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By Alison.

This is a big week for me. A whole slew of really great independent comics are coming out this week. Series are starting, ending, coming out in trades… Well, here’s what I’m looking forward to:

28 Days Later #1
BOOM! Studios (Mature)

This is a new ongoing series from BOOM! Publishers. It follows Selena, one of the survivors from the first movie, up until the events of the sequel. It is written by
Michael Alan Nelson, with art by newcomer Declan Shalvey.

I’m usually really hesitant with comics that are based on movies or television shows. They tend to just be another byproduct from the giant, churning sales engine. But I have faith in the new
28 Days Later comic for two reasons, the first is Shalvey’s gritty style art which seems to capture the horror of those infected with the rage virus in the preview pages that I’ve seen and secondly, and most importantly, is the writer. Michael Alan Nelson writes
Fall of Cthulhu and Hexed which are both most excellent for those who like the post-modern horror genre. (Hexed is especially good and just came out in hardcover last week. I can’t recommend it enough.)

Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition Omega
Arsenic Lullaby Publishing (Mature)

I love Arsenic Lullaby, I’ve loved it since it first started coming out in 2000. I rabidly hunted down all the issues, I followed the foibles and feats of Voodoo Joe with a voracious appetite… I read, I laughed, I squirmed at the sheer icky humor of it.
Written and drawn by the inimitable Douglas Pazkiewicz, it was just recently nominated for Eisner’s Best Humor Publication of 2009 (and should have won.) But! Fair warning: if you have never wondered how to get the most of out zombies as cheap labor, if you’ve never considered what mermaid might taste like, if you have never suspected the girl scouts of foul black magics… this might not be the comic for you. It’s not so much dark humor as it is pitch black humor. And if you like that sort of thing, make sure you come out on Wednesday to pick your copy up.

Chew #4
Image Comics (Mature)

What do you mean you’re not reading Chew?!? Image Comics is doing its very best to get readers to check out its new, incredibly good comics and so have been putting some of the first issues on the backs of its more popular comics. (Viking #1 rode on the back of the most recent issue of Walking Dead and
Chew #1 on the issue before that.) This is a great idea, because while both Image Comics and I know that these are both excellent series, you might not.
Chew is the story of Tony Chu, detective and cibopathic (that means he gets psychic impressions off of the things he eats), who works for the FDA, a very powerful government organization now that the bird flu has caused poultry to be outlawed. It’s twisted, it’s weird, it’s gross, but most importantly, it’s awesome.
Rob Guillory’s art is intensely exaggerated and refreshingly new, setting a pitch perfect tone to John Layman’s terrific and bizarre story.

The Great Unknown #3 (of 5)
Image Comics (Mature)

Often an artist who both writes and draws his own stories will fail at one respect or the other. While this isn’t a hard and fast rule,
Duncan Rouleau is exceptional nonetheless. His simple, fluid art and no-holds-barred storytelling, Rouleau weaves the story of Zach Feld, a shiftless, lazy misanthrope who thinks he’s smarter than most of the people he’s surrounded by. Sadly, Zach is right.
Despite his generally hateful nature, Zach is really quite brilliant especially when it comes to inventing things-not that he’s done anything with these ideas, mind you. But now that someone else is using Zach’s designs, he knows something isn’t quite kosher. Has someone hacked into his brain waves and stolen his ideas?! Or his he just turning into one of those tinfoil-hat-wearing psychos? I’m looking forward to being surprised.

Ignition City #5 (of 5)
Avatar Press (Mature)

Hot pajamas, this book is awesome. I was finally prepared to start writing Warren Ellis off. Sure, I loved Transmetropolitan and Desolation Jones and Planetary (even though we’re still waiting for the last issue of the latter and the poor Desolation Jones has given up the ghost and is finally a dead, unloved series), but he hasn’t come out with anything recently that has had me squirming in my seat in rapturous, fan-addled glee.
Now, behold Ignition City, a story about the place where space heroes go to die, a story about revenge and mystery and spaceships and psychonauts, a story where your laser pistol rides low on your hip and your whiskey is rotgut served by the bottle. Art by Gianluca Pagliarani, who worked with Ellis before on (the also quite good) Aethyric Mechanics. This dieselpunk tale is highly worth checking out and if you’ve missed the first four issues, stay tuned, the trade paperback will not be far behind.

Killer of Demons TP
Image Comics (Mature)

If you missed Killer of Demons in single issues than you have no idea what an amazing, action-packed comedy it is, but now’s your chance. With art by
Scott Wegener of Atomic Robo and story by Christopher Yost (X-Force and Red Robin), Killer of Demons is about junior account executive Dave Sloan who has been chosen by God to rid the world of demons, which are hidden in our world pretending to be normal, amoral jerkfaces, instead of the very spawn of the Devil. Or maybe that cigar-smoking, wise-cracking angel on his shoulder is really just a figment of his imagination and his mission of God is really a terrifying murder spree! Either way, it’s zany good times.

Tags: Reviews