Epic Kill #1 (of #5)
Written by Raffaele Ienco
Art by Raffaele Ienco
Image Comics
Release date: May 2, 2012
Cover Price: $2.99

Epic Kill, a five-issue miniseries from Image Comics, tells the story of a trained assassin named Song who doesn’t remember who she is or where she is. Song is living in a school for troubled girls, but doesn’t remember why she’s there and how she got there. Parts of her memory are slowly coming back to her and she remembers how to defend herself against a massive amount of armed men who want her dead. She also remembers her main objective: to assassinate the President.

Epic Kill #1 was one fun read. This first issue sets up the entire miniseries very nicely. I’m a fan of action films so I truly feel that Epic Kill will definitely bring the action [...]

Mind The Gap #1
Written by Jim McCann
Art by Rodin Esquejo & Sonia Oback
Letters by Dave Lanphear
Image Comics
Release date: May 2, 2012
Cover Price: $2.99

Mind The Gap, an ongoing comic from Image Comics, is a story about a girl named Elle who is brutally assaulted and sequentially ends up in the hospital in a coma. As family and friends come to Elle’s aid, Elle’s assailant is still a mystery. Elle, still in a comatose state, is in some sort of limbo between the material world and death. She’s also trying to figure out who attacked her and meets a guide along her journey. The potential line of suspects could be anyone; from Elle’s close friends and family to people we haven’t even met yet [...]

Near Death #7
Written By Jay Faerber
Art By Simone Guglielmini
Colors By Ron Riley
Letters By Charles Pritchett
Cover By Francesco Francavilla
Price: $2.99
Image Comics
Release date: April 18, 2011

Near Death, an ongoing comic book series from Image Comics, tells the story of a hit man who decides to change his life for the better. Markham was once a hit man, but after he’s gunned down on a job that goes wrong, he has a near death experience as he’s dying. Markham gets a vision of Hell, his current final destination, and it is inhabited by the people that he’s previously killed. After seeing where he could possibly end up, Markham comes back to life and vows to save a life for every life that he’s taken [...]

Hell & Gone
By Duane Swierczynski
Paperback | Kindle
Mulholland Books | Hachette Book Group
Release date: October 31, 2011

In Hell & Gone, a former cop named Charlie Hardie is on the brink of death after a brutal shootout. The group known as The Accidental People has taken him against his own free will to a secret underground prison that holds the most dangerous criminals around the world. The worst part about the prison is that Charlie has been appointed the warden. With any attempt to escape the prison, a death mechanism will be triggered and will kill everyone inside the prison. Charlie must find a way out of the prison and save his family from The Accidental People who have their sights set on killing them if Charlie doesn’t comply [...]

Princeless #1-2
Written by Jeremy Whitley
Art by M. Goodwin
Colors by M. Goodwin
Action Lab Comics
Release Date(s): #1: November 9, 2011; #2: December 7, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

Princeless is a four-issue miniseries written by Jeremy Whitley and drawn by M. Goodwin. The series is a play on the conventional fairy tale genre in which the princess is always rescued by the handsome prince. In Princeless, those conventions are thrown out the window and are refocused and shifted a bit. The princess in this story, Adrienne, believes that these typical fairy tales are a bunch of lies. She feels that no one should have to wait and be rescued by a prince. So, when she turns sixteen she decides to be the rescuer rather than the rescued [...]

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #5
Written by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola
Art by Ben Stenbeck
Colors by Dave Stewart
Letters by Clem Robins
Cover by Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart
Dark Horse Comics
Release date: December 14, 2011
Cover Price: $3.50

The adventure of Lord Henry Baltimore and the cursed bells concludes.

In Baltimore: The Curse Bells #5, Lord Henry Baltimore fights the evil priest that now has taken control of the villagers in the nearby town by cursing the bells of an old church. The cursed bells grant the priest ultimate control over anyone who can hear the bells ring. Everyone is under the priest’s control except for Lord Henry Baltimore. Baltimore takes on the evil priest’s army while Baltimore ultimate enemy, Haigus, has other plans. Will Baltimore defeat the evil priest? Will Baltimore get his revenge on the one-eyed vampire Haigus? [...]

The Rinse #4
Written by Gary Phillips
Art by Marc Laming
Cover by Paul Azaceta
Colors by Darrin Moore
Letters by Steve Wands
BOOM! Studios
Release date: December 7, 2011
Price: $3.99

Jeff Sinclair is about to pull off the biggest laundering job of his career if only he can survive the goons trying to kill him.

In The Rinse #4, Jeff Sinclair, a professional money launderer, is on the cusp of completing his current money laundering job but casino tycoon Steve Maxon’s goons are on his tail. In addition to that, Sinclair is working to avoid being investigated by the IRS as well [...]

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #4
Written by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola
Art by Ben Stenbeck
Colors by Dave Stewart
Letters by Clem Robins
Cover by Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 9, 2011
Cover Price: $3.50

A nearby town is in trouble and Lord Henry Baltimore is the only person who can keep the town safe from evil.

In Baltimore: The Curse Bells #4, Lord Henry Baltimore finds the enemy that he’s been searching for: Haigus. Lord Baltimore finds the vampire that killed his family who has also been captured in a holding cell just as Lord Baltimore has. Baltimore is torn between eliminating his long time foe, Haigus, and stopping the priest that is trying to use the cursed bells of the church to control the population of the nearby town. Will Baltimore do the right thing or choose to end his enemy forever? [...]

