Daniel Vlasaty 1/12/17 Daniel Vlasaty 1/12/17

Review: Southern Bastards #16

By Daniel Vlasaty

It’s been a few months since issue #15 came out, which is kind of Jason Aaron’s MO, it seems. I think I’d be pretty pissed about the delay too if the issue wasn’t so damn good. I love Southern Bastards, man. I love everything about it. I love the feel of it. I love the stink of it. I love the writing and the art. I love that this is what I imagine life in southern small towns is probably like.

Laramie Martinez 1/12/17 Laramie Martinez 1/12/17

Review: The Storyteller: Giants #2

By Laramie Martinez

Storyteller: Giants #2 has everything you want in a Storyteller comic. Plucky hero? Yes. Enormous evil villain? Check. Overwhelming odds overcome by courage and weird randomness? It’s got this in spades. Check out my review below.

Laramie Martinez 1/11/17 Laramie Martinez 1/11/17

Review: Dungeons and Dragons: Frost Giant’s Fury #1

By Laramie Martinez

It’s timely that Dungeons and Dragons: Frost Giant’s Fury comes out this week as I am just beginning a new campaign with a new party. I’ve been stealing ideas from Jim Zub’s comics for years now and I look forward to another series that I can mine fantasy shenanigans to use on my players. After reading the first issue, I expect this series to be no different from his previous comics. It’s got humor, drama, and, of course, monsters.

Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17

Review: NPCs #1: The Inventor

By Dustin Cabeal

Full disclosure I know Justin Wood quite well. We’ve never meet in person, but we converse, and he’s the creator of our logo, the review banners and writer of reviews on many occasions. That said, you’re probably wondering how the fuck I can objectively review NPCs if that’s the case.

Chris Tresson 1/11/17 Chris Tresson 1/11/17

Review: All-Star Batman #6

By Chris Tresson

I wasn’t a big fan of the last arc of this series. It just didn’t feel like a Batman comic to me. I don’t think anyone here at Comic Bastards really enjoyed it but it’s a new year, a new arc and a new artist for All-Star Batman. Issue six beings an arc which will involve Mr. Freeze and hopefully no terrible quips or puns. Here we go.

Jonathan Edwards 1/11/17 Jonathan Edwards 1/11/17

Review: Justice League of America: Vixen Rebirth #1

By Jonathan Edwards

At the end of my review for Justice League of America: The Atom Rebirth #1 last week, I said that I fully intended to check out Justice League of America: Vixen #1, so here I am. Now, I may have known little about The Atom, but I knew even less about Vixen. I was pretty sure she could mimic the abilities of animal (likely due to being connected to the "Red" such as Animal Man and, I think, Beast Boy are), and that's about it. That does indeed turn out to be the case, and I'm super okay with it because animal mimicry is rad.

Chris Tresson 1/11/17 Chris Tresson 1/11/17

Review: Shadows On The Grave #2

By Chris Tresson

I'm baaaaack… And this week I’m returning to Dark Horse Comics for another dose of Richard Corben's Shadows On The Grave. I loved the first issue of this series and was left wanting more of it. I do love me some horror comics and I’m really liking what Dark Horse is doing with theirs at the moment. Keep up the good work!

Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17

Review: Khaal #1

By Dustin Cabeal

Khaal is originally a French comic book, which isn’t 100% apparent from the cover. It becomes more obvious upon reading it and realizing that the art is beautiful, while the story struggles. I’ve heard a lot of people say that French comics value art over the story and that’s damn true here.

Chris Tresson 1/11/17 Chris Tresson 1/11/17

Review: Red Dog #2

By Chris Tresson

What up, Dawg! Sorry... That was a terrible way to open a review. It seems like forever since I read the first issue of Red Dog. I think it has genuinely been five or six months since I first opened it up and you know what? Although I read a lot of comics… like, a really stupid amount of comics per month (I’ve stopped counting how many), I can still remember what happened in the last issue of this like I only read it yesterday. That’s impressive. Either it was really good (it was) or I’m like some sort of comic book reading Rain Man (I’m not.) Anyways, this is my review of the second issue of Rob Cohen’s Red Dog from 451 Media. Let’s get this show on the road.

Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17

Review: James Bond 007: Felix Leiter #1

By Dustin Cabeal

I picked this up to read because I was terribly confused by it. How exactly was this a James Bond title with a scruffy blond man on the cover? Well, it’s not, not in the sense that it follows James Bond, but rather Felix Leiter. The joke was on me because I thought I could just pick this up and maybe enjoy it without having to read any of the other James Bond titles, but this character comes straight out of Warren Ellis’ run that either just wrapped or has one more awkward issue left.

