This is Near Mint Condition. At the end of a long fucking day, during a long fucking week in which I haven’t actually read any comic books, I come to you. My task!, should I choose to accept it: to tell you the funny books I’m buying during this ungodly weekly cycle. All I ask in return is that you partake in this community (I accidentally typed ‘cummunity’ so you can see the threads coming apart in here) by rattling off the swag you’re either buying or interested in that are dropping this week. It’s a simple conceit. Yet in these complicated times, isn’t that just a bit comforting? Make the nips soften a bit knowing every Wednesday lies some friends and some funnies.

Don’t know what’s coming out? Hit ComicList, then come back here. We’ll wait.

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Justice League #6
I showed the cover of Justice League #6  to Freud and the dude just passed the fuck out with giggles. Was rolling on the ground, all coked-up and bleary eyed. I saw what he meant though. Jesus Christ, a bunch of spandex-clad dudes paying supplication to Dark-Seed or whatever. Christ almighty even Aquaman’s mammoth trident is being pulled down towards the Seed, while Batman’s mouth-muzzle is right on his the baddie’s Hogwarts. When Freud woke up he tried to sneak a peak at the cover again, but couldn’t help but pointing out how much vigor Jim Lee put into rendering Hal Jordan’s taut puckering asshole of chitin-armored subservience. Dude’s got a point.

Wait, about the comic? Probably the last fucking issue I buy of it. Been bored. Ready to complete the first arc and then reallocate funds towards something *worth* purchasing.

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Spaceman #4
If you’re a fan of science-fiction and gritty dystopian social commentary and you’re not snagging this Azzarello/Risso joint, you’re a true asshole. Deep into your soul, the Asshole strand of DNA has wound itself. Coiling around your Good Taste and is slowly siphoning your life force. Or maybe you’re just pressed for cash, behind on your other comics, or it simply wasn’t for you. I’m voting former, those guilty as charged are probably throwing their chips in with the latter. Spaceman is good shit. I could explain to you why — but I’ve done that three other times. Either it’s stuck by now or it hasn’t.

I’m getting it. I’m touching myself on the crotch with my Blade Runner model kits while I read it.

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Ultimate Comics Ultimates #7
Speaking of covers. Man. What the fuck is going on with Sam Wilson up there? Dude is straight-up on the fucking Ryan Braun treatment right there. His samples must have been compromised! Ignore the writhing veins underneath the skin! Wilson ain’t supplementing his superheroics with performance enhancers. Oh Braun! I fucking trusted you! I trusted you. Now you’ve betrayed me and Prince Fielder is going to Detroit to pretend he isn’t working out Daddy issues.

Meanwhile, back in the comic universe! Hickman is doing what he does best these days, which is to drag his feet. Reed Richards is a real sack of Post-Human shit, gobbling up real estate as the Future threatens to consume the Present. The first six issues or so of title was the futurism hotness, but ever since then it’s throttled way back. Whatevs!, I’m in it for the long haul. Particular since now I know Sam Humphries is the series’ heir apparent.

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Orc Stain #7
James Stokoe does everything within the pages of this title. He draws it, writes it, colors it, bathes the PDF files of the comic in the Blood of the Choosen in order to gain favor with the Dark Ones. He does it all. Yes, sir. Since he assumes such an enormous task, the comic book takes on the flavor of this creator in its entirety. That’s why when you crack open Orc Stain, you’re thrown into a world that is blood, cocks, violence, orcs, and humor. The resulting cacophony is so terrifying and beautiful you’ll bask in the sunlight of creativity while barfing all over your exposed genitalia. Why are your balls-labia hanging out? Orc Stain. That’s why.

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What are you guys and gals of the Sequential Rockitude buying this week? I’m all ears (eyes).

Welcome to Near Mint Condition, the communal comic book welcome wagon where we all share the hotness we’re snagging from the funny book farm on a given Wednesday. Per usual: my taste is shite, and I’m always looking to broaden my horizons. Don’t know what’s dropping? Behold ComicList.

