Your 2023 Predictions, Part Four: Over Hill and Under Hill.

§ January 17th, 2024 § Filed under predictions § 15 Comments

Lessee how we all did with your 2023 comic industry predictions (and get in your guesses for 2024 before too much 2024 gets by us)! Previous installments: 1 2 3.

• • •

Xanadude did decree

“1) Rob Liefeld will tour comic shops to promote Deadpool: Badder Blood, and will use that as an excuse as the reason his magnum opus Heirborn is ‘delayed.’ Similarly, ‘The Defiants’ will never go beyond the NFTs that have already been produced. Backers will still be waiting for copies of their crowd funded ‘Brigade’ comic.”

Well, that’s a lot to unpack. Liefeld did do some signings over the last year, and it looks like it was mostly as cons, big and not-so-big. I don’t know if he’s said that’s contributed to any delays of his work, but the only Heirborne thing I found was apparently a short story included in the Brigade Remastered special edition released a couple of months ago.

Okay, The Defiants NFT…hoo boy. NFTs are…not my thing, and I’m not sure what’s going on with this. I Googled around and found lots of news stories about The Defiants comic coming out, but not any that I could see that it had come out. Looking at the place where this NFT is obtainable, I guess, it looks like you can buy things related to the comic, and there’s a listed owner of one of the items with a sale price of over $7000, and I don’t know, it all looks like nonsense to me. Anyway, I think this is all there is of The Defiants, as Xanadude says.

And here’s the listing for the Brigade Kickstarter. It was successful, bringing in twice the money asked for. I’m not sure what to make of this, as Rob’s updates say “I’M SHIPPING OUT MORE BOOKS!” and the comments are all “it’s been 10 years where’s out books” like within the last few weeks. And a general online search shows a lot of unhappy people regarding this thing. Did anyone get their Kickstartered Brigade book?

“2) Dan Didio will be removed/quit from the Frank Miller comic book line.”

Still there, far as I know! YOU CAN’T DEFEAT THE DIDIO

“3) Archie will see a spike in sales of their digest comics with the integration of their superheroes into them.”

I don’t know overall, but I haven’t had any additional interest in the Archie digests at the shop. I don’t know if the extra superhero content is enough to boost interest beyond a very, very niche market (sorry, Sean!).

• • •

Bob Stec sticks in the following

“1) The success of Marvel’s Silver Age omnibi 1962 and 1963 will be copied by DC with similar Golden Age omnibi 1938, 1939, and 1942”

No, not that I’ve seen. Though I flashed on the very possibility of a Scribbly omnibus and I may have wept a little.

“2) Mark Russell will be groomed to follow in Chip Zdarsky’s footsteps and take over a major title like Batman or Spider-Man”

I bet it’ll happen eventually, but not yet. Mark Russell Spider-Man would be amazing (so to speak).

“3) Team-Up books will make a comeback because DC is running out of new Batman title concepts and, eh, the Brave and the Bold relaunch seemed like a good idea at an editorial retreat; Marvel will quickly copy this with their own relaunch of Marvel Team-Up…written by Mark Russell (did you see what I did there?)…”

Well, we did get Brave and the Bold, which I don’t believe is a straight up team-up book like the original series, but other characters from the DCU definitely show up, so close enough. And I would absolutely read a Mark Russel Marvel Team-Up, which would be absolutely wild.

• • •

Kurt Onstad speeds his way in with

“1. My second podcast (Gothamites, with Carla Hoffman) will have released at least one episode, hopefully closer to 30 or 40 by the end of the year.”

Very very sneaky, trying to get me to plug your new podcast Gothamites here on my site. I refuse to acknowledge your podcast Gothamites here, or that it’s reached nearly two dozen episodes by the end of 2023, or that Gothamites is hosted by two people I know personally. This blatant Gothamites promotion will not stand, and I won’t have it!

“2. DC will have already undone some of the changes they introduced with ‘Dawn of DC.'”

I don’t know, did they really do that many significant changes with Dawn of DC, aside from pulling back from the whole “THE MULTIVERSE IS GOING TO EXPLODE, ALSO THE MULTIVERSE IS BACK” plotlines from the last couple of years? I don’t believe they’re in backtracking mode just yet, but give it another year or so when sales start to flag again.

“3. Marvel movies will continue to make all of the money ever, and yet YouTubers will declare that they are failing because they are ‘woke.'”

Mmmmmmm Marvel movies, and superhero movies in general, kinda hit a wall this past year, through a combination of burnout, waiting for streaming, new movie-going habits encouraged by both streaming and COVID, and (as I saw someone suggest) Avengers: Endgame functioning as a “jumping-off” point for at least the Marvel franchise. (“Oh, they’re still making Marvel movies? I thought Endgame was, you know, the end.”)

And there are other reasons, but I’m fairly certain none of the actual reasons are “they’ve gone ‘woke,'” given (as I’ve said before) that the Barbie movie was woker than a woke thing that was awake and it made a billion bucks.

A couple Marvel movies did do well…Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (last installment in a beloved series that’s suffiencely different from the rest of the MCU) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (a stylish animated film, following up a previous installment, oh and also fills most bozos’ definition, as much as they have one, of “woke”). But I think we’re definitely at a point where maaaaaybe throwing a super-flick at the big screen every couple of months is no longer sustainable? And makes them no longer special? Hell, I don’t know, I’m just a dude that runs a comic shop. And definitely doesn’t listen to Gothamites, the premiere Gotham TV show review podcast.

• • •

Lain lines these up

“1. Watchmen will somehow be removed from, and then added back into, the mainline DC storyline universe in the same year.”

