Angela

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

The #1 issue has a tough job: It needs to set the story, to connect you to the characters, and to do it in a scant few pages. We’ve read through a lot of the #1 issues that have hit the stands since our last recap, and weighed in on a few that caught our attention — whether or not they’ve hooked us for issue #2 and beyond.

Rasputin #1

Words by Alex Grecian, art by Riley Rossmo, colorist Ivan Plascencia, letterer Thomas Mauer. Published by Image Comics.

Synopsis: The untold tale of Grigori Rasputin, the infamous advisor to the Romanovs. 

Steph: I tend to pick up most of the first issues of each book that comes through my comic shop, and I base which trades I’ll purchase later on those number 1s, so they have to be engaging. Rasputin was definitely that for me. [Read more…]