I’m not entirely sure this qualifies as a happy ending.
…Creepy, maybe.
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…Creepy, maybe.
Presenting the least-threatening werewolf of all time.
Ain’t he the cutest? Especially his little slippers.
images from The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #47 (September 1974) by Jack Daniels and Steve Ditko
And now, this guy.
BONUS – this dog:
images from Ghostly Tales #168 (August 1984) and The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves #48 (November 1974)
Please do not block the manga rack.
So yesterday I witnessed the joining in holy matrimony of Employee Aaron and his former-fiancée-now-wife Kempo. Yup, it’s finally done…the two of them are hitched but good. And I saw it with my very own eyes. Now they’re off on their honeymoon, and I hope those crazy kids have a good time.
Yesterday was also Free Comic Book Day…and “Spoil the Post-Credits Scene of Thor for Mike” Day, but let’s not get into that…which, as I’ve mentioned before, meant that I had to take off for an hour or two to witness the wedding shenanigans. Which also meant shedding my usual in-store fancy dress for even fancier dress, and if you were lucky enough to pop into the shop in the late afternoon after my return from the ceremony, you were greeted by this handsome bastard:
Yeah, that’s right…drink it in. (Thanks to pal Kevin for taking the pic and working his halftone ‘n’ caption magic upon it.)
As for the FCBD event itself…it was certainly wall-to-wall people nearly the entire day (including the couple of hours I was gone, I’d been told), and the prepared prepacks of freebies, of which I’d put together a lot, and I thought would easily last us ’til I got back to the shop about 3-ish in the afternoon…were entirely gone by the time I’d returned. We ordered huge numbers, and still we were run nearly dry of the 2011 offerings. We had leftovers from previous years that were put back out, plus I ended up grabbing some of the recent $1 reprint books from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and others to throw on the freebie tables as well.
If you want to check out some of our set-up, pal Andres (who helped out most of the day, and stood in as Fake Mike while I was gone) took a few pictures of the prepping-in-progress. …And yeah, we had a handful of mighty stacks of a few freebies from previous years, for some reason. Ah, well, it happens. At least those stacks are somewhat smaller now.
Ultimately, once again, assisted by a small in-store graphic novel discount sale, we made back the money spent in purchasing the FCBD books, and pulled in a profit besides. Plus, I got to see a handful of old customers I haven’t seen for a while, lured in by the siren call of the free funnybook, and that was nice.
I don’t know that I have any specific “FCBD Report” beyond this, given that when I was at the shop, I was mostly fielding question from folks looking for back issues or graphic novel recommendations, while Andres and a few other brave souls handling the distribution of the freebies. No problems, no hassles, just a lot of comics given away and a lot of happy customers.
Of course, like every year during FCBD, there’s always somebody who wants to go through the porn comics. Doesn’t it figure.
But anyway, the Free Comic Book Day madness is over, and now I can look forward to a nice, relaxed Sunday at the shop, where we’ll just be having…a Magic the Gathering prerelease tournament?
Satan Saturday #1.
HIS FASHION SENSE
from Haunted #10 (January 1973) by Warren Satter
Free comics and no-longer-free men.
Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day, you may have heard, so drag your carcass into your local participating funnybook store and ask for…nay, demand…your free comic books!
Pal Dorian has his annual report on what’s hot and what’s not for FCBD, and Chris “The Simsinator” Sims picks the best and worst for this year.
I mentioned before that my favorite this year was probably Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse from Fantagraphics, featuring some classic newspaper dailies by Floyd Gottfredson. And Drawn and Quarterly’s John Stanley’s Summer Fun reprints a nice selection of Stanley’s work, including a Tubby story and a Nancy story (but alas, no Sluggo aside from an appearance on a puzzle page).
Bongo Comics Free-for-All includes Simpsons stories by Sergio Aragones and Evan Dorkin, so already you’re in for some good readin’. Plus, it leads off with a Ralph Wiggum story, and I know you guys like the Ralph Wiggum. Pretty sure this is all reprinted from previously-published comics, too, but it’s a solid assortment.
