Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

consume

This week in comic book collected editions & graphic novels – March 15, 2017

by

Whether or not you are a comic book die-hard, shouldn’t it be an easy thing to say, “Hey, what comic book collected editions are out this Wednesday? Is there a list? Do you think I would like any of them?”

I think it should by easy. And it… kind of is? Previews Magazine has all of the solicits listed, but you can’t actually buy anything from it unless you’ve ordered months in advance through a direct market comic shop. Otherwise, you’re just window-shopping, without even ISBN numbers to guide you.

Plus, the schedule can change literally up until the last day before release. Plus, each publisher releases books at different intervals to the mass market – Dark Horse has some books out this week, DC’s are all next week, and Marvel two weeks from now.

No wonder there’s no easy-to-consume list and relatively few blogs covering the entirety of it.

Luckily, you have this massively obsessed human being to help you out with that. This post covers all of the collections out this week, explains what they are and what they contain, and provides easy links to Amazon, where you can either buy them or at least get more helpful info like their prices and ISBNs.

Publishers:

What are the must-read books this week?

I’ve got two picks this week, and you might be a little bit shocked to learn that neither of them are superheroes!

Different people in different parts of the world have different ideas of what constitutes a “graphic novel.”

In the US we tend to think of them as collections of individual comics, or less often as singular works like Maus or John Lewis’s March. In Europe, they are “graphic albums” of original work. In Japan, they might be a single Manga book or a massive omnibus.

No matter the definition, just as Will Eisner’s historic work helped to define the comic medium in the 40s, so did his graphic novel A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories literally coined the term “graphic novel” in the US when it was released, partially due to Eisner’s wish that his work be marketed to traditional book shops rather than newsstands and the direct market.

A new volume, Will Eisner’s Contract With God Other Tenement Stories hardcover, collects this work with newly-scanned art and a introduction by comic storyteller and academic Scott McCloud.

It is a collection of four grounded, philosophical, and frankly sexual stories from the same tenement building in Brooklyn, occupied by Jewish-American immigrants and first generation citizens.

Also, the collector in me can’t help but highlight The Chronicles of Conan Volume 34: Betrayal in Zamora and Other Stories. That’s right, Volume Thirty Four. It’s the final Dark Horse volume collecting Marvel’s 25-year run on Conan the Barbarian,

To celebrate it’s release, I crafted my very own Guide to Conan to help you find the 33 other volumes (and what they contain).

And now, onto the full list of books! [Read more…] about This week in comic book collected editions & graphic novels – March 15, 2017

New For Patrons: The Complete DC Events Guide

by

After nearly three months of wrestling, reading, and furiously editing, earlier today I released a complete guide to every DC Event, ever, to Patron members of the Crushing Comics Club.

This guide covers all of the biggest blockbusters down to the more obscure and forgotten events and themed annuals – many with complete reading orders that I’ve personally researched and verified (including, in my humble opinion, the best Zero Hour reading order ever created). This guide will be available to the public sometime in April.

Head to Patreon to become a supporter of Crushing Krisis. Chip in as little as $1, or get early access to guides like this one for the price of a single comic every month!

The Complete Guide to DC Universe Events – every event in reading order!

A comprehensive guide to line-wide DC Events – including story overviews, characters, issue lists, and how they can be read via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperbacks. Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics.

Crisis.

It’s a word inextricably linked with DC Comics ever since their landmark 1985 series Crisis on Infinite Earths, the birth over three decades of sprawling, line-wide events that often keep the promise that “nothing will ever be the same.”

That’s because the biggest of DC’s big events are borne out of necessity. They often are charged with a very practical storytelling goal.

Most fans know that Crisis merged myriad competing versions of heroes and continuity down to a single set by its end in 1986, resulting in historic relaunches of Wonder Woman and Superman and the landmark Batman: Year One story. What many don’t realize is that it also brought characters whose rights DC acquired into the fold – such as Blue Beetle and The Question.

Despite Marvel beating DC to the “special event” punch with 1984’s Secret Wars, Crisis’s scope was something altogether different. It touched every ongoing title, all of which coordinated back to the spine of the event series.