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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #7
Listen, you worship whatever sort of false idols you want. *My* Spider-Man is named Miles Morales and he is totally fucking Ultimate. Chris Samnee continues to compliment Brian Marvel Bendis with sexy pencils, and I’m nodding my head in agreement.

Listen, I know the comic is slow. I know it doesn’t have the wizbang you’re looking for. Not yet, at least. What it does have is the most rewarding origin story I’ve come across in a while. I’m invested. I care about that the dude. Things seem to be picking up for Miles as the Scorpion is looking to roll some heads and its up to our way-too-young-to-be-risking his life hero to laid down some wallop.

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Dark Horse Presents #9
This forthcoming edition of Dark Horse Presents is going to be enough on its own to properly stimulate my brother’s fanboy g-spot. He is almost guaranteed to throw white emphatic rope all over the cover. Why? Why you ask! Why you demand to know! Two words: Paul Pope. The son of a bitch is making an appearance in this latest anthology, and it will be nothing short of euphoric to those who worship at the altar of the Pope. I mean shit, the dude puts out what? A couple of throwaway covers a year to pay the bills while he never finished Battling Boy? (I’m trolling, okay? I’m trolling.)

There’s also some Woodian Goodies in the issue, with more content from Brian Wood’s upcoming regular series The Massive.

Also goodies from Mike Mignola, Neal Adams, and more. DHP doesn’t fuck around these days.

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Uncanny X-Force #22
The volcanic hotness right here. I love Remender’s riffing on Uncanny X-Force. Dig the shit out of it. The comic excels so much because it seems the duder has been given free rein to do whatever he wants. They’ve gone from one synthetic-meta-outerworld to the next in their ultra-violent journeys and not a one of them has failed to entertain me.  Hangin’ out in Outerworld as Deadpool is decapitated. Again. As Betsy totally saves Fantomex. Let me tell you, I’m totally shipping those two. Hard. OTP.

(Also check out Remender in this week’s Secret Avengers.)

(more…)

Near Mint Condition. The column where I blather about what comic books I’m excited for in a given week. Audience participation is encouraged!, for I have poor taste and also cannot get to all the quality materials dropping out there in the land of comics. Sharing is caring. Or something. Et cetera.

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Action Comics #6
Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert team-up to bring a Superman tale that I’m only moderately interested in buying. In fact, I don’t really know why I’m mentioning it. Blind allegiance to Morrison? Sorta. Vague enjoyment of a Kubert-penciled issue? I suppose so. There’s a bulge within my soul, slowly eclipsing into a vacuum where my excitement for something Grant Morrison is writing should be. Is anyone legitimately digging the Kal-El blase reboot affair?

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The Ed Brubaker College Fund Project 2k12
I don’t know if Ed Brubaker is married or has sired some offspring, but if he did then I am there for them. With weeks like this, I feel as though I’m almost single-handedly attempting to put them through college. Yeah I know $5 or whatever from some blowhard like myself doesn’t go very far. I know! I know it. I just have this dream scenario where he walks up to me and shakes my head, commenting on how my altruistic tendencies have really helped out his family and how he’s going to write me into Captain America canon as Bucky’s Blown-Up Left Arm. How will that work? I’m not sure. We’ll leave it to my friend.

Speaking of my amigo, Winter Soldier #1 drops this week, and it’s fucking gorgeous. Butch Guide is all that is glory. As well, the second issue of Fatale is arriving. True confession time. Teary-eyed blathering at a Real World camera time. I wasn’t really floored by the first issue. Feel guilty just typing that. I’ll stick along though. It’s Brubaker, it’s Phillips. It’s going to be enjoyable at the very least.

(more…)

Near Mint Condition. This is the venue for me to wank to the comic books dropping in a particular week that I’m interested in. It’s generally capes heavy, because when I was younger I myself was heavy. As always, you folk are encouraged to share the shit you’re checking out this week. Peep the deets at ComicsList. It’s show and tell without the creepy Uncle and lollipops. Bummer about the lollipops, agreed.

