Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin » sir-links-a-lot

Getting an early start on tomorrow’s EoC post, so today’s post is a bit short.

Mikester — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:01:08 +0000

So Greg, on the Twitter, pointed me in the direction of a couple of message board threads in which the Gelatinous Cube is discussed: first, it is wondered what a dead Cube would look like, and lo, it is revealed. Secondly, in another thread, the supposed origin of the Gelatinous Cube is dished out.

Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, and his pal, Shelly the Little Otter Puppet, try out their new ping pong kit with adorably animated results. …Okay, not strictly speaking “comics,” but it’s awesome and you should go look anyway.

This week’s entry in pal Andrew’s ongoing Nobody’s Favorites is sure to honk off some of you. And I don’t use the phrase “honk off” lightly.

Also not comics, but pal Dorian is going to be doing in-depth looks at the work of novelist John Connolly every Monday, so if you like those mystery-type books, go check it out.

MY FIRST GELATINOUS CUBE POST FOR 2012.

Mikester — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:01:33 +0000

So Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull Who Apparently Can Work an iPad with His Little Hooves, knowing of my particular obsession with the classic Dungeons & Dragons monster the Gelatinous Cube, sent along this screenshot from the iPad game Puzzle Quest 2:

Oh, you poor, misguided warrior. There is no defeating…the Gelatinous Cube.

In other news:

Speaking of Bully, I helped him out a bit with his “366 Days of Alfred Pennyworth” project.

If you remember this Sluggo Saturday (the one with the wholly-inappropriate Dolly Parton gag I made), the folks at Boing Boing present the strip in full, and come to sort of the same conclusion I had about what was going on there. (Thanks to pal Andres for letting me know about this!)

~P~ at Sanctum Sanctorum wants you to put words in Dr. Strange’s mouth! (~P~’s example of what he’s kind of looking for is…slightly Not Safe for Work…but what are you doing goofing off at work and looking at comic book websites for anyway? Well, except for mine, of course.)

Not comics, but pal Dawn has written a book (FaeMaker: Making Fantasy Characters with Polymer Clay) and I thought I’d point that out to you folks. You might have seen her selling her wares at a San Diego Con or two, and she’s a swell gal…so please pick up her book if that sounds like something you’d be into!

Pal Dave whips out a long-awaited new installment of “This Used to Be The Future” with…The Secret Story of Ray-Gun 64!

As pal Dorian says: “Useful.”

Going dark.

Mikester — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:01:42 +0000

image from Swamp Thing #48 (May 1986) by Alan Moore & John Totleben

Learn more about PIPA and SOPA: 1 2 3

I have no idea if The Shade has “The” in its title, or if Huntress doesn’t, and I’m not going to check. So there.

Mikester — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:01:26 +0000

So Trevor A asked in a comment yesterday if I’d discuss some of DC’s post-New 52 titles and how they’re doing in this brave new retail world. The two he mentions specifically are The Shade and Huntress, and…they’re both doing…okay, I suppose, with Huntress selling just slightly better. They’re definitely at the low end of the sales scale when compared to the New 52 line…not as low as Static Shock or I, Vampire, but maybe around Voodoo levels. Not great, but they seem to be consistent from issue to issue at least, enough so that when I heard that talk about The Shade mini-series possibly getting canned halfway through, I was a bit surprised. It doesn’t seem likely now, as that would be definite egg in DC’s face if they had to cut a mini-series short so soon after their big publishing initiative.

Plus, not that I’m some big publishing marketing genius or anything, but I’d think there’d be a payoff in finishing the mini and collecting it into a trade as a companion to the Starman series it spun off from. …Which of course begs the question why they wouldn’t just go straight to graphic novel format to begin with, but that wouldn’t be a strategy they’d take with a third-stringer like the Shade, I’d imagine.

Well, that went off on a tangent a bit. So, Trevor A, what I’m trying to tell you is that those two series at least are selling okay, if not great. Other post-52 series like T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and My Greatest Adventure are selling about as well, with Penguin: Pain and Prejudice being kind of the surprise hit, necessitating multiple reorders to fill back issue requests.

