Comics Taken Apart: Ten Things I Liked or Didn’t Like in the Past Week in Comics, Led by a Cool Book and a Weird Look

It was a week of a million comics announcements and some frankly confusing publisher moves. And when I say publisher, I mean singular. Anyway, let’s explore that and more in Comics Disassembled, as I look at ten things I liked and didn’t like from the week of comics, led by one cool comic!

1. A cool book!

“These are 100% fun comics, delivered with total confidence, visceral joy, and absolutely no winking at the camera,” is what writer Al Ewing said about the upcoming Metamorpho: The Element Man ongoing series he’s doing at DC with artist Steve Lieber, colorist Lee Loughridge, and typesetter Ferran Delgado. Even though I knew I was in for it when I saw Ewing and Lieber team up, that statement only heightened my excitement, even if I knew it was a hype statement made up for a press release. Metamorpho or not, I love the idea of ​​“100% fun comics” these days, especially when it’s coming from talents like Ewing and Lieber, and when it’s a series that’s ostensibly all wrapped up in one story.

That’s a type of comic that doesn’t come around as often as it should, and I couldn’t be happier with this series. That’s it. Cool creators making a cool book, and to make it even better, it’s a Christmas present for all of us. Apparently it’s coming out on Christmas Day, so we’ll probably have to wait a day or so to buy it. But buy it I will! I’m all for these types of fun comics! Good job team!

2. A strange look!

IDW continues its recent streak as the most astonishingly strange publisher in the direct market with a hefty number of points. The week brought all the Rich Johnstons to the yard, as the Bleeding Cool maestro extensively covered the investor call that IDW CEO Davidi Jonas took — which the exec did from the privacy of his car — in a series of articles this week. And what a bananas experience it must have been, as Jonas walked investors through what seemed like every thought that had crossed his mind in a rather unusual setting for such a call. Those thoughts included: The fact that the publisher has had a rough few years and that if things had gone differently, everyone would have a yacht! That George Takei is working on another graphic novel with Top Shelf (via IDW)! That they’re working on a new superhero line, Bible comics, and more crime/serial killer/mafia comics! That they’re launching a new horror imprint and partnering with a giant horror licensor! Basically, they’ll do anything, maybe even in pursuit of said yacht.

That sounds like a plan! Maybe a little broad and ambitious. Maybe too much. Maybe with questionable goals. But a plan nonetheless! That said, the most talked about bit from IDW this week actually came from a Bleeding Cool article from the 10th, which I should point out up front is an extremely unverified piece. I’m not even going to go into it much — it’s about a potential plan for a collective page rate that IDW creative teams could get and their path to a higher revenue cap — because there’s apparently some skepticism about how accurate it is. But when you combine that with the all-encompassing plan that Jonas announced and the simple fact that he took that phone call in his car, you can see why anyone would believe anything said about IDW at this point. It essentially means that they’re the first comic book publisher to enter The Tyson Zone. While that’s an intriguing record for a publisher, it’s also not exactly where you want to be!