Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop.

BOOK OF THE WEEK: LOST DOGS

If there's one thing I've learned, in this mad old life, it's to follow my first instinct. Ignoring it has seen me mugged twice (first by a masked Manc, then by the dole), broken-hearted a dozen times, and, on one notable occasion, eliminated from a popular daytime quiz show.

When selecting comics to discuss in this esteemed forum, I have a tendency to pick comics I intend to buy, comics I would like to buy (but can't afford just yet), or comics I wouldn't buy in a month of fifth-week events. I've tried to broaden my horizons, but for the most part, I've stuck to known-quantity titles and creators, such as last week's MOPED ARMY, Grant Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS or Image's FOUR-LETTER WORLDS.

Recently, a suspiciously quiet week for known-quantity comics had me searching the Shipping Lists for a book with a nifty title. Skipping past Ultimate-this and Variant-that - as well as fantastic manga titles like BASTARD! - I happened upon a book by the name of LOST DOGS (Ashtray Press), and stopped dead in my tracks.

Created and published by Jeff Lemire, with the aid of a grant from the Xeric Foundation, LOST DOGS is the story of Ulric, a gentle giant whose wife and daughter are taken from him during a stroll into the wrong part of town. Ulric's quest to rescue his family promises to be both violent and frightening.

Lemire's website features a ten-page preview of LOST DOGS that is, to use a medical term, flabberghasting. Lemire's brushwork is loose and expressive: his characters are more moulded than drawn. Central character Ulric is a Hulk in prime Gaultier drag. The scene shifts from agrarian idyll to urban squalor without missing a beat. The book, while largely drawn in black and white book, also features lovely grey washes and a thematic seam of blood red ink.

If there was ever a good reason to just go with your gut, then this is it. Whether stumbling across the title, buried in the Diamond Shipping List, or chancing upon that fantastic cover in the local comic shop, I can't see anyone who takes a chance on LOST DOGS regretting it. [Matthew Craig]

I DREAM OF GENIUS

It's one thing to wear your influences on your sleeve, but quite another thing to take your influences, paint them fluorescent green, and fasten them onto your forehead with a nail gun. There are obvious parallels in comics art, like Jiminez to Perez, or Ladronn to Kirby, or Liefeld to my four-year-old niece, but it's always interesting to recognise when an artist changes his style to reflect another's.

Chris Eliopoulos is a case in point. A superbly talented letterer, Eliopoulos is also known for producing DESPERATE TIMES, one of the few true 'sitcomics' around today (even if it is published intermittently at best). Now he's turning his hand to kids' comics, with FRANKLIN RICHARDS: SON OF A GENIUS (Marvel), and a cursory look at the art style he's employing shows the spectre of Bill Watterson - not that he's dead, of course, but let's not kill the metaphor - looming large in every panel.

Essentially, SON OF A GENIUS is CALVIN & HOBBES in the Marvel Universe, with Franklin taking on the role of the little spiky-haired tyke, and much-maligned robot irritant H.E.R.B.I.E. playing the part of the tiger. The strip started as a back-up in the recent Marc Sumerak/GuriHiru POWER PACK series, but as none of you bought that, it's a fair guess to say that you won't have read the strips collected here, either. As a sweetener for those who already have, however, (that's you, and you there, and you over next to the pot plant in the corner), Sumerak and Eliopoulos have come up with a brand new strip to round out the package.

Sumerak and Eliopoulos have managed to produce something quite special here - a Marvel comic that's aimed at all ages but that (unlike the MARVEL ADVENTURES books) can actually be enjoyed by discerning adults. It's CALVIN & HOBBES in the MU. What's not to like? [Alistair Kennedy]

IDENTITY CRIME

Brad Meltzer writes books. Proper books, without pictures, and with long words. And in comics' current heady atmosphere of, "Oh my god, we must somehow obtain respect from the outside world by hiring the prop man on TITANIC, who I heard once read an issue of SCROOGE McDUCK and laughed", Meltzer was asked to write a mini-series (DC's IDENTITY CRISIS, collected this month), and left to go to town. Whether a meagre 'comics writer' would have been allowed the character leverage Meltzer was given is a question for the ages. But lever he did, and we have one of comics' most talked-about mysteries as a result.

When the wife of Z-list super-hero Elongated Man is found murdered, it's up to the superheroes to fight through their grief and find out whodunnit. What happens along the way can only be summed-up through pithy sound-bites: a human dynamo bum-rushes an expecting mum on the moon; a Robin loses his father; a magical woman in tights fiddles with a vigilante; bad guys lose their minds completely; an ex-wife takes her alimony by fire; and we learn the significance of those immortal words, 'tiny footprints on her brain'.

But above all else, readers are given a sense that the magic and mystery of two-dimensional good versus evil super-struggles has been destroyed forever by an attempt to 'dumb up' the Silver Age's simplistic storytelling by suggesting that all the characters weren't written badly, just playing dumb. Ingenious, if slightly misguided.

IDENTITY CRISIS has spawned several one-shots and four six-issue mini-series and appears to be the starting point for universe-wide directional change at DC. But what about the story itself, taken on its own merits and stripped of its wider entanglements?

Well, it's a fairly gripping whodunnit in the classic airport impulse purchase thriller tradition. Which appears to be exactly what Meltzer specialises in. The art by Rags Morales is almost like Neal Adams after being sucked into the box from HELLRAISER - there's all kinds of wrong creeping in at the edges. It's a cracking romp, but it's not actually anything special.

