Back in July, shortly after I started offering regular Comic Tips, I recommended everybody check out Rasl, a psychedelic sci-fi comic written and drawn by Jeff Smith with covers by Steve Hamaker. I just want to sent out a reminder that issue #3 finally dropped with the 10/15/08 week of comics. Up to this point it would appear that the book has been on a schedule of four months/issue. Unfortunately, at the back of issue #3 is an ad saying that the next issue won’t be dropping March of 2009. Thus, it looks like four months has now been stretched out to five, but it’s well worth the wait. Things really start to pick up in issue #3 and you start to get a good idea of what’s going on with Rasl, the extra-dimensional art thief.

With such an unfortunate release schedule as two to three times a year, I am worried that interest for Rasl will dwindle and it would cease to exist. Don’t let that happen! If you need a little bit more of a nudge, you can check out a five page preview of Rasl #3 over at Boneville, Jeff Smith’s website.

Video game lore that extends beyond the games themselves, specifically through comic books, has traditionally been disastrous. With the high volume of video game comics these days, however, there are bound to be a few hits. For instance, I found that The Darkness Levels comics released just prior to the video game’s console debut in the summer of 2007 complimented it nicely and enriched my experience when I played through the game. Conversely, I had a bad run-in with the World of Warcraft comic and its lack of substance. Then again, as evidenced by the Halo comic, sometimes a venture into the wonderful world of sequential art can fail simply by being tardy; Issue #1 released in August of 2007 with #2 arriving that following November. We didn’t see issue #3 until August of 2008, a year after the series started. Disaster!

Unbeknownst to me until very recently, a manga based on the Ace Attorney series of video games have been coming out in Japan since 2007. Fortunately for us fans, Capcom has a hit on their hands and in September of 2008 they, along with Del Rey Manga, brought it to the western world under the name Official Casebook Vol. 1: The Phoenix Wright Files.
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Terry Moore is a creator whose work I have had little to no exposure to. I have always seen Strangers in Paradise trade paperbacks on the shelves and posters on the wall at my local comic shop, but I would walk by. I hear about Strangers from people all over the internet, but I click away. Word is that the movie was quite good, but I’ve never checked that out either. I deeply regret passing it by for all this time now that I have delved into Echo, Moore’s latest original creation.
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Once in a while I stumble upon a comic creator that is so good at what they do that it’s very difficult not to obsess over them for a good long while. This has happened to me in the past with Garth Ennis, Robert Kirkman, Jay Faerber, and now it’s happening again with Jonathan Hickman. My initial experience with his creations was through the first issue of Transhuman that I pulled on a lark because the idea of a mockumentary comic sounded novel and the cover was interesting. Now I simply cannot get enough of this man’s work, and that’s unfortunate since most of it - including Transhuman as well as A Red Mass For Mars - has been heavily delayed.

Jonathan Hickman has completed one mini series so far, however, called The Nightly News. The original 6 issues first shipped between November of 2006 and July of 2007. Unfortunately, I was late to the party and didn’t find out about the book until I visited Hickman’s website, but I immediately put in an order for the trade paperback. It arrived this week.
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I just realized a couple of things about both of the comics that I have recommended in the last two weeks: they’ve both been from Image Comics, and they’ve both been Science Fiction comics. That really is not representitive of the majority of the books that I tend to read from week to week, but I figure that DC and Marvel publications get enough attention that I don’t need to talk about them here. That said, I am going to try to mix it up a little bit more in this and the coming weeks.
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After last week’s comic post I found that I am much more excited about reading my comics. I really dig recommending stuff that I love, especially if it’s possibly not getting the attention that it deserves. Though I am sure that his name alone is enough to sell most people his books, I’ve fallen for Rasl, the latest creation both drawn and written by Jeff Smith. You may know of Jeff from his work on the fabulous Bone comics, which were adapted into a two episode adventure series by TellTale, the same great folks who are now bringing us Sam & Max episodes.
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In lieu of a game recommendation this week, as various recording software is strongly disagreeing with the games which I’m trying to cover, I’m going to talk about what I think may be relevant to the interests of those who normally read my posts. Comics! Rather, *a* comic. I may do more of these types of posts every now and then instead of games posts since they don’t rely so heavily on technical things working out perfectly. I may not need to include video in every post, but I really want to. I don’t feel I’ve made a full post unless I do. But I may not always have it from now on. Fair warning!
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We’re all big fans of the Sam & Max games here, so we were excited to see that a TPB (that’s Trade Paper Back) collection of all Sam & Max comics and prints from 1987 to the present was released last Wednesday. I just got mine in the mail today (I get my comics shipped from across the country). It’s very pretty, as you can see; nice cover. I have never read the original comics and I have been looking to expand my TPB collection, so the timing on this is perfect. Just a heads up on the coming-out of this collection, to whom it may concern. You can pick it up from your local comic shop, or the usual places online like Amazon should be carrying it.