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The First Page
Welcome to a new year of comics! There are a lot of new series starting this month, including a few this week. This week we also say goodbye to two short series from independent publishers that I really enjoyed.
Series that I collect that ended this week are Olivia Twist from Dark Horse and Revenge of Wonderland from Zenescope. Both these series are based on classic books—Oliver Twist from Charles Dickens and of course Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.
That brings me to what I wanted to talk about today. Pretty much everyone knows about the big two comic book publishers, Marvel and DC because they each have a long history, are successful and both create the superheroes we know and love.
The Avengers, Justice League, Wonder Woman, Barman, Thor, Iron Man, Spider-Man and a host of other colorful and legendary characters are all published by these two comic book giants, but there’s more to the world of comic books.
Way more!
Independent publishers are everywhere, bringing you everything from Archie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony to characters you may never have heard of such as Red Sonja, Vampirella, Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl, Joe Golem, Lara Croft, Dick Tracy, Barbarella, Turok ad Liesel van Helsing to name but a few.
Companies like Zenescope, Dynamite, Boom!, Archie, Dark Horse, Titan, IDW and Valiant put out amazing work by artists and writers both new and established. Some of these independent companies employ writers and artists who have worked with some more mainstream characters you may have heard of, including Deadpool and Batgirl.
As I look at my list of series that I subscribe to, if I break them down as Marvel, DC or independents, independent actually comes in at number two as far as the number of series subscribed to.
You don’t know until you try and you can’t try unless you look. I’m asking you to make a New Years Resolution, not for me, but for you. Unless you want to do it for me.
Either way, the resolution is this. Try and find at least one series from an independent publisher that you enjoy and keep up with it. It will get you educated to what else is out there and you can have fun doing it. Consider it a win-win.
New This Week
Revenge of Wonderland #6 (of 6) Zenescope
Black Knight #3 (of 5) Zenescope
Crowded #6 Image
Errand Boys #4 (of 5) Image
Walking Dead #187 Image
Halo Lone Wolf #1 (of 4) Dark Horse
Stranger Things #4 Dark Horse
Whispering Dark #3 Dark Horse
Action Comics #1006 DC
Batman Beyond #27 DC
Hex Wives #3 DC
Scooby Doo Team Up #45 DC
Wonder Woman #61 DC
Champions #1 Marvel
Conan the Barbarian #1 Marvel
Runaways #17 Marvel
Shatterstar #4 (of 5) Marvel
Tony Stark Iron Man #7 Marvel
Winter Soldier #2 Marvel
Project Superpowers #5 Dynamite
Rainbow Brite #3 Dynamite
Empty Man #3 Boom!
Archie #701 Archie Comics
Archie 1941 #4 (of 5) Archie Comics
Hitting Shelves in March
The Six Million Dollar Man #1 Dynamite
Crackdown #2 Dynamite
Obey Me #0 Dynamite
Assassin Nation #1 Image
Eclipse #3 Image
Lazarus Risen #1 Image
Invisible Kingdom #1 Image
Astro Hustle #1 Image
Bad Luck Chuck #1 Image
Calamity Kate #1 Image
Glow #1 IDW
Transformers #2 IDW
Dial H For Hero #1 DC
Batman Damned #3 (of 3) DC
Doomsday Clock #10 (of 12) DC
Domino Hotshots #1 Marvel
Magnificent Ms. Marvel #1 Marvel
Meet the Skrulls #1 (of 5) Marvel
Black Panther #10 Marvel
Bettie Page #5 Dynamite
Red Sonja #2 Dynamite
J.R.’s Weekly Pull List
Batgirl #30 DC
Books of Magic #3 DC
Flash #61 DC
Mr and Mrs X #7 Marvel
Deadpool #8 Marvel
Olivia Twist #4 (of 4) Dark Horse
The Black Knight #3 Zenescope
Revenge of Wonderland #6 (of 6) Zenescope
A little something I picked up today as a bonus:
Cinderella Serial Killer Princess Zenescope
Trade paperback with series, 1-5
Review
Runaways #1
“What do you call a Runaway with nowhere left to go? Alone.”
Pg. 3
I have a twenty-one-year-old daughter who somehow decided to do something her dad did and actually picked up a comic book. The one she first picked up (recently) was Runaways, which was suggested to her by the owner of our local comic book shop.
She’s into the series now, has watched the show on Hulu and with Season 2 of the show recently out, she asked if I wanted to watch the first episode of the show. I said yes, but only if I could borrow her issue of Runaways #1 for a review.
Nico Moronu is a powerful magician. She’s tried bringing people back from the dead before, with no luck. Luckily the person Chase, a fellow Runaway, brought her is only mostly dead.
Nico uses the Staff of One to teleport a doctor in to her apartment to help, then uses the staff to whip up some X-ray glasses so the doc can see inside and find where the bleeding is coming from.
Gert, the bleeding woman, was murdered (or attempted at least) by an evil time-traveller. Apparently, Chase tried to go back in time to stop Alex’s father from hurting Gert. If you’re not sure who Alex is, don’t worry, I’m not sure yet either.
As we see the purple haired Gert comeback to life we also see a sinister shadowy figure petting a cat and watching something on a monitor that we’re led to believe is the whole Gert not dying thing..