In other news:

Super-Team Family presents…Swamp Thing and Man-Thing!

A new storyline over at The Rack begins with Three Days of the Con, Part One.

Tony Isabella re-presents: Watchmen 2: Rorschach’s Revenge.

REMINDER: you need more robot detectives in your life. Thus, Copernicus Jones.

Oh, right…this isn’t a link to anything, but I wanted to thank longtime reader and commenter philip (with the lowercase “p”) for dropping by the store and daring to meet me in person, thus getting to see me in my natural unshaved and mostly undyed state. I of course thanked him for his visit by prying as much money as I could out of his hands. Thanks, philip, for coming by!

Pals Dorian and Ken have another batch cooked up of those movie trailer reviews that I like so much.

Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull That Walks Like A Little Stuffed Bull, brings us all what we didn’t know we wanted, but what we definitely needed: 366 Days of Alfred Pennyworth. …It is far more than we deserve.

Also, I wanted to thank all of you for still coming back and reading my site. December was…not a great month for me, with health issues and working extra hours and just plain getting a bit burnt out, which of course affected content here. I’m feeling a lot better now, so hopefully everything will be up and running here as normal. Or whatever passes for normal. …Thanks, gang, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t specifically looking for “Swamp Thing” on Archive.org.

Mikester — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 08:01:58 +0000

So I’m still looking for your opinions on the New DC titles now that we’re a few months in and can see how everything’s shaking out at this point. I’m sure in a day or two I’ll get around to doing some kind of meta-analysis of your responses…or more likely, I’ll just directly respond to some of your comments in my trademark “writing a post for a weblog” fashion. At any rate, I’m enjoying what you’re having to say, and I look forward to more responses.

In the meantime, let’s do some linky-linky:

From a couple of years back, it’s The Christmas Chronicles of Solomon Stone, by that Chris Sims guy and the mightily-bearded Matt Digges. Free nine-page comic book download, from the folks what bring you Awesome Hospital!

Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie address the comic world’s most…troubling issue in the latest installment of The Rack.

A Comic Book Christmas Carol…a brief reminder to not give up hope just yet!

Pal Andrew makes his yearly departure from the Nobody’s Favorites column to present “Nobody Else’s Favorites” – comics pretty much only he likes. The subject of this week’s installment did have a small following at our shop…but alas, “small followings” usually don’t translate to “long shelf lives.”

Here’s another look at Diamond Previews from Pal Dave…I was kind of wondering about that Star Wars shirt myself.

I just happened across this podcast on Archive.org where the hosts discuss various swamp monsters, including, of course, Swamp Thing. And that podcast brought me to ComicMonsters.com, a news and interview site focusing on horror comics. Not sure how I’ve missed this site before, but it’s definitely bookmarked now.

FLOP VERSUS CARS.

Yes, it’s another links post…sorry, been busy.

Mikester — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:01:27 +0000

Pal Andrew’s latest Nobody’s Favorites is a series that, um, I kinda liked at the time. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve reread any of them.

(Also, this series was mentioned in one of my site’s earliest posts…specifically, my vague recollection that a one-shot wrapping up the story was announced. Never did find out if I imagined that.)

My old pal Zack is co-running a Tumblr devoted to the independent delights of the 1980s comics industry. Fantastic stuff!

Pal Dorian discusses his reexamination of some of Grant Morrison’s work, as well as other newer comics he’s been reading.

A big ol’ congrats to Bully the Little Stuffed Bull’s pal John and Bully’s other pal Randi, who just recently tied the knot! (In case you were wondering what the recent wedding posts were all about!)

Skip to my links, my darlin’.

Mikester — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:01:46 +0000

Pal Dorian presents…the Grant Morrison Bingo Card. Check it out now before it gets passed around without attribution on Tumblr.

