New Comics

Special Forces #2 — Writer/Artist: Kyle Baker Fifteen or 20 minutes of a fire fight, tracking the main character. I think of Baker a lot like I think of Darwyn Cooke (and, come to think of it, Alex Toth): Worth buying just to admire how he’s solved the technical problems, even if he’s not always quite as good at the plots and human stuff. Checkmate #21 — Writers: Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann; Penciller: Chris Samnee; Inker: Travis Lanham The origins of Mademoiselle Marie, as a kind of Phantom-like one-dies-another-takes-over Spirit of France, and her connections to a Checkmate operative. … Continue reading →

New X-Men #45 — Writers: Craig Kyle and Chris Yost; Penciler: Humberto Ramos; Inker: Carlos Cuevas Part Eight of the “Messiah Complex” crossover series. One of the few pieces of good news about a sprawling event is that it can spotlight good work being done on the lower-tier titles like this one; here, Kyle and Yost show their knack for characterization, and Ramos does his usual tightrope act between cartoony exaggeration and straight-ahead widescreen action, especially in a throwdown between X-23 and Deathstrike. The bad news is that it’s hard to show off your strengths when you’re assigned just one … Continue reading →

Bat Lash #1 (of 6) — Writers: Peter Brandvold and Sergio Aragones;  Artist: John Severin John Severin. On a Western. Doing full art. Add in Aragones, working on the character he helped to create, and gorgeous coloring by Steve Buccellato (just look at that first-page splash, or the way the background/sky colors change chronologically through early-day blues to afternoon yellows to sunset reds), and you’ve got one satisfying comic. The story’s mostly an origin, and as subtle as a Saturday-afternoon serial (the bad guy wears black, has a mustache, and drags the heroine to an abandoned cabin where she faces … Continue reading →

Punisher War Journal #14 — Writer: Matt Fraction; Artist: Scott Wegener This title’s been all over the map since its inception — weird, since it’s had the same writer, but the tone has varied enormously. Sometimes, it’s skating close to satire, as here, and that’s probably its best bet (the “serious” Punisher-as-Cap storyline got bogged down and sputtered out in near-incomprehensibility). Fraction likes super-villains — his “Stilt-Man wake” story was probably the best of this series so far, even though you had to kind of squint to ignore all the little continuity impossibilities — and this tale, following an insane … Continue reading →

My question is not about a comic, so to speak, but The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I have the five magazines containing Stephen King’s Gunslinger. I was trying to get them appraised, but could not find them anywhere online. Do you know what they are worth? They are in fair condition. Thank you. Robert Happy to help, Robert: the Professor has fond memories of F&SF, because he discovered a whole stack of them (and Galaxy, and some others he can’t remember now) in a friend’s basement in the late ’60s, and got hooked and eventually got a subscription … Continue reading →