The Gosh! Authority 02.08.23

Hello!

It's Small Press Day this Saturday, a nationwide celebration of micro-publishing that will see events happening up and down the country. We're pulling out all the stops with a rammed day of workshops running from 11am to 4pm, featuring a huge roster of talent. Get all the details here.

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• SACRIFICERS #1 - The much-anticipated new sci-fi series from Rick Remender and Max Fiumara. In a dystopian future, every family must give up one child in return for a utopian society ruled by five families. But not everyone is happy with the arrangement: a sacrificial child and a scion of the ruling families will tear down society if they have to to make things right.

• CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 - Speaking of anticipated, the Titan relauch of R.E. Howard's ever-popular barbarian is here at last. Written by Conan veteran Jim Zub, the art by Robert De La Torre is a pitch-perfect evocation of the classic Conan art by John Buscema. Sure to hit well with any Conan fans (like me).

• ASTONISHING ICEMAN #1 - In the wake oflast week's Hellfire Gala (no spoilers), Bobby Drake has set himself to be a new hero for mutantkind, operating from his very own fortress of solitude in the Antarctic. Steve Orlando & Vincenzo Carratu bring us the first new title in the Fall of X.

• SANDMAN UNIVERSE THESSALY #1 - Everyone's favourite immortal witch returns for a one-shot that follows on from the events of Nightmare Country and Dead Boy Detectives. In order to get to the bottom of the death of Madison Flynn, Thessaly attempts to embed herself into the Hollywood rewrite of her life story. Good creative team of James Tynion IV & Maria Llovet make this worth checking out.

• MAGNETO #1 - In another callback to the X-Men of the 80's, we follow Magneto post-Uncanny X-men #200 as he settles into his new role as teacher at the Xavier Institute. J.M. DeMatteis and Todd Nauck jump in the time machine for some X-nostalgia.

• STAR WARS DARK DROIDS #1 - The next big Star Wars event kicks off here thanks to Charles Soule and Luke Ross. Think of all those droids pootling about in the Star Wars universe. What would happen if they all went off the rails and tried to kill the fleshy ones? Well, someone has taken to that idea, as a virus rips through the droid population turning once-happy servants into deadly waste-bin shaped killers. Good on them, I say! It's about damn time!

• MECH CADETS #1 - At long last, bolstered by an upcoming Netflix series, Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa return to the world of Mech Cadet Yu in what serves as something of a soft reboot in order to allow new readers to jump on board. Aliens are invading, and the mech-driving students of the Sky Corps Academy are humanity's best hope!

• QUEST #1 - Jonathan Luna teams up with writer Crystal Wood for a new ongoing fantasy series with its cultural roots in South East Asia. After her husband is abducted by demons at their wedding, a princess takes up her sword and battles across the land to save him.

• STRANGE ACADEMY MILES MORALES #1 - The first of three one-shots that sees the students of Strange Academy team up with other heroes to battle a mysterious new villain who had the temerity to ruin the multiversal mathletics (yes, you read that right). Miles swings in for the first issue, with Moon Knight and Spider-Man popping up in the next two parts, all written by Carlos Hernandez, with this issue drawn by Juann Cabal.

• WHAT IF DARK VENOM #1 - Back from his self-imposed exile after the (original) Secret Wars, Ben Grimm finds what he assumes to be a harmless symbiote imprisoned in the Baxter Building. Setting it free, he soon learns his mistake, becoming the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Venom! Stephanie Phillips & Jethro Morales bring us the latest dark vision of an alternate timeline. I mean, they are calling these What If Dark, but in my day pretty much every What If was dark, right? That was what made them fun!

• FIRE AND ICE #1 - When I was a kid I loved Fire and Ice, Ralph Bakshi's animated movie inspired by the work of Robert E Howard and Frank Frazetta. Frazetta did all the design and storyboarding on the film, and it really shows (through all the dodgy rotoscoped animation). It's not Shakespeare, but if you've got a taste for a certain kind of pulpy fantasy it scratches an itch. Anyway, they've done a comic prequel! Written by Bill Willingham with art by Leonardo Manco, it even has enough pedigree that it might actually be good!

And that's it for this week, folks!

Andrew.