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Hopefully the Treehouse of Horror comic doesn’t measure 16 by 21 inches.

§ September 22nd, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Hopefully the Treehouse of Horror comic doesn’t measure 16 by 21 inches.

Just a few words about some of this week’s new comics:

  • Amazing Spider-Man #602 2nd Printing Variant – Is Amazing really selling out at enough locations to really warrant this many second printings? I mean, we order a couple of each just for those folks who want the different covers (and yes, those customers are out there), but I’m pretty sure we’ve enough stock on recent Spider-books to cover anticipated back issue demand.

    Okay, I probably answered my own question, there.

  • Bart Simpson and the Treehouse of Horror #15 – These Treehouse of Horror one-shots always do well, regardless of any special guest writers and/or artists. In fact, I can’t even remember who’s in this one…hold on, here we go:

    “Guest edited by Sammy Harkham, the award-winning creator of the popular Kramers Ergot anthology, this year’s issue is jam-packed with some of the most idiosyncratic (and weirdest) takes on The Simpsons universe ever. Kevin Huizenga (Ganges) and Matthew Thurber (Kramers Ergot) collaborate on a story equal parts Lovecraftian eco-horror and Philip K. Dick identity comedy. Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots) does a creepy story featuring Milhouse, murder, and crawl space living. Harkham and Ted May tell a tragic monster tale of unrequited love, bad karaoke, and body snatching at Moe’s Bar. Ben Jones (Paper Rad) does the epic tale of how bootleg candy sold at the Kwik-E-Mart rapidly spirals out of control into an Invasion of The Body Snatchers-like nightmare of a Springfield filled with cheap bootleg versions of familiar characters.”

    Well, that sounds pretty good. The Jeffrey Brown story sounds downright terrifying.

  • Batman and Robin #2 second printing – Now this we can use. This series has been like printing money so far, and we’ve been selling through, or close enough, our full orders.
  • Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #8 – Sold well for us when Mike Kunkel was writing and drawing it. Not really selling quite so well, now.
  • Dark Reign The List The X-Men one-shot – We ordered relatively low on these “The List” one-shot tie-ins to the company-wide Dark Reign crossover, based on sales of the previous one-shots and minis. I mean, some of those minis are selling in the single digits for us. But the first couple of these one-shots (Avengers and Daredevil) ended up acquiring a small level of demand, causing us to sell through our initial orders and, in the case of the Avengers, wait for an actually-needed second printing. (I read the writing on the wall early enough to get in a reorder on the DD one-shot prior to its sellout.)

    Guest that’s what happens when you have one-shots featuring your marketable characters/franchises, and not, say, “The Hood.” (Though I thought Sinister Spider-Man would have done better than it did. Ah, well.)

  • DC Library Batman A Death in the Family HC – Hey, remember when DC would do those cheap, quickie paperback reprints of the “hot” storylines…the Death of Superman, and this one, the Death of the 2nd Robin. $4.95 a pop, if I recall correctly, and a good deal it was. Not sure we need a forty dollar hardcover of this particular storylines, but 1) you do get some Jim Aparo art, and 2) it gives me an excuse to again whip out this old “Death in the Family” animated gif I made a couple of years ago:


    Hypnotic, ain’t it?

  • Justice League Cry for Justice #1 & #2 2nd printings – For those of you who hated these the first time around, now’s your chance to hate them again!
  • Liongate Films Leprechaun #4 – Hey, that’s how it’s invoiced. That way you don’t confuse it with any other concurrently-running Leprechaun comics. Anyway, I’m really hoping for Leprechaun in Space or Leprechaun in the Hood comics based on those films from this franchise.
  • Superman: Secret Origin #1 – Now that the Siegel estate has the rights to the specific details of Superman’s origin, this comic is all about how a scrawy scientist Dr. Bruce Kalel ran out into a testing field to save a trespassing Jimmy Olsen from the impending Krypton Bomb explosion, and got caught in the blast himself, giving him incredible super powers. That should hopefully clear up any copyright hassles for DC.
  • Wednesday Comics #12 – The last issue…the series’ sales more or less kept consistent throughout the run, and I thought it looked great. And now I’m getting asked how DC’s going to collect this into a trade or hardcover. My answer is usually “expensively.”


