It's something I've done for years, in all its variations.
The very first comics bought for me were discovered "in the wild" - random titles stocked in a small rural grocery store. They'd sat on particle board shelves there for unknown days, weeks, or months before a kid tagging along with his Grandma Sophie begged for something to bring home, and made the always-reliable pitch for reading material.
That kid became a comic book fanatic, and he browsed for and bought them whenever and wherever he could. There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to what titles were stocked at Gust Asp, Ben Franklin, and Wilbee's Pharmacy. Every visit was like unwrapping gifts, wire spinner racks subbing for paper and boxes.
When I was 12, I discovered a random short box in a Chicago O'Hare convenience shop, and in it, Captain America #300 for dimes. Having gotten just about everything else I'd asked for from my dad on our Walt Disney World trip, I left empty-handed.
After decades of being spread haphazardly among boxes and bags, my collection's been organized over the past several years, starting when we settled into our current home. Holes in series were noted, and then gradually filled with purposeful hours of browsing boxes at Grand Rapids Comic-Con and some local shops. (This also starts new series collections; last year, noticing that one booth had a bunch of different issues of Wonder Man spread among its many $0.50 boxes, I picked up every one they had.)
The expected (but still sad) news of GRCC's cancellation for this year prompted me to make a retail therapy trip to The Comic Signal yesterday - not my usual shop, which has been The Outer Limits for almost 15 years, but still a place with a vast and well-organized collection of back issues. After around 90 minutes of hunting while referencing my list of missing books, I scored a load of them, including oddballs like the two issues of Fallen Angels I was missing, and the final one of Speedball: The Masked Marvel. Persistence pays off; on my way to the register, a box labeled "New Comics" had a full run of the 2007 New Warriors Volume 4, and so I picked up the eight issues I was missing from it.
There's another form of comic-hunting, and maybe my favorite: visiting a shop and looking for new titles.
In the days when The Outer Limits stocked the weekly Comic Shop News, some things featured would catch my eye, and I'd then watch for them to hit the shelves.
Without CSN as a guide, it's now just a matter of browsing - the same sort of mostly-aimless exploration I love to do in libraries and book stores, too.
I've intentionally picked up more #1s than usual lately, maybe because so much of life is rote and repetitive now. They stacked up for awhile, and this week, I decided to read one new title each day. Like always, treasures were found.
Here they are, ranked in order from "meh" to "added to pull."
After decades of being spread haphazardly among boxes and bags, my collection's been organized over the past several years, starting when we settled into our current home. Holes in series were noted, and then gradually filled with purposeful hours of browsing boxes at Grand Rapids Comic-Con and some local shops. (This also starts new series collections; last year, noticing that one booth had a bunch of different issues of Wonder Man spread among its many $0.50 boxes, I picked up every one they had.)
The expected (but still sad) news of GRCC's cancellation for this year prompted me to make a retail therapy trip to The Comic Signal yesterday - not my usual shop, which has been The Outer Limits for almost 15 years, but still a place with a vast and well-organized collection of back issues. After around 90 minutes of hunting while referencing my list of missing books, I scored a load of them, including oddballs like the two issues of Fallen Angels I was missing, and the final one of Speedball: The Masked Marvel. Persistence pays off; on my way to the register, a box labeled "New Comics" had a full run of the 2007 New Warriors Volume 4, and so I picked up the eight issues I was missing from it.
In the days when The Outer Limits stocked the weekly Comic Shop News, some things featured would catch my eye, and I'd then watch for them to hit the shelves.
Without CSN as a guide, it's now just a matter of browsing - the same sort of mostly-aimless exploration I love to do in libraries and book stores, too.
I've intentionally picked up more #1s than usual lately, maybe because so much of life is rote and repetitive now. They stacked up for awhile, and this week, I decided to read one new title each day. Like always, treasures were found.
Here they are, ranked in order from "meh" to "added to pull."
5. Big Girls by Jason Howard and Fonografiks
In the time before his full scumbaggery was revealed, I enjoyed the hell out of Warren Ellis' Cemetery Beach, as I had Planetary many years before. Looking back, it was really Jason Howard's rendering of an essentially 7-issue extended chase scene that made it special. The similarly gonzo premise of Big Girls is also fun, but kaiju don't do much for me. Liefeld guns do even less.
The back matter piece on the joy of discovering new comics, though, was fantastic, and ironically just the thing that prompted me to give this one a try.
The back matter piece on the joy of discovering new comics, though, was fantastic, and ironically just the thing that prompted me to give this one a try.
4. The Autumnal by Daniel Kraus, Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie, Jim Campbell, and Tim Daniel
If I hadn't already been a huge fan of Criminal, Wytches, Family Tree, and one of Vault Comics' other superb horror series, The Plot, this one would have hit a sweet spot for me. As it were, The Autumnal felt like a retread, but still something I may later pick up as a trade collection.
