Back to Buying Monthly Issues of THE WICKED + THE DIVINE

After three long years I'm finally going back to picking up the monthly issues of The Wicked + The Divine! I'd been thinking about returning to monthlies for awhile now since the storyline is getting so damn good, and when I found that they were going back to "portrait" style covers like the original, that was the deal-sealer!

The portrait style covers was one of the big attractions I initially had for the series, and I even went on ebay to get the variant portrait covers of issue #1 to have the whole set. Strangely they halted the portrait covers right when they changed artists and started a new storyline, and this was the BIG reason I stopped picking up monthlies and went for the trades only.

 But with Jamie McKelvie on as the permanent illustrator for the series and the news by Kieron Gillen that the series is making its way to its conclusion, I've decided to support the strip every month as WELL as picking up the trades when they come out! Should ultimately be a KILLER series!

The WicDiv K-Pop Connection

I'm a huge fan of the Image Comics series THE WICKED + THE DIVINE and have always been impressed not only by its poetic script and dialog but the wonderful, detailed artwork as well. And it was poring over that intricate artwork of the latest trade paperback that I noticed something!

 Goddess Urdr is being shown around the bedroom of a troubled teenage boy by his father, and when I looked behind him, I saw a poster and thought immediately, "That looks like Girls' Generation."

It looked a bit like the cover to their album "Baby Baby", but when I looked over the Google images, there wasn't anything that really matched the comic illustration. But it looked SO familiar, I just knew it had to be them!

I decided to ask the SNSD pros over at Reddit's Girls Generation sub, and queried,

"I was reading an issue of Image Comics' THE WICKED + THE DIVINE and in a panel where they go to visit the room of someone's son, there's this poster behind them....Is it my imagination or is that Girls' Generation?

The very next day, a SONE named ArthurMauk took one look at it and recognized it right away! It was indeed Girls Generation, and he said:

 "Good spot! Yeah it looks exactly the same as THIS photo, cool! :)" 

Look at that poster! It's amazing how well artist Jamie McKelvie captured the likenesses of SNSD, and a redditor named Xian Roberts even commented, "Is it sad that I can recognize and name the girls in the comic without needing to see the original picture?" LOL!

SNSD turns up in the darndest places!

The Wicked + The Divine Vol 1-6

Trade paperback volume 6 just came out for The Wicked + The Divine and in anticipation, I' re-reading the entire series again from Book 1. Kind of cool because the last comic I read (Wicked + The Divine 1923AD) occurs JUST BEFORE the beginning, and it serves a a nice "intro"!

The Wicked + Divine 1923AD

Just finished reading The Wicked + Divine “1923AD" One-Shot and I can’t remember the last time I was so thoroughly SATISFIED! If you‘re like me, you’ve ALWAYS wondered about those four gods who appeared with Annake in the opening of Wicked + Divine’s very first issue (before simultaneously ending their own lives), and for the FIRST time, we are getting to read their TALE!

I have to say I spent many a day poring over those mysterious four characters, trying to guess which Gods they represented…I remember assuming the little blonde girl was the 1920’s Morrigan because she had the same black charcoal looking “mask” around her eyes, but had absolutely NO CLUE who the others were...

Well, come to find out I was wrong The little girl, (whom I guess I should have deduced was the 1930’s Minerva since the one in the present day is also a little girl),but no matter as I soon got to learn about ALL of the 12 Gods, some of whom I knew and some I’d never heard of before!

Since such a grand tale couldn’t be told in one issue if it were drawn like usual, this issue is almost 80% TEXT- yes, this issue is a written story, with only a few illustrated pages spread throughout SO awesome, !it’s like reading a NOVEL on the Pantheon!!!

Damn, it’s issues like this that reassure me that THE WICKED + THE DIVINE is one of the most well-crafted and special storylines out there!

PS: I absolutely ADORE the 1923 Amaterasu and the "Shirley Temple-ish" Minerva (and is that her I see on the upcoming WicDiv Issue #35???)!!

The Complete Phonogram

As a HUGE fan of Keiron Gillen/Jamie McKelvie masterpiece THE WICKED+THE DIVINE, I decided to check out their previous work "Phonogram", a much-lauded work consisting of three story ars. Hmmm, can't say I was a real fan of this series. While I can clearly see the roots of WicDiv here, I just couldn't get into it...very snarky, IMO.

The Wicked + Divine Vol.5: Imperial Phase I

Oh MAN this series is blowing me away right now!!! Can't believe I initially bailed on this series during the third arc, Wicked and Divine is getting so damn AWESOME that it's rivalling SAGA and THEY'RE NOT LIKE US for FAVORITE series right now!!!

The Wicked + The Divine Vol.1-4

Loved Books  One and Two, but when Arc Three came around and they got new artists to do each episode, Ii REALLY lost interest in the series. Plus I had no idea where the storyline was going at that point.
But when i saw an open copy of the latest issue at Other Realms and realized Wilson Cowles was back as the regular artist, I decided to pick up the fourth arc to see if it got any better.
HOLY SHIT, IT DID! This series picked right up and started getting better and BETTER til I was BACK into the book, and now can barely WAIT for Book 5 (which should be coming out very soon)!!!

The Wicked+The Divine, Vol.2: Fandemonium

Picked up the trade paperback of The Wicked+The Divine "Fandemonium" and only when  began to read it did I realize I had every individual issue in it and that i'd read it all before!

D'oh, somehow i thought this trade was starting the next arc (which i didn't pick up monthly)...looks like I'll have to get the third volume!

The Wicked+ The Divine, Vol.1: The Faust Act

While running to my local comic book store to see if SAGA had yet come out of their hiatus, I ran into my friend Shirley in the parking lot and when I told her I was on my way to the comic store, she told me her favorite series as one called THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, a story about the gods and their time on earth. "Like Mount Olympus kind of Gods?" I asked, but Shirl said that it was more like SANDMAN where these humans took the embodiment of the beings like Love, Death, etc. and interacted for a short time among the living til they perished.
 All I had to hear was the reference to Sandman, and I was TOTALLY on board, and HAD to see if the comic store had it! When I got there, I was thrilled to find that Wicked and Divine had just released its first trade paperback a few months ago and IMMEDIATELY snatched it up! When I took it home and read it, I was so blown away by how awesome it was, I not only made plans to sart collecting the individual issues from that point on, but went on ebay to buy each individual issue included in the TPB (the covers were so damn beautiful, each one featuring one member of the Gods) PS: It was a good thing they had  that Wicked and Divine trade when I went in, because I was to find out that SAGA would not be coming back for one more week!!! So lucky to find this to immerse myself in as I wait!