It’s time for This Week in Panels! The weekly segment where my wonderful contributors and I all take the comics we’ve read over the course of this week and cut them down into one panel. One representative panel that tries to explain the issue. We’ve only been doing this for… oh shit, 250?! Christ.

Yes, it’s Week 250. For nearly five years I’ve been doing this series. I started this back when Old Man Logan and Blackest Night were still going on. I originally got the idea during the short time I was writing at Pop Culture Shock. I did a bunch of one-paragraph comic reviews every week and I hated it. How many times can you write the same review of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America?

A few years before that, one comic site I can’t remember (probably Newsarama) had a preview of an upcoming issue of Civil War. Rather than show several pages, it just showed a handful of panels without context. I found the whole thing more intriguing than if we got the regular style of preview and I guess that just stayed with me. Another thing that stuck with me was when people would talk about the first Agents of Atlas series. One thing I’ve read once or twice was that it didn’t matter what you had to say about the comic in terms of opinion. Just show the panel of a 1950’s robot running down a hallway carrying a talking gorilla while said gorilla shoots four guns via both hand and both feet. That says everything.

I figured that I read a bunch of comics on a weekly basis, but nobody really had any interest in my opinions. Why would they? I’m just some guy on the internet. Worse than that, I’m a guy whose favorite character is an alien-wearing journalist-turned-hobo with delusions of grandeur recognized for being one of the poster boys of everything wrong with the 90’s. My opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. Why talk about what I read when I could just show you in its purest form and let you decide for yourself? I suggested the This Week in Panels idea to David and he put a cigar out on my face. I took that to mean, “Yes, go ahead.”

ThWiP has been very good to me and I was happy to see that it got enough regular readers and regular contributors. Gaijin Dan and Space Jawa especially, who never missed a beat when it came to sending me their stuff. I’m glad to see my idea was vindicated and it kept enough people interested.

With a heavy heart, I’m announcing that after 250 wonderful weeks, I’m stepping down from This Week in Panels. It sucks, but I need to move on. One of the things about starting ThWiP was that I wanted to do a weekly series for the sake of proving to myself that I could hit a regular deadline. And I did. Unless there was a hurricane or some kind of power-destroying storm, I hit the update every Sunday. Then I got my position at Den of Geek US, which has responsibilities beyond just writing articles. Plus my main job has been keeping me busier and busier. ThWiP updates went from regularly happening over the course of Sunday night to late Monday night or even early Tuesday morning. Simply put, I actually have real deal deadlines to deal with now.

Hell, I haven’t written a non-ThWiP update for 4thletter! since WrestleMania happened. I kind of need to rectify that and I have only so many hours in the day.

ThWiP isn’t done-done, at least. Space Jawa, otherwise known as Michael Stangeland (or as I keep accidentally typing, “Strangeland”) will be taking up the mantle. Personally, I can’t wait to see what he’s capable of.

Anyway, I still have this 250th update to do. We got me, Gaijin Dan, Matlock, Space Jawa, Was Taters, AnarChris and Dickeye. Let’s go down the road one more time.

Action Comics #33
Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift, Pt 2
Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru

Batman ’66 Meets the Green Hornet #4
Kevin Smith, Ralph Garman and Ty Templeton

Batman/Superman #12
Greg Pak and Tom Raney

Bat-Manga
Jiro Kuwata

Batwing #33
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti and Eduardo Pansica

Black Widow #8 (Gavin’s pick)
Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto

Black Widow #8 (Matlock’s pick)
Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto

Bleach #586
Tite Kubo

Captain America #22
Rick Remender and Carlos Pacheco

Deadpool vs. X-Force #1 (Matlock’s pick)
Duane Swerczynski and Pepe Larraz

Deadpool vs. X-Force #1 (Gavin’s pick)
Duane Swerczynski and Pepe Larraz

Earth 2 #25
Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott

Fantastic Four 100th Anniversary #1
Jen Van Meter and Joanna Estep

Future’s End #9
Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen and Patrick Zircher

Hunter X Hunter #345
Yoshihiro Togashi

Injustice: Year Two #13 (Gavin’s pick)
Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo

Injustice: Year Two #13 (Matlock’s pick)
Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo

Magneto #8 (Gavin’s pick)
Cullen Bunn and Javier Fernandez

Magneto #8 (Matlock’s pick)
Cullen Bunn and Javier Fernandez

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man #3
Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez

Moon Knight #5
Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey

Naruto #682
Masashi Kishimoto

Nisekoi #128
Naoshi Komi

Nisekoi X My Love Story!! Girls’ Side
Naoshi Komi, Kazune Kawahara and Aruko

One Piece #751
Eiichiro Oda

Original Sin #5 (Gavin’s pick)
Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato

Original Sin #5 (Matlock’s pick)
Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato

Punisher #8 (Matlock’s pick)
Kevin Maurer, Nathan Edmondson and Carmen Carnero

Punisher #8 (Gavin’s pick)
Kevin Maurer, Nathan Edmondson and Carmen Carnero

RoboCop #1
Joshua Williamson and Carlos Magno

Rocket Raccoon #1 (Jawa’s pick)
Skottie Young

Rocket Raccoon #1 (Gavin’s pick)
Skottie Young

Sonic Universe #65
Ian Flynn and Tracy Yardley

Southern Bastards #3
Jason Aaron and Jason Latour

Stealth Symphony #18
Ryohgo Narita and Yoichi Amano

Swamp Thing #33 (Matlock’s pick)
Charles Soule and Javier Pina

Swamp Thing #33 (Gavin’s pick)
Charles Soule and Javier Pina

Tiny Titans: Return to the Treehouse #2
Art Baltazar and Franco

Toriko #282
Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro

The Woods #3
James Tynion IV and Michael Dialynas

World Trigger #65
Daisuke Ashihara

Thanks, everybody. It’s been a blast.

Similar Posts:

• This Week in Panels: Week 242
• This Week in Panels: Week 237
• This Week in Panels: Week 246
• This Week in Panels: Week 233
• This Week in Panels: Week 248

Posted in This Week in Panels by Gavok |