Five-time Grammy Award-winner and legendary musical satirist “Weird Al” Yankovic has written ALL of the greatest songs of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Z2 has gathered some of the top cartoonists to express Al’s “Yankovisions” visually within this book’s pages. The great Al-merican songbook features 20+ classic songs interpreted by a group of amazing artists.
Creators:
Hilary Barta, Jim Wiz, Wes Wong, Rick Parker Mark Fredericksom Bob Fingerman Peter Bagge Jay Jay Jackson Bill Plympton Wes Hargis Craig Rousseau Aaron Augenblick Brent Engstrom
Steve Chanks, Claudia Chanks Tim Leong Chris Visions, Nathan Kempf PJ McQuade Ruben Volling Gideon Kendall Ryan Dunlavey, Adam Guzowski Brian McFadden Johnny Sampson Gary Pullin
Kelly Phillips Fred Harper, Nathan Kempf Jeff McClelland, Jeff McComsey, Mark Welser Jan Meininghaus Sean Pryor R. Sikoryak Mike Kupperman Felipe Sobreiro, Nathan Kempf Drew Friedman, Mike Allred, Laura Allred, Jesse Philips, Danny Hellman
Get your copy in comic shops! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.
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This last year saw the long-awaited return of Peter Milligan, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred’s X-Statix saga in X-Cellent, and Marvel has announced that there’s more to come this March! The trio of comic superstars will reunite for even more mutant celebrity exploits in the pages of a five-issue sequel series, TheX-Cellent. The series will continue the offbeat, thrilling adventures of X-Statix and further explore their newly-introduced supervillain counterparts known as the X-Cellent.
A breakout hit of the 2000s, X-Statix stunned fans with its dark wit and unique take on Marvel super heroics. More timely and relevant than ever, fans can once again visit this fascinating and strange corner of the Marvel Universe and all its fan-favorite characters including U-Go Girl, Zeitgeist, Doop, and more!
Your favorite celebrity super villains are back! Zeitgeist is still on a mission to achieve social media godhood, no matter who he has to kill! But the spotlight won’t be big enough when the next generation of the X-Statix drop in!
Be there for the next chapter of Peter Milligan, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred’s mutant celebrity saga this March!
There’s so many different takes on Superman throughout the years. The character is an icon and the basic take on the character tends to focus on a few pillars that are part of his DNA. The idea of a god-like person raised as a normal human and what he does with that power is key. The optimistic outlook is pretty important as well. Superman: Space Age #1 takes us to that time as Clark Kent is figuring those things out. Set in the 1960s, the issue has Clark on his farm trying to figure out the future and his place in it.
Written by Mark Russell, Superman: Space Age #1 starts with a disaster. It’s the end of existence as Clark/Superman huddles with Lois and their son as existence looks to end. Russell shifts things back a bit taking us through the early years as Clark transitions from farmer to journalist. There, he meets a man named Pariah who says existence has 20 years. For those steeped in DC history, you know where this is going but it’s done in a way that feels fresh and interesting. It also ties into some of Russell’s bigger themes he explores. What is Clark’s destiny. Is it written in stone like Pariah’s view of the future? Can Clark change things at all?
The issue dances around these concepts as we’re taken through major events and some alt-history in the DC Universe. The death of President Kennedy is key to events as it triggers the rising threat of nuclear war. Clark taking his first steps to prevent that almost causes what he attempts to prevent. It’s all small moments that can really take things one way or another. Single individuals who impact world changing events. Russell nails all that down in a very cohesive and focused story.
The art by Michael Allred is great as always. Joined by Laura Allred on color and lettering with Dave Sharpe, the comic plays off of the time period it’s set. Things have a retro look as we get to see a take on Batman of the time, Lex Luthor’s world feels a bit more out of Mad Men, small details like clothes and transportation keep reminding readers when the story is set. The story’s time period is key and the art really nails it but at the same time keeps things with a slight future twist about it. There’s a pop sensibility about it, the type the Allred’s excel at.