After the mega success of the epic Crisis, DC produced slightly more mortal-sized events in the late 80s and early 90s, including two of the biggest direct crossovers ever executed in comics – The Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall.

They were back to their timeline-shaking shenanigans with Zero Hour in 1994, and again in the 2000s with Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Flashpoint, Convergence, and Rebirth – all while innovating with the idea of weekly-series unfolding in near real-time with Trinity, 52, Countdown, and Brightest Day.Infinite Crisis 0001 - textless

While a casual fan might look at these universe-redefining events and assume something to be very broken about the DC Universe’s mode of storytelling, over the years they have proven to be a sign of its resilience.

DC has never made the same promise as Marvel – that every story in a main title is permanently in-continuity. DC phases story concepts in and out of canon when its convenient, and in the process maintains their iconic characters and creates bigger, more sensational events that aren’t weighed down by the accumulated drag of permanent continuity.

They’re also not afraid to experiment with alternate versions of characters and newly licensed universes that – if successful – get folded into the main narrative. (They’ve done it with characters from Charleston, Milestone, and Wildstorm.) [Read more…] about The Complete Guide to DC Universe Events – every event in reading order!

This week in comic book collected editions – March 8, 2017

by

For a number of arcane reasons, it’s hard to say, “These are the new comic collections out this week!”

Out where? Mass market booksellers like shops and Amazon get comic collections at a different time than comic stores do, and that lag differs from publisher to publisher.

What’s out? Not every publisher is as big or as consistent as DC and Marvel. The release list shifts day-to-day in the final week before they hit the shelves, so that you have to check the Preview Mag website on a Saturday to see what definitely hit the trucks.

Ah, but here’s the important question: Why care?

First, because single issue AKA “floppy” comics are a pain to keep up with and to keep. It’s way easier and more satisfying to buy complete stories.

But, more importantly – some of these comics are really good stories.

Publishers:

What are the must-read books this week?

DC’s Rebirth initiative has generated a lot of hype for major heroes like Wonder Woman and Superman, but some of the below-the-fold titles are generating the most buzz amongst fans.

One of those has been Deathstroke, by beloved author Christopher Priest – who was also responsible for the definitive run on Black Panther. Deathstroke Vol. 1: The Professional is the first volume of his reboot and from what I’ve heard it’s great. If you’ve never read Deathstroke before, he’s the totally serious and merciless assassin that Deadpool has parodied to much greater success.

And now, onto the full list of books!

[Read more…] about This week in comic book collected editions – March 8, 2017

little hits (of dopamine)

by

I’m an addict.

I don’t drink or do drugs. I don’t smoke or touch caffeine. My addiction is satisfaction and I will mainline anything that can produce it. That chemical feeling of being satisfied. Those little hits of dopamine in my brain.

This week it’s been games. Boring, pointless, meaningless internet games literally in a category called “idle” to indicate that they’re purely engineered for running in the background and wasting your time.

(Think Sim City when you used to leave it running overnight to gather mucho dollars and hopefully avoid an earthquake, only instead of sleeping you are watching raptly as the numbers tick ever higher.)

The urge came on Saturday night. Weekends after bedtime are usually my big opportunity to knock out huge chunks of writing on CK – and, especially for finishing new comic guides! This past Saturday I couldn’t get in the mood. Words were coming in fits and starts. Nothing satisfying.

And so, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I loaded up Kongregate for the first time in years and started poking around for simple games to play. My drug of choice is usually tower defense, but I stumbled into idlers and my night was gone.

The games were at once awful and great for satisfaction. The numbers tick up constantly! You get to click things! If there is enough ticking and clicking, sometimes new things light up! It’s the adult equivalent of an infant playmat that lights up and makes sounds. The best of the bunch was surely Swarm Simulator, a plain text game all about exponential growth and ratios, with dozens of different numbers ticking up constantly. At least it’s math, I told myself.

Even as I was playing the games I hated myself for it. I’ve had them running all week and I keep hating it. I know they’re a crutch for getting my satisfaction elsewhere by doing things like working out or hitting the “Publish” button.

I just needed those little hits. [Read more…] about little hits (of dopamine)