Kablammo! Oh excuse us. We were just reading some comic books. This week, courtesy of Isotope's guidance, we're checking out Harvey Pekar's new book, ; as well as Desolation Jones, a newish series inked by a central-valley artist who was recently in town; also the dizzyingly cute Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, by local Debbie Huey; an X-Men book written by dreamboat Joss Whedon; and a sad-scary zombie story called The Walking Dead.

First of all, can we just talking about how adorable Bumperboy is? It's low on drama, but bursting at the seams with beaming best friends and faithful pups and a robot that says "Oh shucks." The story involves a lost bag of marbles and an upcoming marble tournament -- there's an oddly Pokémonesque scene around the end involving cute dueling creatures. The cast of characters involves a boy and his dog in pajamas, and a teddy bear thing, and a squirrel named Nuts, and an otter named Jeannie with a USA swim cap ... and oh my God we're melting with adorableness right here in our pants. Oh man.

Okay, change of pace: the "Desolation Jones" series follows a grumpy hard-boiled former spy, subjected to some kind of horrible debilating experiment and imprisoned within the city limits of Los Angeles, along with a slimy crew of similarly crippled ex-spies. A withered old man hires Jones to find a stolen cache of porn produced by Adolph Hitler ... and then the story gets weird. A missing daughter, some more amateur pornography, and spooks-in-hiding all start leading our hero back to a murderous cult and some scary government-sponsored mind control. It's not very cute.

After the jump: Pekar, zombies, and did you know the X-Men story involves space aliens? Yeah, it's a little different from the movies.

The Quitter