The Pull: A Look at the Comics Dropping the Week of March 3rd

By David Harper

March 3, 2021

A few big releases and new number ones this week, but if you listen to Off Panel, you know what’s taking the top spot here in The Pull.

Book of the Week: Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters #1

Chris + Laura Samnee, Matt Wilson and Crank! have created a wonderful new series here, and the cartooning work that Chris is bringing to the table here is exemplary even for him. I’m really feeling this series, as you may have gathered from Chris’ appearance on Off Panel, and I view this as potentially “next Bone” levels of goodness. That’s high praise from yours truly, as Bone is one of my all-time faves.

This first issue is all set up, and it’s a quick read, but that’s by design. It’s about putting all the chess pieces onto the board and getting ready for the adventure. It’s going to be very, very fun seeing where this goes. So come for the Samnee art and stay for what’s next…and the Samnee art. That’s not going away and boy is it good stuff.

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Notable Replies

chrisburton says:

March 3, 2021

@SKTCHD I find it somewhat fascinating that Infinite Frontier is on your game time decisions, for a couple reasons. One would be that you have been complimentary towards DC quite a bit over the last 2-3 months, so I would have thought you would be into this book. I guess this means you are more into their publishing and marketing plans from a business standpoint more so than their storylines, current versions of characters, and stable of creators? (it is pretty ridiculous that Dan Jurgens worked on the main cover, but I digress) The second thing is I recall that when the DC Rebirth one-shot was releasedyou wrote a SKTCHD piece about it, and if I recall correctly you were so into it that you went and purchased it and immediately read it on your lunch break (and were unfortunately left disappointed by the book upon reading). That was around 5 years ago, so I just thought it was interesting to see how your tastes and interests have evolved over a relatively short period of time, especially since there are so many long time comics readers who stubbornly stick with DC and/or Marvel and refuse to venture out of those spheres. (I was guilty of that myself for a very long time)

For what it’s worth, I read Infinite Frontier last night and there were parts of it where I didn’t know what was going on exactly. This might be because I didn’t read Death Metal, but I thought the book, or at least parts of it, were written in a way that assumed the reader was up to speed on the state of the overarching DC Universe storylines. I really could have used a “Previously in the DC Universe…” first page.

Maybe though that is why it wasn’t priced as a jumping-on book for new readers; it’s aimed squarely at readers who are already invested in DC, and there’s no reason to price it lower since the diehards are going to buy it no matter what.
SKTCHD says:

March 3, 2021

Yeah, I definitely have been more complimentary to DC lately, but my interest in the books is still very situational and more dependent on teams. Like, I’ll be buying Detective Comics, Nightwing and Swamp Thing now, and perhaps more than I recall right now. That’s far more than I was already buying! But I’m a little less trusting of the usage of these titles as jumping on points and as compasses for future directions after Rebirth, as I really, really did not like that. I loved the idea in theory, and I want to like DC comics! And like I said, if it wasn’t $5.99, I’d get on it. It just…is, and I’d rather pick up Swamp Thing #1 than a line driver like this.

Also, I was worried about exactly what you said, where you can feel lost with new directions. That’s my beef with a lot of DC stuff, with Scott Snyder’s Justice League as the best recent example. They’re often written like you should know everything that’s happening already at the start, and that’s tough stuff!

You might be right, though. They may be maximizing their money from those they know will buy rather than the people they hope will buy. Maybe digital is where they’re pushing new readers, as it seems to be. But it feels like a miss to me.

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"This is Where I Want My Style to Go": Chris Samnee on the Art and Experience of Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters

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