BOOM! Studios; $19.99

The Big Con Job originally ran last year as a four-issue miniseries leading up to Comic-Con International. It opened during a comic convention panel for Treck Wars, a long cancelled sci-fi show spoof of Star Wars and Star Trek. The cast members are in career droughts, making money by signing autographs and taking photos at comics and pop culture conventions.

The downtrodden actors are propositioned by a con man to rob the convention of its lucrative sales. It turns into a bit of Ocean’s 11, but the suaveness is replaced by comedic foibles.

Created and written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Matt Brady, it’s a tongue in cheek comic with a dark side. It’s a biting commentary on the convention experience from the celebrity guest point of view and the machinery that keeps the cons running. It’s a funny jab at fame, yet a bleak look at the transition from working actor back to a struggling one.

The art by Dominike “Domo” Stanton follows the story toeing the line between funny and bleak, drawing Poach and his friends has haggard actors but also finding the comical side of such an absurd plan.

-Amanda Sheriff