Weekly Treats! I Will Bite You & Screaming Planet

Short stories are perfectly suited to the comic form. The short hand in which sequential art works is unbeatable but the actual time taken to consume the story is in the hands of the reader. It also highlights how comics differ to novels in assessing value for money of course as it's not all about the page count. Anyway, I'm not just waffling for the sake of an introduction, I have two books to recommend for your attention and both are short story collections.

I Will Bite You (Secret Acres) has already picked up fans in the shape of Jim Rugg and Jason Luttes who both provide glowing recommendations for the cover. It's the debut collection from the highly promising Joseph Lambert (see here for his website).

The story that shares its name with the title of the book features an angry little monster that takes a bite out of other monsters all under the watchful gaze of the highly amused Sun and Moon.

There's an interview about the practical process of making his comics at ApeOnTheMoon (see here).

Screaming Planet (Humanoids) is a hardcover collection of a dozen short stories written by sci-fi master Alexandro Jodorowsky (see here) originally printed over a two year period in Metal Hurlant magazine. Each story is illustrated by different artists, amongst them are: Jerome Opena, Adi Granov, Ladronn and Baranko (both below in original French).

Of course if you're a little suspicious of things in bite-size form there's the release of DMZ vol. 10 (DC) and Brightest Day vol. 2 (DC) collecting issues 8-16 of the series which has just come to a much talked about end.

As for the Weekly Treats the week belongs to Marvel who have Fear Itself #2 which threatens to reveal who will be able to lift the Serpents Hammer and become The Worthy; Moon Knight #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev promising a new take on the character (curious cover clues?); Uncanny X-Force #9 with art by the returning Jerome Opena (that name again); and a prologue to this year's X-Men event Prelude to Schism. IZombie kicks off a nifty new story arc where the story will be told in real time including the month passing between issues. And there's also the latest issue of the phenomenon known as Axe Cop.

If you are planning to drop in, don't forget that due to the Bank Holiday the new releases won't be on sale until after one o'clock.