Especially Punisher Armory.

filed under Categories collecting, retailing 10 Comments

Loureedrichards stretches in to street hassle me with

“The post on war comics and the reaction to it was interesting. Several people mentioned not being interested in war comics when they were younger, but they now have a greater affinity for them. I felt much the same way and now find I am as interested in war, horror, romance, and funny animal comics as I am in superhero comics. That may partly be due to the histories of those genres and many of the creators not being covered quite as extensively.

“Is there much demand for any of those genres outside of the EC titles (obviously) and something like early romance comics by Simon and Kirby? Is there a large Fox and Crow or Jerry Lewis fandom that I’m not hip to? If so, could you hip me to them so I’m not stuck out here in squaresville daddy-o?”

Look, I’m tuned in to your scene, Kookie, and it’s the absolute end! Honestly, when it comes to the war comics, or really any genre outside of superheroes, it may just be that they were overlooked when you were at the stands picking out your regular faves. The war books may have looked more “mature” or “serious” to you at a young age, and thus didn’t appeal. Which isn’t to say there weren’t some seven-year-olds out there desperately waiting each new issue of G.I. Combat, because obviously there had to be some, or the series wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.

It may be a self-fulfilling prophecy from the publishers, too…”our war books don’t sell as well as the superhero books, so we’ll focus our efforts on the superhero books, and hey our war book sales have dropped further still, how’d that happen, better not waste effort pushing those.”

Another aspect is availability. Comic shops carrying back issues (by which I mean the good ones, possibly even mine) can expose you to a wider variety of books outside your initial experience. As you get a little older, a little more interested in reading something other than the same ol’ same ol’, and as you maybe hopefully have a little more disposable income (a tricky assumption at this current moment), you might peruse the stacks and come away with material you’d skipped before.

And when you’re older, you might just have more of an appreciation (sincere or ironic) for the craft of the books. Maybe that war book or horror comic looked “weird” to you as a kid, but looks fascinating to you now. I’ll tell you, not long after I started working at my previous place of employment, I’d be processing stacks of old war books, and I learned quickly that some, especially Sgt. Rock, had perfected the Intriguing Cover™. Each one set up a situation that was so mind-bogglingly compelling that you had to look inside and see what was going on. It was the ol’ “things that always work on covers” list (usually attributed to Carmine Infantino, but apparently actually from former DC honcho Irwin Donenfeld) but turned up to eleven. Or fifteen.


I mean, what the hell, dude.

Like I said above, this isn’t everyone‘s story. Some people read a lot of comics that weren’t superheroes as a kid, and just never made the move over. Or some, like me, were reading a lot of Disney and other kids comics in the ’70s, got roped into Star Wars comics in ’77, was reading a lot of Mad Magazine during this period, and occasionally read superhero comics as well. So, I was getting a good mix of stuff, but it helped that there was a good mix of stuff on the stands for me to get. As superheroes pushed other genres off the rack, the choices became increasingly limited.

Oh, and I suppose one more thing that helps people rediscover old comics they missed out on before: the internet. I hear that’s a big thing nowadays.

But anyway, yes, there is currently an enormous market for non-superhero comics of an older vintage. If I suddenly got a crate full of Golden Age romance comics, they’d be gone within a week. And that’s just from walk-ins. I’ve got people I can call who would rush right in and buy ’em by the armload. It’s no problem. And those war books I got recently…they’re selling nearly as soon as I price them, even in the condition they’re in.

“Do comic collections ever come in with superhero AND romance comics?”

Sure, all the time, if the collections are of a certain age. Granted, it’s usually 1% romance comics, 99% superheroes/other, but it’s rare when, despite my wishful thinking in the previous paragraph, that I get in a collection that’s nothing but romance. Unless you count Archie. Or Punisher, that’s kind of a romance comic if you really think about it.

“Unrelated, but are there any comics you would not sell due to ethical concerns about the content or the creators? Nothing springs to mind right off, but you have much vaster knowledge.”

The last time this was really an issue was the whole Orson Scott Card thing, which I wrote about here (warning: linkrot). And there are creators who have been involved in scandal and bad behavior which disinclines me from supporting future endeavors.

But the one line I am not crossing is carrying any Harry Potter items. It’s not likely there’ll ever be a Harry Potter comic (JKR probably thinks that’s beneath her), so it’s obviously easy to boycott that. I do, however, get inundated with offers for HP junk from my various toy/merchandise wholesalers, and man, No Huey, No News, No Thanks. I like my trans friends too much to stab ’em in the back like that.

“Just saw a video of someone being ripped off by a counterfeit Hulk #181. Obviously with your experience you could spot a fake a mile away, but I’m curious if anyone has ever tried to pull a fast one on you?”

Not that I’ve noticed. Boy, I hope none of that giant pile of Man of Steel (1986) #2 I have in the back are fakes. But, boy, with home tech advancing to the point where you can assemble a reasonable facsimile of a Hulk #181 to foist off on people? That’s a new worry unlocked.

One example I can think of was at the old shop, where we once acquired a ’60s Spider-Man toy still in the box, but that box was newly printed and we somehow missed that. I don’t believe this was nefariousness on the part of the seller, she was likely oblivious to its nature. (And I’m not trying to be mean, here…this particular person was likely not capable of either making this box or spotting it was fake. And we didn’t spot it either, so there you go.)

And I know one of our old customers got taken by some fake Jack Kirby “original” art, poor guy.

We did buy a counterfeit Cerebus #1 at the old shop once, but we knew it was a counterfeit, which is now sort of a collectible in and of itself. We bought it at the same time as a real #1, and they both sold to the same person. (Huh, I wonder if Cecil still owns those? Boy, I’d like to have ’em myself.)

“Like I said, forgive me if you’ve covered these topics before.”

