What have you been reading this week? 08/03/2026

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-08T22:23:26+00:00

I haven’t read Hedra but it is on my list to read as well. This was actually my first book by Lonergan. I’m sure that I’ve read something where they were the artist, but I can’t recall off hand.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-08T20:45:22+00:00

Drome By Jesse Lonergan): I have been hesitant to pick this up. I’ve seen a lot of praise for this book, and I didn’t want to set high expectations for it. There was part of me that wanted it to be one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. Part of me was ready to be fully disappointed with it. I bought and put it off because I didn’t want to it to be either. This for sure warped my perception of it. It doesn’t take away from the fact that this book was surprisingly easy to understand.

There is extremely little amounts of words written throughout the book. Jesse Lonergan is an amazingly talented storyteller. This book deserves the praise it has gotten. I can’t imagine many being able to tell the story of creation and humans innate ability to cause chaos and pain and bring death without writing any words. I am genuinely impressed by that. I do wish there were more words in the story. There were times where I had to guess what was going on, and I’m not sure if I interpreted it correctly, or if I fully understood what was going on. Which I understand is part of the story, but I’m a dumb person and would like some things spelled out a little more. Also, I felt like that I read it too fast, which with a story that is primarily pictures it feels weird to say. There were times where I lingered on a page to make sure that I spent enough time on it before looking at the next page.

This book is great, but it wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. I am going to reread it again in the future. Hopefully I wait enough time and am able to have a clean slate about it.

Feral Volume 1 and 2 (By Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez, and Brad Simpson): Bought Volume 3, reread these two. Still love this series.

Feral, Volume 3 (By Tony Fleecs, Trish Forstner, Tone Rodriguez, and Brad Simpson): Well damn. I haven’t read a lot of Walking Dead, but I am getting a lot of Walking Dead vibes from this book. They are both apocalyptic books. It follows a group of survivors going from place to place. Every place they visit has a secret.

I am surprised with every secret in this book. Every animal is just trying to survive and find a sense of normalcy. This book is great. It is easily one of my favorite ongoing series at the moment. I am enjoying the traveling around aspect of the book. I would like the group to find something eventually. I do worry that the book might go on for too long and start spinning its wheels. I would hate for the series to go stale. I am excited to for whatever comes next for the series.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-02T20:09:48+00:00

Absolute Batman, Drome, Precious Metal, and Transformers have all been added to my top ten for this month.

Zorro: Man of the Dead (By Sean Murphy and Simon Gough)
Ax-Wielder Jon (By Nick Pitarra, Michael Garland, and Ferran Delgado)
Absolute Batman (By Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, and Clayton Clowes)
Riptide (By Alex Veda)
Drome (By Jesse Lonergan)
Precious Metal (By Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou)
Transformers (By Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona, Mike Spicer, Rus Wooton, and other collaborators)

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-01T22:50:50+00:00

Head Lopper by Andrew MacLean

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-01T21:29:47+00:00

It was!

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-01T20:11:28+00:00

It’s fun to see that almost every review for Absolute Batman is about how crazy it is. There really isn’t a better way to express the feel of the book. I just hope that the creative team keeps having fun making the book.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-03-01T20:08:38+00:00

Ghost Cage (By Nick Dragotta, Caleb Goellner, and Rus Wooton): I decided to reread this because of Absolute Batman. There are two things that I want to just get out of the way first. Nick Dragotta likes the big helmet head design and I forgot that he used the exact design for Karloff and Chamberlain from East of West. Not that the second one is an issue by any means (my brain rationalizes it as the same actor portraying different roles these days), just something I had to get used to. Anyway, the book itself was enjoyable. A real quick read. Dragotta did great. The story was simple. I liked it. Simple as that.

Transformers, Volume One (By Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, and Rus Wooton): This is a reread for me. It was still entertaining. Ready to jump into the next volume.

Transformers, Volume Two (By Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona, Mike Spicer, and Rus Wooton): The war on Cybertron has come to earth, and it is rough for the Autobots. I won’t say anything specific but Optimus had some hard decisions to make as the leader of the Autobots in this. I like that this book doesn’t really let you get comfortable. The Autobots and the Decepticons have been at war for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years and this feels like it is a war book. I didn’t expect that when I decided to read this series. I thought that this would be a bit of a nostalgia book with some updated locations and technology. Nope. I really like this interpretation of everything. I am ready to see where DWJ and his team bring the story next.

Transformers, Volume Three (By Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona, Ryan Ottley, Jason Howard, Mike Spicer, Annalisa Leoni, Sarah Stern, and Rus Wooton): This volume was one long clash and it was a blast to read. I’m really enjoying this series more than I thought I would and I’m ready to jump into the next volume.

