Grindhouse: Doors Open At Midnight #6
Written by Alex de Campi
Art by Federica Manfredi
Colors by Federica Manfredi
Cover by Dan Panosian
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: March 5, 2014
Cover Price: $3.99

Years ago, taking a comic book with you out in public was a sure-fire way to invite criticism and shame from a fairly large percentage of average adults. Sure, if you’re a kid or early teen it was fine, but should you try to do it as someone in their early 20s or, Odin forbid, your middle 30s”¦ it was like you were somehow dropping a deuce in the Wheaties of the great literary minds. Surely Poe or Hemingway themselves would show up, throw a bag over your head, toss you in the back of a van, and torture you for enjoying something other than one of “the great works” (which BTW I’m pretty sure actually happened one time in Key West).

Those days, thankfully, are gone. Yesterday I decided to venture out into the world and bring along a few issues so that I could enjoy them while drinking a large cup of coffee. Not a frapathingy or a mochawhatsit, but coffee. Simple ol’ coffee-flavored coffee, as Denis Leary puts it. In my backpack I put a few issues that I’ve been meaning to read and one of those was Grindhouse: Doors Open At Midnight #6. In hindsight, that may have been a faux pax and I would rather have taken the hood/van/car battery to my nipples scenario.

Infestation 2 #1
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Art by David Messina, Valerio Schiti
Ink Assist by Gaetano Carlucci, Federica Manfredi
Colors by Scarlet Gothica, Eleonora Carlini
Letters by Robbie Robbins, Shawn Lee
Covers by Alex Garner, Livio Ramoindelli, David Messina, and Joe Phillis
IDW Publishing
Release Date: January 25, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Although summer is still months away, it feels like it’s here because Infestation 2 #1 feels like a big summer crossover/comic event. And in fact, it is.

Duane Swierczynski does a FANTASTIC job setting up this event. This issue is both set up AND execution. While none of the licensed characters appear in this issue, you get the origin of the monsters that are set loose to go and attack the Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the GI Joe team, and more. This is one comic that’s packed with action from start to finish. Any history or continuity points are revealed in between action sequences. This is a great first chapter to the next two months of Infestation comics.