Going through a few of my bookmarked sites…there sure are a lot of dead comic blogs I still have in my bookmark file. A whole lot of ’em kicked the bucket in the 2006/2007 range, it seems, with a few actually wrapping things up with a “goodbye” post, and a bunch with the “sorry about the lack of updates, we’ll be back soon!” messages that are pretty much the same thing as a “goodbye” post. And of course there’s one or two that just end abruptly…just a post as usual, then pffft, gone.
Well, I promise that should I ever stop posting on this site, I’ll give you a final “goodbye” message. I won’t leave you hanging. Unless, of course, I’m hit by a truck or taken out by a meteorite or something, in which case you’ll all just have to make fun of mourn me in the comments section of my last post. And hopefully, it won’t be one of my more embarrassing posts, like a picture of me with a shaggy beard and posing with an iPad or anything.
I’ve no intention of ending the site any time soon, just so you know. I mean, at some point I’ll wise up and stop posting on a daily basis, but nope, I’m still stupid and doing this every single day…especially since I’m so close to a seven year run of daily posts.
…
Oh, Good Lord.
A few days back, I noted that Neilalien was looking for comic book limericks…well, actually, he’s specifically looking for Dr. Strange-related limericks, and he’s already posted a few, mostly filthy dirty filthy, ones on his site. Well, that makes me feel a little silly for sending him one that 1) wasn’t even vaguely racy, and 2) about a comic book character that wasn’t Dr. Strange. Whoops.
Spent a good chunk of Saturday going through our miscellaneous indie titles boxes, containing lots of small press, short run books that only had a few issues, or from a publisher that only published that one title, or what have you. Aside from coming across the occasional comic with a price tag featuring the handwriting of an employee who hasn’t worked here since ’97, I came across a copy of a comic called Blade, that sadly I did not bring home to scan the cover, especially since the Grand Comic Database only has the second issue, and it looks like it’s up to me to complete that GCD entry on the series.
Anyway, Employee Aaron and I were kind of poking through this issue, being amazed and amused at just how violent it is, and at how 90% of the book is dialogue-sparse, but the last page is nearly all word-balloons, a giant exposition dump.
Oh, and it’s all drawn by Tony Harris, who’s definitely come a long way.
Hearing some comments from the customers about there being too many Avengers titles. Not angry or upset or anything…just a sort of…bemusement and a feeling of non-surprise that this is what Marvel is doing with the relaunch. Going to have to keep a close eye on how sales go on them.
Kind of getting flooded with all the $1 sampler books DC, Marvel and Image are churning out. And some odd things are getting reprinted: sure, we can always use more Chew #1s, but not terribly sure we needed that reprint of the Free Comic Book Day Spider-Man. Ah, well, we can always give ’em away next FCBD. Or build a fort out of them.
Lots of requests lately for just plain ol’ logo t-shirts, particularly for Superman and Green Lantern, who, I understand, ain’t got nothing on me. Okay, I should probably edit that out, but I’m not going to.
Had a customer ask about a 3-D Plastic Man comic that he remembered from his childhood in the 1950s. Anyone know of such a thing? I did some quick searches here an’ there in my usual online funnybook resource haunts, and came up with nada. If you have any info, please let me know, internet pals!
Bryant Paul Johnson shows us all what he thinks that China Miéville Swamp Thing comic might have been like. (Thanks pal Dave for pointing this out to me.)
Bully the Little Stuffed Bull is the single greatest stuffed animal comics blogger on the entire nerdinet, and he proves it yet again with this…well, I say “tour de force” a lot describing Bully’s posts, but seriously, how else could you describe the genius of…“What Really Happened the Night of June 16, 1973” — God bless that Bully.
How I would have improved it: halfway through the film, Jonah Hex is whisked away from the Old West and transported into the future. C’mon, that would have been awesome.
Okay, that’s more than three links. “Three bullet points” isn’t quite as snappy. And yes, that’s a Brak Show reference. I’m not made of stone, people.
A couple of Comico’s founders, who work on the CO2 Comics site, noticed that I posted an old Comico promo kit and were, thankfully, amused by it. Also, they promise to post some other items from those early days of indie comics, which I’m looking forward to.
Due to increased interest in Jonah Hex (thanks to the movie, which hopefully won’t kill all interest in the character once it’s released), Dwayne at Matching Dragoons has put together some links to posts on his site giving newcomers plenty of background on just who this fella with the funny-lookin’ face is.
By the way, did you know that pal Ian, one of the charter members of the Associated Comics and Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs (which is, as always, ACAPCWOVCCAOE for short) is writing the new Darkwing Duck comic book from Boom! Studios, which debuted this week? Maybe if the boy wasn’t so shy and told us something about it on his Twitter feed….
But seriously, I’m totally picking this up because Ian’s a pal and…well, I said either here or on my own Twitter feed that I’ve not seen frame one of a Darkwing Duck cartoon, and my awareness of the character is primarily from seeing him on the covers of the previous comic book appearances. But I’ll give it a try anyway. And if I end up not liking it, I’ll make Ian pay me back.
