Monitor Duty by Randy Lander "Damn It!" Oddly, the decision to take some time off from regular reviewing and focus on my growing piles of indy comics has left me recharged and with more energy for writing. Thus, this week, which will see Snapshots on Thursday, my mini-comic column on Tuesday and this small missive on Wednesday. The purpose of this column, however, comes out of frustration, not the newfound energy of writing. It is literally impossible to catch everything, even with the amount of stuff I read these days, and so there are always going to be books that I don't hear about until someone else (usually many someones) has buzzed about them. I'm OK with that, I certainly don't mind having new discoveries come out of nowhere and bonk me on the head with how good they are. However! I do hate when I've been looking forward to something and then I refuse to give it the hype that it deserves, or something slips by me because of the poor organization of Diamond's Previews these days. Seriously, the catalog could use a huge makeover. I'd suggest not letting every publisher design their own listings, because the quality of graphic design varies wildly, and very few publishers have actually improved on the simple text and picture listings that most publishers get by default. Image did a great job, adding preview pages to most of their solicits and providing clear, streamlined listings for their product, but then you get something like Viz, where everything is organized not alphabetically but by category of manga. Let me tell you, it's a nightmare ordering Viz for the shop every month, because you never know what's coming next, what's a reorder, what's new... and don't get me started on ADV, who mix in their manga and DVD and can't be bothered to even put in page numbers. Much as I wish that I could blame my failures in this month's Down the Line column on design, the truth is it comes down to me just missing things. Things that I would really like to have pointed out, and in one case, have actually really been looking forward to since it was announced in San Diego last year. In reading the previews columns by Greg McElhatton (over at Ninth Art) and Johanna Draper Carlson (of Comics Worth Reading), I spotted a couple of books that I really wished had caught my eye so I could mention them. So if y'all could just mentally cut and paste these two entries into this month's Down the Line feature, I'd really appreciate it. Oh, and this is probably just reinforcement and my own need to hype these books, because you all should be reading the monthly previews columns by Greg and Johanna if you're not already. Anyway: Queen Bee (Graphix) - RANDY: Chynna Clugston, of Blue Monday and Scooter Girl fame, joins the Scholastic book imprint (you know, the folks who brought you that cool-as-hell looking color Bone edition?) with Queen Bee, a story of warring telekinetic high school girls. Clugston's a strong enough creator that anything she does will get a look from me, but this particular concept just sounds like an insane amount of fun, and I've been looking forward to it since I first heard rumors about it in San Diego last year. (page 290) Salamander Dream GN (Adhouse Books) - RANDY: Hope Larson was one of the creators who made Flight 2 a success, and I really like her art style. I have also liked the majority of what Adhouse Books has published. So that makes Salamander Dream a no-brainer, especially after taking a gander at the preview pages on Larson's website. (page 204) Tales of Supernatural Law TPB (Exhibit A Press) - RANDY: Batton Lash's series about lawyers for creatures of the night all-too-often goes unnoticed in all those "best comics you're not reading" lists, and it's easy to take it for granted since he's been providing such high-quality stories for so long. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth mentioning that the early days of Supernatural Law (then called Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre) are finally getting a swanky new trade that will match up in size and trade dress with volumes three, four and five that Exhibit A has put out in recent years. If you haven't acquainted yourself with this law office comedy full of memorable characters, funny satire and classic comic-book art, now's your chance. (page 281) Email Randy Lander comments about this column.