a FAKE newspaper

It’s today’s mail - it’s been opened.

No, no. It’s not from Venice, Italy. Today’s mail was from Coy’s Comics in Saginaw. Not knowing where my next books would be coming from after moving to Phoenix, I made arrangements to have my regularly pulled titles set aside and systematically mailed to me. We reckoned this interval to be approximately four to five weeks. I have made a habit of calling the store with my credit card number at least every other Wednesday so as to make payment and to eliminate unwanted titles (mostly Marvel crossover bullshit) from the list of pulls.

I am elated to report that after five and one half weeks my first shipment has arrived. I did not recognize the box for what it was until I had been home for hours. “Oh look,” I may have casually remarked - had there been other parties present. “Another box I’m not allowed to open until two days before the Feast of Alvistime.” I am to understand that this day is known colloquially as Christ-mas. Had these parties interjected, select episodes of Sealab would have been viewed and it is likely that the box’s contents would have never been discovered. As it was, I found myself watching Ken Burns’ CIVIL WAR with a half poured glass of Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale in my hand when I began cursing the delay shipment of my first box of comics oh wait what if it’s one of those three boxes that came in the mail today and it was. Here is what was inside:

• Wonder Woman #3
• The Walking Dead #91
• Haunt #18, #19
• Planet of the Apes #8
• Cobra Civil War: Snake Eyes #7
• The Boys: Butcher, Baker, Candlestickmaker #5
• Northlanders #46
• Action Comics #4
• The Boys #61
• Moriarty #7
• Cobra Civil War: GI Joe #8
• TMNT: Raph 1-shot covers A&B
• The Rinse #4
• Ghost Rider #6
• Wolverine #19
• TMNT #4 covers A, B, and Retailer-incentive A
• Spaceman #2
• Cobra Civil War: Cobra #7
• Fantastic Four #600
• Scalped #54
• The Infinite #4 Deluxe Edition
• Dark Horse Presents #6
• Usagi Yojimbo #142
• Astonishing X-Men #44
• The Flash #3
• Aquaman #3
• Pigs #3
• The Legend of Drizzt #3
• Green Lantern #3
• Captain America #4
• Justice League #3

And the finally-released hardcover edition of the Mirage run of the Ninja Turtles collecting issues 1-7, the Raphael one-shot, annotations from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and (the back cover boasts) more!

This is hot shit. And you’ll understand why I haven’t been inclined to waste money at the bar.

I do not know why the picture is upside down, nor do I care.

If you are looking for a long-running and venerable series to pound through, you ought to consider Scalped or Northlanders. The first is about undercover police in a corrupt and violent Indian reservation. The second is about Vikings in a variety of settings. Both are expected to conclude within 6 months or so. There’s really no better time get started. Lots of people read The Walking Dead. It’s become exceedingly popular since the release of the television program which has allowed for the profitable release of THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM VOLUME 1, a hefty tome collecting issues 1-48 and usually discounted on Amazon to around 30 dollars. There’s really no better deal in comics at this point. Additionally, Amazon is usually the best outlet for getting cheap trade paperback collections - especially if you don’t mind getting them used (“like new” and “very good” are usually as used I like to go, although I have one volume of Brian Wood’s DMZ that was in “good” condition and it’s not awful).

If you want to reason to haunt the comic book store on Wednesdays, you might go with a title still in its infancy such as Pigs, Planet of the Apes, or Moriarty. Pigs is about Cuban sleeper cells in modern-day America. It’s funny, shocking, and very well designed. Planet of the Apes does a fantastic job of chronicling the spiraling descent of human and ape society. It’s very exciting to watch the story develop all the while knowing that eventually one side will enslave the other while the world awaits Charlton Heston. Lots of back-and-forth “oh fuck, what will the apes/humans do once they learn about THAT.” And Moriarty stars Professor Moriarty - say no more, except the art swings wildly between realism and some unique style where the characters almost appear to be shadows of themselves rather than actual figures. It’s marvelously dark, in a way that makes me want to switch Ken Burns for Sweeney Todd simply for having thought of it. The story is a little more mystical than I would like, but since I own every volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I don’t have much room to question its direction.

I need to get cracking though. It’s going to take me days to get through these.