Holiday Shopping Guide: Comic Book Day

Dead folks, dragon tattoos and Donatello are prime page-based pics.

How are you going to seasonally shop for the comic-book addict in your life? We’ve got some (graphic) novel ideas…

Captain Kirkman – With apologies to Howard Stern, The Walking Dead is pretty much comicdom’s King of All Media, with its strongest representations being those on the page and the small screen. For originalist purists and new fans, Compendium One, which includes most of the major storylines used on the TV show so far, is a great read, and heavy enough to do some damage if you have to whack a zombie in the head with it. If AMC’s version is tops in your heart, consider McFarlane Toys’ second series of TV-based action figures, including fan-fave Bicycle Girl with reaching action, all the better to reenact truly “touching” moments. If you want all the Kirkman wit, but with flights and tights instead of groans and bites, then Invincible is the book for you. Tying classic superheroism with a modern sensibility and a knowing wink to the comics stereotypes that have come before, it’ll get someone hooked on the comics habit when you buy them this book.

Tat’s Entertainment! – People can debate all they want about the merits of Noomi Rapace versus Rooney Mara in their differing interpretations of Lisbeth Salander, but we’d like to present a third option: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in graphic novel form, from DC/Vertigo. Featuring details the movies couldn’t fit into their running times, it also avoids the whole language/accent issue by leaving you free to imagine that part yourself. Lisbeth herself would probably prefer the Kindle version, but there’s a hardcover available too.

Super-Size, Man – From the realistic to the epic, J. Michael Straczynski’s Superman: Earth One, volumes 1 and 2, reinvents Superman in a new universe free of continuity baggage, as Clark Kent learns who he wants to be while having to fight off an alien army responsible for the destruction of his homeworld, Krypton. If Supes fighting aliens isn’t big enough, shoot forward into the off-world colonies in the year 2717 in the massive, oversized, full-color graphic novel Anomaly, which features augmented reality apps that create 3-D models on your tablet as you follow the action on the page.

Cows, Mice and Tanks, Oh My! – Despite what those hifalutin global warming scientists might want you to believe, winter is coming, so brace yourself for real world cat-and-mouse adventure of Dave Petersen’s Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 limited-edition hardcover collection from Archaia Press. Prefer your graphic novels with an all-star cast? Top Cow’s oversize Artifacts hardcover TPB will bring The Darkness, Witchblade, Hunter-Killer and a slew of other stars into your living room. With a story by crossover king Ron Marz, you’ll be the best holiday mash-up since whiskey met apple cider. Image also gives Tony Stark a run for his copious money in the Think Tank TPB, which follows the saga of Dr. David Loren, a brilliant playboy scientist who works for a military think tank creating weapons of increasingly massive destruction. Until he decides he’s had enough, that is. In the immortal words of Bill Nye the Science Guy‘s intro theme, “Science rules.”

Shell Out Your Cash – They got their start in black-and-white comics, but we’d wager that the way most fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles encountered them was as TV’s “heroes in a half-shell: Turtle power!” Bebop on over to your favorite DVD retailer, and rock steady as you relive all the old memories with the classic TMNT DVD set in a bodacious party-wagon box. Are you cool-but-rude? A party dude? Pick out your favorite color-coded bandana and bust out the pizza, because a true Renaissance man of today knows that Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael were more than just great artists. For our money, the folks at Sideshow are pretty damn fine artists in their own right, as the Shredder Comiquette will attest – you even get to unmask the bladed baddie if you wish!

We at Nerdist News – as well as the entire Nerdist Industries gang – want to wish you a great, safe and foodtastic Thanksgiving. Enjoy your holiday, then come right back here when it’s done, because our Cyber Monday newsletter is one you won’t want to miss.

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