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Baltimore Comic-Con is this weekend! 2-4 September! Let’s get to the last bit of info you might need if you’re still on the fence about coming. American Mythology Productions will be there as a featured publisher. I hadn’t heard of them before, but it seems like they have some pretty neat nostalgia titles that they could potentially do some great stuff with: targate: Atlantis, The Pink Panther, The Three Stooges, Equilibrium, The Land That Time Forgot, Zombie-Proof, and Werewolves vs. Dinosaurs. ...

There’s a quote people like to throw around on the Internet, “Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.” Some attribute this to Napoleon, but it doesn’t matter if he actually said it, it’s a pretty good maxim to help people out when they’re finding themselves engulfed by the temptation to believe in conspiracies. It’s certainly something that got many a person through the George W Bush presidency. But in Letter 44, author Charles Soule flips the saying on its head. What if all the crap you hated about Bush - all the wars he started seemingly just to get back at the guy who flipped the bird at his dad - what if it was all just a coverup? What if the president was actually just using that as an excuse to pump up defense spending budgets in order to get the technology needed for a top secret space mission to meet the first intelligent life humanity had discovered? It’s certainly a tempting premise - it makes all the destruction and lives lost no longer meaningless.

Hello readers! Unfortunately, it’s been way too long since my last post. But to make up for that, I’m going to put together everything I know about Baltimore Comic-Con 2016 so far into one post. First of all, the most important thing. This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con is 2-4 September. I really love Baltimore Comic-Con because it’s a big enough show to attract some of the great big names of comics (Mark Waid, Scott Snyder, Frank Cho, David Finch, etc), but it’s still small enough that you can always get into the panels you want to see without having to spend forever waiting in line like some of the more famous conventions on the east and west coasts. So if you live within driving distance, make sure you buy your tickets!

I’m back with a look at Daybreak. I’m hoping to be able to get onto a more consistent track, but time will tell if I can manage that at this time. https://youtu.be/jVzHpf4v81k Images used in the video: Daybreak First Person Daybreak Cover

The best thing about the Humble Bundle and other similar deals is that you may go after the bundle for one book that interests you and end up with lots of other stories you never would have considered otherwise. It’s why the publishers are so keen to allow their comics to be available when someone paying them the minimum would be giving them just a few dollars per story, if that. It’s one of the oldest sales tactics - a free taste. The Massive was one such story for me. And I’m glad I was able to read it. While the entire series has already been published, this post is only going to consider the first volume. The main reason for that is that I do not buy DRM comics and while Humble Bundle comics are available DRM-free, the rest of the series is not.

https://youtu.be/rLIl3Cdpzcc Here are all the images referenced in the video: Roger Rabbit Happy to See Me Bone Vol 1 - Undressed 2 Bone Vol 1 - the Bones Bone Vol 1 - Drinking images Bone Vol 1 - Nuclear Salad Bar Bone Vol 1 - Undressed 1

The world can be a pretty tough place and in Lost Dogs we see the worst of it. We know there are bad people out there, but we want to believe in the good of folks or that perhaps bad things won’t happen to us because we’re good people. Lost Dogs shatters all those illusions. Jeff Lemire’s first published comic book is a very fast read, but a very impactful read.

If I have one criticism of Oh, Hell, it’s that the plot feels rushed. In one volume we meet the main characters, learn of the school in Hell, learn the backstories of the main characters, and have a resolution to the plot. George Wassil has a lot going on in this story and it’s too bad he didn’t have the room to spread it out over at least two volumes. I’d been intrigued to read the story since speaking with him at Baltimore Comic-Con 2015. Our main character, Angela (who also goes by Zoel) was found abandoned in a dumpster as a baby. She becomes an exceptionally trying teenager and her adopted parents send her to what they think is another boarding school, but is actually a school in Hell. Who wouldn’t want to see where that goes?

This volume is all over the place. There is a Christmas interlude, we learn of Rapunzel’s plight, and a series of reader questions answered as 1-2 page comics. But the bulk of the volume is about the eye of the storm in the Fabletown and Adversary relations. Each has wreaked devastations upon the other and now Fabletown must see if their Israel Gambit will succeed. The volume is also about how warfare is also a battle about information. As far as Fabletown knows, Gepetto is OK with peace as he’s sent a diplomatic envoy. The reader, on the other hand, has seen Gepetto’s war council and that he prepares for total war. While Pinocchio is correct that the Fables and the Mundys would be swift with their retribution, the first punch will have already been thrown and the Mundy world would be worse off for it.

Almost two years ago Kari Woodrow wrote about Lumberjanes#1 here on this site. Her conclusion was that everyone needed to be reading this comic. Having read issues #1-20, I must agree. When I relaunched Comic POW!, I set a focus for the site that it would examine this story-telling medium that we love and focus on how these stories are influenced by the authors and the time and place in which they were written. Lumberjanes is, without a doubt, about being a girl in America in the 2000s. No matter what kind of girl you see yourself as, you will no doubt find a counterpart in the main characters.