Fingers Crossed For An Interesting Fall

There were a few more things that caught my eye in the solicits for September than the last few months. Not necessarily good things, but still things.

With Image, there's a graphic novel by Steven Seagle and Moritat called Solstice, about a crazy millionaire dragging his son with him on a search for the Fountain of Youth. There's also a Battle Chasers Anthology. I was still reading Wizard at the time they were either touting that book, or making fun of Joe Madureira for not being able to stop playing video games long enough to get any issues out. I am morbidly curious, though not enough to buy it right off. Definitely the kind of thing you wait until it's available used for cheap.

Dark Horse has Steeple, a new series by Giant Days' creator John Allison, with Sarah Stern as artist or co-artist. I'm not sure on that part. They're both listed as artist. Anyway, I gush ad nauseum over Giant Days, and this sounds odd enough I want to try it. IDW has a Napoleon Dynamite series, only 10 years after that movie ceased being relevant. You know, I never watched that film, never got the appeal.

DC, the most notable thing to me is that Dial H is now a 12-issue mini-series. Unexpected. The artist, however, is "Others", as opposed to Joe Quinones. The art is doing most of the heavy lifting on that book. There's also an Inferior Five mini-series, but it doesn't appear to have any connection to the goofball superhero team. It's five kids dealing with fallout from the Invasion! event from 30 years ago. Man, I've only seen the parts of that that intersected with Suicide Squad or Manhunter. Mostly with DC, I kept seeing solicits for books that have been going for over a year and having no clue they existed. Like Dreaming, or House of Mystery. I'm sure I've seen their solicits before but they made no impression whatsoever.

Besides, sigh, Absolute Carnage, Marvel is releasing a bunch of odd one-shots. An Alpha Flight thing done entirely by Canadian creators, Erik Larsen doing a Spider-Man book, Roger Stern going back to his Avengers run (which I thought was over by the time of Infinity Wars, but according to the solicit, I'm wrong). They're all $5, naturally. There's another Avengers book, led by Blade, dealing with supernatural stuff. Whoo *twirls finger in the air sarcastically*. They're bringing back Crazy, which I've never read, but might be of interest to someone. I feel like so much of Marvel's output is self-aware and poking fun at its own tropes you don't really need an entire magazine devoted to that, but whatever. Moon Knight is going to fight Kang, which should be the shortest damn fight in history. Ms. Marvel is going on a road trip with Zoe and Nakia, and they're going to encounter zombies. Well, it might still be good.

Esther and Daisy are graduating in Giant Days, but still no sign of Smooth Criminals. Great, it's joined Copperhead and The Seeds on the "books Calvin wants to read that dropped off the face of the earth."

There's a book called Tower in the Sea by B. Mure from Avery Hill Publishing about, I think, a young scholar searching for answers to some visions they're having and seeking out the secret magicians. D.P. Filippi and Terry Dodson are doing a book called Muse, about an (attractive) lady hired a tutor to some odd landlords' kid. Which wouldn't normally be my thing, but there's something odd about the manor and the grounds, which means an mystery and/or strange settings. Which are my jam.

Test will be up to issue 4, except issue 1 still hasn't appeared, so maybe not. Viz is releasing the first volume of Way of the Househusband, which is about your stereotypical Yakuza badass who retires to become a stay-at-home husband. I saw a bit of it going around online a few months ago. Him doing laundry, or trying to buy fruit at the grocery and people being terrified because he looks really intense while he politely asks for assistance. Could get old fast, but I figured I'd mention it.