Well…outside of Cleopatra “Nostalgia” Pak from Doomsday Clock showing up in the New Golden Age one-shot in late 2022, I think that may have been it for Watchmen stuff of late. Again, I don’t read everything, so maybe something got past me (which would be annoying, since I’m trying to follow all of DC’s misguided rejiggerings of Watchmen out of perverse fascination. So I think for the most part the whole Watchmen thing isn’t explicitly out so much as being ignored while the “Dawn of DC” publishing initiative continues.

“2. Crunchyroll will buy a major american manga publisher, and proudly announce they are selling volumes that are translated entirely by AI.”

I don’t think Crunchyroll purchased any manga companies, but one publisher did announce their usage of A.I. translation which went over as well as you’d expect.

“3. One of those celebrity likeness parody comics will make a comic about God King Trump that involves an ‘accidental’ call to action of violence against the sitting president so blatant it will have to be recalled.”

Well, I know this didn’t happen because I didn’t get an endless parade of phone calls and in-store visits from people I’ve never seen before demanding copies of it. Which is good because I wouldn’t have ordered enough to go around, given my usual orders on things like this is exactly zero copies.

• • •

Gareth Wilson presents

“1) As research for a comic about British politics, Kieron Gillen will create a new real-world political party in the UK, which will be surprisingly popular.”

I’m going to say “no,” even though since my knowledge of British politics is generally limited to occasionally seeing on TV people on opposite sides of a room boisterously shouting at each other, this could have happened and I’d have no idea.

“2) A major comics publisher will announce that they will no longer include named characters who are police officers.”

Huh, that’d certainly be a step to take, but I don’t think anyone’s made it yet.

“3) An MCU streaming series will be referred to as the ‘Marvel Andor’ by more than one reviewer, but this phrase will be controversial.”

No, a new Howard the Duck series hasn’t shown up on Disney+ yet.

• • •

It just isn’t a prediction review post here at Progressive Ruin Industries unless googum shows up to googum his guesses

“1. With DC films in a regrouping/rebuilding phase, somebody is going to try and grab that #2 spot for comic book movies. Spawn seems most likely to make a serious try for it.”

I feel like everyone’s now in the “let’s see how the comic movies thing shakes out” mode, letting others lose millions before they try anything. Which reminds me, whatever happened with whoever it was getting the media rights to the Seaboard/Atlas characters? Where’s my Grim Ghost movie? Or Morlock 2001?

“2. Despite selling a mess of copies, the new Batman/Spawn thing doesn’t open the doors for new crossovers. Maybe the opposite, if the corporate owners feel those promote somebody else over them.”

Yeah, it did sell pretty well, but no other Big Team-Ups along those lines have really popped up. I’m sure there’s probably a small one here or there I’m forgetting, but not, like, “Spider-Man/Spawn by Todd McFarlane” which would sell more copies than the Bible. Oh, wait, there’s that Justice League/Godzilla/King Kong thing, but that’s not quite the same.

“3. Marvel goes back to the well with this year’s big crossover, making a direct sequel to an old one, like Acts of Vengeance II or something. Maybe not that hacky…maybe that hacky. Eh, probably still a few good ones in there.”

What did we have this year, G.O.D.S.? I think this was mostly its own thing. Have we had an “Evolutionary War II” yet? That’s a good one to try.

• • •

And that’s enough for now. Don’t worry folks, I’ve only got a couple more of these to go, so if you’re already sick of them, just hang in there! Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you on Friday!

Your 2023 Predictions, Part Three: A Short Rest.

§ January 15th, 2024 § Filed under predictions § 7 Comments

We’re well on our way looking at your 2023 comic industry predictions (previously: parts 1 and 2), so let’s see how you did!

(And get in your 2024 predictions, too!)

• • •

MisterJayEm smokes up the following

“1) Someone on Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s disastrous team will turn their evil eye towards D.C. Comics… Nothing good will follow.”

Not yet, far as I’ve heard. The publishing end of DC is still well below the threshold of notice for the Eye of Zaslav. I mean, sooner or later he’s gonna want to free up five or ten bucks and will eventually cut DC down to a Batman reprint house, so we’ll see.

“2) Someone at Hearst Communications will realize that there is untapped value in the Thimble Theatre Cinematic Universe.”

WIMPY: THE MOVIE hasn’t been announced yet, but at least we’re still getting great new Sunday strips by Randy Milholland, which are great!

“3) Writers and artists will continue to craft wonderful creations without regard to the demands of corporations. (At least I *hope* so!)”

Nope, sorry, Disney has bought all comics, past, present and future. Ed the Happy Clown is now a Disney Princess. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

• • •

Here comes Customer Sean with some very exact guesses for the past year

“1. Disney will buy the rights to The Micronauts and Rom Space Knight from Hasbro (or whoever the current owner is) so that they can be integrated into the MCU. Failing that, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania will have cameos by quasi-Micronauts re-branded with different character names and/or a different team name like the ‘Quantum Knights’–and/or characters that Marvel already owns including Arcturus Rann, Marionette, and Bug will appear and possibly be spun off into a future Quantum Realm film.”

Well, I don’t know how you did it, but in May of 2023 Marvel reacquired the rights to ROM and the Micronauts. However, it wasn’t to shove ’em back into the Marvel Universe with new stories, but rather to be able to reprint all that old material. Big ol’ omnibuses are coming, reprints of the first issues of both series have been released, and Marvel put out a thick comic reprinting ROM/X-Men crossover stuff.

That said, there is some new ROM material, in the form of (of course) variant covers:


So make your own stories, I suppose.

I haven’t finished watching that new Ant-Man/Wasp movie yet, so no idea if that prediction came true. I haven’t heard about it , so I’m guessing “no….” As far as those Mironauts character Marvel actually owns…once we get a little closer to the omnibus release maybe they’ll pop up somewhere!

“2. Archie Comics will publish more one-shots or limited series featuring its Golden and Silver Age superheroes. This might include another Bob Phantom comic, more The Fox comics, more Black Hood comics and possibly a Golden Age Shield comic, as well as another go at The Mighty Crusaders.”

