The Gosh! Authority 24.04.24

Hello!

No events this week, so I guess that's as good a time as any to keep banging the drum about FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! Yes, the biggest day of the year is back on Saturday the 4th May, and we're (once again) pulling out all the stops with a line-up of workshops, signings and free comics! Get all the details for the day here.

Onto the comics!

HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK

• SPECTREGRAPH #1 - Gosh faves James Tynion IV and Christian Ward team up with DSTLRY for a fantastic-looking horror story. After the death of a hugely successful businessman, his strange, rumour-haunted mansion goes up for sale. Given his fascination with the occult, prospective buyers are desperate to unlock the secrets of the place, but they might get more than they desired when they learn the answer to the question: what was he building in there?

• UNIVERSAL MONSTERS CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES #1 - What a title! I suppose we should be grateful it doesn't also include "SKYBOUND PRESENTS". Anyway I'm excited, as Dan Watters, Ram V and Matthew Roberts tell the ongoing adventures of everybody's favourite aquatic beastie. Set some years after the first movie, an investigative journalist has tracked a serial killer to the heart of the Amazon. Hopefully she doesn't go swimming or anything. 

• DICK TRACY #1 - Everyone's favourite yellow-suited cop is back in action in this new series by Michael Moreci, Alex Segura and Geraldo Borges. It's a hardboiled take on the early career of the newspaper strip hero, set in the aftermath of World War II. And it always a good chance to remind everyone that since the 1990 film version, Warren Beatty has made two no-budget tv specials starring the character in order to retain the rights, apparently out of pure spite over attempts to exclude him from future Dick Tracy projects.  

• DRAWING BLOOD #1 - Kevin Eastman gets close to home in this new series with collaborators David Avallone, Troy Little and Ben Bishop. A young comics artist creates a massive global franchise, and his life is turned upside down. Now, judging from the gun-toting goons and naked magical woman on the cover, I'm guessing this isn't a strictly autobiographical piece. But then he did run Tundra UK and Heavy Metal and was married to Julie Strain, so who knows?

• STAR WARS DARTH MAUL BLACK WHITE & RED #1 - What better Star Wars denizen to give this treatment to than Mr Black'n'Red himself? Each issue features a complete one-shot story with Benjamin Percy & Stefano Raffaele going the horror route and Maul investigates a prison ship that has gone silent.

• SLASH PRESENTS DEATHSTALKER #1 - Ahh, the sweet, sweet memories of the Deathstalker franchise, a sword and sorcery film series that started cheap and got cheaper (it was co-produced by Roger Corman, after all). True cheese classics of the direct-to-video era, their Boris Vallejo-painted posters/VHS box art touched many young, impressionable lives. And apparently Guns'n'Roses guitarist Slash was among them, because he's come up with a new Deathstalker story (i.e. spitballed something over dinner) along with collaborators Steven Kostanski, Tim Seeley, K. Michael Russell & Nathan Gooden. It sounds like a terrible idea, and I'll be first in line.

Andrew.