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Wasteland #33
I first heard about Wasteland a while back, but truth be told I couldn’t hunt down a copy. Truth be told even if I could, I was dreadfully far behind in the series and I have a backlog that bulges along leotard-on-a-linebacker levels. So it was doomed. Or so I thought. See the switch! The turn! The happiness! Antony Johnson and Justin Greenwood’s post-apocalyptic series is suffering a thankful soft relaunch this week, and it’s going to allow me to scurry aboard the title. Warren Ellis really likes it too, and that’s often enough for me to pledge my full support regardless of where I’m being ferried to. The nodes in my neck begin to burn and churn and cause dizziness if I try and disobey my Ellisian commands. Hit the prior link for a preview. Do it, before my neck hairs begin to sizzle. I must be supplicant. I must be.

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Ultimate Miles Morales Web-Time #6
Brian Michael Bendis continues to prove that perhaps he was cloned. Perhaps those clones suffered some sort of Multiplicity-esque degradation. Despite this rot in his genetic code, the clones continue to mash keys on Avengers: X-Ceptional, Muddy Avengers, Newly Minted Southern Cone Avengers, and the rest of those slam-bang team titles. Bendis proves all this, but on Ultimate Miles Morales he also proves that the original Brian Mikey persists. I’ve heard people coated in malaise and cheesey-things across the comic shop I frequent that the title is slow. Yeah, maybe. It’s a Bendis book.

I fucking love it. Heartfelt and humorous and Jesus Christ don’t worry the action is coming. This month Bendis is being complimented by Chris Samnee, who after Thor: The Mighty Avenger deserves slow claps and head nods from all of us.

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Danger Girl: Revolver #1
What Fresh Hell is this? Danger Girl lives? I can’t tell you the amount of awkward boners I roused up while looking at Danger Girl in my bathroom. Shower running, Mom and Dad knocking. I’m taking a shit! Or something! Leave me alone. Ah to be a comic book nerd hitting puberty. Why, it explains just why the industry is clan in tits and asses. ‘Cause dudes like me with freshly lit hormonal glands pushing insensible amount of erections into our jeans will snag up anything with cleavage. Don’t ever change, Danger Girl. I may just buy this new series and run the show for old time’s sake.

Or (probably) pass on the title and watch odd, uncomfortable to describe niche fetish porn. The result of probably too many latex-wanks to funny books something like fifteen years ago. That long? Jesus Christ.

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(more…)

There are comic books coming out tomorrow, which can mean only one thing. Actually, it can mean a lot of things. The you factor into the geek wet dream of a Multiverse and it can mean…literally an infinite amount of things. One!, one of the things it means is that I’m here. In front of Microsoft Word. I am charged with bringing you the list of comic books I’m looking forward to this fine Wednesday. It’s a small charge, one I am capable of answering. My fat brain is filled with too many capes, not enough indies. A smattering of quasi-smaller publishings by actually relatively large companies like Image and Dark Horse.

Whatever the case, whatever the case. My taste is poor, I’m sure yours is better. So when I’m done mash-mash-mashing away on the keyboard and you have engaged in ultimate altruism and answered the bell by reading this mess, I implore you: share the comics you’re buying this week. Share them right up.

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Comic Books I’m Interested In Buying This Fine Week
It’s a bit of a slow week for me. The usual caveats apply. Slow week considering comic books that I know about, have heard about, have read, want to read. Et cetera. I do not delude myself into think I’m not missing countless dope titles. Or rather I want to live in a world where there’s a deluge of excellence underneath the veneer of mediocrity I have trouble piercing by myself.

There’s Activity #2 by Nathan Edmondson and Mitch Gerads. Edmonson had a hell of 2011, breaking into the mainstream collective with his work in the New 52 after catching my attention with Who Is Jake Ellis? I caught a preview of the original issue of Activity and it seemed pretty friggin’ appealing. Here it is. My comic book shop in predictable fashion didn’t have a copy. I’m seriously no bitter. I swear it.

