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Everything We Read This Week – 01/23/2019

Everything We Read This Week – 01/23/2019

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.

There are a bunch comic books out this week. There are a few new series that we have been waiting for. It is overall a solid week of new releases. We say this often, but seriously, GO OUT AND FIND SOME COMICS TO READ!! They are good for you.

We reviewed books from DC, Marvel, Image, Albatross Funny Books, Boom! Studios, and Ahoy Comics. As always, we hope you might find what we say interesting enough to try some of these comics.

Also, Don’t forget to check our hotlist of new books debuting this month over here. You will see books that we were looking forward to with the designation Hot #1 by them. There are a few of them out this week and they are really good.

DISCLAIMER: 

There is a 4 star rating system. It is simple and not to be taken too seriously as everyone gets their own impressions of art. These ratings are just to give our readers an idea of what we thought of the book, and they will be on the generous side normally. So don’t expect to see a lot of 1 Stars. After all, it’s not often that you have a bad book on your pull-list.

The rating system is as follows:

Great

 Good

 OK

 Not Good

Also look for the book we deemed Favorite Book of the Week. It is the comic that we like the most this week. The criteria are difficult to pin down, but suffice to say it is a book that moved us.

And here are the books we read in alphabetical order:

Continue reading “Everything We Read This Week – 01/23/2019” →

YEAR IN REVIEW: Best Limited Comic Series of 2018

YEAR IN REVIEW: Best Limited Comic Series of 2018

Posted on by Bob Harrison

As we end 2018, which is our first year of existence, we at PopCultureSquad.com want to take a moment and recognize some of the great comic books that we have seen this year. Over the next few days, we will be bringing you three “Year In Review” posts.

This is the first post. We will take a look at the Best New Limited Series that debuted in 2018. This category took some finagling due to the trade paperback nature of some of the indie publishers. Often a series is published, and after the first arc is complete, it disappears. Therefore, we included series on this list that were either solicited as being limited or have a complete end to the story.

These limited series represent a cross section of the publisher market which helps us point out that great comic book storytelling is out there and comes from many different places. There are series from DC and Marvel as well as Image, Berger Books at Dark Horse, Black Crown at IDW, AHOY Comics, and DC’s Young Animal imprint.

We chose books that have a high quality storytelling. Stories that make sense, are intriguing, and are pleasing to the eye. You will find a link to the Comixology page for the series and a link to the collected edition on Amazon, if it is available. Of course, it should go without saying that our preference for getting your hands on these wonderful comics is to go down to your Local Comic Shop if you have one, and get it there.

It is difficult to rank series against each other. Each story brings something special to the table, and we collected twelve series here that we thought were outstanding. The books we chose are below in alphabetical order:

Continue reading “YEAR IN REVIEW: Best Limited Comic Series of 2018” →

Everything We Read This Week – 12/19/2018

Everything We Read This Week – 12/19/2018

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Welcome back as we make our weekly trip through this week’s pull-list. It features mostly spoiler-free brief analysis and commentary of each book.

There are a lot of good books out this week. We reviewed a bunch of them below. We reviewed books from DC, Marvel, Image, Lion Forge, Albatross, and AHOY. Make sure you go find some comics to read.  Hopefully, you might find what we say interesting enough to try some of these comics. Keep in mind this big list is still not all the books we have on our list, just what we have read.

This week Marvel Comics did a tribute to Stan Lee  for all the covers of the week. There is minimal dressing on the cover and the opening two pages are black. They are followed by lovely Phil Noto portrait sketch of Stan. It is a touching effort to remember all that Stan did for Marvel.

Also, Don’t forget to check our hotlist of new books debuting this month over here. You will see books that we were looking forward to with the designation Hot #1 by them. There are a quite of few of them out this week and they are really good.

DISCLAIMER: 

There is a 4 star rating system. It is simple and not to be taken too seriously as everyone gets their own impressions of art. These ratings are just to give our readers an idea of what we thought of the book, and they will be on the generous side normally. So don’t expect to see a lot of 1 Stars. After all, it’s not often that you have a bad book on your pull-list.

The rating system is as follows:

Great

 Good

 OK

 Not Good

And here are the books we read in alphabetical order:

Continue reading “Everything We Read This Week – 12/19/2018” →

Everything We Read This Week – 10/24/2018

Everything We Read This Week – 10/24/2018

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Welcome back as we make our weekly trip through this week’s pull-list. It features mostly spoiler-free brief analysis and commentary of each book.

As we keep saying, there are plenty of good comics out there, a lot of Spider books for sure. Make sure you go find some. Hopefully, you might find what we say interesting enough to try some of these comics. This is a big list this week as we are finally starting to catch up on our unwieldy pull-list.

Also, Don’t forget to check our hotlist of new books debuting this month over here. You will see books that we were looking forward to with the designation Hot #1 by them.

DISCLAIMER: 

There is a 4 star rating system. It is simple and not to be taken too seriously as everyone gets their own impressions of art. These ratings are just to give our readers an idea of what we thought of the book, and they will be on the generous side normally. So don’t expect to see a lot of 1 Stars. After all, its not often that you have a bad book on your pull-list.

The rating system is as follows:

Great

 Good

 OK

 Not Good

And here are the books we read in alphabetical order:

Continue reading “Everything We Read This Week – 10/24/2018” →

Preview Reviews for the week of 9/26/2018: Maneaters; High Heaven

Preview Reviews for the week of 9/26/2018: Maneaters; High Heaven

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Hey there!  Welcome to the first installment of Preview Reviews.  We will give advanced glimpses at some of the comics that will be coming out this Wednesday. Here at PopCultureSquad, we are decidedly anti-Spoiler.  We feel that ruining someones experience with something for the sake of getting a scoop or clicks is the wrong thing to do. Therefore, when we have graciously been granted access to some advanced copies of upcoming comics, it raised a question for us. “What do we do with that?”  We have decided to publish this column as necessary on Mondays with mostly spoiler-free reviews of debut issues to upcoming series.  Hopefully, the information that we share with you will increase your excitement for these books.

The following books will be released this Wednesday September 26th 2018. Continue reading “Preview Reviews for the week of 9/26/2018: Maneaters; High Heaven” →

With Further Ado #007: Ahoy! Comics! Ahoy Comics!

With Further Ado #007: Ahoy! Comics! Ahoy Comics!

Posted on by Ed Catto

When I was in high school years ago, my buddies and I would often read the Syracuse New Times. At the time, this weekly newspaper seemed to us to be very avant-guard. It was funky and weird, eschewing middle class sensibilities for a kind of suburban Village Voice vibe. And each week we read a comic strip that was really cutting edge – full of snark, pop culture references, irreverent political satire and acerbic wit.  I remember one week when the writer/artist made fun of the political climate of the day with an “Earth Two” joke, and I nearly fell off the proverbial chair.

Today, with the mainstream success of the CW’s Flash, and vocal comic fans, “Earth Two” isn’t that cryptic a phrase.  It might not be in the “Everybody knows that” category, but it’s close. 

But back then, the phrase “Earth Two” was only known to a small portion of the population. You had to read DC comics and pay attention. And I just knew that the writer/artist of that comic strip must have been “one of us”. 

He was!  Tom Peyer, the creator of that strip, is a brilliant creator who’s written so many of my favorite comics (Hourman, Batman ’66 and more) as well as edited a plethora of outstanding comics for DC and the Vertigo imprints.   I always look forward to everything he writes (Aftershock’s Captain Kid last year was fantastic) and I was thrilled to learn about his newest endeavor, AHOY Comics.  Continue reading “With Further Ado #007: Ahoy! Comics! Ahoy Comics!” →