Weekly Wanderlust – Shipped January 16, 2013

Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Orm of Loch Ness
Dark Horse Comics
Eric Powell w/ Tracy Marsh
(a) Kyle Hotz
FC 32 pgs $3.50

The creator of The Goon, one of my favorite ongoing series, and artist Kyle Hotz decided to team Billy the Kid of western legend with sideshow freaks and set them on a series of self-contained adventures in which they fight and protect other grotesqueries. Each features a title that is a mouthful, beginning always with Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities.

The Orm of Loch Ness comes to an end and it does so in a way that holds true to the tone of this particular adventure. There is always violence and dread in these comics, but those are usually tempered by Billy’s tom-foolery. That comedy, I found, has all but disappeared. The result is a tense read with ghastly shocks throughout.

I’m not complaining. (Chad Boudreau)

Weekly Wanderlust – Shipped January 9, 2013

I celebrated my first year as a comic shop owner and the anniversary has gotten me nostalgic. I think back to when I was just a customer at ComicReaders on Grant Road and that leads me to fond memories of writing for ComicReaders.com. I interviewed comic creators and wrote reviews, blurbs of which would sometimes eventually adorn back or even front covers. I still have a print out of the email Roman Dirge sent me after he found my review of Lenore online, and, to this day, if you look at a collection of Elephantmen you will find a snippet of a review I wrote.

In honour of those good times, I shake the dust off Weekly Wanderlust—a weekly column in which ComicReaders.com regulars like Hnetka, Tillusz, Boudreau, Cameron, Hintze, Brennan, and others told comic readers what they thought about the current week’s releases.