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Comic Hotness: Our Love Is Real
This comic one-shot dropped last year and you can buy it on the cheap courtesy of an Image reprinting. When it dropped back in the oh-so-antiquated-by-now beginnings of last year I remember hearing about it. I noted it to myself. I was informed I could even snag a digital copy of it. Then I forgot. I fucking forgot. For another ten months. Remembrance was only brought to me courtesy of a solid commenter over in a Year’s Best! List at Omega Level. Ordered the motherfucker and—

—wow. What a fucking doozie. Not for the faint of heart, but it manages to terrify, entertain, amuse, and promote some thought within a scant amount of pages. Cheers to the good lad who recommended it. Go buy it. You’ll get all the vegetable-fucking-ultra-violence you could ask for.

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Comic Books I’m Interested In Buying This Fine Week [Cont]
There’s another issue of Wolverine and the New Gang Crush Shit dropping this week. Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo bring my X-gene with humor and wit. I haven’t enjoyed a “main” X-Title in a good goddamn while, and every time this comic entertains me it makes the glorious corpse of my childhood momentarily raise up. Slagging off rotten flesh and decaying eyeball ocular mess dribbling down its face, it high-fives me. The longer Bachalo persists on the title, the more I’ve come to enjoy him. Listen, his style is never going to be my favorite. Listen, if you feel the same way. Just pause and check out all the shit he’s doing. The unique panel structure and the activity on every page. It’s begun to sway me. I appreciate it. A real lot.

(more…)

It’s the beginning of the fucking New Year, and I can’t think of a better way to drag the Year of Mayan Doom slithering into the world than with some comic books. Fuck if we like our myths and narratives and actions of creation, let us slather it in some sequential artwork and the occasional uncomfortably inappropriate latex-sliding-up-ass panel of horndog High Heaven.

Let us do it together in this Year of Advancing Oblivion. These are the comic books I’m feeling this week. Interested In. Intrigued By. What are you picking up?

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Defenders #2
Despite worshipping at my scuzzy altar of Matt Fraction, I wasn’t too high on the prospects of a Defenders title. It seemed forced, and I’ve never really dug Terry Dodson. Thankfully for me, supplication to my Heroes is a constant. (And my brother bought it despite me saying I wasn’t interested.) Bam! What a fucking title. It feels the closest to Casanova-quality Fraction in a Marvel skein in a long, long goddamn time. A bungling band of depressives and egomaniacs battling against Biblical Myths is the premise. The execution is witty and glowingly metatextual. If you skipped this shit last month, unpass on it. Yeah, unpass.

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The Jeff Lemire Corner
Speaking of fanboy status, two titles are dropping from Jeff Lemire this week. Oh I love him so. It’s not just because we share the writhing conduit of Canadian hemoglobin within our veins. No sir. No ma’am. The good sir is dropping Sweet Tooth #29 as well as Animal Man #5. Lemire knows how to bring the horror into the story and wrap it around some beautiful mundanity. I insist, Chrome. Mundanity is a word. Not to be forgotten are the fantastic pencilers he is working with. Travel Foreman is particularly revelatory to my ignorant ass, and his work on Animal Man was some of my favorite of last year.

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Fatale #1
Controversy! While Brubaker and Phillips often ignite the Beast Mode Transformation of dynamite collaboration, I wasn’t too thrilled about Criminal: Archie Comics last year. I didn’t hate it, but it clunked in its conclusion and left me with a resounding eh! Even still, I’m very enthusiastic about snagging their latest dropping. Isn’t it great when you can watch two creators work together over the years? Marking their highs and their lows, their evolution and changing expressions? Almost, almost brings a tear to my eyes. Anyways, behold Fatale! Warren Ellis digs it, provided a preview.  Noir meets horror meets a new publisher in Image Comics. Yes please.

(more…)

Near Mint Condition. The comics I’m interested in this week. I have poor taste, help it out by recommending titles from your own brown paper bag.

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DMZ #72
The final issue of DMZ drops today, and I’m not caught up in time to check it out. There’s a greasy sadness lining my armpits where there should be anticipatory precipitation. DMZ’s a bit of a special comic book of mine, having followed it for the better part of five years through curious denials and momentary binges. Last week I finished up yet another semester of graduate school, and the first time I did was crack open the latest TPB, Collective Punishment.

