Weekly Round-Up 3 With Lauren And Joe!
- FriendlyNBHDBi
- Nov 13, 2021
- 6 min read
For new releases 11/10/21!
Hi there everyone, Your Friendly Neighborhood Bi, Lauren, and your friend JoeLovesComics are BACK with our Weekly Round Up of this week’s BEST comics, for your reading pleasure!! Here are our top 4 picks of the week! Let's get into it!
Lauren’s Picks
Aftershock Comics
Writer: Paul Tobin
Artist: Andy MacDonald
Colorist: DJ Chavis
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
I absolutely adored this first issue! Perfect balance of humor, wit, fun, and some dark undertones. Can you imagine if you had a kid and the world’s fate depended on you finding love, just so your child didn’t accidentally bring monsters into the world? Well, imagine really hard because that’s what you’re signing up for with this read! The art is fantastic; I love how real and goofy the monsters look. Don’t miss out on this great indie read!
Writer: Mattson Tomlin
Artist: Andrea Sorrentino
Colorist: Jordan Bellaire
I’ve tried to cut out as many Batman books as possible, I really have- but this is just one that you can’t cut out! It’s hard because we need less Batman books, but we don’t need less quality. This run is one of the best Batman stories I’ve read in a long time and it’s only on issue 2! Pick. this. Up! Especially if you are a huge fan of psychological thrillers and Batman being more brutal. Wow!
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Miguel Mendonca
Colorist: Enrica Angiolini
Letterist: Andworld Design
I started reading this line originally because of my good friend Mason, the creator of the ComicsandCrosses Youtube channel! If you need other good recs, check him out, because wow did he get it right with this series! This is the last issue in it and it’s all I needed to start petitioning for Zdarsky to be on the main JL book. This is the best JL story I’ve read in a long time (possibly ever, I haven’t read alot of JL). Either way, if you want to see this team at their best (even tho, plot-wise, they could arguably be at their worst), you MUST check this out!
Writer: Tee Franklin
Artist: Max Sarin
Colorist: Marissa Louise
Letterer: Taylor Esposito
This series has been my top pick EVERY SINGLE WEEK IT COMES OUT, and this week is no exception! This series is set between seasons 2 and the upcoming season 3 of the Harley Quinn animated show. If you’re a fan of that show, you HAVE to read this line. Like, I’m requiring it for your homework. It’s just like the show if not better in its own right. The art perfectly matches the animation, the colors are bright and glorious, and Tee Franklin’s writing of our favorite characters is magnificent. I hope Franklin’s work with these characters and show does not stop with this series. PICK IT UP PICK IT UP ALSO GAY CONTENT HELLO
You can find Lauren, Your Friendly Neighborhood Bi, at all her links here:
Joe’s Picks
Marvel Comics
Writer: Al Ewing & Ram V
Artist: Bryan Hitch
Inker: Andrew Currie
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
It genuinely feels like every week it's getting more and more difficult to rank the latest picks, the advance reads give me an early idea but once NCBD comes around again it's all up in the air. Right up to literally a couple days before release, I wasn't sure if I was going to get this. That's a stellar pair of writers, but I'm not generally a fan of Hitch's style so I was wary. Once King in Black had wrapped up, that felt like a fitting ending, then the new team was announced but I wasn't sure if I wanted to jump into a new Venom epic anyway. But the new status quo in #200 intrigued me. It kept this new series launch in mind the last several months since that 200th issue.
All of that to say I really liked this. It feels interesting to talk about, because you want to try and appreciate the new run on its own, not comparing it to before, but then it's so strongly exploring the aftermath of that run, it feels very much both like #201 with the new status quo but also a new #1 with the mysteries it sets up. It just worked for me, I loved seeing the further exploration of this new status quo but also was very intrigued by the mysteries it set up, definitely excited for more, glad in the end I decided to get this. I could too easily go on for longer, but I'll keep that to my eventual leagueofcomicgeeks.com review if you're interested, for now I have other comic books to get to!
Boom! Box
Writer & Artist: Sas Milledge
Colorist: Belle Murdoch
Is friendship more powerful than fate? I've mentioned this a few times before, but for me nothing beats a good solid character based story. No matter how much I'm into the premise or the world or anything, if your characters feel real and are compelling, that's how I'm going to fall in love with the story. This has been such a charming mini series, with so much heart, whimsy, and is something everyone should absolutely check out. I know that gets thrown around a lot, but seriously this time I truly mean it. The art has this textured, pastel feel to it that to me at least always made it incredibly soothing to look at and appreciate.
I also talk often about the individual issues of a mini series needing to feel like satisfying reads in their own right as well as telling the cohesive story as a whole, and this series delivered on that. Each issue has been such a fun enchanting read, I've loved seeing the two main characters on their journey across the 5 months of issues, so when I got to this conclusion it really felt earnt, it genuinely made me so happy it was a perfect ending. As soon as I finished the issue I looked up when the trade was releasing, because I immediately thought "this is the sort of book where I have to buy this for someone so they can experience it for themselves" because everyone deserves to have the charming fantasy tinged joy that this series brought me.
Marvel Comics
Writer: Skottie Young
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
If anyone remembers, a couple weeks ago I chose Robin #7 as my #1 pick because I thought it was too much fun not to be my pick of the week. That’s also how I felt about this issue. I only read this last night, but up until that point it felt like What’s The Furthest Place From Here? #1 would be an easy #1 pick. But like I said once NCBD gets involved it’s never that easy.
This series has a certain joy to it, a certain whimsical fun where I always seem to finish each issue with a smile on my face. It's like your favourite sitcom where it's so nice every month or two to check in and see what the characters are up to. I love their relationships and dynamics and personalities that have been built up over the past 13 issues.
Like with the sitcom thing every issue feels episodic but there's a few different threads that are being built up which makes it really fun to read month to month. The art by Ramos and the coloring by Delgado is so nice, I was excited for this issue but I didn’t realise how much I missed the series in the last few months until I read it. Such a charming series full of heart, humour, joy and fun absolutely recommend to anyone who wants a bit of that in their comic reading life.
Image Comics
Writer: Matthew Rosenberg
Artist & Colorist: Tyler Boss
Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
I’ve already gone on enough this week, and I want to avoid repeating too much of what I said in my advance review, so I’ll try to be concise. I wasn’t sure what expectations to have for Venom #1, but it pleasantly surprised me and I really liked it. Mamo #5 felt like a perfect conclusion and culmination of the character’s arcs. Strange Academy returned with #13 to my delight and it was so much fun. But it just didn’t feel right to give the #1 spot to any book apart from this one. I like a blockbuster, splashy, knock-your-socks-off first issue as much as the next person, but there’s something so special about a book that sits with you. A book where there’s a sudden moment of realisation, “OH. Oh. Oh that’s good”. It’s cinematic, it’s artistic, it feels simultaneously like a love letter to the impact music can have and the idea of the post apocalyptic comic. It’s a triple sized issue but I loved how it utilised that, I just thought it was really well done. This feels like the start of something truly special and I’m very intrigued to see where it’s going to lead, check it out!
What were your top picks this week? Let us know what we missed! You never know; your recommendation could end up on our lists in the future!
Come find us both on Twitter and let's talk comics and good times :)
You can find Lauren, Your Friendly Neighborhood Bi, at all her links here: beacons.ai/friendlynbhdbi
You can follow JoeLovesComics over on Twitter for (albeit shorter) thoughts on comics he loves.
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