Now up at Broken Frontier is my review of the excellent second volume set in The Surrogates universe. This Top Shelf OGN is by the same creative team of writer Robert Venditti and artist Brett Weldele, and it’s awesome. A world where the populace is largely dependent on robotic avatars while they laze around at home is a great premise and the creators weave in issues of class and culture with great skill. Highly recommended. Here’s an excerpt of my review:
Publishing this as a complete 144 page OGN was a good move from Top Shelf. From interrogation rooms, to boardrooms, it appears as a seamless narrative. Whereas the precursor to this volume was focused more on themes of living vicariously through surrogates, Flesh and Bone focuses more on the divide between the haves and the have-nots. It’s almost like a sci-fi Spike Lee film.
You can read the rest here.
Also released recently was the new poster for the film adaptation of the first volume, that hits cinema screens on September 25. It stars Bruce Willis and is directed by Jonathan Mostow (U-571, Terminator 3).
Alex Sheikman and David Moran (A) Alex Sheikman (Col) Joel Chua
DC’s Wednesday Comics came out this week, on Wednesday! (which is new comics day for US residents).I think fans have put undue pressure on the series, whereas DC are just playing it as an experiment. It’s a grand idea from art director Mark Chiarello, but it’s not the saviour of the comics industry as some would like to believe. However, featuring the first Superman tale in USA Today, with future Supes installments on the USA Today website holds great cross-over potential. The new weekly series is in old newspaper, or tabloid format, at 14″ x 20″ and holds 15 one page stories, by different creative teams. To give you a sense of scale, 
Right off the bat I must say that Noology is a cool name and it’s a real word! It’s also a pretty cool abstract comic by Aussie artist Tim Gaze. Gaze is apparently quite well known in the world of such comics. It’s also a world I’ve only recently been made aware of, thanks to Fantagraphics’ excellent Abstract Comics: The Anthology, of which Gaze is a contributor. You can see some of his recent work on the diverse Abstract Comics blog 
This new series from the DC imprint Wildstorm is a freak fest and I think it will continue to build upon the chills. Written by 
There’s a host of writers working on comics, film and TV these days. John Rogers is another example. His work on the new Blue Beetle series from DC and on the Global Frequency TV pilot gives him serious fanboy cred. He too is writing for TV now, specifically the new series 
Jonathan Hickman (he of The Nightly News fame) is now firmly entrenched at Marvel, and that’s a very good thing. He brings a great dramatic and creative flair to his work. The latest issue of his new Secret Warriors series hits shelves on July 29,a nd is co-written by Brian Michael Bendis, with art by Stefano Caselli. Here’s what Marvel say about the issue:
I read 
The Definitive Edition of 
comicbookjesus 