Friend, you’re talking to a person who has a wildly extensive “Death of Superman” category, I ain’t afraid of repeat topics.

The legend returns.

filed under Categories collecting 14 Comments

So one of the things about providing content to this site is that it is often sourced from material at my store, rather than comics in my own personal collection. I’ll be processing comics, something will catch my eye, and the next thing you know a post like this shows up.

Before I had my own shop, when I was the manager at the previous place of employment, I often found inspiration in the many comics I’d process and handle there as well. And, occasionally, I’d take advantage of the store scanner to copy an image or fourteen and email them to myself for incorporation into Progressive Ruin.

One of the comics at the old shop, from which I had purloined some digital pics, has long since become an intrinsic part of this site’s DNA. I did not keep the comic, only scanned images from it and put it back in the stacks, and it was sold long ago to unremembered parties. Did they appreciate it as much as I had? As my readers had? It’s hard to say.

Thus, that comic had long since departed from my life, while my scans and posts remained. Notably, readers like YOU would still occasionally bring it up here on the site and on social media…why, it turned up in the comments just yesterday.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before this, but I decided the other week that I should in fact own a copy of this monumental comic, one that has inextricably embedded itself into this site’s history.

Which is how, one eBay purchase later, I am now the owner of Battle Stories #5, published in 1952:


…containing the most important comics page of all time:


…the one that holds the “THEN…KOREA” panel.

I’ve since re-scanned said panel at a nigh-Lichtenstein-esque size and resolution for future use, as seen in this fan-favorite detail:


Now that it’s part of the actual Vast Mikester Comics Archive forever and all time (or at least the next couple of decades or so), maybe that will encourage me to dip into the “THEN…KOREA” well a little more often than I had. Like so:


Or maybe “Feldspar.”

filed under Categories legion of super-heroes 29 Comments

So I asked for some questions/post suggestions a while back, and in comes customer Sean, trying to kill me:

“I stumbled upon an Instagram post the other day regarding a story from the ’60s where Superman goes to the future and visits the grown up iteration of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

“He walks through a hallway with sculptures of the Legionnaires who have perished in battle–Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid, Chemical King, etc., and Brainiac Five (who is smoking a pipe!), shows Kal , via tele-screen, Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl, who have started a family, at their home. There are also references to Lightning Man and Saturn Woman, Cosmic Man and Night Woman, and Timberwolf and Light Woman as married couples.”

Superman does indeed! This brings to mind the fact that initially, DC was going to make things even more confusing in regard to Legion of Super-Heroes continuity. Superboy, as we all know, would travel 1,000 years into the future to visit his Legion pals and have adventures and punch Validus an’ stuff. However, someone had the idea that Supergirl should also be able to travel to the future and hang out with the Legion.

And as you also know, DC Comics aficionados that you are, Supergirl was introduced into the Superman comics when Superman was…well, a man. Having Supergirl travel into the future and hang out with the same folks that also hang out with her cousin when he was a boy and hadn’t yet met her…well, you see the problem here.

The solution was, of course, not to have Supergirl travel into the future and meet the Legion. But instead of doing that rational course of action, she went to the future anyway. Like, just a little bit further into the future (or maybe less, given the relative starting points of Superboy initiating time travel from an earlier point in the timestream than Supergirl, but perhaps I digress) to meet…the children of the original Legion of Super-Heroes!


This is in Superman #267, from 1960, and obviously this solved all the continuity issues and…nah, just kidding, someone clearly decided “this is insane” and the Legion Kids just kinda went away. And if Supergirl met Superboy during some Legion adventure, there was just some kinda memory-adjusting hand-waving so that Superboy wouldn’t remember certain details about his trips to the future. There’s probably a citation for this in one of the comics somewhere, but I’ve already done enough research for this post.

But let’s get back to Sean’s invoking of that Superman Meets the Adult Legion story, which takes place in Adventure Comics #354 and #355 in 1967, the first issue of which is pictured here:


An interesting note about that cover: for the panels ‘n’ such I’m presenting here, I’m generally capturing them from DC Comics’ digital comics service, to save the wear and tear on my Legion of Super-Heroes Archives hardcovers from flattening ’em out on my scanner to get a good image. However, the cover for this issue that they have on this service has “Shadow Woman” colored blue, to match the famously azure Shadow Lass from the non-adult Legion. I pulled the above image from an eBay auction, which shows how the cover was originally colored. (And I should note, the cover is colored correctly in the Legion Archives.)

Speaking of those panels, here are a couple demonstrating what Sean was talking about, with Superman wandering through the memorial wing here:


…followed by the Hall of Hookin’ Up, with, I guess, the 30th-century equivalent of wedding pictures:


Now, I get what DC was trying to do here…they wanted Superman to have his own adventures with the Legion, but not in a way that would result in, say, meeting his younger self during one of his adventures with the Legion. So, like they tried to do with Supergirl by giving her a distinct Legion team of her own to visit, they were attempting to give Superman his own distinct team. Basically, the same team, but older. The “Adult Legion” made a handful of appearances, but again, someone decided that having two versions of the same team like this was too convoluted, so the idea was phased out.

However, the army of Legion fans did not forget, and the specter of this glimpse into the future weighed heavily over Shadow Lass, when she first appeared a few months later in Adventure Comics #365. The fact that she had blue skin when the “Shadow Woman” statue had Caucasian skin tones didn’t seem to matter much. It was presumed that her fate was maybe kinda sorta sealed.

You know who didn’t like the Adult Legion stories? Paul Levitz, the guy who would spend much of the ’80s writing the Legion, that’s who. When it came time to write Legion of Super-Heroes #300, the extra-sized anniversary issue, he decided to devote a portion of the story nodding towards the predictions made by that old Adult Legion story. (Also part of the issue was devoted to this.)

