Wonder Woman certainly finds Green Lantern’s comic amusing.

§ May 8th, 2013 § Filed under dc comics, publishing, smurfs, this week's comics § 12 Comments


Trying to get a read on Batman’s expression on the cover, there. Bemusement? Concern? Anger? Bewilderment? Who can say.

Anyway, this is a freebie book that should be available at your local funnybook slinger emporium, spotlighting DC’s back catalog of trade collections divided up by character, imprint, panicked line-wide relaunch, kid-friendly reading, et cetera. There’s even a section spotlighting graphic novels by Alan Moore, which probably thrills him to pieces.

Of note is a section devoted to “suggested reading order” for books featuring some of their major superhero characters, which is useful since I kinda lose the thread of the Batman continuity after Final Crisis. The Superman section appears to give up on continuity order about halfway through its list, placing New 52 reprints before, like, all the pre-New 52 Superman/Batman reprints, among other things, and lumping all the non-continuity-ish books like Red Son and All-Star Superman and Birthright at the end. Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali is also near the end of the suggested reading order, when in fact it should be first in line. Heck, it should be the only Superman comic you need to read.

At the end of this book are three “blank” pages with a “NOTES” heading, in case you need to jot down your thoughts and feelings about Superman: Earth One being placed in the “25 Essential Graphic Novels” section of this freebie. The notes pages are designed to look like original art boards, which is a little strange…make sure your notes don’t result in more than about nine panels per page; you’re not George Perez.

In conclusion…I like the cover. Ryan Sook did a good job. Even Superman’s new costume is almost bearable. But surely the Justice League has better things to do than waste their time reading comic books.

Also out this week:


Okay, I figure if they make at least two more Smurfs movies, that should give us enough time, and the publisher enough incentive, to keep reprinting the Smurfs comics in U.S. editions ’til they’re caught up.

…I have big dreams.

12 Responses to “Wonder Woman certainly finds Green Lantern’s comic amusing.”

  • New 52 Superman reading Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Thats great.

  • Adam says:

    Look at that stack. Even Batman doesn’t want to read Hush.

  • CG says:

    I note that most of the worst parts of the Jim Lee redesigns are absent or obscured…

  • Old Bull Lee says:

    And they wonder why they can’t get new readers.

    “Here’s your syllabus, class. I recommend gaining a firm background in New 52 before attempting to master pre- and post-Crisis works. Edith Hamilton’s DC Universe Wiki is excellent reference material for keeping up with current changes during this course.”

  • J.W.Rollins says:

    Smurfy.

  • Why does Aquaman need to hold his trident to read?

  • I was a pretty big Smurf fan back when I was a kid, but I can’t say I remember Slacker Smurf.

  • Tenzil Kem, Esq. says:

    I think a lot of fans were hoping that these reading orders would clarify some of the continuity issues of the New 52, but they instead seem to indicate that DC hasn’t figured out what of the old continuity survived. Final Crisis is still in continuity (at least for Batman), but there’s no mention of Crisis on Infinite Earths or Infinite Crisis in any of the reading orders so I guess they are no longer in continuity. The Flash reading order is interesting, as the three Geoff Johns omnibus books starring Wally West are listed even though Wally doesn’t exist in the New 52. I guess that’s a perk of being the CCO of DC.

    What irritates me the most, as a retailer, is the inclusion of some trades which are long out of print. For example, the Secret Six Depths tpb has been unavailable from Diamond and DC for at least six months, and copies of this $14.99 trade have been selling for $50-100 on ebay. I hope its inclusion in this backlist means that this underrated Gail Simone series will get another printing, but it’s probably just a mistake.

  • David Z. says:

    Tenzil: my theory about Secret Six was that they let it go out of print last year so that non-regular-readers were less likely to stumble across it if they wandered into a comic shop after seeing Dark Knight Rises and wanted comics featuring Bane. By that reasoning, it’s probably safe to bring them back now. Of course, I’m no expert so I could be completely off-base.

  • Tenzil Kem, Esq. says:

    Well, I talked to our DC rep earlier today, and I attempted to order 5 copies of Depths. He explained that those were long gone, so I asked if a new printing was forthcoming given its listing in the backlist catalog. He seemed shocked that it was listed in the catalog and said that it should not have been included.

    I still think Gail Simone should have used some of her influence after getting rehired on Batgirl to get the Secret Six trades reprinted for the additional royalties. Those trades were some of our top sellers, right there with the Walking Dead stuff, while they were available. That fact probably says something about our customer base, but I’m not going to say it.

    David: I personally think it’s a New 52 thing. Secret Six was cancelled because of the New 52, and for a while it seemed that DC was only interested in the New 52 stuff. The books that don’t fit into the New 52, like Secret Six or the Stephanie Brown Batgirl, were allowed to go out of print and are now fetching insane prices on the secondary market.

  • Snark Shark says:

    “Why does Aquaman need to hold his trident to read?”

    If you had a trident that big, you’d hold it all the time, too!

  • Frankie23 says:

    After The Smurflings, Papercutz are releasing The Aerosmurf in August, and that’ll be all of the original Peyo albums. I ahven’t read any of the ones made after his death, and it’d be nice if those came out, but I’ll be happy just by having all the originals.