Aphrodite IX #1
Written by Matt Hawkins
Art by Stjepan Sejic
Letters by Troy Peteri
Top Cow Productions, Inc.
Release Date: May 4, 2013
Cover Price: FREE!

Spring time is in the air, which can only mean one thing: Free Comic Book Day is upon us! To celebrate the occasion Matt Hawkins, the writer of Think Tank and Cyberforce who also moonlights as COO of Top Cow, is resurrecting Aphrodite IX from the vaults.

With a vague reference to a war-torn past of scarred atmospheres and moon colonies, Aphrodite IX #1 introduces us to a post-apocalyptic setting that’s equal parts fantasy, sci-fi, and cyberpunk. What little area of the planet is still habitable has been divided into two rival camps: a drake-riding, theocratic monarchy and a futuristic, totalitarian society of cybernetic-enhanced humans. A strain on the planet’s limited resources forced these two factions into battle.

Taking Eden
Issues #1–4
Created by Jason Beckwith & Malcolm Johnson
Written by Jason Beckwith
Art by Nino Harn Cajayon
Colors by Gonzalo Duarte
Never Static Pictures
Release Date: December, 2012
Cover Price: $4.99

Jason Beckwith takes us into the murky depths of a sordid, occult-tinged club scene in his new series Taking Eden. The comic’s genesis was a writing exercise between Beckwith and Malcolm Johnson while working at a design agency. Beckwith ran forward with their idea, refining the story over the past 10 years. The result is a wonderfully dark indie comic that mixes novel-like, scene-setting, third-person narration with sequential art.

Marnie is a small-town, down-home girl brimming with naiveté. Taking Eden begins a year after the actual story with Marnie offering a vague hope that she was a puppet rather than acting on her own volition. The story then jumps back to when she made her move to the big city to follow her dreams of becoming an actor. Her cousin, Gretchen, shows Marnie a good time by letting her tag along while she DJs in the club scene. Marnie’s innocence is the key ingredient that an unscrupulous sorcerer, named Sky, needs to produce the hottest drug on the scene: Eden. Sky is a hot-shot club owner who’s creating his own empire based on Eden, which only he knows how to make. His club gives him access to young, innocent women to juice his new drug.

Recollection #1
Written by Rodney Roger
Art by Ferry Ickhwano
Color by Warnia Sahadewa
R-Comics
Release Date: April 10, 2013
Cover Price: $3.99

Eddie Lawrence is a former member of a spook organization called the Delta Pack that rained down some holy terror during the Iraq War. How does a hardened killer and adrenaline junkie make a living in the real world? By killing for profit, of course.

Recollection #1 quickly establishes the meaning behind its title, but it’s not what or from whom you might think. As a first issue, you figure that this book is all about Eddie Lawrence and his adventures in assassination, but it’s just as much about his latest customer, Skyler Jean. Her contract seems like easy money. She’s an exotic dancer who simply wants a pervert stalker to disappear. Eddie’s spider sense tingles on this Skyler Jean “” he feels like there’s much more to this story. However, he ignores his instincts and gets wrapped up in the Skyler’s delusional world.

Tokyo Babylon, Book One
Written by CLAMP
Art by CLAMP
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: March 26, 2013
Cover Price: $19.99

For the uninitiated, CLAMP is a wildly successful, all-female group of manga creators from Japan. They’ve produced hits such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Angelic Layer, Chobits, and Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE. Tokyo Babylon is one of CLAMP’s earliest titles that ran from 1990 to 1993. Just a warning to parents up front: this comic deals with occult themes and includes a possible adult-teenager homosexual relationship. If that kind of stuff gets your tighties in a bunch, then you may want to snatch this manga away from young, impressionable eyes. Relax, this isn’t a porn book; it’s not yaoi. In fact, the homosexuality part is only talked about. Mostly jokingly. I think.

Tokyo Babylon follows the story of Subaru, a 16-year-old who moonlights as something of a ghostbuster. He’s what’s known as an onmyoji, a Japanese occult-sorcerer type, who investigates a variety of supernatural mysteries. His family, the Sumeragi, have protected Japan from evil spirits since ancient times. The other two main characters in this story are Subaru’s twin sister, Hokuto, and their friend Seishiro the veterinarian.

Director Eric Ramos is adapting Jeff McComsey‘s graphic novel, American Terror: Confession of a Human Smart Bomb, for a short film release. They launched a Kickstarter in February that’s set to expire on March 30th, 2013 at 11:30 PM. The film is completed, but the group needs your help to fund post-production work such as color correction, sound design, an animated intro, and the musical score.

The short film will closely follow Volume 1 of Jeff McComsey’s graphic novel series. Victor Shepard, now an old man at the end of his life, lives in obscurity under a false identity. In his lonely solitude, he counts the days before he draws his last. The Rooster, the last of his comrades has passed. En route to his funeral, he is visited by the ghosts of his past, his memories of a life long gone. We then learn of his beginnings, before he became the father of a revolution that would forever alter the world.