Even down to Shadow Lass putting on pink make-up and calling herself “Shadow Woman.”


This was Leviiz’s explicit thumbing of the nose at the Adult Legion stories being the “official” future of the Legion, as Shadow Lass does indeed save the Science Asteroid, and does not die. And that, as they say, is that. ‘Til we get to the whole “Five Years Later” thing, which is Adult Legion x1000, frankly.

Oh, and I forgot to show you Smoking Brainy, in his, I’m pretty sure, one appearance:


…smoking that soup ladle, or whatever the hell that is.

So all that actually answered a few of Sean’s other questions about the Adult Legion, except

“Have Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl’s offspring ever been mentioned or featured in stories again?”

…and I’m going to say “no,” I don’t feel like they popped up again, but I’ve not read all these stories in forever. They do have a kid in one of the many rebooted versions of the Legion, according to my Googling, but I don’t think it’s meant to be the same as what you see in the Adult Legion.

“Instead of constantly rebooting the Legion, why doesn’t DC Comics try an approach where the offspring of the original classic Silver/Bronze Age Legion (1958 – 1994) form a legacy Legion team? Clearly at least Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, and Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl did have/will have offspring at some point. So, we can assume other Legionaries did or will as well. This way new characters could be added more organically, and we could also get new power sets for new Legion recruits who aren’t offspring, but are teenagers.”

Hmmmmmm, they already tried the Legion Kids with Supergirl way back when. I think keeping the Legion as just This One Thing In Space/Time in relation to DC’s other heroes is the best idea, reducing complications and confusion.

“Also, would the offspring of Wildfire and Dawnstar be named ‘Wildstar’ or ‘Dawnfire?'”

Well, “Wildstar” is already taken by Jerry Ordway, so “Dawnfire” is it! Unless that’s taken too.

“What would Blok and White Witch’s offspring be like?”

I don’t know…a big chunk of gypsum, maybe? I’d probably be careful about naming the character after that, though.

Seriously, someone find that old Benb book for me.

filed under Categories kickstarter 9 Comments

So I’ve been a little Kickstarter-crazy over the last several months, despite the fact that I have a to-read and to-watch pile already teetering over my head and the last thing I needed was…well, more things. But people keep putting out (or not putting out, as I’ll get to) good things I want to enjoy, and thus here we are.

I talked about several of these items back in April, but I thought I’d at least update you on what’s going on with them.

Starting with the items that I either already have in my hand or have experienced:

The Megaton Man Microbus:


This is a very nicely made softcover book reprinting the Megaton Man webcomic that ran in the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, featuring the wild superhero universe Don Simpson built around his Man of Molecules as seen in Bizarre Heroes and other publications.

The book is in black and white, with new scans of all the art. Simpson also provided a PDF to backers that features the strips (at their original web-ready resolution) in color. Also in the book are reproductions of all the sketches he included in folks’ books who paid for that level in the campaign. (I didn’t since I already got a character sketch from him in a previous campaign, though now I kinda wish I’d splurged for one this time.) Anyway, good book, glad to have it.

Here’s something that’s not comics:


…Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Rifftrax Experiments, picking up where the original TV show left off when it was cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel. Rifftrax is of course the movie riffing/commentary track endeavor created by the main cast of MST3K when it went off the air, so those folks returning to play those parts is a real “full circle” kind of thing. Now, I supported the campaign at the “gimmie that Blu-ray set” level, which won’t ship ’til December, but I did go see the premiere of the first of the new episodes (Sting of Death) in a theater, so I’m pretty sure I’ll see fulfillment of this particular campaign.

Here’s a campaign that’s still active as I write this:


…Nexus: Triplets, a graphic novel written by Nexus’s co-creator Mike Baron. I’ve written about my love of Nexus many times before, and while I’m sad the other co-creator, Steve Rude, won’t be doing any more stories with the character, I have enjoyed Baron’s recent work on it (with some caveats). Splurged for the signed hardcover with the digital download, in case my eyes aren’t up to the print edition.

One I just supported and is ending the same day I’m posting this:

…well, it’s technically Steve Lafler’s campaign for his 1956 graphic novel, but one of the add-ons, which can also be purchased separately, is Benb #1. I don’t know quite how to explain the enigmatic Benb, who often appeared in Lafler’s Dog Boy comics, but he’s endlessly endearing and boy, just look at the Kirby-riffic cover.

By the way, I’m still looking for a copy of Benb and Gerald from 1980, if any of you happen to see it.


And here are a couple I mentioned last time that are still pending:


…Steve Bissette’s Complete Tyrant, collecting his sadly-curtailed indie book along with plenty of extra material. I went for the trade with the signed bookplate. Not shipped yet, but getting plenty of updates as to its progress. Estimated delivery this month, so we’ll see if they make it!


Roy from Space is a remastered Blu-ray edition of a lost Mexican animated sci-fi film, that I admit I mostly supported on a whim. It sounded interesting, and I like having oddball movies in my collection. Plus, the Gilbert Hernandez-covered edition that was available didn’t hurt. Supposed to ship in July, but I’ve been getting plenty of progress updates so I’m not terribly worried.


E. Nelson Bridwell: First Fan is a graphic novel retelling of the life of this prolific if still somewhat mysterious writer and editor for DC Comics. I always enjoyed Bridwell’s contributions to comics, so this was a no-brainer for me to support. I just went for the physical hardcover and the digital download, though I probably could have pitched in the extra 10 bucks for a signed and numbered copy. Ah well. And speaking of the digital content, I forgot it’s available now, and I just spent a few minutes reading the book instead of writing this post. Book’s good, hope it makes it to store shelves. The actual hardcover was supposed to ship in August, but again, still getting regular updates, and the digital material is here, so no worries.

