Guide to Star-Lord, Peter Quill + New Indie Guides (Early Access for ALL Patrons!) (Patreon)

Hello, my legendary Patrons - and welcome to several new supporters! I'm back after a MAJOR week of Crushing Comics that saw me add another guide for a space-based Marvel characters as well as launch my long-awaited INDIE COMICS MONTH. Let's get right to it...

NEW: Guide to Star-Lord, Peter Quill (Launch Essay)

NEW: Guide to Lumberjanes (Launch Essay)

NEW: Guide to Princeless (Launch Essay)

Plus, powered-by-Patrons but available for all readers:

NEW: Guide to Youngblood (Launch Essay)

Updated: Guide to Spawn (Announcement)

Updated: Guide to Uncanny X-Men in the 00s (Announcement)

Updated: Indie & Licensed Comics Master Page

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Like last week's Guide to Adam Warlock, this Guide to Star-Lord exists because Peter Quill wasn't getting the attention he needed as a part of my amalgamated Guide to Guardians of the Galaxy.

That's especially true since Star-Lord's original origin is no longer his origin since I first created that page! (More on that in my launch essay.)

That's one of the many reasons I'm breaking Peter Quill and his crew into their own guide pages so you can enjoy some exclusive time with them before I release them to celebrate Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Before getting to yesterday's Star-Lord launch, I kicked off my Indie Comics Month on March 1 by covering the first ongoing Image Comic in my Guide to Youngblood!

(Fun fact: I own all but one issue of Youngblood ever published!)

I followed that up with a major update to my Guide to Spawn, Image's second flagship title from 1992. (Notice a trend?) Spawn had a massive year for collections for its 30th Anniversary in 2022! It reignited four existing collection lines that had been dormant for over half a decade. That's the sort of update I love to be able to make to a guide!

Last week's regular X-Guide update was to the Guide Uncanny X-Men in the 00s, AKA "The Trade Paperback Era." Unfortunately, there wasn't much to update: we already knew everything has been re-collected in Complete Collections (or something resembling them) save for Ed Brubaker's run on either side of Messiah Complex. Still, there was plenty of clean-up and clarification to do on the guide, including adding likes to buy and read digitally.

I bookended the weekend with a pair of smaller indie comic guides - Lumberjanes and Princeless.

I want to hit all of the big indie tentpoles in my new indie comics coverage, but I also want to make guides for the comics I love and constantly recommend. That will definitely include some smaller runs and all-ages books! For both of these all-ages guides, I hauled out my own physical and digital copies to verify contents when nowhere else on the web had the info.

(I also had to phone-a-friend on Twitter!)

Meanwhile, last Thursday I appeared on the Near Mint Condition YouTube channel to dissect Marvel's June solicits (which actually cover July and August, too!). Omar and I were joined by Kurtis from Epic Marvel Podcast, spectacular cosplayer and all-around comic nerd Ødfel, and a surprise appearance by my beloved friend OmniDog!

I did so much reading to prepare for the show, which meant no Quick Updates to guides this past week. They'll be back soon enough!

To see new guides and guide updates announced as they happen, keep an eye on the CK homepage.

When you visit a Patreon guide you should be prompted to log in to CK using your Patreon login. If you aren't prompted when visiting a guide page, try visiting the CK login page directly.

Behind-the-Scenes Krisis

There were so many things going on in front of the scenes that there was really no time for much to happen behind the scenes!

I decided to launch the Guide to Youngblood with immediate public access to draw attention to my new indie comics coverage. I saw a modest amount of chatter and traffic as a result. It's a good reminder to me that I ought to make a BIG DEAL about every time I launch a new guide, rather than just update an existing one.

Of course, writing a whole string of social media posts for each new guide only adds more work to each launch - but, what are the guides for if not being seen by other comic fans?!

(If you became a Patron as a result of that first taste of Indie Comics Month: WELCOME! There's a lot more where that came from.)

I have launched 27 Guides to you in the past 365 days - 19 Marvel, 5 DC, & 3 Indie! Plus, I've also made 23 significant, non-stealthy updates to existing guides. With this week's new guides and update the median guide update date has improved from June 2019 to August 2019. (Current goal: June 2022).

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What's up next on Crushing Comics?

Unless a major life emergency arrives at my doorstep (and it wouldn't even be the first this month), you'll see at least two more indie guides this week and another Guardians guide next week.

Is that wild? Yes. Should I be saving all of these guides to guarantee I have new weekly content for you for months to come? Also yes. But, this was my original plan to celebrate my birthday back in September and so I'm doing it for my half-birthday in March no matter how bad an idea it might be.

My plans for the month were initially even more aggressive, but I'm already using every possible second to work on CK this month. My compromise was to leave weekends for resting (and by "resting" I mean "writing about Drag Race") and adding some smaller guides to my schedule.

Rest assured: some more big hits are coming very soon. It's no mistake I kicked things off the month last week with Image's first two launch books. Keep your eyes on the CK main page.

Your Patron's Choice of Black Hammer will be one of those big hits, but that will be later in the month. I'm still planning on launching a major toy-related guide, too.

Looking forward to April and May, you could take a peek at the Marvel Cinematic Universe release slate and ask yourself what upcoming film stars don't seem to be covered on CK.

Any guesses?

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Tell me what you want!

Whether it's an indie guide, a Marvel character guide, or something else entirely, I love knowing what you want to see more of on CK.

Seriously, I check the comments on these posts all week long. Share your opinion for priority boarding.

Many of you have already named Superman, GI Joe, and an updated X-Men Reading Orders as items on your lists. I actually made some progress on one of those between all of this indie madness!

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Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 33 Guides!

DC Guides (6): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men

Marvel Guides (25): Adam Warlock, Alpha Flight, Angela, Beta Ray Bill, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Britain, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone, Emma Frost - The White Queen, Heroes for Hire, Legion, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Sabretooth, Spider-Ham, Star-Lord, Thunderstrike, Valkyrie, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man – Nate Grey, X-Men - Age of Krakoa

Indie & Licensed Comics (2): Lumberjanes, Princeless

Current Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 63 Guides!

All of the 33 guides above, plus 30 more guides…

DC Guides (17): Animal Man, Aquaman, Books of Magic, Catwoman, Doctor Fate, Flash, Harley Quinn, Houses & Horrors, Infinity Inc., Justice League, Justice Society of America, Mister Miracle, Nightwing, Outsiders, Shazam, Suicide Squad, Swamp Thing

Marvel Guides (13): Darkhawk, Falcon, Gwenpool, Hellcat - Patsy Walker, Kang the Conqueror, Loki, Power Pack, Red She-Hulk, Sentry, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Venom