Today at ComicsAlliance, I’ve got an exclusive preview of Joe Casey and Chris Burnham’s upcoming Officer Downe, solicited in this month’s Previews, and an interview with Burnham!

I first became aware of Burnham’s work in 2008’s incredibly underrated Nixon’s Pals, which for my money is the most entertaining comic Joe Casey’s ever written. It tells the story of a guy who works as a parole officer for super-villains, and it’s so fun that when I grabbed it off the shelf to scan a panel for tonight’s post, I ended up re-reading the entire thing. Sharply written and action-packed, it’s one of comics’ true hidden gems, and more people ought to give it a read.

Plus, it’s a great showcase for Burnham, but what’s amazing is that from the preview pages for Officer Downe, he’s actually gotten better, moving into an absolutely gorgeous, hyper-detailed style that, as he confirmed in an email, gets him compared to Geoff Darrow an awful lot. Plus, as I found out today, he’s actually really fun to talk to about this stuff.

There is one thing that I mentioned in the interview that I couldn’t let slip by without a visual aid, though, that’s what I termed the Nuclear Suplex. In reality, it’s not so much the suplex that’s powered by a nuclear brassiere…

…but rather the kick to the junk that he’s getting suplexed into. For the record, that was the panel that sold me on the book.

So check it out, and tell your retailer that you want to order Officer Downe too. I mean, the bad guy’s name is Zen Master Flash, and that alone is worth $4.99!