Practical Jean
By Trevor Cole
Paperback | Kindle
Harper Perennial
Release Date: October 11, 2011

In Practical Jean, Jean Vale Horemarsh lives a nice small town life with her not so wonderful husband and her small town friends. After taking care of her dying mother, Jean has a change of heart on how to live life. She thinks that people should die at the happiest moments of life rather than growing old and dying of an illness. Jean decides to give this gift of dying at your happiest moment to her best friends. She decides that she has to kill her friends.

When I first read the description for this book, it sounded like something very new and creative to read. I started to read the book and it took me a few chapters to really dig into the story. After reading for some time, I found myself enjoying where the story was going [...]

The Rinse #3
Written by Gary Phillips
Art by Marc Laming
Colors by Darrin Moore
Letters by Steve Wands
Cover by Paul Azaceta, Jordie Bellaire
BOOM! Studios
Release Date: November 2, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

The biggest laundering job is underway and there’s trouble ahead for Jeff Sinclair.

In The Rinse #3, professional money launderer Jeff Sinclair is carefully making the correct moves to complete the most lucrative job of his money laundering career. Casino tycoon Steve Maxon is onto Sinclair’s plan and is feverishly attempting to end the lives of all that are involved in the laundering job. Maxon and his goons are the least of Sinclair’s worries since the IRS is also onto his current money laundering job [...]

Sketch Monsters, Book 1: Escape of the Scribbles
Written by Joshua Williamson
Art by Vicente “Vinny” Navarrete
Book Design by Keith Wood
Oni Press
Release date: October 26, 2011
Cover Price: $12.99

Eight-year-old Mandy isn’t a big fan of expressing her feelings and emotions. Instead, she prefers to draw her emotions as monsters in her sketchbook. One day, the monsters escape from her sketchbook and the only help she has to catch them is a monster named Happster.

Sketch Monsters: Escape of the Scribbles was a very enjoyable all-ages book. The theme of the book deals with expressing your emotions instead of keeping them bottled up inside. This theme is a good one to teach children and expresses a good life lesson. The book deals with an 8-year old-girl who doesn’t express her emotions well and essentially shuts her feelings off. Her only release is drawing her emotions as different monsters. I had a lot of fun reading this particular book. It’s a good read for children as well as adults [...]

The Rinse #2
Written by Gary Phillips
Art by Marc Laming
Cover by Paul Azaceta
BOOM! Studios
Release Date: October 5, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

The biggest money laundering job of Jeff Sinclair’s career is a go, but there are a few problems keeping the job from going as smoothly as planned.

In The Rinse #2, professional money launderer Jeff Sinclair is working the biggest job of his career. He gets offered a job by a former casino employee to take care of some money that was stolen from a wealthy casino tycoon by the name of Steve Maxon. When the casino tycoon comes looking for the guy who stole his money, Jeff is thrown into a world of trouble. On top of Maxon’s goons looking for Jeff, the IRS has launched a full-fledged investigation and Jeff Sinclair is in their sights [...]

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #3
Written by Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola
Art by Ben Stenbeck
Colors by Dave Stewart
Cover by Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart
Dark Horse Comics
Release date: October 12, 2011
Price: $3.50

The adventure of Lord Henry Baltimore continues.

In Baltimore: The Curse Bells #3, Lord Henry Baltimore finds himself in the middle of a supernatural ritual in which a pregnant woman is being sacrificed by a priest to raise a dead witch from beyond the grave. The ritual is completed and the witch is born again. The priest wants the witch to grant him the power to put a curse on the bells of a famous church which will give him the ability to control others around him. While Baltimore is captured by the priest’s men, there is a reveal that may answer a lot of Baltimore’s unanswered questions [...]

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor
Hardcover | Kindle
By Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: October 11, 2011

In The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, the reader gets a previously untold back story on one of the greatest villains from the Walking Dead universe: The Governor. In this first of three prequel novels from St Martin’s Press, fans of the Walking Dead comics and television show get a treat and learn about the origins of The Governor and how he became the vicious psychopath that we meet later in the comic book series.

I’ve been a fan of the Walking Dead for a very long time. When a new issue of the comic is released, it’s the first thing I read on my weekly stack of comics. When St. Martin’s Press announced that they were releasing a trilogy of prequel novels, I was excited and hesitant at the same time. I wanted the novels to have the same level of excitement as the comic series and the television series [...]

Domestic Violets
By Matthew Norman
Paperback | Kindle
Harper Perennial
Release Date: August 9, 2011

Have you wished that you’d have everything you ever wanted by the time you reached a certain age? Meet Tom Violet, he’s just like you. He wants to be rich and famous with a gorgeous wife and a career as a novelist by the age of 35. Well, Tom is 35 now and has a beautiful wife, but hasn’t become a successful novelist like his Pulitzer Prize-winning father. He’s written a novel which sits in a desk and Tom works a soul crushing job that he doesn’t love. Did I also mention he has a crush on his young female co-worker? Tom Violet’s life is not the one he wanted but he’s going to try to change it [...]