Incoming Books: Sometime in the Last Week or So

These have been sitting on the corner of my desk since they day they arrived from an online comics store, and I'm no longer sure what that day was. But my new computer is arriving today, so they need to clear off that desk, so I can get into the important business of migrating user accounts and setting up backups and fiddling with BootCamp.

(Yes: I do know that there's no compelling reason for me to blog about books as I get them. But I enjoy doing it, and it makes me feel productive, so I plan to keep at it.)

These are all comics; they were all on sale; and they're all things I wanted to spend my own money on, even though in about half of the cases I've spent my own money on them at least once already. So that's a recommendation, I guess.

Ray Fawkes's funny all-ages series Possessions is back with a long-awaited fourth volume, The Final Tantrum, in which Gurgazon the Unclean has broken free of his bondage and is free to actually try to destroy the world and eat everyone. See my reviews of the second and third volumes for more details, but this is a great, fun series with wonderful dialogue.

It's finally here! Love And Rockets: New Stories Vol. 7 would have been out last summer if it followed the planned annual publication, but art doesn't always happen on schedule. But the new book from Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez is now here, and I have it.

Sweatshop collects a miniseries about a legacy strip-comics creator and his staff from about a decade ago: it's written and partially drawn by Peter Bagge, with contributions from a bunch of other artists as well.

The Shadow Master Series, Vol. 3 collects the crazy, madcap ending of the 1980s DC Comics series, written by Andy Helfer and drawn by Kyle Baker. It includes both of the annuals but does not, as I recall, actually contain a real ending -- the series was cancelled, and left a lot of balls in the air. Still: as I recall it, this was glorious, nutty fun.

Abe Sapien: Sacred Places is the fifth collection of this Hellboy/B.P.R.D. spin-off. At this point, it's written by series creator Mike Mignola with his editor Scott Allie, and this volume has several shorter related stories, each drawn by either Sebastian Fiumara and Max Fiumara.

Ronin: The Deluxe Edition is a fancy newish package for the Frank Miller and Lynn Varley story from the 1980s.

Escapo is also a fancy newish package for slightly older work: this Paul Pope story was from the late '90s, though I didn't read it then. I love the way Pope draws, and his worlds are appealingly grubby and lived-in.

And last was Zenith: Phase 1, from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, collecting the first quarter of one of the great revisionist '80s superhero stories that wasn't by Alan Moore.