Superman: Space Age #1 is an interesting debut. It’s a comic that has a clear focus and theme running throughout. It does a great job of not overdoing its concepts but in each key moment, those concepts are important. It has an underlying philosophy about it and integrates that into the story in a smooth way that’ll get readers to think and ponder what it has to say.
Story: Mark Russell Art: Michael Allred Color: Laura Allred Letterer: Dave Sharpe Story: 8.25 Art: 8.25 Overall:8.25 Recommendation: Buy
DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
(W) Mark Russell (A) Mike Allred In Shops: Jul 26, 2022 SRP: $9.99
Meet Clark Kent, a young reporter who just learned that the world will soon come to an end (Crisis on Infinite Earths) and there is nothing he can do to save it. Sounds like a job for his alter ego…Superman! After years of standing idle, the young man from Krypton defies the wishes of his fathers to come out to the world as the first superhero of the Space Age. As each decade passes and each new danger emerges, he wonders if this is the one that will kill him and everyone he loves. Superman realizes that even good intentions are not without their backlash as the world around him transforms into a place as determined to destroy itself as he is to save it. Uniting the critically acclaimed writer Mark Russell (One-Star Squadron, The Flintstones) and Eisner-winner Mike Allred (Silver Surfer, Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams) for the first time, this series promises fans an unforgettable journey through U.S. history and culture starring our beloved characters.
Z2 Comics has announced a collaboration with pop culture icon “Weird Al” Yankovic to publish The Illustrated Al: The Songs of “Weird Al” Yankovic. Written by “Weird Al” Yankovic, this career-spanning visual feast unites some of our top cartoonists and illustrators to express Al’s “Yankovisions.” The Great AL-merican Songbook features 20-plus classic Al songs interpreted by such artists as Bill Plympton, Aaron Augenblick, Peter Bagge, Steve Chanks, Felipe Sobreiro, Gideon Kendall, Michael Kupperman, Wes Hargis, Ruben Bolling, Fred Harper, Ryan Dunlavey, R. Sikoryak, Jeff McClelland, Jeff McComsey, Hilary Barta, Johnny Sampson, Tom Richmond, Bob Fingerman, and many more! The book also features cover art by Drew Friedman and Mike & Laura Allred, as well as a custom art print set from Jesse Philips, a collector’s card set by Danny Hellman, and a foreword from legendary comic Emo Philips, who is also opening for Al on his current 133-show tour of North America, with an accompanying illustration by master MAD alumnus Sam Viviano.
Z2 Comics and “Weird Al” Yankovic present The Illustrated Al: The Songs of “Weird Al” Yankovic in both softcover and hardcover formats, as well as oversized hardcover deluxe, and an oversized hardcover deluxe hand-signed edition. Drew Friedman and Mike & Laura Allredprovide cover art. Deluxe editions include a wax pack of collector’s cards illustrated by Danny Hellman, a 3-piece art print set from Jesse Philips, a vinyl slipmat, drink coasters, and, in the Super Deluxe Edition, Al-signed books as well as a “Weird Al” Yankovic branded mini-accordion.
It’s finally here! This February, writer Peter Milligan, artist Michael Allred, and color artist Laura Allred make their long-awaited return to their iconic X-Statix saga in X-Cellent #1!
Back in the 2000s, X-Statix stunned readers with its unique spin on Marvel super heroics and off-beat characters. Now, this hit series is back along with the original creative team for more comic book brilliance overflowing with wit, charm, and high-octane thrills! Get ready for more adventures of X-Statix starring your favorite heroes from the classic series along with a brand-new team of rivals that will take this one-of-a-kind series to a fresh and exciting new future!
They were loved by their adoring fans. They were reviled by the harsh press. They lived, they loved, they fought and they died…a lot — all for the sake of fame. They were the X-Statix, a team of mutant celebrities fighting for a brighter world and an even brighter spotlight! But they’re old news now, because there’s a new mutant team that will live harder, love harder, fight harder and die a whole lot harder than those has-beens! Meet…THE X-CELLENT!
Don’t miss the triumphant comeback of X-Statix when X-Cellent #1 arrives in February!
