This year we attended Free Comic Book Day for the first time. One of our local comic shops All About Books and Comics hosted several in-store events. Their website said they would have artist Dustin Nguyen available for autographs. So we grabbed our copy of WildCats 3.0 #1 and headed down there. The store was packed!
It was awesome to meet Dustin, chat for a minute, and find out what he’s working on now: American Vampire and Justice League Beyond. We know his work from the awesome action/sci-fi WildCats 3.0 and the mind-blowing “Transfer of Power” storyline in The Authority Volume 1 with writer Mark Millar. He also worked with Scott Lobdell on Manifest Eternity and with Ed Brubaker on Authority: Revolution. Visit Dustin’s Deviant Art site.
We picked up two copies of the Dinosaurs and Aliens preview, written by Grant Morrison and brilliantly illustrated by Mukesh Singh. We know Singh’s work from Game Keeper at Virgin Comics with Andy Diggle, author of Vertigo’s Losers and a brief-but-memorable stint on Daredevil. We’re sold on the upcoming Dinosaurs and Aliens book and can’t wait to read the full story!
We also picked the Jurassic Strike Force 5 preview, a new sci-fi series featuring anthropomorphic dinosaur soldiers. While we dig the concept, the story seems aimed at a slightly younger audience. We might pick up a few issues for the artwork.
The action-packed preview for I.C.E. – which doesn’t seem to be available from the FCBD site – introduces a 4-issue series published by 12-Gauge that might be worth picking up. (We like short action/adventure series like Warren Ellis’ Reload and Greg Rucka’s Felon.) It was hard to tell from the preview if it would have the same depth of character interest as, say, The Losers; but, the tale of a high-powered immigration control unit tackling a gruesome murder mystery shows some promise.
Also from 12-Gauge came a preview for Loose Ends, which might be right up our alley: a crime/action series with interesting art and lots of shady characters. This is the first we’ve heard of 12-Guage, but they’re on our indie comics radar now thanks to FCBD.
All About Books and Comics also had a ‘deal of the week’ going on: 100 issues from their room of Bargain Bins for $30. We rounded out our vintage Micronauts collection, filled some gaps in Vertigo’s Lucifer, and rocked a stack of post-Morrison Animal Man – plus some Bronze Age odds and ends for fun. Pretty awesome haul for bargain bin books. Thank you AAB&C!
