No, Gene O’Neill’s excellent new collection of stories from Apex Publications, TASTE OF TENDERLOIN, is not about meat. The cut of the title is a section of San Francisco populated by hookers, junkies, juice-heads and various other bits of discarded humanity.
The eight stories gathered here — three published for the first time — are about the people who mostly live in or stumble into this neighborhood. And in O’Neill’s competent hands, their stories include touches of the unexpected, the frightening and the fantastic.
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I knew that reading those classic novels in high school and college would pay off someday. Because I was able to get most of the jokes in R. Sikoryak’s MASTERPIECE COMICS collection. Although it’s not the New York-based artist’s only gig, he’s made a name for himself marrying modern-day cartoon characters to the plots of literature’s most famous works, and the result is brilliant, brainy parody.
Having read several here and there over the years, I was pleased to see them all collected in a sturdy, handsome hardback from Drawn and Quarterly. One need not have a degree in English Lit to enjoy the contents, but those with no familiarity with the books being spoofed will be unable to grant it the deep appreciation it deserves.
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News of all the recent aviation crashes preventing you from jetting off to adventurous, faraway places? FLIGHT: VOLUME SIX will take you there from the comfort of your armchair, and for less money it takes to check a single bag.
It’s almost ridiculous how top-shelf this indie anthology series is. Every year, a new installment is released, and page after page, story after story, I’m simply astounded at its quality. Enjoyment is heightened by the sense that FLIGHT doesn’t realize the level of greatness it reaches, but it shows up pretty much every other graphic novel you’ll read in the immediate weeks before and after.
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The backgrounds of four characters are delved into in G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA: MOVIE PREQUEL, a trade paperback collection of IDW Publishing’s comic-book one-shots. These aren’t really origin tales, but stories taking place sometime before the events of the film.
First up is Conrad “Duke” Hauser, on a routine mission — if explosion-laden counts as routine — with the Army Rangers in the jungles of Papua. Wallace “Ripcord” Weems is along for the ride, as well. This is followed by a glimpse on the evil side, with corporate slime McCullen flashing back to his youth, learning about his Destro family lineage.
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WOLVERINE MAGAZINE #2 offers another four stories, all but one featuring at least one of the X-Men. I’m assuming that the two-issue WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN MAGAZINE has been absorbed into this perodical, since the titular, metal-clawed hero is absent for half of its contents.
First up is a WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS story in which all Logan wants to do is kick back at the X-Mansion and watch the Stanley Cup finals on TV. His night of R&R, however, is upended by Kitty Pryde and two other girls bickering, not to mention activating some robot villains in the Danger Room that get loose.
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