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A Guide To Free Comic Book Day 2015

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The first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day. Where every major publisher rounds up some of their best promotional material and offers readers a taste of their upcoming lineup for free. It’s a great way to find out what’s in store for the comic market, and a fantastic way to celebrate the medium. Most comic shops will have a whole host of back issues out on the shelves for free too, as well as a ton of creator signings and events. No matter where you’re headed to celebrate, Bloody-Disgusting will help you grab the best of what’s being offered. But get there early, the good stuff goes fast.

DC COMICS DIVERGENCE

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If you’re only picking up one title tomorrow, then you could do much worse than this one. Dc Comics is trying their best to make FCBD huge this year, with a glimpse of what lies ahead in the DC Universe. Here you’ll get your first taste of an all new Batman – piloted by Jim Gordon himself, a look at the Darkseid war, and perhaps more drunk Superman. Who knows? This is worth it for the new Batman alone.

DARK HORSE FIGHT CLUB THE GOON THE STRAIN

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Dark Horse has always excelled at producing quality titles with a horror flavor. This year appears to be a little different as we get the first public taste of the highly anticipated Fight Club 2. (Before a debut that doesn’t quite stick the landing.) Then you’ve got an original Eric Powell Goon adventure, and a separate but likely thrilling chapter from The Strain.

MARVEL SECRET WARS #0

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The Marvel Universe as you know it is collapsing upon itself. This is Marvel’s self-proclaimed biggest comic event of the year. This first look at the mega event will show us… Battleworld! Amid the strange, patchwork realm, refugees from thousands of obliterated universes struggle for survival. Even if they can endure the horrors of Battleworld – the home they knew has been destroyed! Time has run out, and the opening salvo of Secret Wars has been fired. But can anything restore the Marvel Universe that once was?

IMAGE COMICS SAVAGE DRAGON LEGACY

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Savage Dragon reaches a new milestone as Malcolm Dragon graduates high school and follows his father’s footsteps to the Chicago Police Department. Every young new officer has a lot to live up to, but for the son of a world-famous figure as renowned as he is reviled, navigating the world of law enforcement is especially challenging. The cost of failure is high in a city becoming more dangerous by the day: Can Malcolm step out of his father’s shadow and become the hero Chicago needs, or is he doomed to make the same mistakes?

CAPTAIN CANUCK

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Captain Canuck is BACK! Tom Evans is a brave but troubled Canadian soldier. When he and his brother Michael gain superpowers from an alien artifact, they both must work through a lifetime of differences to ensure their gifts are used for the betterment of all humankind. Thrust into battle by Equilibrium, a fledgling intervention agency, Tom must find his way as figurehead and hero Captain Canuck to save humanity- and his brother’s soul- from the machinations of Mr. Gold… and even more dangerous forces that lurk in the shadows.

ZENOSCOPE COMICS ABOUT WONDERLAND

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Do you dare peer into the Looking Glass this May? Erica J. Heflin, who has been making waves in creator-owned comics with her strong female characters and twisted, mind-bending stories,  has delivered a standalone Wonderland story, which delves into the bloody past as well as the dark future of the Looking Glass… the mirror which helped turn the Liddles into the new Manson family.Heflin also writes the monthly ongoing Wonderland series, which focuses on Calie Liddle… the White Queen of Wonderland. Calie has purged the madness that turned the Realm of Dreams evil to its core, but the shadows of the past still lurk in the darkest corners of Wonderland, waiting to strike.

That’s it. An impressive list. There’s also a New Avengers team debuting, but I’m sure you are all going to be Avengers burn outs after Age of Ultron this week. So get out there tomorrow and get some FREE COMICS.

 

Comics

[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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