Michael Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred’s graphic biography Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreamsis a love letter to musical legend and bisexual chameleon, David Bowie. The book mainly focuses on his Ziggy Stardust period with the Allreds beautifully illustrating a montage of live shows as Bowie’s creation and the Spiders from Mars come to vivid life in Europe, North America, and Asia. Horton and Allred use the Spiders’ final gig at London’s Hammersmith Odeon as a framing narrative. Because Bowie had a six-decade recording career, this narrative strategy is effective and also turns the comic into a history of a certain period of pop music when peace beads and flower headdresses were replaced with elaborate makeup, big guitars, and all things glam.
Although the ever-shifting image of David Bowie himself is always at the center of Bowie, Horton and Allred tell their story in what is basically a series of montages. There will be a beautiful dream sequence with a trippy color palette from Laura Allred that visually shows the inspiration of hit songs like “Space Oddity”, “Life on Mars”, or “Rock n Roll Suicide” to name a few, and then we’ll get a list of various celebrities at a Ziggy Stardust show or a check-in on what’s happening with his contemporaries like T. Rex’s Marc Bolan or Lou Reed.
For the most part, Horton uses minimal captions and lets Mike Allred’s art and Laura Allred’s tell the story. But when the comic calls for it, he can inject moments of humor like Bowie’s reaction to his son Zowie (Now director Duncan Jones) destroying his record collection or poignancy when Bowie reflects on his family’s history of mental illness or begins to articulate the idea of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to his band. Horton and Allred draw parallels between both Ziggy and Bowie’s hubris as he turns a blind eye when his corrupt lawyer is paying long term band members three times less than relatively new keyboard player, Mike Garson. Although they’re iconic images, there is an air of ego to Bowie’s famous Aladdin Sane photo shoot with Allred’s use of negative space crowding the Spiders from Mars out of the frame even though guitarist Mick Ronson was a vital part of his music and helped keep him focus when he was too busy flirting with his lover-turned-wife, Angie.
However, what will stay with me most from Bowie are the Allreds’ ability to capture the energy of live music while still doing spot-on likenesses of historical figures performing. When Mick Ronson and Bowie harmonize on “Starman” or (controversially) embrace on a Top of the Pops performance, there is a camaraderie and almost sexual chemistry between the two men that makes the later “breakup” scene emotionally resonant. Although Allred mainly puts Bowie at the center of the frame, he makes sure to cut to the audience and their hands as they are inspired and reaffirmed that it’s okay to be a little strange or non-heterosexual by this benevolent, iconic alien before them. The Allreds add some flourishes like Kirby Krackle every time Bowie does something that is especially extraterrestrial like floating in space in an early film that was a companion to “Space Oddity”.
Underneath the heavily researched and striking fashions and celebrity cameos, Bowie is about creating an identity out of the things one is passionate about. For example, Bowie and his band mates saw A Clockwork Orange when it was first release, and it immediately impacted the costuming, visual design, and even the intro of the Ziggy Stardust live show. Basically, he was a huge nerd for pop and folk music, high fashion, literature, and film, and it shown out in both his art and the way he approached the world. Bowie is filled with moments where Horton and Allred (And by extension, David Bowie) respects their fellow artists like a full page splash homage to Bob Dylan and Elvis, bringing up Lou Reed on stage, running around Detroit with Iggy Pop, and inspiring the young Morrissey and Bruce Springsteen during his concerts. It shows that art can lead to friendship, lifelong influences, and sometimes tragedy like the aforementioned tension between Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, and Moonage Daydreams is a highly stylized, yet infinitely human look at an important period in David Bowie’s career from Mike Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred. The graphic biography captures the feeling of the music of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane through dreamlike visuals as well as adding historical context to these songs and albums and personal anecdotes that add both vulnerable and mystique to Bowie’s story. Its epilogue also kind of made me want a sequel featuring the Thin White Duke and some of Bowie’s later personas. This book truly feels like a passion project and transported me to a bittersweet day six years when a closeted, sad teenager listened to the CD of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stars and the Spiders from Mars and felt “not alone”. It’s a must read for any Bowie fan, especially those who love his early-1970s work the best.
