Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Vol. 1: Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon
by Jacques Tardi

Promo copy:

Both a rip-roaring adventure series set in pre-World War I Paris and a parody of same, Adèle Blanc-Sec has been enchanting, thrilling, and puzzling readers worldwide through four decades.

With various American attempts to publish Adèle having dribbled into nothing decades ago, Fantagraphics Books, fresh from its triumphs with Tardi’s West Coast Blues, You Are There, and It Was the War of the Trenches, launches a spectacular, newly retranslated, hardcover series that intends to collect every one of its nine (soon ten) volumes.

In this premiere installment, Adèle becomes involved in an interlocking series of mysteries that involve a revived pterodactyl, a frightful on-stage murder, a looming execution by guillotine, and a demon from the depths of hell — plus of course moronic gendarmes, loyal (or perhaps traitorous?) henchmen, and a climax atop the Eiffel Tower.

The Adèle Blanc-Sec series is currently being adapted into a series of films by the renowned action director Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element), bringing this quirky, very French series to a new worldwide audience.

The Fantagraphics reprints have made me into a Tardi fanatic!

Elephant Man
by Greg Houston

Promo copy:

Baltimore has a great hero. He’s always there just when he’s needed to thwart crime! This marvel is Elephant Man. Yes, none other than the deformed and hideous man himself! But such power and the adulation that follows it begets much jealousy. Before you know it, one of the city’s best known TV anchors, ‘handsome’ Dick Denton and another hideous being fused by some radioactive accident: the Priest, The Rabbi and The Duck, come together to seek his demise and ridicule him in public! Will Elephant Man overcome this new challenge? Another hilariously silly exercise in grotesquery, spoofing superheroes, from the acclaimed brilliant artist of Vatican Hustle.

Networked: Carabella on the Run
Written by Gerard Jones
Art by Mark Badger

Promo copy:

Some alien invasions are loud and bloody…some are quiet and friendly. The blue-skinned girl named Carabella thinks she’s escaping the oppression of her own world, but instead she’s exposing the earth to an invasion so soft and friendly that everyone welcomes it—until Carabella herself sees what’s happening and tries to make someone, anyone see that our websites, our cell phones, and even our shoes (yes, shoes) are being used to steal first the privacy and then the freedom of everyone on earth.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
Co-written by Dennis O’Neil
Co-written and illustrated by Neal Adams

Promo copy:

The legendary science fiction epic that brought together The Man of Steel and The Greatest is back in two spectacular hardcover editions!

In 1978, an alien race called the Scrubb demands that Earth’s greatest champion battle their world’s own greatest fighter. Both Superman and Muhammad Ali step forward — and to determine who is truly Earth’s greatest fighter, Superman temporarily loses his powers and faces Ali in the ring. Ultimately, the duo must work together to defeat the Scrubb, with Ali taking on their champion while Superman battles their space-armada.

The facsimile edition hardcover reprints this hard–to–find title at its original size of approximately 10" wide by 13.25" high!

Now how do I get my mitts on the very cool SUPERMAN VS. MUHAMMAD ALI Statue?

Click on image to enlarge

After Dark #2
Created by: Antoine Fuqua & Wesley Snipes
Written by: Peter Milligan
Pencils and Inks by: Leonardo Manco
Paints by: Kinsun Loh, Jerry Choo & Sansan Saw

Promo copy:

On a world where sunlight is safety and darkness is certain death, riots have begun amongst the discontented citizens of the planet. In order to quell these riots and bring hope back to the people, the military has gathered a rag-tag group of both
specialists and known criminals to search for the one last shining hope for the human race: a woman known only as Angel.

