Check out this preview image to whet your appetite for more explosions, crime, and Parker!

Once again, I’m late. I have already ordered everything that I mention here, but this is all stuff I think Time Warp customers will want to be aware of. Unless otherwise noted, everything listed comes out this March.

 Before I get to the Top Titles, I want to let you know that file-holders can sign up and reserve up to 5 of the Free Comic Book Day titles to have reserved in your files for you. If there are some you really, really want, let us know. We always hope you will come in on the first Saturday of May for our great yearly event, and since this year’s FCBD is the day after the Avengers movie is released in theaters, I can’t tell you how very excited we are for this year’s event. I try to top the previous year every year, so stay tuned- Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Also starting this Thursday February 9^th through the weekend we will be running a Star Wars special to commemorate the Phantom Menace being rereleased in 3D. All Star Wars Trades will be 25% off, and Star Wars back issues will be 50% off till February 12^th. 

                                         Top 15 Titles for March 2012

Fairest #1: This is a new ongoing FABLES series starring the fairer sex. The first 6 issues star Briar Rose. Willingham will be writing this arc, and Phil Jimenez will be doing the art. Fables is still my fa vorite series here at the store, so as you can imagine, I’m very excited about still another regular series.

DC’s new 52 Hardcover’s: These will all be out in May, but we already had to order them. The first four offerings from DC are Justice League, Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. They are $24.99 each, and reprint the first six issues of their respective series. I really like the new DC 52, and Batman is my favorite of the new titles. Let us know if you want us to save any of these for you.

Saga # 1: Brian K. Vaughn is back! Everybody has been wondering what the next big project would be coming from the Y, The Last Man scribe and here it is. Image Comics and artist Fiona Staples bring us this ground breaking new sci-fi /fantasy series. I really think this will be huge!

Saucer Country # 1: New DC/ Vertigo series about a female president who says she has been abducted by aliens.

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child # 1: Another DC/ Vertigo series, the story centers on the voodoo queen of New Orleans. Political intrigue and murder mysteries abound. New Deadwardians # 1: The third DC / Vertigo start up this month. That’s pretty unusual itself. This one features zombies and vampires, but DC says this is different. We’ll see…

Batman: Arkham Asylum Series 2 action figures: Riddler, Catwoman, Mad Hatter and Detective Mode variant Batman $ 19.99 each.Batman: Death By Design Hardcover: $ 24.99 Written by Chip Kidd, and drawn by Dave Taylor. The description in previews in kind of sketchy, so I won’t order too many. If you’re interested, please sign up.

Avengers vs. X-Men # 0 and # 1: So it begins! Marvels huge new mega event starts now. The hype has already started, but I’m still kind of excited about this one. Brain Bendis and Jason Aaron are writing this and Frank Cho is drawing it. It has to be good. Aaron will be here in Denver this June for the Denver Comic Con, so you can read this and tell him in person how much you like it, then get it signed. Very cool.

Avengers Assemble # 1: Bendis and Bagley of Ultimate Spider-Man fame are bringing the newly assembled team from the upcoming Avengers movie into regular Marvel continuity. This is certainly a novel idea. It is my opinion that Bagley is a good artist when he is doing a single character, but struggles a little as an artist on big team-up books.

Age Of Apocalypse # 1: This spin off comes out of the pages of Uncanny X- Force, which is my favorite Marvel title right now. David Lapham and Roberto De La Torre are the creative team.

Super Crooks # 1: Miller and Yu are doing another Marvel Icon series that is rated  “M” for mature. The bad guys decide the USA has too many super heroes, and decide to move out of the country to do bad things.

Manhattan Projects #1: This will be written by Jonathan Hickman, so I’m pretty sure this will be great too. I don’t have a clue how Hickman can write so many series, but he is. As usual, reading the description in Previews magazine does tell me much about how to order this. His writing is intricate and detailed, so I would not figure it out anyway. If you like his FF, Fantastic Four, Shield or the Red Wing series, I’m sure you’ll like this!

Rocketeer Adventures 2 # 1- 4: The next arc starts here. 12 all new stories by today’s top talent, Dave Stevens lives on!

Ragemoor #1: Dark Horse presents a new Richard Corben black and white miniseries. I have been a huge fan of Corben’s art since the 1960’s.

