Still hunting for a last minute gift for someone? Or maybe you need to buy yourself a gift as a reward for all your diligent Christmas shopping? There’s a fair mix of new titles going out on the shelves tomorrow, including some very attractive hardback collections from Marvel in the shape of David Finch and Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers Disassembled hardcover and Joe Quesada’s Daredevil: Father, which looks rather intriguing (a couple of colleagues followed it in comics form and have piqued my interest).
The big news for a lot of us who have been waiting patiently though is the arrival at last of the collected Albion by Alan and Leah Moore, John Reppion, Shane Oakley and George Freeman. A clever revisiting of some of the quirky and eccentric classic British heroes of yesteryear, I’ve been waiting for this delayed title for ages (and I know a lot of you have as well), so I think this is going to be a present for myself (hey, I’m worth it). John and Leah talked here on the blog about the book back during British Comics Month and you can still read it here – a perfect accompaniment to go with the book. At last it is mine. Of course, now I need to wait for Dave Gibbons’ Thunderbolt Jaxon…
There’s one other newly arrived title this week that caught my roving eye, L Frank Baum’s classic in the form of David Chauvel and Enrique Fernández’s adaptation: Wonderful Wizard of Oz from Image. Winner of the 2005 Grand Prix de La Ville De Lyon Award of Illustration when published originally in France (and no wonder, just take a peek at the art) this is a gorgeous, luminous take on a story which has entranced children for generations. Perfect for younger readers (I’m thinking on a couple of smaller members of my family who may end up with this in their stockings) and for we big kids who still secretly think there are Wicked Witches and talking scarecrows out there (don’t shake your heads sadly, if you don’t let your imagination go sometimes you will never get half of these books; imagination needs to be exercised as much as the muscles). Utterly gorgeous and timed perfectly for UK readers since the lovingly restored version of the Wizard of Oz is on limited release in cinemas here throughout this month (I will be taking myself off to the Edinburgh Filmhouse to enjoy it myself – the chance to see it restored and shown on the big screen is too good to pass up). Charming and quite, quite lovely work for readers of all ages.
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