§ July 30th, 2009 § Filed under End of Civilization Comments Off on Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.
Oh, good gravy, it’s that time again, when I poke through the latest issue of Diamond Previews and see what wonders await within. There’s a lot of good stuff in this issue, in fact (Complete Bloom County? What manner of sorcery is this?), but that can wait for another time. Until then, crack open your August 2009 Previews catalog and follow along with me as I take a gander at the goofy stuff. (And check out previous installments, linked in the sidebar somewhere.)
p. 128 – Catwoman (Classic) 1:6 Scale Deluxe Collector Figure:
For some reason it looks like it’s based on a Jim Balent design to me…not quite sure why, can’t exactly put my finger on it….
p. 171 – Witchblade #131:
So I guess it’s a big secret who the new Witchblade is going to be. There are so many well-rounded characters to choose from….
(Yes, that was two breast jokes in a row. I’m not proud.)
p. 201 – Archie #602:
This is part 3 of the “Future Archie Marries Future Veronica” story arc, and included in the solicitation is the absolutely last thing I’ve ever wanted to read in a description of an Archie story:
“Can Archie get through Lamaze class without causing a commotion? Can he make it through the actual birth without full-scale panic?”
Those two lines have upset the natural order of the world. Brother turns upon brother. Fire rains from the sky.
p. 217 – Tribute: Michael Jackson, King of Pop:
I was wondering who’d be first out the gate with a Michael Jackson tribute comic. Sorry Antarctic, IDW, looks like Bluewater beat you out. (I’m wondering if anyone will reprint that
Captain Eo comic…dude, Tom Yeates art!)
p. 217 – Vincent Price Presents Special: The Tingler #2:
No idea how I missed #1 last time. Anyway, I wonder if there’s a way to randomly include
electric buzzers to deliver a mild shock in copies of this comic? “Huh, that’s funny…this copy of
The Tingler #2 has a giant bump and a bunch of wires under this endpaper glued into the inside back cover…I wonder whOW DAMMIT”
p. 254 – Stephen King & Peter Straub’s The Talisman #0:
Okay, I realize the pic is only symbolic, representing a full novel and not an actual image of the final printed comic, but it’s still amusing to see this:
…with this description:
Wow, those are some thick pages, apparently.
p. 327 – Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters SC:
Ah, from the “Hoping Lightning Strikes Twice” publishing library. When
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out, we were making up our own “…and Zombies” books at the shop. Like
A Tale of Two Cities, and Zombies. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…and there were zombies.” It’s fun, try it at home.
p. 348 – Zombie “Evolution” Black Glow-in-the-Dark Shirt:
I am terribly offended by the inclusion of such secular teachings in this issue of
Previews. I must insist in the interest of academic freedom that the presentation of intelligent zombie design also be included.
p.349 – Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor’s Coat and Serenity: Malcolm Reynold’s Browncoat:
I don’t really have a joke here…just a story
pal Dorian and Employee Aaron related to me from their San Diego Comic Con experience, which I was reminded of when seeing the Who jacket solicited right next to the
Firefly movie jacket.
Anyway, Dor and Aaron (and Employee Timmy and pal Dana, who’d get mad if I don’t mention them, too) attended Sunday’s Doctor Who panel, which included the show’s star David Tennant. When the panel started taking questions from the audience, the first question to Mr. Tennant was the following (paraphrased):
“Was your decision to wear the trenchcoat as the Doctor meant to be a tribute to the Firefly tv show?”
According to Aaron, Mr. Tennant did briefly pull the “are you kidding me?” face, but answered very diplomatically, stating that he simply told the producers he had wanted to wear a long coat as part of the costume, and that was that.
Not sure what that teaches us, other than some folks just gotta find connections between everything.
By the way, the Doctor’s jacket is $300, and the Serenity jacket is $350. In case you want to save up.
p. 356 – Star Trek Kirk vs Gorn AF Two-Pack:
You know, when I was a kid, I had the Mego Star Trek figures, and the Gorn I owned
looked nothing like the television show’s Gorn. You kids today, you’ve got it easy.
But then again, I don’t remember ever really being bothered that my toy Gorn looked different from TV Gorn. I guess I was able to manage.
p. 370 – Mr. Potato Head KISS Collector Set:
For some reason I’m now picturing the actual members of KISS applying their make-up via plastic pieces on posts jammed into holes in their faces. That’s just how tough they are,
maaaaan.
p. 406 – The Big Lebowski: The Dude Wig & Goatee Set:
With minor alteration, will also round out your Charles Manson costume for this Halloween.
p. 410 – Obama Change Bust Bank:
Now, they
tell me this bank was manufactured in America, but until we see the long-form factory manifests, how can any of us be sure? Just what are you
hiding, Mr. Obama Change Bust Bank?
p. 411 – A Charlie Brown Christmas Nativity Set:
Until today I’ve never thought of Woodstock as a Christ figure. Would that make Snoopy God? How does Charlie Brown fit into this? …Clearly Lucy is the Devil. Or maybe the Cat Next Door.
p. 423 – Munchkin Halloween Chibithulhu Plush:
Aren’t they running out of holidays for these cutesy themed Cthulhu dolls? Have they done Arbor Day yet? National Secretary’s Day? Hanukkah?
