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I wrote too much yesterday, so today you get another comic cover:
The Big All-American Comic Book (1944)
Bloggers, books, and beriodicals. Er, periodicals.
1. Okay, so I’m a doofus: when I listed the other webloggers who answered this questionnaire, I unfortunately did not mention some of my other favorite webloggers who also answered the questions, for which I apologize. So, in addition to Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, Comic Book Galaxy, Motime Like The Present, Johnny Bacardi Show, and Otto’s Coffee Shop, we also have Legomancer, Chris Brown (thanks for the kind words!), Near Mint Heroes, and the inimitable Ringwood.
EDIT: Miraclo Miles, too.
2. Pal Dorian and I both forwarded copies to ourselves of the forthcoming DC trades e-mail I mentioned here, so there may be some overlap in discussion. (You can also find the list here, via Thought Balloons, who also points to Comics.212‘s commentary.) Anyway, I did want to point out a couple things:
- The Vertigo book My Faith in Frankie is manga-format for $6.95. Nice to see DC putting some thought into what actually might appeal to your basic manga buyer, rather than just pumping out superhero trades in smaller formats and hoping they fly.
- Oh dear: the cover price on JLA: Another Nail is $4.90 less than the cover price for all three issues of the mini-series.
- That DC Rarities Archives I mentioned previously is a pretty hefty volume at 348 pages…given that the New York World’s Fair comics are 100 pages apiece, and The Big All-American Comic Book is 132(!), it’s a necessity. The other archives are about 200 to 220 pages, for comparison.
- Swamp Thing: Bad Seed, reprinting the initial storyline of the new series, is only $9.95. I like this trend of starting off Vertigo trade paperback series with a nice, low introductory price. I hope this continues.
- Gen 13: Ordinary Heroes: seems a little late in the game to be putting out Gen 13 books, but since this one has Alan Davis art and thus will most likely be cross-marketed with Another Nail (and it doesn’t hurt that he’s got a high-profile assigment at Marvel), it makes sense to release at least this volume, I suppose.
- Starman: Grand Guignol is, I’m pretty sure, the last of the Starman trades…hopefully, that’ll jumpstart sales on the other books in the series, as sales on them have stagnated around here. A shame, really, since it’s a fine comic…drags a little in places, but nicely illustrated and quite thoughtful. Plus, it took a couple of your dopier Golden Age villains (Shade and the Mist) and made them interesting.
- …and, looking at the rest of the list (lots of Humanoids, 2000 AD, Elfquest books, and so on) it almost makes DC look like a real publisher, with a wide range of products aimed at different markets. Whether the people in those different markets will come looking for them is another matter altogether.
3. New comics day: I hate when new comics day is pushed back a day due to holidays…it really throws me off. Don’t really have much to say about the new funnybooks: Superman: Birthright #11 opens with Lois spouting some dialogue that might as well have been “hey, you, reading this comic! Here’s what happened last issue!” It doesn’t seem terribly likely that anyone is starting this series with the next-to-last issue, so a little less exposition would probably be called for. Plus, it’s going to look darn awkward when the whole thing’s collected in that $29.95 hardcover. I do like this series, don’t get me wrong.
Girl Genius #11 – hey, it’s bigger! It’s magazine-size now, and that’s fine (even though everyone complained today that they won’t be able to file it with their other issues…look, we all survived the Great Eightball Size Shift, we can survive this too), as anything that emphasizes Phil Foglio’s fantastic art is okay with me.
Why must three of the four current Fantastic Four titles ship out on the exact same day?
4. My Canadian blood-brother Flat Earth has been on a Turok binge lately, of which I wholeheartedly approve. Go visit and hunt some honkers with the man. He even interviews Gary Panter about Turok…now that’s cool.
Posting from work, so I’ll make this quick: DC just sent out an e-mail announcing the collected editions for the rest of the year, and along with the non-surprises (Superman/Batman: Supergirl HC, JLA: Tenth Circle TPB), we get some good stuff: DC Comics Rarities Archives Vol. 1 (containing New York World’s Fair Comics 1939 and 1940, as well as the one I’ve been wanting for years, The Big All-American Comic Book); Comics Cavalcade Archives; and Swamp Thing: Regenesis, beginning the reprints of the Rick Veitch stories…maybe this means we’ll eventually see the long-lost Swampy meets Jesus story in a future trade! Well, a boy can hope, anyway.
I probably should have posted these links with my own answers to that questionnaire from the Comics Journal Message Boards, but fellow comicsweblogospherians Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, Comic Book Galaxy, Motime Like The Present, Johnny Bacardi Show, and Otto’s Coffee Shop had all posted responses prior to my taking a shot at it. Go take a look and see what these fine folks have to say.
(Did I miss anybody?)
"Superboy, you can’t be Hitler in personality!"
from Adventure Comics #314 (1963) by Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan, & George Klein
(as reprinted in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives #2)
In which I talk about my faovorite subject, me.
