The epic conclusion to a tiny part in Curt’s past. As you can see, his past is quite dark so we do have to be sure to give it to you in very tiny spoonfuls, otherwise we would lose more visitors to the website and acquire even more lawsuits.
I’m not going to spoil who Curt is referencing here in Preacher. But if you did manage to complete the series you can have a very good guess. Hint, it’s near the end of the run.
I will have to say this has been a lot of fun. We were able to highlight a favorite creator of ours in Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon with Franka giving out some good recommendations, while keeping everything in a positive light. This little storyline pretty much sums up everything that the Solicitations comic is all about. Poking fun, keeping it light, while also promoting the comic book industry as a whole. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. And I do hope this inspired you to read some comics.
Naturally, as we close one chapter we are able to start another, so be sure to check back next week for the next installment of Solicitations!
As always, please do consider subscribing to our newsletter. Not only will you get the comic on Monday, before it goes live on Tuesday, but you will get Franka’s recommendation of the week as well. And it’s free. Pretty neat huh?
Coming off last week’s Garth Ennis Judge Dredd recommendation, I thought I would point toward something that is relatively new.
What many non-US audiences probably don’t know about Garth Ennis is probably his love for war comics. Part of what he is doing nowadays after the immense success of Preacher and the Boys is visiting and contributing to that love. He restarted the Battle Pictures Weekly called Battle Action at Rebellion (the same organization currently behind 2000AD) and he also wrote The Lion & The Eagle with AfterShock Comics, beautifully drawn by PJ Holden and magnificently colored Matt Milla.
The Lion & The Eagle might have been lost to the tales of time because it was during the period that AfterShock started going bankrupt. Thus, a lot of news around these four issues would probably have been drowned out by that event. Neverthless, if you didn’t pick it up the first time around I can highly recommend it.
The Lion & The Eagle depicts a group of British soldiers in the Pacific Theater during World War II to retake Burma from the Japanese. It’s very layered and shows how the British Empire was organized and how they used soldiers from their colonies. Plus, Ennis does a great job to make sure he doesn’t romanticize war as this could be tricky with war comics today (especially outside of the United Kingdom) and The Lion & The Eagle definitely stays away from making war black and white. In addition, PJ Holden does an incredible job depicting the violence while making sure it does not go over the top and to the more campy/grindhouse side a la Quentin Tarantino.
And really the star of this, in my opinion, is PJ Holden. Holden is one of my favorite artists working today and he does a lot of incredible work. One of my favorite things he does for 2000AD in Judge Dredd’s world is definitely Noam Chimpsky. Noam Chimpsky is a super smart ape who uses his super-intelligence to try to thwart the overall system of oppression, propped up by the Judges. Chimpsky sees things that no one else can see in the Big Meg and it’s always great when he drops in on the weekly prog.
Even when I do not get him in a particular year, I will also have a PJ Holden dose, every Halloween, because I re-read Soul Plumber from DC Comics. I have the collected version but Holden’s style is very appropriate for the message and style of the book. I absolutely do not want to give anything away about Soul Plumber because it was one of those experiences that I thought I knew what was coming but then I didn’t. And now I can remember that experience every single year.
So there you have it folks. What started out as a Garth Ennis recommendation quickly turned into a PJ Holden tribute and love letter. That’s how these things go. And to put the final touches on my obsession with Holden, I decided to whip up a portrait of him after scanning his Blusky account. Yes it’s that bad. Plus, his account is charming and I can heartily recommend that you follow him. He currently is redefining himself as an actor. Nuff said.
