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"So, did you see Watchmen yet?" "I did it 35 minutes ago."

§ March 6th, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "So, did you see Watchmen yet?" "I did it 35 minutes ago."

Customer Jim has a new column up over at Comics Bulletin, in which he discusses his most recent visit to our shop and his perusal of our bargain bins. He mentions that he was saddened a bit by the discovery of an issue of the recent Spirit series in there. I thought I’d use Jim’s nice article as a springboard for some bargain bin discussion here.

Well, the vast majority of comics that are in our bargain boxes come from collections acquired at the shop. Specifically, they’re the parts of collections that are basically “thrown in” with the stuff we’re actually interested in buying, and thus not anything into which we have any real money. There’s not really anything wrong with much of this dumped material. They may simply be “mid-grade,” VG copies that are common and not terribly pricey (like those Doctor Stranges Jim mentioned), and thus not in demand by the more condition-conscious collector. Or (or perhaps, in addition) it may be that we’ve already got enough of it in stock, and it’s not worth going through the effort to add more copies into the database and put ’em away in the back.

Some of the bargain bin contents come from overstock that we’ve pulled from our own backroom, but a couple of years ago we sold a lot of that bargain bin-destined overstock in a massive bulk stock sale (which some of you may remember reading about on my site here) so we don’t have a whole lot of that any more. Not saying we couldn’t stand to make another pass through the backroom and pull more overstock out, but we’ve got plenty of dumped-collection stock to go through before I do that again.

By and large I don’t put a whole lot of very recent material in the bargain bins. Partially because I don’t customers to think “well, crud, I just paid $3.99 for this last month, and here it is for a buck,” and partially because I don’t want people to pass up buying something new on the rack in the hopes of getting it out of the bargain box a couple of months later. In other words, when issues come off the new comics rack, I’m not keeping a couple of each aside to throw in the discount box.

But occasionally I’ll dump a recent book into those boxes, maybe to encourage someone to try the series out, but mostly because, yes, I didn’t feel like going through the effort to process the book and add it into the backstock, particularly if we’ve got plenty already.

This is the case with the Spirit book. It’s not a huge seller, but it’s a consistent seller on the new rack, but with little back issue movement. As such, I don’t have any real incentive to maintain much of a backstock on the title. When we ended up with a couple of extra copies from some collection or ‘nother, into the bargain bins they went.

The bargain bin is a useful tool to turn on people to some old, cool comics, or to help us clear out some slower selling items, or to otherwise expose that portion of our customer base that doesn’t usually buy back issues to older comics at an attractive price. Plus, I have plenty of kids who come in with only a buck or two to spend, and the bargain boxes give them some old books to choose from without having to worry about paying high collectible values. If I can put some Curt Swan, Marshall Rogers, or even some Kirby into the hands of those kids, those bins have done their job.

And if they take home a few chromium/embossed Turok #1s, even better. The more of those that become Somebody Else’s Problem, the happier I am.


In other news:

  • I have to admit, I have a lot of customers very excited about the Watchmen movie, with several talking about attending the midnight showing Thursday night/Friday morning. I’m going to get a whole lot of “have you seen it yet”s over the weekend, but that’s okay.

    I imagine we’re going to see a very strong opening weekend. The second week dropoff will be what I’m interested in seeing. Reviews are middling, but the comic fans I know who have seen it have really liked it, so who knows.

    If you’re new to the material, and you need some background before seeing the film, pal Dorian can help you out. (SPOILERS at the link, if you honestly don’t know the story.)

    Basically, the point of talking about Watchmen here is to justify my using one of my Twitter posts for the subject of this entry.

  • This probably belonged in yesterday’s Swamp Thing linkapalooza, but hey, better late than never: a very familiar-looking plant creature from the 1979 2000 AD annual.
  • Here’s a drawing of me from the soon-to-be-deceased Kid Chris:


    I threw a piece of cardboard behind it so you can see that it was drawn on Superman “S”-shield-shaped paper for extra nerdiness. I find the stink lines to be a somewhat unnecessary embellishment. Although I’d totally read Frog by Day.

It’s not often I get to link to a Cookie Monster video while talking about Watchmen marketing.

§ February 19th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen § 1 Comment


So DC Comics is releasing a handful of $1.00 sampler issues to capitalize on interest in the Watchmen movie, including first issues of Preacher, Transmetropolitan, Planetary and the seemingly odd choice of Identity Crisis, along with the above pictured comic reprinting #21 of Saga of the Swamp Thing.

