Welcome to the Shipping Forecast, Ninth Art's pick of the best and most notable new releases hitting comic stores each week.

COMIC OF THE WEEK:

PUBO #1 (Dark Horse)
Just when we thought that all you could expect from Dark Horse was licensed comics, manga, and the occasional release from their Legends line, things have taken a turn for the indie again. Leland Purvis is a Xeric winner and previously best known as the (sole) creator of the anthology title VOX, in which the character PUBO first appeared. The name stands for Physical Unipolar Biogenic Organism, which to put it simply means that he's an experiment whose physical features are directly proportional to the amount of nerve endings they have. Thankfully, he wears a loincloth. In this three issue bimonthly series, Pubo is out of the lab and into the deep woods in the Northwest US. Here he finds that he can communicate with the creatures that live there, but being a little brusque and abrasive, this may not be a good thing. VOX showed that Purvis can create intelligent, well-constructed comics. It's fair to expect the same of him with this series, with the plus that PUBO is being played for laughs. [German Bight]

ALSO THIS WEEK:

KABUKI: THE GHOST PLAY (Image)
Reading an issue of KABUKI is a strange journey into the imagination of creator David Mack. What once started out as a story of espionage in the future has become so much more. Self-identity, sins of the parents, and bizarre dreams are just a few of the things you'll find in KABUKI... in addition to that original espionage element that kicked off the series. With the re-issuing of the KABUKI: DREAMS collection, Mack added in a brand new, fully painted story... but for those who already had the collection, he's thoughtfully published it separately as THE GHOST PLAY. With beautiful paintings accentuated with physical objects, Mack's art has a life of its own, heavily textured with emotion and mystery. If you've only seen Mack's work on ALIAS covers or in the pages of DAREDEVIL (writing PARTS OF A HOLE and painting WAKE UP), you haven't encountered the most personal of his works to date. Don't pass this one by. [Plymouth]

MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER #5 (Slave Labor Graphics)
Completely bonkers. Mad as a frog on a stick. Ken Knudsen's simian shenanigans are bound to be the most insane thing on the comic store shelves this week. This may be the start of a new story; it may not; it barely matters. All you need to know is this: Jennifer is not a monkey. Jennifer is a chimp. Jennifer is a boy chimp, but Jennifer's owner, little Kaitlin, dresses him in, well, dresses. And Jennifer is not happy about this. Not at all. There may be pirates in this story, pirates who speak in rhyme. There may be a group of female ninjas whose name you really shouldn't abbreviate. There will, definitely, be surrealism, strange leaps of logic, extreme violence and a chimp in a dress. Where else could you get that? [Fastnet]

QUEEN & COUNTRY: DECLASSIFIED #1 (Oni Press)
One title that I think all us fisherfolk look forward to reading is Greg Rucka's QUEEN & COUNTRY, winner of the inaugural Ninth Art 'Wavemaker Award' for Best New Title in 2001. In a development that will please the whole Lighthouse, then, the series has gained its very own spin-off title. DECLASSIFIED looks at the previous espionage career of Paul Crocker, set at the height of the Cold War in the mid-1980s. Expect tension by the bucketload, snowy border checkpoints, and probably some of those fetching furry KGB hats too, I shouldn't wonder. Brian Hurtt returns to art duties, having done a previous arc of Q&C, and looks to be improving with every book he illustrates. Rucka's writing on the parent series is never less than gripping, so this book will almost certainly be a treat. [Finisterre]

THE SHIPPING LIST FOR NOVEMBER 27th:

Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change.

DARK HORSE

SEP020015 BTVS #51: VIVA LAS BUFFY (PART 1 OF 4) $2.99
SEP020040 DYLAN DOG: ZED GN $5.95
AUG020035 LONE WOLF & CUB VOL 27: BATTLE'S EVE (MR) $9.95
SEP020017 PUBO #1 (Of 3) $3.50
SEP020021 USAGI YOJIMBO #62 $2.99

