Coming Soon! (December)
Like many people, this time of year tends to run away from me, screaming and pulling everything out of order as it goes. I will attempt to wrangle some sort of order out of the chaos and will be returning to my regularly scheduled programming. As part of that, I wanted to take this first week of December to talk about some comics related news and a few of the upcoming releases that I’m excited about!
Page to Screen: Deadly Class
Since I’ve been a bit out of the comics world for the last month or so, I completely missed hearing about SyFy’s impending adaptation of the graphic novel series written by Rick Remender. Deadly Class takes place in the 1980’s and centers around a group of high schoolers who are training to be the next generation of assassins for the major crime families in the United States. It’s part high school drama, part intense crime story. I originally read the series several years ago and I’ll admit that my review was not entirely complimentary. I haven’t changed my opinion on the series so it may be a bit odd that I mention being excited about this adaptation. But the truth of the matter is that sometimes adaptations will take a different tack with the source material that makes it fun where the original vision missed the mark (at least for me). While I was intrigued by the concept of the graphic novel series, the main character was a little too Scott Pilgrim for me (if that makes no sense, check my review). Based on the trailer, I’d say fans of the series and newbies alike have good reasons to be excited for this one. It’s usually best to take SyFy shows with a grain of salt but I’m still looking forward to checking this one out in January!
New Releases for December
Firefly #1 (Boom! Studios) – December 19th
It’s a good year for fans of the cult favorite TV show Firefly! The first original novel expanding the Firefly universe was released last month (Big Damn Heroes by James Lovegrove) and this month, we get another graphic novel expansion into the universe with Firefly #1. Written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Dan McDaid, this first issue explores the origin of everyone’s favorite smart-mouthed Browncoat captain by bringing readers back to the War of Unification. We finally get to see how Mal and his ever loyal first mate Zoe met and how the civil war shaped the universe that we were introduced to in Firefly and later Serenity. While the Firefly graphic novels have been largely hit or miss, there’s not a chance that I’d miss the opportunity to see how it all began!
Klaus and the Crying Snowman (Boom! Studios) – December 19th
No coming soon segment in December would be complete without a bit of the holiday spirit so I might have to finally check out the Klaus series by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora this year. Klaus and the Crying Snowman is the third of the Klaus stories since the original series was published back in 2015. The series reimagines Santa Claus as a superhero and looks to be exactly as ridiculous and likely as entertaining as it sounds. In Klaus and the Crying Snowman, Klaus returns to help an absentee father who has somehow been turned into a snowman and also maybe take on the entire Norse pantheon. No biggie for Santa Claus, right? As a hardcore proponent of Die Hard as a Christmas movie, I feel like it’s well past time for me to check out a series like Klaus.
That about wraps up what I’m most excited about this month! Have any suggestions for releases that I didn’t mention and should have? Let me know in the comments! Next week, I will finally watch and review the film adaptation of one of my favorite comics, I Kill Giants! I had been super excited about the trailer but the film saw limited release and I completely lost track of it. Here’s hoping that it’s one of the better ones!
– Cait