Leading the group across the darkness is Omar, a Bedouin with the ability to navigate the world by reading the sky. But when Trooper Jones gets sick with a viral strain within the first 24 hours of the mission, the ship’s doctor decides to dump her into the darkness and move on. In response, Omar, the femme fatale Ana, and gang brawler Monclare journey outside the ship on the cusp of darkness to get Jones some much needed help. However, when darkness does descend, Jones commits suicide and the ship leaves the three pilgrims alone in the dark to perish…

Damaged/Hollow Point Flipbook

Damaged
Created by: Michael Schwarz & John Schwarz
Written by: David Lapham
Illustrated by: Dennis Calero

Hollow Point
Created by: Ron Brinkerhoff
Written by: David Hine
Illustrated by: Elia Bonetti
Paints by: Ong Chew Peng

Promo copy:

Radical Premiere’s TWO new titles in one convenient $1.00 preview!

Damaged

Created by Full Clip Productions’ John Schwarz and Michael Schwarz, and written by Eisner Award winner David Lapham (Stray Bullets), a tale of two brothers committed to justice in different ways – one inside the law, one violently beyond it. Now, with the end of their careers approaching, they must train their replacements, hoping to remake each in their image. But the vigilante code has changed and the brothers are left unprepared for the true lawlessness and corruption that is about to be unleashed.

Hollow Point

After surviving a near fatal gunshot wound to the head, a notorious assassin begins to experience disturbing visions from beyond the grave. He soon realizeds the bullet meant to kill him has opened a third eye into the spirit realm. Tortured by his own blood-soaked legacy, he is given a rare chance at redemption by avenging the ghosts of victim’s past. With the dead as his new employer, he accepts a final contract that plummets him deep into the murky shadows of the underworld, where he will be forced to contront the ghosts of his past and battle an evil even greater than himself!

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Doctor Who: Coming of the Terraphiles
by Michael Moorcock

Promo copy:

Miggea – a world on the very edge of reality. The cusp between this universe and the next. A point where space-time has worn thin, and is in danger of collapsing. And the venue for the grand finals of the competition to win the fabled Arrow of Law. The Doctor and Amy have joined the Terraphiles – a group obsessed with all aspects of Earth’s history, and dedicated to re-enacting ancient sporting events. They are determined to win the Arrow. But just getting to Miggea proves tricky. Reality is collapsing, ships are disappearing, and Captain Cornelius and his pirates are looking for easy pickings. Even when they arrive, the Doctor and Amy’s troubles won’t be over. They have to find out who is so desperate to get the Arrow of Law that they will kill for it. And uncover the traitor on their own team. And win the contest fair and square. And, of course, they need to save the universe from total destruction.

Doctor Who in the Multiverse! Yeah, buddy!

The Sunday Books (Les Livres du dimanche)
by Michael Moorcock
Illustrated by Mervyn Peake

Promo copy:

(The following originally appeared in French on the publisher’s site. It was translated using Google.)

In 1946, Mervyn Peake, novelist, poet, illustrator of Treasure Island, Alice, The Hunting of the Snark, and author of the Gormenghast trilogy, moved with his family to the island of Sark. Against the boredom of Sunday Island, he introduces the ritual of Sunday Books, notebooks in which he drew for his two sons, improvising the illustrations for stories full of fantasy.

Sixty years later, Michael Moorcock, a giant of English letters, friend of Peake and promoter of his work, reinvents the rhymes, limericks and the extravagant adventures that formed the soundtrack of those lost images. Two great minds and players interact through time and a family treasure is returned to us intact in its magic.

Beautiful book that sadly only exists in this French language edition.

Sojan the Swordsman and Under the Warrior Star
by Michael Moorcock and Joe R. Lansdale

Promo copy:

Planet Stories presents two science fantasy adventures in one volume from literary legends Michael Moorcock and Joe R. Lansdale!

Moorcock’s Sojan the Swordsman revisits the author’s very first published character, the original incarnation of the Eternal Champion. Rewritten and expanded from its original appearance, this is the tale of the hero Sojan Shieldbearer as he travels across the planet Zylor encountering strange races and even stranger monsters in a fast-paced adventure in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.

