In which Mike is all over the map.
Pal Dorian told me about this cover for the third printing of Supergirl #1. It’s an homage to the introduction of the original* Supergirl, it’s charming as all get out, and it’s a darn shame it’s the exact opposite of the godawful mess that’s actually inside the book. Ah, well.
Hey, there’s some kind of giant orange lizard creature on the cover of the new Marvel Knights: 4. I hope the Thing fights it inside.
YOUR EMBARRASSING STORY OF THE DAY: Several years ago, I had a customer who, as it happened, was blind in one eye, and was wearing a patch over said eye. He asked me if we had a particular item in stock. I told him that, no, we were out of that item at the moment. He asked if we could ever get it back in stock, and if so, if I could let him know when it does show up.
I told him that I’d keep an eye out for it.
Even as I was saying it, I was thinking “maybe this isn’t the best way to say this to this particular customer,” but too late…it was out of my mouth.
Luckily, he wasn’t offended…and maybe I was worrying just a tad too much, but boy, to this day I can’t believe I said that to him.
Congratulations to Will Pfeifer on hitting his weblog’s one year mark! Go visit his site, and give him some well-wishing along with the Duke!
And vaya con pollos to weblogging mainstay Franklin Harris, who’s putting an end to his site, for good this time. We’ll miss ya, Mr. Harris!
Someone, somewhere, at this very moment, is having a heart attack over how Batman is portrayed in All Star Batman and Robin #2. But man, I couldn’t stop laughing, not so much as to the actual content of the story, but to Frank Miller’s hearty “screw you” to the fans who want their Batman deadly serious. (And yeah, I know Batman’s behavior was, mostly, supposed to be an act to get reactions out of Dick Grayson. Still damned funny.)
Okay, just when you’ve thought you’ve heard the last of this…so, about the early ’90s comic crash….
Now stop that groaning, this’ll only take a minute or two.
Anyway, we were trying to pin down if Superman #75 (the dreaded “Death of Superman” issue) came out at the same time as Turok #1 (the dreaded “Death of the Comics Market for All Time” issue). Some folks said “yay,” others, like commenter Gardner said “nay,” and, lacking easy access to our invoices of the time, I sought an answer elsewhere.
And that elsewhere was Comiclist, which not only has current new releases, but new release lists dating back to ’91, complete with a search engine. Looking there, Superman #75 was scheduled for release in mid-November 1992, and Turok #1 was due April of ’93.
Now, there were a lot of #1s coming out at the same time as that Turok, but the only really big one was Marvel’s Infinity Crusade. However, with Marvel having gone to that “Infinity” well a few too many times over too short a period, it didn’t do so well. So, basically, Turok wasn’t facing much competition from other titles that week. However, looking at these lists, I see quite a few things that most stores (including our own…we’re not innocent in this) probably way overordered. Sigh…this much “nostalgia” isn’t healthy, I’m sure.
On a (mostly) non-comic-related note, pal Scott (who is also secretly pal JP‘s brother) has had his book turned into a movie directed by Harold Ramis and starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and freakin’ Randy Quaid. Hey, pretty cool.
And in other movie news: “The Legend of Cabin Boy.”