Story: SteveHorton and Michael Allred Art: Michael AllredColors: Laura Allred Story: 7.5 Art: 9.5 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy
Insight Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
In X-Ray Robot #1, writer/artist Michael Allred and colorist Laura Allred run their usual 1960s space-age aesthetic through a body horror filter. It’s basically that bad trip of a cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” that Flaming Lips, Miley Cyrus, and Moby did in 2014 as sequential art. The comic is a tale of a scientist named Dr. Max Wilding discovering interdimensional travel with the help of a nifty robot. However, his journey to the “other side” is not without its effects. It messes up his home and work life while kick-starting this miniseries’ ongoing plot.
X-Ray Robot #1 gets off to kind of a weird start. It looks like the CEO of Wilding’s funding company, Reynolds, makies an unwanted pass at the only female member of their scientific team. Later, she kisses Wilding on the mouth in front of his wife and kids. Honestly, the character’s motivation doesn’t make sense to me. It’s the single, real flaw in a visually stunning, engrossing, and sometimes terrifying comic.
After the initial awkwardness, Mike Allred easily rights the shop by making interdimensional travel look like the process of drawing, but with a robot and a splash of yellow from Laura Allred. Instead of having unnecessary exposition, we get to experience the journey with Wilding and the growing bond between him and his robot. Each trip (Pun definitely intended.) has its own distinct style with consciousness transfer and an incredibly psychedelic double-page spread appearing as the story progresses.
However, a key strength of X-Ray Robot #1 is its juxtaposition of the normal with the otherworldly beginning with Dr. Wilding’s wife and children showing up at his launch and even the banter between scientists as he begins his journey. At first, they seem like scientists, who took design notes from Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four, Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, and yes, Mike Allred’s earlier work, who have normal lives otherwise. But, then, the unsettling nature of Wilding’s journey creeps up on him while he’s pushing his kid on the swing, in bed with his wife, and finally, hurtling down the passageways of his lab. The man, who had enough wit and grit, to ask his boss for an increase in funding is no longer tethered to reality anymore.
Mike Allred shows this by having a constant sense of movement in his line art and foregoing a boring ol’ grid for fun and new panel shapes. Laura Allred adds the icing on top with intense background colors because X-Ray Robot #1 is really pop art gone loony, or Andy Warhol spending way too much time with Luis Bunuel.
X-Ray Robot has all the pulp science fiction trappings, like intrepid scientists with cool outfits going on a wondrous journey beyond what scientists in our current time can do. Mike Allred combines these elements with the mecha genre, including a cool looking robot that has But he cuts the story together in a way that looks like an avant-garde fever dream at times. Some of the ways he does this is by reality turn on a dime, making Dr. Wilding the ultimate unreliable narrator, and transforming his and Laura Allred’s wonderfully refined artwork into raw pencils.
X-Ray Robot #1 may end up being another scientist and robot team up to save the world from a threat beyond our knowledge, but for now, Mike Allred and Laura Allred subvert these well-trodden tropes and give readers a unique experience of traveling to another dimension and bonding with another consciousness. The way they shift their art style when Dr. Wilding goes to another dimension and the cutting together of tranquil domesticity with violent unreality makes X-Ray Robot #1 a fantastic reading experience and worth pouring over for the Allreds’ dynamic storytelling alone.
Story/Art: Michael Allred Colors: Laura AllredLetters: Nate Piekos Story: 8.0 Art: 9.5 Overall: 8.7 Recommendation: Buy
Dark Horse Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Script: Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn Art: Derek Charm, Glenn Whitmore, Jack Morelli Cover: Peter Krause Variant Covers: Mike and Laura Allred, Jamal Igle On Sale Date: 1/8 32-page, full color comic $3.99 U.S.
Archie reaches the pinnacle of rock and roll heaven; hit records, TV, movies and thousands of adoring fans, but cracks are beginning to show–it’s terrifying at the top but the possibility of falling from it is far worse.
