5. JUMPER: JUMPSCARS
Written by Nunzio DeFilippi and Christina Weir; art by Brian Hurtt
Oni Press
96 pgs | $14.95

No doubt you've seen the trailer for the upcoming Hayden Christensen/Samuel L. Jackson/Rachel Bilson flick, Jumper, about people that can teleport. Obviously you can't have a movie like this without some sort of comic book tie-in. Hence, this "prequel" story about the Paladins who help police all of these teleporters that have been jumping around for centuries.

Two interesting things about what is otherwise just a marketing device for a movie: 1)This is being released as a 96 page graphic novel just in time for the movie rather than going the pamphlet format route first (go, future of comics!) 2) The art is done by Brian Hurtt who is always reliably good and has worked on some interesting projects in the past like DC's short-lived prison drama Hard Times.

Check out a pretty extensive preview of the book here.

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4. THE BAKERS: BABIES & KITTENS
By Kyle Baker
Image Comics
96 pgs| $18.99

Kyle Baker opens up his home to all of us with this cartoon version of his family exploits based on real events. After experiencing some mouse trouble that Dad can't seem to solve, Mom and the kids adopt a cat behind his back and manage to keep it hidden from him for days. Baker is a man of varied styles and here he dips into his most popular, Looney Tunes friendly style, to make this a family-friendly cartoon comedy.

Read an interview with Baker and see some more preview images here.

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3. CONTRABAND
Written by Thomas J. Behe; art by Phil Elliott
Slave Labor Graphics
$12.95

This might be the curiosity of the week - a comic book about cell phones - but it touches upon some zeitgeist-friendly issues like citizen journalism and mobile-phone culture. Set in a future with underground cellphone channels featuring captured video of controversial subject matter. The protagonist of the story, a young "citizen journalist" uses his phone to film an illegal video transaction that gets him on the wrong side of a conflict with an underground black market selling sensational and violent video content.

You can read a pretty good chunk of the book here.

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2. SCALPED VOL. 2: CASINO BOOGIE
Written by Jason Aaron; art by R.M. Guera; cover by Jock
DC Vertigo
144 pgs| $14.99

I missed out on previewing the first volume of this highly acclaimed new series from Vertigo when it came out last year. I think it's worth calling out this second volume though because it's easy enough to pick up this and the affordably priced first book in order to catch up to what is Vertigo's most exciting new title. Set in a downtrodden Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Scalped centers around the mysterious figure of Dashiell Bad Horse who returns after 15 years and joins the tribal police to crack down on the reservation's growing drug problem. The chief of the police has his own agenda for hiring Dash and Dash himself has his own agenda for being hired. In this latest volume we begin to learn more about Dash's background and his secret past.

Scalped is an intriguing film noir style crime drama set in the unique and authentically rendered world of the modern Native American reservation. The book's writer Jason Aaron (The Other Side) is on his way to taking the comic's world by storm and this book is a great sample of this new talent.

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1. ABE SAPIEN: THE DROWNING #1 (of 5)
Written by Mike Mignola; art by Jason Shawn Alexander
Dark Horse
32 pgs | $2.99

Mike Mignola's Hellboy universe has been expanding at a rapid rate this past year. First we had the BPRD spin-off series which, even without Mignola's direct touch, added depth to Hellboy's supporting cast and monster-ridden universe. With the success of that book we're now starting to see spin-offs to the spin-off which brings us to popular BPRD member Abe Sapien getting his own mini-series. Abe is the articulate and enigmatic fish guy from the BPRD paranormal research team. Only recently we've started to see how he came to be all fish-like and this new series will further explore his past which reaches as far back as the turn of the last century.