Good morning and Happy New Comic Book Day, everyone! It’s the start of a new month and we’ve got a lot of things coming into the shop this week (including lots of ice and snow apparently to Northeast Ohio. :/). But hey, we can’t control that! Luckily, it’s Cleveland, so the weather can turn around quickly, and hopefully we’ll see a 40-degree day soon to break us out of this winter chill. In case we all get iced/snowed in later this week, be sure to stop by and grab some reading material to keep yourself company. We’ve got a few great trade collections into the shop, as well as some new #1’s and new issues for hit series also. Letssss go.

Marvel Comics

At the end of 2021, Hawkeye was the talk of the shop because the new Disney+ series had just dropped. And now hot off the trailer premiere just a couple of weeks ago, the Moon Knight hype is starting to ramp up and we’ve had a lot of people coming in looking for MK books. It’s been tough trying to get anything in stock for the character recently because of the upcoming show, but we’re excited to share that we’ve got one of the highest Moon Knight recommendations possible, new in the shop this week, with the COMPLETE Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev run available in one trade paperback collection. “Captain America. Wolverine. Spider-Man. There’s nobody you’d want to have your back more than this trio of mighty Avengers. So who better for Moon Knight to call upon to lend a hand? The trouble is, they’re all in Moon Knight’s head – the latest splinters of Marc Spector’s shattered psyche! And as Spector battles his own mind to find balance in his new home of Los Angeles, a powerful criminal mastermind makes his deadly move – trafficking Ultron’s temporarily inert robot body! Can Moon Knight get his act together in time to take on this deadly threat – or is he way out of his league?” John Dudas, John S., and Ben all LOVE this book and it’s a great deal too for only $29.99 this week. I was thoroughly confused during the trailer, but I know this is where I’m gonna go to start to figure things out.

One of the coolest and darkest moments from Hickman’s House and Powers of X miniseries (and X-Men run as a whole) was when the Quiet Council of Krakoa banished Sabretooth and imprisoned him inside the crust of the island nation. But what happened to Victor Creed during that time? We get to find out now in this new five-issue miniseries that I’m pretty stoked about. Writer Victor LaValle (novelist and writer of BOOM Studios’ excellent Eve) teams up with artist Leonard Kirk to fill in the blanks after Sabretooth’s banishment at the very beginning of Krakoa and also reveal just what lays underneath the island. Right on!

DC Comics

Arguably the best book DC is putting out now, and one of the best books out now period, Dark Knights of Steel is easily one of the highest recommendations for all of us on staff at CNJ’s. It’s that good and has a lot of fun twists and turns and slight changes to the DC mythos that makes this book fresh and exciting. This week sees issue #4 release, and after the first three issues really escalated the growing tensions between the House of El and the Kingdom of Storms, we get an awesome issue between Alfred and Bruce (I miss you Alfred) as they detail the secret history of the El’s crashlanding on this new world set in the Middle Ages. A must-read for any DC fan who misses the Elseworlds stories of yesteryear.

“Introducing the newest hero in the DCU, the great sage, equal to the heavens, better than his predecessor the legendary Monkey King, even better than the Justice League—and definitely the Teen Titans—(actually, all the heroes combined), everyone put your hands together for…the Monkey Prince! Marcus Sun moves around a lot because his adoptive parents are freelance henchpeople, so this month he finds himself as the new kid at Gotham City High School, where a mysterious man with pig features asks Marcus to walk through a water curtain to reveal himself as who Marcus really is…someone who has adventured through The Journey to the West can transform into 72 different formations, can clone himself using his hairs, and is called…the Monkey Prince!” Written by Gene Luen Yang and drawn by Bernard Chang, this new DC hero finally gets his own twelve-issue maxiseries, starting this week.

Small Press

Geoff Johns has been known for his extensive work in the DC Universe, but last year he launched with Image a new creator-owned book with longtime collaborator Gary Frank called Geiger. It was a big hit, mixing superhero action with elements of genre classics like Game of Thrones, Mad Max, and the Fallout video game series. The first arc wrapped up a few months ago (we’ve got volume 1’s coming back in stock too if you missed out) and new this week is the Geiger 80-Page Giant. For $7.99, the Mad Ghost Comics Universe expands with histories and backstories revealed for the Warlords of Vegas and also introductions to TWO new series coming later this year from Geoff Johns. A jam-packed 80-page giant for sure.

I’ve got a love-hate relationship with Rick and Morty. The first few seasons were funny, gross, raunchy, and over-the-top with plenty of high-stakes cartoon hijinks (Jaguar is the man). But then Szechuan sauce happened, and the fandom got a little too big and crazy, and it kind of made it a little embarrassing to be a fan personally. I haven’t watched the most recent seasons, but when I saw this one-shot solicited in the Previews Catalog a few months ago, I knew I had to get it. It’s Rick and Morty Presents: Hericktics of Rick, a Dune-inspired R&M adventure! Rick discovers a new and powerful substance and the only planet in the universe that has it, and he drags Morty with him to the planet Arrickis in search of the spice, err I mean the sauce. I’m a huge Dune fan, and I just finished the fifth book earlier this week (it’s set over 5000 years after the events of the first book, but it might just be my favorite of the series so far), so this was perfect timing for me. Remember that time I dressed as Shai Hulud for the Holiday Art Show? Exactly…

AWA Studios has been putting out some fantastic comics since they launched in 2019, and every series seems to have a little something for everyone. John Shearer loved this series when it was coming out, and finally, this week sees the trade paperback collection of Fight Girls in stores now. AWA’s trades are great, not just because of the content, but also the price. Each one is only $9.99 and you get the full story included in that price. Fight Girls is about 10 tough-as-nails ladies and their quests to become the one “Queen of the Galaxy” in this ancient contest of champions that’s a battle of strength, wits, and cunning, but one of these women is competing for something bigger than the prize. I’ve got to get caught up myself, but I’m very excited too. And speaking of AWA…

I recently got the chance to talk with the Editor-in-Chief of AWA Studios, and comics industry legend, Axel Alonso (!) about AWA’s comics, what the company brand is about, and what’s in store for readers soon. You can check that out at my new Substack page!. John Dudas has reached out to some of his connections in the industry, and over the next couple months, I’ll be talking to more industry professionals and small press companies about their books and letting you all know what’s up. I’m really excited about this opportunity and am happy to share it all with you. So check that out!

But in the meantime, that’s it for my big releases this week. Be careful out there, it sounds like we’re set to get a pretty messy and serious winter storm. But I’ll catch you all around town. Thanks again, and have a good week.