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November 20, 2014
Atomic Books Comics Preview - November 20, 2014
In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels.
Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper.
Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America.
Lunchmeat #8
edited by Josh Schafer / Ted Gilbert
Not everything is streaming. Not everything in online. And not would care if it was. Even if you could illegally torrent/pirate/rip-off every film you claim to love, there are still some that have have never been digitized and uploaded. And for the Videovore (people who love movies on VHS), it's as much about format and being able to hold a clunky piece of plastic filled with videotape in your hands as it is about what's on that tape. For those people, a new issue of Lunchmeat (a Videovore film zine) is like a holiday. Sure, this issue covers films like Delivery Boys (1985), Obsession: A Taste For Fear (1988) and Get Crazy (1983), and has interviews with directors like Paul Kyriazi, Martin Campbell, and Rick Sloane, but it also has an article connecting the mafia to VHS companies, how to find your own VHS plastic molds, plus comics, crossword, and so much more. My favorite section of his issue is a look at promotional items from the VHS-era. It totally took me back to my days as a video store clerk. Lunchmeat is a Videovore's feast!
MultiVerse: A Collection Of Superhero Poetry
edited by Rob Sturma / Ryk McIntyre
I'll freely admit I was VERY skeptical of this anthology of superhero poetry, but then I started reading the titles of some of the poems, "Tank Girl Dispatch," "Bruce Wayne Wakes Up," "Bizarro Hate Poem," "The Real Dark Knight," "Astro Boy Blues," "The Tony Stark Handbook OF Familial Love," "When Peter Parker Crashes At Your Place," and "Joker Year One" and so many more. I couldn't stop myself from reading these out loud in the store, and not only is the verse killer, it's clear that the poets here actually know their superheroes. Each new poem is a fun, new surprise.
Punkrockpaperscissors
by Lee Loughridge
Don't let the unassuming cover fool you - this collection of 1980s punk flyers is a freakin' treasure-chest of awesome. It's page after page of doubled-up punk rock history - Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, The Misfits, Meat Puppets, The Minutemen... so many shows from important East Coast Clubs - usually, this is the sort of book that gets the expensive, high-end hardcover, coffee table art book treatment - it's refreshing, and accessible, to see these flyers in an affordable format. Now, got start a band. THEN go make a flyer.
Saga Book 1
by Brian K. Vaughan / Fiona Staples
Finally! The hit Image Comics series gets the hardcover deluxe treatment. It's 500 pages of science fiction/fantasy fusion.
Multiversity: Pax Americana #1
by Grant Morrison / Frank Quitely
If you ever wondered what The Watchmen would have been like if Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely did the story instead of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and DC let them use Charlton characters as originally planned, then Pax Americana clearly shows what those results would have been.
Questions, concerns, comments or gripes – e-mail benn@atomicbooks.com. If there’s a comic I should know about, send it my way at Atomic, c/o Atomic Books 3620 Falls Rd., Baltimore, MD 21211.
Atomic Books & Benn Ray links:
Atomic Books website
Atomic Books on Twitter
Atomic Books on Facebook
Benn Ray's blog (The Mobtown Shank)
Benn Ray's comic, Said What?
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Atomic Books Comics Preview lists (weekly new comics & graphic novel highlights)
List of Online "Best of 2014" Book Lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
WORD Bookstores Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)
