Comic Book Candy

As comics continue to converge with other artistic realms, my tastes in other media frequently has an influence my comic book purchases. I enjoy listening to Tori Amos , so I read Comic Book Tattoo , a compilation of stories inspired by her songs. The same applies in reverse; I liked Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men , so I finally broke down and watched Buffy (and loved it). One should take risks in order to discover new things, just as you shouldn’t base all purchasing decisions on Amazon’s “if you like this, you’d probably like this” suggestions. But I’m happy to say that reading comics has exposed me to a lot of new works, whether in films, novels, or music. Here are a handful of my cross-media discoveries:   Criminal (the comic) --- Hard Case Crime Novels Some time ago there was an article in the back of an issue of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip’s Criminal about Hard Case Crime, a new publisher that’s been re-releasing classic pulp novels, in addition to contemporary writers...

Publisher: Dark Horse Artists: Eduardo Barreto, Stefano Gaudiano, Rick Geary, Paul Grist, Joelle Jones, Kano, David Lapham, Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba, Dean Motter, M.K. Perker, Hugo Petrus, and Sean Phillips. Writers: Brian Azzarello, Ed Brubaker, Alex De Campi, Matthew & Sean Fillbach, Jeff Lemire, Ken Lizzi, Chris Offuit, and Gary Phillips. Lettering: Ryan Hill, Tom Orzechowki, and Clem Robins If you like… Criminal, Mister X, 100 Bullets, Stray Bullets, if you take your noir black, no sugar. 2009 was clearly a good year for noir. Enter this black and white compilation of short crime stories  released by Dark Horse back in October. I’ve only recently finished the 13 tales of betrayal, seduction, violence, and of course, crime! Just glancing at a few of the creators involved made me pick this up without hesitation. Here you’ll find noir for every mood: classic, always with a twist ending; stories with confrontational subject matter; morally ambiguous characters galore...