My Weekly Pull - August 24th

As we quickly move towards the last week of August, I'd like to take a moment to take a look back at what I picked up last week.  So let's do that.


Marvel
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY #621
FF #8
MYSTERY MEN #4 (OF 5)
PUNISHER #2 

DC Comics

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #18

BATMAN GATES OF GOTHAM #5 (OF 5)

BATMAN INCORPORATED #8

FLASHPOINT PROJECT SUPERMAN #3 (OF 3)

Other Companies

DUKE NUKEM GLORIOUS BASTARD #2 (OF 4)

INTREPIDS #6

SKELETON STORY #5 (OF 5)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #1

As always, you can find my previews for these books here, and my thoughts on a few of them here.

Following those links, you'll notice a few things.  Firstly, Skeleton Story #5 is not in my Preview column.  That is not at all a comment on the book (which I absolutely adore), but more a consequence of renown.  Skeleton Story's publisher, GG Studios, is kind of super small, and I couldn't find any solicitations for their forthcoming books.  Consequently, I couldn't find a cover or any information about the book online.  It's really a shame, because it means that fewer people will know about what is possibly one of my favourite books coming out right now.

As far as I can tell, this is actually a reprint / translation of a story that was originally published in Europe (in Italian, as far as I can tell), but that doesn't take anything away from it.  The translation works pretty well, but more importantly, the art is mind-blowingly good.  It's absolutely beautiful and unlike anything else coming out in North America.  So there might be some mild hyperbole there, but take a look at one of the pages I found on GG Studios' deviantArt account (click to embiggen).

That's just a random page from the first issue (with the original Italian in tow), but it still looks amazing.  The images are cartoonish, but done with all the care of a painting.  The character designs are awesome, and the panel layout is surprising.  I love the hell out of this book and wish that more people knew about it.

The week as a whole was incredibly good.  The weakest book I got was probably Batman Inc. #8 (as explained at the Weekly Crisis), and even it wasn't all bad.  Just super weird.  Gates of Gotham #5 surprised me by regaining my waning interest in the book.  A solid ending.  Project Superman had the same.

I could continue by giving you a laundry list that would repeat all the titles I listed above with a few words explaining what it was I liked about them, but I'll spare you that this time around.  Suffice it to say, the books you see above are some good ones.  If you aren't reading them, you should try to get your hands on them one way or another.

This month we have the highly anticipated arrival of the DCnU, which could really go either way at this point.  It's hard to say whether it will be good, bad, or simply mediocre.  I imagine it will be some combination of all three, but the question will be how much of each possibility it will be in the end.  We shall see.