Quarter Bin 101 "The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael and other finds"

Black Knight #2, 3, 5 (Marvel)
(from 2016)
Frank Tieri is one of those comics professional I linked up with on social media before really knowing much about them much less having actually seen their material.  That's pretty much social media in a nutshell, I think.  Anyway, so this is the first time I've read his work, and I like it.  Black Knight is one of those fascinating characters that've just never really gotten their due.  Here his Ebony Blade is like a demonic Excalibur.  Seems to have spun out of Secret Wars.

Bloodshot Reborn #1 (Valiant)
(from 2015)
Although I'd read subsequent issues and the preceding inciting event in The Valiant, I hadn't read how the series began.  Explains all over again why I love Jeff Lemire's work with the character.  I wish more readers were aware of the truly stellar work Valiant has been doing with some of its material.

The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in His Wake) #2, 3, 4 (2000 AD)
(from 2015)
Reprinting material previously serialized in 2000 AD itself, this mini-series is like a secret origin of Rob Williams' later Martian Manhunter.  It's brilliant.  I found out that you probably shouldn't try reading it if you're struggling to stay awake, because it's printed small and your instinct will be to give up on it.  But it's a great find, it really is. 

Klaus and the Witch of Winter (Boom!)
(from 2016)
Unlike the other comics here, this one was bought at retail and not out of an actual quarter bin (Newbury stuck little orange tags on all of them, which I still haven't tried to remove), so it doesn't really belong, but I got it on the same day, so...Anyway, this was a follow-up to Grant Morrison's Santa Claus origin story, the first of a proposed yearly one-shot return engagement with the concept. Morrison exhibits his typically explosive imagination in ways that he hasn't since Joe the Barbarian.  Which suddenly puts Klaus into a new context, actually.

Letter 44 #13, 15, 16,17 (Oni)
(from 2015)
Charles Soule's vision of complicated alien contact is something I've been reading sporadically the last few years, really only when I get a chance at my semiannual trips to the Maine Mall, where Newbury Comics is (I previously had regular access to a different Newbury location in Burlington, which was where I discovered another Oni series, Wasteland, along with a lot of other good stuff, including my first Free Comic Book Day, which I'll remind you is coming up on the first Saturday in May).  Honestly, if I had regular access to Letter 44, I'd be reading it regularly.  Soule has come up with something that's kind of Arrival meets George W. Bush. 

Ninjak #2 (Valiant)
(from 2015)
Having just read the most recent issue of the series, I know that the stuff that happens in this second one continues to develop over the next two years.  Matt Kindt at this point is very much channeling his Mind MGMT, which at the time was still unfolding.  And just like that I have another Valiant series I want to read in its entirety...