Now, I say “seemingly odd” because while it feels like a very “one of these things is not like the other” sort of situation, it does 1) feature DC’s major superheroes 2) in a murder mystery (which Watchmen is, among other things) 3) by a best-selling author, so I get where they’re coming from. ‘Course, while I did like Identity Crisis, it ain’t a patch on Watchmen, so I really can’t blame anyone too much for a little eye-rolling at DC’s attempt to connect the two. But, you know, can’t fault DC for trying.

The timing is a bit tragic, too, since my experience with nearly every comic book based movie aside from the first Batman film has been that movie-driven demand for the related comics almost completely vanishes as soon as the flick opens. The people DC wants to reach with these $1.00 books, which are slated to begin arriving in stores the week after the film’s release date, are coming into stores right now. I’m currently getting plenty of people in the door who aren’t regular customers looking for “this Watchmen thing.” I’ll only get a fraction as many after March 6th.

It may be a moot point anyway, since most media-driven comics demand results in sales of just that particular item being advertised. I’m no slouch at salesmanship, but by and large people coming in just to buy, say, the new Stephen King comic don’t want to buy anything else. However, given that the trade dress for these $1.00 books actually has the Watchmen logo on it, I admit that it is possible it might attract the attention of, and be an easier sale to, anyone coming in just for that book.

Anyway, we’ll see. At least I’ll get another Swamp Thing item out of this, because I really don’t have enough already. Plus, we’ll have $1.00 samplers for various graphic novels that I’ll be able to use as sales tools for the near future…and I can give them away during Free Comic Book Day, too. Heck, they cost us about as much as some of the FCBD books anyway.

In conclusion: I can use these $1.00 “After Watchmen” comics, but unless Watchmen bucks the trend and the general non-comics-fan audience continues demanding Watchmen comics after the movie’s release, those $1.00 books will primarily be additional marketing for the regular customer base.

Then again, this is Watchmen we’re talking about. It’s a graphic novel that, even 20+ years after its release, can easily outsell many brand new graphic novels, movie or no movie. Hopefully Mr. Cynical-Pants Blogger here will be pleasantly surprised.

I also wanted to note that the clock design in the “After Watchmen” logo made me laugh. Well played, sirs.


READ MORE ABOUT IT: Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, takes a look at Watchmen merchandise. Enjoy, won’t you?

If you look at only one Manga Watchmen site today…

§ January 7th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on If you look at only one Manga Watchmen site today…

make it this one.


That’s why I poke through my site’s referral logs…because sooner or later some of the trails found there will eventually lead me to sites like that. Go, enjoy manga versions of the Watchmen cast. WARNING: Manga Doctor Manhattan will break you.

Also found, poking around on that site: MANGA DARKSEID.

Other links of note:

  • Pal Dorian has finally transplanted (postmodernbarney.com) from Blogger to WordPress, and the results are quite nice-looking. That was one of my (many) broken New Year’s resolutions from last year, moving my site to WordPress, but now that Dor’s done it, I can bug him for help.
  • Stuff Geeks Love is back from the holiday hiatus. Thank goodness, since I’ve missed it.
  • Internet chum and movie endurer Ken Lowery has posted his 10 Best/5 Worst Movies list, which is good readin’, as is all of Ken’s writing over there. How good is he? He made me appreciate the film Doomsday after my initial “…the hell?” reaction.
  • I didn’t explicitly ask for predictions for the coming year in yesterday’s mile-long post, but if you want to leave some for examination next year, feel free in that post’s comments section.

    I’m probably going to hold off on making any predictions myself…well, other than someone will do something stupid that’ll cause me irritation out of proportion to the actual offense, but only because that seems to happen every year anyway.

  • Some serious stuff:

    Here’s an update on Carla and her husband Lance, injured in the recent Santa Barbara fires.

    And this is the most recent update on the murder of our longtime customer Sean. Not much new news so far, other than his employers offering a $10,000 dollar reward. I also want to note that friends of Sean’s have set up some donation jars around town to raise money for his family, including at our shop…and I’m glad to say that our customers have been very generous and giving.

    Very strange not seeing Sean at the shop this past week. Strange and sad.

In which I reach a serious level of perversity in regards to Watchmen film merchandise.

§ August 10th, 2008 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on In which I reach a serious level of perversity in regards to Watchmen film merchandise.

One of the unintended consequences of running my Things Not to Say… mini-comic a couple of days ago is that I am now getting people feeding me the “I’m very disappointed” line both in my comments sections and at the shop (and I’m totally looking at you, Brandon from the game store next door).

