The Gosh! Authority 13.01.21

Hello!

Been sent here by a link from the 20.01.21 email? Andrew messed up! Click here for this week's blog.

Hope you're all well. We're still here in the basement plugging away at orders and offering click and collect to anyone who is able to safely pass by. You can find us Monday - Friday, 10.30am - 5pm. With schools currently closed there might be the odd day where childcare interferes with the hours we're here, so be sure to arrange click and collect in advance just in case. As ever, if you're aware that your order may have built up a little, do please get in touch to arrange a mail order.

We're playing catch-up this week with the stuff that didn't quite make it last week, so it's a bit of a monster. Let's not mess about here, eh?

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• ETERNALS #1 - The eagerly awaited Kieron Gillen / Esad Ribic take on the classic Kirby characters debuts at last! This book looks great, and reviews so far have been extremely favourable, so well worth giving a chance. There are a mountain of variants for this book. Like, an insane amount. We're getting a sampling of them, so if there's any any particular cover you like the look of, let us know.

• THAT TEXAS BLOOD TP VOL 01 - Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips' excellent thriller gets a collection, and we've got a Gosh! exclusive bookplate to celebrate! This was one of our favourite new books of the year (sadly the collection missed our Best Of lists for 2020), a taut little small town crime book where things spiral out of control after a murder. You can see the plate Jacob did for us below, and you can order that sucker right here.

• FUTURE STATE DARK DETECTIVE #1 - Week two of Future State rolls in, and Bruce Wayne is back! After his apparent death at the hands of the Magistrate, Wayne is on the run. Mariko Tamaki and Dan Mora are on the lead, and in the back we've got a story about Grifter by Matthew Rosenberg and Carmine Di Giandomenico. Pretty fine creative teams there!

• FUTURE STATE GREEN LANTERN #1 - Three stories in this bumper-sized issue: John Stewart and a handful of Lanterns are battling an overwhelming enemy at the far reaches of the galaxy when the Central Power Lantern goes out and their rings lose their power; Jessica Cruz suffers the same loss while battling against an invading force of Yellow Lanterns; Guy Gardener reopens his bar! I'm not sure who does what here (details are scarce), but the creators on the book are Clayton Henry, Tom Raney, Sami Basri, Ryan Cady, Ernie Altbacker & Geoffrey Thorne.

• FUTURE STATE JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 - The heroes of the future form a Justice League courtesy of Joshua Williamson & Robson Rocha: Jonathan Kent as Superman, Yara Flor as Wonder Woman, Jo Mullein as Green Lantern (hooray!), Andy Curry as Aquawoman, a new Flash from the Multiverse, and Tim Fox as Batman. Meanwhile Ram V and Marcio Takara look into the future of the Justice League Dark: disbanded and hunted by Merlin.

• FUTURE STATE KARA ZOR-EL SUPERWOMAN #1 - Comics' top two Marguerites - Bennett & Sauvage - scry the destiny of Kara Zor-El, now known as Superwoman. Leaving Earth behind her, she stands as the protector of intergalactic refugees who have settled on the moon.

• FUTURE STATE ROBIN ETERNAL #1 - It's Robin and Spoiler doing a future heist, as they try to steal a distilled form of the Lazarus Pit before it gets into the hands of Magistrate. Meghan Fitzmartin (a writer on Supernatural) and Eddy Barrows handle the action here.
  

• FUTURE STATE SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN #1 - Jonathan Kent and Yara Flor have to set aside their differences to stop the devastating fallout from a battle between two ancient gods. Gosh fave Dan Watters is writing, with Leila Del Duca on art. If we haven't seen a Yara Flor title out of DC by the end of the year I'll eat my keyboard: they clearly see her as the major gain of Future State.
  

• FUTURE STATE TEEN TITANS #1 - The original Titans return to the site of a school they formed to train new heroes: one which was destroyed with many of its pupils killed in a devastating battle. Now they want the truth of what happened, but can they even trust each other? Drama! Plus the introduction to comics of Red X, a character from the old Teen Titans cartoon. Tim Sheridan & Rafa Sandoval are on this one.
  

