I personally own a total of four funnybooks published by Revolutionary Comics: two issues of Dennis Worden‘s Stickboy, and the above two books.
Now, I can understand why I bought Rock and Roll Comics #30 (July 1991), featuring the Cure. Beneath this punk rock/industrial exterior is a sensitive gothity-goth, bleak and moody. Well, okay, maybe not, but I’ve always liked the Cure (even saw them in concert a couple times), and when this comic came in, I thought, “eh, what the heck” and picked it up. As Rock and Roll Comics go, this one was okay, with the premise that Cure frontman Robert Smith has a near-death experience, and is taken on a tour of his life by Death. No idea how accurate it all is (by which I mean the biographical details, not the NDE), but the art’s not bad, and it all has a sense of humor about it, which makes it go down nicely.
But this Contemporary Bio-Graphics #1 (Dec. 1991) — I couldn’t tell you why I bought this. Was I in that much of a need of an “unauthorized and proud of it” biography of Stan Lee? It’s not nearly as polished, either in its art or its writing, as the Cure comic, with misspellings throughout, and going with an ugly font rather than hand-lettering, or even Comic Sans, was a mistake. But I suppose it’s worth it for these two panels:
One, a young Stanley Leiber plays his flute (EDIT: yes, I know it looks like he’s playing a clarinet, even though the caption in the panel says “flute”):
Two, this awesome caricature of Steve Ditko:
I’m pretty sure Steve Ditko didn’t look like this (judging by the photo and self-portrait on steveditko.com). But if he doesn’t look like that caricature, he really should.
I do have a Revolutionary Comics story…I was at some convention or other talking to one of the dealers, and apparently the fact that I worked in a comic shop had come up. Some fellow overheard and the subsequent conversation went like this:
Fellow: “Hey, you work in a comic book store?”
Me: “Yes, I do.”
Fellow: “What do you think of Revolutionary Comics?”
Me: “Well, they sell okay, but they’re kind of amateurish.”
Fellow: “Uh…I draw for Revolutionary.”
Me: “Um, wow, hey…how ya doin’.”
And we uncomfortably parted ways. Well, you ask a question like that without introducing yourself, you should brace yourself for an answer you might not like. It’s not like I was totally harsh on Revolutionary or anything, but I still felt kinda bad for insulting some guy I didn’t have anything against. So if he’s reading this…hey, sorry man, nothing personal.
I’m not a gamer by any means, and though I’ve collected a few Heroclix figures of characters I’ve liked over the years, I’ve not been keeping up with them.
So when Employee Aaron showed me this Mirror Master piece:
…my first reaction was “is Wizkids cheaping out on their figures? Are they using cardboard standees on the dials now, instead of the plastic sculpts?” And then about 0.5 seconds later, I felt incredibly stupid because I realized “OH! He’s in a mirror!”
I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, sometimes.
A few store sales notes:
Star Wars trade paperbacks are selling well – the books featuring the villains tend to move the quickest. The demand for anything featuring Darth Maul still remains high. Even the Episode I adaptation is selling well. All the prequel movie adaptations are selling well, for that matter.
Back issue demand for the “Sinestro Corps” Green Lantern event is still strong, and interest in GL continues to push good sales on new issues. The most recent post-Sinestro War issue of Green Lantern Corps has even gone to a second printing due to demand and, likely, reorder activity at Diamond, even though no more copies were to be had.
People seem to like these smaller crossover series that restrict themselves to a single “family” of books, like Sinestro War and, on Marvel’s side, the “Messiah Complex” series in the X-books. With the company-wide sprawling events, like “Civil War,” folks bought all the books, but usually grudgingly. “Well, I better buy ‘em so I know what’s going on,” that sort of thing. The smaller events seem to encourage a little more excitement and enthusiasm among my customers, without the slight amount of resentment at feeling “forced” to buy multiple tie-ins.
On the other hand, I’m getting plenty of requests for Countdown: Arena…I’ve had to reorder issues several times.
Oddly, the Roman Dirge hardcover It Ate Billy for Christmas is selling better now than it did at Christmastime. Go figure.
Every time a new Spawn comic shows up on the stands, I usually have a customer or three express surprise that it’s still coming out, that McFarlane is even still bothering with the comics end of his toy empire. I wonder how much the funnybooks contribute to the overall financial intake of his business…about 0.000001%?
IDW’s Angel: After the Fall series is moving well, with even the variants selling strongly.
Speaking of Angel variants, here’s one from a previous Angel series that we had floating around the store:
AHHH! Too close, too close! (Though I understand that your mileage may vary.) This cover would fit right in with the vinyl sleeve heads (link via Poor Mojo).
“I am perplexed and disappointed that this magazine contains so much sexual content. No, it is not blatant, graphic, or obscene. Just tasteless. [...] Wally’s ‘bed romping’ is something I don’t need to be let in on.”