And now, the campaign I pledged for and have been receiving no updates:


…the Dreadstar Vs. Dreadstar book, the campaign for which ended in April, and was supposed to ship in June, but the updates from the campaign creator ended in mid-May. A look at the comments reveals a lot of unhappy people, including me, with ain’t no response from nobody. I even reached out to a couple of folks who are listed as being associated with the campaign, and they were all like “yeah, I don’t know.” They both revealed that there were…personal reasons why things were delayed, which I don’t feel like I can share here. If this is indeed the case, the reasons are legitimate, but the extreme lack of communication is not. Even a simple “sorry, there’s been a delay” message would be nice, but nuthin’ doin’. All it looks like now is that the folks running the campaign took everyone’s (in my case) eighty bucks and split town.

I’m obviously not saying that is what happened, particularly with what I’ve been told is the actual reason for the hold-up, but boy it seems like every crowdfunding thing Jim Starlin’s had ends up with some kind of problem. Big Jim needs to rethink future efforts along these lines, I think.

Anyway, those folks I contacted said they’d try to let the person in charge here know that the comment section on their campaign page has gone feral, and hopefully that’ll goose things along? I don’t know. And I was really looking forward to this one, too.

WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4 (unless you’ve been on the internet during the last few weeks).

filed under Categories marvel, this week's comics 19 Comments

I’ve read the Avengers on and off over the years, never sticking around for a long time but long enough to experience some pretty good stories. The 1980s run by Roger Stern, John Buscema, and Tom Palmer may be primarily remembered now for containing the first appearance of future Marvel movie star Nebula, but it really peaked with the multi-part “Masters of Evil” storyline. It’s a knock-down, drag-out battle between our heroes and a powerful group of villains, containing enough characterization, drama, and heart to keep it from just being action figures being smashed together.

The next, and ’til now, last time I read the regular monthly Avengers title was in the ’90s, when Kurt Busiek and George Pérez gave us a superhero adventure comic filled with solid writing and great art. It really was the top of the line when it came to Big Two superhero books of the period, emerging from the “Image” style and showing how coherent storytelling and professional illustration could tell memorable stories.

Aside from the occasional annual or special issue, and that first Avengers Forever mini, that was pretty much that.

And then there was this Avengers: Armageddon series. I’ve been a fan of its writer, Chip Zdarsky, for a long time, and enjoying his current superhero work. And on top of that, Avengers: Armageddon was tying into current and/or recent Marvel storylines that I am following, like the Red Hulk stuff, and all the Doctor Doom shenanigans, and Zdarsky’s own Captain America series. And even though I held that first issue of this new mini in my hands as I thought about whether or not I wanted to read this, I still decided “no.” Despite everything going for it, I just felt like I didn’t need another comic to try to keep up with, given the backlog I’m still trying to work through.

However, I came across some online chatter about what was supposedly going to happen in this comic, and my interest was piqued. If what was being talked about was true, then I was absolutely going to want to read this series and see what was going on.

“And what was going on, Mike?” I’m glad you asked, and I hope you clocked the SPOILER WARNING in the title of this post, because I’m a’gettin’ into it.

Last chance. No one to blame but yourself at this point. It starts after the cover scan here.


So anyway, Miracleman is back, and this time he’s firmly in the Marvel Universe. Well, kinda sorta. It’s finally the payoff to this one-shot from a few years ago, hinting…well, okay, not so much “hinting” as “straight up saying” that the character would pop into the Marvel Universe eventually. It’s still too early to say to what extent, if any, this is connected to the Miracleman storyline by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, et al., but I suspect, given the latter writer’s current scandals, this is an entirely separate iteration.

Long story short, Marvel spent some cash establishing its ownership over the somewhat confused legal status of this intellectual property, and by golly if they’re no longer able to monetize the other stuff, they’re gonna make some new stuff with it. Plus, the stuff they were trying to monetize was hampered by problems even before Gaiman’s current troubles, many of which I cover in this post. Basically, format issues, printing errors, and the simple fact that the property was old and mostly forgotten was keeping Marvel’s attempts at revival from getting any traction.

As I say at the end of that post, I’ve held for a long time that when it finally happened, Marvel would revert back to using the “Marvelman” name for their Marvel Universe version of the character, to keep it separate from the different, pretty-much-its-own-thing Miracleman run. (I believe I first theorized that in this 2013 post.) Again, we just got Miracleman, or somebody like him, in this new Avengers: Armageddon issue, so I don’t know where we’re going yet. Tellingly, the “next issue” page for the issue directs readers to a “Who Is Miracleman?” story on their digital comics platform, so maybe they are sticking with the name? Too many characters with “Marvel” in their names already, perhaps?

By the way, that “Who Is Miracleman” comic, produced in 2023 presumably for the return of the Gaiman/Mark Buckingham “Silver Age” chapter, seems like it would be mostly confusing, if not incomprehensible, to anyone actually new to the character. It’s a short “highlights” reel of What Had Gone Before in the Moore/Gaiman era, and the huge gaps and jumps I can fill in myself because I’ve read it all, but I wonder how someone who hadn’t could deal with it. (And notably, aside from a Miracleman special by other creators, there is no other Miracleman material on the digital service.)

How much is any of that going to apply to what’s currently going on, anyway? To keep it very short, David Colton, who had been a replacement Captain America for Steve Rogers, is given new powers by a New Super Powers Machine (an “Origin Box” from the Ultimate Universe — yet another long story), putting him in the Miracle/Marvelman costume and presumably giving him that same power set. It’s even down to the same ability to do a Captain Marvel/”Shazam!”-esque transformation by saying the magic work “KIMOTA” (in a sequence deliberately cribbed from Moore’s very first Marvelman short). It doesn’t appear to be tied to the Mike Moran (Marvelman’s civilian identity) version of the character at all, but again, we’re still way early in the process here.

