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!