Wood and Burchielli have guided the reader through a gorgeous journey into the perpetually not-too-hard-to-believe second American Civil War. From allusions of the Iraqi War, to a stark fucking knife into the post-Obama disillusionment, the comic has been a guide post on our cheesy poof-covered culture and political descent into Oblivion. I’m going to miss the warmth of the comic. The warmth of finding a creator who can make sense of the nonsense in a way that I wish I could, if I only had the inclination or talent. Not only that, but finding solace in knowing someone else is feeling the same as you do, in these Bananas Times.

I’ll miss this fucking comic book.

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Secret Avengers #20
Speaking of final issues, tomorrow is also the final Warren Ellis-fueled Secret Avengers. I’ve dug on his stand-alone blasts of typical Ellisian madness filtered through Marvel’s Rogue Avengers team. Not to be confused with the variety of other Rogue Teams the publisher has, such as Uncanny X-Force. What do these motherfuckers do when they run into one another during mutual covert operations? Especially since it seems like Beast, if not Wolverine, is on all of them.

Ellis is joined by Alex Maleev for this final installment, and that doubles my pleasure. Watch as I writhe in his pencil-powered-glory. Cramming crayons and pastel finger paints into my pants, trying to slather myself in the powers that grant him such utility. Yes, Maleev! Yes!

As I was saying, I’ll miss Ellis and his one-offs.

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Spaceman #3
Boom! Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are brining the crackling science-fiction glory in this mini-series. Of nine issues. Does that make it a maxi-series? Maxiseries? Quasi-maxi-post-mini-series. Something of that such. We got ourselves here a failed Mars program, Dystopian nightmares, riffage on the depravity of our Empty Celebrity Syndrome culture and more. All in a series you would have snagged the initial issue of for one measly dollar.

Jump aboard this pig before she’s blowing up in a glorious tits-science-American-Nightmare fireworks display high in the atmosphere of our Organic Spaceship. You’ll be happy you did. Or you’ll be unhappy you did and keep it yourself. Thereby ensuring my much needed ignorance.

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Ultimate Comics Ultimate Avengers Ultimate Time! #5
Jonathan Hickman. Esad Ribic. The Ultimate Universe. Short choppy sentences. Yo I have to be honest I just watched this video and I can’t get it out of my head while I’m trying to type. It’s difficult. Anyways yeah if you can survive that I love you. The Force is strong in your loins. Perhaps you were birthed up by the Force itself in some shitty sand-scarred planet to Shmi and now you have to podrace all day? Sand storms are very dangerous! Shit we’re off the tracks. Way off the tracks, and it don’t matter! Why? ‘Cause I got carte blanche! Just like Hickman. Just like Hickman does when it comes to the Ultimate Universe. [Phew.] It’s glorious to see the dude unchained from the typical bureaucratic nonsense that everything in the Mainland Marvel Monstrosity has to be funneled through. “Oh yeah, Hickman! You wanted to have Rachel Grey join FF? Well uh yeah here’s the thing she’s in the Avengers X-Cepted storyline this year, and next year she’s going to be in Fright Night: Vampire’s Children Crusade and then…and then…and then…” and so on.

Dude gets to play for keeps in the Little Universe On The Side, and it shows. Destroy Valhalla? Sure. Bring back Reed Richards from his heinous Jeph Loeb penned death? Double sure. Tweak everything out in a quasi-Authority vibe and give Caffeine Powered a raging dork-on? Filling in the applicable circle with violent pencil-on-paper force.

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Those are the titles I’m most interested in this week. I’m sure I’ll arrive at home with a panache of other fillings to faithfully frak my wallet’s chasms. What are interested in this week? Hit me.

Glory be to you, comic book friends. It’s 10:42 on Tuesday evening as I burp this out of a chemical-coated caffeine ravaged mind, and I’m writing it with a bit of a grin. ‘Tis the season for days off and leisurely loitering as we go into a collective slumber until January 2.

