Writer/Artist: Alex Robinson
Company: Top Shelf

Alex Robinson, author of mega graphic novels Box Office Poison and Tricked, is back this summer with a shorter tale in Too Cool To Be Forgotten. The length of the book isn’t the only difference, as Robinson focuses in past his usual big ensemble cast and inter-locking stories to tell one story mostly about one character, Andy, a forty-something father who, in trying to cure smoking through hypnosis, winds up re-living his high school years. It sounds like the premise for a wacky comedy, and there are some laughs here, but Robinson does a great job of bringing to life the very real unpleasantness inherent in re-living your high school years, especially if you’re not sure how you got there or how long you’ll be staying.
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Due to a shipping error that seems to have affected our region’s comic shops, Wednesday Number Ones will be delayed until tomorrow. We apologize for the delay. Well, really, the shipper should apologize for the delay, but we’re doing it anyways. Why? Because we’re just that awesome. Stay tuned loyal readers, and we’ll see you tomorrow with a fresh look at this week’s first issues!

Welcome to Down the Line, our monthly look at Previews! Co-written by Randy Lander and Dan Grendell, each Down the Line looks at what’s coming out in comics (and manga) a few months down the road.

This installment covers the May Previews for comics due to ship out July 2008 or later. Remember, especially with the indy books, that pre-ordering is your friend, and the best way to make sure you get the books you want. Thanks to the increasing prevalence of advance solicitation, that some of the books here won’t actually ship until August or later, but the pre-orders are still due by the end of May. Continue Reading »

By popular demand, Rumble Pants is back! What is Rumble Pants? Well, the Panteon has decided to play at god once more. We take a few select comic characters and pit them against one another for our amusement, but we figured why keep the fun all to ourselves? So we decided on a format that would require your participation and will hopefully provide amusement for you at the same time. The format is a single elimination tournament with weekly rounds decided by you, the reader. Just keep reading to help decide the ultimate fate of some of your favorite comic characters!
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Some of you may have noticed on the sidebar, we have our “Top Five of the Moment” listed. These are the five books that are most clicking with each Pants writer. It may or may not represent the best books we’ve read all month, year, or just what we’re digging that week. We generally try to update it with books from that week, but there are no hard and fast rules. Inspired by an email from one of our readers, we’re going to post every Friday with the most recent Top Five from each member of the Panteon, and hope for your comments on our lists, or maybe even your own “Top Five of the Moment.”
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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 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad #0, Hulk Vs Hercules When Titans Collide and Don Pendleton’s The Executioner #1.
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The Uniques #1
Writer/Artists: Comfort Love & Adam Withers
Company: Self-Published

I’m usually a bit disappointed when indie creators decide to try their hand at superheroes, because they’re rarely up to the level of the professionally produced, “we’ve been doing this for decades” level of DC and Marvel. Every so often you get an Invincible or a Dynamo 5, but straightforward, costume and all superheroics from self-publishers usually seems at best a touch unambitious. So I approached The Uniques with a bit of trepidation. However, while The Uniques is not as fully formed as some of the Image superhero books I love, it’s a very interesting spin on superheroes with promising artwork, intriguing characters and pretty kick ass action sequences. And even though the first issue hits a few familiar notes that may have been seen in other superhero comics, there are plenty of moments and indicators that writer/artist (and husband and wife) duo Love and Withers are plenty ambitious. Continue Reading »

Dan Grendell, Nick Budd, Dave Farabee and Randy Lander bring the funny this week, as they talk about humor in comics. From straight-up humor books to incidental humor in superhero comics and more, join the Panteon as they each offer up a selection of their favorite humor comics, humorous moments in comics and a woefully inadequate brief history of humor in comics. Plus another installment of Panteon Comics Audio Theatre, featuring Fantastic Four and Countdown to Infinite Crisis.
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By popular demand, Rumble Pants is back! What is Rumble Pants? Well, the Panteon has decided to play at god once more. We take a few select comic characters and pit them against one another for our amusement, but we figured why keep the fun all to ourselves? So we decided on a format that would require your participation and will hopefully provide amusement for you at the same time. The format is a single elimination tournament with weekly rounds decided by you, the reader. Just keep reading to help decide the ultimate fate of some of your favorite comic characters!
Continue Reading »

Some of you may have noticed on the sidebar, we have our “Top Five of the Moment” listed. These are the five books that are most clicking with each Pants writer. It may or may not represent the best books we’ve read all month, year, or just what we’re digging that week. We generally try to update it with books from that week, but there are no hard and fast rules. Inspired by an email from one of our readers, we’re going to post every Friday with the most recent Top Five from each member of the Panteon, and hope for your comments on our lists, or maybe even your own “Top Five of the Moment.”
Continue Reading »