As I said, before this issue even came out, there was a lot of talk about this happening, which is probably the most interest the character has had in a long time. By forcing Marvel readers to engage with Miracleman (or whatever, I just keep using both names) by putting the concept squarely in the center of an Avengers comic, fans can’t just ignore it like they could some weird decades-old thing that was revived solely for people in their late middle age who 1) are still alive, 2) are still reading comics and 3) remember it from the last time it was on the stands. It is now officially A Marvel Thing, so, I guess, coming soon to a movie screen near you? We’ll see.

At any rate, I don’t know why I’ve been so antsy about spoiler warnings when Marvel itself just plain put Miracleman on one of the variant covers for this issue, which you can see if you click the Avengers: Armageddon cover I posted above. And yes, that’s the cover I took for myself. (And yes, by all rights I should put this post under the miraclemarvelman category, but I didn’t want that being an inadvertent spoiler right at the top of the page. I’ll add it later.)

EDIT: Marvel has put out a press release specifically identifying the character’s name as “Miracleman.”

The Final ’90s Countdown, Part Twenty-Five.

filed under Categories final '90s countdown 12 Comments

And thus we begin the next phase of this countdown, the comics that got two votes in the poll for favorite ’90s indie comic. For those of you new to this thingie I’m doing, I just want to remind you that only getting one or two votes isn’t a knock on the quality of the book, but simply an indicator of how many good indie books were coming out during that period of time. In fact, today’s pick is one of my favorites as well! I had such a wide variety of submissions from readers I was wondering if I’d see any sort of consensus. (SPOILER: eventually I did!)

So here we go, today’s beloved comic series:

DORK! (Slave Labor Graphics, 1993-2006)

Absolutely one of the greats. I was already a big Evan Dorkin fan due to Pirate Corp$/Hectic Planet and, of course, those incorrigible dairy products Milk & Cheese. The series still lives large in my head, to the point where someone the other day was asking at the shop for a trade paperback collection of the new Image Comics series D’Orc, and I immediately reached for the most recent book reprint of Dork! (more about that book later). No offense to the good folks on D’Orc doin’ a popular comic, but I think Dork! is the superior choice for the discerning comics aficionado.

These eleven black and white comics are compilations of mostly original material (with some reprints from other sources), usually short humorous pieces, including Milk & Cheese. Of particular note are his newspaper “funny pages” parodies, featuring a virtual onslaught of multiple strips, varying from purposefully dumb, to very dark, to observational, to sometimes vulgar and violent (but hilariously so). One recurring strip is “Myron the Living Voodoo Doll,” who is shown wandering the streets and getting some form of damage inflicted on him, with the final panel showing a person experiencing the same damage while declaring “I’ve got to find that doll!”

Here’s a small sample of another of the strips, picked for perhaps obvious reasons to long-time readers of the site. This is one of those observational, yet still funny, ones:


Also included in this run of books is a reprint of the “Murder Family” strip from Marvel’s Epic Lite #1, along with new stories featuring those characters, as well as the “Kyle and Evan Critics at Large” music review strips that ran in Reflex Magazine, co-produced with Kyle Baker. His material from an earlier Dark Horse Comics anthology, Instant Piano, is collected here as well, along with strips he did for a book called Generation Ecch. Oh, and just flipping through my stack of Dork! here, I noticed that a cover he did for the UK version of Deadline magazine gets reprinted on one of the back covers.

Perhaps most famously are several installments of the “Eltingville Club,” stories about a group of friends who are comic book/fantasy/sci-fi/role-playing/etc. fans, and, shall we say, are not shown in the most favorable light. It’s here that Dorkin gets to unleash every critique of fandom behavior (and the exploitation thereof), and you can just feel his vitriol and/or pity and/or personal experience through every bit of ink crammed into each hilarious panel. “There but for the grace of God, I hope” sez I. Here’s a cover featuring those gentlemen:


And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Eltingville Club animated pilot, which did not go to series because, alas, the world was not prepared for such beauty.

This just barely scratches the surface of the amount of material present in these comics. And not an inch of space is wasted…every page is almost Kurtzman/Elder MAD-esque in its need to fill every space with something, and it’s just a pleasure to drink it all in.

Material meant for the never-published issue #12 ended up running in Dark Horse Presents (2011 series) #10-#12. That material was reprinted in turn in the 2012 House of Fun one-shot from the same company, making that, more or less, the 12th issue.

Now…to the reprints! Look, I’m just gonna cut to the chase and tell you that all the Dork! material, the House of Fun stuff, all the extra Eltingville Club stories, every Milk & Cheese strip, can be found in this one, currently-in-print, giant volume of cartooning called Nerd Inferno:


No need to chase down out-of-print collections. It’s all here! Waiting for you! Watching your every move!

There were previous collections, like the Dork! hardcover in 2018, which contains, I think, everything except the Eltingville Club stories. Those get reprinted in their own Eltingville Club hardcover from 2016, including their first appearance from Instant Piano, as well as the two-issue mini-series from 2014 that wraps up that particular saga. (And just to be complete about it, there’s also a Milk & Cheese: Dairy Products Gone Bad hardcover from 2018.) But like I said, it’s all there in Nerd Inferno.

Look, I admit it may not be for everyone. It can be a little abrasive at times, but that’s a feature, not a bug. Those with sensitive constitutions may not want to read more than a few pages at one sitting. Me, I’ll park in my Egg Chair and read the entirety of Nerd Inferno cover to cover if I could make the time, and I’m a guy who’s already read all this stuff. It is top quality hilarious cartooning that I just adore. Evan Dorkin has been a favorite of mine ever since I picked up that one comic because I wanted to know why that weird alien was wearing a Fishbone t-shirt, and his comics never disappoint.