Andrew’s latest Nobody’s Favorites entry pretty much sums up my own experience with the character.

Comiks Debris lately has been devoting a blog post per book in an ongoing review of DC’s New 52.

Sometimes you just need to take a moment and enjoy the original pencils for a Batman, Robin, and Nightwing pin-up by Curt Swan.

When I was putting together my last End of Civilization post, I came across this one thing in Previews and had no idea what it was supposed to be. Somehow I managed to completely miss this particular bit of Internet tomfoolery, but thankfully Dave is here to explain it all to me.

Seriously, this cover. (WARNING: self-link to my Tumblr thingie.)

And this is a collection of animations made from the Plastic Man cartoon show, which I’m linking here so that Former Employee Aaron will show it to his wife, who happens to be the biggest Plastic Man fan I know. Also, it is amusing, so go look even if you aren’t married to Aaron. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Halloweenish links for all you Halloweenies.

Mikester — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 07:01:46 +0000

Pal Dorian’s been looking at classic spooky movies all month with some nice analytical reviews. This particular one is finally going to get me off my duff and rent the darn thing, after being curious about some of the stills I’ve seen from this film over the years.

Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull Who Is Being Chased Through A Hall in and out of Lots of Doors While Pop Music Plays, dares to bring us Scooby Doo Week. And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for that meddling bull!

Andrew is in the midst of his Halloween Countdown, where you can find this terrible, terrible thing.

And Mag over at Comic Treadmill is counting down to the 31st with some swell scary covers. Like this fantastic one.

Artsy things pals are doing.

Mikester — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:01:09 +0000

That prolific Kevin Church cat, along with artist Sandra Lanz, just kicked off their new romance web comic Did You See Me Coming. Get in on the ground floor of a new Agreeable Comics story…”every strip a killer!”

Speaking of Agreeable Comics, don’t forget to follow the adventures of America’s favorite robot detective, Copernicus Jones, by Matt Wilson and artist of those swell Swamp Thing sketches of mine, Daniel Butler.

And speaking of both Swamp Thing and Daniel Butler, the former was featured on a t-shirt drawn by the latter for Tribe One (currently on tour with Adam Warrock)!

And I haven’t linked this strip enough…the fun-for-everyone Troop Infinity by Josh Krach and Sheli Hay!

And then there’s Awesome Hospital by Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, Matt Digges, and the already-linked Josh Krach, which is always a blast. By the way, Sims is teasing something new. Probably involves kicking.

Pal Kevin Parks presents…BAT-DOODLE.

You may now refer to me as “The Ever-Lovin’ Gray-Haired Mike.”

Mikester — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 07:01:46 +0000

The fact that there isn’t an ongoing Thing solo series with this exact title and logo:

…is a sad indication of our failure as a culture. How could a comic titled The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing not sell like gangbusters?

Also, said theoretical The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing logo would require that pic of the Thing in a circle just to the left of it at all times.

image from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1 (1976)

• • •
In other news:

I never got around to reviewing my picks from last week’s New DC #1 haul, but thankfully pal Dorian did. Dor points out something about Mr. Terrific’s name that…I hadn’t really considered. Hmm.

In case you were wondering: I picked up Batwoman, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Green Lantern, Red Lanterns, and Demon Knights. Will be back for second issues on all these. Tried Mr. Terrific, but didn’t do anything for me, sadly.

Tony Isabella presents six-part behind-the-scenes look at an Ant-Man story he did with Steve Ditko, beginning with the introduction here and the first page of the story (including original Ditko pencils!) here.
Also, at the end of this post, Mr. Isabella expands on a comment he left here, lamenting the lack of a creator credit for Jack Kirby in the new Omac series. I hadn’t noticed that lack of a credit, so shame on me for that. Another person noted that Kirby did get a credit in Demon Knights, so hopefully the same will pop up soon in Omac.

Bully, the Post-Flashpoint Little Stuffed Bull with an All-New Costume and Origin, details all those other changes made to the DC Universe you might have missed.