Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: % Spectacle * Cash ^ History ^ % LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOL. 3: CENTURY #3 2009 Wow, it was really foresighted of Alan Moore to make a thinly disguised Christian Grey the final boss in the conclusion of his survey of the past century's worth of pulp-lit presences, ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * Slaying the father ^ Stan is smilin' % The end is not in sight * BATMAN: THE BLACK GLOVE DELUXE EDITION HC There are oversized hardcovers collecting most of Grant Morrison's Batman comics, but the early part of that run isn't available in a uniform edition, and collector ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * Diving from above ^ Rising from below % Sidling from sideways ^ % BATWOMAN VOL. 1: HYDROLOGY J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman's version of this series has turned out to be really different in tone from the Greg Rucka/Williams version collected in Elegy--this is ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * From the people who brought you "X-Ships" ^ Sex panic % Prosolar * % ACTION COMICS #10 Grant Morrison and Gene Ha open their three-part summer story with "Clark Kent Is Dead"--G.Mo seems to have a particular set of story premises that he keeps circling back to lately. Loved ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * "But it's not really a superhero comic" ^ Yes, people drew things before Action #1 % Dating is difficult * BATMAN: DEATH BY DESIGN Book designer supreme Chip Kidd is famously a heavy-duty Batman collector, and he's written a couple of prose novels, although I think this is ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: ^ Bagman * Wingman % Swagman * BATMAN INCORPORATED #1 I believe Grant Morrison described his initial plan for the second year of this international-minded Batman-and-his-team book as being "a roller coaster ride through hell." The relaunch is arriving a little late to the ...

The instrumental album DROKK: Music Inspired By Mega-City One came out last week. The work of Geoff Barrow (best known as a core member of Portishead) and the film composer Ben Salisbury, it's a tribute to the synthesizer-based movie soundtracks of the Blade Runner era, as well as to the setting of Judge Dredd, the cult-favorite future-cop serial that's been running weekly in the British ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * Dystopian futures ^ Dystopian presents % Dystopian pasts * 100 MONTHS This sounds amazing. John Hicklenton was one of the most over-the-top artists in the history of British comics--he drew incredibly grotesque, powerful stuff, including two books of Nemesis the Warlock, ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * Remarkable writer/artists who started still-unfinished projects in the '90s ^ Five % At least some character-creator involvement ¢ At least some creator ownership Comics adjectives are the best % ¢ SPACE DUCKS: AN INFINITE COMIC BOOK OF MUSICAL GREATNESS Anyone ...

Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk runs down the hottest comics and graphic novels coming out this week. KEY: * Don't say the name ^ Retro-novelty % The myth about the microphone ^ % THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN DISINTERRED #4 I'm guessing this is the pamphlet-form comic book of this week that people are most likely to gasp at discovering a few decades from now: David Hine and Shaky Kane's ...