In Lansdale’s never-before-published novella Under the Warrior Star, Olympic fencing contender Braxton Booker is hurtled into universe in miniature, where he must lead the inhabitants of the forest world of Juna against their oppressive overlord—a tentacled, mind-probing monstrosity known only as The One.

The less said about this cover, the better.

For Moving Pictures I reviewed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

Check out what else I had to say at Moving Pictures.

In the latest Nexus Graphica column, I call out Mark Millar on his portrayal of multiple sclerosis in Superior #1.

In the article, I cite several other flaws regarding Millar’s view of MS. I also review Guerillas Volume 1, The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor Volume One, and Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection

Promo copy:

You’ll get all 100 episodes of the groundbreaking series, all digitally remastered and restored for pristine clarity.

The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection is housed in a 40-DVD Collector’s Box that includes a bionic sound chip and a special 3D lenticular design of Steve Austin.

Plus, you’ll get over 17 hours of bonus features, including:

Exclusive new interviews with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner

All three Six Million Dollar Man pilot movies

All three Six Million Dollar Man reunion movies

All Bionic Woman crossover episodes

17 exclusive featurettes

Audio Commentaries and Other Interactive Features

We have the technology. We have the DVDs. The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection is now available.

Watch for details soon on how to win this extraordinary set from RevolutionSF!

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Promo copy:

On a suburban street, two masked men seize a young woman. They bind and gag her and take her to an abandoned, soundproofed apartment. She is Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton), daughter of a millionaire. Her kidnappers, the coldly efficient Vic (Eddie Marsan) and his younger accomplice Danny (Martin Compston), have worked out a meticulous plan. But Alice is not going to play the perfect victim – she’s not giving in without a fight. In a tense power-play of greed, duplicity and survival we discover that sometimes disappearances can be deceptive…

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

This is one of those rare times that I’m actually excited about every book posted. I eagerly look forward to reading each of these.

Our White Boy
by Jerry Craft with Kathleen Sullivan
Foreword by Larry Lester

Promo copy:

At the outset of summer break in 1959, Texas Tech senior Jerry Craft had no more enticing options than to stay home and help on the family ranch–so the telephoned offer to play for a semipro baseball club he’d never heard of came as a welcome surprise.

But Craft was in for an even bigger surprise when he reported for tryout and discovered he’d been recruited for the West Texas Colored League.

Wichita Falls/Graham Stars manager Carl Sedberry persuaded Craft to put aside his misgivings and pitch for the Stars. Despite the derision of black teammates, fans, and opponents, and his own trepidation, ”that white boy” took the mound to close a rousing victory in his first game. At home and on the road in segregated Texas, Craft saw discrimination firsthand and from every side. Yet out of his two seasons with the Stars comes an unlikely story of respect, character, humor, and ultimately friendship as the teammates pulled together to succeed in a game they loved.

WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit
by Alan J. Porter
Illustrated by Doug Potter

Promo copy:

Looking for a way to increase team collaboration? Do you need a better way manage your company’s knowledge? Do you need a way to manage projects with customers or suppliers outside your company firewall? Would you like your customers to provide feedback on the information you publish? Then a wiki might be just what you are looking for. WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit introduces the concept of wikis, and shows why they are becoming the must-have communications and collaboration technology for businesses of any size. Porter provides up-to-date information on selecting a wiki, getting started, overcoming resistance to wikis, maintaining your wiki, and using your wiki for internal collaboration, project planning, communication with your customers, and more. The book includes five case studies that highlight the ways companies are using wikis to solve business and communication problems, increase efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction.

Yes, this is the same Alan J. Porter who wrote The Cars comic, Star Trek: A Comic Book History, and James Bond: The History Of The Illustrated 007.

Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games
by A. Bartlett Giamatti

Promo copy:

A philosophical musing on sports and play, this wholly inspiring and utterly charming reissue of Bart Giamatti’s long-out-of-print final book, Take Time for Paradise, puts baseball in the context of American life and leisure. Giamatti begins with the conviction that our use of free time tells us something about who we are. He explores the concepts of leisure, American-style. And in baseball, the quintessential American game, he finds its ultimate expression. "Sports and leisure are our reiteration of the hunger for paradise— for freedom untrammeled." Filled with pithy truths about such resonant subjects as ritual, self-betterment, faith, home, and community, Take Time for Paradise gives us much more than just baseball. These final, eloquent thoughts of "the philosopher king of baseball" (Seattle Weekly) are a joyful, reverent celebration of the sport Giamatti loved and the country that created it.

Unlike yesterday with its sparse attendance, throngs of people, wall-to-wall, filled the Austin Convention Center. Fans waited in long lines to get a picture with Adam West and Burt Ward while standing in front of the Batmobile and to meet Lee Majors and Ray Park.

Click on image to enlarge

Photo by Alan J. Porter

Disappointingly, the legendary Michael Golden garnered little attention. It was particularly glaring considering across the aisle hundreds waited for Joe Madureira.

Art by Michael Golden

I spent a thoroughly entertaining lunch with Chew artist Rob Guillory. We discussed the origins of the popular title, his career, working with John Layman, and our mutual respect for Image Comics PR and Marketing Coordinator Betsy Gomez.

Before lunch while waiting for Guillory to finish talking with some of his many fans, I noticed the artwork Kody Chamberlain. Set up on the table next to Guillory, his stark, realistic work created quite a contrast to his neighbor’s cartoony-style. Chamberlain’s beautifully rendered comic Sweets details a New Orleans crime story in the days leading up to Katrina.

Art by Kody Chamberlain

Though I appreciated the pavilion aspect, rather than being buried in some dank room somewhere, of the gaming happenings, it was dominated by that symbol of 1990s avarice Magic: The Gathering. What about the more modern, egalitarian card game Dominion? Or the excellent sci-fi board game tie-in Battlestar Galactica?

I stopped and chatted with artist Paul Maybury (whose recent works can be seen in Strange Tales II #2) at the STAPLE! booth.

Click on image to enlarge

Page from Paul Maybury’s story in Strange Tales II #2

All-in-all, another fun, albeit tiring day. This show is proving to be infinitely more fun than the last Wizard World Texas I attended.

My Sunday visit will probably prove to be a short one. Running out of steam.

After my previous experience at a Wizard World show, I approached day one of Austin’s first Wizard World Texas with some trepidation. Back in 2008, I wrote this about the show, then in Dallas:

Thankfully, my initial impressions after touring the convention floor ran closer to my hopes for the comics field. Mature and accomplished works dominated.

I chatted at length with The Intergalactic Nemesis writer Jason Neulander and artist Tim Doyle (who is currently producing an educational comic book for Texas prisoners!). Neulander is taking the radio show on the road in 2011. Watch for The Intergalactic Nemesis in Houston, Dallas, and even Kansas.

Art by Tim Doyle

Rob Guillory gladly signed (complete with an original sketch of Mason Savoy) my copy of Chew Omnivore Edition Volume 1. More on the talented artist later as I’m interviewing him tomorrow.

Sketch by Rob Guillory in my copy of Chew Omnivore Edition Volume 1

House of Mystery and JSA All-Stars scribe Matthew Sturges introduced me to Dean Trippe and his amazing retro artistic stylings.

Art by Dean Trippe

Even though we share countless friends and acquaintances, oddly Ape Entertainment Director of Marketing Brent Erwin and I had never met until today. After our brief discussion (with promises of more later), I’m glad we finally rectified the oversight.

I wandered the halls with fellow RevolutionSF editor Alan J. Porter, blogger/critic Sarah Arnold (expect a major RevSF announcement concerning Ms. Arnold soon!), and musician/writer/animator Tony Salvaggio.

The only book I bought shocked me not for the content but rather than I had never head of it!

How had a graphic novel about King Kong creators Cooper and Schoedsack escaped my notice? Based on Spawn of Skull Island: The Making of King Kong, adapter Susan Svehla relied on a fumetti style for The Amazingly True Adventures of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack.