3. Seven Secrets by Tom Taylor, Danielle Di Nicuolo, Walter Baiamonte, Katia Ranalli, and Ed Dukeshire
This is the third series I've tried from Boom! Studios, after Abbott (thanks to Paloma from Vault of Midnight for the recommendation on that one) and one of my current favorites, Once and Future. Without venturing too deep into spoiler territory, this one caught me up in its crazy blend of G.I. Joe and - by way of its central character's personality and relationships, as well as its artistic sensibilities - the recent Image series Skyward. I'm interested in seeing how things continue to develop, and on board for at least a few more issues.
2. Fire Power by Robert Kirkman, Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson, and Rus Wooton
The Walking Dead and Invincible will forever be favorites. They were some of the first comics I collected outside Marvel, and I discovered them at a time The House of (Finite) Ideas began endlessly relaunching their properties. The consistent creative visions of these two books by themselves were appealing, and it didn't hurt that the writing and art were top-notch.
My first exposure to Samnee's clean and dynamic art was one of the recent, longer-running Black Widow series; they come in five-issue spurts a couple times each year now.
When I saw they were teaming up for a new book... well, honestly, it held no interest at all.
Anime and manga and their fantastical martial arts (and kaiju - see above) are some of the few mass fandoms in which I've never even dipped a toe. I totally missed the initial blitz of the full issue of Fire Power for Free Comic Book day and the OGN (original graphic novel, natch) but when looking for something new on a light pull week, thought, "Well, I've never read a kung fu comic."
When I did read Fire Power... well, honestly, it wasn't a kung fu comic. It was a somehow-entrancing suburban yarn, with William Munny-esque "I ain't like that no more" beats. I enjoyed it enough to order the OGN on the spot. It has plenty of kung fu, as do later issues. Fire Power has a spot in my monthly pull, too.
My first exposure to Samnee's clean and dynamic art was one of the recent, longer-running Black Widow series; they come in five-issue spurts a couple times each year now.
When I saw they were teaming up for a new book... well, honestly, it held no interest at all.
Anime and manga and their fantastical martial arts (and kaiju - see above) are some of the few mass fandoms in which I've never even dipped a toe. I totally missed the initial blitz of the full issue of Fire Power for Free Comic Book day and the OGN (original graphic novel, natch) but when looking for something new on a light pull week, thought, "Well, I've never read a kung fu comic."
When I did read Fire Power... well, honestly, it wasn't a kung fu comic. It was a somehow-entrancing suburban yarn, with William Munny-esque "I ain't like that no more" beats. I enjoyed it enough to order the OGN on the spot. It has plenty of kung fu, as do later issues. Fire Power has a spot in my monthly pull, too.
1. Decorum by Jonathan Hickman, Mike Huddleston, Rus Wooton, and Sasha E. Head
Hot damn. This is the reason comics still exist.
The summer of 2019 saw me and many thousands of peak-Claremont X-Men fans riding the nostalgia train of Hickman's Dawn of X relaunch of Marvel's mutants. House of X and Power of X were striking not just in their storytelling, but in their design sensibilities. Much of the known mythology and newly-revealed far-flung future of the mutants were told through infographic-like spreads interspersed throughout the traditional paneled pages. It sang, and for a time, I was almost drawn back to Marvel after being done dirty too many times in too short a span.
The summer of 2019 saw me and many thousands of peak-Claremont X-Men fans riding the nostalgia train of Hickman's Dawn of X relaunch of Marvel's mutants. House of X and Power of X were striking not just in their storytelling, but in their design sensibilities. Much of the known mythology and newly-revealed far-flung future of the mutants were told through infographic-like spreads interspersed throughout the traditional paneled pages. It sang, and for a time, I was almost drawn back to Marvel after being done dirty too many times in too short a span.
That flirtation ended when the titles proper were released almost weekly, and my favorite among them, New Mutants, saw its creative team, cast, and plot entirely shift just a few issues in. The free Marvel Previews catalogs showed that the initial several comics in the line would soon balloon into an unwieldy large number of others. That there's currently a 24-part, full-line X of Swords crossover happening reinforces my decision to cut bait early on.
It's a joy to find some of the same immersive world-building and meditative concepts present in Decorum. While extremely dense, it's worth taking each savory bite and in the end digesting the sizeable meal. Each standard-priced issue clocks in at many more pages than usual. There are definite vibes of the longingly missed Saga, and the technotheistic menace of Dawn of X pulses here, too.
It's a joy to find some of the same immersive world-building and meditative concepts present in Decorum. While extremely dense, it's worth taking each savory bite and in the end digesting the sizeable meal. Each standard-priced issue clocks in at many more pages than usual. There are definite vibes of the longingly missed Saga, and the technotheistic menace of Dawn of X pulses here, too.
The art is like nothing I have seen in a comic (yes, I lived in a Marvel superheroes shelter for far too long) and adds to the otherworldly setting.
I love it all, and am genuinely sad that it is a now-limited series, but grateful that the creators are at least up-front about those plans. I'll love every issue in the meantime.
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