This Week’s Comics: Real Life Skylanders

Halloween is still two weeks away. There should not be Christmas comics yet! DC Comics has the right idea with the release of the first trade of Batman ’66. First Second releases a box set of Olympians, putting all six volumes together in a nice slipcover box, and Titan Comics continues the adventures of Doctor Who with a new series featuring the new Twelfth Doctor.

The List:

AMP! COMICS FOR KIDS
Big Nate The Crowd Goes Wild TP, $9.99

ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS
Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #255, $6.99
Archie’s Favorite Christmas Comics TP, $9.99
Archie’s Funhouse Comics Digest #9, $4.99

BONGO COMICS
Simpsons Comics #215, $2.99

BOOM! STUDIOS
Amazing World Of Gumball #3 (Cover A Missy Pena), $3.99
Amazing World Of Gumball #3 (Cover B Christina Chang), $3.99
Jim Henson’s The Storyteller Witches #2 (Of 4)(Cover A Kyla Vanderklugt), $3.99
Lumberjanes #7 (Cover A Noelle Stevenson), $3.99
Steven Universe #3 (Cover A Amber Rogers), $3.99
Steven Universe #3 (Cover B Meg Gandy), $3.99

DC COMICS
Batman ’66 Volume 1 TP, $14.99
Batman ’66 Volume 2 HC, $19.99
Teen Titans Go #6, $2.99

FIRST SECOND
In Real Life GN, $17.99 **Weekly Pick**
Olympians Boxed Set, $59.99
Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Macbeth SC, $12.99

IDW PUBLISHING
Skylanders #1 (Of 5)(Cover A Fico Ossio), $3.99  **Weekly Pick**
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles New Animated Adventures #16 (Cover A Dario Brizuela), $3.99

TITAN COMICS
Doctor Who The Twelfth Doctor #1 (Alice X. Zhang Regular Cover), $3.99
Doctor Who The Twelfth Doctor #1 (Photo Subscription Variant Cover), $3.99

The Picks:

In Real Life GN – First Second’s newest release looks at gaming from a different perspective: its ramifications in real life. Anda loves to play the massively multiplayer role playing game Coarsegold. It’s a place where she can meet people from all over the world and make friends. But things get complicated when she gets mixed up with gold farming and befriends a poor Chinese kid whose job is to illegally collect valuable objects in the game and sell them to players from developed countries with money to burn. What starts out as a seemingly black and white issue becomes more complicated as real life issues come into play, as do cultural differences. In Real Life is written by acclaimed teen author Cory Doctorow, who is also very vocal about digital issues. This is a good story to introduce kids to the concerns of other cultures and to see past the characters they play in a game.

Skylanders #1 – IDW Publishing picks up another popular kid’s property. Skylanders is a smash hit video game that combines the action, story, and game play of video games with toy figures. This first mini-series bridges the gap between the game released last year, SWAMP Force, and the game coming out this year, Trap Team, by showing the machinations of the villain KAOS. Several characters from the games will be featured in the comic, including Spyro, Pop Fizz, Whiskers, and Flynn. Last week, IDW released a graphic novel of the first three issues of this five-issue arc, but this issue comes with an exclusive story, “The Secret Origin of Trigger Happy,” making it a must for fans. With the pre-orders for this first issue up in the six figures, it’s sure to sell out fast, so don’t wait to pick it up!

Images © First Second and IDW Publishing respectively.

Filed under: All Ages