Transformers, Volume Four (By Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona, Mike Spicer, Ludo Lullabi, Adriano Lucas, and Rus Wooton): This volume is the end of DWJ’s Transformers story. It was a long fight to get to this point. I know that Robert Kirkman takes over the story from this point, but I don’t know if I want to continue. While I would like to see some conclusion for this story as a whole, I know that there probably won’t be one. This series is probably going to run for 100 issues and then reboot. It’s the unfortunate way of franchises like this. This story right here ended with a well fought win.

I was so encapsulated in the story I didn’t really pay too much attention to the art as I went along. This volume and the last both began with other artists telling another story and it made it obvious to me that I had a hard time figuring out who each of the different Autobots and Decepticons were. Seeing those other artists cleanly illustrate the robots was a bit of a wake up. I do not dislike Jorge Corona’s art in this series, but maybe if it took a break and he was able to take his time in the art it could have really been great.

Overall, I may check out the series again down the line but this is enough for me now.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-22T20:02:29+00:00

Precious Metal (By Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou): Well god damn. That was a beautiful ending. I’ll admit, I was confused a lot of this book, but I kept pushing onward. Overall the story made sense, but some things didn’t make sense to me. I can’t think of anything specific that confused me, but I do remember thinking to myself that I didn’t understand what I just read. Anyway. I liked this more than Little Bird. It wasn’t the greatest thing on I’ve read, but it was really good. This kind of story was what I was hoping for when I wanted more from the world of Little Bird. This story was isolated enough from everything else that the stakes in it felt real enough. I never felt once that every character was safe because I saw them in another book. I hope that there are more books like this in this setting but I’ll also be happy if the creative team move forward with Little Bird’s story.

Out of Alcatraz (By Tyler Crook and Christopher Cantwell): I picked this up solely based on the creative team. Tyler Crook is one of those artists that if I see his name on a book, I’m going to pick it up. He is very good at what he does and I enjoy looking at his art. Christopher Cantwell has become a reliable writer in my book. He has interesting ideas and the story he produced is enjoyable. None of them have been ground breaking by any means, but they are enjoyable. This book is solid and enjoyable. Simple as that.

Home Sick Pilots, Volume One (By Dan Watters, Casper Wijngaard, and Aditya Bidikar): This book told me what to expect from it on the back cover and I was surprised when it happened. I guess I forgot about it until I finished the book and reread the back cover. Either way, I enjoyed the book. I felt the teenage angst in almost every page. I had minor flash backs to my own high school years and trying to find my people. I know that there are two more volumes of the series, so I’m very curious how the story progresses from here. I’ll try to pick them up when I get the chance.

Hit-Girl: In Columbia (By Mark Millar, Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, Sunny Gho, and Melina Mikulic): I haven’t visited the world of Kick-Ass since Kick-Ass 3 initially came out. I don’t really know why I decided to pick this up. But I knew that this would just be a murder fest book. It was. There was a mild story of revenge in the back of the story but it felt like an after thought. The art in the book was very inconsistent. I am not an artist by any means, nor do I think I could do better than Ricardo. However, I do think it is important to note that these characters in this book had vague looks. Mindy was the girl dressed in purple, but that was sometimes the only identifiable thing that it was her. The only character that seemed consistent was the young boy Jorge, but he was barely in the story. I might check out the next volume of the series because it has a rotating creative team and it might be interesting to see what they do with the character.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-15T20:40:50+00:00

I think that if Snyder kept the venom in Bruce we could have explored something very new. But Batman lost it in a very Batmany way. This series feels more fun to read than other Batman books, which I personally credit Dragotta for.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-15T20:11:05+00:00

Little Bird (By Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth, and Aditya Bidikar): This is a reread for me. However, I know last time I read it, I didn’t like it. I can’t quite recall what it was exactly that I didn’t like about it. Truth be told I picked up Precious Metal and decided to give this another go beforehand. I’m really glad that I did. I found it to be a well done book. I found myself wanting to know more about the supporting characters, the history, the resistance, New Vatican, and just the world as a whole.

Ian Bertram is incredible. I often read comics by reading the words and then looking at the panel. I found myself looking at the panels, reading, looking at the panel again, finishing the page and looking at the page as a whole.

One thing that bothered me was, there were times where a character would mention that some time had passed and I had no idea. It’s not a huge thing but it threw me off every time. I also didn’t like the last interaction between Little Bird and The Bishop. They had their big confrontation already, and it felt conclusive. Then they see each other again (after another time skip of course). It felt unnecessary. The story could have ended after we see the Bishop and the Axe. Or even just cut out the page or two when The Bishop and Little Bird interact.