The Thanos quest continues in the next Infinity Gauntlet Heroclix challenge.  300 point sealed booster draft (purchase TWO five-figure boosters for $20) – everyone opens a box, takes a fig and then passes the box to the next person till every figure is taken. (Prize: Infinity Gauntlet LE Figure) The tournament will start at 7PM and go till there is a winner (about 10PM)

Wayne’s Word

 Welcome to 2012! First up, a big thank you to all our customers that helped Time Warp succeed in 2011. We appreciate each and every one of you. And of course the employees that work here are great and I thank them all very much. I hesitate to name names, because I’ll surely forget somebody, but Garry, Clayton, Gino and Smurf in particular all were big contributors to the cause. There were a lot of helpers behind the scenes; Kris, Kelsea, Jay, and Duane, who really put in a lot of time and extra effort with the new web site, thanks again.

The highlights for 2011 were of course Free Comic Book Day, 24 Hour Comic Day and the New DC 52 start over event. One of our biggest accomplishments this year was getting new fixtures into our store courtesy of the sad demise of Borders. Their loss was our gain, but watching them go away was a bummer.

My big objective for 2012 is to dig in and spruce up the store and restock the graphic novels that keep on selling well, over and over. It was a great year for Walking Dead, Locke and Key, Fables and many more great series. It is a full time job restocking trades, so I feel a real need to do a better job keeping track of those. The back issue comics we have continue to be a huge drain of time and energy here. I have way too many, and collections keep pouring in faster than we can process them. In the next few weeks, you’re going to see the 25 cent and dollar books sections full to the brim. There are some great books in there, so please see if you can find some deals in there to take advantage of. Related to that, is the fact I cannot afford to keep the new comic racks overstocked. I will have to buy new comics to sell out in a month and not have them for back issues. That business model just is not viable any more. We have been offering file holders first crack on getting back issues at 50 % off guide. We want to continue that for one more month, giving you first crack, but then we’re going to open that up to the general public. Not really a big fan of sales, as I feel it devalues our overall collection, but we need the room. Getting too crowded in here.

There are two big comic cons coming up, Starfest and The Denver Comic Con and I encourage you to come to both. Details will be on our website www.time-warp.com.

Thanks for reading,

Wayne

Top Twenty for February 2012

Road Rage # 1- 4   This is the first collaboration between writers Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, creator of Locke and Key. This series will pay tribute to the famous story by Richard Matheson – Duel. Art will be by Nelson Daniel, who has been helping out on the outstanding comic The Cape. Due to Stephen King’s popularity with the Dark Tower comics, I expect this to sell really well. I f we file Dark Tower, Stand or American Vampire for you already, you’ll get this series too. If you don’t want it cross filed , please let us know.

Star Wars: Dawn Of The Jedi # 1 -5 The origin of the Jedi begins here! The creative team is Ostrander and Duuresema, who were the perfect team doing Star Wars comics back in the day.

Murky World one shot- This reprints the Richard Corben stories from past issues of Dark Horse Presents.

Winter Soldier #1 and #2 in this month, this Marvel series will star Bucky Barnes and Black Widow. It will be written by the always reliable Ed Brubaker and drawn by Butch Guice. Ever since Brubaker brought Bucky back from the dead a few years ago, he’s been one of my favorite Marvel characters. I’m really looking forward to this series. Dr. Doom comes to town to ruin the party.

Twelve # 9 and # 10  One of my favorite Marvel series is back to finish the great story started years ago by Straczynski and Weston. This story of time stranded heroes from World War II was on an indefinite hiatus , and I was starting to think this series would never finish.Now if I could remember what happened in # 8. I guess I can read the trade paperback, also released in February

Fantastic Four :Season One Premiere HC $24.99 Marvel is really pushing these hardcovers, but not one single person signed up for this. Too expensive for an untested product. I’ll only order a few.

All so for the entire month of February, Marvel will be shipping two issues on most titles. That’s fantastic in helping move along in story lines.

Batwoman # 6 Finally, the debut of Colorado artist supreme – Amy Reeder ! We’ve been waiting for quite awhile to Amy’s arc to start, as J.H. Williams III has been doing a great art job so far. Amy’s style is very different than Williams, but I’m sure it will be great.

Flashpoint trade paperbacks. 6 Different trades of the series that led up to the big changes in the new DC 52. The regular trade and the  Flashpoint : Batman will be two of my favorites

Action Comics # 6 This issue guest stars the all new , all different Legion Of Super Heroes. Grant Morrison is still writing this, so you know it will be good.  DC Universe Presents # 6 Deadman is done for now, next up are the Challengers Of The Unknown.Eight survivors of a fiery plane crash live on borrowed time.

Batman Beyond Unlimited # 1 DC is reprinting this from the recent digital first, print second idea I’m not really fond of. If digital is forever with us, how about print first, then digital 14 days later. Do the publishers want comic stores to fail ? Probably not, but they are not thinking this all the way through.Batman # 6  Talon, the Court Of Owls assassin  takes out Batman. One of the best Batman stories in years and a big success for DC’s New 52.

