The Gosh! Authority 22.12.21

Hello, hello, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Yes, it's the final week of new comics before Santa breaks into your homes, and I've some important admin around opening hours to tell you. We were intending to operate extended hours from Monday - Thursday this week, but due to existing staffing issues (our Olive is off with - happily asymptomatic so far - covid) and the high potential for more, not to mention the decline in West End foot traffic this week with understandable concerns around omicron, we will now be open our usual hours of 10.30am  - 6pm. For similar reasons we'll be reducing our Friday opening hours to 10.30am - 2pm (as opposed to our original advertised closing time of 4pm).

Also a reminder that there are no new comics in the week between Christmas and New Year, with the first shipment of 2022 arriving on Thursday the 6th January to go out the same day. So with that in mind, this will be the last blog post of 2021 as there's little point in me wittering on when there's no new comics to talk about!

Got some goodies this week though...

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• BATMAN ONE DARK KNIGHT #1 - Fan-fave artist Jock (sequestered for some time in the world of Star Wars production design) writes and draws this impressive looking Black Label Batman mini. Tasked with escorting a prisoner through a heatwave-stricken Gotham to Blackgate Prison, things go south for the Dark Knight Detective as the city is plunged into a blackout. Time to use those bat-wits, Batman! 

• AVENGERS FOREVER #1 - An all-new Avengers series spinning out of #750, starring a multiverse worth of Avengers (we hear the whole multiverse thing is pretty popular these days). Written by Jason Aaron with art by Aaron Kuder, this is intended as a companion book to the regular ongoing Avengers title which should be tied fairly tightly to events in that. All I know is, as oversused as the multiverse is right now, I'm still a sucker for what if shenanigans. Certainly got myself a little misty-eyed at Spider-Man No Way Home on Friday!

• DESERTER HC - Another month, another collection of Junji Ito short stories! But who's complaining? We must be on a fast track to having his entire ouvre available in English for the first time. Anyhow, this is a collection of some of his earliest works, twelve short stories that  heralded his talent for creepy horror.

• KING CONAN #1 - Second time around for Jason Aaron on the blog this week, and second time around for him and Mahmud Asrar chronicling the adventures of Robert E Howard's all-conquering barbarian after launching the title that brought Conan back to the Marvel fold. This time he's focusing solely on the adventures of the older Conan, now King of Aquilonia, as he tries to overcome his restlessness by travelling into the unknown west. I'm working my way through the Conan Original Marvel Years Epic Collections at the moment (currently in the mid-40s), so I am very much primed for this!

• MS MARVEL BEYOND THE LIMIT #1 - An all-new mini-series for Kamala Khan by bestselling YA author Samira Ahmed with artist Andrés Genolet. After an adventure in Chicago opens an inter-dimensional rift (I sense a multiverse thing coming on...), Kamala returns home to find her life has been transformed into an all-singing, all-dancing Bollywood musical. Which is a better twist that "Ms Marvel - but Deadpool", I guess!

• NO HOLDS BARD #1 - Basically a superhero story starring William Shakespeare and William Page ("The Bard and Page") who are out to rescue a kidnapped Queen Elizabeth I, with dialogue written in iambic pentameter. Which, as concepts go, certainly grabs my attention!

And that's it! Don't be fooled though, it's a pretty big week, so there's plenty to be coming in for. 

Have a great holiday period, all. I'll see you in the bold new future of 2022, where everything's gonna be fiiiiine.....

Andrew.