Transhuman is a story about genetic engineering in humans told in the style of a mockumentary. Think This Is Spinal Tap, but not hilarious. Although a certain dark humor is apparent throughout, Transhuman takes a more serious tone as narrator Heinrich Dowidat guides readers through the story of two corporations racing to upgrade Humans to Posthumans. Along the way Heinrich gets first-hand accounts from the scientists, the suits, and test subjects that were involved in the genetic enhancement projects. Ultimately, Transhuman is a story about people, their ambitions, their hidden agendas, their politics, their spite, and their greed. It’s about capitalism.

Transhuman, just as Jonathan Hickman’s other works, blew my mind. Though beautifully illustrated by J.M. Ringuet, the book also features several of the signature layouts that Hickman’s books are famous for. Just as is the case with The Nightly News and the unfortunately scheduled A Red Mass For Mars, I can’t recommend Transhuman highly enough.

Firebreather is about a high school student named Duncan Rosenblatt who is the son of a centuries-old dragon and a human woman. [Before you ask, no! I don't know how it's possible that Duncan has a dragon father and a human mother. Word is that the biology of it all will be explained somewhere around issue #10 in the on-going series.] Being a teenager with divorced parents has made life tough for Duncan. His mom wants him to do human things like going to school, getting good grades and going to college. His father, on the other hand, would rather he embrace his dragon heritage. Eager to appease both, Duncan attends high school every day as a social outcast and also trains to be a better dragon in the wilderness with his father.

Firebreather has a lot of qualities in common with books like Invincible and Ultimate Spider-Man. The characters have a school life, family life, and a superhero life. It’s a classic formula. They’re just very good comic books. They’re comic books that every fan of superheroes should read because they’re just about as good as superhero books get.

Also, Robert Kirkman commands it.

Earth has been on the air for five-thousand years. Enter: Gigantic. Gigantic is gigan- a really big robot. Formerly the star of The Ultimate Gladiators, Gigantic has escaped to earth, freeing himself from the clutches of The Universal Broadcast Company. He has come to Earth to warn its citizens; to make them realize that they’re being used, watched, manipulated — cultivated. That they always have been. Unfortunately, Gigantic made a miscalculation and landed his large self right in the middle of downtown San Francisco. To make matters worse, the UBC isn’t about to lose their biggest star. They’ve sent bounty hunters after Gigantic to silence him and bring him back into custody. As we’ve seen in so much popular culture, the Earth just wasn’t built to sustain giant robot battles.

I eat this stuff up. It’s existential porn. While Earth-as-reality-TV is a concept that has been explored in other media, and perhaps even other comics, I’m able to give Gigantic a pass simply based on its outstanding presentation. Remender’s dialogue is clever and Nguyen’s art is absolutely beautiful and flowing. The story moves at such an incredible, cinematic pace that you’d swear the panels were animated. Gigantic is one of the few books that I do feel are worth buying exclusively for the artwork, as much of a cliché as that is. Fortunately, it’s so good all around that I don’t have to.

Comic Book Resources has compiled and released their best 100 comics of 2008 list. I’m bringing it up here because four of the five books ongoing in 2008 that I’ve recommended via Comic Tips have placed in CBR’s list. I think this is as good a time as any to say: told you so!

The four comics in CBR’s top 100 of 2008 that I’ve said you should be reading are as follows:

• #85 Dynamo 5
• #72 Echo
• #42 Air
• #08 RASL

I was absolutely thrilled to see RASL in the top ten. I’ve voiced my concerns for it and its quarterly release schedule in the past, and it’s good to see it getting some recognition for being something special. I was disappointed to not see any Jonathan Hickman books in the mix; I’d imagine that the delays affecting his books have caused many to wait for trades. I would also liked to have seen House of Mystery in the list, but everything else feels just about right.

One thing is for certain: I need to read this Criminal TPB that has been sitting on my desk for three months.

Aside from SD gaming on an HDTV (on to FFXII!), I have been doing a little campaigning for Top Cow’s Pilot Season event this year. For those that do not know, for the past several years Top Cow has been running an event called Pilot Season where they bring out a half dozen or so #1 issues of different comics from different creative teams. Once they’re all out, voting is opened for one month and the top two most popular books get turned into a regular series the following year. This year, two of my favorite writers – Jay Faerber and Jonathan Hickman – both have creations in the running. My adoration for Hickman’s work runs deeper, however, so I have been voting every day for his entry, The Core. It’s a Science Fiction comic written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Kenneth Rocafort, though it is clear throughout most of the book that Hickman has had quite a bit of influence over the layouts and that he has even done the art for a few pages himself. We are even blessed with one of Hickman’s patented “dialogue spreads” (“story spreads”? help me decide) that packs half a comic’s worth of conversation and storytelling imagery into two pages without boring or confusing the reader.

I would urge you guys to participate in Pilot Season. It’s a very fun and unique event to have in comics. Buy all the books. At least, buy The Core. Though, if you don’t want to participate by buying the books and simply want to help a brother out by voting for The Core every day, I won’t hold it against you. You can get a list and full synopsis of each book as well as vote for your favorite at the Pilot Season MySpace page. It’s the most fun you’ll have voting this year (oh yeah, I went there).

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.

The Nightly News is what I would describe as a thriller/conspiracy/mystery graphic novel about corporate media and one group’s desire to see it crumble by any means necessary. I have just finished reading for the second time since Wednesday, and The Nightly News is what I wish all comics could be. It’s daring, beautiful, artistically acute, intelligent, honest, and it defies convention. Every page is memorable. There is no filler. I apologize for gushing, but I really couldn’t get through this post without it and to expand on the plot would be to do a disservice to your experience with it.

I cannot recommend The Nightly News enough if you are somebody looking for a breath of fresh air from their comics. Or maybe you just enjoy a good conspiracy story; you won’t be disappointed. Really, it’s worth buying for the artwork alone. Be aware that it is intended for mature readers, however. You can probably find it at your local comic shop. Failing that, it’s currently available from SciFi Genre.

Premise aside, Dynamo 5 is a whole lot of fun, and it’s drawn beautifully. There are just enough twists and turns to keep me interested from month to month, but not so many that I feel like I’m being exploited. It has been coming out for just over a year and is at issue #14 plus an annual, so it has been coming out pretty regularly. Trade paperbacks for Dynamo 5 have also been coming out in a timely manner, the first of which contains the introductory story arc, covering issues #1 – 7. It’s available at what appears to be a permanently discounted price of $8 from Sci-Fi Genre, or $10 from Amazon.