DC is very helpfully offering the hardcover collection in two formats, a la HARRY POTTER - both 'adult' and 'regular' versions, so there's something for those who are too embarrassed to read a comic on the train. I'm not sure who this extra special treatment is aimed at, as the book is so drenched in superhero continuity that it's unlikely to draw in new readers. However, if you can crack the mystery of who the hell Elongated Man is in the first place, then you should have fun with the rest of the story. [John Fellows]

THE SHIPPING LIST FOR SEPTEMBER 14th 2005:

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

DARK HORSE

JUL050051D BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #105 (MR) $2.99
JUN050044D SUPER MANGA BLAST #55 (MR) $5.99

DC COMICS

JUL050296D 100 BULLETS #64 (MR) $2.75
JUL050211D ACTION COMICS #831 $2.50
JUN050419D ALBION #3 (OF 6) $2.99
JUL050189D ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #2 $2.99
JUL050193D BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #195 $2.50
JUL050259D BATMAN STRIKES #13 $2.25
APR050327 BATMAN SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN TRINITY TP $17.99
JUL050219D BREACH #9 $2.50
JUL050282D DESOLATION JONES #3 (MR) $2.99
JUL050300D FABLES #41 (MR) $2.75
JUL050225D FIRESTORM #17 $2.50
JUL050229D GREEN ARROW #54 $2.50
JUL050230D HAWKMAN #44 $2.50
JUL050301D HELLBLAZER BLACK FLOWERS TP (MR) $14.99
JUN050352D IDENTITY CRISIS HC BOOKMARKET VERSION $24.99
JUN050351D IDENTITY CRISIS HC DIRECT MARKET VERSION $24.99
JUL050234D JLA #118 $2.50
JUN050378D JSA CLASSIFIED #2 $2.50
JUL050287D MAJESTIC #9 $2.99
JUL050288D MATADOR #5 (OF 6) $2.99
JUL050305D MNEMOVORE #6 (OF 6) (MR) $2.99
JUL050201D NIGHTWING #112 $2.50
JUL050197D ROBIN BATGIRL FRESH BLOOD TP $12.99
JUL050268D SCOOBY DOO #100 $2.25
APR058272 V FOR VENDETTA TP $19.99
JUL050276D WILDCATS NEMESIS #1 (OF 9) $2.99
JUL050292D WINTER MEN #2 (OF 8) (MR) $2.99

IMAGE

JUL051647D BONE REST #3 (MR) $2.99
JUL051652D FERRO CITY #2 $2.99
JUL051623D RONIN HOOD OF THE 47 SAMURAI GN $9.99
MAY051571D SEA OF RED #5 (MR) $2.99

MARVEL

JUL051871D DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #4 (OF 6) $2.99
JUL051878D FANTASTIC FOUR PRESENTS FRANKLIN RICHARDS SON OF A GENIUS $2.99
JUL051932D GAMBIT HATH NO FURY TP $14.99
JUL051889D GRAVITY #4 (OF 5) $2.99
JUL051872D MARVEL KNIGHTS 4 #22 $2.99
JUL051867D MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #18 $2.99
JUL051920D MARVEL MASTERWORKS CAPTAIN MARVEL VOL 1 HC VARIANT ED $54.99
JUL051919D MARVEL MASTERWORKS CAPTAIN MARVEL VOL 1 NEW ED HC $49.99
JUN052056D MARVEL MASTERWORKS DOCTOR STRANGE VOL 2 HC VARIANT ED $54.99
JUN052055D MARVEL MASTERWORKS DOCTOR STRANGE VOL 2 NEW ED HC $49.99
JUL051896D MARVEL NEMESIS IMPERFECTS #5 (OF 6) $2.99
JUN052049D MARVEL TALES FLIP MAGAZINE #3 $3.99
JUL051897D MEGA MORPHS #3 (OF 4) $2.99
JUL051851D MUTOPIA X #3 (OF 5) $2.99
JUL051885D NEW THUNDERBOLTS #12 $2.99
JUL051890D PULSE #11 $2.99
JUL051866D SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #11 $2.99
JUL051882D THOR BLOOD OATH #1 (OF 6) $2.99
JUL051863D TOXIN #6 (OF 6) $2.99
JUL051859D ULTIMATE X-MEN #63 $2.50
JUL051903D WEAPON X DAYS OF FUTURE NOW #3 (OF 5) $2.99
JUL051930D WOLVERINE CLASSIC VOL 2 TP $12.99
JUL051902D X-MEN #175 $2.50

OTHER PUBLISHERS

JUL053263E ANGEL SANCTUARY VOL 10 GN $9.99
JUN052956F ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #9 (MR) $3.50
JUN052770E ARCHIE #560 $2.25
JUN052773E ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #164 $3.59
JUL053265E BASARA VOL 14 TP $9.99
JUL053241E BASTARD VOL 9 TP (MR) $9.99
JUN053110F BLACKPOOL #2 $2.95
JUL053266E BOYS OVER FLOWERS VOL 14 TP $9.99
JUL052752F CBLDF SPX 2005 ANTHOLOGY $12.95
JUN052669F ELECTRIC GIRL VOL 3 TP $13.95
AUG042419 FLESH FOR THE BEAST VOL 1 GN $9.99
JUN052668F FULL MOON FEVER GN $12.95
JUL053267E FUSHIGI YUGI VOL 16 GN $9.95
JUL053058E HELIOS IN WITH THE NEW #1 (OF 8) $2.99
JUL053246E PROJECT ARMS VOL 10 TP $9.99
JUN052659F SALAMANDER DREAM GN $15.00
JUN053107F TEMPORARY A DIRT NAP #4 $2.95
JUL053259E TOUGH VOL 4 GN (MR) $9.99
JUN053088F ZORRO #4 $0.99

The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf.

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.