The Variant cover. It costs more because it's harder to find.
Our celebration of comic book debut week continues here at davidliss.com. Check out this fun interview I did at Ominicomic.com. I’ve done quite a few of these Q&As for this issue, but this one was probably the most fun because it had the most outside-the-box questions. No one had previously bothered to ask me if I wanted to be friends with the Phantom Reporter. You’ll have to read the interview to find out.
While you are at your local comic book store buying your copy of my Daring Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special, you may want to pick up something else, and not be sure what to read. There are tons of great comics bound in trade paperbacks, but if you want to get in on the ground floor of something, I strongly recommend picking up Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth #1. Lemire is best known for his Essex County Trilogy and The Nobody, neither of which I’ve read (but I now plan to!), so I can’t say how this compares. I can say it is an amazing first issue. The story is strange and other worldly, but like all good stories, it is deeply compelling – even heartbreaking. Gus, a sort of hybrid boy/deer, lives in a wilderness sanctuary with his ailing, non-deer father. Something terrible has happened to the world outside, but we don’t know what. There are bad things out there that terrify the father.
It is sweet.
To give away more of the story would be wrong, but suffice to say I can’t remember the last time I read the first issue of a comic to which I was instantly so committed. I am already bouncing in my seat in anticipation for the nest issue. With his powerful script and dreamy art, Lamire draws you into Gus’s world, hooks you with his plot, and gives you just enough information about the larger picture to leave you eager for more. Plus the $1.00 introductory price makes it a no-brainer.