And, you know, that’s fine. So long as you all can deal with the guilt when I finally snap and wreak havoc throughout the county and strike terror into the hearts of its denizens, starting with poor, innocent Employee Aaron.

Anyhoo, I’m glad you all seemed to enjoy (or at least tolerate) some of my old mini-comics work. You can see a fuzzy scan of the cover of the print edition of Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin in my first anniversary post, which also has a reproduction of a letter of comment I wrote as a 12 year old, but feel free to skip that. But there’s a little more detail regarding our comics-publishing concern there, if you’re interested. And if you want to see another strip I did from those days, I posted one here three years ago…be sure to click the “page two” link for…the rest of the story.


In other (well, mostly store-related) news:

  • Watchmen appears to be available, or at least orderable, from our distributor again. But now Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is out of stock. ARGH!
  • Spent some time over the last day or so swapping out some of the promo posters from the wall and in the window…it’s always best to get those posters out of the window before they all turn the same shade of blue. I also went through our section of posters intended for retail sale and did a little maintenance, and noticed a few things:

    1. Whoo boy, nobody wants that “Brand New Day” Spider-Man/Wolverine poster.

    2. …But that “Iron Man in space” poster by Joe Quesada did very well. Thanks, popular and surprisingly-good movie!

    3. COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE POSTERS OF: The Fantastic Four. Okay, maybe more solo ones of the Thing. And I realize there are a lot more posters out there of, say, Spider-Man, but Spidey posters generally sell (the poster in point 1 excepted). FF posters, not so much.

    4. Oh good gravy, we still have that damned New Warriors poster from the early ’90s? And I actually put it in the poster rack for display? “HELLO COME LOOK AT MY ALBATROSS HANGING IN THE POSTER RACK RATHER THAN AROUND MY NECK.”

    5. I think we may be past the “sell-by” date on the couple of Matrix posters we have left.

    6. Now I’m wondering what sort of Watchmen posters we’ll get as part of the movie merchandising push. These ones, for sure, but maybe we’ll get a nice shot of Rorschach, hands on his hips, standing heroically, chest and chin thrust out, and a big blocky “RORSCHACH” logo across the poster’s bottom edge. Or maybe he can be throwing a punch at the viewer. Basically, I want the same type of posters that we got with 1997’s Batman and Robin.

  • Speaking of Watchmen merchandise, it occurred to me that we’re going to get the inevitable trading card set based on the film, and that it’ll likely feature those peculiar “own a piece of the prop/costume” cards that feature a small piece of said prop/costume cut out and embedded into the card. Dr. Manhattan’s costume cards would have to be entirely from the flashbacks (“Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a piece of Dr. Manhattan’s ‘plum-smugglers’ from the Warner Bros. film ‘Watchmen'”).*

    I thought it’d be neat if they could come up with a way to make special “Rorschach” chase cards, with a layer of black liquid floating between two thin semi-translucent pieces of white plastic…but of course, it probably wouldn’t take much for one of those to break, damaging other cards in the pack/box. Maybe some kind of heat-sensitive card…a close of up Rorschach’s mask, that looks blank until you apply some heat to it and the black patterns begin to show up.

    This is what I think about when I really should be thinking about something else. Anything else.

  • Also, judging by reaction to the idea Kid Chris and I had about a Mario Kart-style Watchmen racing game…there ain’t nobody who doesn’t want that game. “Ain’t anybody?” Well, you know what I mean…the people have spoken, and they want Giant-Headed Silk Spectre and Dr. Manhattan ‘n’ so on in their little race cars. Who could blame them?
* Okay, Dr. Manhattan’s costumes, such as they are, will likely be computer-generated, too. Unless the actor will be wearing the costume, and the “Dr. Manhattan” effect will be added to his body after the fact, or…I’m thinking too much about this.

This first bit requires very specific Watchmen knowledge.

§ July 28th, 2008 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on This first bit requires very specific Watchmen knowledge.

Former employee Kid Chris and I discuss the Watchmen video game…specifically, the racing game I was hoping for:

Kid Chris: “…So the special ability of Dr. Manhattan’s car would be teleportation, right?”

Me: “Yeah…and Rorschach’s car would…I don’t know, have a flamethrower or something.”

Kid Chris: “Or a grappling gun!”

Me: “Sure! And the Comedian’s car would have guns mounted on the hood….”

Kid Chris: “Would having Captain Metropolis in a driving game be in bad taste?”

Me: “Has that ever stopped us before?”


