Violet

Not giving this 2 stars because it's bad, I'm giving it 2 stars because it's not a whole story. I DO NOT understand this modern publishing model of Trade Paperbacks collecting pieces of a story arc, just wait until the rest of the issues are out! It's a disservice to the story, pacing, and the readers.

I do genuinely like the set-up here but that's all it is, the set-up to a story! I will be very interested to see how this goes about tackling its gay characters, two of which being suspected murderers, whether or not it ends up having something to say about why gay men turn to violence or (the much preferred) how gay men are framed as deviants and put away for crimes they didn't commit.

Like I said though, not even a complete story arc, just a fragment of a longer narrative. Will be waiting for the eventual Library Edition that actually collects the entire story.

5 Stars for Ennis and Corben's Punisher: The End, a wonderfully bleak apocalypse. There is just something so comically horrifying about Richard Corben's artwork that suits the end of world perfectly.

The Tyger was really not too bad but is very much overshadowed.

Full disclosure I skipped The Cell for its use of both “Transvestite” and “Faggot” on the first page lol, I get why they're used here but it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Review for the full 5 issue series. Feels like the modern version of a forgotten Vertigo title. The artwork is stylized, dark, and VERY sketchy. The surreal fuzzy environments work for the more dreamlike sections of the book but cause the middle chunk to feel rather confusing and dull. The action is extremely hard to follow because of it sadly.

This has some neat ideas, mostly in the last 2 issues, but overall it's not exactly something I'd recommend.

This one was a bit of a slog for me because I don't particularly like any of these recurring characters. Maybe I'm too young or out of touch but Mr. Natural just does nothing for me.

The bits I really liked were the offbeat one offs. Stuff like City of the Future, Ultra Super Modernistic Comics, Kitchen Kut-Outs!, and The Sad Book.

I totally understand why this doesn't work for most, it's an odd mix of 30's pulp adventure stories with 60's/70's Psychedelia storytelling. The whole thing is told at a breakneck pace, feels like someone recalling a dream they once had. The characters all speak either in a sort of stream of consciousness or stilted exposition.
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And yet I find it all to be really charming?

Really interesting Body Horror story, something we don't see very often in Detective Comics. Sadly I just cannot stand Viktor Bogdanovic's artwork. It's a shameless copy of Greg Capullo and I just find it sad that DC hired this hack.

Ugh it had been too long since the last time I read a good Spider-Man comic! This was a real nice treat after trying and failing the Slott run many times. It's from around the end of his time on the book but it's instead helmed by the great Chip Zdarsky. Really simple classic Spider-Man stories with heart. This volume is also completely stand-alone (aside from the few references to other Marvel books of the time) so it's easy to jump right in without even reading the previous volumes.

Definitely recommend, the artwork alone is worth the price of admission. The Chris Bachalo story is just visual perfection. Top notch.

I could read another 100 pages of them just crawling through that weird mansion labyrinth. The detail is just immense, every inch of the page is covered with strange mechanisms and objects. The idea that all that being hidden underneath a sleepy New England town just pushes all the right buttons for me.

If the story was exclusively about that mystery and all the organic(?) instruments & machinery than I'd give it a ★★★★★ easily. Shame about the weird sex stuff though, super uncomfortable and didn't really need to be there.

Instantly entering the ranks of my favorite Books of all time. Period.

I know Fritz the Cat is one of Crumb's more “iconic” creations but I enjoyed all the other bits in this book much more. The candid interpretations of Harlem and Bulgaria were fascinating, seeing the real world through Crumb's pen is really something.

I so want to give this a 5/5 but given it's only part of a mystery I'll give it a 4 for now. No idea why this took me so long to finally read, I pretty much loved everything about it. Some of the most provocative and original science fiction I've read in a long time, really does something new and exciting with tired Sci-Fi tropes. The mystery is deep and layered (fascinating to try and piece together albeit on the confusing side), I really hope it sticks the landing in the end.

Of course it goes without saying that Cliff Chiang's artwork is gorgeous and his panel to panel storytelling is pitch perfect. There is some all-timer design work in here for Creatures, Weird Tech, and costume design. Don't know how much of that is Vaughan's writing or Chiang's sketching but either way it does wonders for the world of the book.

Did not anticipate my first read of the year to heavily feature the Bury Your Gays Gays trope. I typically love what Gerard Way puts out (both his music and comics) but this really missed the mark for me. It's really a shame most of the characters were either awful or LGBT rep that is killed off for shock value. The world presented here (as first shown in the Danger Days album) is unique and filled with interesting dystopian/cyberpunkish ideas. I'll give the followup series a shot since I love the album so much, maybe by 2021 they moved away from such outdated handling of gay characters.

