Last weekend I had the pleasure of Comic Shop jumping to pick up free Halloween Comic Fest books. I was fortunate to pick up 19 of the 22 books available and have finished reading them so now with Halloween in the rear view let's rank those 19 from worst to best...
First up the 3 I missed out on was Action Lab's Vamplets Ghost Pony, Antarctic's Zombie Kid Diaries, and Archaia's Pantalones TX Zombinata.
19. Archie Comics: Archie's Pals & Gals
This book was bad, and I don't dislike Archie and co. The Reg ego story was just awful and the Jughead story where Big Ethel moves on from him was almost as bad.
18. Viz Media: Ben 10 Omniverse
I know very little about Ben 10, so maybe it's my fault. My understanding is Ben has a watch that he uses to transform into 10 different aliens but I just couldn't follow what was going on... But as you will see with the Cartoon Network Sampler... I doubt it was my lack of understanding that made it bad.
17. Viz Media: Uzumaki
Now this is a horror book or so I'm told, this is a chapter of the book entitled "Medusa" where a girl's hair grows out of control and drags her places to get attention, it's like Idle Hands but not the least bit funny or entertaining.
16. BOOM! Studios: Adventure Time
This is only my 2nd time reading an Adventure Time book, I enjoyed the FCBD 2013 issue, but this one was just too ridiculous to take seriously and not ridiculous funny either. I'm still open to Adventure Time but this hasn't sold me on picking up the books regularly just yet.
15. Image Comics: Super Dinosaur
It's odd to see an Image child's book, but altogether it wasn't that bad. The concept itself was very interesting as far as I'm concerned. But they definitely crammed too much information into this mini book for me to even try to veguely figure out what dinos were good and which were bad.
14. Oni Press: Sketch Monsters
It's a cool idea for kids, but I couldn't get past the art style, I think even a 6 year old reading it would be thinking "Shit, I can do better than that".
13. Ape Entertainment: Sesame Street
Now, it's important to note I'm putting myself in the shoes of the targeted reader, and really I'd read this to my nephews. It has a great message to get to kids and really wasn't a bad read for this 24 year old.
12. Avatar Press: Disenchanted
This book is a collection of webcomics where fairies are no longer believed in and are living with goblins in a shit hole abanddoned subway station getting shit-faced and having political uprisings. This book itself focuses too much on being crude to get attention than havign a coherant storyline which hurts it, despite being one book I was looking most forward to going in.
11. Dark Horse Comics: Itty Bitty Hellboy
I'm not a huge fan of the Itty Bitty Hellboy saga, it's a nice read for kids but not a lot goes on, this was one of the better ones I've read but there are better fare for kids out there on the stands.
10. IDW Publishing: My Little Pony
I've never read MLP before, so I'm far from a Brony... But I understand why they exist now, because really this book was good. At the end when there was talk of draining all the love I cringed a bit but up until that point I was all in this book.
9. Aspen Comics: Soulfire Genesis
When I started reading this book I thought it was ridiculously dumb, the only thing that saved it was the art. But when I got to the 2nd story I was incredibly interested and if they expanded on that for the whole issue and ditched the prequel it probably would have worked it's way into the top 3.
8. Marvel Comics: Ultimate Spider-Man
Straight from the Disney show comes this comic. The Marvel Mash-Up sections were hilarious. The 1st story was kinda lame, and the 2nd one was meh... Thank God for those mash-ups though.
7. Archie Comics: Sonic Lost World
A prequel to the Nintendo exclusive game takes Sonic and Tales onto the Lost World and explains the back story behind Dr. Eggman controlling the Deadly Six. From front to back it was consistently good and makes me want to pick up more Sonic comics in the future.
6. DC Comics: Batman: L'il Gotham
When L'il Gotham was released in print I wanted to pick it up but I couldn't find copies, after reading some previews the art style urked me too much. As it turns out the art works with the story, although the Thanksgiving portion of the book wasn't nearly as strong as the Halloween one hence it falling out of the top 5.
5. Action Lab: Skyward
I've slowly been becoming more and more interested in Action Lab's catalogue including their mature Danger Zone titles. This is a perfect example as half the book focuses on their new series Skyward, while the 2nd has the return of Fracture, their flagship superhero. Both stories were good, but Skyward graded out as great giving an indie title a top 5 spot.
4. IDW Publishing: Cartoon Network Super Sampler
IDW has a contract to make comics based on Cartoon Network stars. In this issue we get a Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls and Ben 10 story. I don't like Samurai Jack and my lack of Ben 10 knowledge has already been stated, the Powerpuff Girls story was really great. Ben 10 was good as well and I was able to understand what was going on! Samurai Jack, again not my cup of tea, but not bad either.
3. DC Comics: Batman: The Long Halloween
Okay, this is a great graphic novel first off. But we aren't judging on the source material, the comic itself and they didn't pick a very exciting portion to publish, similar to last years Superman FCBD portion of The Last Son Of Krypton... We get it. You want us to start on the first chapter but if there are better portions use that!!
2. Hachete Book Group: Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children
Now that I've complained about using chapter 1 or a graphic novel, let's talk abotu another one... But unlike TLH this actually makes me want to read the graphic novel! I dove in and even when I hit the back cover, I wanted more. It's a shame it's taken me this long to come around to this as I'm a big Tim Burton fan and this is a work in progress for the famed director. Next time I hit up Big B Comics I'm asking that this be ordered for me.
1. Marvel Comics: Thor: God Of Thunder
When picking up my free comics I was asked if I have read any new Thor, I told them I had not, and explained why really I'm not a huge fan as I generally avoid God-like Super-heroes... When I read this I was completely blown away with how amazing this book looked and read. I found it a shame I've let it go unnoticed this whole time. People reading this that love comics in any way shape or form NEED to read this... I'm not joking. It's that good.
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