Well, the only thing I could find was a one-shot featuring the Golden Age Archie/MLJ character Madame Satan. I suspect other old-timey Archie superhero characters (not to be confused with Archie Superheroes) turned up in the many digest releases, but I didn’t check all those.

OKAY FINE I checked one digest, and the Jaguar is in there along with the Riverdale gang, so there you are.

“3. Dynamite Comics will acquire the license to The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (since IDW hasn’t been publishing any new T. A. material) and Dan Jurgens will write it and Jerry Ordway will draw it and it will be a faithful continuation of Wally Wood’s original vision: set during the 1960s and possessed of a certain kitsch charm.”

No word on new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents that I’ve seen, and I don’t expect any new material in the near future given it seems like such a hard sell in the modern comics market. Not sure why, really, aside from maybe just a general resistance to superhero properties outside the Big Two’s roster.

• • •

DK Definitely Kontributed these predictions

“1. The Squadron Supreme will make their live-action debut in a MCU property.”

I don’t believe any of that particular group of characters has turned up or been referenced in any of the live action stuff. I think an adaptation of the Mark Gruenwald series would be fun, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

“2. DC Comics is going to have massive layoffs/restructuring as they are blamed for the underperformance of the DCEU. WB’s thought process will be ‘why are we paying for an IP factory when the output is bad?'”

Nothing quite as drastic as the 2020 layoffs happened, best to my knowledge. So far it looks like the publishing end has avoided being the scapegoat, since the mindset is probably still “we can make real money on this stuff eventually.”

“3. A Watchmen character is going to be a regular, recurring character in a mainstream DC book in 2023. Not Doomsday Clock, OG Watchmen.”

I honestly expected something like this to happen. My much repeated joke of “Rorschach Team-Up” is only sorta half-joking.

The spin-off characters (Nostalgia and (cough) The Watchman) may be more likely to appear, and maybe through them we’ll get some folks from the original Watchmen. I mean, who’s left? Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, right?

• • •

Joe Gualtieri keeps it short but sweet with

“1. Diamond will go under, and take a health percentage of comic stores with it.”

Not yet! I would guess that before that happens, we’ll have enough publishers setting up alternative means of distribution so that when it does happen, the deleterious effect it would have on the industry would be minimized. Not looking forward to it, either way.

“2. The Ezra Miller Flash film bombs, hard.”

There’s a solid “gimme!” Box Office Mojo puts its total worldwide take at $271 million versus its reported production budget of about $300 million, which doesn’t even count the marketing costs. Hoo boy, Zaslav sure picked the wrong superhero film to dump for a tqx break.

“3. Image joins Lunar.”

It sure did. Like Marvel and a few other publishers who set up shop outside of Diamond, Image isn’t exclusive to Lunar, but still that’s probably a good chunk of business taken away from the former One Distributor to Rule Them All. I personally have said losing Image would be Diamond’s death knell, but nope, they’re still hanging in there. Until Lunar takes away their stranglehold on the sexy Japanese schoolgirl PVC statues, anyway.

• • •

Cassandra Miller lives up to her name with

“1. Dawn of DC leads to a spike in sales that will not be sustainable. Numbers will fall back to where they were within the first 4 months.”

I haven’t found reliable information on sales numbers, but at my store we had a small bump on some ongoing titles (like the Superman books) while interest in lessened in new series (like the Green Arrow relaunch). So, no really huge highs, but things mostly going along in a stable and expected fashion.

“2. Jason Aaron will announce he’s writing a book for DC before the end of 2023.”

He sure did…speaking of the Superman line, his first issue of Action did quite well!

“3. With the movie imminent, there will be a lot of talk about a new Legion book. It will not happen.”

Are we talking about the animated movie? It was kind of terrible and DC didn’t even try to capitalize on it anyway, which was just as well.

• • •

Jeff R reveals

“1.Mad Jim Jaspers is the main threat in a cosmic-level marvel comics crossover.”

Apparently he turned up as recently as X of Swords but doesn’t appear to have had much to do of late. Not that I’m a big X-Men guy, but I did like the character from the bits I’ve read of him. My Googling also turned up this “Jim Jaspers Vs. Mr. Mxyzptlk” discussion in case you’re interested. And why wouldn’t you be?

“2. The Legion of Superheroes doesn’t get an ongoing book despite successful miniseries and features on TV and movies (the movie part probably not until 2024 but the hype train will be up and running.)”

No Legion for nobody, alas. A middling cartoon movie and a guest-appearance in Green Arrow and that’s all we got. Look, someday I’ll get my in at DC and write the Bouncing Boy solo series, just you wait. (And will he have a mustache? Darn tootin’ he will.)

“3. For the 35th anniversary Neil and DC do a Sandman comic miniseries, Dreams of Krypton which uses that frame to show some of the untold stories of the history of the Endless.”

Ooh, I would’ve liked that. Didn’t happen, alas. Look, Neil’s got his hands full trying to do more Miracleman, let’s not get him on a second comic book series just yet.

• • •

And that’s enough for now. Thanks for sticking with this, everyone, and I’ll be back Wednesday with more of your predictions. And as always, feel free to send in corrections which I’ll address in a special addendum.

Your 2023 Predictions, Part Two: Roast Mutton.

§ January 12th, 2024 § Filed under predictions § 10 Comments

Continuing on with your 2023 comic industry predictions from a year or so ago! The first part of this series was Wednesday, and there are still more to go, so let’s get cracking!

And don’t forget to leave me your 2024 predictions if you haven’t already!

• • •

Andrew sketches out the following

“mmm well, I’m HOPING that the Dawn of DC promotion in the new year brings a bit of lightness to the DC universe – although I am behind on Dark Crisis, it seems like the parallel Earths are returning but it’ll be a toss up whether it is a momentary ‘bump’ in creativity bringing the dawn of a clearer path or just a way station to yet another reboot (“coming in 2024, the Crisis on Infinite Earths… again!”) My hope is the former but the long time reader in me figures it’ll be the latter. Sigh.

