Blog Template Update for May
This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, listing my Favorite Comics of the Month, which is my counterpart to Current Favorite TV series, as well as my ten favorite graphic novel reads of the month.

A couple things of note in how I organize these things, for those who care. These listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. And each month, I'm recommending twenty things that I read in the month instead of 10 ongoing series and 5 first issues. It's less useful as a gauge of my overall tastes, but more useful as a "must-read" for the month. Oh, and graphic novels won't be listed in Favorite Comics... that's strictly for issues.

May was a bit of a lean month for comics, at least for me. I had to cheat a little to get 10 graphic novels on there (I haven't done much more than flip the pages of Uncanny X-Men Omnibus yet, but I love what I see... thanks to Brett Warnock for talking about it on his blog, as that pushed me over the edge to picking it up, and I love it so far. Well worth the $100) and there weren't really any new books that blew me away. A couple solid new entries in Talent and Secret Six, but I wasn't wowed by either one, they were just solid reads in what was mostly a sea of mediocrity. There are good books out there, but you have to do some digging to find them. And most of them aren't selling that well, as books that I am uninterested in (the majority) or outright loathe (the minority) top the sales charts and peoples' interest. I was right to quit reviewing at this point, I think. And with Civil War taking over the few Marvel books I enjoy, and my distance from DC growing each month, I may be down to Top 15 or Top 10 comics in the next couple of months.

There also won't be a Down the Line for this month. The Previews pickings were kind of slim after a couple of months of really interesting stuff, and there just wasn't enough to be worth writing up a whole column. I might throw in a "Stuff from last month" bit in next month's write-up. I presume there will be a Down the Line next month, as I've already heard of a couple books in September that sound interesting, among them the new crime book by Brubaker and Phillips.

Finally, the updates are for the month of May... June just barely started. So all my favorites will be anywhere from a week to a full month old, but these are meant to be sort of "standing" preferences anyway.