Star surfing, across the universe.

filed under Categories collecting, marvel, pal plugging, silver surfer, star trek 18 Comments

So I got something in a collection the other day that I’ve never seen before. Well, I mean, I’ve seen the comic, of course, in its much more common “softcover book” variety. But for the first time ever, I’ve seen it in hardcover form:


It’s the 1978 Silver Surfer original graphic novel by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, along with Joe Sinnott, John Constanza, Glynis Wein, and cover artist Carl Norem, retelling an alternate version of the character’s origins without the involvement of the Fantastic Four. This was one of a handful of releases from Fireside Books/Simon and Schuster that included Origins of Marvel Comics.

Way back when, at onne of the local bargain stores, there were stacks of the softcover available at next-to-nothing prices. (Also available for deep discounts at the same store: DC’s Famous First Edition treasuries in piles and piles.) I never bought one then, which I of course regret, but not as much as I regret not buying all of them to now sell in my comic shop.

It’s probably because of that long-ago stock dump that I keep seeing copies of the softcover version turn up in collections. As I said above, however, this is the first time the hardcover edition has made its way into my funnybook-worn hands. The dust jacket has seen better days, but otherwise the book looks good.

Here’s the back cover:


The inner flaps of the dust jacket:


Unfortunately, there’s no design on the book’s covers themselves:


…but at least you get some inlaid silver lettering on the spine:


It’s a neat book, and believe it or not, for all the times I’ve come across it at both of the shops I’ve worked at, either in the original softcover or via Marvel’s later reprintings, I’ve never read it. I am seriously considering keeping this for myself. I know, I know, how am I going to make any money and stay in business if I keep all the cool stuff for myself (like all the Popeye comics and fanzines that come my way), but this is a neat time and I’m really tempted. I mean, I’ll at least give it a read before putting it out for sale.

• • •

My ol’ Pal of the Internet Kevin Church has written a nice piece in celebration of Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, and I heartily recommend that you go read it.

I’m a little jealous of Kevin in that he remembers exactly when, and with which episode, he became a fan. I was one of those folks who picked up on Trek when it was in syndication in the early ’70s, that period when a lot of new fans discovered the series. I remember watching it on TV, both the original series and that cartoon, I had several of the toys (the Mego figures, the bridge set, even communicators and the tricorder), but I was perhaps too young to remember which episode to which I was first exposed.

And then Star Wars hit in 1977, and that began to occupy a large segment of my forming fandom brain…but I never forgot Star Trek, which has continued to this very day, finally achieving perfection with the greatest Trek series of all time:


“Search your feelings, you know it to be true,” as someone from a famous sci-fi franchise once said. I think it was Captain Janeway.

Seriously, Fred is all over the place.

filed under Categories pal plugging, retailing, this week's comics 3 Comments

On the comic shelves this week, a couple of comics by Close Personal Friends that I wish to point out to you, the potential readers of such:

First off is Fixation #1, part of the new line of crime comics from IDW:


This is written by Amy Chase, one of my regular customers and a Special Guest at the last couple of Free Comic Book Day events at the shop (here’s a nice photo of her at one, in her swell shirt), with some great art by Savanna Mayer (whose work you saw in Return to Sleepy Hollow, amongst other books). There’s moider at a convention celebrating the anniversary of a popular vampire film, but is it more than just an unstable fan? Read the comic and find out!

Also, listen to Amy chat about the series on the Cryptid Creator Corner podcast.

Also out this week is the Major Taylor hardcover from Drawn and Quarterly, about the first Black world champion cyclist:


…written and drawn by my old, old pal Fred Noland. I’ve known Fred since he was but a young’un, probably at least since the late ’80s. He was also part of the Full Frontal Harvey crew, our mini-comics concern from the mid-1990s-ish, which I’ve written about a bit. He’s had plenty of comics output since then, and you can see and read plenty of examples right here. And here. And if you’re in Berkeley, CA in a couple of weeks, you can see him in person!

Look, I just Googled Fred to see what I can link to here, and hoo boy there is A LOT. I mean, check it out, he’s everywhere. And good on him, Fred is a good guy and deserves all the success he gets.

• • • 

In response to my post about Marvel’s Midnight shenanigans, Dallas asks

“Your shoppe didn’t get the pdfs from a couple weeks ago for each of the #1 issues?”

Well, here’s the thing. My comic shop email box gets an enormous amount of messages. I mean, it’s so much, you guys. Personal emails from customers and other Real People get priority, then messages that look like they may directly impact my business (like sale notifications from eBay, or bank stuff), then emails from distributors and creators and publishers, then all the business loan/V1Agr4 come-ons, then messages from pal Ian.

I’m sure I’m missing a category, but the point is I get a lot to sort through over the course of my day, on top of already doing stuff just in-store to run my business, so there’s only so much time I can devote to the ol’ inbox. Like, the Real People Messages I obviously spend time on, but the distributor etc. emails I sometimes just look at briefly, or not at all. Maybe it’s just a brief glance to see if there’s anything that immediately needs my attention (like “Hi Mike, this is Distributor X, we’re dropping your discount to 2% unless we hear from you in the next four hours”), or if it’s a sales pitch (“Don’t forget to up your orders on Unicycle Tragedy #182 because something big we’re not explaining is going to happen in it!”).

In short, there’s a lot to go through, and, yes, sometimes something slips through the cracks. Like that email with the downloadable Midnight PDFs, which I tried to download right now but they’re already removed from the server. Ah, well. I mean, honestly, if I barely have time to get through emails, how much time am I going to spend reading full issue PDFs? …Okay, again, I really do try to at least give even the PDFs a once-over, but the number of times that sort of thing has influenced my order numbers is exactly zero. Whether or not I think something is great doesn’t matter, it’s what the customers want that matters, and my tastes don’t necessarily jibe with theirs. Otherwise that Santos Sisters issue with Flaming Carrot would have been my best-selling book of the month.

