Writer: Stacie M. Ritchie
Artist: Brett Booth
Company: Marvel Comics

Sex, vampires and violence. A trio of things that people just can’t seem to get enough of. With the adaptation of Laurell K. Hamilton’s best selling novel, Guilty Pleasures, a person pulls a hat trick and manages to get all three. Should be great then, right? A home-run of a book that leaves you foaming at the mouth for the next issue? As it happens, Anita Blake might have been better off if she had continued to call the rough and dense pages of her novels home instead of venturing out into the flashy and slick realm of comics.
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Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Company: Wildstorm

It’s never a good sign when the flagship book of your line-wide relaunch ships a month late, and certainly the weakness of the opening books like Gen 13 and Wetworks hasn’t done the Wildstorm relaunch any favors. A shame that Wildcats #1 didn’t ship first, as it might have done much better in putting a strong foot forward for Wildstorm. The book is a lot of fun, taking some of the intelligent mature readers superhero work that Joe Casey did, adding in some of Morrison’s trademark crazy ideas and layering it with traditional superhero icing in the form of Jim Lee’s artwork. Wildcats #1 attempts to Continue Reading »

Episode number six of the Comic Pants podcast is now live. This week, David Martindale, Dave Farabee, Randy Lander and Nick Budd take a page from their “Top Five Books of the Moment” discussion and talk about their top five artists of the moment. The choices range from really mainstream to really indy, and we hope you’ll all find the discussion entertaining.

As always, commentary is welcomed and encouraged. Let us know what you thought of the podcast, tell us which of these artists you like or don’t like, please post your own “top five of the moment” in the comments and, as always, if you’ve got suggestions for future podcast Continue Reading »

Wednesday Number Ones is a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We take the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and give a quick opinion on them. From time to time we may also include more than issue number ones in this feature. If a noteworthy one-shot or the first issue of a new story arc is released, we may talk about it in this feature.

This week we will cover Wildcats #1, Bit Torment #1, Tabula Rasa, The Damned #1, Omega Men #1 of 6, Son of Satan #1 of 5, John Woo’s Seven Brothers #1, Anita Blake Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures #1, The Authority #1, Hellgate London #0, Highlander #1, Amazing Spider-Girl #1, and Sandman #1 Special Edition.

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Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Brian Hurtt
Company: Oni Press

Every now and then, you run across a concept that just clicks, from the moment you first hear it. That’s the case with The Damned, which combines soul-trafficking demons with the vivid look and feel of prohibition-era crime, resulting in a book that reads like a cross between Hellblazer and The Untouchables. While Bunn probably could have spelled out his setting a little more clearly in this opening issue, the atmosphere is dead-on, the lead character very intriguing and the political plot at the center of things equally promising. In addition, Brian Hurtt continues to get better and better with each project, and his work Continue Reading »

Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Talent Caldwell
Company: Wildstorm

The first question that really sounded in my head after reading Wildstorm’s re-launch of the Gen 13 title was: Where did all the funny go? In a book that had so much potential to do something different, all the story had to offer was a bland facsimile of an older book that didn’t have all that much going for it in the first place. And while I did have some love for Brandon Choi and Jim Lee’s upbeat and comedic teen drama meets dark government thriller, Gail Simone’s version completely loses me with a book that metaphorically paints everything in its path black. It’s a shame too, because the Continue Reading »

Writers: Grant Morrison (Batman)
Mike W. Barr (Batman: Son of the Demon)
Artists: Andy Kubert (Batman)
Jerry Bingham (Batman: Son of the Demon)
Company: DC Comics

When I heard that Grant Morrison was going to be taking over on Batman, I was extremely excited about it since a big part of the reason I got back into superhero comics was Morrison’s New X-Men. The Batman books have been barely adequate at best for so long that I envisioned Morrison’s appointment to the title to be the beginning of something completely new and revolutionary the way that his New X-Men stint was. I promptly got myself a copy of Mike Barr’s Batman: Son of the Demon since fellow Comic Pantser, Nick Budd, said that he liked it, and it was to be a big part of the basis for Morrison’s Continue Reading »

What is a “Hot Pants” pick? Quite simply, it’s a book that all four reviewers on this site believe is worthy of your time. It may or may not be one of our favorite books, but it’s that rare breed of comic that struck all four of us, with our different tastes, as a good read. Sleeper is our latest “Hot Pants” pick.

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Episode number five of the Comic Pants podcast is now live. Dave Farabee, David Martindale, Nick Budd, and Randy Lander are talking about late comics. Not just a list of what’s late (although they are naming names), but a discussion of whether lateness hurts sales or not, how it affects the big two versus how it affects smaller publishers and how it compares to lateness in other mediums.

As always, commentary is welcomed and encouraged. Let us know what you thought of the podcast, tell us your thoughts on late comics and how they Continue Reading »

Wednesday Number Ones is a weekly feature here at Comic Pants. We take the books that are premiering a first issue from that week and give a quick opinion on them. From time to time we may also include more than issue number ones in this feature. If a noteworthy one-shot or the first issue of a new story arc is released, we may talk about it in this feature.

This week we will cover The Pirates of Coney Island #1, Gen 13 #1, Darkman vs. Army of Darkness #1 of 4, Fables #1 Special Edition, Tales of the Unexpected #1 of 8, Ultimate Power #1 of 9, Bomb Queen II: Queen of Hearts #1, Dead @17 #1, and World Storm #1.

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