1. Courtesy pal Tom again…more reviews of Green Arrow’s arrows. Hey, I think it’s funny.
2. Word on the street is that Thought Balloon’s Kevin Melrose has a new site, Scryptic Studios, for “aspiring, semi-professional, and professional comic book writers.” Neat! (I particularly like Kevin’s confession on this page.)
3. THE MEME: From the Comics Journal message board, a list of questions regarding comic stores and comic-buying habits…I see pal Ian answered those questions — that’s my place of employment he’s talkin’ ’bout, brother! I thought it might be at least a little interesting (well, for me, anyway) to answer these, at least from the perspective of someone who manages a comic shop:
A. Do you tend to go to the nearest store, the best store, any store, or does it matter?
I go to the store I work at. Actually, before I entered my indentured servitude, that was my store of choice since first shopping there over 20 years ago.
B. Ladies, what books do you tend to purchase, or what kind would you like to purchase (if you are a male please leave blank or supply what a girlfriend reads)?
The girlfriend really, really, really likes Spider-Man…she was also a fan of Marvel’s G.I. Joe series.
C. What one thing would you add or change about your most frequented store (i.e. What is the worst thing about the store)?
I would change the backroom organization (i.e. less stuff), and get even more shelves for the front of the store. Ideally, I would love more space…we may have to wait for one of our neighboring stores to move out so we can knock down a wall and expand, because I’ll be damned if I’m moving the whole store again. (After our last move into a larger location a few years back, I had dreams about moving boxes of comics for months.)
Oh, and I’d also change my salary to a million dollars a month.
D. What one thing would you not change (i.e. What is the best thing about the store)?
The wide and varied selection of new and old funnybooks! And our customers…despite my recent gripes about certain types of customers, we’ve got a pretty good clientele with several cool and nice people.
E. Do you read any small press comic books currently? Which one(s)? (examples: Lone Star Press, Avatar)
Yes…I’ve been a long supporter of independent comics, stemming in part from being exposed to a wide selection of indies at my shop of choice from the very beginning of my comic-shop patronage. I’ll check out just about anything from Fantagraphics, Slave Labor, and, oh, that AiT/Planetlar company too, I guess…and I’ll poke through any indie that happens to grab my attention.
F. What back issues do you buy?
Mostly DC’s funny animal stuff by Shelly Mayer, as well as his Sugar & Spike, Nancy comics, the Dell/Gold Key Peanuts comics (still missing a couple!), Turok (the original good stuff, not Valiant era), any fun-looking Silver Age Superman-family comics, 1950s and 60s-era Archies, Herbie, and old fanzines.
G. How do you decide what comic book to buy? Writer, artist, character, word of mouth, etc?
All kinds of things…I notice that I’ll buy DC Comics based on character, while Marvel books I’ll buy based on creator, more or less (though I’ve been buying Hulk for decades, through thick and thin). Word of mouth usually doesn’t convince me to buy comics, but all that talk about Street Angel online got me to try it out. Mostly…if it grabs my eye, it’s halfway there to getting onto my purchase pile.
H. Do you buy strictly current age comic books or do you buy older comic books? What kinds?
I mostly buy new comics, if only because I’ve been buying comics on a regular basis for the last 25 years…if I wanted to read it, I would have bought it off the shelf when it was new.
I. How do you feel about graded comic books?
I’m assuming this means those slabbed, “professionally-graded” comics you see people paying too much for on eBay all the time. I don’t know…I can understand the need for such a service, given most auction sellers can’t grade their way out of a paper bag (to use one of our favorite nonsensical expressions)…but the end result is people paying far too much for items that don’t warrant such prices. People investing too much money in overpriced slabbed books are people that won’t be in the hobby much longer, once they realize they’ll never get back the money they’ve spent.
J. What comic book related merchandise do you buy?
Not much…I do occasionally pick up a single HeroClix of certain characters (like Swamp Thing, natch), and I’ll buy the DC Direct Golden Age character action figures, though they’ve mostly dried up lately. Also, I am still sort of semi-looking for that Fin Fang Foom figure Toy Biz put out a while ago.
K. What do you read if you are not reading comic books?
Geez…just about anything. I’m a voracious (and fast, thankfully!) reader. Just finished The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (lent to me by a customer, who had also let me borrow his run of Flashman novels). Also just read Coalescent by Stephen Baxter (who for once didn’t end his science fiction novel with “we’ll never interact with other worlds in any meaningful fashion, we’re pretty much stuck on Earth, and there’s no escape from the entropical death of the universe. The end”). On the waiting to read pile: Death Rat by Mystery Science Theatre 3000‘s Mike Nelson. I also have a subscription to Macaddict. And I’m slowly working my way through The Old West history series from Time/Life Books that my parents subscribed to in the early-to-mid-70s, and have just recently given to me. And, sometimes, if I’m waiting for something on the computer (like for a CD to burn, a restart, etc.), I’ll pick up the dictionary that I keep on the desk near my Mac and just randomly go through a page.
L. What do you buy at comic book conventions?
I haven’t been in years…when I did go, I just mostly poured through the dollar boxes looking for bargains. My best find was someone selling 1960s Archie comics three for a buck. Woo-hoo!
