouTube channel "ComicArtistPro Secrets" garnered massive audiences for livestreams (with over 80,000 subscribers) and became, by default and by name, Comicsgate Live.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

So here's what we know going into JAMES BOND 007 #1 from Dynamite Comics. There's a Russian guy who has a thing, and he's talking to some Asian guys about the thing. We don't know what the thing is, and unless you go into Google Translate, you have no idea what they're talking about. (Note to comics writers: We don't mind the translation text boxes. Honest.) Fortunately, they all quickly transition to English, just in time for whatever deal they're working to get busted up by a an Asian martial artist with a familiar looking chapeau.

Yes, whatever the Russian is selling, the fan-favorite Bond franchise henchman, Oddjob, wants it. But Oddjob is no longer a strong, silent type, nor is he a mere henchman in this Greg Pak / Marc Laming vision of Ian Fleming's classic characters. He's roguish, charming, outgoing -- in many ways, he's the Korean foil to Bond in many ways and traits.

The latest twist in the case of MEYER VS. WAID, which alleges comics writer Mark Waid engaged in tortious interference (more about that here), has been filed by his attorney, Mark S. Zaid. Zaid has filed a motion for dismissal, based on the claims that the suit is filed in the wrong jurisdiction, citing that Waid is a citizen of Calfornia, and has no business contacts in Texas. Specifically, in places, the motion states:

"Plaintiff brought this suit against Mr. Waid, a California citizen with no contacts with Texas..."

"Plaintiff's Complaint fails to identify any allegegations or facts establishing any connection between Mr. Waid and Texas."

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

For the past three issues of this miniseries, the villains of Gotham have been putting into place their scheme to take over the adults of Riverdale, a town without a caped crusader to stand in their way. While Batman tracked down the 'electronic book' stolen by Bookworm, Robin and Batgirl responded to the call for help, and are only now seeing the depth of the villain infestation in Riverdale.

As Catwoman infiltrates Riverdale High to ply her feminine wiles on high school boys (not creepy at all), Robin and Batgirl get captured, and are placed in the same mind-melting trap where the Clown Prince of Crime has been holding Jughead prisoner.

For the most part, Tom King does a fantastic job delving deeper into the mystery of HEROES IN CRISIS, leaving us with more clues but coming no closer to the truth of who massacred all the heroes (and villains) who were being treated at Sanctuary, the pscyho-therapy institute created by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman for super-people to come to deal with their post-traumatic stress.

A crucial clue to the mystery is discovered during an autopsy conducted on Commander Steel by the Trinity. Batman extracts an object (that apparently Superman couldn't detect with his x-ray vision) that would almost clearly indicate Harley Quinn commited the crime. But when they close in on her, she maintains her claim that it was actually fellow patient Booster Gold who did the deed -- and she gets away after casting serious suspicion on Batman that the other two cannot ignore.

MIDNIGHT MYSTERY combines elements of some of the more understatedly cool detective and supernatural series that have come over the years. The tone is very Raymond Chandler, the art is reminescent of early Darwyn Cooke, and the story is evocative of the best of KOLCHAK, THE NIGHT STALKER and THE X FILES.

Ezekiel "Zeke" King is a private detective of the hard-boiled, no-nonsense variety. He records his cases and thoughts on old-fashioned reel-to-reel tapes, leaving an archive of musings of the greater questions of the universe. As this premiere issue opens, Zeke has been hired by the estate of a former horror movie host to find his long-lost heir. The bulk of the issue is then devoted to who Roland Blackwood -- the actor behind the creepy Count Karloff persona -- truly is and how his life came to be what it was. After that, Zeke does the legwork to find the young man who is Blackwood's illegitimate son, bringing him to the estate to claim that which is now lawfully his.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

I'm late to the party with the VAMPIRONICA series -- another reimagining of the Archie universe with a horror filter. I'm late on purpose, because I'm still nursing the wounds of having become addicted to AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE and CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, only to have both of those rugs yanked out from under me, with no hope in hell of ever seeing either of those stories reach anything resembling a satisfying conclusion. I didn't want it to happen again, so I've not invested myself in any more Archie horror titles -- which, yes, means I have not read any of THE HUNGER, either.