From Flash #9 (Feb. 1988):
I am very disturbed, even disgusted, that the fine attributes of the new Flash are being cheaped by the inclusion of exploitative sexual encounters. Not only is Wally West’s [sic] exploiting the women he is so casually ‘falling in love with,’ but DC is exploiting its pubescent readers by tantalizing them with a ‘hero’s’ sexual conquests of curvacious women.
[...]
“….If you are going to portray ‘realism’ rather than idealistic heroism [...] then you should also write about the broken hearts, despair, loneliness, anger of the women who feel ‘used’ when he leaves them behind after having his ‘way with them.’”
From Flash #11 (Apr. 1988):
“I’m really peeved about Wally’s one night stands, too. Don’t you think he’s gotten AIDS yet? Isn’t he supposed to be a HERO, someone to look up to? How can you look up to a sexual bum like him? That’s what he is – a gigolo!”
From Flash #12 (May 1988):
“Now that he [...] has his own book, Wally needs character. Instead of a heroic and intriguing person like, say, Batman, Wonder Woman, most of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and the Teen Titans, the powers that were turned Wally into an immoral, musical bed-playing adulterer.
“This is a personality I absolutely loathe: in life, on TV, and in books. Such a character uses his sex partners as objects and is unable to control his own urges. The term is gigolo, an unpaid whore. He deserves nothing more than a good, retributive come-uppance: like jail, death, disease, or emasculation.”
Number of women Wally West has apparently been intimate with in the Flash series, as of issue #12:
1. Francine Kane (Wally’s girlfriend at the beginning of the series, leaves in issue #3)
2. Tina McGee (introduced in issue #3)
Number of one-night stands presented in the Flash series, as of issue #12: EDIT:none apparently one, in the first Flash annual, which I still haven’t found time to read. Still, that doesn’t mean the above writers aren’t overblowing things a tad.
Number of women apparently used by Wally as sexual objects, without regard for their feelings, as of issue #12: none (Francine’s relationship with Wally seemed fairly normal, as superhero relationships go, and he and Tina, at this point in the series, are having some issues, but the two appear to be on equal footing…no one’s being used as an “object”)
In reference to Tina McGee…yes, she was a married woman, but separated from her abusive husband for quite some time. This is a little different situation from Wally waiting for the husband to leave the house so he could sneak in and have a little slap ‘n’ tickle with the wife. The fact that she was still married, legally, did cause some consternation for Wally, and the topic was brought up several times during the course of these early issues. So it’s not as if any of the possible moral issues were ignored.
In other words, Wally wasn’t speedin’ around town, flashing from one bed to another and shtupping every gal he saw, which is what the above letter writers apparently thought he was doing. I don’t know what comic they were reading, but it wasn’t The Flash, where Wally went from one monogamous relationship, which had ended, to another monogamous relationship. Okay, the timing between the two was pretty tight (like, hours), but this is the Flash…like he’s gonna take anything slow.
The problem these fans had was apparently that Wally was having any sex at all, which, I guess, compared to the relatively sexless Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman (but notRobin, the Randy Wonder), Mr. West looked like Mr. Manslut McSluttyslut.
Oh, and when Wally was trapped in another dimension during the Chunk storyline, one of the women who had been stuck there for a while tried to seduce him, and Wally nearly kissed her, but luckily there was some Flashus Interruptus and nothing came of it.
Another caveat: I haven’t reread the first Flash annual yet, which came out during the first year of the series. If it’s “The Flash’s Sexy Adventures in the Land of Bikini Girls,” I take it all back.
So that enormous stock of science fiction books we picked up a while back…what the store that these books used to belong to would do is mark notes about the books directly on the plastic baggies they were stored in. Usually it was just things like “First Printing!” and “Frazetta cover!” and “Classic!” and stuff like that. And we haven’t been replacing the bags…we’re just slapping our pricetags on ‘em and leaving the comments as is.
This one is my favorite thus far:
By an odd coincidence, “I have to be stopped! All women are my playthings!” was my “senior quote” in my high school yearbook. Go figure.
Just a brief list of observations from the last couple of days at the shop:
Sales on the latest issue of Anita Blake are way off from previous issues, probably because of its lateness. Hopefully because of its lateness, and fans just don’t realize it’s out yet, as otherwise it means the bloom is off the Anita Blake rose, or something like that.
Marvel’s taking orders for a second printing of Hulk #1. Is it really in that short of supply, or is this another “look, it’s a hit, honest, why else would we go to a second printing” deal like with Amazing Spider-Man #546?
Speaking of second printings, I had someone ask if the Ultimates 3 #1 second printing had a variant cover, and I immediately started to cry.
IT’S NOT MY FAULT EMPOWERED #3 ISN’T OUT YET. IT SHOULD BE HERE IN MARCH. NO REALLY LOOK FOR YOURSELF.
