The Shipping Forecast is Ninth Art's pick of the best and most notable new releases hitting comic stores each week, courtesy of the fishing crew at the Ninth Art lighthouse. Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Check out the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change.

FISHER PICKS:

DAREDEVIL: PARTS OF A HOLE TP (Marvel)
It's a good week for Marvel, if all the promised trades really do make it to the shelves. Which they won't, of course. One of the highlights is this superb story from David Mack (writing) and Joe Quesada (pencilling). DAREDEVIL was the first Marvel book to benefit from Joe Quesada's editorial oversight, and it has remained a lynchpin of the new regime. PARTS OF A HOLE introduces a new femme fatale to blind attorney Matt Murdock's life, the deaf assassin Echo. DAREDEVIL is one of Marvel's greatest characters, and this storyline deserves a place alongside your Frank Miller trades. Now, if only they'd collect the superb Anne Nocenti/John Romita Jr run.

X-MEN: FALL OF THE MUTANTS TP (Marvel)
This crossover between X-MEN, X-FACTOR and NEW MUTANTS (back when those three books were the X-books line) is credited with starting the craze for 'event' crossovers that has poisoned the superhero genre for the past fifteen years. Yet FALL OF THE MUTANTS isn't really a crossover, but a co-branding of three largely unrelated stories. The X-Men fight a trickster god in Dallas, X-Factor does battle with Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen over New York, and the New Mutants go up against a twisted geneticist. Epics of their day, and a must-have for X-Men fans, but the rest of the world can safely ignore this.

ESSENTIAL HOWARD THE DUCK TP (Marvel)
Steve Gerber's groundbreaking satire - the sort of thing you didn't think Old Marvel was ever capable of - is finally collected in Essential format. There are thirty issues here - 528 pages - for the bargain price of $14.95. Also out this week (supposedly) are ESSENTIAL ANT-MAN and ESSENTIAL DR STRANGE, both of which are intriguing curios of comicdom past. There's no such thing as a genuinely essential comic, but these books - especially HOWARD THE DUCK - will be welcome additions to many a collection.

VIKING PICKS:

BLUE MONDAY: LOVECATS (Oni Press)
If you took a handful of the better 80s teen comedies and filtered them through a sort of faux Japanese art style, you'd pretty much have BLUE MONDAY. Chynna Clugston-Major's work is funny, well scripted, and very entertaining, telling the ongoing story of a group of kids in an American high school. THE LOVE CATS is a 32-page one-shot featuring the continuing story that Clugston-Major set up in THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT and ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS, and you could do worse than give it a try.

NEW X-MEN #122 (Marvel)
Quitely! Quitely! Morrison's New X-Men drawn by Kordey and Van Sciver is a passable piece of pop entertainment, but drawn by Frank Quitely it's, I kid you not, the greatest comic the world has ever known. OK, perhaps not, but it's Grant Morrison writing about pop culture, evolution, and warring intergalactic spacefleets, and it's got Wolverine in it. Buy it, and then you can pretend you're thinking on anywhere near Morrison's level. The new storyline picks up on the threads of the E IS FOR EVOLUTION trade; Cassandra Nova has possessed Professor X, and is now onboard a giant spaceship with bad intent and the most powerful psychic mind the world has ever known.

PLYMOUTH PICKS:

VIDEO GIRL AI VOL 4: OFFLINE TP (Viz)
Masakazu Katsura's love stories are anything but normal. Let's take VIDEO GIRL AI. Yota's luck with women is so horrible that a "video girl" has come to life out of his VCR to help him with his dating skills (among others). Problem is, as wonderful as Ai is, her whole purpose is to help Yota get together with a human girl... to the point that if Yota and Ai start becoming too close, Ai will get recalled back into the world of Video Girls! Now that's a love triangle. Add in some gorgeous, sexy art that's to die for, and you'll be buying all four volumes to date before you even know it.