Michael Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred’s graphic biography Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreamsis a love letter to musical legend and bisexual chameleon, David Bowie. The book mainly focuses on his Ziggy Stardust period with the Allreds beautifully illustrating a montage of live shows as Bowie’s creation and the Spiders from Mars come to vivid life in Europe, North America, and Asia. Horton and Allred use the Spiders’ final gig at London’s Hammersmith Odeon as a framing narrative. Because Bowie had a six-decade recording career, this narrative strategy is effective and also turns the comic into a history of a certain period of pop music when peace beads and flower headdresses were replaced with elaborate makeup, big guitars, and all things glam.
Although the ever-shifting image of David Bowie himself is always at the center of Bowie, Horton and Allred tell their story in what is basically a series of montages. There will be a beautiful dream sequence with a trippy color palette from Laura Allred that visually shows the inspiration of hit songs like “Space Oddity”, “Life on Mars”, or “Rock n Roll Suicide” to name a few, and then we’ll get a list of various celebrities at a Ziggy Stardust show or a check-in on what’s happening with his contemporaries like T. Rex’s Marc Bolan or Lou Reed.
For the most part, Horton uses minimal captions and lets Mike Allred’s art and Laura Allred’s tell the story. But when the comic calls for it, he can inject moments of humor like Bowie’s reaction to his son Zowie (Now director Duncan Jones) destroying his record collection or poignancy when Bowie reflects on his family’s history of mental illness or begins to articulate the idea of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars to his band. Horton and Allred draw parallels between both Ziggy and Bowie’s hubris as he turns a blind eye when his corrupt lawyer is paying long term band members three times less than relatively new keyboard player, Mike Garson. Although they’re iconic images, there is an air of ego to Bowie’s famous Aladdin Sane photo shoot with Allred’s use of negative space crowding the Spiders from Mars out of the frame even though guitarist Mick Ronson was a vital part of his music and helped keep him focus when he was too busy flirting with his lover-turned-wife, Angie.
However, what will stay with me most from Bowie are the Allreds’ ability to capture the energy of live music while still doing spot-on likenesses of historical figures performing. When Mick Ronson and Bowie harmonize on “Starman” or (controversially) embrace on a Top of the Pops performance, there is a camaraderie and almost sexual chemistry between the two men that makes the later “breakup” scene emotionally resonant. Although Allred mainly puts Bowie at the center of the frame, he makes sure to cut to the audience and their hands as they are inspired and reaffirmed that it’s okay to be a little strange or non-heterosexual by this benevolent, iconic alien before them. The Allreds add some flourishes like Kirby Krackle every time Bowie does something that is especially extraterrestrial like floating in space in an early film that was a companion to “Space Oddity”.
Underneath the heavily researched and striking fashions and celebrity cameos, Bowie is about creating an identity out of the things one is passionate about. For example, Bowie and his band mates saw A Clockwork Orange when it was first release, and it immediately impacted the costuming, visual design, and even the intro of the Ziggy Stardust live show. Basically, he was a huge nerd for pop and folk music, high fashion, literature, and film, and it shown out in both his art and the way he approached the world. Bowie is filled with moments where Horton and Allred (And by extension, David Bowie) respects their fellow artists like a full page splash homage to Bob Dylan and Elvis, bringing up Lou Reed on stage, running around Detroit with Iggy Pop, and inspiring the young Morrissey and Bruce Springsteen during his concerts. It shows that art can lead to friendship, lifelong influences, and sometimes tragedy like the aforementioned tension between Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Bowie: Stardust, Rayguns, and Moonage Daydreams is a highly stylized, yet infinitely human look at an important period in David Bowie’s career from Mike Allred, Steve Horton, and Laura Allred. The graphic biography captures the feeling of the music of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane through dreamlike visuals as well as adding historical context to these songs and albums and personal anecdotes that add both vulnerable and mystique to Bowie’s story. Its epilogue also kind of made me want a sequel featuring the Thin White Duke and some of Bowie’s later personas. This book truly feels like a passion project and transported me to a bittersweet day six years when a closeted, sad teenager listened to the CD of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stars and the Spiders from Mars and felt “not alone”. It’s a must read for any Bowie fan, especially those who love his early-1970s work the best.
Story: SteveHorton and Michael Allred Art: Michael AllredColors: Laura Allred Story: 7.5 Art: 9.5 Overall: 8.5 Recommendation: Buy
Insight Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
