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Everything We Read This Week – 5/20/20

Everything We Read This Week – 5/20/20

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Welcome back to Everything We Read This Week. This is the place that we make our weekly trip through this week’s pull-list. It features mostly spoiler-free brief analysis and commentary of each book.

It has been two months since we got new comics in comic shops, and we are so excited to #BackTheComeback. Our local comic shop was only open for curbside delivery this week, but we eagerly put on our masks and headed out to get new comics.

We reviewed books from DC Comics, Boom! Studios, AfterShock Comics, AWA Studios, and Image Comics this week. It was a light week as Marvel Comics will resume their new comics next week on May 27th. As always, we hope you might find what we say interesting enough to try some of these comics. Don’t forget we welcome comments on these and any other comics that you read. Feel free to leave a comment and get the conversation moving.

And here are the books we read in alphabetical order:

Continue reading “Everything We Read This Week – 5/20/20” →

Preview Review for the Week of 5/20/2020: Disaster, Inc. from AfterShock Comics

Preview Review for the Week of 5/20/2020: Disaster, Inc. from AfterShock Comics

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Welcome to the latest installment of Preview Reviews.  This is where we give advanced glimpses at some of the comics that will be coming out this Wednesday.

There are new comics in comic shops TOMORROW!!!

Since it has been a while, here is a reminder for you. Here at Pop Culture Squad, we are decidedly Anti-Spoiler.  We feel that ruining someone’s experience with something for the sake of getting a scoop or clicks is the wrong thing to do. Therefore, we have decided to publish this column, as necessary, with mostly spoiler-free reviews of upcoming issues.  Hopefully, the information that we share with you will increase your excitement for these books.

This week we feature a new book from AfterShock Comics. It is Disaster, Inc. #1 by Joe Harris and Sebastián Piriz and lettered by Carlos Mangual.

You can find Disaster, Inc. at your LCS on May 20, 2020.

Disaster, Inc. #1
AfterShock Comics
Written by Joe Harris
Art by Sebastián Piriz
Letters by Carlos Mangual
Cover Art by Andy Clarke with Jose Villarrubia

Original Solicitation:

In 2011, the worst earthquake in Japan’s history (and the catastrophic tsunami that followed) breached the costal Fukushima Daiichi power plant, causing three of its four nuclear reactors to melt down. Forced evacuations followed as the event released enough radioactive material into the air, ground and water to force officials to set up an “Exclusion Zone” for only the second time in history after the Chernobyl disaster, effectively sealing off the land for what may well be the rest of human history.

But that’s only if you don’t have the right connections, the right people to pull the strings, and the desire to experience catastrophe, failure and misery as it really is! Enter DISASTER INC., an underground tourism outfit intent on helping people of means, secrets and agendas explore the dark corners and off-map attractions typical tour groups won’t go to (and various laws don’t allow). Only Fukushima, known for its famed warrior class and their protection of the land and people dating back to ancient times, is full of deadly surprises and old ghosts.

Writer Joe Harris and artist Sebastián Piriz begin a disaster tour checking out the worst places on earth while digging up more trouble than they can probably handle. Then, in a world on fire and rife with calamity, catastrophe, war and unrest… you’re going to need the right guides to see it for yourself!

PCS Review:

This book is gripping and bold. The premise is intriguing and innovative while at the same time taking aim at some familiar themes. Joe Harris has the pacing set excellently. The unfolding events of the conflict are captivating, and the characterization of the individuals has the reader wondering just how weird this thing will get.

Sebastián Piriz does an excellent job in this book of visualizing a beautiful yet scarred landscape. The character designs are lovely and expressive. This is just a gorgeously rendered book. The color work that Piriz employs is well rendered and there is a lightness to this first issue that the reader expects to change as this series moves along deeper into the story. Carlos Mangual letters this book in a smart and effective way. His lettering is a major asset to the storytelling.

This is a fantastic debut issue to a captivating story.

 

You can also check out an interview that we did with Joe Harris here.

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Writer Joe Harris

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Writer Joe Harris

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Welcome back to another spotlight interview. In this session, we spoke with award-winning comics creator and screenwriter Joe Harris.

Joe has a written a new comic, Disaster, Inc., debuting this week from AfterShock Comics. It is drawn and colored by Sebastián Piriz and lettered by Carlos Mangual.

He has written for Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, and Storm King Comics, among others. He is well known for shepherding the return of The X-Files to comics at IDW beginning in 2013. Some of his other titles include: Great Pacific, Snowfall, Rockstars, Slingers, and Surviving Nuclear Attack.

Harris also wrote the screenplay to Sony Pictures’ Darkness Falls. His style is very character centered and his creator owned work tends to cling to the horror or speculative fiction genres.

We were excited to get a chance to talk to him about his writing process and also how he is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic while living in New York City.

You can find the audio recording of our discussion below, and we transcribed a big portion of it for you as well.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Pop Culture Squad: So, thanks for doing this. Before we get into anything, how are you feeling?

Joe Harris: I feel good. I’m looking into getting an antibody test soon. So, I can know, one way or another, if I have had COVID-19 or not. I was symptomatic a few weeks ago. I think you remember. So, who knows.

PCS: Well, I am pretty confident that you had it based on the symptoms you were describing. You documented the illness while you were in isolation, and then you sort of disappeared for a day. It’s scary, and it is a scary time for everyone. For all those people who are down playing the seriousness of it, people are dying. You live in the center of the worst of it.
What’s that like being in New York right now?

JH: Um, Kind of surreal. I mean, at this point, it’s kind of shocking at how normal everything has become… There are things you’ll probably get angry about this stuff no matter where you go. You probably see somebody not wearing masks. You’ll see people that aren’t keeping adequate distance, but for the most part New York, I think, by and large, considering how big it is, has done a decent job.

I don’t know how that comes out in the wash when you think about the amount of dead and the number of infected, but it seems like at least for a stretch the city was doing what it could. It is a little less desolate now though. I can hear more people out on the street. I don’t hear as many ambulances.

Which makes sense considering, that the emergency rooms aren’t has overrun as they apparently were. I don’t know when we come out of this. It’s been a little surreal. So, it’s hard to imagine how everything goes right back to normal. That much I don’t see; I don’t know what would looks like or what that will feel like. The city just kind of adapts. I haven’t been down in the subway in months, and I expect it will be sometime before I am again.

PCS: Let’s get into some comic stuff. We know that Disaster, Inc. is the first book that Aftershock is going to be shipping through Diamond when the restart happens on May 20th. So, what do you want to tell people about the book? Continue reading “Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Writer Joe Harris” →