Marvel provides an all-new story featuring Captain America and Thor, by the Thor: The Mighty Avenger creative team of Roger Landridge and Chris Samnee. Cap and Thor fight Loki over the Holy Grail, and it’s fast-paced, light-hearted, and a lot of fun.
Elric: The Balance Lost from Dark Horse (by Chris Roberson, Francesco Biagini, and Stephen Dowler) isn’t really for me, since I’m fairly indifferent to the character, but I can recognize this as a nicely done effort. The story gives a brief overview of just what Elric’s deal is, and the back-up material presents a look at Elric’s funnybook history, along with some sketchbook pages.
If you’re looking for this year’s Owly freebie, he’s featured in one of the stories in Top Shelf Kids Club, along with a short Johnny Boo story by James Kochalka and other kid-friendly strips. Worth a look.
The Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Predators/Top 10 Deadliest Sharks flip-comic is a bit peculiar, but I’ll bet kids will love it. Bloody shark attacks and fightin’ dinosaurs? Of course they’ll love it. Anyone over the age of 10 might not be quite as into it, however.
Pal Ian gets his own FCBD flip-book, with Darkwing Duck and Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, featuring his scripts, being this year’s freebie from Boom! Studios. If you wanted to see what Ian’s been up to since he stopped blogging and started doing something productive, here you go!
Dark Horse went the flip-book route as well: one side has Criminal Macabre, which doesn’t really do anything for me, but the other side, Baltimore (another of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s supernatural suspense properties), is a short and pleasantly-creepy vampire story.
While I’m glad Archie does a FCBD book every year, it seems like the art in this year’s installment is a bit…rough-hewn? I guess? I’m not a regular Archie reader nowadays, given my preference for Archie material from the ’60s and earlier, but do current Archie comics usually look like this? I mean, it’s bright and colorful and I suppose it’s appealing enough, but it’s not really a patch on Dan DeCarlo’s work. But then, what is?
DC’s Green Lantern Special Edition is a bit unfortunate…one chapter from the Green Lantern “Secret Origin” storyline, and a brief preview of the Flashpoint event that doesn’t make it look very appealing. DC’s other book this year, the Young Justice/Batman The Brave and the Bold sampler, is better, more due to the Batman half than the Young Justice half. Though, given the apparent popularity of the YJ cartoon, this will probably go over well with kids.
The Tick comic for this year is 7 pages of comics, and the rest text-heavy encyclopedic entries for the cast, which seems like an odd choice to make. But who knows, maybe someone will be intrigued enough by one of the entries to ask for more comics featuring that character. And there is that portion of the comic-reading audience that loves detailed character rosters like this.
Overstreet Guide to Collecting Comics 2011 – once again, point of the day successfully missed. Lots of people writing about things that I don’t know anyone coming into shops to get free comics is going to care about. But again, you never know what’s gonna trigger someone’s interest in comics.
Anyway, that’s just a few of the FCBD offering coming out this year. Like I noted above, check out Dor and Chris for more detailed overviews. And if you want to read more about the actual process of Free Comic Book Day, just read my posts tagged “Free Comic Book Day” and watch history unfurl before your very eyes!
Reminder: employee Aaron and his lovely fiancée Kempo are getting married tomorrow as well, necessitating my brief departure from the shop and my fervent hope that nothing disastrous happens during that time. At the shop, I mean. Not at the wedding. Though I hope nothing disastrous happens there, either. However, former employee Jeff will be at the wedding, too, so who knows.
Everyone out there, please give Aaron and Kempo your best wishes for their wedding day, as I certainly do. Also, I totally plan on calling Aaron repeatedly during his honeymoon to ask him ridiculous work-related questions. “Hey, do you remember what Superman’s secret identity is?” You know, stuff like that.
If Ragdoll existed in real life, he probably would look just that creepy.
So hey, the final cover by Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes for Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #1 has been revealed with the previously blacked-out figures now not blacked-out, and they are revealed to be…
…John Constantine and Zatanna! Well, I can see why they blacked out Constantine, since he was the big surprise reveal at the end of Brightest Day #24 (er…SPOILER), but not so sure why Zatanna was kept under wraps. Ah, well, I’m sure they had their reasons.
