New Comics - March 22nd

It was another interesting week, in that it was fairly heavy in the amount of money that I spent. There will be some weeks when you will be embarassed that I consider myself a hardcore comics fan, as my spending will be paltry, but keep in mind, I do have an extra mouth to feed. Anyhow, here it goes for this week, again in no particular order...

• Captain America (Marvel)
• Squadron Supreme (Marvel)
• She-Hulk (Marvel) - I'm a fan of humor in comics, and this is a welcome respite from the over-serious superhero books.
• X-Factor (Marvel) - Nostalgia got the best of me when I added this title to my pull list, but Peter David and regular artist Ryan Sook (this issue is a fill-in) are doing fine by me.
• The American Way (DC/Wildstorm) - The first issue didn't have me convinced, but interested just enough to give issue two a chance.
• Nextwave (Marvel) - Even though it's off to an uneven start, I think the Ellis/Immonen team will hit their stride and this will pay off greatly in the long run. This issue already looks to be a jump in quality (even if Boom Boom does still have a mullet).
• The New Avengers (Marvel) - in spite of Deodato coming on to this book (look, a snark).
• Batman (DC) - James Robinson has long been one of my favorite comics writers, and I picked this storyline up to give it a go and so far I'm quite pleased with it. Although, I would note that this is a perfect example of why you generally shouldn't bother with sound effects in comics. Just about every sound effect in the story detracts from the reading of it. As an example, story page 13 is well designed and capably illustrated, but marred with superfluous sound effects. Try imagining they aren't there, and see if it wouldn't have helped the flow. Garth Ennis has learned this lesson well, and I think that this issue would have had a wonderful pace to it without the effects, and it was good to begin with
• Alex Toth Reader vol. 2 (Pure Imagination) - 160 pages of black and white art from one of my favorites.
• Mome vol. 3 (Fantagraphics) - I began to put together an anthology of comics until I realized the budget couldn't handle it, and this is what I wish I could have done. My favorite anthology of the last 20 years (sorry, Sammy).
• Previews (Diamond Comics) - I love to shop.