Yes, I suppose one could glean from a PDF the possible quality of a comic, and how that might impact comic sales, but that’s still a nebulous thing upon which to base one’s orders. The only real gauge for comic orders is comic sales, and sometimes, like with a new thing such as these Midnight books, we won’t know how well they’ll do until we see how well they do. I could have perused that Midnight: Fantastic Four #1, thought it was the greatest comic I’ve ever read, ordered a royal buttload of copies, and then see it wither on the rack as all the customers turned up their noses at having to start yet another event.

I actually think it’s going to sell fine, though we’ll see where things go with #2.

I do appreciate the advance PDFs…I know publishers are hesitant, they don’t want spoilers turning up on theresreallyasiteforcomicsgossipreadbylikeadults.lu weeks ahead of release, and I really should make more of an effort. However, to be completely honest, their impact on my ordering decisions is minimal, particularly in these days when orders are pretty close to the bone on most titles, both regular ongoings and new debuts. Like I said in that post, it feels like Marvel wants to get something comparable to Absolute Batman‘s seemingly-undying shelf life.

As hard as it may be to believe now, even that new Bat-title got relatively conservative orders from me. I ordered higher because 1) it’s a new imprint from DC that 2) is kicking off with a Batman book. And while I did sell through that order, it didn’t happen immediately. Over time I learned what the regular order numbers should be. Would an advance PDF (or in this particular case, the “ashcans” I received) have affected my ordering? No, not really.

I’m not saying advanced PDFs are not useful to others in deciding their order numbers. I just don’t put a lot of emphasis on them myself. Maybe that’ll change, maybe I’ll incorporate that information on a case-by-case basis. But reading a comic book that’s actually in my hand does more for my appreciation and experience than looking at a file on a screen…and if it’s a good one, I’ll definitely let my customers know about it. And if sales go up, so do my orders. It’s a more evidence-based method of ordering, and one that’s worked well for me over the years.

Not to be confused with the Heinlein story.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 16 Comments

Jeff asks

“Have you read Byrne’s new X-Men Fanfic book? It seems like you at least used to be a Byrne fan, even if I don’t think you’re an X-Men fan.”

The book Jeff is talking about is X-Men: Elsewhen volume 1, written and drawn by John Byrne, and released a few months ago:


Byrne was, of course, famously the artist for the X-Men title, along with writer Chris Claremont, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, leaving the book with issue #141. However, in recent years Byrne had written and penciled his own continuation of his X-Men run, picking up from where he left off, and posting the pages to his online fan forum. This book is the first of three volumes collecting these pages, newly inked and colored.

The amount of demand I had for these caught me by surprise a little, and apparently everyone else as well, as it seemed to take a while to get a new printing restocked after initial orders sold through right away. A handful of my customers seemed really excited about this release, and more power to ’em.

Part of me does wonder if it maybe could’ve sold as a standard comic book series, just reprinting each of Byrne’s posted “issues” one at a time, but I suspect the book release was a smarter move. Yet Another X-Men Series on the rack would have easily been lost in the shuffle, even one by Byrne. The hardcover, I think, gives this effort the status and attention it requires for success, making the Special Event-ness of the proceedings even more pronounced.

But Jeff asked “if I read it?” and the answer is “nope.” He’s right saying that I’d been a Byrne fan, and there was a time when I just picked up anything the man drew. I even picked up a lot of his later mini-series work at IDW (though I passed on this weird Star Trek Photoshop comics). If he came back today and started writing and drawing, say, a new solo series starring Alpha Flight‘s Puck, buddy, I’d at least give it a flip-through.

His X-Men run, though, remains bit of a blind spot for me. I mean, I’m familiar with it, I know mostly what happens in which issue, just from having handled them in-shop and read about them for decades. Sitting down and reading them all panel-by-panel is an effort I’ve not yet made.

I intended to! Marvel’s online digital library makes it easy to catch up on stuff I’ve either missed or haven’t read in a while. This is how I’m rereading so much material for the “My Fantastic Four-ay” entries, even when I have a lot of those books sitting out in the Vast Mikester Comic Archives’ boxes. I began with Giant-Size X-Men #1, the comic that started the Modern X-Men as We Know Them, a comic that, despite its importance, I’d never read. It was…certainly something, with lots of characters shouting at each other for a whole lot of pages, and it wasn’t the greatest thing I’d ever read, but I wanted to continue.

That project fell on the back-burner, though, and I hadn’t returned. Yet. Those early new X-Men comics weren’t by Claremont and Byrne, of course, so I hadn’t even reached the point where they took over. I do still want to read these, if only to fill this hole in my comic-booking experience.

As Jeff says, I was never really an X-Men fan. I read it in the mid-ish ’80s, after picking up the extra-sized Uncanny X-Men #175, because I liked reading the longer anniversary issues of titles, and then following the book for several years after that. It just seemed like if you were a comic book fan, you just naturally picked up the X-Men as required by Nerd Law. I did bail out around issue 220 or so, not returning until Grant Morrison wrote the book, where I read every issue they did and then went back to a mostly X-free lifestyle.

Thus, the Elsewhen book is mostly lost on me, picking up plotlines and story beats from decades ago that I hadn’t read…I clearly wasn’t the target audience. I did, of course, at least page though a copy and cast my peepers within. It all looks fine, with Byrne’s art appearing to be as strong as ever. I can’t attest to the writing, but it all seems reasonably professional enough.

