News! "Superman back on top as Action Comics #1 sells for record $1.5 million"

I mean I guess Supes deserves the top spot, really. Although I bet Bruce cracks a couple of skulls extra tonight.

The Associated Press provides the initial report with some additional bits at Robot 6 & lehighvalleylive.com.

Conan the Cimmerian #19

Linsner's cover kills. The blood-red coloring & heads on a stick are pretty hallucinatory. And Conan has a way cool shield. And the book only gets better. Giorello's art with Villarrubia's colors make the cover price worth your while. Especially when you get to the nudey pages. Boobies!

Truman's script kicks off the three-part "Kozaki" arc here, and he begins to fill in some of the story gaps from "Free Companions." Conan's starved & suffering from some nasty food poisoning delirium - uncooked rats! - when he runs into the ghost of Amalric, former captain of the Companions. Being dead probably pisses him off enough as it is, but finding out that his army has disintegrated under Conan's command kind of pushes Amalric over the edge. So Conan tells him a tale.

Conan's flashback runs the bulk of the issue. It's a good one. The Companions head East, raiding Turan territory as they go, until they are spied by Sergius, "Scourge of the Vilayet and the master of the Red Brotherhood," who has of course has unfinished business with Conan. Meanwhile, further east in Akif, naughty Amurath, "favored Shah of King Yildiz," works his deviant charm on buxom Olivia, the captured daughter of Ophir's king. She's hot. Amurath notices. Bad Shah!

Sweet Tooth #7

I think I'm actually more interested in Jepperd's past than I am in Gus' future. And I'm way curious to see what the fuck happens to Gus. The reveal on the last page isn't a total shock, but it works, and it definitely makes shit more interesting. Also Gus is about to get ravaged by the nefarious Dr. Singh. Tray of cutting tools gets me every time.

Art-wise, this is Lemire's strongest issue yet. The emotional subtlety of his close-ups, the haunted washed-out landscapes, the gutshot splash pages - all awesome. And that pig-boy is fucking creepy.

Jonah Hex #53

Surprisingly violent issue. I mean, Jonah Hex isn't exactly hugs & kisses every other month, but this one stands out. I'm not complaining, just saying. Lots of carnage.

Billy Tucci steps in on art, and he draws a mean fucking death-by-gunshot. Many, many times over. His Hex is different, more Two-Face than I'm used to. His is not the generally grizzled & bloodshot Hex whose scar is quite fitting considering the rest of him, but rather a half pretty-boy, a Bat Lash on the left & a Freddy Krueger on the right. I like it.

Palmiotti & Gray just keep banging out righteous Western slaughter. "Dance Hall Girl" isn't one of their best efforts, but it's still head & spurs over most anything else on the stands. Hex charms a bodacious dancer into helping him snag the Hager Brothers, and about seventeen double-crosses later, you've got buckets of blood and a crippled whore. Unforgiving & hellishly raw. Get some.

News! "New Jeff Lemire project: The Underwater Welder"

Well this looks just delightful (first noticed the story on Robot 6). Sweet Tooth rocks, still have to check out Jeff Lemire's older stuff.

News! "Batman comic book beats Superman at auction, sets record"

Eat it, Boy Scout!

"Just three days after auction site ComicConnect.com claimed to break world records when it sold an original Superman comic for $1 million, Batman stole his thunder.

A rare, high-quality copy of Detective Comics #27, which marked the first appearance of Batman in 1939, sold for $1,075,500 on Thursday. Heritage Auctions of Dallas sold the comic book to an unnamed bidder on behalf of an anonymous collector."

News! "It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's a $1 million comic book"

Missed this the first time around.

"Zurzolo and Fishler posted a rare copy of Action Comics #1 on their site Monday morning. It was the issue where the Man of Steel made his debut in 1938. They were selling it on behalf of an unnamed collector. Within one minute, Zurzolo said, another unnamed collector bought it for $1 million."

Choker #1

Very glad I picked this one up, last minute grab before I checked out. I was initially attracted by Ben Templesmith's name. I like his sketchy, jilted pencils and murky, dark, moody finishes. He doesn't disappoint here. Nice touch with the "How It's Done" art tour at the end.

But the real surprise is McCool's writing. You know, the fact that it's good. I don't mean that to sound uppity - I love comics, superhero & otherwise, but even some of my favorite writers tend to have a tin ear. McCool has a natural rhythmic and alliterative flow that makes for immersive reading & perfectly complements Templesmith's art (compare the writing here with this month's Blackest Night #7 - I spend so much time trying to make the stilted dialogue sound right in my head, I'm totally taken out of the book).

The story itself is familiar. Johnny Jackson seems like your typical (former) bull cop, now scraping by as a sleazy PI in a shitbox city. But he's just so fucking charming: "No, thank you, Ms. Gaynor. I'd rather fuck a faulty toaster." Righteous. McCool adds a nice twist to the premise, what with all the mutant citizens and genetically enhanced "Man Plus" monster cops. And the vampires. Weee! I'm totally along for the ride. Shotgun!

Joe the Barbarian #2

Joe the Barbarian does not read well as individual issues. The same could be said for a lot of what Grant Morrison writes. I don't know if that's a criticism or not. Every time I want to be snarky about Morrison, I remember how fucking awesome he can be. Everyone's got their favorites of his; I like Seaguy, Doom Patrol, and We3. Two issues in, I don't like Joe the Barbarian. After eight, chances are I will.

Sean Murphy continues to draw his balls off. Some of his panels are honestly kind of muddled and confusing, but that totally suits the writing, intentional or not. Overall, though, the art is the book's strongest point so far.

As for plot, more of the same. There's nothing terribly interesting or original yet to dissect. We can assume that Joe is suffering through fantastical hypoglycemic hallucinations & his rodent pal Jack here serves as quasi-guide through the abyss. Lots of straws to grasp at, nothing satisfying yet.

I don't like this kind of book. If I'm going to like Joe the Barbarian at all, it probably won't happen until the entire series is done and I can read it through as one story. In the mean time, it's a book that I'll probably drop money on every month & kind of regret it. I should wait for the trade! But I won't!

Supergirl #50

I like this issue. Not because it's any good because, by god, it's not. I like it because it lets me know it's okay. It's okay not to buy every comic that has a number in a red shield on the cover. I probably won't miss too much. It's okay to not buy every comic with "Super" in the title. They're probably not all necessary anyway. It's okay to not buy Supergirl because she is, after all, just a girl. Okay so that's not right.

I actually do like Supergirl, and I've liked the last several issues of the title. Just not this one. Cliff Chiang draws awesome, though, and I'd love to see him on regular cover/interior art duties. Everything else here feels a little disjointed and uneventful. Which is weird, because flipping through again, I see lots of explosive & gory events. Oh well, flat to me. The Superfamily space saga has been going on so long now, individual issues don't really stand out to me. This one doesn't. But it's okay!