In other news:

  • Pal Dorian has begun Beach Party Week, which hasn’t a whole lot to do with comics, but a whole lot to do with…well, beach parties.
  • San Diego Comic Con 2008 may be over, but the pain lingers on. There’s some good coverage at Newsarama and Comic Book Resources, cataloging what happened at which panel if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.

    But for a more personal view, you can check out Bully’s reports and photos, which I’ve been plugging lately, or you can dig Kevin Church’s reports and photos. And, eventually, I’ll snag some of Employee Aaron’s photos from the event to display here.

    And Mighty Tom Spurgeon has your list of nominees and winners from this year’s Eisner Awards. That Justice League of America story with Vixen was the best single issue story of the year? Really? And I was shut out of the “Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism” award again…someday, Newsarama, someday…!

  • Had another purchase order from one of our local libraries for several hundred dollars’ worth of comic books for their children’s section. There was a little more leeway in regards to content, with more “teen”-rated superheroes being requested along with the usual mix of younger-skewing books. Iron Man, in particular, was being demanded by the patrons, so who am I to disappoint?

    Interestingly, just like last time I did this for the library, Archie Comics were singled out as books they didn’t want. None of their patrons want to read them, even for free, apparently.

The obligatory Watchmen trailer post.

§ July 18th, 2008 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on The obligatory Watchmen trailer post.


Hey, CW asked. Who am I to deny CW?

I’m sure most of you have seen the Watchmen movie trailer by now, either with the new Bat-movie (it is with the new Batman movie, isn’t it?) or online. And having watched it, I think I’m a little more optimistic about the film. It certainly looks spot on, as far as sets and such, and nearly everything presented in the trailer is recognizable as a scene right out of the comic. And now that we finally get to see Dr. Manhattan…well, he’s a little more glowy than I imagined, but that’s okay. The effect looks pretty darn good, and Manhattan’s appearance is equal parts creepy and melancholy.

So it looks good, and, judging from the trailer, it seems to be hitting the story beats. Whether it manages to capture one of Watchmen‘s primary elements (the examination/deconstruction of the superhero genre) remains to be seen, though I argued in too long a post that the appearance of the costumes may…may…infer such an examination may indeed take place.

We’ll find out eventually. But in the meantime…hey, neat trailer. The film looks like it might be watchable. And I didn’t even hate that song that was in it.

But whatever…here are the important bits I’m sure you all were wondering about, and are answered in the trailer:

1. We do seem to be getting nekkid Dr. Manhattan.

2. The blots on Rorschach’s mask do move. It’s subtle, but it’s there.

Also, the trailer ends with Laurie and Manhattan on Mars, in Doc’s floating glass castle. I’m very glad that scene’s still in the film, and I hope not too much was cut in the process of translation from page to screen.

And I still can’t believe they gave Night Owl a smart-alecky talking robot owl companion. That’s going too far.


ADDITIONAL LINKAGE: A moldy oldie from this site’s archives – compare and contrast Dr. Manhattan and Baby Huey (at the end of that day’s post).

Some Watchmen stuff.

§ April 14th, 2008 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Some Watchmen stuff.


This full-page ad appeared in Amazing Heroes #120 (July 1987)…and in the letters column of the very next issue, the publisher responsible for this ad apologized to both DC Comics and Mayfair Games (the company that held the DC role-playing game license) for any confusion this ad may have caused. Since Gateways was, I think, a role-playing game magazine, and that Mayfair was specifically mentioned in the apology, this “new Watchmen story” was probably an RPG adventure. I don’t know if the apology was for accidentally making people think there was a new Watchmen comics story, or because the adventure wasn’t authorized by DC, or whatever. I can’t find any evidence this adventure was ever released…if anyone knows better, clue me in.

“Harlot’s Curse” — the phrase presumably comes from a William Blake poem. I wonder what this lost Watchmen “story” was about?


Related Watchmen info: I’ve been trying to research the actual release dates for the mini-series. Amazing Heroes appears to list DC’s original intended release dates, as the on-sale dates are all exactly a month apart.

This helps a little, as the one issue of Watchmen I can personally tie to a specific time period is #11, which came out the same week I graduated high school (June ’87). According to the AH listings, #11 was originally due to ship March 10th. So, by that point, the series was at least three months off.

Researching release dates for a twenty-year-old comic book series: this is what I call “taking it easy for a week,” apparently.

“The watchmen cannot be made into a movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

§ March 26th, 2006 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on “The watchmen cannot be made into a movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“AICN EXCLUSIVE!! WATCHMEN Has A New Director… Again!!”