“Overall, I think between the above and the chaos with the cinematic/television properties, 2023 will be a watershed year for DC… I don’t think that they will be able to maintain a status quo – it’ll either start blooming – or will cease to exist (at least everything other than Batman).”

I think for 2023 DC was out there trying new stuff, throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks, that sort of thing. And in general it feels like the tone has been generally lighter, and titles being more fun. The Superman books in particular have of late been quite entertaining, a much lighter series of adventures after the very long Warworld storyline.

Everything still seems to be on the upswing there, so a line-wide “Crisis” type series doesn’t necessarily seem imminent. I mean, not until sales start flagging and DC needs to jumpstart things with yet another linewide crossover and/or reboot. Frankly, at this point I feel like DC just needs to leave well enough alone…they finally established their multiverse — again — now they just need to use it on a regular basis and keep it all consistent. I know DC keeps trying to make Crisis on Infinite Earths not have happened, but without just straight up cancelling everything and restarting all the books from just before Crisis began, they should just try to make do with what they’ve got.

• • •

Chris Gumprich cashes in with

“1. DC will give up on the idea of line-wide continuity and allow each book (or book “family”) to exist on its own without worrying if a character drinks lemonade in GREEN LANTERN but drinks beer in JUSTICE LEAGUE.”

Well…I think most books at DC have largely kept to themselves, but an overall eschewing of line-wide continuity hasn’t seemed evident. The fictional milieu of the DC Universe is one the company has spent a lot of time establishing and reestablishing, so going out their way to discard it entirely seems unlikely. Right now, since we don’t hafe any linewide events, we don’t see it in explicit evidence, but it’s still there!

“2. The direct market will suffer a recession, killing a number of smaller companies and stores. The big companies will retreat to their superhero ghettos to continue their slow death, while the smarter store owners (Hi Mike!) will survive because of their diversity.”

I think, from the few articles I’ve gleaned, that the overall growth of the direct market has slowed, compared to the big boost it had during the early years of the pandemic. I don’t think the market is in quite the freefall just yet, despite some shops indeed going away, which unfortunately is just something that happens in this business regardless of how the industry is doing. (My old stomping grounds even shuttered in 2022 after over 40 years of business.)

I would call 2023 a year of adjustments more than outright decline, as stores and publishers react to a new post-pandemic marketplace where things aren’t in the dumps, but perhaps not as financially expansive as before. I mean, I’m doing okay, some other stores are too, and others are not. Same as it ever was, as a great philosopher once said.

“3. In late 2023 I will make another prediction about Archie digests exclusively reprinting stories from the 80s and earlier, because I once again forget that I have been making that same prediction every year.”

I just checked and you did not make that prediction for 2024! YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR

• • •

Greg A annouces

“DC will try once again to attempt to produce an ongoing LSH title, but it will completely disregard the latest attempt.”

No, the Legion fields remained fallow for another year. Did the Legion even appear in anything in 2023? I’m sure a character or two from the team showed up somewhere in the last year, but nothing immediately comes to mind. At any rate, after the big relaunch of the team fizzled out a couple of years ago, they’ve been mostly out of the picture ever since.

There was a new animated movie featuring the Legion released in 2023, but it…wasn’t very good, unfortunately. And with the new regime in place (at least for now) at Warners running the DC media adaptations, I don’t think we’ll be getting another one for a while, if ever.

• • •

William Burns fires me up with

“1. The Big Two will steadily retreat from gay and particularly trans representation. Nothing will be announced, but introduction of new gay and trans characters will cease, existing queer characters will be desexualized and while pride issues will continue to appear, they won’t get much push. The retreat will be particularly apparent in material geared for children.”

We are still getting new pride issues, yes, but I don’t think there’s been a specific push to deemphasize gay or trans characters at either company. Probably the most visible of the LGBTQIA characters, Superman’s son, had a mini-series earlier in the year. But I get your point, that maybe the big publishers are feeling some pressure to ease off this issue by cultural and political opposition.

I don’t think that’s happening to any extreme measure, though there are always Those Guys who complain whenever a character isn’t straight, white, and male. But I didn’t read every Marvel and DC book for the year so I can’t tell you how gay or trans characters were treated in-story, so maybe folks who were a little more well read in 2023 can clue me in. A Googling shows that there was still plenty of coverage for these characters over the past year, so Marvel and DC are still getting (from what I saw, mostly positive) attention for their diversity efforts. And I hope the companies keep it up, especially as forces in the real world are marshaling efforts against these communities.

“2. Marvel will relaunch Iron Man as ‘The Immortal Iron Man.'”

Not yet, but I still think this is a good call for the near future as we’re probably only a year away from a new Iron Man series replacing the current one.

“3. Production begins on a Dr. Aphra Star Wars project, marking the first ‘Comics-to-film’ transition of a Star Wars character.”

A character that appeared alongside Doctor Aphra in Marvel’s Star Wars comics, the Wookiee bounty hunter Krrsantan, beat her to live action by appearing in the Book of Boba Fett Disney+ series in 2022.

Prior to this, Quinlan Vos was a Jedi character in the Dark Horse-published Star Wars comics that George Lucas liked, and had planned to put in the prequel trilogy…but only got a name check. He did eventually make it into the Clone Wars cartoon.

The Twi’lek Jedi Aayla Secura was another Dark Horse era character that Lucas liked, and she made it into Attack of the Clones.

But even prior to that, Admiral Ackbar first appeared in the Star Wars newspaper strip before appearing in Return of the Jedi, but that’s not quite the same as he was created specifically for the movie.