Marvel Previews p. 51 – Marvel Zombies: Evil Evolution:
So the cover is too shocking to show in the catalog from which we need to make our orders, but apparently we’re expected to display on the rack once we get them. Okay.
Next time, just tell us the cover art wasn’t ready at press time.
p. 101 – The Thing: Project Pegasus Premiere HC:
A long time ago, one of Marvel’s earliest trade paperbacks was a collection of these same
Marvel Two-in-One issues for…I don’t know, $6.95 or something. And as I recall, there was a lot of grief in the fan press at the time about Marvel unloading unnecessary and expensive reprint collections into the marketplace, some of it specifically in reaction to that original
Project Pegasus book. Wonder what those people would have said if you told them that, someday, that very book would be a $25 hardcover.
Probably the same thing they would have said if you told them about $3.99 monthly comics.
A tip o’the toupee to Chris Sims for some production assistance. Hint: it was a breast joke.
§ July 26th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on This is a fetish for someone.
from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #121 by Cary Bates, Werner Roth, Vince Colletta & Murphy Anderson
Yet another panel recently spotted ‘n’ scanned here at Progressive Ruin Industries. I’d like to think this establishes Superman most certainly is
not a dick, helping old folks across a chasm like that. Sure, he feels the need to point out his “super spinal column,” but one would hope that’s out of a need to reassure the citizens, and not some odd form of self-aggrandizement.
Yes, that was a late reference to the whole “Superman is a dick” thing. This post brought to you by the year 2005.
…
Anyway, I do have a few things to say about announcements/events at the San Diego Comic Con, but hopefully that’ll be on Monday. Because I’m sure you won’t see enough online commentary on the topic between now and then.
§ July 24th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on But then again, there is a Wiki entry for Han Solo’s pants.
So as of 12:01 AM Friday morning, the winner of the “which is nerdier” poll is…Doctor Who, which beat out Star Trek by four votes! Not sure why it would have had such a strong showing, particularly against cradle-of-nerd-civilization Star Trek…but as the poll continued over the last couple of days, the two franchises were pretty much neck and neck, with each taking the lead briefly. If I’d continued the poll for another day or so, Star Trek may have taken the lead. I’d actually consider this more or less a tie, to be honest, but Who‘s on first in the lead as of my arbitrary deadline, so that’s the victor, I guess.
I suppose its high percentage of the vote may have come from Who‘s relative obscurity in the U.S., where the majority of my voters presumably live, and the assumption that any ol’ nerd could be a Wars or Trek fan, but it takes a special kind of nerd to be choosy enough to be a Who fan. Ultimately I’m more surprised at the low vote total for Star Wars, which only received about 25% as many votes as the other two franchises. There were some suggestions in the comments that the reason for this is perhaps that Star Wars is slightly more mainstreamed than the Trek, that there’s more of an awareness of Star Wars as purely movies and TV shows, and not so much as a fan movement. Compare to Trek, where Trekkies and Trekkers and their attendant activities are as much a part of the public’s perception of the franchise as, say, Shatner or Nimoy. Maybe if the poll were run during the lead-up to the release of Phantom Menace, when news stories about people waiting in line for weeks to see the film were commonplace, results may have been slightly different.
By the way, the folks who voted “none are nerdy” are entirely wrong. Sorry about that.
Anyway, thanks for participating in my silly poll, and for the fun discussion, which made it all worthwhile. I got bit of a late start on this post, otherwise I would have directly addressed some points made in the comments, but perhaps I can catch up over the weekend.
In other news:
§ July 22nd, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Nerd the vote.
So two discussions/debates broke out in the comments section for yesterday’s post…one, regarding the Superman revamp of the mid-1980s, I plan to address at some point in the near future. The other is about, well…
WHICH IS NERDIER?
OR OR
Yes, I’m putting it up to a vote, which I’m sure will settle this subject once and for all and it will never be discussed upon the internet again. Feel free to engage in some (friendly!) debate and discuss your vote in the
comments section here. (And yes, I threw
Doctor Who into the mix, since
pal Dorian brought it up.)
If your skin’s feeling a little thin and you think I’m picking on nerds, keep in mind a couple of things:
1. It’s all in fun…I’m a fan of all three of these properties.
2. I manage a comic book store and write a daily comics weblog. I should know from nerdiness.
So anyway, there you go. Let the mayhem begin.