As always, “Five & Three” brings you my favorite things in comics this week. Every week I pick my five favorite covers and three favorite panels to create “Five & Three”. I like to talk about why I picked the covers and panels and welcome hecklers and trend setters alike. If you disagree with a pick, let me know in the comments or on Twitter @MarkAvo. If you think I should’ve picked something else or have a pick in mind for next week, give me a shout out and let me know.
This week, my absolute favorite thing Free Comic Book Day. The books are free but the retailers pay for them so as you’re at the local comic shop with your kiddies or your pals, be sure to thank the retailer and maybe shop around for something cool while you’re there. To get us started this week I’m going to lead with the “Rocket Raccoon” book for Free Comic Book Day (FCBD). This is a great cover by the very talented Skottie Young. You can pick this one up this Saturday for the price of a thank you.
Image From Free Comic Book Day
The next book this week is a crazy cool cover from the Valiant mini-series “Shadowman: End Times”. Valiant has been rocking the comic book world with terrific art and mind blowing story lines. If you haven’t jumped in yet, give this title a shot.
Rick Remender’s “Deadly Class” has been inspiring for the writer in me because it is so very different but so very much a comic book. The medium of comic books can tell any kind of story to every kind of reader with any kind of taste. This comic is a testament to that. It’s also another hit story from the mind of Remender.
“Origin II” comes to an end with issue #5 and I’m not sure how I feel about it. The overall story didn’t have the same punch as the first issue of the series did. It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but with the Origin Pedigree I was hoping to have another electric storyline like the first Origin series. Despite Adam Kubert and Keiron GIllen making a beautiful story, I don’t think Origin II will stand the test of time like the original has.
Peter Parker is back even though his body never really left. The Amazing Spider-man gets his body back in “The Amazing Spider-Man” #1 just in time for the movie’s release. The book is terrific but I liked this Marcos Martin variant cover the best. If you’d like to hear more about the movie and how we Big Shiny Robots feel about it, go over to this page here and binge on “spider-commentary”.
The panels this week are simple. Here is another set I got out of the preview pages on the Free Comic Book Day website. FCBD has a nice sampling from each book so you can look at the ones you want to get and for parents to see if the content in the book is something they’d like their kids to have. Remember folks, comic books are more of an adult art form than a kids one. Even though the panels below from The Regular show, many of the books on Free Comic Book Day are aimed at adults. That’s why the previews exist on the page for Free Comic Book Day so if you’re a parent with concerns for the content your kids may get a hold of on FCBD, go take advantage of the previews.
Image From Free Comic Book Day
In the “Avengers” issue 28 it appears as someone has found Tony out. Will everything the Illuminati is building unravel in their face?
The last set of panels is from “Vertigo Quarterly: CMYK” and is a story by Jock and Lee Garbett with colors by Lee Loughridge and lettering by Jared K. Fletcher. The story is really crazy but very fun. That’s what I love the most about anthologies and that’s why I love FCBD. Many stories of all different varieties by very talented professionals all for free!
That’s it for this week! For a look at last week’s “Five and Three” please visit this link. If you want more awesome art to look at and like my commentary, visit the deviantART Podcast over here. Follow me on Twitter @MarkAvo for my tweets & Instagrams of Free Comic Book Day. I’ll be at The Nerd Store with the creative team of The Salt City Strangers and the Hold 322 podcast. We’ll be sketching and chatting and playing games all day to promote issue #3 of The Salt City Strangers. Oh, and be sure to come back next week!