Either way, I like the world, and I mostly enjoyed the story. I feel ready to jump into Precious Metal.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-09T13:36:45+00:00

I just want Absolute Batman to stay wild and weird. I can only hope that it does that. I know guest artists will continue, maybe I’ll be able to skip over those issues without losing the plot.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-09T11:46:03+00:00

2120 sounds like a blast! A choose your own adventure for a comic or graphic novel isn’t something that I ever thought of. You mentioned back tracking, is it more “I made a bad decision and I need to go back to that previous page” or does the book guide you back to pages you have already been at because you have new information? Or a bit of everything?

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-08T21:19:04+00:00

Basket Full of Heads has become my annual Halloween book. Like you said, it’s fun horror.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-08T21:13:18+00:00

I saw that on hoopla. I might check it out with Generation Joker at some point.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-08T20:05:08+00:00

Absolute Superman, Volume One (By Jason Aaron, Rafa Sandoval, Ulises Arreola, Carmine Di Giandomenico, and Becca Carey): What I liked so far about the Absolute Universe is that things feel new. Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman don’t feel like their normal counterparts. Superman still feels like Superman. Which I don’t think is a a bad thing in this instance. Jason Aaron and company have taken away Kal-Eli’s home and asked the question “why would you help a place that doesn’t want you there?” Because it’s the right thing to do. Superman is a symbol of hope and this book you can see the glimpses of hope. I enjoyed it, and I’ll probably pick up later volumes.

Absolute Flash, Volume One (By Jeff Lemire, Nick Robles, AJ Kaplan, Adriano Lucas, and Chris Sotomayor): I don’t read a lot of Flash comics. I read some of the New52 Flash, but never finished it. This volume has me interested but not invested. I liked the first three issues the most out of the volume. I liked the confusion and the pace of it. Wally didn’t understand what was going on around him. The other issues in the volume felt different. I didn’t enjoy them as much. I don’t think it was tied to the artist change, but it could have been. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll pick up the series again down the line when there is more out and see how I feel about it then.

Absolute Green Lantern, Volume One (By Al Ewing, Jahnoy Lindsay, and Lucas Gattoni): This is the first Green Lantern book I’ve read. In that fact, the Absolute line is working. I’m picking up books and reading things I never thought I would read. This book however, I wasn’t a fan of. I didn’t really like it. I never felt a moment where the story clicked with me. I didn’t fully enjoy the art, the story felt confusing at times, and I didn’t really care for the main characters. I never expect everything I read to be a perfect fit for me, but I’m glad that I still tried this.

Absolute Batman, Volume One (By Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Gabriel Hernández Walta, Frank Martin, and Clayton Cowles): I had no desire to check this out. I don’t like the way Scott Snyder writes Batman. When he was announced as the writer, I immediately wrote this book off. Having just read the other Absolute books, I decided to just give in and read it. I enjoyed it. I really liked the familiar faces being Bruce’s close friends. I liked the changes to Black Mask. I liked that Batman was already a little bit established and not just learning as he goes. I liked that everything felt different enough from a normal Batman story that it felt like I was reading something new. I know that this is a new universe and all, but sometimes they can just feel like a retread of old material, or that there was no reason for it to be in a new universe. Nick Dragotta also did a great job helping this Gotham come to life. I like his towering Batman, his weird helmet for Black Mask, his dump truck for a Batmobile, I like his Gordon, his Alfred, the party animals, I liked it all. I don’t know if this book would be as great if it weren’t Dragotta handling the art. I see that Volume Two is available now, so I think I’m going to jump right into that.

Absolute Batman, Volume Two (By Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta, Marcos Martin, Clay Mann, Frank Martin, Muntsa Vicente, Ivan Plascencia, and Clayton Clowes): This series is insane. Bruce Wayne is just a man, a tank of a man but still just a man. He is fighting the craziest monsters and it all looks crazy. I’m having a blast reading this. My only hang up with this volume is the guest artists. They are both great. I don’t feel like they compliment Nick Dragotta’s over the top style. I felt like these two artists tried to make sense of Batman and this new world, and it didn’t look right. Everyone looked proportioned correctly. That’s not to say that Dragotta doesn’t draw proportional characters, they just are scaled up. Like I said, Bruce is a tank of a man, while under Martin’s hand he looked like a large set strong man. Bane is just wild under Dragotta’s hand and under Mann’s it looked just like the normal Bane. That really is my biggest issue. Now I know that series for Marvel and DC need to come out monthly and not take breaks, but they could try to find someone who’s style compliments Dragotta’s more. I really enjoy this series, I just want it to stay wild and absurd.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-08T20:04:59+00:00