I’m sure I’m missing others who made the transition, but those were the ones that came to mind. Doctor Aphra (speaking of gay characters!), however, has not yet made it, but as she’s a great new addition to the franchise, I think a live action adaptation would be enjoyable. Particularly if they leave her…morally suspect. A couple of years ago I said about her

“…The appeal of the character [is] filling the ‘morally ambiguous’ role that Han Solo can no longer occupy after his turn in the original movie trilogy. It’s an exploration of this universe via a fresh yet cynical perspective, told with humor and the right amount of pathos. While there is some sort of redemption arc to her story, it’s a meandering one which means we get to see her be a space asshole, which is quite entertaining.”

Now, we sort of get this with the title character in Andor, which may be one of the reasons why a Google search brings up a bunch of articles about how that series “opens the door” for an Aphra show of some kind. I don’t know, I didn’t read any of those, but I’d probably enjoy seeing her pop up somewhere.

• • •

Okay, I’m up way past my bedtime writing this (8 PM on school nights) so let’s continue this on Monday. As always, if you have additional info I’m missing (and I think I’m missing a bit this time ’round) please let me know and I’ll include it in the eventually addendum post I’ll make to this series. Thanks for reading, pals!

Your 2023 Predictions, Part One: An Unexpected Party.

§ January 10th, 2024 § Filed under predictions § 7 Comments

The time has come! January is well on its way, so I suppose I’d better start looking at the predictions YOU made for the 2023 comics industry! Who nailed it, who missed completely, who got partial credit…let all be revealed!

But before too much more of 2024 slides by, don’t forget to put in your predictions for this coming year!

HERE WE GO:

Rich Handley hands in the following:

…Well, Rich actually brought up some discussion points that bear further thought, so Rich, remind me to get back to this after I’m done with all this prediction shenanigans. But to sum it up, Rich says that DC’s miscellaneous exploitations of Watchmen (Before Watchman, Doomsday Clock have been generally resisted by a subset of fandom, but, as Rich asks and, let’s say, “predicts”

“…Do you think that’ll change within the next year, now that Doctor Manhattan has wormed his way into the DC universe? Will Watchmen as a franchise instead of as a single work become more accepted as DC continues to unveil more tie-ins?”

To try to twist my reply into the format of these prediction posts, the whole Watchmen connection to the DC Universe has been scaled back, as things for the publisher’s superhero line seem to have moved toward the “Dawn of DC” initiative. I honestly don’t know if there’s been more than a passing reference in the last year. I honestly thought there’d be a spinoff from Doomsday Clock, if not at least an announcement of a full-blown sequel. I expect there’s more to come at some point.

• • •

Thom H. peeps in with these

“1. Gaiman and Buckingham will finish their run on Miracleman in 2023, including both the Silver Age and the Dark Age. Yay!”

Well, we got several issues, but the “Silver Age” part of the story doesn’t wrap up ’til next week’s Miracleman issue (which I’ve already read, using my evil retailer powers, bwa ha ha). Hopefully “Dark Age” will follow in reasonably short order.

“2. Marvel will attempt to integrate Miracleman into the main Marvel Universe, which will prove to be an awkward fit. Boo!”

I’ve joked before about how one of the chapters of Gaiman/Buckingham’s cite>Miracleman should be “The Marvel Age” with the Marvel heroes just full on making appearances. But Thom, I suspect you get at least partial credit for this…you posted your predictions on December 12th, 2022, and on December 28th, Marvel released the first of their Timeless variants. And in that issue, there is a tease of ol’ MM eventually entering the Marvel Universe.

In my Final ’80s Countdown post on the series, I described that Timeless issue bascially being Marvel’s version of the DC Rebirth one-shot that brought in Watchmen to that superhero milieu. And it seemed like for all the world that Miracleman (or rather, a non-Moore/Gaima-ed version of the character with its original name “Marvelman”) was going to turn up in 2023. But I think that event is probably going to wait ’til Gaiman and Buckingham are done with their story.

“3. DC will announce that Tom King and Mitch Gerads will team up to rehabilitate another B-list hero in another 12-issue miniseries. Yay!”

Well, there was a short serialized story by these folks in Batman: The Brave and the Bold featuring the Joker, but I don’t think that’s quite what you mean. King’s big 12-issue project for the year (with a different artist) was Danger Street, which was a hoot!

• • •

David has a few goliath guesses here

“1. Transformers and g.i.joe will be huge successes at whatever company the licence ends up with.”

They ended up at Image, and so far…yes, actually, they’ve been doing quite well. Certainly selling better than they were at IDW, at least for me. In fact, I was caught a little short of Transformers #4 this week what with everyone adding it to their pull lists, so up those orders go!

“2. The x-men wrap up the current status quo and chip zdarsky takes over the helm.”

Not quite yet…seems like the X-Men line is in the process of wrapping things up right now. And boy oh boy if anything could get me to try an X-Men book again, it’d be Chip.

“3. Alfred comes back to life in batman and he gets his fortune back.”

There was a big tease with Alfred in one of the Bat-related books, but alas, ’twas not to be. I honestly do wonder when and how they’re going to revive the character. That was a pretty definitive death. …I mean, yes, yes, I know, the Lazarus Pits, but that feels almost too easy, right?

And I wasn’t sure about Bruce Wayne’s money, after he lost it, what, a year or so ago? Googling reveals that the money is now in Lucius Fox’s hands, so I suppose Wayne has at least limited access to some of it now, but not livin’ large as he once was.

• • •

demoncat_4 conjures up

“1 as new head of dc films james gunn will announce his first dc animated project is of kingdom come.”

It was Creature Commandos, which is still interesting, I think. I feel like a Kingdom Come movie would be missing one of the primary appeals of the comic — Alex Ross’s art — and instead would be in the perfectly competent but same-y style most of the DC cartoons are in. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually, of course!