But, it was a Halloween event at my local comics store, and I wasn't taken this week with any of the usual superhero fare, which has been becoming less and less appealing over the last few years. So, feeling generous and in the holiday spirit, I gave the latest VAMPIRONICA a shot.

We've reported in the past on the civil war brewing in the comics community, with the lines being drawn between what is termed "Comicsgate" and "everyone else."

One of the biggest touchstones of the ongoing friction, and one that has all eyes in the comics community watching, is the lawsuit filed by Richard C. Meyer against Mark Waid for tortious interference in regards to Meyer's contract with Antarctic Press to publish his independent graphic novel, JAWBREAKERS: LOST SOULS. The allegation is that, after Waid publicly admitted to reaching out to the publisher, AP summarily reversed their decision to publish the book, prompting Meyer to sue for damages.

Of all the comics creators who have been in the industry, we can never overstate the debt we owe to the great Dave Stevens, gone ten years now, for his lasting contribution to the comic books. Yes, we'll remember his Rocketeer and I for one will never forget his pinup covers for DNAGENTS and CROSSFIRE & RAINBOW.

But it's largely because of Dave Stevens work that the community remains aware of a real life character, Bettie Page, a stag film model with a look that transcended time. She was the girlfriend of his Rocketeer, but has since gone on to become a heroine in her own right, thanks to Dynamite Entertainment.

Case in point: BETTIE PAGE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL ONE-SHOT 2018.

They're the world's most iconic rockers. With their black-and-white facepaint and their over-the-top stage presence, KISS is on top of the world.

And then they were dead. Killed through the machinations of the mother of demons, all so that she could recruit them to fight a greater evil that existed beyond her grasp.

It seems there's another rock star on the rise in the mortal plane, and he's anything but mortal. He's a vampire, and he's got the protection of a group of occultists keeping him safe from Lillith. In exchange, they tell him who he needs to kill. And Lillith wants him dead, even though she created him.

It seems there are a ton of Halloween specials hitting the comics shops this time of year -- more than one would normally expect. But what you would alwaye expect is for Vampirella to have such a special. The Daring Dresser of Drakulon prowls the rooftops this Halloween night, dressed more like DC's Spoiler than the typical barely-there crimson swimsuit that has become her trademark. That's because she's dressed for business, expecting the entirety of Hell to break through and walk the world once more.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

It's been half a year since Archie and the gang graduated from Riverdale High, which puts the date of this issue in mid-December of 1941. The Japenese forces have already bombed Pearl Harbor, and we see an empty theater playing the newsreel of Roosevelt's famous declaration of war, which means we're probably several days past December 7, allowing for time for the filmreels to be cut and delivered to theaters.

Which also means we've nearly run out of days for the titular 1941.

No matter how fastidious you are in maintaining your comic shop pull list in your never-ending battle to make sure you don't miss anything good (or accidentally waste your money on something not so much), it never hurts to do a last minute check on what's coming out this week so you can make those fine-tuned adjustments.

Here are our looks at this week's upcoming comics, and our hot takes on whether they're a pick or a pan. Your mileage may vary.

"Fear is the path to the Dark Side.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

If Master Yoda hadn't lived a long time ago, and in a galaxy far, far away, he might have said that it also leads to termination. That's what Star Wars writer Chuck Wendig discovered when he took to Twitter in the aftermath of the confirmation of Brett Kavenaugh to the Supreme Court.

The Kavenaugh hearings were a hotly contested subject of conversation in social media, with both sides absolutely convinced the other side was sheer evil, and had to be defeated. So it should come as no surprise that there were many less-than-civil discussions to be had.

But one would think that someone who was as versed in Star Wars lore and Chuck Wendig should be would have recognized the roadsigns, and heeded them rather than plowed over them. Here's how it played out.