Why I Love Wednesdays

In addition to being Veronica Mars night and the only day of the week that my husband and I both get home from work at a reasonable hour, Wednesday is also the day that I make a trip to The Golden Apple for my weekly pile of shiny new comics.

Here are a few I love:

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

In Brief: A plague wipes out every living male mammal on the planet, save one Yorick Brown and Ampersand, the helper monkey he's attempting to train. Yorick just wants to find his girlfriend, who's currently halfway around the world, but is instead placed in the protective custody of a secret agent named 355 and a geneticist to track down what caused the plague.

Angry Republican widows attempt to overthrow what remains of the U.S. government. Militias, pirates, and a cult of Amazons terrorize survivors. Travelling across the country takes months because most of the pilots, train conductors, and ship captains are dead, and the freeways are clogged with the cars of people who died during rush hour. And nerdlinger extraordinaire Yorick is not exactly the person you'd entrust with the repopulation of the earth.

Despite the grim scenario, this series is remarkably charming, sweet, and funny, as are its unlikely heroes.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman

In Brief: Zombies!!!!!!

Another apocalyptic comic that makes Y look like a Sunday school picnic. The story picks up with a ragtag assortment of individuals who have survived the first wave of brain-eating, and are trying to find a safe place to settle down.

You know how in most zombie movies you can tell pretty quick who's safe and who's doomed? In The Walking Dead, all bets are off. Something like a third of the characters have been zombified so far, and Kirkman has said that he can and will kill off anyone, including the hero. So don't go getting attached.

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello

In Brief: Imagine that The X-Files and The Sopranos bonded together to raise the illegitimate child of Frank Miller, and that's kind of what it's like.

Boiled down, this book is about getting revenge. Agent Graves appears on the doorstep of some severely wronged people and hands them a briefcase. The briefcase contains the identity of the person who ruined their life, evidence proving this, a gun, and 100 untraceable bullets.

It gets a lot more complicated, so I recommend buying this one in trade form rather than issue by issue. This comic is mind-bogglingly great, and it's easy on the eyes, too - arguably the best drawn, coolest-looking comic out there.