Folks, it was another weirdly light week in comics news, so in this edition of Comics Disassembled, my look at the things I liked or didn’t like from the past week in comics is going to start in a very atypical piece: with some really great art! So, let’s get to it!

Mattia De Iulis, Like None Other

The first issue of Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives #1 arrived this week, and it had a lot of plusses to it. Kelly Thompson, Mattia De Iulis, and Becca Carey delivered an issue that both recalled its source material and had a special punch that only this team could bring to it. Everyone involved is an ace, and they each brought their A game throughout the issue. I was a big fan, and I’m a big fan of its second issue as well, so keep an eye out for that one. It’s another gem.

But we need to talk about how Mattia De Iulis draws the Bride herself.

First off, how have I never considered what her hair would look like when wet? The Bride’s hair is iconic, with its electrified pop and streak of white giving her a look that’s immediately all her own. But it’s also the one way I’ve really seen it depicted, so to see De Iulis draw her what her hair would look like in the midst of a rainstorm was a bizarrely shocking experience. It makes sense, but dang, he kills it, and it leads me to think that her stylist might encourage The Bride to embrace that stormy look going forward.

But that’s just one aspect of many that the artist excels at in this issue. He’s a remarkable talent, one who has an eye for detail and a clean, striking line that makes everything he does pop. He’s clearly found a muse in The Bride, though, and it’s something that’s terribly necessary because for most of the first issue, she’s mute. All we get from her are unfocused, reactionary sounds and the gestures and expressions De Iulis chooses to give her. And yet, you always know what she’s feeling and what she’s thinking thanks to the exquisite character work the artist brings to her. It’s genuinely remarkable, and something that elevates the whole issue into an entirely different stratosphere.

Sir Reginald, Having My Heart

I’m an art-first reader, generally speaking, so if you want to capture my attention, hire great artists. Do that, and I’ll be an easy sell. Take Goats Flying Press’ latest as an example. It’s a new Kickstarter for Sir Reginald & The Clockwork Heart, a graphic novel written by a newcomer in Joe Atalla, but it sure has some compelling veterans on the art front. Two of them are near the top of my artist power rankings, with both Juni Ba and Jesse Lonergan contributing to this project. They’re not the only ones, though, as Dimitrios Pantazis and Armand Bodnar are as well, giving this 96-page anthology-like graphic novel a diverse group of artistic voices to bring its titular adventurer’s journeys to life on the page.

But let’s be real: Ba and Lonergan are the hook. Those two are virtuosos, rare talents that bring a flavor to every comic they work on that’s quite unlike anything else you’ll find in comics. While I’m eager to see what Atalla’s capable of and curious about what Pantazis and Bodnar have in store for us, the thing that’s selling me here is seeing more work from Ba and Lonergan. And when you pair all those contributors together with colorist Brad Simpson and letterer/designer Jeff Powell, you know this one’s going to be spicy. I’m very excited for Sir Reginald & The Clockwork Heart.

One other reason to be excited is that it will look good even beyond the art. There are few publishers that produce finer looking and feeling graphic novels than Goats Flying Press, and this looks like it will be yet another wonderful addition to its line of impeccably designed releases with exquisite paper quality. Come for the comic, but stay to just see how much love and care the Goat brings to its projects. This will be a special release in multiple ways for that reason, and I can’t wait.

Mr. Oblivion, Coming Soon

This is going to shock you, but Jeff Lemire? He has a new comic. Well, kind of. This one was apparently announced back in March, but hey! It has a cover now!

It’s actually a series of three graphic novels, as the writer revealed an upcoming collaboration with artist Teddy Kristiansen called Mr. Oblivion that will be published through HarperAlley. It sounds excellent too, as it’s about the world’s greatest occult detective, the mask that gives him the power to solve these crimes even as it eats away at his soul, and the case that forces him to embrace it once again after he’d finally freed himself from its clutches. That’s a really fascinating concept! It sounds like both a ripping yarn and fertile ground to explore the emotional depths of a character. I dig it.

I’m a little hit or miss on Kristiansen’s art — just like I am on Lemire’s writing, to be honest — but this one feels like a great fit for its team. Which makes sense, of course, as they’re the ones that conceived it. It’s coming in June next year, and it’s the type of book that has a really high ceiling when it comes to its potential quality. I’ll be eager to see if they can deliver on that potential when the first book hits next June.

Two other notes related to this one, both of which are, like the rest of it, colored by the fact that I was late to this one. The first is that it’s interesting to me that Lemire’s working with HarperAlley. They’re a great publisher, but they’ve historically been a middle grade to young adult focused house. I guess it’s part of a new line of books they’ve created that’s aimed at adults, which was revealed when this book was back in March. That brings in the second note, which is that Lemire apparently has another book coming at the publisher and it’s with artist Charlie Adlard. That’s a good pairing, but per the comments of the writer’s post on Substack, it seems the artist is really just getting started on it. Still, there’s more to come, and it should be exciting!

Criminal, Getting a Trailer

After many, many, many questions about the matter, writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips can finally tell people when the Criminal show will debut on Amazon Prime. It had a teaser trailer drop this week, and it revealed that the series will be split into two halves. Coward, the adaptation of the comic’s first arc, sees all four of its episodes arrive on January 13th, with Charlie Hunnam and Adria Arjona starring as Leo Patterson and Greta respectively. Then, the adaptation of its second arc in Lawless hits two weeks later on January 27th, with Luke Evans and Emilia Clarke leading the way as Tracy Lawless and Mallory. Even beyond the stars, this show’s cast is loaded, with personal faves like Richard Jenkins and John Hawkes also playing key roles.