• HAHA #1 - W. Maxwell Prince of Ice Cream Man fame joins with a changing roster of artists for single-issue stories revolving around lots of jolly clowns. Well...maybe less of the jolly and more of the "twisted, dark, sad and horrifying". Vanessa Del Rey is on art for this issue, with future artists including the likes of Roger Langridge & Gabriel Walta.
  

• CHRIS CLAREMONT ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL #1 - A bumper-sized one-shot celebrating the 50th anniversary of Chris Claremont's career at Marvel. It's a Dani Moonstar-focused story with a big roster of artistic talent, including Sean Chen, Bill Sienkiewicz, Brett Booth and more.

• DITKO SHRUGGED HC - A biography of Steve Ditko that is based on author David Currie's extensive correspondence with him. More than just a simple recap of the artist's life and work, it also looks at Ditko's contemporaries, such as Wally Wood and Jack Kirby, and how the rights of the artist were crushed by an industry that actively worked to keep them down. Also of note: this is the first biography of Ditko to obtain the approval of his family.
  

• STAR WARS HIGH REPUBLIC #1 - This is part of a multi-media launch of a whole new franchise in the Star Wars universe, telling tales from the golden age of the Jedi. Featuring a bunch of new characters, this book has been a speculator's dream, so I only have very limited numbers available to order. If you fancy it, let me know ASAP. First dibs to standing orders, and first come first served! Oh, and it's written by Cavan Scott and drawn by Ario Anindito.
  

• LAST WITCH #1 - A promising-looking new YA fantasy series by Conor McCreery and V.V. Glass. Saoirse is a young woman with a taste for adventure who bites off more than she can chew when she sneaks into the tower of an evil witch whose annual pastime is to hunt the children of the village.
  

• X-RAY ROBOT TP - A collection of all four issues of Michael & Laura Allred's latest dimension-hopping, time-twisting masterpiece. There's nobody making comics quite like the Allreds, and this is a perfectly-sized reminder of why.
  

• SPACE BASTARDS #1 - A book seemingly tailor-made for artist Darick Robertson (with writers Joe Aubrey & Eric Peterson), featuring the adventures of the Intergalactic Postal Service. Parcel delivery in space, it seems, is an ultraviolent, depraved free-for-all. It's hardly the profession you'd expect for our reader surrogate, David S. Proton: mild-mannered, unemployed accountant.
  

• SCOUTS HONOR #1 - In the post-apocalyptic wastes of America, the Ranger Scout's handbook has become the new bible. One scout discovers a dark secret (is there any other kind?) and must journey into the wasteland to find the truth behind the Ranger Scouts. David Pepose and Luca Casalanguida earn their Making Comics badges on this one.
  

• KING IN BLACK THUNDERBOLTS #1 (OF 3) - A King in Black tie-in notable for its creatives: Matthew Rosenberg and Juan Ferreyra (who we still have a soft spot for from the days of Rex Mundi). The Kingpin assembles a crew of villains to battle Knull's space dragons. But never mind that: mainly I want to talk a bit more about Juan Ferreyra, and specifically about the greatest Punisher panel ever drawn (from Punisher Kill Krew - a ridiculously fun book), which I present below for your enjoyment:

(It's the helmet that really makes it sing.)

• KING IN BLACK RETURN OF VALKYRIES #1 - Jason Aaron dips his toes back into Asgardian waters along with co-writer Torunn Grønbekk and artist Nina Vakueva. As Knull targets Midgard, Jane Foster begins to reform the Valkyries, including a mysterious warrior who was actually another Valkyrie all along.

• KING IN BLACK GWENOM VS CARNAGE #1 - A symbiote-bonded Ghost-Spider takes on Knull's minions courtesy of Seanan McGuire & Flaviano Armentaro. Not much to say other than I actually quite like that Ken Lashley cover.

• KING IN BLACK PLANET OF SYMBIOTES #1 - Speaking of covers I like, this Tony Moore job is another winner. The interior is actually two stories, one by Clay McLeod Chapman & Guiu Vilanova starring Scream and another by Frank Tieri and artist Danilo Beyruth dishing some more secret Ravencroft history.

And that's it for this week, chums! Join me next week when I'll probably be talking about some more Future State books, maybe asking people to arrange mail orders for their standing orders and, if you're really lucky, shilling our bookshop.org page. See you then!

Andrew.