Erik Cheski
This is the start of a beautiful friendship.
BOOM! Studios has another great title coming down the pike in Giant Days. Here, there are three British ladies at University who've managed to forge that fateful first friendship of dorm life, dealing with life's little issues as they crop up. The first few pages feel comfortable; we have the Punk, the Oddball, and the Put-together one (Buttercup, Bubbles, and Blossom, if you will). This is the only time I can describe them as such, though, because the rest of this awesome title shatters their stereotypes and gives us some really rich, interesting, and layered characters in just the first issue.
A universe was born of three things: a positive force; a negative one; and a third. One of balance.
This is the basis for Steven Prince’s The Third, a space-faring adventure where politics and religious domination attempt to control the building blocks of creation itself. Into this mix is thrown a young woman who happens upon this mystical object and a thief who gets caught up in the mix.
Dude, we always make things better.
When we last left our intrepid heroes . . . or these couple of dopes that work in the park . . . having regretted the results of the wishes they spent lots of time debating over (yeah . . . ), they are now trying to rectify their situation by any means necessary.
Something's gotten . . . very squishy.
This is a little different than the titles I usually check out from Archaia; it's much more gruesome. Swifty Lang's tale begins with a boy out of his element on a pirate skiff off the coast of Africa, in an active firefight. Unused to violence, and unable to rise to the challenge, he finds himself at odds with the company he's keeping, and on a small boat in the middle of deadly seas, that's no minor thing. Lang paints a vivid picture of the world our protagonist now inhabits and what lengths he'll have to go to in order to survive. As if general piracy and all its glory weren't enough for him to deal with, the crew stumbles upon a discovery that seems like a godsend but carries its own dangers that seem to be on an entirely different level.
Hold onto your butts.
Thrust into the action immediately, Rafael Albuquerque and Mike Johnson’s team-up story certainly starts with some rising action. We meet a man with no memory of who he is or what he’s doing, or where we are. Yeah, so exposition’s out. Pieces of memory float into his consciousness, and we’re given a decent explanation as to why this is happening and are greeted with a color code that tells more than I first thought.
Love is in the air at Fanboy Comics! In this magical month of romance and enchantment, the FBC Staff and Contributors decided to take a moment to stop and smell the roses. In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, a few members of the Fanboy Comics crew will be sharing their very personal "Love Letters" with our readers, addressed to the ones that they adore the most.
To Masters Jacen and Anakin and Mistress Jaina,
Hey, kids. I don't really know where to start here, but I knew I had to write something. Since Alderaan's destruction, the folks who were off-world have instituted a new tradition, their "Return." I don't mean to appropriate the tradition, I've always been a simple man, but I felt if that's a tradition that can be had from the ending of a world, what then could I do at the ending of the universe?
Love is in the air at Fanboy Comics! In this magical month of romance and enchantment, the FBC Staff and Contributors decided to take a moment to stop and smell the roses. In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, a few members of the Fanboy Comics crew will be sharing their very personal "Love Letters" with our readers, addressed to the ones that they adore the most.
Dear THAC0,
To Hit Armor Class 0. What an elegant system you were, giving definition to that which truly cannot be defined. You took the very absence of anything and made it achievable. You could touch 0, you could touch it critically, and even further yet . . . you could make us touch things that couldn't even be real. You made us able to hit things so agile and armored that no real number could calculate it.
These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise.
In the three years that Gene Roddenberry's vision sped across the galaxy and into the homes of America, there were some amazing stories that were brought to life in ways never seen before. Episodes that were destined to become classics such as "Amok Time," "The Trouble with Tribbles," and, of course, the title of this amazing hardcover graphic novel. These were stories that looked at mankind in our current form (of the time) from the outside, seizing the idea that problems faced by everyone in the here and now had been solved, in a hope that someone would be inspired (or warned, there was a nuclear third World War, and only from the ashes would we finally reach to the stars as one people, as a world) to make those changes in our cultural fabric to become better. This is the unfortunate reason that the lessons from this series still resonate today, because we have not solved those problems that seemed threatening to ourselves as a species nearly half a century ago. (Star Trek turns 50 in 2016, kids.)
Wow, this got pretty heavy.
After losing the support of a major potential ally (only because his ally's kid got all dead while under the Goon's protection) because of manipulation by the Harpies, Goon got . . . well kinda dark. After tying up the loose end that cost him everything, Goon has somehow found a way to be even more violent. Tearing apart a Harpy hangout (not to mention the folks inside), we see only rage and heartache in his actions, none of the spirit that would buoy him through so many situations.
In the second issue of Feathers, we find Poe getting to know his new acquaintance, Bianca. Each has a life the other doesn't understand and can't seem to fathom, which leads to a lot of talking past each other. While this is understandably frustrating for our young protagonists, it's a sensational way for us readers to get a big scoop on the world. Turning a rescue attempt on its head, Jorge Corona manages to pull a little Bat-play, but far darker a route than stodgy, old Mr. Wayne would ever stoop to.