A cast like that is going to come with a very high ceiling, but honestly, it’s a bit difficult to take too much from the trailer. It’s only a minute and a half long, and these types of things are always going to lean towards action rather than character, which is where Criminal’s strengths really lie. Brubaker emphasized in his newsletter that if you’re a fan of the comics, you’ll be happy, saying, “I think as fans of the books and me and Sean’s work, you’ll be especially pleased with how faithful the show feels to the world of the comics, and how close the adaptations are to the books. There are literally scenes you can compare one-to-one with the books, even lines of dialog or voice-over here and there.”

We’ll see what it entails in January, but consider me hopeful about what awaits us then.

Bedford Street, Delivering the Unexpected

I was unfamiliar with Ross Murray’s game before this week, as the cartoonist from New Zealand had escaped me until his latest graphic novel Bedford Street arrived from Fantagraphics. But let me tell you folks: it’s better late than never. Bedford Street is a trip, and a trip down one very saucy and bonkers street in his home country. It’s a series of vignettes more than one singular narrative, and each brings its own strengths, even if it can be a tough read at times for a variety of reasons. But every once in a while, there would be a moment of genuine emotion or sheer lunacy that few comics could match this year.

Case in point: these two panels from one of the aforementioned vignettes. This tale is about a down on her luck mom who has thrown out her back and is simultaneously dealing with a perfect storm of health care nonsense, energetic children, nightmarish exes, and a job that maybe doesn’t understand her plight as well as it should. While this beat may connect better when you have the rest of it to go along with, the (relative) normalcy of the first panel in conjunction with the unstoppable heat of the second one says enough for you to get that Bedford Street is one wild ride.

I highly recommend it, and cheers to Murray for so consistently delivering the unexpected within its pages. The more comics I read, the more I want to experience things I’ve never seen in the medium before. This graphic novel has that and then some, so I deeply appreciate it for that (and the innovation it brings to cursing).

Ongoings, On the Rise?

A new series called The Myth of 8-Opus from cartoonist Tom Scioli was announced by Image Comics this week, and sure enough, the whole thing looks and sounds like a project from Scioli. It has an extreme level of Jack Kirby vibes, a coloring approach that makes it feel like a relic from another time, and a concept that’s…well, it’s very him (and appealing)! Here’s the pitch.

“For centuries, intergalactic peace was kept by the warrior known only as 8-Opus! Ten years ago, he disappeared and chaos reigned supreme. Buried in a techno-cosmic sarcophagus, within a crimson pyramid on a hellish grailworld, kept alive by a combination of science, sorcery, and spite, 8-Opus breaks free, vowing revenge on whoever put him there. If he’s going to survive, 8-Opus will have to fight a host of demi-gargoyles, old foes, and even the old friends who’ve abandoned him to his fate.”

Scioli talks a lot about how this is something he’s trying to make “the most exciting comic of my career,” and it seems like he could get there. But the thing that interested me the most about this announcement was that it was announced as an ongoing. A year ago, I feel like this would have been a limited series. But it isn’t. It’s an ongoing from the jump, so Image and Scioli are going for something bigger. I know that ongoings are trending upwards from a quantitative standpoint, but The Myth of 8-Opus and a bevy of other recent announcements and/or public statements from publishers have really underlined that the form is on the rebound.

And you know what? Good! If someone like Scioli has a big idea he wants to explore and you as a publisher believe in it, let him do it! Let the market dictate whether it will succeed rather than starting the whole project with one foot out the door by saying its limited to four or five issues from the start. Here’s hoping this trend continues onwards, because I think single issue comics are better with more of an ongoing lean.

The Comics Courier, Back in Action

Never satisfied with just doing a ton of work, comics critic and empire builder Tiffany Babb is back at it again with another new project. Well, it’s at least a new edition of an existing one, as The Comics Courier — her newspaper-format comics criticism journal that’s built on giving critics the space to write about…well, whatever they feel like, really! — returns with a Kickstarter for its fifth issue. This Winter 2027 issue is already funded, and it’s easy to see why, as it has an excellent and eclectic group of contributors between well-liked veterans like Brigid Alverson and Gina Gagliano, top names like Sam Thielman and Zach Rabiroff, and relative (yet established) up-and-comers like Jules Chin Greene and Steve Baxi.

If you’re someone who enjoys good writing about comics, and I imagine you do as a subscriber here, then The Comics Courier might be up your alley. Babb has built something very cool here, and it’s a treat to get a full out newspaper filled with great writing about comics, excellent design by Eisner Award-winning letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and other fun treats like prints by artists Ben Sears and Ben Wickey. It still has a few weeks to go, so if this all sounds appealing, get on it, folks!

Rest in Peace to Katharine “Kat” Kan

Back in the early days of SKTCHD 2.0, I wrote a feature about libraries and the impact they have on comics. They’re a “quiet giant,” as I put it there, with librarians becoming not just enormous buyers of trade paperbacks and graphic novels but advocates for the medium as well. When I was putting that piece together, though, I remember a name kept coming up throughout: Katharine “Kat” Kan. A librarian herself, others repeatedly mentioned that she was someone who helped lay the groundwork for the comics positive environment that now exists within libraries. To say she was well-liked is to understate it. She was a beloved figure in that space, and in comics in general.

Sadly, Kan recently passed away at the age of 71 after decades of fighting the good fight for comics while just being a remarkable librarian. I cannot pretend to have known her outside of her reputation, but she’s someone that is seemingly viewed by those in the space as a Hall of Fame level contributor to comics as a respected art form in schools and libraries. If you’d like to know more about her and what she’s done along the way, I highly recommend reading Brigid Alverson’s lovely obituary for Kan over on ICv2, as it really digs into who she was, what she did, and the type of impact she made on people. She was definitely the type of person comics needs more of, and someone we all could learn from when it comes to positively influencing the way the world sees the medium.