Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

There’s an amazing amount of talent in comics these days — some really great new series. One of my favorites that I really want to recommend is Vertigo’s Punk Rock Jesus (available both in print and for download), about the life of a cloned reincarnation of Jesus, created for a reality show, and eventually having a punk rock rebellion when he clues in to the truth of the world. They’re on issue four of the initial story run of six, and it’s gotten better every issue. Love it. Other superb new series include The Massive (asking what might the life of a Sea Shepherd-like eco-activist organization be like after a pole-shift-apocalypse?), Mind The Gap (afterlife/out-of-body musings), Saucer County (a prominent politician is abducted and starts investigating UFOs — also in the alien theme there’s Resident Alien which just wrapped up its initial run, about a crime-solving alien posing as a small town doctor), Rachel Rising (another incredible comic by Echo‘s Terry Moore about witches and im/mortality), MIND MGMT (CIA mind-control type comic), Think Tank (pro-science comic about a DARPA-type weapons researcher rebelling against his masters), Dancer (a James Bond type comic that just wrapped up), A Fine And Private Place (this just started — an amazing ghost and afterlife story), Revival (a brilliant and perhaps supernatural, perhaps alien, take on the zombie comic), Stitched (a very creepy horror military-themed comic), Crossed (both Badlands and the online Wish You Were Here are amazing variations on the post-apocalyptic zombie/pandemic theme, much darker and more perverse than any other series in the theme), Ferals (a good werewolf series — and if you like that there’s also the X-files like Bad Medicine about a medical team that investigates such things), The Strain (Guillermo Del Toro’s horror/vampire/pandemic comic), The Manhattan Projects (a gonzo-hilarious sci-fi retelling of post-WWII secret science), Harbinger (a remake of the classic Valient series about superpowers — my favorite supernatural universes next to Invincible), Superbia (a four-comic series, wrapped up, very funny secret-life drama of what it’s “really” like to be a superhero — good for fans of The Boys), Near Death (about a hitman who after a near-death experience decides to start saving lives instead), Harvest (about a down-on-his luck doctor who gets roped into underground organ transplants), Dan the Unharmable (hilariously dark series that just wrapped its initial story run, about a indestructable dirtbag PI), Supercrooks (a four-part wrapped-up heist story, very fun, focussed completely on anti-heroes), Smoke and Mirrors (about a magician from our world that finds himself in a world where magic is real and commonplace), Grim Leaper (a wonderful four-part wrapped-up love story about a couple who find each other even though they keep dying and jumping into new about-to-die bodies), Complex (a weird comic that reminds me of The Prisoner), Saga (an incredible sci-fi love story)… I’m also continuing to enjoy Kirkland’s two main offerings, The Walking Dead and Invincible (his superhero comic, which is just incredible — in many ways I actually prefer it to TWD), as well as Sweet Tooth and a few other pre-2012 series… And I’m dying for the next installment of Locke&Key as well… I could go on and on… I haven’t even mentioned all the amazing one-offs…