Scott and Dan pick the comics they’re most looking forward to…
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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension
Marvel Family #1 Facsimile Edition, Fawcett (via DC). I said it all here already but my goodness is this exciting.
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GCPD: The Blue Wall #1, DC. Oh my, look at Francesco Francavilla’s variant cover homage to Miller and Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One. The 6-issue mini is by John Ridley and Stefano Raffaele, with strong echoes of the superb Gotham Central.
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The Alex Ross Marvel Mural Wall Calendar, Abrams ComicArts/Marvel. A must-have. And it’s HUGE. Click here for more on this beaut.
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The New Teen Titans Omnibus Vol. 1 and Wonder Woman Omnibus Vol. 1, DC. These two re-releases combine for more than 1,000 pages of George Perez art. Beat that.
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Scott Tipton, contributor-at-large, 13th Dimension
Harley Quinn: The Animated Series — Legion of Bats #1, DC. I gotta say, after three seasons, the new animated versions of Harley and Ivy feel more authentic than anything since their BTAS heyday.
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Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book: Making a Masterpiece, Insight Editions. A curated close-up look at Walt Disney’s final animated classic, written by master animator Andreas Deja.
Dan adds: Little-known fact — this is my favorite Disney cartoon. Other than Fantasia, of course.
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Incredible Hulk Epic Collection – …And Now The Wolverine, Marvel. The beginning of Sal Buscema’s landmark Incredible Hulk run! Oh, and the first appearance of Wolverine, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Dan adds: What he said.
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Miracleman: The Golden Age, Book 1, Marvel. Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s continuation of Alan Moore’s series is a lost classic in my book. So glad it’s back in print.
October 17, 2022
It’s so interesting to compare Perez’s work in the Titans and Wonder Woman omnibuses. Such an amazing creative leap in less than a decade. The early Titans work is not without merit, but it’s still the work of someone in the process of learning his craft. So a lot of ambition, but also a lot of efforts that don’t quite pay off visually the way he likely intended (plus, as good an inker as Romeo Tanghal is, he was not a good match for Perez’s style). Whereas the Wonder Woman work seven or so years later, is peak Perez, someone who has become a master of his craft. His draftsmanship is stronger, his inker is a more compatible match, and his design and storytelling decisions land much more successfully than they did in the Titans work.
Perez’s decade of DC work from 1980 to 1990 (Titans, Crisis, History of the DC Universe, and Wonder Woman) is a staggering achievement, something which most artist never achieve in a career, and he did it in 10 years.
(And, for what it’s worth, Dick Giordano was probably Perez’s best inker. The few issues of Wonder Woman that Giordano inked at the end of the WW omnibus are stunningly gorgeous. He had a way of maintaining the integrity of Perez’s pencils while still simplifying some of the fussiness that Perez would sometimes bring to his drawings. He did the same thing on the Judas Contract issues of Titans, which for my money, are the best drawn issues of Titans. Giordano’s bold, fluid ink line really amplified the strengths of Perez’s pencils while neutralizing some of the weaknesses. Great artistic match.)