“2 james gunn will okay a new swamp thing tv show and film produced by none other then [Guillermo del Toro]”

A new Swamp Thing movie was in fact announced! It seems to be the last in line of Gunn’s initial plans, and given how superhero movies have been doing lately, I’m not holding my breath that it’ll ever actually happen. Del Toro is not involved, far as I know.

“3 disney and warners will finaly work out a deal of doing a dc vs marvel crossover film and it will be jla vs avengers”

While I’d be first in line to see this (I mean, at home on a Blu-ray, I’m not goin’ to any theaters anymore), things would have to change drastically for Marvel and DC to cross over like this in their movies. Like, I’m hoping to see an official Star Trek vs. Star Wars thing someday, but, like, the end times would probably have to be well in progress before I could get that.

• • •

Okay, ScienceGiant has crushed the prediction format with his giant science, by giving me multiple options to pick from and “fill in the blanks,” as it were. So, let me pick three out here and see what I can do

“1) Wow! I still can’t believe in the year 2023”

…that Nazis are still permitted to exist? I mean, that’s not strictly a comics thing (though we have a few in this business, too), but still. To quote myself from probably Bluesky, “we already had a debate with Nazis. It was called ‘World War II.’ They lost the debate so badly their leader shot himself.”

“3) Wow! That highly anticipated adaptation of fantasy/science fiction IP certainly underperformed at the box office/streaming service. Should we predict that means the franchise dream’s death knell?”

Well, get used to it. Various reasons why this is happening, partially burn out, partially folks not going to every superhero/big franchise film that comes down the pike, partially preferring streaming, all sorts of things. Budgeting these films assuming a billion dollar box office is also not helping. (Being “woke” is not a reason, and if anyone thinks so, maybe they should have a few words with Barbie‘s box office.)

It’s not a death knell by any means, just…studios got scale these back a bit, either their budgets or their release schedules. I said (link should work) on Bluesky “maybe two a year, max” and honestly that should be enough. I think the new Deadpool movie will do great. And the next animated Spider-Man movie will do fine as well.

“7) Ehh. I’m not a fan of the latest comic book gimmick, are you?”

I presume Marvel and DC must have got a great deal on foil covers, because boy they slap these on all sorts of things and they don’t always look all that great.

• • •

existentialman exists only to bring me these

“1) As programs designed to create sequential art using artificial intelligence become more advanced, several high-profile works will be released in this format in 2023. A healthy debate will follow but good old human artists will remain as popular and successful as ever.”

Gosh darn it when I saw you post this prediction there was a comic that had just come out and I said “I better remember that when it comes time for my prediction reviews” and of course I forgot. But apparently the art was entirely A.I. But I think by and large most comic artists are treating this tech with disdain and avoiding it. It seems like when it is used, in any way, it’s greeted with derision by the comics crowd, so don’t look for too much of this sort of thing from those folks.

2) Mike’s eyeballs will not only fully heal, but gradually mutate such that he develops “super-speed-reading vision”. By the end of 2023 he will have caught up completely on his stack of unread funny books.”

My eyeball situation continues as normal, though my vision has been seeing (get it?) improvements. A new probably has cropped up, “dry eye” in my right eye, so I’ve been on an endless progression of drops and ointments (and a good old-fashioned plug in the tear duct!) which seem to be working Also, no injections in the right eye for several months now! (Alas, they continue in the left eye, but not nearly as frequently.)

As for catching up on my backlog…ah, Existentialman, you, like existence itself, are very funny!

“3) A bunch of old guys will finally realize that diversity in comics is awesome AND it’s still okay to enjoy the comics of their youth.”

I think most folks think that, and the crowd that thinks otherwise is a minority, both numerically and economically. More voices from more lived experiences means more good comics!

• • •

And on that positive note with which nobody reasonable could disagree, I’ll end this first part of about 200 posts here, and will continue on Friday with more of your predictions for 2023! Thanks for reading, pals!

To be fair, a superhero fight scene would probably have a pretty strong smell.

§ January 8th, 2024 § Filed under indies, publishing, this week's comics § 6 Comments


So I picked up a copy of the normalman 40th Anniversary Omnibus, reprinting in full Jim Valentino’s mid-1980s parody comic series from the mid-1980s. I believe this is the first color reprinting of the introductory back-up stories from Cerebus, as well as the story from A-V in 3-D, presented in color and non-3D. I also believe this is the first color reprinting of the concluding chapter, normalman 3-D in a non-3D format. I appreciate that, given it’s a little harder for my eyes to do 3D in print properly anymore. (These 3D stories have been reprinted in non-3D in previous black and white collections, from Slave Labor and from Image.)

Also featured is the crossover story from Journey #13 by William Messner-Loebs (presented in the original black and white by Messner-Loebs’ request). Other material, such as the later normalman specials from Image, ads, strips produced for conventions, unused pages, and the like round out the book. Sadly not included is 1997’s Max the Magnificent:


…a spin-off starring a character normalman runs into during the course of his adventures. The comic also features an appearance by normalman‘s Captain Everything, which makes it especially odd that it doesn’t make the cut.

Now for the most part, this is a nicely done book…the reproduction of the art is very sharp and clear. The original mini-series and 3D special, however, have been relettered, which…frankly, isn’t an improvement on the original lettering. Maybe in the earlier issues, where the lettering is a little less polished, it is a step up, but in these cases I would always prefer the original, with the lumpier handdrawn word balloons and occasionally funkier typography. However, it wasn’t that distracting, and especially for my eyes it made for an easier reading experience.

Except.

I understand there may be production issues where the art just has to be relettered. It happens, I get it. But it seems like every time relettering like this is done for reprint works such as this, misspellings and such slip in that weren’t in the original printing. As I recall, this happened with Image’s initial reprintings of Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Discovered, and with those strange black and white collections of Jim Starlin’s Metamorphosis Odyssey from Slave Labor Graphics.