Basically a story saying the director of 300 “has entered negotiations” to helm The Film Project That Would Not Die…reactions are as follows:

“Why even call this movie WATCHMEN? Give the characters new names and tell your story. But if you aren’t going to tell Alan Moore’ story, why disrespect his characters to tell yours? Can Hollywood just keep their hands off what they can’t understand? Do Moore right or don’t do him at all.”

“The HBO 12 parter would’ve been the better route to go down in my opinion. I think the only way they’re going to come anywhere near close to showing all the detail that we want in a film version would be if they split it up and made numerous films in volumes, ala Lord Of The Rings or Kill Bill, but on a larger scale.”

“It’s just a fun topic to talk about, and we’ll be speculating about it 5 years from now, but as a feature film, it will NEVER HAPPEN! I’m taking all betters on this.”

“And maybe just maybe you could invite Alan Moore to pull his head out of his ass and help on a series adding things to make it work for television rather than cutting it for film.”

“The Watchmen should be an HBO series […] It’s the only way to tell the entire story without losing what makes it so unique. V for Vendetta, as a movie, was very good. It kept the basic ideas intact even with a complete rewrite of the 3rd act. That could never be done with The Watchmen. You’d need to tell this story over 12 one hour episodes.”

“YES! I really hope the people at HBO take notice of the material and at Warners at least considers that as an option. A 12 episode mini-series with a huge budget would be record-breaking TV.”

“Watchmen is also an oddity in that it is a rather adult story, yet adults may not shine to superheroes… and kids won’t recognize NiteOwl and can’t pronounce Ozymandias, so there goes your Happy Meal and action figure money.”

“Hmm – has anyone thought about making an HBO miniseries out of it?”

“David Caruso as Rorschach. Dennis Farina as the Comedian. Dan Aykroyd as Nite Owl. Brad Pitt as Ozymandias. Danny Devito as Dr. Manhattan. It’s just crazy enough to work!”

“The watchmen cannot be made into a movie!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both scripts that were written were an abomination to the source material….my god, they gave powers to the silk spectre!??!!!!!”

“Hey, I’ve got the perfect idea for how to do ‘Watchmen’ […] As a fucking COMIC BOOK. Leave it alone, you fucking jackals. God.”

“It doesn’t need to be a mini-series, because once you pull the short-story background stuff, the Black Freighter side-stories, and some of Moore’s more indulgent sidetracks, you have a good couple hours worth of story/mystery/social commentary that a writer can sink their teeth into.”

“the sad truth about watchmen:
(1) it was groundbreaking at the time but it hasn’t aged well – the whole ‘superheros as losers and sociopaths’ thing has the feel of a 70s downer flick; (2) it has the stupidest fucking ending ever. (3) its intrinsic lack of broad audience appeal (outside the comic book faithful) means that no studio would want to waste money bringing it to the big screen without demanding the kinds of changes that would gut the story.”

“People say that it would work best as a 12-part HBO series because IT WOULD WORK BEST AS A 12-PART HBO SERIES!”

“…This ISN’T a superhero movie it is a thriller ala Se7en or Silence of the Lambs only with superpowers.”

Be sure to read the original poster’s addendum regarding the whole “HBO series” thing:

“You can just go off and imagine your pointless masturbatory 12 hour version of the thing, and be done with it.”

Spoilers for Watchmen ahead, I guess, if you happen to be a Charlton fan.

§ April 15th, 2005 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Spoilers for Watchmen ahead, I guess, if you happen to be a Charlton fan.

As I was processing back issues today:

Me (holding a copy of Watchmen #12): “Wow, hard to believe it’s been nearly 20 years, and we’re still talking about this comic.”

Pal Dorian: “Did you ever read Watchmen and picture the original Charlton heroes in the main characters’ parts?”

M: “Oh, sure. Actually, it’s a good thing Moore didn’t use the Charlton characters as he planned…I have a feeling Watchmen would have been long forgotten if he had. Well, except for the Charlton fans bitching about what he did to ‘their’ characters.”

D: “‘Oh no! Peter Cannon’s a villain!'”

M: “‘I can’t believe they killed off the Question!'”

Who watches the Watchmen watch?

§ April 5th, 2004 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Who watches the Watchmen watch?



Here’s something else I found in my searches through some backroom boxes…a promotional poster of Watchmen merchandise, featuring Kyle Baker art, circa 1988. The products pictured in this poster were among the several problems Watchmen writer Alan Moore had with publisher DC Comics…see here for more details.

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