How are you? Not rhetorical, how you doing? Hit me. This is Near Mint Condition, the comics column where I talk about this week’s releases that I’m either snagging, wish I was snagging, or am curious about. Per usual drop a line on what you’re digging, I’m always looking for new hotness in my greasy mitts.

Let’s party.

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Fantastic Four #601
What a fucking year it’s been for the Fantasti-Family. So yeah Johnny Storm bit the bullet and has recovered in an admirable amount of time. Though! Though!, if you’ve read #600 you know he did in fact die like a zillion times only to return. Even though dude rallied in something around ten months, his death earlier in the year is still one of my favorite caped occurrences of 2011. Damn man, just thinking about it gets the eyes all Cutting Onions-esque. My therapist says I “feel big”, leave me alone.

Hickman’s F4 journey spouts a lot of philosophical wunder-rock, but when you cut it to the core the title is really about the importance of family. While some without souls and dead eyes can call it hackneyed, I’m feeling it. Reminds me a lot of what Kurt Vonnegut used to espouse about the importance of having an extended family to enjoy your blip on the Blue Marble.

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Charles Burns’ 12 Beers of the Apocalypse
No, not a comic book. It’s a light week for me, as I am awash in stupidity and an inability to follow the indie market. So instead of blathering about the newest issue of Savage Dragon which I have neither read nor care to read, let’s talk like comic book alcoholics. How is this for some cross-promotion. As everyone knows, the scientifically adroit and technologically advance Mayans predicted that the world was going to end next year. As astute fans of myth and nonsense, many of us have come to accept this to come to pass. Speaking of this, if you are one of those people please send me your money. You won’t be needing it come Oblivion, and I’m going to have student loans to pay off shortly.

Where was I? Oh yeah! Fucking Charles Burns. The good Burns has teamed up with Fantagraphics and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing Company to bring the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse. Every month will find a new beer dropping, complete with artwork from Burns’ Black Hole.

This is fucking awesome.

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Memorial #1
The creator of iZombie, Chris Johnson is dropping a new title this week. Memorial! I read about it a couple of months back on io9, and Johnson’s description sold me on it fucking immediately. When asked to spit a bit about its premise, he commented that the “bumper sticker pitch is “Doctor Who meets Sandman meets Hayao Miyazaki.”

If that doesn’t sound like something worth chancing a few bucks on, I’m frankly not sure what would be. It’s like a blender of geek culture revelry, isn’t it?

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Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes #1
Let me be blunt: Grant Morrison’s final issue of Batman INC before the DC Universe was awash in rebooty-ness was fucking dreadful. It was some inane VR nonsense. The worst sort of virtual reality blathering since that X-Files episode FPS. Where Mulder is totally like in the Lawnmower Man or some shit. Anyways. Batman INC is thundering back and its being helmed by Sir Grant and Cameron Stewart in this thickie of a comic book. Nice. And thick. A thickie.

I’m not really certain if I’m going to enjoy this, since I’m beginning to adjust to the Snyder/Capullo take on the rebooted Batman. (Issue #4 out this week.) They’ve hemmed the title down, taking out an intertextuality that was frankly fucking mindboggling by the end of it. Pruned it down to some solid detective work, gadgetry, and a writhing City as Character.

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A Potpourri Of Capes and Carnage
There’s a bunch of cape action dropping tomorrow that my fat-headed, chubby-gutted self is going to snag. I can’t help it. I grew up fat and detached, I lose myself in the superpowers. BPRD: Hell On Earth Russia #4 is coming, and it is full of awesomeness that I have heard about but not directly experienced. File under: the TPB purchase will redeem me. Invincible Iron Man #511 is coming, and goddamn if I don’t love me some Stark on Mandarin action. We could be finally be seeing the culmination of Fraction’s seemingly forever-plotted showdown.  Jim Lee and Geoff Johns continue on their not-really-good-at-all-but-not-awful Justice League relaunch with issue #4. There’s also new issues of Invincible, Wolverine and the X-Kids, Ghostbusters (yes), Uncanny X-Force and Sonic. Big fucking loot week!, and I haven’t even named all the bullsquash I’ll be expunging imperial credits on.