ELEKTRA #7 (Marvel)
This is one catch to look at very closely before deciding whether to keep it or get rid of it. On the plus side, it's the first issue written by Greg Rucka, whose comics are almost always fantastic (WHITEOUT, QUEEN & COUNTRY, DETECTIVE COMICS, BATMAN/HUNTRESS). He's also proven that he can write the character of Elektra in his ELEKTRA/WOLVERINE mini-series. The problem is, Chuck Austen's stiff, lifeless, computer-generated art is really one of the worst choices possible for a book about someone as lithe and agile as Elektra. If you can get by that massive stumbling block, definitely check out Rucka's debut. If that sort of thing drives you crazy, though, it's best to just not look.

DOGGER PICKS:

AUTHORITY #28 (DC Wildstorm)
Time was, I'd have been happy to see this on the list. But between the embarrassment of the schedule, and the fact that DC has cut the balls off it at every turn, well, frankly, I'm only buying it because I know it's coming to an end, and I see no point in stopping now. It's hard to work up enthusiasm for something, however good it is (and yes, it is good) when the publishers are sending out the clear message that they'd be quite happy to sweep it under the rug and never publish it again.

QUEEN & COUNTRY #6 (Oni Press)
QUEEN & COUNTRY #5 was a bit of a gear change after the first arc. Not a bad one, though. I'm absolutely riveted by this Afghanistan storyline, and the chance it offers for a look at a truly frightening and alien culture. It also provides readers with a closer look at some of the lead characters in the series; at how they deal with the horror of their lives, and at the frustrations their line of work can bring. It would have been easy for Oni to get cold feet about publishing this in the wake of September 11, so all credit to them for going ahead with what looks to be an excellent story.

Comics shipping in the US on February 13th:

DARK HORSE

DEC010031 PLANET OF THE APES #6 BLOODLINES (3 OF 3) $2.99
DEC010032 PLANET OF THE APES #6 BLOODLINES (3 OF 3) PHOTO CVR $2.99
DEC010015 SPYBOY YOUNG JUSTICE #1 $2.99
DEC010051 STAR WARS STARFIGHTER CROSSBONES #2 OF 3 $2.99
OCT010018 SUPERMAN TARZAN SONS OF THE JUNGLE #3 (Of 3) $2.99

DC COMICS

DEC010557 ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #601 $2.25
SEP010238 AUTHORITY #28 $2.50
DEC010544 AZRAEL AGENT OF THE BAT #87 $2.50
OCT010613 CYBERNARY 2.0 #6 (Of 6) $2.95
DEC010565 DEADMAN #3 $2.50
DEC010536 DETECTIVE COMICS #767 $2.50
DEC010607 GREYSHIRT INDIGO SUNSET #4 (Of 6) $3.50
DEC010618 GRIP THE STRANGE WORLD OF MEN #4 (Of 5) (MR) $2.50
DEC010551 HARLEY QUINN #17 $2.25
DEC010621 HELLBLAZER GOOD INTENTIONS TP $12.95
DEC010622 HUNTER THE AGE OF MAGIC #8 (MR) $2.50
DEC010575 IMPULSE #83 $2.50
NOV010593 JIST SECRET FILES #1 $4.95
DEC010581 JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #4 $1.99
DEC010599 KINDRED #2 (Of 4) $2.50
DEC010538 NIGHTWING #66 $2.25
DEC010586 POWER COMPANY #1 $2.50
DEC010604 ROBO DOJO #1 $3.50
DEC010624 SANDMAN PRESENTS THE THESSALIAD #2 (Of 4) (MR) $2.50
DEC010597 SCOOBY-DOO #57 $1.99
DEC010591 SUICIDE SQUAD #6 $2.50
DEC010625 TRANSMETROPOLITAN #53 (MR) $2.50