And in DC’s ongoing quest to part me from my money by forcing me…yes, forcing, at gunpoint…to buy two copies of the same damned thing, here’s the limited retailer incentive variant cover by J.G. Jones for said #1:
Well…okay, that’s pretty good. Kinda prefer this one to the regular cover. But it doesn’t matter because I’m getting both, regardless.
That first cover is fairly amusing, though, with dour ol’ Batman, Superman and Zatanna pulling their best sourpuss faces, with John lightin’ up a smoke right there in front of them. Just the idea of Constantine pulling his irreverent “I’m gonna jerk you guys around and you won’t even realize it” routine on DC’s superfellas (and gals) sounds like fun. Let’s hope it is.
This put me in the mind of other times Constantine kinda sorta met Superman and Batman…he’s met Zatanna plenty of times, of course, since she’s a bit easier to fit into Constantine’s milieu. But to squeeze Batman and Superman together with our favorite Hellblazer, one must look back to the mid-1980s and Crisis on Infinite Earths:
That’s from Swamp Thing #46 (March 1986), and I think this is the only time Batman, Superman and Constantine appear together in the same image ’til that cover up above. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
Of course, they’re not really interacting there at all. They just happen to be in the same room during that scene shown in Crisis on Infinite Earths #5, where several dozen characters are gathered together on the Monitor’s satellite. (Constantine doesn’t seem to actually be in that two-page group shot in Crisis #5, though Swamp Thing is. NOTE: I’m also bad at “Where’s Waldo,” so don’t take my word for it.) However, a couple of issues earlier, Constantine and former Doom Patrol associate Mento (whom Constantine is manipulating toward his own ends) run into a familiar Caped Crusader during the early stages of the Crisis:
I don’t know why I find this funny, but after Batman makes his “well, nice to meet you, but I gots things to do, kids” parting remarks, there’s this great panel of Batman running away:
That shot of Batman putting on his “I’m thinking really hard” face is a good one, too.
UNRELATED except for the fact that this is from one of the Swamp Thing comics I was scanning pics from: in #46 we see all the heroes (plus Swampy and John) called together by Alexander Luthor, the son of the Earth-3 Luthor (and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask someone old to explain it to you), and Swamp Thing has this reaction to hearing the name:
Now, I don’t know if this is one of these things I’ve noticed before but it’s been so long since I’ve reread these I’ve forgotten, or that I just picked up on it now, but Swampy’s “premonition” is apparently of his seeming “death” a few months later in #53, in which Lex Luthor (of Earth One, or Post-Crisis Earth, or whatever you want to call it) was involved.
Or possibly the premonition was foreshadowing that, 20 years later in the Infinite Crisis crossover event series, Alexander Luthor would turn into a complete asshole. …Hey, given Alan Moore’s dabbling in the magical realms, I wouldn’t put it past him foreseeing this.
panels from Swamp Thing #44 (January 1986) by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, Ron Randall and John Totleben; and Swamp Thing #46 (March 1986) by Moore, Bissette and Totleben
I can stand a little amusement right now.
Going to keep it short today, much to your relief I’m sure, and just list three things that never fail to amuse me:
- Pal Dorian’s “Flop” posts.
- Buddy Bradley’s new(-ish) “look” in the Hate annuals.
- Nobody’s Favorites. (Also: happy blogiversary, Andrew!)
And now, a sneak peek at Swamp Thing’s new costume.
Oh, okay, not really. Actually, this is a drawing by one of my favorite cartoonists, Scott Saavedra, who was good enough to send the original art my way many years ago. Turns out I never posted it on my site in all this time, and the image doesn’t appear to be up on Scott’s site anymore, so…here you go. Pretty awesome, I think. (It says “Swamp Gas Gun” on the swamp gas gun he’s holding there, in case you can’t make it out.)
