Happy Halloween week and welcome to Can’t Wait for Wednesday, your guide to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.
With Halloween on the horizon, I’ve called out several horror-themed titles to help you celebrate the season, including a new anthology spearheaded by Becky Cloonan and a special that marks the return of Jay Stephens’ Dwellings. Beyond the spooky stuff, this week also brings the first DC vs. Marvel omnibus, a new Sectaurs comic, the end of Zeb Wells’ run on Amazing Spider-Man and more.
I’ve pulled out some of the other highlights for this week below, but for the complete list of everything you might find at your local comic shop and on digital this week, you’ll want to check out one or more of the following:
- Penguin Random House (Marvel + IDW + Dark Horse + more)
- Lunar Distribution (DC + Image + more)
- Diamond’s PreviewsWorld (BOOM! + Dynamite + more)
- ComicList (Pretty much all of the above)
- Amazon/Kindle new releases (digital comics)
As a reminder, things can change and what you find on the above lists may differ from what’s actually arriving in your local shop. So always check with your comics retailer for the final word on availability.
Come Find Me: An Autumnal Offering (DSTLRY, $8.99): Fresh off receiving two Eisner Awards earlier this year for her gothic horror work on Somna, Becky Cloonan returns to DSTLRY for an anthology project featuring a whole bunch of her fellow creators. The one-shot will include stories by Cloonan, as well as E.M. Carroll, HamletMachine, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Céline Loup and Molly Mendoza, which feature musical demons, curses and more tales of folk horror. It’ll also feature a preview of Cloonan’s next series for DSTLRY.
Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees (DC, $5.99): Regular Poison Ivy scribe G. Willow Wilson teams with Mike Perkins for this one-shot that finds Pamela Isley teaming up with the Swamp Thing to investigate a feral presence growing within the Green.
Dwellings All Hallow’s Eve Special (Oni Press, $5.99): Jay Stephens returns to his well-regarded and award-winning Dwellings with this standalone story that brings readers back to the haunted streets of Elwich for a tale about a tall, dark and handsome visitor “Hell-bent” on hunting down the monsters who hide in the town’s shadows. Happy Halloween, kids!
It Happened on Hyde Street: Devour (Image Comics, $5.99): Ghost Machine’s latest offering takes place on Hyde Street, the setting for their horror-themed comics, making it perfectly timed for the holiday this week. Devour is by Maytal Zchut and Leila Leiz, and it’s about a bride-to-be turning to the mysterious Miss Goodbody for a weight-loss program that will see her get thin or die trying.
The Hexiles #1 (Mad Cave, $4.99): Horror gets personal for the characters featured in this new title by Cullen Bunn and Joe Bocardo, as the six children of the now-dead Jamison Kreel find out their true lineage just in time for their father’s debtors to come calling — and for their own infernal powers to manifest.
Some Strange Disturbances: The Demon Bride (Headless Shakespeare, $15.99): Craig Hurd-McKenney, Carlos Aon and Gervasio present another story in the Some Strange Disturbances series, as Victorian spirits and monsters finally collide to bring about the apocalypse.
Sectaurs #1 (Oni Press, $4.99): Oni Press adds another title to their Nacelleverse line-up as they bring the Sectaurs, a short-lived toy line from the 1980s that had a comic tie-in published by Marvel at the time, back to the printed page. Dennis Culver teams with Ramon Bachs on this new series that joins Roboforce and Biker Mice from Mars in this growing shared universe.
Amazing Spider-Man #60 (Marvel, $7.99): Zeb Wells teams with Ed McGuinness, John Romita Jr. and other artists for this final chapter in his Spider-Man run, which should make some fans happy. It also includes a prelude story for Joe Kelly and McGuinness’ upcoming “Eight Deaths of Spider-Man” storyline.
