Swan Songs is a collection of six comics loosely connected by the theme of the end of something, ie. the end of the world/a marriage/a sentence, etc. W. Maxwell Prince specialises in these kind of one-and-done comics collections - his Ice Cream Man series with Martin Morazzo has the same format and subversive, dark tone - but unfortunately Swan Songs isn’t one of his better books.
Woohoo, new Charles Burns book! Oh… it’s just a series of covers. For comics that don’t exist. Hmm.
Edward Nashton is a brilliant but underachieving and meek accountant who discovers his accountancy firm is laundering money for the mob but feels helpless to do anything. Which is why he becomes so fixated on the new masked vigilante that appears in Gotham: The Batman. He represents justice and positive change to all the wrongs Edward sees in his everyday life. But the obsession soon sours, warping Edward into the Riddler we meet in the 2022 movie.
Betwixt looks like another Junji Ito book - same publisher, same format, same genre - and, though he draws the cover and provides a foreword, this is actually a horror manga anthology from other creators. Half of them are Asian, the other half are American, so the book is divided into stories from the two halves and you can read it either way - the traditional manga right to left, or the western-style left to right.
1891 and Marshal Azrael William Holt is sent out to the Utah Territory to investigate a series of bizarre and horrific murders. Signs point to the abandoned mine near the town of Canary whose water might be contaminated and could be driving people in the surrounding area to madness and despicable acts. But what’s really going on under the ground of Canary, and what does an old case of Holt’s, involving a demented child serial killer, have to do with all of this?
A young costumier goes on a temporary assignment to make outfits for a circus in Vladivostok. Which she does. And then she goes home and makes costumes for other people someplace else.
Mimi’s Tales of Terror is Junji Ito’s adaptation of Shin Mimibukuro (“New Earmuffs”) by Hirokatsu Kihara and Ichiro Nakayama which is a collection of “true” ghost stories. Though, as Ito explains in his afterword, he took more than a few liberties in adapting it - adding details, expanding stories, although he did it with the original authors’ consent - so it’s more like an interpretation of the original than a straight adaptation (but it’s unlikely anyone would know if he hadn’t mentioned this as the book is out of print!).
Nightwing needs to protect Maroni long enough to testify in court - but his former associates are determined he won’t live long enough to do so. Tony Zucco, the man who killed Dick Grayson’s parents, leaves prison early and is soon up to no good, while Heartless continues his terror campaign in Bludhaven.
Teresa, an Italian girl in her early 20s, gets a job in Berlin as a scientific assistant to prepare an exhibit on King Tut’s treasure. There, she meets the bohemian Ruben and the two begin a whirlwind romance. Also, the story of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. And the two are connected… buh?
Marvel lost the Conan licence to Titan Comics along with the creative team of Jim Zub and Roberto de la Torre who also moved over, having previously worked on Conan at Marvel. I’m not a big fan of Conan or fantasy in general but I heard good things about this one - and maybe the title would be good without Marvel editorial’s stinkbomb touch?
Charlie Swift’s crew is gunned down by a rival mob boss and his own head honcho, Stan, gets taken. Out for revenge, Charlie swiftly (hehe) finds himself in the midst of a complex plan involving the Feds and the case he was supposed to hand over holds some very valuable secrets - secrets hired killers are after him for. Everybody’s on the run and everybody’s packing - but is Charlie fast enough to beat em all?
Carolanne and Lee fall in love. They get married, she gets pregnant, leaves her job, plays homemaker - everything’s going perfectly! But who’s that strange shadowy figure living in the nearby apartment that haunts Carolanne…
Doc Ock wants to mess up Norman Osborn’s good streak - but Normy don’t wanna be baaad! Spider-Man gets astoopid agin for anuvver book!
A young girl on a summer holiday program in an abandoned shopping mall meets Jen, a mysterious older girl with a secret. In the flooded basement car park is a giant egg and elsewhere in the building are hundreds of tiny brains. Somehow it’s all connected to a massive explosion that took out twenty city blocks 12 years ago - and whatever caused it is back to do it again…