In other news:

  • Pal Nat would like to correct some assumptions some of you may be making about the Kirby family’s intentions regarding characters Jack created for Marvel.
  • SO IT’S COME TO THIS: The new War Rocket Ajax podcast is here! Join Chris Sims and Eugene Ahn as they rap their way into your hearts with their Jeff Parker interview! A nurse will be stationed in the lobby in case anyone listening to the podcast suffers heart failure caused by awesomeness.

Found on the eBay.

§ September 21st, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Found on the eBay.

A New York fire company patch, featuring a familiar fellow:


Another auction had this larger scan, which shows more clearly the actual detail on the patch’s material:


Swamp Thing looks kinda like a Rankin Bass character. Swamp Thing Is Comin’ to Town, The Year Without Swamp Thing, Mad Monster Party…oh, wait, that last one kinda works.

Anyway, I wonder who the Swamp Thing fan was in this particular company. And, more importantly, how he managed to convince everyone else to go for it. “Swamp Thing is awesome, he’ll look great on the patch!” “Uh, wasn’t Swamp Thing that one Adrienne Barbeau mov….” “SWAMP THING. IS. AWESOME.” “Okay, okay, fine, we can have a Swamp Thing patch.”

…Well, that’s pretty much how I would have argued for it, anyway.

I’m probably not hiding in the bushes just outside Kevin Church’s house.

§ September 20th, 2009 § Filed under sir-links-a-lot Comments Off on I’m probably not hiding in the bushes just outside Kevin Church’s house.

  • Sometimes I don’t do a good job keeping up on all the Swamp Thing links like I should (even with a Google Alert set up for that particular topic) so I appreciate it when swell cats like Tom help me out a bit. In this case, Tom reminded me of this recent post by legendary Swamp Thing artist Steve Bissette in which he discusses the artwork done for the ST cartoon merchandise from the early ’90s. You may remember that I’m the proud owner of several pieces of said merchandise (including the “fuzzy slippers” Bissette mentions in passing), so I found this article to be quite interesting. The particular focus of the article is on who did the actual artwork…the inker was obvious to anyone who’d read Swamp Thing, but the penciller, not so much. Read the article (and the comments!) for the discussion and the eventual solution to the mystery!
  • This is one of my favorite things that pal Dorian does, aside from the oil massages NO WAIT IGNORE THAT…er, it’s Dor’s movie trailer reviews. Always a hoot.
  • Another Dorian link: employee Aaron gave Dor a drawing.
  • Kevin Church and TJ Kirsch’s new webcomic She Died in Terrebonne is well underway…the first five strips (1 2 3 4 5) were released over the last week, and new strips will come every Thursday from this point forward.
  • And Kevin’s other strip (with cohort Benjamin Birdie) The Rack just had a wedding, and you can see the special moment right here, in full glorious color by El Gorgo‘s Tamas Jakab.
  • And to complete my triumvirate o’Kevin stalking, take a look at this thing here Mr. Church posted on the Twitter. EDIT: And, oh ho, what’s this?
  • I can’t think of any way to introduce or explain this better than just saying “Street Poet Ray versus Angel Love.”
  • Behold the badass unicorn.
  • Pal Scott finished posting all the extant pieces of his aborted comics story Heartache Saloon, so go, enjoy. Seriously, I love his art style. If he ever gets tired of that book-writin’ thing, surely the high-finance world of alternative comics awaits.
  • A big congratulations to Tom Spurgeon’s five year anniversary of The Comics Reporter, an absolutely indispensable resource for anyone interested in the world of funnybookin’.
  • And now…ROM tribute art.

Sluggo Saturday #20.

§ September 19th, 2009 § Filed under sluggo saturday Comments Off on Sluggo Saturday #20.

SLUGGO SNEERS

AT YOUR “POWER NAPS”

from Nancy and Sluggo 189 (January 1963)

It’s a little early for Halloween…

§ September 18th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on It’s a little early for Halloween…

…but dig this crazy horror record ad from 1973:


It’s a little Hieronymus Bosch meets Jack Chick, kinda sorta. Okay, maybe not Bosch, I was just trying to get all fancypants on you, there. And fine, maybe not so much Chick, either. It’s more like “aw, crap, we need some filler art for this Halloween record ad…anyone here in the office got a free minute?” But in fairness, they probably spent more time on the art than in editing the copy. “Haloween” indeed.

And now…Conan the Barbarian puffy stickers from 1984.

