The Weekly Crisis vs. Solicits for October 2013

Those October comic book solicitations have been available for a wee bit at this juncture, and we at The Weekly Crisis have taken some time to pore through them to find the best, worst, and coolest things coming your way this October.  There's plenty of all of those categories to choose from, so let's jump right to it, shall we?  Check beyond the cut for our thoughts and feel free to share yours!

Hansel's Thoughts

Best Things in October

Sandman Returns

Neil Gaiman returns to his comic book masterpiece. I cannot wait to see how he handles himself with the character after all these years. J.H. Williams has draw some stunning and gorgeous images throughout his career, I do not know what to expect with his take on Sandman but I am itching to get that book in my hands 

New Image Titles!

Once more Image opens the flood gates on new books and there is quite a lot to pick from:

PRETTY DEADLY #1 by Kelly Sue Deconnick, Emma Rios and Jordie Bellaire. This one is a western with a lot of fantasy mixed in. Join in and follow Death's daughter as she saddles up and rides for revenge.

VELVET #1 by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Bettie Breitweiser. That is 2/3rds of the FATALE team and the men who brought you the Winter Soilder Saga from Marvel. In this title a spy leaves his desk job to solve a murder mystery. With Ed and Steve at the helm I'm sure the first two or three layers of plot are throwaways to keep us guessing the real meat of the story.

ROCKET GIRL #1 by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder. High tech and time travel? I'm already hooked. This Kickstarter success is the story of a girl from an alternate 2013 that travels to 1986. Sold!

THREE #1 by Kieron Gillen, Ryan Kelly and Jordie "Colors Everything" Bellaire. Three slaves from Helot try to survive 300 Spartan Warriors. Yeesh. This is going to be bloody and brutal. 

BUSHIDO #1 by Rob Levin, Cover by Studio HIVE. Elevator Pitch: Vampires in Feudal Japan. Special seres that will release WEEKLY through out October. You love Samurais? You love Vapmires? Get it.

And finally, not a new comic but a special reissue:

THE WALKING DEAD #1 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION 

Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Dave Stewart splash some color on the 1st issue. 10 years is a mile stone for any comic. Cheers guys!

Coolest Things in October

Sandman Returns!

I can't wait guys. I just can't wait. 

Ryan Browne Goes to Town

Another successful Kickstarter comes to mass print. Ryan Browne was told GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS would not have a viable audience. He was told the "e" at the end of Browne was useless and pretentious, and he was also told he has a face fit for radio. Well it turns out they were wrong about the audience part! 

If you love Owl Puns, Defaced...er.. faces and lots of 90's tv show references, this is the book for you!

Jack's Back!

After years of waiting, the master swords man is back. With awesome incentive covers by the creator Genndy Tartakovsky and CHEW's Rob Guillory this is the book that, hopefully, will bring closure to Jack's Journey.

Worst Things in October

OMEGA

No. No! No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. What do I do with out you? 

Too Many Comics

My poor, poor wallet.

Grant's Thoughts

Best Things in October

Planetoid Collected!

My absolute favourite series from the past year, Ken Garing's wonderfully imaginative sci fi Planetoid, is finally getting collected as a trade paperback come October. If you missed out on Planetoid when it was coming out in individual issues (shame on you), this is the perfect chance to make up for that gross oversight. Garing displayed some absolutely gorgeous storytelling and world building throughout this book, and I sincerely believe that everyone should check it out. Mark your calendars for October 2nd now!

Putting Comics in Your Comics

Marvel is dropping what they're calling Marvel WHAT NOW?! #1, a book featuring plenty of great comedians in the writer's chair to tell some absolutely ridiculous tales featuring Marvel's top characters. I'm always game for lighthearted comics, and this book looks like it will be right up my alley. The talent alone is reason to check this out. My main hope is that this is the beginning of at least a few issues, because I'm sure this concept has plenty of legs to take it beyond one.

Worst Things in October

Pricing Comics the Marvel Way

So DC's stealth price hike from September isn't quite as all-encompassing as initially thought, with some titles reverting to their former $2.99 price, but a fair number do not. DC is copying Marvel's habit of pricing what they view as their most popular books at $3.99, despite the fact that the actual page count remains unchanged from their $2.99 offerings. As I've said many times before, I'm not really willing to pay $3.99 for a 20 page comic from the Big 2. I'll do it for smaller publishers, because I know that they don't have the same resources supporting their business (and the fact that they offer 22 pages of comic doesn't hurt either), but when Marvel and DC employ this strategy, it's purely because they feel that they can nickel and dime their readers for that extra dollar per issue without any negative consequences. On the balance, they might very well be right, but actually doing it illustrates how little the companies respect their readers, and I, for one, am disgusted by that.

Hammering Away (Until You're Thor)

Speaking of Marvel, if you didn't already know when the new Thor movie was coming out, their October solicitations would solve that problem for you lickity split. Marvel has a zillion different Thor books dropping in October, ranging from the regular ongoing titles, to random variant covers that have nothing to do with the actual comic they'll be appearing on, to a slew of trade paperbacks and hardcovers collecting any Thor story they could think of. I understand the urge to try to build on the buzz that a new Thor movie will presumably create, but there seems to be no real rhyme nor reason going on here. Instead of developing some type of coherent plan to leverage the new movie, Marvel is throwing everything they can think of and waiting to see what sticks. There's been lots and lots of discussion as to why the popularity of comic book movies isn't translating into new readers, and while I doubt there is any one answer, this type of poorly conceived effort certainly isn't helping.

Coolest Things in October

Spooktacular!

Boom! continues to deliver exciting Adventure Time comic book goodness with a Halloween Spooktacular issue!  At this point, there hasn't been much announced beyond its existence and some of the talented creators working on it (including Ming Doyle, Frazer Irving, Kevin Church, and many others), but that is more than enough to get me pumped.  Algebraic!

Those Rare Moments of Solicitation Levity

Every month we look towards the new solicitations to try to get an idea of what's in the pipeline from the various comic book companies, and every month it feels like the solicitations get slightly worse. Whether it's obfuscating what's actually going on in the book, straight up spoiling what's going up in the book, or writing plain, boring copy that's ultimately meaningless, so many of these entries aren't worth the paper they're printed on. That's why I am perpetually tickled by those rare few who come out and do something new or fun with their solicit text.

Right now, two of the best examples of that are the solicits for Hawkeye and Young Avengers. Seeing as there's no Hawkeye issue solicited for October, that leaves us with YA to relieve those solicitation blues. And, as expected, they deliver in spades. Observe:

• They say you can never go home. For the Young Avengers, it’s not true. They can go home. It’s just that if they do, the universe may end. Better not go home then, eh?

• WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOUNG AVENGERS? YOU’VE DECIDED TO GO HOME? GAHHKKH! YOU GUYS!

• Is Kate Bishop an enemy in waiting? Is this the last we see of the loveable/strangle-able Kid Loki? • Are rhetorical questions a cheap device when writing solicits? All answers revealed, except the last one, which you’ll have to work out by yourselves.

Did you notice how that managed to explain some of what will be happening in the issue while also being pretty danged funny? I'm already reading the book, but this kind of extra effort is the type of thing that would get me interested in trying something new. Maybe one day these type of solicits will be the rule instead of the exception.

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