And it happens here, in this delxue volume of normalman I’d been wanting to see for years. Granted, for a several hundred page book, it’s not a whole lot, maybe a half-dozen or so errors that I’ve noticed, but they are still pretty distracting.

For example, from issue #1, here’s the original word balloon:


And here it is with an inexplicable word change:


From issue #10, the original panel:


And how it appears in the omnibus, with a couple of extra typos (for “imbecile” and “my”):


And here’s the one that really stood out to me, for what should be obvious reasons…from issue #4:


And here is it in the omnibus:


(Also, making “Or Mister Monster” the same size lettering does alter the gag a little.)

There are more examples (including at least one word balloon in the omnibus that I think has either misspelled a word or left a word out entirely, I haven’t checked yet).

This is just in the original normalman story, which is all I’ve read of this omnibus thus far. I don’t believe the other material has been rejiggered in this fashion. Plus, as I’ve said, it’s only a few of these errors that I’ve noticed, and I’m hoping they’ll be fixed in later reprintings. I should note that the Journey issue reprinted here has not been relettered.

As soon as I saw these, I did pull out my copies of the original series, actually kind of hoping the mistakes were in those. Somehow it would have been slightly less annoying if these were faithful reproductions of original errors, though undoubtedly I would then be complaining about “why didn’t they fix that?”

I am glad I have this book. I mean, mistakes happen — What Can You Do?™ — and given this hardcover was solicited with a first print run of only 1,500 copies, maybe like I said they can quickly fix these issues for new printings. It’s a classic and funny work that deserves to be in print, and I just want it to be in the best possible presentation.

The Final ’80s Countdown, Part Twenty-Five.

§ January 5th, 2024 § Filed under final countdown § 19 Comments

Very near the end here…this is the third-from-last entry in this series covering your favorite 1980s indies from this poll of mine. This is the one that almost got my vote, and it remains a much-beloved series. So here we go:

Grimjack (First Comics 1984-1991)

Grimjack, the soldier/detective/bounty-hunter/bodyguard/etc. for hire who operates in the multi-dimensional city of Cynosure, first appeared as a back-up story by creators John Ostrander and Tim Truman in Starslayer #10 in 1983. After a run of stories there (capping off with an issue-length crossover with the titular Starslayer his own self), Grimjack moved over to his own first issue in 1984, running 81 issues (and a graphic novel) through ’til 1991.

And it’s quite a ride. Grimjack (AKA John Gaunt) has been around a bit, seen a lot, fought in the Demon Wars, tough and grizzled but loyal to, and protective of, his friends. His base of operations is Munden’s Bar in Cynosure, and the bar itself is the setting for a well-regarded run of back-up stories in the series by a multitude of artists and the occasional guest stars (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appear in one story!).

Truman illustrated the early part of the run, followed primarily by the moody artwork of Tom Mandrake (and it’s Mandrake’s rendition that I primarily associate with the character, as it’s such a major chunk of the series). Following him is Flint Henry, who takes over after a particular change in direction which I’ll discuss in a moment.

Grimjack himself goes through some serious changes through the run [SPOILERS AHEAD], not least of which is just straight up gettin’ killed, going to the afterlife, and then returning to the land of the living via his soul inhabiting a younger clone of himself. Along the way Grimjack also encounters a man claiming to be a future version of himself, who has traveled back in time in an attempt to undo a curse he is — they are — under, that causes them to be reincarnated over and over again.

Anyway, everyone figures that’s crazy talk…until about 2/3rd into the series run there’s a time jump, and lo and behold, Grimjack is in the future, reincarnated as “James Twilley,” who picks up where he left off in the man-for-hire business with a (mostly) new cast of friends and enemies.

I wrote about a lot of this in 2009, including this excerpt from the last issue’s editorial page with its plans for future stories:


Anyway, none of that happened, and those dangling plotlines remain dangling. I was kind of looking forward to eventually reading the story of the Future Grimjack that appeared in the original Grimjack’s timeline, maybe seeing things from his perspective, but alas.

After the end of the original Grimack series, the returned in two new mini-series published by IDW in 2005 and 2009. However, these were set in the John Gaunt era and did not continue from where they left off. I should note they were still plenty enjoyable, reuniting Ostrander and Truman for a couple of quality adventures.

As I lamented back in 2009, we’re almost certainly not going to see the storyline advance past the Twilley era into any future incarnations. 30+ years on, trying to get any new readers on board and invested in that specific premise seems a lot harder than just doing back-to-basics Classic Jack stories that don’t require more explanation than “this is a tough guy people hire to do stuff.” I mean, maybe it can be done, but the image of Grimjack that survives is that Truman version. It just feels like it helps to be familiar with what came before, prior to starting to do wild variations on it. The former informs the latter, but if you don’t know the former, the latter lacks its impact.

I don’t know. If Ostrander were to announce “we’re picking up where we left off, just jump in and hang on” I’d be there in a heartbeat. If this supposed Grimjack movie or TV show or whatever it’s going to be now ever materializes, maaaaaybe there’d be enough interest to jumpstart the book and we can get goin’ again, but I’m not holding my breath.

If you want to catch up yourselves, you’re in luck as the series has been reprinted. There are five volumes of the Grimjack Omnibus, which reprint the First Comics run in its entirety, including the Demon Night graphic novel. These were from Comicmix, and they appear to be out of print, but should be easy enough to find, I’d think.

In the realm of incomplete reprintings, First Comics itself published a five-issue reprint run called Grimjack Casefiles, which reprint most of the Starslayer back-ups and the first three issues. And IDW had Legend of Grimjack, eight volumes that reprinted up to #54. A ninth volume was planned but cancelled.

You could also just track down the individual issues, which shouldn’t be that hard to come by, and aren’t that expensive. Even the issue with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is cheap. It’s a great series, filled with colorful characters and out-there storylines, and well worth the read.

