This essential one shot delivers thrilling spy adventure and is filled with major revelations for the story of Buffy Season Eight!

Fuckin’ Riley.

Me and my friends who watched Buffy hated him so bad that it was requisite and mandatory to prepend the word “Fuckin’” to Riley’s name every time you were unlucky enough to have need to utter it.

Riley is a needy little bitch whose whiny pussy presence is the one thing that threatens to tarnish the absolute perfection of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Hush”, which is probably my favorite Buffy episode of all time. And I wouldn’t have to say “probably” if Riley weren’t in it.

Even if this one-shot turns out to be crushingly crucial to the Buffy ‘verse, even if it turns out to be the best one-shot in the history of comic books ever, I’ll never know because I refuse to read it.

Fuckin’ Riley.

Meanwhile the Anime Network is planning to simulcast subtitled episodes of High School of the Dead, which is being directed by Tetsuro Araki (Death Note, Black Lagoon). The episodes will be available via the Anime Network official Website’s online player. The series debuts in Japan on July 5th, and the first episode will be available on the Anime Network site at 12 AM (midnight Sunday) Central Daylight Time. Subsequent episodes will be streamed at 10 PM (CDT) on Sundays.

A terrible storm is brewing, bodies are missing from their tombs, and the forces of darkness gather against Hellboy for a final bloody showdown.

As we head into The Storm, Hellboy has a girlfriend, which is weird enough. He also has Excalibur, and may or may not be the true heir to the throne of England. But the prophecies hanging over his head this time, having to do with an army he has to lead to take down the Queen of Blood, are stranger, and far more imminent, than that whole Beast of the Apocalypse thing. Unless it’s all one…

Like every other Hellboy fan I know, I would rather have Mike Mignola doing the art than the writing. Let’s be honest, while he is an interesting writer, its his unique and instantly recognizable artistic style that best brings the Hellboy universe to life. Just look at this cover. Nuff said.

But alas, Mike likes sticking to scripting these days, and so if someone has to do the art for him, it might as well be Duncan Fegredo. Duncan does an excellent job of keeping the same tone and feel without ripping off Mignola directly. The recipe is: 1) stick to simpler shapes, 2) make the shadows large, solid and black for maximum contrast, and 3) don’t mess around with gradient shading techniques like hatching or stippling (I’m looking at YOU, Richard Corben).

Get an up-close sneak-peek look at the first four pages of Hellboy: The Storm #1.

The mysterious man known as Buzzard is lost, wondering what manner of creature he is, following his brutal showdown with the loathsome Zombie Priest in Eric Powell’s celebrated Goon Year.

As a bonus, readers will delight in the new Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities short stories, which revive 2005 series that paired Eric Powell with artist Kyle Hotz and leads up to the three-issue series launch in September 2010.

I’ve been anxiously waiting for the first issue of Eric Powell’s Buzzard ever since it was announced. Buzzard is easily one of my favorite characters in the Goon universe. He is an atypical and unwilling anti-hero, an eerily gaunt old man with cloudy white eyes and a hunger for the flesh of zombies. What’s not to love?

Everything about this issue captures the sorrow and pain that Buzzard feels, from Dave Stewart’s drab grays and blues that show how colorless Buzzard’s world is to Eric Powell’s description of how Buzzard drifts through both time and place, utterly detached with no concept of time, place, or purpose… and unable to care about any of it.

The only thing Buzzard cares about is lifting the curse that has transformed him into an immortal zombie-eating zombie, whether by magic or by death. Despite his attempts at both, his curse remains, and he remains, undead and unable to die.

During his wanderings he comes across a village afflicted by marauding ape-monsters. For reasons he doesn’t understand, he attacks the monsters, murdering them in cold blood and hungrily devouring their flesh! The village folk are amazed by his heroic savagery and beg him to help them vanquish the ape-monster threat. They explain that the beasts are actually villagers who have been transformed by some unknown god, monster or spirit, and they want him to fight this unknown threat.

Buzzard accepts their request, not out of the goodness of his heart, but for his own selfish reason; he suspects that a being that powerful may just be able to do the one thing that no one else has been able to do… kill him, and bring an end to his eternal torment! And so he begins his quest…

This issue is a killer kick-off to this 3 issue series, be sure to check out the free preview to witness it yourself.

The Trashcan Man was spared for a reason… to join the Dark Man Randall Flagg’s swelling army and to set the world on fire.

It’s a dream come true for the pyromaniac, but he has to reach Flagg’s compound in Las Vegas first–and, somehow, survive crossing paths with ‘the Kid,’ a hardcase who’s even crazier and more dangerous than Trashy is! The villains are front-and-center as we cross the mid-point of this epic adaptation of Stephen King’s horror masterpiece!

Trashy: a pyromaniac who bears the scars of his own flames, tormented by dreams in which a mysterious woman beckons him to join her.

The Kid: a rockabilly psychopath who is in love with the sound of his own voice, and who also has a bit of a thing for, um, men. But is it more hate than love?

What happens when dysfunctional events lead these two debased devils to their, er, “climax”? (If you catch my meaning…) And what kind of retribution will be paid for the abusive indiscretion? I can only guarantee you this: it completely kicks ass in a supernatural kind of way.

The next chapter of Stephen King’s tour de force begins here, faithfully brought to comic book life by writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Mike Perkins. I had my doubts that anyone would ever be able to adapt The Stand to comic form without completely making asses of themselves, but I see it turns out that I was the ass for thinking that.