QUOTES YOU WON’T SEE ON THE EVENTUAL TRADE PAPERBACK:
“…If I end up not liking it, I’ll make Ian pay me back.”
–Mike Sterling, funnybook salesman, blog dork
It does look good, based on my quick flip-through, so I imagine Ian’s pocketbook is safe. For now.
Unrepentant Smurfs fan that I am, I’m so totally looking forward to the Smurfs movie:
…in that this is part of a collection that someone dropped off at the shop:
Even though we’d since given up carrying McFarlane Toys (after too many series of selling the one figure from the set everyone wanted and having to blow out the rest of the shelf-warmers at bargain prices), I remembered that we did carry this particular “Six Faces of Madness” series, featuring such charming folks as Attila the Hun and Elizabeth Bathory. However, I did not recognize the “Accessory Pack,” which, since it says right there “Collector’s Club,” was apparently only available via mail order from the manufacturer. (The webpage for this particular item lists where you can buy (or rather, where you could buy) the toy, but I think that’s just a boilerplate for the series in general, and not this item specifically. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.)
Here’s a better look at the fine selection of tchotchkes available in this assortment:
That you get an actual chunk of a body on a stake is kind of funny in a gruesomely over-the-top way. And as a pal pointed out when I showed this to him, Attila gets kind of screwed in the accessory department. I mean, everyone else get guns or lab equipment or a custom base or…a lamppost for Jack the Ripper? Well, it’s thematically appropriate, at least, and I suppose it was either that or a piece of a prostitute. Anyway, Attila gets diddly squat. Which, you know, it’s fine. Attila’s a travelin’-light kind of guy, he doesn’t need any special treatment. I-it’s (sniff) it’s okay.
For some reason, the fact that it bounces after you makes it even more grotesquely disturbing.
By the way, Pebbles never does get to complete her sentence, there. “They’re” — what? “They’re incredibly hideous, as is implied by the name.” “They’re quite tasty when served with white wine.” “They’re afflicted with anatomically-improbable giant buck teeth that they must constantly gnaw with to wear them down, or they grow too large to allow for proper eating, and they slowly starve to death.” Alas, we may never know Pebbles’ words of wisdom.
So pal Tom F. popped by the store the other day to drop off some boxes of goodies…”hey, some of this stuff may pop up on my site” I said to him, and so not to make a liar out of me, here we are:
This is a folder of promotional material for Comico, from 1985, and if one were to open it, like, perhaps, one did in preparation for one to put together a blog post about it:
…you would see the vast array of fliers and posters and other hoohar for the discerning retailer to peruse. On the left there you can see one of the in-store “Coming This Month from Comico” handouts and the two posters, and on the right are the individual fliers for each of the series being pushed by this particular promotion, as well as a couple of letters with a brief history of the company and a detailed list of what promotional items and opportunities exist for their line of books.
Here is the included Mage poster, which brought back some nostalgic memories of seeing one of these on the wall of Ye Olde Funniebook Store:
And here is the flier for Mage, appropriately colored given the whole “Magic is Green” tagline for the series:
The other poster is for Robotech Masters, which…well, I never got into Robotech, sorry, but I’m sure someone out there will think this is neat:
And here’s a detail from the Elementals flier which amused me for no good reason I can name:
This was back in the days when Elementals was good…a very long time ago. That was one of the early “hot” indies, and those early issues used to go for a bit of cash. The Elementals first appeared in Justice Machine Annual #1, which was the only issue of Justice Machine that we ever seemed to sell.
And you can see in the pic of the open folder up there a flier for Next Man, which is apparently coming back, according to that press release. And there’s a Next Man site, which I can’t get to load at the moment.
Anyway, that was today’s installment of “Let’s Look at a Promo Package for a Defunct Publisher,” courtesy of pal Tom F. Somewhere around here I also have one for First Comics…remind me to dig that out sometime.
• • •
In other news:
As I write this, word is spreading that legendary comics artist Al Williamson has passed away. You’ll likely hear a lot about his work in the next few days, but I wanted to point out how much I loved his work for EC Comics, and how interesting it was when he inked Curt Swan on Superman stories for a brief period in the ’80s. It was a bit odd-looking, and not as sleek as you’d expect from your average Superman comic, but it sure was pretty. Also, someday, I will own his adaptation of the ’80s Flash Gordon movie, because there is no way that could be anything less than awesome.
1. I’ve mentioned it before on the site, but I really enjoy the new artwork you’d get on the covers of DC’s digest reprints from the ’70s/’80s.
2. That’s totally an extraneous “the” on Jimmy Olsen’s “Elastic Lad” costume. “THE ELASTIC LAD” doesn’t have quite the same ominous tone as “THE DARK KNIGHT.”
image from Best of DC Digest #46 (March 1984) by Howard Bender & Dick Giordano
