Emma-Rios

We don’t often consider single issues here at Comic POW! We prefer to look at story arcs and completed series to get a better feel for what the author and artist were trying to accomplish. However, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some comics’ first issues to predict where we think it might be going and see how that compares with where the series actually goes. This series is called “At the Beginning” and it’ll usually be for series right as they are starting up. ...

While I was on vacation last week Image Comics announced a boatload of new series coming out soon. Here they are: The Fade Out I’m not a huge fan of Ed Brubaker, but I do respect his work on Fatale. It’s going to be ending after its 24th issue and Brubaker will be working with Sean Phillips (who he also worked on Fatale with) on The Fade Out. Here’s how Brubaker describes it: The Fade Out is my ultimate noir story. It’s a brutal crime story set in late ’40s Hollywood, and all spinning around the mysterious death of an up-and-coming starlet. For people who’ve been waiting for us to return to Criminal, this will be exactly what they’re looking for, but on a much more epic scale—going from studio backlots to the debauchery of the rich and famous, and even stretching back to the horrors of World War Two. I am a fan of noir, but what’s really exciting about this announcement is how it’s shaking up the industry. Phillips and Brubaker will have full creative control and ownership of their projects at Image for the next five years. Image Comics was founded because of the Big Two having ownership of characters created while working for them. But this is an even further move. I think this new move is motivated by Thrillbent and Panel Syndicate proving that the Internet is finally coming through on its promise of no longer needing a publisher. So if publishers want to stay in business, they need to provide something above and beyond what creators can get doing it on their own. It’s an exciting shakeup that could lead to even more creative works in a space that really needs it.

I always have a hard time figuring out which new comics I want to pick up. There are some choices that are easy, sure – I already know that I’ll be picking up Damian: Son of Batman when it’s released starting next week, and I’m just as sure that I have no interest in jumping into any of the X-Men titles – but the choices aren’t always that simple. I find it especially difficult to decide what, if any, indie books I’m going to check out. A lot of them are fantastic, and I’d never say otherwise, but there are so many ongoing titles from publishers that aren’t the Big Two that it seems even more daunting to figure out what to read there than it does to catch up with the first run of Detective Comics.

Comic POW! evolved from our Friday Morning conversations as Dan and I discussed the week’s comics. After a few weeks I came to realize that Dan and I take away very different things from comics. Dan tends to enjoy comics for the art and metaphor and he prefers creator owned comics. I tend to emphasis the story and how it relates to the wider continuity. I’m a lifelong Marvel fan and newly into DC. So I decided to share that weekly conversation with you guys. Every week we’ll each select a new issue and see if we can convince the other person the comic we chose deserves to be called the best comic of that week. Sometimes it’ll be easy. Other times it might be an epic battle. We also have some special battles planned for the future. Just a quick note, in order for the battles to get into the details of a particular issue, there will be spoilers! That’s part of the reason why we chose to do this on Fridays instead of Wednesdays. Well, join me after the jump, and let’s get started!