§ September 17th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized § 1 Comment


Let us open the Tome of Conan Stickers,

and see what we find:


The exciting puffy Conan logo.


“Oh, wow, man, there’s my logo up there above me, and there’s another beneath my feet, too. Far out.”


Conan takes his lion-creature-thing for a brisk run around Cimmeria State Park.


“Conan finds your Lex Luthor cosplay to be inadequate! EAT MACE.”


CROTCH ATTACK IS GO.

Oh, if only there were some kind of “facial injury” sticker I could add to my collec…

…Ah, there we go.

Yes, that’s a Brady Bunch reference.

§ September 16th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Yes, that’s a Brady Bunch reference.

Coming this week to finer comic shops, and even to ours, too:


It’s John Stanley, it’s Nancy, it’s awesome. Hopefully the reproduction looks a little better than the much-too-dark faux-yellowing of the pages evident in the Free Comic Book Day sampler advertising this release, but even still, it’s a must-have. Well, at least for me, I don’t know about you.

Some other things due out today:

  • Batgirl #2 – Boy, looking at internet reaction you’d think Batgirl #1 kicked over everyone’s trashcans and set fire to their pets. But it sure sold well here, through our initial order and a reorder or two. Let’s see if folks come back for the second ish.
  • Batman and Robin #4 – Grant Morrison’s still writing, Philip Tan is filling in for Frank Quitely on art chores. Should still be a great read.
  • Blackest Night #3 – September’s been a bit moribund for us, but, ironically enough, this comic book about dead people should perk things up a bit. The customers are really into this series and the tie-ins.
  • Brave and the Bold #27 – This is the first issue written by J. Michael Straczynski, and hopefully it’ll grab more folks than did his Red Circle relaunch. Well, it does have Batman in it, so already has bit of an advantage. But B&B sales never really recovered from losing the Waid/Perez team, so we’ll see if this reverses the trend. Plus, this issue has “Dial H for Hero” in it, and I’m a sucker for that.
  • Captain America Reborn #3 – The second issue was a strong seller, and #1 is moving pretty well out of the back issue bins. Still pretty much just to the regulars, though…just because there’s “mainstream coverage,” that doesn’t mean the mainstream’s gonna be diverted through our doors. But hell, our customers are buying it, so I can’t complain.
  • Citizen Rex #3 – New issue of Mario and Gilbert Hernandez’s fun sci-fi mystery mini-series is due out today. I’m always afraid this is going to get overlooked among all the event comics hoohar and the fact that this is coming from a publisher folks don’t normally associate with the Bros. (though Dark Horse has published Gilbert’s stuff before).
  • Galactica 1980 #1 – I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that there’s a comic book version of this. I mean, sure, why not. Doctor Zee deserves his comic book face time, too (so long as he doesn’t jinx anything).
  • Johnny Boo: Happy Apples HC – Another James Kochalka kids book…Kochalka’s work always sells, so I’m happy to have it.
  • Marvel Zombies Return #3 – Yeah, this is over now. Sales aren’t even a patch on the first two series. However, I think once it’s in trade form and racked with the other volumes, it’ll probably do well. Unless people are completely sick of the zombie thing by then. Next trend? I predict “mariachis.” “Say, do you have the Mariachi Variant for Dark Alpha Flight #3?” “Why, sure I do! Look, they’re playing a quinceañera!”
  • Vengeance of Moon Knight #1 – Giving it another go, I see. Marvel even put out one of those freebie “story thus far” booklets for Moon Knight that retailers could give away. I wonder if that’ll help any.
  • Vincent Price Presents #12 – This series has yet to top the line “the android is the opposite of the vampire” from the first issue, but we still have a great fondness for this comic as we all take turns reading from it in our best (i.e. terrible) Vincent Price voices.
  • Watchmen Movie Silk Spectre Deluxe Wig – Yeah, so? What’s it to you?
  • Yotsuba Vol. 6 – Like Achewood last week, here’s another book the west coast is getting after everyone else. Well, folks have waited this long for it…what’s another week?


Also released this week is a shocking 11-page preview for issue #3 of America’s Gorilla-est Comic, El Gorgo! If you read only one comic about a luchador gorilla scientist, make sure it’s this one!

FISTBUSTER.

§ September 15th, 2009 § Filed under sir-links-a-lot Comments Off on FISTBUSTER.