There’s been some mockery of the sparseness of the Cloverfield cups. “Boy, they went all out on these things, didn’t they?” is a common refrain. They do look kinda plain, but it’s not like they were going to put pictures of the monster all over ‘em or anything.
Speaking of Cloverfield, one of my customers mentioned that he heard it was based on the old Rampage arcade game, and I thought, “oh, c’mon,” but then I Googled it up and WHAT THE HELL.
Conversation with Customer Scott:
Customer Scott: “Is Rob Liefeld unable to draw a closed mouth?”
Me: “You probably could have ended that question three words earlier.”
Customer Kevin was going to speak to an elementary school class about drawing and making comic books, and asked me if I could provide a bunch of Free Comic Book Day comics he could use for giveaways, which I gladly provided (after stamping the store address on the covers, of course…get those customers early!).
Anyway, Kevin came back to the store today to let me know things went swimmingly, and gave me a photo of himself with the class, all holding their comic books. I’m not going to post it here, since I don’t think the kids’ parents would want some complete stranger putting up images of their young’uns on his site, but it’s a very cute picture…it’s one of those photos where after taking the “nice” photo, you get to cut loose with the “silly” photo, and that’s the one I got. Man, some of those kids can pull some seriously wacky faces.
A few words about the week’s new releases: Fell #9 – probably Warren Ellis’ sharpest, most concise, most accessible work, with experimental-yet-understandable artistic support from Ben Templesmith. Best bit: the representation of Fell’s mental pictures of what his unseen “perp” was up to.
Booster Gold #6 – Yeah, I wouldn’t get to used to this being the “status quo” for that particular character if I were you.
Groo: Hell on Earth #3 – I love Groo comics just about more than any other comic, but sometimes its occasional “message” comics just barely dance around the edge of being a little too heavy-handed.
Amazing Spider-Man #547 – So it occurred to me…if there’s a marriage between Peter and Mary Jane in the next film, how fast will that “deal with the devil” be undone?
Incredible Hercules #113 – Actually pretty good. Light, fun read…Hercules in the right writer’s hands is always a hoot, even though things take a serious turn at the end here. Plus, Wonder Man! In his old red jacket look, yet! (Yes, I know he appears in other books with his old look, but I don’t read those, man.)
About a couple of next week’s Marvel books:
World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1 – A quick flip through our preview copy shows that this new series is right in line with the three classic mini-series of years past. The art’s a little slicker, but the characters still look recognizably like their old selves.
Marvel Zombies 2 #4 – While I hated the zombie overkill Marvel did with all those zombie variant covers a while back…I don’t have any problem with the Marvel Zombies series proper. It remains gross and dark-humored, but it feels like the steam is running out of this particular franchise. A Marvel Zombies 3 would really not be a good idea…which of course won’t stop it from happening.
Only because it came up at work the other day…here’s a YouTube video showcasing my all-time favorite computer game theme music:
If you want to see seven minutes of the game in action, here’s a clip of the Commodore 64 version.
And here’s about 10 minutes of the C64 version of another game I spent far too much time on as a young Mikester.
1. It occurred to me that more people are going to see that Wonder Woman Playboy cover in one month than will see actual Wonder Woman comics in an entire year. No point to make, really, just an observation.
2. Employee Jeff and I came up with our own take on the current Booster Gold series, where Booster is traveling through time in the DC Universe trying to fix things. Well, let’s say someone way too upset over recent DCU events (like, say, someone from scans_daily) gets hold of a time machine and tries to undo all the “horrible, terrible, contradicts my fan-fic” events…and of course ends up making things much worse. So Booster has to go back and redo all the things that were undone…kill Sue Dibny, steal and destroy Spoiler’s display from the Batcave, beat Jason Todd to death with a crowbar…okay, that last one isn’t that recent, and it’s been kinda undone, but I like the image of Booster doing this.
Employee Jeff and I are bad people.
3. Overhead in the store – someone describing Umbrella Academy to a friend on the phone: “Yeah, it’s this comic written by a guy in this stupid band….”
(NOTE TO THE OVERSENSITVE: I was just amused by the comment, and I have no particular opinion on either the comic or the band in question. Save the indignation.)
4. I suspect we would have received a second printing on Amazing Spider-Man #546 regardless of how it sold. “‘See, getting rid of the marriage in the stupidest way possible was a great idea!’ exclaims Joe Q.”
…as this is what I found on one of the counters when I got to work Tuesday morning:
A close-up of the plastic cups…good gravy, they sent us a lot of these:
GODZILLA TRIUMPHANT:
That’s particularly amusing given what folks were assuming about Cloverfield early on.
Note to self: give Employees Aaron and Jeff more to do on Mondays.
By the way, I don’t really feel one way or the other about this film. Maybe I’ll rent it from Netflix when it moves to DVD in about four months. I like the cups, though…I can use those.
