Image Comic of the Week Sep 17/14 - Deadly Class #7, Shutter #6, Trees #5

[Groo Odyssey]

Last Week's Winner



Lazarus #11 smashed the competition last week picking up 14 votes to be our winner. It's been our Comic of the Week for the third consecutive month, the only title to do so besides Saga since the inception of our weekly poll. Not only that, it received more than double the number of votes for first place in comparison to its August issue when it was also the winner. Lazarus is not only picking up steam, it's on fire. Good word of mouth has brought more eyes to Rucka and Lark's hit series and right now it's an early contender for Image's best ongoing title for 2014. Very impressive showing considering it beat a very strong East of West issue which captured 8 votes as well as the overall well received debut issue of Copperhead which picked up 6 votes. Nine different titles last week received at least a vote. Clearly, there's something for everybody here at Image.

If there's one thing missing from Image's lineup is that there's so few all ages specific books. This changes this week as we have the debut of Otis Frampton's Oddly Normal which got picked up by Image.

Publisher: IMAGE COMICS
(W/A/CA) Otis Frampton

Meet Oddly Normal, a ten-year-old girl with pointed ears and green hair-a half-witch who will be the first to tell you that having a mother from a magical land called Fignation and a father from Earth doesn't make it easy to make friends at school! On her tenth birthday, she blows out her cake's candles and makes a disastrous wish. Now, Oddly must travel to Fignation to uncover the mystery of her parents' disappearance.

New This Week

[cc008]

Only picked up Deadly Class #7 this week. Not entirely sure how I feel about it though. It was good, don't get me wrong. I enjoy how its so dialogue heavy sometimes even if it doesn't look that way. Makes me feel like I'm getting more than my money's worth. Which I did.. It was an oversized issue lol.

[Groo Odyssey]

Only picked up Deadly Class #7 this week. Not entirely sure how I feel about it though. It was good, don't get me wrong. I enjoy how its so dialogue heavy sometimes even if it doesn't look that way. Makes me feel like I'm getting more than my money's worth. Which I did.. It was an oversized issue lol.

Yeah nothing much for me this week either, only picked up Manifest Destiny #10. Super light week for me from Image. Contemplated picking up Oddly Normal but flipped through it and wasn't too impressed, didn't see a lot going on. Would like to hear from those that did, gotta be selective on adding new titles to my pull. Picked up a few other titles this week from Boom and Oni Press and also the Red Moon hardcover from Dark Horse. Red Moon is pure awesome, it's by one of my favorite artists ever Eduardo Risso and the book looks fantastic.

[Davenex]

Light week for me as well, the only title on my pull list was Manifest Destiny #10, would have been 2 but I dropped Wicked and Divine wasn't enjoying it. Anyway since it was a light week picked up the first volume of Sheltered, All five issues of the current arc of East of West, Deadly Class Volume 1 (alongside issue 7) and had a tough decision between picking up all the issues of Trees or all the issues of Supreme Blue Rose or all the issues of Rise of the Magi. After a good hard half hour of looking through the titles at my LCS, I decided to go with Supreme Blue Rose.

Was tempted to suss out Oddly Normal but I just wasn't feeling that book. Anyway I'll throw a vote in after I read my stack.

[InformationGeek]

Let's see here, I read and reviewed the following (which are ranked in order of best to worse):

Oddly Normal #1
Manifest Destiny #10
Shutter #6
Deadly Class #7
Satellite Sam #10
The Wicked + The Divine #4

Oddly Normal was the best book of the week for me (certainly better than all the books targeted at a more mature and adult audience), while The Wicked + The Divine continued to sink further, feeling more hollow than ever.

[cc008]

Oddly Normal #1
Manifest Destiny #10
Shutter #6
Deadly Class #7
Satellite Sam #10
The Wicked + The Divine #4

Completely agree with your Deadly Class review.

[TotalSnorefest]

@Groo Odyssey: That Red Moon book looks really nice!

Didn't pick up anything from Image despite having like 5 things this week. Just all happen to be either Archaia/Boom, Magnetic Press and Marvel (can't resist Spider-Gwen can I?!). In fact I don't have much from Image slated at all the entire month except Saga #23 and the 4th Revival trade...

Oddly Normal was the best book of the week for me (certainly better than all the books targeted at a more mature and adult audience), while The Wicked + The Divine continued to sink further, feeling more hollow than ever.