And then we wait for issue #2, which is already out actually as Runaways #17 hit stands this week. All in all, it looks to be the start of a very interesting series and one that I may have to catch up on when my daughter is at work!
I will say that there was no backstory in the first issue, which did bum me out a bit, but the story was good, so it made up for it. I watched the first episode of Season 1 of the TV show and that was nothing but the beginning of the backstory, so when I read the comic I at least recognized a couple characters.
All in all, Marvel seems to have something good going with Runaways both in the comics and on TV. It seems geared towards an audience in their teens-thirties, but as someone slightly over that demographic, I still enjoyed it.
Runaways #17 hit shelves this week and don’t forget about Runaways on Hulu. Season 2 is now out!
Character Profile
Olivia Twist—Dark Horse Comics
Since we talked about independent publishers earlier and since a short series I enjoyed just ended, I thought why not do a character profile on her?
Pulled from the Charles Dickens classic and reimagined by writers Darin Strauss and Adam Dalva, Olivia Twist is an orphaned teenage girl in Vertical City, what I believe is to look like and be a futuristic London.
It’s the type of futuristic that we see often in movies or on TV. The characters in Olivia Twist dress very much like the period the Dickens novel was written in, but the buildings are more modern, people are using laptops in the background and we’ve got a stack of coffee cups with lids and sleeves, much like an international conglomerate we all know.
I highly doubt Dickens would know how to insert macchiato into his tale.
So where do we start with Olivia? Well, Dark Horse calls it, “a female-centric futuristic fable.” I say that futuristic London is a scary place for an orphan, but teenage orphan Olivia Twist shows that she can handle whatever the city throws at her.
In the first issue she meets a young orphan boy and for some reason, when push comes to shove, she joins s girl gang known as the Esther’s in order to save him from trouble.
What kind of trouble? I’m not telling. You’ll have to read the series. I will tell you that she has to make decisions when it comes to dealing with the evil Christian Krespo, who has finally revealed his nefarious plans.
Olivia does what she has to in order to survive, including stealing, lying and other assorted shenanigans. In the end, we’re told that she learns secrets about her self that may come at a cost. I’m not sure as issue #4, the final issue in the series, came out the day I’m writing this and work comes before play, so I don’t know yet how the series ends up.
What I do know is that Strauss and Dalva gave Olivia all of Oliver’s redeeming qualities, plus wove in feminine charm without missing a beat and the two writers should be applauded.
These two took a character who is as classic and loved as Oliver Twist and changed age, sex and time period while making the new character absolutely work. That’s no small feat if you’re to respect Dickens as they did.
If you don’t like comic books or think they’re childish, this series may change your mind as it’s well written and illustrated without all the KERBLAM and POW of a superhero led comic book.
Also, if you don’t like comic books, thanks for reading this column. I very much appreciate it. Thanks for hanging in there.
If you’re a comic book fan and you just like a good story or if, like me, you dig seeing classic characters reimagined, this series is definitely for you. Go get it as soon as you’re done reading this.
Olivia Twist #4 just came out on January 2, so a lot of shops may still have stock from previous issues as well as the ability to order them for you if they don’t.
You can also order all four issues from Dark Horse as a digital download and there is also an Olivia Twist trade paperback, with all four issues, being released on April 24 and it will be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble as well as your local comic book shop.
This is the first comic by internationally best-selling author Dan Strauss, It’s also a great pairing of Strauss and Dalva.
This series also features art by Emma Viecelli of Dr Who and the Adventures of Supergirl fame.
The Back Cover
Next week we’ll be featuring a listing of “Con’s” or comic book conventions during 2019. Not wanting to be a Grinch and leave anyone out I have the following announcement.
Hey, people in and around National Harbor, MD, Peoria, IL, Weston, WI, Sacramento, CA, New Orleans, Portland, and Ottawa. You all have comic book conventions that are going on right now, so if you’re near one, Google it and get there.
Unless you’re into Anime, you’re safe for the following weekend. That’s all that’s going on the weekend of the 11-13th.
Now that we have that out of the way, as a writer with a published book, I’m happy to see so many classic characters from literature being reimagined. When it comes to this, genre, if you will, I honestly don’t think anyone does it quite like Zenescope.
Yes, it’s true that their characters show some skin and can get violent at times, but that’s OK. That’s their interpretation of these characters and frankly, they work for me.
Zenescope brings you the reimagined Grimm Fairy Tales but also brings you characters such as Alice Liddle and an entire Wonderland series courtesy of the characters from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass/Alice in Wonderland, Liesel Van Helsing from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robyn Locksley, A.K.A. Robyn Hood (Robin Hood, who was Robin OF Locksley), and of course, Cinderella, Serial Killer Princess.
You may think Cinderella as a serial killer might be taking it over the line, but I have to say I was always wondering when she was going to stop taking all the mental and verbal abuse. I guess it was sometime shortly before this series began.
We have way more to talk about next week, what with a lot of new series hitting shelves and all. Plus we’ll have a review, take a look at Ant Man and probably even have a preview from Dark Horse.
How will you know? You’ll just have to come back next week and find out.
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Photo credit: Olivia Twist photo courtesy Dark Horse Comics. Batgirl Photo courtesy DC Comics. Runaways photo courtesy Marvel Comics. Six Million Dollar Man photo courtesy Dynamite Comics. Revenge of Wonderland photo courtesy Zenescope.
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