Thank you for the recommendations and the warm wishes! I am feeling better, and still drinking lots of fluids. I have been somewhat limited in my reading choices, currently quarantined in the suburbs, but I am totally doing my homework. I started with the alternative titles: The Maxx, Madame Xanadu, and Preacher. Some initial thoughts about M. titles:

The Maxx Vol. 1 – Sam Kieth, with Bill Messner-Loebs on Dialogue
The most impressive part of the Maxx is its raw creativity. There is Maxx, bum, superhero, purple elephant in the panel. There’s Julie, smoking hot and volatile; Mr. Gone, often naked and a bit of a murder-rapist; Is(es), ink-black Pacmen with arms and legs and teeth. The story phases in and out of their subconscious, which so happens to be located in the Australian outback, while their bodies are located in New York. Super creative, and super much going on. I barely remember watching the animated shorts on MTV, and maybe it’s nostalgia goggles at work, but man, they were a hell of a lot easier to watch than to read.
Amazingly, the complexity works. I mean, the world can’t be a simple place when you’re a giant purple delusion. The comic shows a flippant attitude towards convention or compliancy by complicating everything, visually and verbally—and actually manages to be very poignant, very intense, and very funny. The downside is that it is hard to be on all the time. There is no ease in reading, and the overload of images, voices, and ideas is exhausting, and at its worst, pretentious. When everything is ironic or sarcastic, it loses a little heart. While I remain committed to the adventures, I hope that in the next few books Kieth can temper his cleverness, and focus more on the story over the storytelling.
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Madame Xanadu – Matt Wagner, Amy Hadley
I read through three issues of Madame Xanadu (Vol. 2) rather hastily I must admit, but in my brief interactions, I found the title really muted. The book meanders about in DC’s mystical realms, following sorceress Nimune in earlier days—but so little happened of concern that I would have trouble summarize the plot. Hadley’s art offers a lot of pretty things to look at, including a fetching protagonist, and Wagner’s writing is careful and poetic. Unfortunately, such flourishes do not produce narrative excitement, but hinders it. The delicate art and the period manner of speech make more obvious the lulls in action and confrontation. I do recognize that some stories need to be told with at a measured pacing, to build a more epic experience (I’m thinking Stracynski’s Thor). But Madame Xanadu hasn’t offer quite enough, not with its characters, or its mythos (especially after it moved out of Camelot) to justify the inaction, and I will be reluctant to continue reading.
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I’ll be editing down some initial thoughts on Preacher, and getting ready to head back up to the city. It has been a challenge taking the books in to write about them, and I’d love to hear any comments and objections to my thought. So keep the feedback alive, kids! I will be back here raving about Preacher in a day or two.