The Gosh! Authority 02.12.20

Hello!

So I can confirm that we will be re-opening on Wednesday 2nd December at 10.30am, and will be resuming our current hours of 10.30am to 6pm, 7 days. Even should London enter Tier 3, we will still be open, observing every precaution possible to make shopping with us safe for customers and staff alike.

Of course not all of you will be able to come back in and see us in person, or you may still feel uncomfortable doing so. If that's the case, then do please consider doing a little Christmas shopping on our webstore. It really means a lot in better times, and means all the more right now. And if you have a standing order with us and can't get in, please do get in touch to arrange a mail order if you haven't cleared it in a while.

Some exciting news: we now have a shopfront on Bookshop.org, the online bookstore that's working to help support independent bricks and mortar bookstores. If you go to our shop page there and then shop for books using our page as a launch pad (any books at all, comics or not), we get a slice of the proceeds. Of course, if it IS comics and we have it in stock, then do please buy direct from us, but otherwise if you want an ethical alternative to Amazon then make Bookshop.org your place to shop for books online!

In other exciting distribution-related news (we know you're always hanging our for some of that sweet, sweet distro chat), we've had confirmation of the shipping schedule at Christmas! New comics will ship as normal on Wednesday 23rd December, then there will be no new comics shipment in the UK until Wednesday 6th January. So no new comics shipping in the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, with a bumper delivery due for the 6th.

And with that earth-shattering news, let's move on to this week's comics. Because I know you're all excited about the big Marvel event book launching this week! I of course mean none other than....

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• MODOK HEAD GAMES #1 (OF 4) - Yes, MODOK's back! There aren't many character designs greater than MODOK, and there have been some amazing MODOK stories over the years (I strongly recommend you track down back issues or the o/p trade of Super Villain Team-Up MODOK's 11 by Fred van Lente and Francis Portela). The day he pops up in the MCU I will genuinely yelp for joy. Anyway...MODOK...he's great. Oh! Uhh, anyway, Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum (who are showrunning a MODOK animated series) write this tale of the bighead losing his mind as he experiences memories of a life he never had.

• KING IN BLACK #1 (OF 5) - Oh, all right, if you must rain on my MODOK parade. There's also this big Marvel event happening this week. The payoff to years worth of Donny Cates books, Knull, the god of the symbiotes, arrives with his army of symbiote dragons and it's up to Venom and an assemblage of Earth's mightiest heroes to stop him. The Venom team of Cates and Stegman are on board for this 5-issue mini (which is an excellent length for an event mini).
  

• JUSTICE LEAGUE ENDLESS WINTER #1 - But DC want some of that event action too, so this week they're rolling our Endless Winter! Andy Lanning and Ron Marz are in the drivers seat for this 9-issue event running through December. It starts and ends with an Endless Winter one-shot (drawn by Howard Porter and Marco Santucci), crossing through various titles which are all written by Lanning & Marz. An ancient evil hits town, bringing an extinction-level global storm in his wake. Better get on that, Justice League! We'll be copying Justice League subs over for the individual issues of this storyline, so let us know if you'd rather not get it.
  

• BATMAN CATWOMAN #1 - Tom King returns to tell his final Batman story, the payoff to what he was setting up during his run on the main title. Clay Mann is along for the ride in a tale set across three timelines, past present and future, each one haunted by The Joker.
  

• THE UNION #1 (OF 5) - Originally intended as an Empyre tie-in, Paul Grist's UK super-team now launches as a part of King in Black. More excitingly, Grist is also doing some of the interior art, along with main artist Andrea di Vito. There was some Twitter scuttlebutt about this when it was announced, but we think Paul is talented enough to do this right.
  

• WONDER WOMAN DEAD EARTH HC - This book came very, very close to being in our best of the year list (even was in the list on several occasions as we were whittling down) before being edged out by Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. That alone makes it our third-favourite superhero book of 2020. Daniel Warren Johnson's depiction of a gritty, dirty post-apocalyptic wasteland teeming with monsters is jaw-droppingly good, and the gripping story about loss and responsibility showcases his ability to write as well. Diana awakes from centuries of sleep to discover a world filled with monsters and humankind struggling for survival. With her powers reduced, she fights for her life while trying to uncover the truth of what happened.

• TALES OF THE DARK MULTIVERSE WONDER WOMAN WAR OF THE GODS #1 - You know the drill: a Dark Multiverse twist on one of DC's classic (and sometimes not-so classic) event storylines. This time we're going back to 1991 and George Perez's Wonder Woman swansong War of the Gods. Hecate, dark goddess of magic, curses Diana, and employs her as a weapon against the superheroes of Earth. Vita Ayala and Ariel Olivetti do the honours.
  

• E RATIC #1 - A new teen superhero book written and drawn by Kaare Andrews. It has a great hook: a 15 year old is granted superpowers, but the catch is that they only last for 10 minutes at a time. Not an ideal limitation when monsters start invading through an inter-dimensional portal...
  

• CIVIL WAR MARVELS SNAPSHOTS #1 - We travel back to Civil War for this story by Saladin Ahmed and Ryan Kelly. True to the spirit of Marvels, we're on the sidelines for the big events, as we follow the story of a SHIELD agent and a low level superhero who both just want to do the right thing.
  

• FANTASTIC FOUR ROAD TRIP #1 - The FF go a little Cabin Fever as they head out to a remote cabin in the Arizona wilderness and become infected by one of Reed's experiments gone awry. Christopher Cantwell and Felipe Andrade bring the body horror. Those chunks falling of the Thing on that cover are pleasingly gross.
  

• HELLBOY & BPRD HER FATAL HOUR & THE SENDING #1 - Two short stories by Mike Mignola and Tiernan Trevallion, one of which is a follow-up to last year's The Beast of Vargu. Trevallion is a 2000AD alumni, so we're excited to see his debut in the Mignolaverse!
  

• OVERWATCH TRACER LONDON CALLING #1 - A mini-series starring the most iconic character from the extremely popular shooter, mainly notable for the quality of the creative team. Mariko Tamaki and Babs Tarr should deliver the goods beyond the level of most video game spin-offs.
  

And that's it! See you next week...