Cool to hear Oddly Normal was good, I gotta admit the art doesn't really draw me in though. Have the same issue with that Pandora's Box mini-series that's either about to launch or just did this month. I like the idea of more all-ages series at Image, but the art hasn't been my taste yet. As for Wicked+Divine, that's a major bummer. I've been eyeing that for a possible trade-wait. Didn't love Young Avengers as much as everyone else seems to, so I'm a lil' hesistant still. This doesn't inspire much more confidence.

[Groo Odyssey]

@Groo Odyssey: That Red Moon book looks really nice!

I've had my eye on it ever since I saw it solicited in Previews. The pictures don't even do the book justice, if you see this at your LCS make sure to check it out. Dark Horse IMO makes the best, well constructed hardcovers. The book is huge, it's oversized and the pages are thick a total of 248 pages. Eduardo Risso's art just jumps right out at you. It's a great deal too at $24.99 (which you can get cheaper at places like Amazon/InStockTrades). Proves that great comics don't have to be expensive and use poor quality paper in a lot of floppies nowadays. I'll probably go more towards the trade route in the future except for my most favorite titles on my pull.

[wwise03]

I imagine this is a week where every book will get 4 or 5 votes. A lot of good books, but none that are great. I haven't decided what I am going to vote on yet. But I am likely going to drop Wicked and Divine and Supreme (because it is apparently only 7 issues, rather than an ongoing).

Shutter or Deadly Class will be my vote this week.

[ysemaj]

I imagine this is a week where every book will get 4 or 5 votes. A lot of good books, but none that are great. I haven't decided what I am going to vote on yet. But I am likely going to drop Wicked and Divine and Supreme (because it is apparently only 7 issues, rather than an ongoing).

Shutter or Deadly Class will be my vote this week.

Totally right. This week was not special at all for me, just got Trees and Supreme: Blue Rose. Voted for Trees as I think I'm going to drop Supreme because it really isn't my thing. Trees was okay, storyline was very stagnant in places and there was too much explaining of the current 'situation' the characters were in rather than progressing it. Looks like things are going to heat up for Chenglei which I am excited about!

[HellsRider]

Bit of a slow week which is fine after last week's insanity. Both books I picked up were good to move along their respective stories, but don't touch last week's issues in the slightest.

Manifest Destiny #10 - The penultimate issue to the second arc and I enjoy the work that is going on with Boniface and Lewis and the huge mosquitos are rather nasty however I feel that this arc has been a bit too long. After being stuck since issue 8, the teams are still stuck in their respective areas and the mutant frog gets zero attention this issue. With that said, the art is still very good as always especially the detail on the mosquitos and when the insecticide comes into play. All in all a decent issue that I'm rather looking forward to the end of this arc just to move on from this arc to where the team is really headed next.

Clone #20 - My pick. The final issue...for now. Contrary to what some may believe this is not the final issue for the series as the team is merely taking a bit of an extended break on the book and it will be back at some point. The issue wraps up several plot points (Eva, the decision to go to the female clones island, Amelia/Luke, and a few others) and opens the door to several new ones that I'm glad this isn't the end as I would like to see the series explore what happens next. The issue does move pretty quickly though so some moments, such as Amelia's decision, go by pretty quickly and not given the time to sink in which is the position Luke is put in and I found the other clone, Harold, being introduced towards the end completely unnecessary. Still the last few pages show what the clones are going into and lets just say its not looking too good. Good finale to the book's fourth arc and look forward to when it comes back whenever that may be.

[Flash Gordon]

Easily BLUE ROSE #3 which was the best book of the week in general. Just glorious.

[Cryptid]

Easily BLUE ROSE #3 which was the best book of the week in general. Just glorious.

Agreed. I haven't read everything on the poll, but Blue Rose is my favorite book this week, with Multiversity in second place. They're both books that err on the side of respecting the reader's intelligence perhaps a bit too much, full throttle with no explanations, but they're also books that harness the glorious weirdness of 20th century pop-culture, whether that means a mystical riff on the pulps or (for Ellis) turning Superman into Twin Peaks. It's the kind of comic that begs to be read twice for clarity and five times for the hell of it.

[wwise03]

I went with Shutter slightly over Deadly Class. I don't have complaints about either, but I had more fun reading Shutter. Deadly Class hit the same notes that has made it so great to this point, but I was just in the mood for a fun adventure this week rather than a deep, introspective, and depressing look at what it means to be a teenager.

[rac shade]

I voted for Deadly Class which narrowly beat out Trees. Supreme : Blue Rose was also an amazing book although I'm not really sure what's going on. Shutter & Manifest Destiny were solid if unspectacular, a good week of comics for me in general.