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Weak in Comics – 01/14/10

Happy New Year, Internet, and welcome to the first 2010 edition of This Week in Comics, where every day is a comic book, but you can’t read them with the corresponding days because they all come out on Wednesday. Oops. To remind you what each day means, I’ve thrown in several subtitles for each day. Because I love you.

Since I ended last year’s edition with a quick “best of the year” list, I feel like I could make some wild prognostications about comics this year.

Dark Horse Comics will continue to live up to its name by publishing proper good comics that I like. This will prove doubly true if The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys comes out this year.

Ditto Image Comics, especially if Casanova returns this year.

With the conclusion of “Siege,” the Marvel Comics universe will see an end to “Dark Reign” and a return to a traditional status quo after the last several years of Bush-era pessimism. In lieu of constant tie-in books, Marvel Comics will be printed with an ink containing a highly addictive drug absorbed through the skin. In this sense, “Dark Reign” won’t end, but simply change forms.

In the next DC Comics crossover, probably written by Geoff Johns, Wonder Woman will get raped by Darkseid to show that the dark god of the planet Apokalips is truly as evil as we think. While the pundits and bloggers will decry this offensive attempt by DC to seem “darker” and more “adult,” the crossover will outsell even “Blackest Night” due to each issue’s inclusion of a small packet of chewable vitamins in the shape of all your favorite DC Comics rape scenes.

This year we may see Geoff Johns really put off his fan-base, and not because of all the rape.

By sheer amount of output alone, it’s inevitable that BOOM! Studios will release a comic book I unabashedly love instead of just really enjoy. This might happen in 2010. I’m not sure.

MONDAY – First Issues, New Beginnings, This Week Might Not Suck After All If Monday’s Any Indication

The Muppet Show Comic Book #1

(Roger Langridge)

BOOM! Studios

Huzzah! The Muppet Show comic proper is back with a new number one, wherein Roger Langridge remains faithful to the sketch comedy format of The Muppet Show while drawing the characters in his distinct style instead of attempting to draw the characters as they appear in real life. It’s a surprising dost of artistic license that I wish more licensed comics would take. Also, I wish more licensed comic books had Muppets. Are you listening, IDW and Dark Horse?

Hint: I grew up with Archie’s Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, which developed its own continuity independent of both the cartoon and the original Mirage Studios comics.

TUESDAY – New Manga Day, Which is Always On Tuesday, Also Sometimes I Choose Two Manga Effectively Making it “Twosday”

Yakitate!! Japan Volume 21

(Takashi Hashiguchi)

Viz Media

Cooking manga! I would buy every cooking manga there is if I had lots of disposable income. Until then, I’ll have to live with reading about them and imagining what could be. Yakitate!! Japan is about a 16-year-old boy who has superhuman baking skills and seeks to put Japan on the map when it comes to bread baking. That sounds delicious. I want to eat this comic. To me, food manga is porn.

AND

Switch Volume 12

(Otoh Saki/Tomomi Nakamura)

Viz Media

Here’s a manga that isn’t about weird transformations, robots, or demon punching. It’s a cop comic about a pair of youthful looking newbie detectives (one of whom has a “violent alter ego”) tracking a drug called Dragon Speed. Dragon Speed! My god.

WEDNESDAY- New Comic Day in the US, Mainstream Superhero Stuff, Middle of the Week

Invincible Iron Man #22

(Matt Fraction/Salvador Larocca)

Marvel Comics

Look, I try not to repeat myself, but this is a slow week. So I’m going to gush about Invincible Iron man and you can’t stop me. Because I’m wrote this in the past and you spacemen are reading it in the future. So suck it, hypothetical descendants.

Invincible Iron Man is better than superhero comics deserve to be in an age where the most popular comics are about the intersection of zombies and rape. What’s even more pleasing is that people are paying attention and reading this book.

Now watch as this issue severely disappoints.

THURSDAY – Not Quite Friday but Still Exciting, Must See Thursdays

Daytripper #2 (of 10)

(Gabriel Bá/Fábio Moon)

Vertigo/DC Comics

How good way Daytripper #1? What? You didn’t read it? Well, you missed the set-up for the whole series, plus some great art from those twins whose names force me to make extra keystrokes to include the accent marks (I live a hard life).

I’ve already made space on my shelf for the trade.

FRIDAY – TGIDinosaurs (still)

Age Of Reptiles: The Journey #2 (of 4)

(Ricardo Delgado)

Dark Horse Comics

Zombies and cowboys are surely tired trends by now. When will dinosaurs be the Big Awesome Thing in comics? When we will have a Devil Dinosaur revival and a DC Comics crossover where Dr. Light rapes a triceratops?

It’s a beautiful, meticulously drawn comic book about dinosaurs doing dinosaur stuff. It has no words, just great art. And this issue has prehistoric alligators in it.

You know you want it.

SATURDAY – Essential Reading, Long Lazy Afternoons, Cleaning the Gutters

Lola: A Ghost Story

(J. Torres/Elbert Or)

Oni Press

Here’s Oni Press’ book description:

“Jesse sees dead people, monsters, demons, and lots of other things that go bump in the night that no one else can see. No one except his ailing grandmother — a woman who used her visions to help those living in her small town. The same rural community in all the scary stories Jesse’s heard as a child. Man-eating ogres in trees. Farmhouses haunted by wraiths. Even pigs possessed by the devil. Upon his grandmother’s passing, Jesse has no choice but to face his demons and whatever else might be awaiting him at grandma’s house.”

Seems like it has cool art and pathos and junk. Oni Press is good for stuff like that.

SUNDAY – Last Issues, Oh Sh!t Tomorrow’s Monday

Absolution #6 (of 6)

(Christos Gage/Roberto Viacava)

Avatar Press

Absolution’s ending already? Granted, I haven’t been keeping up, but that was quick. It seems like only yesterday I was at Comic-Con 2009, pointing out my favorite bits of gore from Issue #0 to the disinterested guy at the Avatar Press booth. How time flies!In all seriousness, Absolution is a good companion to those Warren Ellis “Maybe superheroes aren’t such a good idea” books that Avatar publishes. It’s probably not nearly as twisted as No Hero, but it promises lots of ultra-violence.