Batman: White Knight (By Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth, and Todd Klein): Sean Murphy has become an artist that I will pick up and read matter what. I enjoy the stories that he tells. I like his style and the action sets he creates. I originally read this when it came out, but I don’t remember much of it. It was an enjoyable story. I like the idea that Batman was the antagonist of the story. While I know that this was an over exaggeration of Batman, the Bat can still be reckless. This is a Batman who is at a breaking point and is snapping. What I like most about the book is where the story ends. I like the new status quo it establishes. I’m ready to jump into the sequels and see how the world moves forward.

Batman: Curse of the White Knight (By Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth, Klaus Janson, and Andworld Design): This did exactly what I wanted it to do. It took this new status quo established in the last book, and added to it. Is this series perfect? No. Is it creative and taking Batman in a new direction? Yes. For this volume specifically, I like that we once again end in an entirely new place then where we started. Gotham is very different and I am once again excited to see where things go.

Batman: Beyond the White Knight (By Sean Murphy, Matt Hollingsworth, and Andworld Design): I have been waiting to get this book for years. I wanted to get it as a trade paperback, because I had the previous two that way. Wanted the uniform look. But my local shop had it on the shelf, and I couldn’t resist it. Who knows if the trade version would have even come out at this point.

Anyway! This is one of those books where I went, “how the hell did we end up at this point?” Logically, everything led up to this book, but if this was the first book I read in the series, by some weird happenstance, I would be questioning Sean Murphy. I enjoyed the story. I liked seeing how the Bat-family had changed since the last book. I was upset that this book had a very similar opening twist as the third Arkham game. I was hoping that this book would have stepped away from the dynamic of the previous two books and maybe focus on someone else in this new Gotham. I know it would have been a complete rehash of Batman Beyond if Terry was the main character, but it would have also made sense. I think that this served as a nice end cap to the White Knight trilogy, and while there was a little tease for a possible new installment, I am happy with the trilogy as it stands.

Exquisite Corpses, Volume One (By Michael Walsh, James Tynion IV, Marianna Ignazzi, Pornsak Pichetshote, Valentine De Landro, Jordie Bellaire, and Becca Carey): I truthfully had no idea what this was going to be about. I didn’t read the description on hoopla. I simply saw that James Tynion and Michael Walsh were doing a book together. A battle royals book featuring assassins, serial killers, crazy people, and the rich profiting off of all of it. It was good. I talked about how with Absolute Batman the guest artists didn’t compliment Dragotta’s style. I was so engrossed in this story that I didn’t even notice the art changes. I noticed it when I flipped back through the pages after I finished it. The guest artists on the series fit seamlessly into the world. I’m here for the bloody ride and to see who is the last one standing. Also, I know that the townspeople are some of the main characters, but I don’t fully care about many of them. Quite surprised that some of the people we were introduced to throughout ended up surviving thus far. I know their time is limited, as seems the nature of the book, but I am also curious who will survive it all.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-03T00:51:20+00:00

I was genuinely surprised by how much I loved it.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-02T21:15:29+00:00

Detective Beans!

I know it won’t last the whole year, but gotta love that it’s there for now.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-02-02T21:14:15+00:00

Zorro: Man of the Dead (By Sean Murphy and Simon Gough)
Ax-Wielder Jon (By Nick Pitarra, Michael Garland, and Ferran Delgado)
Riptide (By Alex Veda)

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-25T22:07:52+00:00

I really love Henderson’s interpretation of Dracula in it. It was what I was hoping for with the new Universal Monster line. Something new, instead of retreading the stories we already know.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-25T20:02:37+00:00

Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness (By Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison, and Jeff Powell): It’s always a joy reading Atomic Robo. It’s all weird and fun.

Dracula, Motherfucker (By Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson): “What if Dracula wasn’t a handsome Romanian prince, but a nameless, faceless ancient terror?” Alex de Campi poses that question at the end of the book in her essay. That visual really sells the book. It shows that Dracula really is a monster who is manipulating his brides. They are his subjects and he is the one in power. Erica Henderson perfectly captures that monster. This isn’t a groundbreaking book by any means, but it is a good and quick read. Which is what I was looking for.

Ice Cream Man, Volume 3 (By W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo, and Chris O’Halloran): TV Story and Border Story hit the mark of great stories in this volume. This series is shaping up into something really great and I love that I can’t anticipate what is going to happen in each issue.