I did spot a guest appearance by the Fantastic Four, a team that Byrne also famously guided for many years, and look, I wavered just a tiny bit. Had this been the first of three volumes picking up where he left off on the Fantastic Four title, I’d be on this in a heartbeat.

So, no, Jeff, I didn’t read this, but once maybe I finally finished reading that original Claremont/Byrne run, maybe I’ll finally get around to this, too!

Letting it all hang out.

filed under Categories dc comics, marvel, publishing, retailing 9 Comments

So Marvel unleashed its “Ultimate” Universe in 2000/2001, starting with Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men, partially out of a need to have some “new reader friendly” material on the stands free of the deep continuity in the regular Marvel Universe. Also, a collapsed comics market and Marvel being on the verge of “going away” for good probably helped push along any desperate ideas to keep them afloat. Whatever the reason, the Ultimate books came out, giving fresh starts to their properties separate from the still-ongoing Marvel Universe proper…until they became just as convoluted as the mainline universe and purpose successfully defeated.

But it ran a long time, and made lots of money and had a strong readership, and “the sweet taste of success attracts many tongues,” as no one but me says, and DC was trying to figure out how to get some of that Ultimate scratch.

First they tried with their “All-Star” line in the mid-2000s, with All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman…both sold amazingly well, though one got a little more critical acclaim than the other. All-Star Superman was a mini and wrapped up after 12 issues, while the Batman title stopped mid-story with #10, and planned Batgirl and Wonder Woman titles for the line never appeared.

Then DC tried out the “Earth One” line of graphic novels, starting in 2009, again giving fresh starts to their major properties and hoping to catch a new bookstore audience with them. The Superman and Batman series for this imprint put out multiple volumes, but never really seemed to catch any traction. The Wonder Woman run of three books was generally well received, as was the Green Lantern run. But it looks like this effort was finally abandoned a few years ago (though a collection of the Wonder Woman books as part of DC’s Compact Line has done well for me!).

And then, finally, The Third Time’s the Charm, as they say, as just a couple years ago DC launched their Absolute line. Similar to the Ultimate Universe, the Absolute Universe gave fresh starts to their heavy hitters (Supes, Bats, and Wondy) in continuities separate from the mainstream DCU. Interestingly, the milieu spins out of one of DC’s Big Event titles, positing a reality centered around the Omega Energy of the seemingly fallen Darkseid. Sorry if that sounds a little inside-baseball for anyone coming onto this out of context, but the general idea is that this is not just a darker universe, but an existence where the heroes we know lack the advantages their regular counterparts have.

At any rate, this line (which quickly added a handful of new titles) is pretty much DC just printing money at this point. Absolute Batman is far and away the biggest hit. DC just keeps issuing reprint after reprint of the entire run of individual comics, and I keep putting them on my shelves, and they keep selling. They’re up to, like, a 12th printing on #1. This is almost unheard of for just a regular monthly title at DC, especially after the trade paperback collections started getting released.

And it’s not to speculators…it’s new readers, it’s teenagers, it’s adults who’d heard about this thing online somewhere. It’s the Holy Grail of what DC and Marvel have been looking for, A Title That Gets New Readers into Comic Shops Specifically for Their Thing.

The other Absolute titles also do well, if not at quite the extreme Absolute Batman does, but they’ve found their levels and move off the shelves.

Anyway, now that DC has found its Ultimate line, Marvel seems like it’s going to try to find its Absolute line, with this new Midnight publishing initiative they’re about to launch. I was going to say “I don’t know that this is directly a response to DC’s Absolute line,” but the headline of this article, “Marvel’s new Midnight universe makes DC’s Absolute comics look ‘pretty polite,’ says Spider-Man writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson,” seems to clear up any confusion.

The “Midnight” line is horror-centric, apparently, separate from the regular Marvel Universe, with darker versions of Marvel’s mainstays, which feels like a misread of the Absolute line, but, well, we’ll see what they do with it. The solicit for the first issue of Midnight: Fantastic Four #1 reads

“FIRST STEPS INTO DARKNESS! An obsessive scientist delves into the secrets of the universe perhaps best left unknown to humankind, leaving himself and three others warped in strange and horrifying ways. What horrible secrets lie in the new dimensions they have discovered? And can humanity survive the discovery? From the twisted minds of Benjamin Percy (WOLVERINE, PUNISHER) and Kev Walker (INFERNAL HULK, DOCTOR STRANGE) comes a tale of existential dread and secrets best kept…”

I can do without the “from the twisted minds of…” business, I mean c’mon, but I don’t know, Fantastic Four as a cosmic horror comic? Or even, dare I say, Lovecraftian? Yeah, I’d be all for that.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not criticizing anything they’re doing here. I obviously haven’t read any of these yet. They could be great! They have solid creative teams. But the question is, will these capture the same attention and sales as DC’s Absolute line?

This is something I had to ask myself when I was finalizing orders on the initial releases from this line. And while I tend to order conservatively on new titles, I did bump orders up quite a bit for these books. I think they will do very well, at least at first, as everyone tries to get in on the ground floor of what they think will be the Next Big Thing. And maybe they’ll be right, and it will be the Next Big Thing.

But I honestly think it will be at best a good selling new Marvel line to already established comic fans, and not the constantly-selling, new customer-attracting, phenomenon that Absolute has been. That niche is already filled, you see, and lightning striking again seems highly unlikely.

Again, just my feeling. I could be wrong, and maybe I’ll still be selling the 12th printing of Midnight: X-Men #1 off my shelves two years from now. And I’ll be cursing myself for not having ordered ten times the amount I did for the first printing of that issue.

We’ll all see soon enough how the Midnight line does. And whether I was on target with my orders. I’ve had strong interest from my regular clientele regarding these books, and I’ll be interested to see if there’s any demand beyond that.