What are you lads and lasses grabbing? Hit me.

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For more of my patented stupidity, find me at Omega Level.

I’m covered in peanut butter. Even my big toe. I dropped that shit and lacking the wherewithal to pick it up I just sort of smudged my big toe round and round. Grinding the peanut butter into the floor and praying that the Better Half doesn’t find it. I tell you this, because this is the environment I’m churning out this disaster in. It’s Tuesday evening, and the Black Hole of End of Semester is sucking what is left of my sanity into its gaping chasm. Freudian imagery or something. Gape! Gape!  One of my few insanity repellants left are the funny rags I’ll be snagging and snacking on tomorrow. In a desolate world filled with deadlines, here are the comic books I’m holding to my charred bosom in hopes of feeling something tomorrow.

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The Company That Wants You To Enjoy Defending Things!
Try as I might, I can’t seem to give a shit about Defenders #1 dropping this week. I mean fuck Matt Fraction is a favorite of mine. A favorite. Sometimes I follow him on Twitter and just think of how haughtily he’d laugh if I could ever tell him a joke. We ride bikes together. Despite our futuro-BFFL status, I can’t get stoked. It isn’t buzzing in the loins. Will I buy it? Probably. There’s also Avenging Spider-Men, this week. Let me tell you something. Spider-Man ain’t never avenged. Stuck In The Past Spider-Man? Sold. Quieting Crying Through His Witty Remarks Spider-Man? Makes sense. Avenging? C’mon now. Then there’s Remender who is bumping Venom #10 with new artist Lan Medina. Great writer, new artist on the title. There’s all that, and no less than five titles with an X on the cover.

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Hardcovers, Softcovers, Undercover Lovers?
Just in time for Christmas there’s a boatload of classic collections getting shoved down your wallet-gullet. There’s a new printing of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. You may have heard of that comic. If you’re one of the three people who reads comic books and hasn’t read this….oh who am I kidding? Just buy it for your thirteen year-old cousin. Get real subversive on his or her ass. Slide it across the table at whatever holiday party you’re attending. Heft the heaving tome across the table, dragging napkins and table cloth and whatever else. Let it fall off the table with a resounding thud. Then clap your hands and yell “that’s the sound of your mind getting fucked!”

Use your one phone call to tell me about it.

There’s also a new printing of Days of Future Past dropping. I read that this comic came out in 1980, and all of a sudden my entire life unraveled before my eyes. The linear fallacy swept over me, and I saw myself in succession being born, growing pubes, reading this comic, mashing my fat fingers on a keyboard on an AOL message board, eating McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets, and arriving here. That’s my life right there. Keyboard masturbation, fast food, and Wolverine creeping on Kitty Pryde in some wildly outstanding Oedipal machinations.

Quickly now, that’s not all! There’s also Alexandro Jodorowsky and Moebius’ The Eyes of The Cat. That’s a collaboration made in the Mind Warp, delivered to your Delectable Third Eye. Finally! Finally! Can I sell you on one more classic reprinting? I’m making karmic comissions. Money? Pshaw! I deal in assurance that I’m not going to be reincarnated as a strip club toilet seat. Finally! There’s Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus. Getting itself a fresh new printing. Smiling for the ladies. Flexing for the bros.

Phew. That’s a collection of hard and covered affair.

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Animals, Supermen, Hybrid Ordeals
Men who are Animals. Hyrbid creatures. Weird ethnographic gazes. Jeff Lemire is double fisting me this week with new issues of Animal Man and Sweet Tooth. While I ain’t crazy about the current direction of Sweet Tooth, I’ll be goddamned if Lemire isn’t some of the tightest writing around. One time a man commented that he thought Lemire merely average. A qualified writer, but lacking a certain panache. That man now lives in my dungeon, begging for forgiveness and  muttering about how uncomfortable his antlers are. DC should be lighting vigils to him. This week we’re also snacking on the mossy underside of Swamp Thing #4. If Lemire has brought the thunder this year to DC, then Scott Snyder has brought the lightning. With their powers combine they cook a lot of fish in the ocean and then push the haddock in an underground fish market. What the fuck am I saying? Do you really like the #4? Then snag Action Comics’ newest issue. Grant Morrison promises to have Clark-El fighting Braniac. Or I’m promising that he’s promising. But he it doesn’t deliver, bother him. Not me.