Mixed bag anthology starring Batman's Rogues Gallery.

The Penguin, Joker, Poison Ivy, and Clayface had the best stories. I was especially impressed by the game show nightmare tale “The Joker's Mild” and the great Clayface cult story “Mudnight Madness”, the latter featuring some gorgeous gothic artwork by comic king Kelley Jones.

Absolutely some of the best Batman we've had in a long time. The main story arc Failsafe has the tone of an early Scott Snyder tale. Plenty of comic callbacks while in itself adding much to the long history of Batman. Does a lot with Batman's relationship with the Justice League, will work especially well for fans of “Tower of Babel”. An especially great one for fans of Robin, I myself found that aspect to be a highlight.

Zdarsky also impresses with the unbelievable backup story I am a Gun. With breathtaking artwork (Leonardo Romero) that evokes both Mazzucchelli and Dick Sprang. A psychological tale about Batman's invention ofZ ur-En-Arrh, this story is the highlight of the book for me personally.

The Magician and The Snake and The Prisoner of Mars are two of the best comic stories I've ever read. It would be hard to argue this isn't Mignola's magnum opus.

This isn't going to work for everyone, I can say that with confidence. What Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martín are doing here is special. It's essentially a modern serialized mystery story where each chapter is a different length and ends with a cliff-hanger or hook of some kind. This isn't structured like a Comic written for trade. It's structured like chapters in a 60's YA Mystery novel.

What is is though is a loving tribute to the works of John Bellairs. The world and characters are grounded but carry the tropes of his classic mystery stories. A New England small town with no short supply of ancient secrets and occult mysteries to uncover. If you're familiar with those stories (or even that of Nancy Drew) you'll feel right at home. Of course this isn't a children's story so it's darker in tone, the natural evolution to this type of story in my opinion.

I can see this eventually becoming a 5/5 series for me, they just have to stick the landing with subsequent chapters. Personally, I have no doubts. I just hope it finds the right audience, it deserves it.

4 stars for everything besides the Richard Corben story House of the Living Dead which gets an exemplary 5 stars. Honestly the best pastiche of the great Universal Monster sequels I've ever seen, nails every classic trope while still being madly original.

Overall there were more misses than hits here but MAN did a couple of these deliver. The Kelley Jones Deadman story being the highlight, that man can do no wrong.

Lovecraftian Green Lantern was a nice idea and nailed the look of cosmic horror, just felt a bit short. The Post Apocalyptic Swamp Thing tale could easily be turned into a full miniseries, the concept was perfectly executed.

Counting this as all 6 issues since there was never a TPB. Overall this was missing the feel of the 90's Hellraiser comic series, only a couple stories had the abstract and grimy feel. Would only recommend to hardcore Hellraiser fans, which means I got more enjoyment out of it than most would.

Normally love Tynion but this first trade just didn't do it for me, especially after the incredible finale of King's run. In all honesty, the best part of this was a backup written by Dan Watters with artwork by John Paul Leon. I would read a Bat-Book written by Watters in a heartbeat.

200 pages of gorgeous painted artwork from some of the 90's leading British artists. What's not to love?

Using this to log the first 3 issues of Tom King's Love Everlasting. At this point I think I'll give anything he writes a shot as it's almost always some level of brilliant. Saying anything about this series will spoil the experience so I'll just say it's been a consistently engaging and surreal ride.

If I could give this a 4.5/5 I would, it's very nearly perfect. The Batman Secret Files #1 drags the whole volume down a bit, being an anthology it's quality is mixed. Everything else was fantastic.

I really do not like 90% of DC's event Tie-in issues. I don't know what it is but they almost always have dull artwork, low stakes, and little involvement in the main storyline. Dark Nights Metal was the biggest exception where some of the tie-ins exceeded the quality of (an already incredible) main storyline.

Only read this for completionism, I wouldn't recommend it.

Couldn't possibly stress enough how much I adore this series. The writing is James Tynion IV at his absolute best, a culmination of all the work he's done over the years. The artwork is breathtaking and reminiscent of the very best work done at Vertigo and the like.

In general it reminds me of the type of book you'd have read during the early Vertigo days, fantasy and horror in it's rawest form bleeding into real world fears. The artwork and prose is hypnotic at times, sending you to a place where the line between fact and fiction is blurred. Of course truth is an incredibly important piece to this series, in my opinion it deals with all that rather well, never feeling overtly disrespectful. The School Shooting issue boiled my blood, feeling more relevant than ever. I also must confess my morbid curiosity in the Q conspiracy dived into in Issue 4, I felt they handled that well given how recent and scary it still is.