Black Orchid dlx. hardcover edition $24.99 This has been out of print for too long. This Gaiman / McKean masterpiece is one I love to recommend to new customers. If you have never read this, do yourself a favor and try it.

Thief Of Thieves # 1 Co-written by two of the most popular writers today: Robert Kirkman and Nick Spencer. This is a story about master thief Redmond, who can steal anything and get away with it. Now he wants to go back to the life he left behind. The art by Martinbrogh looks very good. At a meeting I attended with Kirkman in San Diego this past summer, he was really pumped for this series and said it was one of his favorite projects yet.

 Fatale # 2 Brubaker / Phillips series from Image in the vein of Marvel’s Criminal and Incognito. The first issue is out this week. Don’t miss it.

Infestation 2 Transformers # 1, #2 and Dungeon And Dragons # 1, #2. Ties into the Lovecraftian Infestation storyline that starts this month. Ninjettes # 1 From the pages of Jennifer Blood , a Garth Ennis production.Ultra violent over the top action.

Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland HC $ 21.99 The history of one of the most exciting cities in America as told through Pekar’s eyes. Should be a very interesting autobiography. His last work. Intro by Alan Moore.

Ralph  Wiggum Comics #1 From the pages of the Simpson’s comes the kid who can’t keep his finger out of his nose.  Adventure Time # 1up An all new kids comic I know absolutely nothing about. Getting good marketing though, and I do try to bring in new kids stuff every chance I get.

Official Press Release

 IDW Publishing is proud to announceROADRAGE, a new partnership with best-selling authors Stephen King and Joe Hill, to produce a comic-book adaptation of their co-written adventure tale, Throttle. This monthly two-part series begins in February, and will be followed by two issues adapting the story that inspired Throttle, Richard Matheson’s classic tale of suspense, Duel, beginning in April.

“Throttle is a story that really begs for a visual adaptation: it’s got bikes and badasses and lots of expensive rolling iron blowing up and getting smashed,” said Hill. “Who doesn’t get off on that? I can’t wait to see IDW get behind the wheel and take the thing out for a spin.”

Throttle, the first collaboration between father-and-son King and Hill, was not only inspired by Matheson’s Duel, it also only appeared in print in a limited-edition anthology honoring Matheson’s works, He is Legend. Throttle and Duel were subsequently released as an audiobook called Road Rage, which is the banner title the comics will also carry.

Throttle tells the story of a motorcycle gang pursued by an unseen assailant in a big rig, but as might be expected knowing the talent involved, things aren’t exactly as they seem.

“Working with the great Joe Hill (I can say that because he’s my kid) on such a kick-ass story was a terrific treat, and this version takes it to whole new level,” said King. “Rev up and climb on!”

Adapting the story alongside Hill and King is Chris Ryall, IDW’s Chief Creative Officer and the editor of Hill’s New York Times best-selling graphic novel series, LOCKE &KEY. Handling art duties is Nelson Daniel, whose own collaboration with Hill and artist Zach Howard, THE CAPE, was nominated for a 2011 Eisner Award. Daniel will handle full art and colors, and provide a cover. Acclaimed artist Phil Noto will also provide covers for the two-part series. Ryall, who received a 2006 Eisner nomination for his and Ashley Wood’s adaptation of Matheson’s “Blood Son,” will also adapt Duel, with artist Rafa Garres for that two-part series. As a special bonus on the King/Hill story, artist Tony Harris will paint two incentive covers that show the authors themselves on a motorcycle road-trip.

“Like Joe and Steve, Richard Matheson’s Duel had a huge impact on me as a kid,” said Ryall. “And so did the works of Stephen King. Add to that mix the chance to continue working with Hill and Daniel, two of the very best creators of my generation, and you’ve got the makings of a project that’s very special to me. And as long as I don’t screw up my part, it’ll hopefully be as special for all their fans when it comes out. Otherwise, you know who to blame…”

ROADRAGE: THROTTLE will be released in February and March, withROADRAGE: DUEL to follow in April and May.

Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

About IDW Publishing

IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based inSan Diego,California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS and G.I.JOE, Paramount’s Star Trek; HBO’s True Blood; the BBC’s DOCTOR WHO; Toho’s Godzilla; and comics and trade collections based on novels by worldwide bestselling author, James Patterson. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints; Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio.

IDW’s original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film in its first week of release. More information about the company can be found at IDWPublishing.com.