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There we go. That’s what I’m mildly excited about. To be frank it’s all a haze of paper writing fatigue, over-caffeination, and a desire to somehow sleep and play Skyrim at the same time. What are you feeling this week? I have bad taste, I know I do. Save me with your recommendations. I’ll be your valentine.

There’s! There’s! There’s comic books dropping this week. As per every week, lest the Good Lords strike me dead. I can’t fathom living in a world without the weekly comic book shuffle. Snag the rags, dissect the diegesis and party until my pants come off. This is Near Mint Condition, the column where I blather about the funny books dropping this week that are keeping my sanity afloat.

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Spaceman #2
Brian Azzarello and Edwardo Risso are dropping their second installment of the dark, entertaining science fiction book. Did you miss the initial issue? C’mon man! Or woman! It was only one buck. That’s like, inconsequential at this point in our wonderful times. That sort of deal is enough to get a thousand-ravaged Soccer Mom keeping in your sternum. The only problem is that it was a comic book and not some limited edition Fuzzy Gender Enforcing Doll. It also didn’t hurt that it was madcap wonky fun.

Yeah, I’m just combining words right now.

Shazam!

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Haunt #19
What the hell is Haunt? I have no goddamn idea. Why am I recommending it? ‘Cause it’s a new creative team jumping aboard, and the diabolical bastard penning the story is none other than Joe Casey. My boy Casey has been pumping out issues of Butcher Baker this year which are seven shades of fucking insanity. It’s a slow comic book week here for me (yeah I’m too far behind to read Fables #111, lay off) so I think I’m going to rub my fingers across the swollen glory of these pages.

If I remember. There’s a good chance I’ll forget, too busy oogling a life-size Buffy cut-out or some shit.

Seriously though, does anyone know what the fuck Haunt is?

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Ultimate Comics Ultimately Ultimates #4
The comic book with the worst title in the Marvel branch is also home to some of the most delicious, nutritious, and entertaining superhero team-up time you’re going to find anywhere. Fuck the Lee/Johns Justice League reboot. This is the hotness. Esad Ribic over Lee’s stale-assed pencils any day! Any day. You disagree? Meet me outside. I’m the kid in the fudge-rifted fruit of the loom undies. Eyes drunk with caffeinated oblivion. Just wait until my heart stops momentarily as it does once a day, and kick me in the ribs until I yield. You’ll be doing me a favor.

No seriously though this comic is fantastic, and since it is in the Ultimate universe, Hickman is given carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wants. It smells like Ellis’ Authority, and looks like Heaven’s Bosoms. I’ll take it.

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Shaman Alan Moore’s Future Shocks Completed Edition
Big-ups to Douglas Wok over at Comic Alliance for bringing this bastard to my attention. Back in the wayback days when I was but a nascent tickle in my dad’s testicles (one I’m certain more than one person has wished he never answered), Moore wrote a great amount of short one-off science fiction stories for 2000 AD. Stapled into the gaping cavity is the entire collection. Santa Claus is coming soon guys. If you’ve been a good little soldier for Capitalist Jesus, I suggest you ask for this little puppy. I know I will be.

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Around The Horn:
Everyone is continuing to cheer for Daredevil, whose sixth issue is coming out this week. I may have to discard my antipathy forged in the fires of the first issue of Waid’s reboot and check it out. Also from Marvel comes the Kathryn Immonen penned Avengers: Thor: Origins: For The Movie Tie-In Duh #1. I don’t read the title, but Angel And Faith #4 features Rebekah Isaacs on art. That alone is tempting. Super Dinosaur #6 has dinosaurs…super-ing? I’m not sure.

Anyways I’m done blathering. What (better) comic books are you snagging this week?

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For more of my utter drivel, hit up Omega Level.