Panel Patter: The Newsletter, Advent Calendar Edition
Twenty-four days of stale chocolate almost assuredly recycled from unsold 2019 calendars.
Welcome to this week’s edition of Panel Patter: The Newsletter, your official guide to all things Paneldom.
Also, an unauthorized BTS/K-Pop fanzine.
Yes! Wait . . . what?
You heard me.
Ok, without further ado.
Recent Patterings
Strange Adventures by Tom King, Mitch Gerads, and Evan "Doc" Shaner
James opens up the latest Tom King offering to break down the worldview of the book and its protagonist, peeling the layers of King’s narrative as beautifully depicted by Gerads and Shaner. There are important questions at play here. Namely, “who gets to tell the stories?” and “what stories do they tell?”
There's a lot to unpack in Strange Adventures, and the series is only halfway through (issue 7 comes out today). But the comic seems to be focused on the central and overlapping ideas of truth and propaganda, heroism, and who gets to say who is or isn't a hero (and more broadly, who controls truth).
Engage In The Bliss Of Oblivion With Coffin Bound: Dear God by Watters, Dani, Simpson, and Bidikar
Mike returned to the beauty of darkness that is Coffin Bound. People told Mike to study something more practical when he attended college. Don’t waste your time with English and Philosophy, they said. It won’t ever pay off, they said. Well, who’s laughing now?
The will is to survive, to not let yourself be crushed by society’s regime. It’s the ethos of punk rock. You likely won’t transcend, but you can make it a little less miserable. But the second arc turns that notion on its head, embracing something more along the lines of “live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse.” Taqa steers into the spiral, convinced that she can take control of it.
Catch It at the Comic Shop December 2nd, 2020
Heading to the shop on this Saturday afternoon? Confused about what to pick up? Avoid the paralysis of choice, and just follow our lead. We have nine different books from seven different publishers featured this week.
Check Us Out on Social Media (Only Fans Coming Soon)
From the Archives
Scott's Completely Subjective and Totally Questionable Best Comics of 2017 (Weekend Pattering for January 12th, 2018)
Take a look at a weekend post that includes Scott’s favorite’s from three years prior and a special look at his Newsarama picks.
On The Information Superhighway (Actually, a cul de sac)
From Solrad: Publishing During A Pandemic: Daniel Elkin interviews Kelly Sheehan from Earth’s End Publishing
Check out this great profile on what it’s like to run a small press during an unprecedented event.
From TCJ: M. Delmonico Connolly Reviews Vision
There is some significant buzz around this book, and this review captures an idea that is occasionally foreign to visual media - it’s what isn’t shown that is most important.
Gatecrashers Podcast
What a cool idea - The Super Sons Podcast has expanded and rebranded beyond its original DC-centric mission to provide feasible entry points to genre work for curious new fans.
Kim Kiekegaardashian’s Existentialist Advice Column
If the beautiful despair of Coffin Bound wasn’t enough for you, of course.
Extra Patterings
What did you read this week?
Neil
Surprisingly not a comic, but Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. Star Wars brings so much joy to me no matter what I think about the movies. I just love that universe and felt the need to immerse myself within it once again.
Sean
I took a break from comics to read a *big boy book* called Qualityland. Absolutely loved it! It’s like reading Vonnegut write an Orwell book possessed by Asimov’s ghost.
James
I read Doomsday Clock in its collected edition and I absolutely love it. It’s a highly entertaining and ultimately very hopeful story. I’m not that precious about “Watchmen” (I frankly respect it a lot more than I actually enjoy it) so I’m not troubled by the existence of Doomsday Clock. Geoff Johns and Gary Frank are a fantastic storytelling team.
Mike
I read, and am still wrestling with Dancing After TEN by Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber.
What are you looking forward to?
Neil
Scarenthood #2, The Devil's Red Bride #3, plus going through a backlog of comics before buying anymore!
Sean
I’m anxious to see where the Spider-Man: Last Remains stuff is heading. This story arc really turned things for me and now Spidey is back on my radar.
James
I just picked up the 5th volume of Gideon Falls and so I am going to go back and reread the series from the beginning. Also to prepare for the series finale that comes out later this month.
Mike
I’m excited to see where Alex Paknadel and John Le take Giga with the second issue out this week. I’m also stoked to get back into some superhero stuff after many months of focusing mostly on smaller press offerings. I’m going to kick that off with the first trade of Cates and Klein’s Thor.
What is your favorite new series from 2020?
Neil
The Devil's Red Bride
Sean
Hands down, Department of Truth. It won’t be featured on my year end favorites cuz there isn’t a complete arc finished (my rule).
James
That’s very easy: Decorum by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Huddleston. It’s a hugely ambitious, weird, stunning-looking series. My runner up would be either Department of Truth or We Only Find Them When They’re Dead.
Mike
I’m going to cheat ever so slightly here and name Killadelphia, a series that published one issue before the end of 2019, as my favorite new addition.
That’ll do it for this week’s newsletter. Check on the Panel Patter Dot Com this week for Scott’s essay on Hard Time, quick hits on Home Sick Pilots and Giga, and our weekly Catch It At the Comic Shop.
This issue was . . . ok . . . but you’re never gonna make it in the K-Pop fanzine business with this content, just sayin’.