The Gosh! Authority 21/08/12

If you were poking about on the internet earlier this week you probably already sent in your preorder for our latest bookplate edition, Prophet Volume 1, signed by Brandon Graham. Alternatively, unlike us basement-dwelling losers you were sitting in a park in the sun and missed it completely. In which case: you best get on it. Here’s the lowdown.

Before we get stuck into the rest of this week’s moderately-sized box of delights: we have a small request.

Knockabout and Gosh are putting together a big collection of Robert Crumb’s work in Weirdo magazine, but we need a bit of help. We’re looking for a full set of the 28 issues of Weirdo and if you’re willing to part with them we’ll give you £150 and a thank you namecheck in the front of the book.  They need to be in pretty good nick (not too yellow) because we’ll be scanning straight from them for print. And just so we’re clear: we need to do terrible things to these mags and their staples in order to scan them, so we’ll be buying them off you rather than borrowing them (RIP 28 issues of Weirdo). Please put the word around, have a dig in that box under the stairs, send your elderly mum up into the loft if need be.

This week’s delivery contains a heavy box of Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles Omnibus, a hardcover collecting everything into one book for the very first time. That’s every issue of The Invisibles plus Absolute Vertigo #1 and Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #1, or 1536 pages of Grant Morrison for £110. It’s massive and heavy and expensive but it’ll keep you occupied for ages. Value is what I’m getting at.

Another hardcover, less huge this time: The Manara Library Volume 3, reprinting his collaborations with the great Federico Fellini — Trip to Tulum, and The Voyage of G. Mastorna – along with a few other bits and pieces, some in English for the very first time. Paul Gravett will tell you all about it in his introduction. Dark Horse have a preview.

This week marks the end of Jason Aaron’s Scalped with #60, a series that’s gone on to become a frequently recommended favourite here in the shop. Stuff always seems easier to start when there’s a definite end, so go ahead an pick up the first trade to see what all the fuss is about (though Aaron says the first arc is the weakest, he was still finding his feet). He looks back on the last six years of his life over at CbR, talks about the series’ influences (fans of The Wire and Deadwood take note) and drops spoilers all over the shop. “This was always designed to be one big story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and things will now be ending about where I had always imagined they would.”

There’s a new Rocketeer miniseries on the racks by Mark Waid and the very excellent Chris Samnee, in which a mysterious cargo ship sails into the LA harbour. Waid, who made the announcement at WonderCon wearing a leather jacket and a Rocketeer helmet, says: “The intent is to unleash the cargo on New York City, and in doing so strike back at Cliff’s mentors, this mysterious bronze man who built the rocket pack, and Mr. Jonas, the hawk-nosed detective who Cliff has worked for in the past. This cargo was meant to destroy them and then destroy New York, and it stops in Los Angeles, as it would, along the way, and through a horrible set of setbacks, Cliff ends up in the middle of that. And now it’s up to Cliff to save Los Angeles from what’s in the cargo hold.” CbR have a preview.

More comics: the issue of Batman Inc that was held back after the Aurora shootings is now allowed to quietly shuffle out onto the shelves. J. Michael Straczynski’s Before Watchmen: Dr Manhattan #1 (of 4) has arrived, featuring drawings of a naked blue man by Adam Hughes. There’s a JMS interview here featuring the requisite defence of the whole idea. There’s a new Lobster Johnson one-shot called Prayer of Neferu, written by John Arcudi and drawn by Wilfredo Torres. Preview at Dark Horse. And the first chunk of Scott Snyder’s Swamp Thing reboot is collected in trade paperback.

And lastly, if you’ve got plans for Monday night you’re just going to have to cancel them because Quentin Blake. Quentin Blake and Shaun Tan will be in conversation with Paul Gravett as part of Comica this Monday the 27th of August at St. Albans Centre on Chancery Lane.  You can buy tickets here. I once saw an exhibition of Blake’s artwork at the NFT and was very happy to find that all the heads were cut out and pasted on just like they should be.

– Hayley