Paul Pope hasn't been hiding. You can find the writer/artist behind such acclaimed works as Heavy Liquid, Batman Year 100 and THB on pretty easily on Twitter, for example. And he just had The One-Trick Rip-Off/Deep Cuts—a collection of older work—land on the New York Times best-seller list for graphic novels. But…

Nobody really gets scared of mermaids. I mean, yeah, there are much more frightening things underneath the surface of the sea, like sharks, octopi or stingrays. But that doesn't let mermaids off the hook. (Why, yes, that pun IS intentional.) When you get down to it, they're a slightly disturbing myth. We may be…

Don't go in expecting E. Honda or Ganryu-style throwdowns in this new graphic novel about sumo wrestlers. Giant near-naked men do slap each around in Sumo, but the true pain comes from one transplanted quarterback's broken dreams.

My weekly comics round-up returns, though the list of promising new releases is short this time. A fitting disappointment, perhaps, in a week marred by the sad news of the sudden passing of superb comics writer Dwayne McDuffie, whose Milestone books were among my favorite comics reads of the 90s.