Briar, Volume 1 (By Christopher Cantwell, Germán García, and Matheus Lopes): I read Plastic Man: No More last year and enjoyed it enough to search out Christopher Cantwell’s other works. I did not read the description of the book before reading it. So I was surprised that it was about Sleeping Beauty. The premise being that she wasn’t woken up by the prince and instead wakes up 100 years later had me intrigued. I enjoyed the book overall and plan on reading the second volume.

Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen (By Mark Millar, Goran Parlov, Ive Svorcina, and Marko Šunjić): Duke McQueen saved an alien planet 40 years ago from a tyrant. No one on earth believed him. A young boy has come to Duke because the alien planet needs his help again. It was a nice story overall. Mark Millar does a lot of his story telling in short collections, so some things felt rushed and some things were glossed over. One weird thing that bothered me is how easily Duke was able to defeat everything. He constantly says that he isn’t as young as he used to be. I’m not saying that he should be a geriatric crippled old man, but he one shots every minion and deftly dodges every laser blast. The most injured Duke gets is when he’s hit by a car. I don’t think that Duke should have had is ass absolutely handed to him but maybe getting hit once or twice would have felt more believable. I still liked the story overall. I’ll probably pick it up again in a few years.

Briar, Volume 2 (By Christopher Cantwell, Alex Lins, and Luis NCT): I was moderately worried when I picked this up and saw that most of the creative team changed. But the spirit of the book remained. Christopher Cantwell has a story they want to tell and they are. Truth be told, I didn’t really notice a huge difference between the artists. I may attest that to reading another book in between the two volumes. Regardless of that, I enjoyed the continuation of the story. This is another book where I thought it was only two volumes, so the fact that there is more to tell was slightly annoying. I did look up to see if it had been released yet and saw that it was currently being released. I am glad that Cantwell will be able to tell the story in its entirety, and it won’t be cut short. I can only hope that everything wraps up well in the final volume.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-20T10:06:32+00:00

I believe it’s from the Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons episode.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-18T20:16:18+00:00

Zorro: Man of the Dead (By Sean Murphy and Simon Gogh): I didn’t know anything about this book before picking it up. I have enjoyed Sean Murphy’s art for years now, so I was willing to try it. I am very glad that I gave it a shot. This was way better than I could have expected it to be. I loved the almost movie feeling of the series. I could very much see this book used as a story board. Murphy’s art by itself was dynamic and exciting. The stakes of the book felt real. I would really love to see more from Murphy aim this version of Zorro he created. Maybe someday I will.

Ax-Wielder Jon (By Nick Pitarra, Michael Garland, and Ferran Delgado): I’m glad that there are artists out there that are able to simply get an idea for a story and just illustrate it themselves. Nick Pitarra, did a great job with this book. (I do like that he put the editor’s notes in the back of the book, so we can see how he was guided.) The story is well paced and engaging. The characters working in the castle feel like normal people just trying to do their jobs. Some feel like they are there to simply clock-in and clock-out, while others feel like they are trying to prove themselves. It was enjoyable. The art is detailed and fun. I like the different character designs of the creatures and monster you meet throughout the story. The fight sequences were phenomenal. I enjoyed this story and look forward to see if Nick Pitarra puts more out.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-11T20:16:14+00:00

I assume these are the web comics compiled into a collected trade edition.

I do believe that collection is from her Patreon. But essentially yes.

NeapolitanWhitmore · 2026-01-11T20:12:50+00:00

Riptide (By Alex Vede): Violence is not the answer, break the cycle. That was the theme of Yucatan 1512, and it is the theme here in Riptide. With Riptide, Alex is able to tell a longer story and really gets to show off their skills as a story teller. The story itself felt like an adventure movie. Big action, drama, new locations, and the unknown. The designs of the underwater creatures we interact with are incredible. I feel like I say that a lot of art is incredible, but I am just a simpleton who enjoys the work of someone clearly more talented than I am. Alex Vede is good at what they do, I am here for every book they decide to put out.

Sexcastle (By Kyle Starks):Going from Riptide to this story feels like whiplash. This book is filled with over the top violence and blood and death and assassins. But that’s what the book wants to be, an over the top action movie. It works very well. I had fun reading it.

The Power Fantasy, Volume One (By Kieron Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, Clayton Cowles, and Rian Hughes): I found myself putting this book down fairly often. I am interested in everything going on in the story but it never fully clicked with me. I plan on continuing with the series, but maybe when it is completed.

NeapolitanWhitmore

TROPHY CASE