Blood Squad Seven Strikefile #1 (Image Comics, $4.99): This Blood Squad Seven spinoff pays tribute to the spinoffs of the 1990s, like Youngblood Strikefile, giving you an extra-sized extra dose of BSS. In this issue Joe Casey and Paul Fry explore the back story of the cyborg super soldier Man of War, as the squad hunts the missing hero down. It also features an appearance by another cyborg super soldier, Erik Larsen’s Superpatriot.
The Penguin Special #1 (DC, $5.99): This one-shot features a collection of previously published Penguin stories by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, Alan Grant and Sam Kieth, and Jason Aaron and Jason Pearson, along with a brand-new Penguin story by Jeremy Adams and Howard Porter that “shows the Penguin’s next moves during All In.”
Power Rangers: Across the Morphin Grid #1 (BOOM! Studios, $7.99): Some of TV’s former Power Rangers unite with comic creators on this anthology of stories about the Morphin’ ones. You can expect stories from David Yost, Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas, Mat Groom, Nakia Burrise, JD Sutphin and Meghan Camerana, with art by Paulina Ganucheau, Tango, Patrick Mulholland, Domo Stanton, Anand Ramcheron and more.
Wonder Woman Uncovered (DC, $5.99): DC’s Uncovered series continues with this collection of cover art featuring Wonder Woman by Marguerite Sauvage, Joe Quinones, Joelle Jones, Lee Weeks, Paul Pope, Brian Bolland, Jen Bartel and more.
Fantastic Four: Venom War #1 (Marvel, $4.99): The Fantastic Four get pulled into the bigger Venom War conflict in this comic by Adam Warren and Joey Vazquez that also features Doctor Doom and Kang.
DC Versus Marvel Omnibus (DC, $150): Remember when Marvel and DC’s characters would regularly meet on the printed page, bringing together the likes of Superman and Spider-Man, the Teen Titans and X-Men, and even Galactus and Darkseid? This omnibus collects a lot of that material from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, by creators like Dennis O’Neil, George Pérez, Dan Jurgens, Chris Claremont, Walter Simonson, J.M. DeMatteis, Mark Bagley, Gerry Conway, John Romita Jr. and many more. It comes in two covers, a mass market edition by George Perez and a direct market edition by Jim Lee. You can find a complete list of the contents here.
Anfield Road (Titan, $24.99): Chris Shepherd writes and draws this coming-of-age story about growing up in the working-class dynamics of Liverpool, England in 1989, as a high school senior must decide whether he’s going to art school or staying put so he can take care of his sick (and dominating) grandmother.
Acme Novelty Datebook (Drawn & Quarterly, $49.95): The third and final volume of Chris Ware’s sketchbook series, which includes “exquisitely crafted fine art doodles, hand-selected meanderings and artisanal rewritings of personal conflict” arrives some 15 years after the first two volumes. For $150, D+Q is also offering a slipcase of all three volumes, in case you missed the previous two.
Ruthless Render (Dark Horse, $12.99): The Webtoon series Ruthless Render by dd markk comes to the printed page, telling the story of Castiel, a high schooler who dies and is brought back to life in order to save the world by killing the devil.
Jessica Farm (Fantagraphics, $29.99): You can always count on Josh Simmons to create something dark, disturbing and compelling, and with this project he takes things to another level. Let’s start with the production — Simmons started drawing it in 2000 and completed one page a month, making this truly a career-spanning project. It’s the story of a girl waking up on Christmas day in the farmhouse where she lives with her grandparents and going about her day — a farmhouse that’s bigger on the inside than the outside and is filled with surreal, oddball creatures around each corner. So it’s kind of like Alice in Wonderland combined with David Cronenberg, with a bit of A Christmas Story sprinkled in.
Godzilla’s 70th Anniversary (IDW, $29.99): To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the king of all monsters, IDW collects nine stories about Godzilla by Joëlle Jones, Michael Conrad, James Stokoe, Matt Frank, Adam Gorham, Danny Lore and more in a 200-page deluxe hardcover volume.