IMAGE

OCT011580 10TH MUSE CRUZ CVR #9 $2.95
OCT011581 10TH MUSE PHOTO CVR #9 $2.95
DEC011509 IMAGE INTRODUCES LEGEND OF ISIS #1 $2.95
DEC011515 OBERGEIST THE EMPTY LOCKET $2.95
DEC011516 RADIX #2 $2.95
JUL011268 SPAWN #114 $2.50

MARVEL

DEC011832 BLACK PANTHER #41 $2.50
NOV011871 BLOODSTONE #4 $2.99
DEC011808 CABLE #102 $2.25
DEC011825 DAREDEVIL #30 $2.99
OCT011908 DAREDEVIL PARTS OF A HOLE TP $16.95
NOV011835 ELEKTRA #7 $2.99
NOV011869 ESSENTIAL ANT MAN TP $14.95
SEP011492 ESSENTIAL DR STRANGE TP $15.95
OCT011909 ESSENTIAL HOWARD THE DUCK TP $14.95
NOV011816 ICEMAN #4 $2.50
DEC011833 IRON MAN #51 $2.25
DEC011805 MUTIES #1 $2.50
NOV011823 NEW X-MEN #122 $2.25
DEC011823 PUNISHER #9 $2.99
NOV011862 SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN TP $12.95
DEC011834 TASKMASTER #1 (Of 4) $2.99
SEP011435 ULTIMATE MARVEL MAGAZINE #11 $3.99
NOV011805 ULTIMATE X-MEN #14 $2.25
OCT011901 X-MEN FALL OF THE MUTANTS TP $24.95
DEC011809 X-XTREME X-MEN #10 $2.99

OTHER PUBLISHERS

DEC012381 ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #3 (MR) $2.95
DEC012623 AQUA KNIGHT VOL 3 TP $16.95
DEC012620 BASTARD #3 (1 OF 3) (MR) $3.95
DEC012519 BLUE MONDAY LOVECATS (MR) $2.95
DEC012221 CHASTITY HEARTBREAKER #1 $2.99
DEC012222I CHASTITY HEARTBREAKER PREMIUM ED #1 $9.99
DEC012223I CHASTITY HEARTBREAKER SUPER PREMIUM ED #1 $20.00
NOV012389 DOUBLE TAKE #8 (MR) $2.95
DEC012255 ELVIRA #106 $2.50
DEC012108 GLOOM COOKIE #11 (MR) $2.95
NOV012440 I LOVE NEW YORK $2.95
NOV012156 JUGHEAD #142 $1.99
DEC012575 KODOCHA #2 (Of 5) $2.95
NOV012159 LAUGH DIGEST #173 $2.19
AUG011928 LIVIN LA VIDA DORKA DORK TOWER STRIPS VOL 1 TP $15.95
DEC012577 MARMALADE BOY #3 (Of 5) $2.95
DEC012558 METROPOL COLL ED VOL 5 TP (Of 5) $11.95
DEC012307 NEGATION #3 $2.95
SEP012136 NOCTURNALS DARK FOREVER #3 (Of 3) $2.95
NOV012311 OPTIC NERVE #4 (O/A) (MR) $2.95
DEC012227 PURGATORI HEARTBREAKER #1 $2.99
DEC012228I PURGATORI HEARTBREAKER PREMIUM #1 $9.99
DEC012229I PURGATORI HEARTBREAKER SUPER PREMIUM #1 $20.00
NOV012469 QUEEN & COUNTRY #6 (MR) $2.95
NOV012162 SABRINA VOL 2 #29 $1.99
DEC012308 SIGIL #21 $2.95
DEC012298 SOJOURN #8 $2.95
SEP012137 TROUT #2 (Of 2) $2.95
DEC012631 VAGABOND PART 1 #4 (MR) $4.95
DEC012614 VIDEO GIRL AI VOL 4 OFFLINE TP $15.95

The 9A Lighthouse Crew are Trafalgar, Shannon, Fastnet, Plymouth, Viking, German Bight, Finisterre, Forties, Dogger, Cromarty and Fisher.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.