A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
Natasha Romanoff gets a new perspective in Kelly Thompson, Elena Casagrande and team’s Black Widow
Empyre
Empyre is the culmination of decades’ worth of comic story lines dating back to the Kree-Skull War
This is the first we’ve seen of the six-month gap after Rosenberg’s Uncanny X-Men and before HOX/POX, though it raises more questions than it answers! This scene certainly isn’t here to reveal that Doug communes with Krakoa. Their relationship and his creation of a Krakoan language in distinction from Krakoa’s own have all already been functionally established.
No, this scene is meant to be another layered puzzle piece! Though it might mostly be misdirection with just a kernel of something vastly important hidden in plain sight. Who. Knows.
[Read more…] about How to (Re)Read the Hickman Era of X-Men: Powers of X #4, Pt. 3
In 2019, Stan Sakai announced that he would be moving Usagi Yojimbo to IDW from Dark Horse, his publisher for more than 20 years. Certainly it wasn’t the first time that Usagi had moved houses, with early stories at Thoughts & Images, then Fantagraphics and a brief stint at Mirage Studios, but despite all of these moves, the collected format of these comics had remained remarkably consistent.
The trade collections, numbered volumes 1-33 (available in paperback and limited hardcover editions
The omnibus editions of the series consisted of a special edition hardcover slipcase from Fantagraphics which was later republished as a paperback which has become almost equally hard to find (though there are rumors of a reprint hardcover edition coming later this year). From Dark Horse, the limited hardcover Usagi Yojimbo Saga collections (volumes 1-9 and Legends, collecting non-canonical stories), remain something of a gold standard for omnibus collectors. These editions feature full comic sized pages, and each collects three of the numbered editions.
Which is a long, circuitous way of saying that, moving forward, IDW will not be publishing new Usagi content collections consistent with the Fantagraphics and Dark Horse collections. The smaller 6” x 9” format for trade collections has been abandoned in favor of full-sized editions. This presents the art in a larger format that’s more consistent with the monthly comics, but, as many collectors find important, it won’t gel well on the shelf with prior collections. The numbering scheme has also been restarted, with “Bunraku and Other Stories” being the new volume 1, and “Homecoming,” the collection under discussion, as the new volume two. [Read more…] about Best New Graphic Novel: Usagi Yojimbo – Homecoming
Tom Taylor’s a big deal in 2021. He spent years writing the Injustice and Injustice 2 comics, he monopolized DC’s 2000s zombie-era nostalgia comics with DCeased, and has just recently taken over the Nightwing book to great excitement from a lot of people. And that’s not even half of his career. It’s safe to say he’s a big deal. But I’ve never been convinced.
Taylor’s style always felt to me that it was prioritizing characterization and “canon” over exploring themes and ideas with the characters. And while that’s enough for a lot of fans, it’s not what I look for in my comics. It feels like all fluff with little real substance.
But I didn’t always feel like this. In fact, when I was first getting into ongoing comics, Taylor’s All-New Wolverine
