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It's not always easy figuring out what comics to buy each month—even for me. I've been reading, selling or writing about comics my entire life, and keeping up with the volume of titles can be a challenge, even now. So let's keep it simple; after all, comics have been on such a creative upswing that there's fantastic stuff out there regardless of how much (or little) you know about the medium. If you're going to pick up just a couple of titles each month, here are a handful that are worth your time and money.
Not every comic is for every reader, so I'll do my best to give you a sense of whether a given each selection is up your alley. If you have other favorites from February—books you've read, or you're eager to—leave them in comments. There's absolutely no way to cover every great comic in every genre, so consider this a monthly sampler.
The Fuse
In the debut issue of The Fuse, writer Antony Johnston describes the title as "what happens when you take British kid raised on Judge Dredd and Sherlock Holmes, infuse him with Miami Vice as a teenager, throw in a dash of Alien and Star Wars... and make him watch Homicide, Law & Order, The Wire, The Killing, and The Bridge." Those are dangerously lofty inspirations, but the first issue of this space noir series is promising. Set on an energy platform orbiting 22,000 miles above earth with a population of half a million, the comic follows the only two homicide detectives on duty—a grizzled veteran and a new arrival, Dietrich—as they face a rash of mysterious killings. Space cops investigating space murders is the sort of synopsis that gets my attention, and so far Johnson and illustrator Justin Greenwood appear to have the world-building skills and noir chops to back it up. Time will tell, but if you're a fan of detective stories and sci-fi that's more gritty than glossy, it's worth a look.
Price: $2.99
Where to buy it: Image Comics
Snowpiercer
Forget the South Korean film by Bong Joon-Ho; forget the Hollywood adaptation starring Chris Evans. Long before it hit the big screen, Snowpiercer was a superb French graphic novel by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette called La Transperceneige, a dystopian tale of a train with 1,001 cars perpetually barreling across the landscape of a new ice age carrying the last remnants of humanity. As you can imagine, all is not rosy inside the post-apocalyptic convoy. Class divisions quickly become physical ones, turning the back of the train into a squalid, inescapable ghetto for the poor while the rich live opulently in luxury cars up front. The first volume, "Escape," follows a man named Proloff as he attempts to escape the intolerable conditions of the rear cars, but there's so much more in the series: engine cults, conspiracies, and what I will call "alternate food sources." A claustrophobic sci-fi tale of retrofuturistic class warfare, Snowpiercer is quite simply one of the greatest science fiction comics, full stop. Time to get on board.
Price: $19.99
Where to buy it: Amazon, most booksellers, your local comics shop
Ant Colony
Michael DeForge makes me feel weird. There's an undercurrent of body horror in all his work, but his latest collection, Ant Colony, evokes a very particular uneasiness perhaps most similar to trypophobia, the irrational fear of objects with holes in them: cavities, lotus seed pods, and honeycombs. I can't in good conscience recommend a Google Image Search of that word. But I can recommend that you read this book, which follows several members of an ant colony through alien but often disturbingly familiar culture that surrounds them. Spiders with the faces of dogs amble across the panels, their expressions twisted into masks. An ant inhales microscopic but sentient fragments of earthworms and is anointed a prophet. Two warring ant armies find themselves impaled on a point of light. Like Snowpiercer, it technically came out at the very end of January, but it remains a book you need to read in February. Preview the series, which is decidedly not for children, here.
Price: $21.95
Where to buy it: Drawn & Quarterly
Ms. Marvel #1
The newest superhero debut at Marvel Comics is notable for more than one reason. Not only does it mark the return of comics writer and award-winning novelist G. Willow Wilson, but it introduces the newest Ms. Marvel: a Pakistani-American teenage girl from New Jersey. While Carol Danvers is busy starring in a solo series as Captain Marvel, Kamala Khan has taken over her former title, while bringing her own shapeshifting powers to the mix. Illustrated by Adrian Alphona, this title has gotten a lot of press attention for its hero's Muslim background, and adding a greater breadth of perspective and cultural experience to superhero comics is certainly a noble goal. But after the flurries of publicity have subsided, comic titles ultimately live and die on their quality, not their intentions. Fortunately for us, Ms. Marvel delivers. It's a surprisingly funny book, and while the personal details are refreshingly distinct, Kamala's struggles ultimately mirror the same feelings of teen frustration that made heroes like Spider-Man so relatable. Wilson has clearly put a lot of thought into the young hero, and into a making a comic that's worthy of your support not just in theory, but in practice.
Price: $2.99
Where to buy it: ComiXology
Serenity: Leaves on the Wind
C'mon, you already know if you want to buy this book. If you're a fan of Firefly, it's kind of a no-brainer. The six-issue miniseries picks up nine months after the Serenity movie left off—and the two one-shot comics from Dark Horse, Float Out and It's Never Easy—so this is basically as close to a movie sequel as we're ever going to get. Leaves on the Wind is written by Zack Whedon, Joss's brother and the co-writer of Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, and illustrated by Georges Jeanty, the long-time artist of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic. Much like in Buffy, Jeanty's illustrations of the familiar actors straddle a line between realistic and cartoony that may leave some people in a comics uncanny valley, but your mileage may vary.
Price: $3.99
Where to buy it: Dark Horse Digital
