Ketorade

Enough of the sob stories, now on to the good part:
NEW BOOKS from Komiket 2016!

Now, we haven't exactly finished reading everything from our pull list but here are a few of our favorites based on browsing and skimming alone.

Ched De Gala's The Girl Who Smiles At Parties & Aaron Galzote's Kuya.
Both were read on the bus while on our way home from the event.
The Girl Who Smiles At Parties is poignant tale of a wallflower. Which I could totally relate with.
Dont ask why, I just do! Everything looks excellent. The crowd and establishing shots alone were both worth the price of admission. And did we mention that it's in full color? Because it totally is!
Here were a few of our favorite panels/moments:

(These snaps are merely for review purposes and will be happily taken down upon request).

The entire book has that "Nakatsamba ako sa Booksale" look and feel. And we've even told the author just that personally. The only downside to this book would be the choice of font used on some of the dialogues. It's a bit difficult to read but then again, maybe reading it inside a dimly lit bus had something to do with it. It could also be viewed as one's threshold for casual socialization and how everything else tends to blend itself and become background noises in the long run.

Kuya is an honest comic book about dealing with your cocky brother.

Anyone that has one is sure to relate to the various scenarios presented (taking turns at doing chores, errands, etc.) The scenes were presented in a straight forward manner. The pacing was more than excellent. The vulgar language were scene appropriate and the Father was a definite scene stealer.

It's both heavy and comedic (the call center-esque moments were pretty priceless!) at the same time. A clear departure from the established Joe Mcrad humor but still equally enjoyable.

Parang Gilas Pilipinas lang yan e, matapang pero may puso! The only downside to the book would be it's print quality. For some of the gray tones are skipping and are quite glaring to look at. White spaces / rest areas would highly be recommended. That or having it printed elsewhere other than in your own home, Aaron. Ano ba? Circa Joe Mcrad days mo pang bad habit yan. Jowkkkk!

Again, these were solely the two indie titles we were able to finish as of the moment.
Other equally as awesome freebies were:
 Zell's constellation stickers,

This awesomely illustrated autograph courtesy of Carlorozy,

Mr. Benjie B's Deceptive Detective #2.

Sam DelaTorre's calling card,

and a PFP sticker.

That and a few other foreign titles that were purchased at the Comic Odyssey booth.
Which were these ones in particular:

and

(as recommended by Nelz Yumul, Syet ang ganda nga!).

Did you notice it?
The what now?
The Hidden Jack Kirby, ya silly!

HA-HA!
The hidden image alone was well-worth the purchase.
There isn't much to read about as of the moment for this book would simply be a sampler of the Genesis universe as laid out by Dynamite Comics.

Amidst the Jack Herbert and Alex Ross artworks were hidden gems in the form of Kirby's original concept arts and designs. Watch and weep, fellow fanboys!

all that and a futuristic Black Panther-esque named Tiger.

Now we don' t exactly know how Bombast, Nightglider and several other Secret City characters ended up in this universe but our guess is that their copyrights from Topps had expired hence they are now under Dynamite. But then again, we could be wrong!

The next book would be Gen 13 : Ordinary Heroes.
Now done in the style of Adam Hughes and as inked by Mark Farmer.

the expressions were quite comical despite the semi-realistic presentation.

And since it was penciled by AH, the ladies are of course.....as hot as hell!

And at the back of the book,

 it's a-me!

Overall, this looks so much better than the previous AH book that we had purchased.

(Enh, GHOST and MONSTER, it doesn't get any more "HALLOWEEN-er" than that!)
The artworks for Ghost was bland and uninteresting.

And the non-Ghost scenes were atrocious. I blame all this on the inker.
Monster was drawn by both Andre Parks (Inker) & Derek Thompson(Pencils) and was actually quite good. The dialogues were short and sweet and it's as fun to read as it is to look at.

And last but not the least was Bomb Queen by Jimmie Robinson.
Man o man, how is this book worth P20.00????
It has crude humor,

tits and ass,

Image comics references,

and
a whole shebang of craziness stuffed in a single panel.

*Sugoi!!!
Japanese expression and nuances are actually a running gag in the story. This is not us simply turning weebo all of a sudden!
The back of the book

also contained some fabulous fan arts from other artists

and other drafts and
sketches used for the singles.

And oh yeah, Thrudd!
It's a more cartoonier version of Conan The Barbarian.
With epic scenes such as these:

It's both funny and adventurous at the same time. Almost Battle Pope-ish even.
The art style has that Moebius look to it which is always a good thing.

And that's that!

BONUS BOOKS THAT WERE PURCHASED ELSEWHERE:

JRJR artworks are always cool. All the more if it contained 32++ pages of his work.
And similar to Bomb Queen, the last few pages were a showcase of sketches, drafts, concept artworks and unused dialogues from the story.

Athena Voltaire wasn't our cup of tea. Despite her looking like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. The cover is a bit misleading and the action isn't as exciting at best. But Warren Ellis and Matt Fraction seems to like it so I guess it's just us and our misguided opinions then.

Russians are pretty badass. Just look at both Zangief and Vodka Drunkenski!
And with that in mind, Let's learn how to speak like one.

Well, that wasn't easy at all! But such is life!

And last but not the least, The totally awesome book of useless information is a book
about well...useless informations.

It's not as useless as you'd think it would be
and had actually taught me more trivias than both Matanglawin & A-Ha combined.
Some of my students are actually a fan of strange facts and whatnots hence this was totally an awesome book indeed!

And thus concludes this week's book club meeting.
Join us again next week/month for some equally nerdy fun under the sun.
That's that, kiddos!
Bye!