Brief Mentions: Free Comic Book Day!

Savage Dragon #148

Written & Drawn by: Erik Larsen

Colors by: Nikos Koutsis

Letter by: Tom Orzechowski

Free Comic Book Day was this weekend and I decided that I would focus on a couple of the books that came out as part of the industry-wide push to bring new readers into the fold. The first one is Savage Dragon. I started reading Savage Dragon again with issue #145 and I have been loving what the book brings to my monthly stack of books. Erik Larsen brings a huge level of fun and action to each issue without being pandering or skimping on story progression. I know that in the past that a lot of people complained that month in month out that not a lot was going on in Savage Dragon and I think that Larsen must have heard the complaints and is responding in kind by bringing the thunder on this book. I don't even remember the last single issue of Savage Dragon that I bought but my interest in getting back into the series started when I started reading the Savage Dragon Archives last year. The action and character and interest that went on in those pages could barely be contained, they were phone-books that managed to be page turners and that's certainly saying something these days. I think that Savage Dragon brings the best concepts of the Silver Age, the Modern Age, and European Comics (like Judge Dredd) and wraps it all up in a fantastic little package. This issue was jam packed with fights and wraps up an ongoing plot thread (IN THE FREE COMIC BOOK DAY ISSUE!!!) and is part of the regular numbering! With DC having released the Green Lantern: Blackest Night #0 issue for free comic book day (that was pretty much just a catch up book for people who haven't been reading) and Marvel releasing smaller than standard sized books (for god only knows what reason) I think that this Free Comic Book Day was a chance for some of the smaller names in the industry to make a mark and I think that Image did so by releasing Savage Dragon #148 for free, and they weren't the only ones ...

Resurrection #0

Written by: Mark Guggenheim

Art by: Justin Greenwood

One of the books that Darren and I were both super excited about when we started the podcast early last year was Resurrection from ONI Press. It was the story of what happens after the alien invasion ends, when humanity starts to crawl out of it's hiding spaces and tries to remake the Earth into something they can recognize. We saw people trying to cope with loss, we saw others trying to understand alien technology, we saw politicians getting their hands dirty to try to keep America from falling into the hands of the military, we saw a lot of chaos ... we saw people keeping secrets that should have never been kept. And in this issue we see the beginnings of the new Resurrection series, now in color and with a new artist. I think that this series still holds as much promise if not moreso going into the future, I think that Guggenheim has brought his A-game and that this new artist Justin Greenwood has a whole lot of great things that he can bring to the table. This issue showed us a little bit of what happened before the invasion and a little bit of what might be coming now that it's over. I really think that anyone who like the television show "Jericho" or who is digging Walking Dead would dig this book and should jump on board as soon as possible, go to your stores, order the trade (which collects the first 6 issues of the B&W series as well as the annual and will only set you back $6!) and then see if your store still has some copies of Resurrection #0 left around from Free Comic Book Day and get all caught up before issue #1 comes out in June!

The Best Book You Didn't Read this Week, Issue 14

Resurrection Annual #1
Written by: Marc Guggenheim
Art by: Douglas Dabbs

Oni Press has long been known as a publisher of mini-series and Graphic Novels. They have published very few ongoing series. The ones they have published have been stellar. The spy/thriller Queen & Country written by the incredible novelist and one of the most amazing comic writers working in the industry today Greg Rucka and drawn by a slew of incredibly talented artists (Rolston, Samnee, Speed-McNeill, Alexander, Hurtt). The sci-fi/fantasy/post-apocalyptic epic Wasteland from one of the best and most overlooked writers working in indie comics these days Antony Johnston and with art by the wholly underappreciated Christopher Mitten. And the newest of the ongoing series is Resurrection. A story of what happens on Earth after the end of what seems to have been a failed invasion attempt by an Alien species. This is also the conclusion of the first volume of Resurrection. Resurrection is a book written by Marc (Young X-Men, Eli Stone) Guggenheim and with art by (usually) David Dumeer, both of whom are incredible talents whom the comics industry should be glad to have. This annual is drawn by Douglas Dabbs who manages to craft some really incredible pages. Ultimately this is a story about the tenacity of man, as well as the resilience (or in some cases the lack thereof) human faith. I think that this is at once a nice endcap to the first volume of Resurrection and is as well perhaps the best issue (of a series of great issues) to date. Volume 1 of Resurrection will be, all told, 6 issues and one Annual, it will all be collected in a trade paperback that will be sold for the staggeringly great price of: Six whole American dollars. Talk about one hell of a good deal. When Volume 2 of Resurrection begins it will be the first ongoing series published by Oni Press in FULL COLOR! I cannot honestly think of a series that more people should be checking out. It is a thrilling ride from the very first page and when the trade comes out everyone, not just everyone who has read this book but everyone who reads comics, should buy 2, one for themselves and one for a friend who has never read comics but loves sci-fi, who loved the TV show Jericho, who thought Independence Day was kind of silly but desperately wanted to know what the next day looked like as the world picked itself up off the ground and dusted itself off. There honestly aren't enough positive words in the English language to convey how much I like this book and respect it's creators. And the way you can thank me for recommending this incredible series is to, once you are done reading the upcoming trade, go buy all the Queen & Country and Wasteland trades and prove to Oni how loved and appreciated their ongoing series really and truly are.

ComicDorksCast Episode 005

Download Directly:
ComicDorkscastEp005.mp3
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Running Time: 01:02:30

• 00:03:17 - Resurrection #3 features a letter from Scott
• 00:04:43 - Darren predicts that Scott wants to talk about Northlanders #4
• 00:09:14 - We are starting to see a deeper meaning from The Boys with issue #16
• 00:14:01 - Scott predicts that Darren's Pick of The Week is Terry Moore's Echo #1
• 00:22:15 - Scott's Pick of the Week is The All-New Atom #21
• 00:29:17 - The ComicDorksCast will never feature specific grades or scores for books
• 00:30:00 - Helen Killer gets mentioned again
• 00:30:31 - We talk briefly about Vinyl Underground #6
• 00:32:45 - Darren's Pick of the Month for February is Vinyl Underground #5
• 00:40:19 - Scott's Pick of the Month for February is Daredevil #105
• 00:47:30 - Scott wanted to mention Young Liars #1 quickly and recommends it highly.
• 00:50:57 - All the Best in Dork News
• 00:56:30 - Darren's anticipated books for March 12th
• 00:57:25 - Scott's anticipated books for March 12th
• 00:58:13 - Plans are starting to firm up about KC's Planet Comic-Con

If you have any Questions or Comments drop us a line @ comicdorkscast@gmail.com.
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The Music at the opening and closing of the show was: "Brother Lee" by Citizen Cope