In other cool drawin’ news, Ming Doyle, artist of the swell webcomic The Loneliest Astronauts (written by close personal friend Kevin Church), drew this fantastic Nancy and Sluggo sketch that will forever change your perception of the characters. Forever, I say.
“Oh, look, he’s going on about Swamp Thing again.”
(SPOILERS AHOY for Brightest Day #24 in today’s post, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
So in reading about Swamp Thing’s return in Brightest Day #24, you know what bugged me the most? Yeah, that’s right, Swampy’s word balloons:
This is definitely me wearing my fanboy hat, but I much prefer the ol’ jagged-edge orange balloons:
I suppose the green ‘n’ brown colors are more earthy in tone, and at least they’ve kept the ellipses-laden pauses, but it’s gonna a bit before I’m used to it. And on the other hand, they’ve brought Swamp Thing back, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.
It is fun seeing Swamp Thing fully back in the regular superheroic DC Universe again, and I have to admit I had bit of a stupid grin on my face reading the panel where Firestorm, Aquaman et al are (re-)introducing themselves to him. And hey, I just realized, in this issue we finally got our Swamp Thing/Hawkman confrontation promised at the end of Swamp Thing #24 (1976). (As opposed to Swamp Thing just fighting some random Thanagarians, of course.)
Another nice fanboy element for me was seeing the resurrection of Alec Holland in that full-page image, but it does lead into the question of just what is going on with Swamp Thing, here. Okay, I originally had written out a blow-by-blow description of what happened in Brightest Day #24, but let’s keep it simple. It looks like we’ve gone from Swamp Thing being based on a template provided by the deceased Holland’s memories (as retconned by Alan Moore in Saga of the Swamp Thing #21) and have since switched to the revived Alec Holland being absorbed by The Green and actually becoming Swamp Thing (which is basically how it is described in the text itself). Or The Green just up and killed Holland and “reinfected” itself with his memories like last time, which, frankly, seems a bit harsh.
And did I say “simple?” Er, sorry about that.
Regardless, it’s emphasized several times that the White Lantern-revived Alec Holland only has memories up ’til his original murder way back in Swamp Thing #1, so is this revived Swamp Thing basically starting from scratch, with no recollection of all the hoohar that followed his original transformation? Or is there some kind of “back-up” memory in The Green that was fed into Swamp Thing following his revival, which seems likely since he’s whipping out a lot of his Plant Elemental superpowers schtick in this issue. And are we back to the original premise of Alec Holland being a man trapped in a monster’s body, and not just a plant thinking it’s Alec Holland? Are these the kind of things a grown man like me should be obsessing over?
I suspect these are the questions to be answered in the forthcoming Search for Swamp Thing series, which reminds me…there was apparently some consternation regarding what Swamp Thing was getting up to at the end of the issue. In particular, considering what he says here regarding folks who are harming the environment:
…which he seems to do in some executive boardroom, where Swamp Thing appears to be straight-up killing people:
…which alarmed some readers, I noticed, but given the context of its presentation, it’s pretty clear this is just a set-up for future events (i.e. the previously-mentioned Search for Swamp Thing), like the issue’s multiple epilogues preceding this one for other characters in the series. Clearly something is wrong, and even Special Other Guest Star Who We Thought Would Only Appear in The Vertigo Imprint but Here He Is in The DC Universe John Constantine seems to think this wasn’t actually the handiwork of our pal Swamp Thing:
Have I mentioned there were SPOILERS in this post?
There were also some noting that this Constantine looks a lot younger and and lot more…um, thumbed than his Vertigo counterpart, not reflecting his more recent adventures. And you know, that’s okay. If Marvel Comics can have their MAX imprint Punisher and their Marvel Universe Punisher, and never the twain shall meet, then I think we can have Vertigo Constantine (and Swampy) and DCU Constantine (and also Swampy) with their own distinct continuities. Or distinct when convenient, of course.
But all in all, I finally got what I was asking for…a return of Swamp Thing to the regular DC Universe. Hopefully this won’t end up being a case of “being careful what you wish for,” but we’ll see how it goes.