Chris Tresson 1/11/17 Chris Tresson 1/11/17

Review: The Assignment #1

By Chris Tresson

This is my first review of the new year* so I thought I’d pick something I wouldn’t usually go for… and this week’s comics up for review weren’t all that great, so that’s another reason I picked this book. I will say that when I first opened the review copy of this book and saw the first few panels I thought to myself, “Shit! This looks pretty nice… I might have to review it just for the art. This looks really good!” So, this is why I’m here reviewing it. This is my review of (Re)assignment #1 from Titan Comic’s Hard Case Crime imprint.

Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/11/17

Review: Red Sonja v4 #1

By Dustin Cabeal

Oh wow… this is far worse than I thought it could be. The idea of this volume of Dynamite’s Red Sonja is that she’s been transported to modern day New York City. I’m sure some were thinking, “wow, that’s different” and while you’re technically right, different isn’t always good.

Jonathan Edwards 1/11/17 Jonathan Edwards 1/11/17

Review: Justice League/Power Rangers #1

By Jonathan Edwards

Why does this book exist? I mean, sure, the Justice League and Power Rangers are both superhero teams starring in their own books, and doing a crossover is always likely to guarantee to sell at least a few copies to fans from both side of the isle. But, I can't really say it's a team-up I've ever heard anyone clamoring for. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. If Batman can team up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, why not the Justice League and Power Rangers? And to be fair, their marketing did kind of work on me. Because, when I saw this listed on the spreadsheet, I was compelled to find out just how in the hell they tried to make this whole thing work.

Patrick Larose 1/11/17 Patrick Larose 1/11/17

The Best 6 Things I Stared at in 2016

By Patrick Larose

2016 was a year largely characterized by loss. Whether that loss be felt personally, culturally or politically, there's an overwhelming sense that the good guys are thinning out and the bad are encroaching closer every second.

2016 was also the year I started writing for Comic Bastards. The year I got to start writing about one of my favorite mediums on the Internet. For the first time I got engage and keep up with modern comics from the big and small publishers and, despite being a long-time comic fan, that was a completely different experience.

Chris Tresson 1/10/17 Chris Tresson 1/10/17

Review: God Country #1

By Chris Tresson

So, the other day I was cruising through Twitter looking at what people are doing with their lives (like you do) and there was a lot of positive talk about a book that’s coming out some time in the near future... The book in question is Image Comics’ God Country #1, written by Donny Cates and illustrated by Geoff Shaw. Immediately my interest was piqued. Having read The Paybacks previously (also by this creative team), I really wanted to see what this book was like… Luckily for me, upon checking the call sheet we use for reviews here, it was in amongst the advanced review copies, God Country #1. My name was next to it shortly thereafter. So, here we go. This is my review; I hope it piques your interest…

Laramie Martinez 1/10/17 Laramie Martinez 1/10/17

The Stacks: The Compleat Moonshadow

By: Laramie Martinez

I was 15 when I discovered the comic book/graphic novel section of the South Pasadena Public Library. Since then I’ve been scouring these small, sometimes miniscule, portions of city libraries, looking for something I have yet to read. I’ve found more than a few gems throughout my search and this column will be taking a look at those finds. This month I will highlight what might be my greatest find: The Compleat Moonshadow written by John Marc DeMattieis and illustrated by Jon J Muth.

Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17

Review: Dauntless #1

By Dustin Cabeal

There’s an air of familiarity to Dauntless that I never could shake. I read it back to back with Exodus which is another title from Tres Calaveras Studios and the two share one very similar component: they each follow super powered humans from outer space.

Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17

Review: Red-Eye Comics #2 – Fight Nights in Kowloon

By Dustin Cabeal

Skuds McKinley’s shared story universe continues in issue two of Red-Eye Comics. You may recall my review for the first issue was glowing and there’s much of the same praise for this issue. I'm a huge mark for McKinley’s work and so getting to read more (and in advance) is a treat for me.

Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17

Review: Wolf Country #6

By Dustin Cabeal

As you can imagine, I read a lot of comic books and a lot of indie comics. I have to give it up to Wolf Country because very few indie comics show this much growth over the course of six issues. My first experience with the series was pleasant. Hell, I name an episode of the podcast after it because I enjoyed the book that much. It’s continued to be impressive, but now it’s starting to get great. Better than good… great.

Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17 Dustin Cabeal 1/4/17

Review: Boipelo

By Dustin Cabeal

The hardest thing to do in a review is not to be mean. Being mean is easy when you don’t like a comic, but it doesn’t inform the reader of the review or help the creator in any way. Not that I’m going to pretend my reviews help creators, but if they get anything out of it, then that’s at least something.