Having complained oh-so-much about Infinite Crisis and its related comics, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to say something positive about comics. So here’s what new stuff I’m ordering from the current Previews catalog:

CONAN AND THE DEMONS OF KHITAI TP
I’m enjoying Dark Horse’s monthly Conan series so much it’s scary. But the miniseries, I’m waiting until they’re collected, instead of buying the individual issues. (Just don’t need the comics piling up around the house, and I don’t want to wait a quarter of a year for a self-contained story that will take me less than an hour to read...)

CONCRETE VOL 6 STRANGER ARMOR TP
This may be the final (to date) collection of Paul Chadwick’s excellent Concrete series. Definitely one that holds up to rereading, and one I’d rather have on the bookshelf than stuffed away in some comics box somewhere.

BPRD THE BLACK FLAME TP
I had been reading the BPRD series as they came out, just like I do Hellboy (the book that spawned it), but they weren’t really sticking to my brain the way I would have liked. The Black Flame is the first one I decided to hold off on buying until it was collected, and I expect it’ll be a lot more enjoyable for me in one sitting...

ASTRO CITY SAMARITAN SPECIAL
Kurt Busiek does such a fantastic job telling Astro City stories in both multi-issue arcs and single issues. So do I mind an extra-sized special issue while the current ongoing story is on a break? No, I do not.

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED #1
I mentioned above my enjoyment of the Conan comic, which has extended almost equally to the Red Sonja comics. So I bought the Red Sonja/Claw miniseries (or at least the one issue out so far), and liked that just fine. Andy Smith’s art was great, and he’s going to be drawing this revival of Claw’s solo series. And it’s going to be written by Chuck Dixon, whose work I love--on the right character or book--and who wrote the first Conan comic story I can remember buying. So I’m going to give this a try.

CASANOVA #1
It’s a spy book with all the right influences (Steranko’s SHIELD, Diabolik, stuff like that), and it’s only $1.99. And the art looks nice. Worth trying at that price... (There's an interview with writer Matt Fraction about it here.)

GARGOYLES #1
While I drifted away from the cartoons after a while, I really enjoyed this show when it premiered, and am enjoying it all over again on DVD. If it wasn’t being written by the series creator, I probably wouldn’t be buying the comic. But it is, so I am. So there.

FLIGHT VOL 3 GN
The first two Flight books were great. No reason to expect anything less from this third one.

BLACK PLAGUE ONE SHOT
I’m buying this one for Joe Casey, who rarely disappoints with his own creations. We’ll see... (It’s only a one-shot, so not a big risk.)

CHIPS WILDE THE WILD ONE GN
It’s a graphic novel set in a period that interests me (the West in the ‘20s), by a veteran Western comics artist. I think it’s worth checking out.

RED SONJA MONSTER ISLAND ONE SHOT
I’ll admit, they probably had me at Red Sonja. But this one is written by classic Conan writer (and creator of the comics version of Red Sonja) Roy Thomas. Thomas was one of the key comics creators from my childhood, and it’s hard to pass up anything with his name on it these days. (It’s almost as hard to find anything with his name on it, for that matter...)

ADVENTURES OF RED SONJA VOL 2 SHE DEVIL WITH A SWORD TP
Roy Thomas again, this time joined by Frank Thorne as artist, in these reprints of Sonja’s 70s Marvel series. I enjoyed the stories in the first book just fine, although I would have enjoyed them better if they had been reproduced better. I’m taking a chance that this will show some improvement.

PHANTOM LAW OF THE JUNGLE GN
I’m not sure what this will turn out looking like (it’s made up of panels spread out across two pages, with the dialogue and captions printed in the margins, I think). But I like the Phantom, and with art by Paul Guinan in a style similar to his recent Heartbreakers book, it’ll be really pretty.

LOVE THE WAY YOU LOVE #1
I finally read Jamie Rich’s first novel, Cut My Hair, and enjoyed it much more than I expected. This new series deals with some of the peripheral characters from that novel, so I’m looking forward to seeing them again. Plus, it’s in my new favorite format, Oni’s little digest format. You get the thrill of a serialized story, but in pieces bigger and more substantial than the average comic book.

STRUGGLERS GN
A last minute addition. I’m getting it because I’ve heard great things about creator Tim Fish, it sounds like the sort of slice-of-life story I really enjoy, and the price isn’t too bad for what you get.

JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL 4 TP
And these, I’ll just keep getting until they stop making them. Because I Judge Dredd.

Oh, and almost making the cut would have been Paul Jenkins and Chris Moreno's Sidekick from Image Comics, a humorous superhero book. Only when push came to shove, I I decided it wasn't really lighting my fire the way I want a Paul Jenkins comic to excite me. He says it's going to deconstruct the superhero genre by throwing pies at it. And, at this point, what's clever about a comic book pointing out how silly superhero stories can be?