Two Comics You Should Be Reading - and Why

I know, I know....I've been away, I've not blogged enough, etc. Much of it has been, well, my free time has been eaten up by other matters. However, in the spirit of wanting to get myself back into the blogosphere in a big way, here are two comics that I would heartily recommend.

First, God bless Paul Cornell - one of the most emotionally engaging Doctor Who writers in print and screen (I still tear up slightly at the end of  Father's Day), and his comics work has been equally engaging. So I say this with little hyperbole and with forthright conviction:

Knight & Squire # 1 is one of the most fun comics ever written.

OK, maybe that is a little bit of overstatement, but it is quite an entertaining comic - if you have to oversimplify it, it's "Silver Age DC Universe in England". It reads like a one-shot, but is part of a six issue mini-series. There's a clever premise, some really good art, and each panel just reverberates with inventiveness. Although it's supposed to be a Batman spin-off book, there's plenty here for everyone to enjoy...there's even an explanation of British expressions on the final page, for those of you who may have missed them.

Six issues seems barely enough - this deserves to be a full series. Honestly. Buy it.

The other comic you should be reading is Matt Wagner and Aaron Campbell's Green Hornet: Year One. I have to admit some bias - after all, I have publicly admitted my love the Green Hornet - and I haven't been this excited about the character since the initial Now Comics run by Comic Related pal Ron Fortier.

It would be easy to make parallels between this book and Wagner's work on Sandman Mystery Theater - both contain equal mixes of noir and pulp-style writing - but Year One has a much less mystical, much stronger sense of realism in tone. Unlike Dynamite's other books, such as Kevin Smith's Green Hornet, Green Hornet Strikes, and The Girl, The Green Hornet, and Everything, it really has a solid storytelling core - nothing about it seems fake or unnecessary.

(Oh, and I was kidding about that third book - there is no such book. But Dynamite Entertainment, please - do you really need to exploit your franchises to death? Seriously. Year One is the only Hornet book you need to publish).

Both of these books have been out in the past few weeks (Year One is at issue # 6). This Wednesday, why not spend some money on two books that really deserve greater attention?

And DC - please make Knight & Squire an ongoing. You'll thank me later.