#1 Comic Issues I’m Picking Up the Week of September 19, 2018

Below are the new series and miniseries I’m looking forward to seeing at my local comic store the week of September 19, 2018.

Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive

Publisher: IDW
Words/Story: Lee Allred, Michael Allred
Art/Colors: Rich Tommaso

“The All-American detective just made the biggest collar of his career, and it only cost him his job! But now the honest cop has packed his bags for ‘the city by the lake,’ and its criminals better watch out! Bizarre villains! Crooked cops! Gunfights galore!”

Category: Tried and True Creators

Why I’m Excited: The solicit calls this the “Pop Art event of 2018.” With any other artist/writer combo I might be skeptical, but the credits these creators have accrued are peerless—take Silver Surfer (omnibus coming in November) and Spy Seal, to name two of the more recent. As one of the few people who actually got what Beatty’s movie was trying to do (I think), I think the art here will find an edge to the noir and gangster movies Gould was riffing on in the ’30s and ’40s. The color work should also pay homage the newsprint pallet, but with updates to shading techniques available in modern printers (there will be a color-your-own cover variant available at select shops).

IDW Publishing

MCMLXXV

Publisher: Image
Words/Story: Joe Casey
Art/Colors: Ian MacEwan

“Meet Pamela Evans. Much more than a typical Manhattan cab driver, she also happens to be a badass monster-fighter who wields an enchanted tire iron. Welcome to the year of her greatest adventure.”

Category: Returning to a Beloved World

Why I’m Excited: The almost-bankrupt New York has a special place in American storytelling. Cinema classic Taxi Driver and HBO’s currently airing show The Deuce are just who examples of how to imply a crime-ridden dystopia without having to explain how things got that way. Add in a supernatural battle with forces unknown and I think you have a winning combination. “But didn’t we, just have that with Ahmed and Kivela’s Abbott?” you ask. Well, that was Detroit, a totally different city. (Wink.)

Image Comics

Olivia Twist

Publisher: Dark Horse/Berger Books
Words/Story: Darin Strauss, Adam Dalva
Art/Colors: Emma Vieceli

“To save a boy she barely knows, teenage orphan Olivia Twist joins The Esters, a rag-tag girl gang of thieves running free in a dangerous future. Olivia’s life in this imminent London of internment camps and strange technology gets even more complicated when she discovers that she has more power and wealth than she’s ever dreamed of. But it comes with a great cost.”

Category: Emerging Talent

Why I’m Excited: While Darin Strauss has had many awards for his writing, this will be his first foray into comics. I very much applaud “serious” writers fortifying their skills in the medium—see Phillip Pullman’s John Blake, Margaret Atwood’s Angel Catbird, and Minnesotan Ben Percy giving Green Arrow a better story than the CW—and this will continue the erosion of stigma associated with the “sequential art” medium. Karen Berger, whose Berger Books line at Dark Hose is publishing Olivia Twist, has been able to recruit a lot of new talent to the industry, and I hope others are successful in that endeavor. (Also, a part of me is hoping for a “can I have some more, sir?” reference.)

Dark Horse Comics

The Wrong Earth

Publisher: Ahoy Comics
Words/Story: Tom Peyer
Art/Colors: Jamal Igle

“On one world, Dragonflyman and his sidekick Stinger enjoy a life of adventure. On another Earth, the Dragonfly hunts criminal parasites like a lethal exterminator. But what happens when these two heroes change places?”

Category: Emerging Talent

Why I’m Excited: FYI, the “emerging talent” I’m referring to above is the publisher. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the ’60s Adam West Batman were to swap places with the cowled one of Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns? I’m pretty sure my career role model (see last week’s list to be reminded of who that is) has a good idea, but here’s the one we get to see published. Plus, content by Grant Morrison (prose) and Shannon Wheeler (cartoon).

Ahoy Comics

Get ready for an extra-big deluge of comics next week!