Life in 4 colors: March 2009

Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Complete Journey is Out NOW!

Back in the day Bill Loebs created what I consider one of the greatest comic books of all time in Journey. It was set in the Michigan frontier during the 19th century and its main character was Wolverine MacAllister. Bill did the writing and drawing on this comic and it was one of the best comics of its time or any time for that matter. IDW recently collected the first half and published it in a trade. Now the second half has been collected and is out. Do yourself a favor and go out and find these two books. If you've ever thought that comics could be about more than superheroes than you owe it to yourself to read this series. I've mentioned this series before when the first collection came out, but feel I need to mention it again. Go out and buy this book. It's really a good comic book and Bill Loebs is a nice guy and could use the support.

I'd love to see a new series continuing Journey. Is there any chance of that happening?

Current Comics

Image via Wikipedia

With the economy the way it is and probably not going to get better before it gets worse I've cut back on some of my comic book spending. And with certain companies (Marvel) raising the prices on some comics to four dollars an issue (ok, really $3.99) it's getting easier to decide what to drop. I'm a big fan of Brian Michael Bendis, he got back to reading Marvel Comics with his Daredevil issues, but it's hard to walk out of the comic book store after spending twenty dollars and have only four comics to show for it. Yes, it's only a dollar increase over what we were paying, but it's just getting so hard to justify spending that much on comics every month.

I did pick up an issue of Mighty Avengers and found it basically unreadable so that will be an easy one to drop. I haven't picked up Secret Warriors, even though I'm tempted. I'm on the fence with the New Avengers. Dark Avengers I passed on, even though Bendis is writing it. At the moment I'll probably continue to buy it, but it won't take much for me to drop it.

I've dropped Captain American, even though I was enjoying Brubaker's writing it was starting to lose some interest for me. Daredevil is about to change writers soon, so I'll probably buy a few with the new writer, Andy Diggle, before I make any decision to continue or drop it. Daredevil has always been one of the cornerstones of my collecting so it'll be hard for me to drop it.

At the moment comics that I buy every month (or whenever they come out):

Echo
The Boys
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Walking Dead
Daredevil
New Avengers
Spiderman Loves Mary Jane
Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade
Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam

And that's about it. I might have forgotten a few, but I don't think so. I'll pick up an odd issue here and there of something that might look interesting. Right now I've been buying Greatest Hits but that only has one more issue to go and than that's over.

I find myself buying trades of books that I don't pick up on a monthly schedule. I was buying the trades of DMZ but have missed the last two. I plan to go back and get them, that is a title I've been enjoying. I just ordered the hardcovers of Swamp Thing and the second volume of Starman. I also just picked up the second and final volume of Bill Loebs' collected Journey.

Buying these hardcovers and trades is costing me the money I could spend on montly comics, but I feel like I'm getting a better deal with these volumes. And I'm enjoying the comics more.

If there's anyone out there that's still reading this blog after my terrible absence of not blogging for so long, tell me if the economy has made you cut back on your purchases. Or tell me about a comic that I just have to buy because it's so good. I'm always looking for that comic that I can't live without.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Wednesday Comics

I haven't been a fan of much recent DC Comics so I'm glad to say that I'm looking forward to their new summer weekly series called Wednesday Comics. Read more about it here. I also like the fact that they're not tying it down in continuity, so the creators can just do the best story they can and not worry about if it fits in with what's happening in the rest of the DC Universe, which is not a place I'm too happy with currently.