On racks tomorrow for New Comic Day, a great big serving of the Cosmic Jack Kirby’s Fourth World from DC. Oh yeah…

… and there’s a lovely, big deluxe hardback collection of Bill Willingham’s tales from the brilliant Fables, Bad Doings and Big Ideas:

And I notice the new editions of Neil Gaiman’s superlative Sandman reaches volume seven with the Brief Lives chapter, Dream and Delirium on a road trip… It still has a scene that’s stuck in my head since I first read that issue years ago, very simple but oh so effective, Dream, despondent,having just granted his long-suffering son Morpheus the merciful death he craves. His poet son’s blood drips from Dream’s snow-white skin and as it touches the earth it becomes flowers… A single scene broken into several small segments, like frames from a film, suggesting time and movement and emotion while remaining still. Simple but so effective work from the wonderful Jill Thompson that’s stayed in my head for oh so many years and I still find subtly powerful.

And on a totally different note, I love this Hawkeye portrait on the cover of the West Coast Avengers collection out this week. It’s the big, cheesy grin and that wink, swerving pretty close to superhero camp, hard to look at it and not smile back;

They just don’t do superhero covers quite like that today… (art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, (c) DC Comics)

Actually it’s a top week for some cracking new graphic novel releases, including the gorgeous looking slipcased Parker the Martini Edition, Bocquet and Barthelemey’s The Adventures Of Herge,

And it’s a pretty diverse mix of new titles this week too, including one I have been really looking forward to – it is big and it is clever. Okay, it is big and it is rude, maybe… It’s a big-ass hardback of Evan Dorkin’s bonkers but brilliant Milk & Cheese. I love it, this is how some of us (sick, twisted puppies that we are) entertained ourselves in the days before Jamie Smart’s Corporate Skull…

And as if this isn’t enough there’s this extremely tasty hardback collection of the brilliant Lynda Barry just in the door from D&Q, volume one of Everything:

All this plus a slew of new releases from Marvel and DC too (including the fifth Preacher hardback collection, which has one of my favourite chapters, where Jesse lives his cowboy dream as a small town sherrif). It’s a damned fine week for comics reading, peeps, there’s more just come in the door than we’ve got time to read!

On shelves this very day, a stonking big omnibus of Shannon Wheeler’s Too Much Coffee Man. I was a huge fan back in the day, very happy to see this huge collection finally hitting the racks this week. Pick up a copy, pour yourself a big, ‘ole cup of Java and kick back for a read!

(Too Much Coffee Man by and (c) Shanon Wheeler, published Dark Horse)

(cover to Ultimate Comics Fallout #4, art by  Marko Djurdjevic, (c) Marvel)

Hitting racks tomorrow as our comics elves do the New Comics Day Dance this should be one worth checking out: Brian Michael Bendis and Co give us a new Spider-Man. Yep, no longer will the friendly neighbourhood webslinger be Peter Parker… From the official description:

“That’s right, for the first time ever, someone other than Peter Parker will be Spider-Man! But, after the death of Peter Parker, who will rise up to defend the Ultimate Universe? Meet Miles Morales, a seemingly normal teenager from New York who will soon discover  that with great power comes great responsibility… and even greater danger! But just what are the secrets behind Miles’ shocking abilities? What’s his connection to the original Spider-Man? And just why does he wear that costume?“

(cover to Love From the Shadows by and (c) Gilbert Hernandez, published this week by the lovely Fantagraphics mob. Love the small hardback format and the semi pulp 50s style cover work; below; interior pic from the book, again (c) Gilbert Hernandez)

(page from Bulletproof Coffin, by and (c) David Hine and Shaky Kane, published Image)

(I’m your worst nightmare, I’m a duck with a gun… cover art for Marvel Zombies 5, art, as always for this series, by the great Arthur Suydam, (c) Marvel Comics)

There’s a real blast from the past this week too, with this 50th anniversary collection of strips from the long-running British boy’s comic Victor, home to Braddock, Tough of the Track and Gorgeous Gus among others. Sudden nostalgic sigh for that now gone era where literally millions of British school kids would be reading this and its sister publications each and every week…

(a page from I Flew With Braddock, proper old school boy’s wartime adventure from the Victor, (c) DC Thomson)

And I can’t resist sharing another of this week’s new releases with you, because it is from the wonderful Lynda Barry via the lovely folks at Drawn & Quarterly, the near-sighted monkey returns with Picture This. Go on, you know you want to pick this up…

(Picture This by and (c) Lynda Barry, published Drawn & Quarterly)

On the racks today and just how fabulously cosmic does this look: Joe Casey and Tom Scioli’s Godland Celestial Edition Volume 2 from Image.

For some reason (maybe simply the pretty colours exciting my inner child) I really like the cover for Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, which is hitting shelves today. Nice, simple, colourful, effective. And it makes me want to wear my power ring.  (cover art by Dave Gibbons and Rudolfo Migliari, (c) DC Comics)