EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

It’s the coincident magic of shuffle. As I begin to write, Guns N Roses’ “Breakdown” off of their Use Your Illusion (Blue) begins to play. And I’m reminded of what it takes to make it big, to make something that lasts, to say, “This is my team. This is who I’m with and where I’m from.” And I’m reminded, just days after Cinco de Mayo, that the story of the rise of the Legion of Super-Heroes is also the story of the improbable victory of New World values.

Happy Comic Book Day, True Believers. You all know about Daredevil right? He’s the superhero with a disability who uses his special skills and handheld weapon to fly above the city and punish criminals. He’s the one who started out in a largely yellow costume in his first appearance, but soon shifted the mostly red look that he’s most recognized for.

Yeah, you know Daredevil. And if you’re a true comicbook fan you know that his secret identity is… Bart Hill.

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

“How do your pistol and your bible, and your sleeping pills go?” Tom Waits croons out heartrendingly on “Who Are You”, the fifth track on 1992’s Bone Machine, “Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?” There’s a strange link between the Waits song and China Miéville’s unique reboot of Dial H. But it’s a link you can’t really see until you read Dial H #12.

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

After just a few years on the Hellblazer title, Jamie Delano’s body of work already began to seem somehow insurmountable as a creative statement. Could other writers achieve the same character affects Delano had? Could they map out the same neo-Victorian London-driven storytelling (which married so elegantly those hardboiled noir elements of Chandler with the utter mind-screaming horror of Lovecraft) in the same way that Delano had? Could they protract that quintessential magic? When Garth Ennis took the reins as series regular writer for Hellblazer, he reminded us not only of the power of the John Constantine character (the titular Hellblazer), but also that as significant as it was, Delano’s creative vision wasn’t a limitation, but an invitation.

Linked entirely upon the basis of a sharp but quite limited color palette, urgent present-day scenarios and anxiety-inducing memories come through with cinematic vibrancy for Babble, a graphic novel that UK comics publisher Com.X issued stateside in January of 2013. Artist Bryan Coyle’s pinpoint line work frames an array of fiery mustard yellows that are countered by slight variations of powder blue for the book’s strategically divided aesthetic. Even as Babble‘s tale of dead languages and stories that date back thousands of years is weird and somewhat complicated, it’s a hook that warrants a slow read, if only for the comic’s striking appearance.