After an unexpectedly fun and productive day, I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures
by Robert E. Howard
Illustrated by John Watkiss

Promo copy:

The immortal legacy of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian, continues with this latest compendium of Howard’s fiction and poetry. These adventures, set in medieval-era Europe and the Near East, are among the most gripping Howard ever wrote, full of pageantry, romance, and battle scenes worthy of Tolstoy himself. Most of all, they feature some of Howard’s most unusual and memorable characters, including Cormac FitzGeoffrey, a half-Irish, half-Norman man of war who follows Richard the Lion-hearted to twelfth-century Palestine—or, as it was known to the Crusaders, Outremer; Diego de Guzman, a Spaniard who visits Cairo in the guise of a Muslim on a mission of revenge; and the legendary sword woman Dark Agnès, who, faced with an arranged marriage to a brutal husband in sixteenth-century France, cuts the ceremony short with a dagger thrust and flees to forge a new identity on the battlefield.

Lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist John Watkiss and featuring miscellanea, informative essays, and a fascinating introduction by acclaimed historical author Scott Oden, Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures is a must-have for every fan of Robert E. Howard, who, in a career spanning just twelve years, won a place in the pantheon of great American writers.

I’m loving these Del Rey collections of REH stuff, but when does Mark Finn, our own resident Howard expert, get to write an introduction?

The Wolf Age
by James Enge

Promo copy:

"Spear-age, sword-age:
shields are shattered.
Wind-age, wolf-age:
before the world founders
no man will show mercy to another."

Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.

Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius.

The Human Blend
by Alan Dean Foster

Promo copy:

Alan Dean Foster’s brilliant new novel is a near-future thriller that has all the dark humor and edgy morality of an Elmore Leonard mystery, in addition to the masterly world-building and quirky but believable characters readers expect from Foster. This gripping adventure reveals a place where criminals are punished through genetic engineering and bodily manipulation—which poses profound questions about what it means to be human.

Given his name because radical surgery and implants have reduced him to preternatural thinness, Whispr is a thug. His partner in crime, Jiminy Cricket, has also been physically altered with nanocarbonic prosthetic legs and high-strength fast-twitch muscle fibers that give him great jumping abilities. In a dark alley in Savannah, Whispr and Jiminy murder what they take to be a random tourist in order to amputate and then fence his sophisticated artificial hand. But the hapless victim also happens to be carrying an unusual silver thread that appears to be some kind of storage medium. Ever quick to scent potential profit, Whispr and Jiminy grab the thread as well.

Chance later deposits a wounded Whispr at the clinic of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Things have not gone smoothly for Whispr since he acquired the mysterious thread. Powerful forces are searching for him, and Jiminy has vanished. All Whispr wants to do is sell the thread as quickly as he can. When he offers to split the profits with Ingrid in exchange for her medical services, she makes an astonishing discovery.

So begins a unique partnership. Unlike Whispr, Ingrid is a natural, with no genetic or bodily alteration. She is also a Harvard-educated physician, while Whispr’s smarts are strictly of the street variety. Yet together they make a formidable team—as long as they can elude the enhanced assassins that are tracking them.

Bloodshot
by Cherie Priest

Promo copy:

Raylene Pendle (AKA Cheshire Red), a vampire and world-renowned thief, doesn’t usually hang with her own kind. She’s too busy stealing priceless art and rare jewels. But when the infuriatingly charming Ian Stott asks for help, Raylene finds him impossible to resist—even though Ian doesn’t want precious artifacts. He wants her to retrieve missing government files—documents that deal with the secret biological experiments that left Ian blind. What Raylene doesn’t bargain for is a case that takes her from the wilds of Minneapolis to the mean streets of Atlanta. And with a psychotic, power-hungry scientist on her trail, a kick-ass drag queen on her side, and Men in Black popping up at the most inconvenient moments, the case proves to be one hell of a ride.

More in Part II