So in response to my post from the other day talking about “anti-sign” superhero logos, Adam noted that ’80s Superman supporting character Gangbuster had such a logo:


Yes, that’s right, Gangbuster just hated fists:


So look out, Kit Fisto! Look out, Iron Fist! Look out, Fist of the North Star! Look out, Fisto! Look out, F.I.S.T.! Gangbuster will find you, and defeat you with…er, well, fisticuffs. OH THE IRONY.


  • Men weep, women swoon, and children cry out in terrified delight, for the new War Rocket Ajax podcast has been unleashed. Join Chris Sims and Eugene Whose-Last-Name-Is-Ahn as they toe that restraining order line with classy cartoonist Colleen Coover! Delete all those other lousy podcasts from your iZune, and put this on instead. You won’t regret it.
  • Related: take a look at these Man-Thing sketches by Coover and studio-mate Jeff Parker. WARNING: cutest Man-Thing drawing ever at link.
  • So that guy Kevin Church just started a new year-long webcomic project with artist T.J. Kirsch: She Died In Terrebone: A Sam Kimimura Mystery. Promises to be good ‘n’ moody…kicks off with daily strips introducing the cast, then moves to a once-a-week schedule.
  • There’s a new group comics blog in town, this one masterminded by Alan David Doane: it’s Trouble with Comics, featuring a heapload of established funnybook bloggers. It’s just starting out, so we’re just barely past the introductions, but let’s see where it goes. Good luck, guys!
  • Andrew has a new installment in his Nobody’s Favorites series, and it’s a good’un. It’s a character that even made it onto Smallville, somehow…though to be honest, the character feels more like it belonged on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which is a weird distinction I’m not sure I’m up to explaining. Probably something about the character’s particular motivation fitting more with the goofy romantic soap opera elements of the older TV show than the running-in-place “will Clark ever learn to be a hero?” elements of the newer show.

    That’s a lot of evading any clues as to whom Andrew is discussing, I realize. Though I imagine some of you guessed already, if you haven’t clicked the link.

  • I sold pal Dorian a bunch of cheap black-and-white-boom era funnybooks, and Dor just started to have some fun with them.
  • Which reminds me: I’ve been joking about how Boom! Studios should start a special black and white imprint and call it “The Black and White BOOM!” I’ve been bothering the employees with this, and now it’s on the site and out of my system. Also, I’m the only one who’s amused by this, so I apologize.
  • Via Neilalien: half-n-half Peter Parker/Spider-Man “Spider-sense…tingling!” costume. It’s damn near perfect.
  • So I always link to Dave’s Space Cabby Sunday posts, which you should be reading because, well, look at you — you’re clearly not getting your required allotment of Space Cabby intake. But dig this: Ken Lowery was doing $1 Terrible Sketches at a convention in support of his project The Variants, and Dave picked up a Terrible Space Cabby Sketch, which is awesome.
  • I too mail-ordered a Terrible Sketch from Mr. Lowery, and friends, I got my money’s worth:


    He’s saying “Just as I suspected. POGs.”

    This drawing is Terrible, and I love it.

  • A special thanks to Reader Sharon, who was nice enough to gift Progressive Ruin Headquarters with Volume 2 of the Swamp Thing TV show DVDs. That was very nice, and much appreciated!

She totally is!

§ September 14th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on She totally is!

And now…some excerpts from DC Comics’ New Releases flyer from July 1986:


the Truk in question

"NO APPEAL NO PAROLE"

§ September 13th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "NO APPEAL NO PAROLE"

promotional advertisement sent to retailers (October 1986)


While this is all-around bad-ass, the most bad-ass thing about it must be the fact that the drawing attached to the logo – the “anti” sign over the vial of crack – appears to be what the ‘Busters are actually wearing on their chests. No questioning of purpose with these guys.

I’m trying to picture similar logos for other superheroes, except that most super-types tend to be a little more open regarding the scope of their activities. Though I keep picturing Superman with a chest logo of an “anti” sign over a bald scientist’s face. He had to deal with a couple of different bald scientists early on, you know.

I was thinking a “no guns” emblem for Batman, but that doesn’t seem quite right. Maybe an anti-sign over a picture of a young Bruce kneeling between his dead parents, right smack dab center on Batman’s chest. …Yeah, okay, that’s a bit morbid. But you get the idea.

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