Comics Picks of The Week 09.10.2013

Finally, this was a week where my non-DC reading far out-stripped my DC reading. Villain’s Month really seems to have taken a toll with my reading, what with reading like seven or eight titles a week. Things are finally becoming more normal, and that’s excellent in and of itself. Lots of Dark Horse and IDW reading as well this week, which was really nice, since I’m playing catch-up with a few of their titles and really need to be getting down to read these issues.

However, no luck with reading any graphic novels again this week. I had hoped to read at least one during my flight back to Dubai from Delhi but things didn’t work out like that since I slept on the entire flight, all three and a half hours of it. That’s something I suppose. But now I have the time I hope so will see what happens.

In the meantime, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Comics Picks of the Week 18.09.2013

Once again, DC’s ongoing Villain’s Month meant that most of the comics I read this week were all focused on the various DC villains. There were some good ones, and some bad ones, as usual. I didn’t get around to reading anything other than DC all that much, just a couple of Marvel comics, a Top Cow comic, and something from IDW, after a long, long time, so that was kind of fun, especially since those were G.I.Joe comics, which I love and adore.

Once Villain’s Month ends, I should be back to reading some graphic novels, and I have a lot of them lined up, particularly a few Top Cow books that I’m really looking forward to reading. Fun times!!

In the meantime, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

The A-to-Z Author Survey

Earlier this month I posted two surveys on my blog. Sort-of surveys at any rate. You can find the one about books here and the one about comics here. I really had a lot of fun doing those, and I thought it would be fun to doing them again, but with a cool twist that I hope sounds as inspired to you as it does me. Or maybe not.

I spent the last 3 hours thinking of some kind of a blogpost to write. There are some ideas I had but nothing I could put up today, which was the whole point really. So yeah, this is going to follow the same meta layout as the other surveys. I’m not limiting this survey to just novelists, I’m including comics writers as well.

Hope you enjoy! And do share your thoughts in the comments!

G.I.Joe: Special Missions #1-3 by Chuck Dixon (Comics Review)

As a long-time fan of Marvel’s original run on G.I.Joe under Larry Hama, and the cartoon series that those comics spawned, I’ve had a really great experience with the various comics that IDW Publishing has been putting out of late. I found out about them last year in June, and I haven’t looked back since. I haven’t been able to catch up to all the comics as yet, and trust me, there are a fair few of them out there right now, but I certainly intend to do just that.

Recently, IDW did a reboot of sorts for their range of G.I.Joe comics, headlined by Fred Van Lente who is the ongoing writer for the excellent Archer & Armstrong series from Valiant Comics, and this reboot has led to at least two spin-offs, Special Missions by Chuck Dixon and Cobra Files by Mike Costa, both of whom have worked extensively on the previous runs of IDW’s G.I.Joe comics. I read the first three issues of Chuck’s Special Missions just an hour ago, and I find myself quite taken with the story.

Best of 2013 Part 1

I did two “Best of the…” lists last year, one for the half-year from January to June, and the other for the half-year from July to December. The lists proved to be quite popular, and I was recently asked if I was going to be doing any more. To which I said yes. I like putting together lists like this. It gives me a chance to reflect a bit on all the good stuff I’ve been reading in novels and comics, or listening to in terms of audiobooks, audio dramas and so on.

You can check out my top-of-the-month lists on my Reading Awards page and this list is both an extension, and a continuation of what goes on there.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!