Two of the following three comics have fold-outs, but not the one you’d expect.

§ January 3rd, 2024 § Filed under 1990s Sins § 14 Comments

A couple of quick things to cover before I get into the main course here. First, don’t forget to give me your 2024 comic industry predictions! I’ll start covering the 2023 predictions soon, so consider yourself forewarned.

Second, JohnJ asks if I remember the adults-only comics anthology XXXenophile by Phil Foglio and a bunch of his pals. Yes, as a Foglio fan (wherefore art thou Buck Godot?) I certainly picked these up, though they tend to run a tad naughtier than the comics I prefer to peruse. But, it’s all in good fun, and it did have one of the greatest and possibly not-politically-correct covers of all time:


Anyway, I haven’t looked at these in a while, so maybe it’s time to let ’em go at the shop. (But you’ll have to pry my copies of the What’s New with Phil and Dixie collections from my cold, dead Bag of Holding.)

Anyway, let’s get jump back into your suggestions for Most 1990s Comics:

Existentialman brings up a title that’s near and dear to my heart, Force Works from 1994:


…featuring a superhero team based in my old stomping grounds of Ventura, CA:


Not sure where in Ventura you’d find the giant waterfall, but there you are. Of course the most notable thing about this series was the ungainly foldout pasted to the front cover of the first issue. Here, have a video showing you what we had to deal with:


Not sure how many “mint” copies exist, even if the fold-out remained intact, if only because gluing that thing to the front cover did it no favors.

I’ve read very little of the actual series, but a glance-through certainly has it look to me like being very much of its time, dark, gritty and serious, with that 1990s look that’s hard for me to describe, exactly, but you know it when you see it. Not sure which of my spurious “categories” I’d apply to this. Personally, I’d just put it under “Gimmick” because that first issue cover is all I really remember about this series (aside from the comic’s setting). Maaaaybe under “Kewl Style?” But I think a “Kewl Style” implies a measure of deliberate pandering via approximation of a modern style, and frankly I think this was entirely earnest. Maybe someone more familiar with the title can clue me in.

Next up is the infamous Snark Shark with his excellent suggestion of the equally infamous Shadowhawk.


Now, I will always love Jim Valentino because of normalman, which remains one my all-time favorite comics. In fact, I just picked up the normalman Omnibus to have all that stuff together (though Max the Magnificent still remains out in the cold).

That’s a long way of saying, because of normalman, I tried out his later material when he starting doing Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel, and later his creator-owned Shadowhawk from Image. Aaaaand…it wasn’t for me, sorry. But Shadowhawk did seem very much a ’90s book, what with several issues of the first couple of mini-series featuring gimmick covers (the one pictured above had a perforated fold-out that could be popped open to reveal Mr. S. Hawk’s secret identity).

It was topical (the main character had AIDS), it was (as I recall) very violent, and it had those gimmick covers. And being written and drawn by a founder of Image Comics just by default gives it that extra bit of ’90s ooomph. I’m not sure what “category” it would fall under…I don’t want to hit the “Gimmick” one too often, but I’m not sure “Topical” exactly fits either. Maybe just being “First Wave Image” is enough.

• • •

Okay, we’re almost done here. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on Friday!

Happy New Year from Buck Rogers Not Quite Yet in the 25th Century!

§ January 1st, 2024 § Filed under happy new year § 5 Comments

How to stuff a wild beach towel.

§ December 29th, 2023 § Filed under merchandise § 10 Comments

And now, for no good reason whatsoever, a couple of Kitchen Sink-produced beach towels from the early 1990s, still solidly sealed into their original packaging and rescued from the previous place of employment:

Cherry (née Poptart) by Larry Welz:


…and Omaha the Cat Dancer by Reed Waller and Kate Worley:


Here’s a shot of the tag included with each towel:


Since these were sealed, I “borrowed” these images I found elsewhere to show you the full pics on the blankets…I’ll try to find a better Cherry one at some point:


Neat, huh? And yes, before you ask, they’ve already sold.

I was looking in Diamond’s online catalog to see what other beach towels were offered over the years. Along with the expected (Bettie Page) and the on-point (toss-up between “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “Yellow Submarine”) and the “sure let’s sell this in the comic book marketplace” (an Orange County Choppers towel?), was this sadly-cancelled item from 2001:


Well, that would have certainly lived up the church’s beach picnic social.

And by “couple” I mean “three, more or less.”

§ December 27th, 2023 § Filed under sir-links-a-lot § 2 Comments

Okay, just a couple of things today:

1. Don’t forgot to contribute your 2024 comic industry predictions here, so long as you follow those important rules listed there!

One additional rule I’m going to have to add is to please keep extra non-prediction posts out of that comments section. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but let’s keep it uncluttered! Thanks, pals.

2. Look, if you haven’t gone to kwakk.info in a while, it’ll do you some good to pop back in. This is the fanzine text search index, including Amazing Heroes, Comics Journal, and many more! I hope this site is allowed to remain online by the various copyright holders, as it’s such a valuable resource.

I have many of these fanzines myself, but when I need to refer to an article from one of them I’ve had to depend on my slowly fading memory as well as just plain ol’ digging through them page by page. This site certain makes research easier.

3. I don’t think I even knew a Zatanna movie was even planned in the first place. Sounds like another casualty of the James Gunn DC Media regime, as the focus is on the projects under his purview, which the Zatanna flick was not. Ah well.

Still not convinced the Gunn films are going to fare any better in a movie marketplace that seems increasingly less impressed with superhero product. Particularly DC films, though Marvel seems to be having its own uphill battle with its properties (with a couple of notable exceptions, yes).

Related: I didn’t realize the Aquaman sequel opened last weekend. Not the strongest start, but the first didn’t come charging out of the gate, either. Seems unlikely it’s gonna hit the billion dollar mark too, though.

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