DC COMICS

JUL020235 100% #4 (Of 5) (MR) $5.95
SEP020183 ACTION COMICS #797 $2.25
SEP020241 AMERICAN CENTURY #20 (MR) $2.75
SEP020160 BATMAN #609 $2.25
SEP020163 BATMAN: ABSOLUTION HC $24.95
SEP020156 BATMAN FAMILY: FREEWAY #5 (Of 8) $2.25
SEP020166 BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES #56 $2.25
SEP020215 CARTOON CARTOONS #14 $2.25
SEP020170 CATWOMAN #13 $2.50
SEP020243 FIGHT FOR TOMORROW #3 (Of 6) (MR) $2.50
SEP020192 FLASH #192 $2.25
SEP020226 GLOBAL FREQUENCY #2 (Of 12) $2.95
SEP020245 HELLBLAZER #178 (MR) $2.75
SEP020205 JSA: THE RETURN OF HAWKMAN TP $19.95
SEP020253 MIDNIGHT, MASS #8 (Of 8) (MR) $2.50
SEP020229 RESISTANCE #3 $2.95
SEP020177 SUPERMAN: DAY OF DOOM #3 (Of 4) $2.95
SEP020232 THUNDERCATS #4 (Of 5) $2.95
SEP020211 TITANS #47 $2.75
SEP020234 WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #4 (MR) $2.95
AUG020253 WONDER WOMAN #186 $2.25

IMAGE

SEP021159 AGE OF BRONZE #15 $3.50
SEP021162 GI JOE #12 $2.95
SEP021168 KABUKI: THE GHOST PLAY $2.95
AUG021202 KABUKI VOL 2: DREAMS TP NEW PRTG $12.95
MAY021173 LEAVE IT TO CHANCE #13 $4.95
SEP021205 PARADIGM #3 $3.50
APR021436 SAVAGE DRAGON: THIS SAVAGE WORLD HC $24.95
APR021437 SAVAGE DRAGON: THIS SAVAGE WORLD S&N HC $49.95

MARVEL

SEP021507 AVENGERS #60 (Note Price) $3.50
SEP021504 FANTASTIC FOUR #63 $2.25
SEP021491 SPIDER-MAN: TANGLED WEB #20 $2.99
AUG021538 ULTIMATE ADVENTURES #2 $2.25
AUG021566 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN VOL 4 TP $14.99
SEP021471 ULTIMATE X-MEN #25 $3.50
SEP021475 WOLVERINE #183 (Note Price) $3.50

OTHER PUBLISHERS
MAY022066 AMY RACECAR VOL 1 TP (MR) $19.95
SEP021845 ARCHIE'S MYSTERIES #25 $2.19
SEP021849 BETTY & VERONICA #182 $2.19
SEP021850 BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #111 $3.59
SEP022381 CERES, CELESTIAL LEGEND PART 4 #2 (Of 4) $3.50
SEP022382 EL HAZARD VOL 3 TP $15.95
SEP022385 FIREFIGHTER DAIGO OF FIRE COMPANY M VOL 1 GN $15.95
SEP022386 FIREFIGHTER DAIGO OF FIRE COMPANY M VOL 1 GN COLL ED $15.95
AUG021785 GIRL GENIUS #8 $3.95
STAR15285 GUNDAM WING EPISODE ZERO TP $16.95
SEP022262 JASON & THE ARGOBOTS #3 (Of 4) $2.95
SEP022370 MEDABOTS PART 4 #4 (Of 4) $2.75
SEP021934 MERIDIAN #30 $2.95
SEP021789 MY MONKEY'S NAME IS JENNIFER #5 $2.95
OCT022650 NINE OF ONE WINDOW TO THE WORLD #1 (Of 3) $2.95
SEP021938 PATH #9 $2.95
SEP022255 QUEEN & COUNTRY: DECLASSIFIED #1 (Of 3) (MR) $2.95
SEP021940 RUSE #14 $2.95
SEP021913 SIMPSONS COMICS #76 $2.50
SEP021854 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #117 $2.19
SEP021918 TAROT, WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #17 $2.95
AUG022046 TRANSFORMERS: ARMADA #4 $2.95
SEP022043 TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE VOL 1 TP $17.95
JUL021783 VAMPI #23 DLX ED $9.95
JUL021782 VAMPI #23 REG ED $2.99
SEP022136 VOGELEIN #5 (Of 5) (MR) $3.00

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

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