As you may recall, Wednesday we received our UPS shipment from Diamond Comics, but alas, we were short a box that was apparently taking the scenic route through Laguna Hills. Said box contains about a third of the new DC titles, so I was a little peeved (especially since it meant pulling books for our subscription service twice, when believe me, once a week is plenty). Well, it did arrive today, about two hours after we opened, so I guess all’s well that ends well, and all that. Thought now I have to wonder what will happen next week? Will UPS arrive early but be missing a box? Or will we get everything, but not until after we’ve opened our doors for business that day? Stay tuned!
The delayed book I was most looking forward do was DC Comics Presents Hawkman, as the previous Julius Schwartz tribute books have been mostly quite well done. So far the pattern has been to have one great story (the Morrison story in Mystery in Space, the Azzarello story in Green Lantern), paired with a more…well, “average” story, for the lack of a better term, though that has a negative connotation I don’t intend. For Hawkman, however, both stories are closer to the “average” level, but are enjoyable nonetheless…Cary “Mr. Surprise” Bates returns to comics with a story starring Julie himself, with nice art by John Byrne and Lary Stucker. Very evocative of the Silver Age trend of the comic creators somehow getting mixed up in the very adventures they’re writing/illustrating/editing. The second story, by Kurt Busiek and Walt Simonson, is a tale of the love between Hawkman and Hawkgirl, with of course a flying gorilla mixed in, and it’s fun as well. It does make one wish for a longer Simonson Hawkman tale, as his art style is very suited to the Winged Wonder.
Speaking of comics that are new this week…Marvel needs to go back to an actual publishing schedule, instead of just immediately sending books out to the printer as soon as the art is in-house, which is what appears to be happening. Getting three of the four Fantastic Four books in the same week is inexcusable. It’s like Marvel is daring the reader to realize that, you know, maybe they don’t need to read all these FF books and that they should drop one, or two, or all of them. What made Marvel think that the market could support multiple FF titles anyway, when it could barely manage one? …Oh, right.
On a completely unrelated note, I was watching a little bit of RoboCop on cable TV last night…this is one of those movies that, even though I already own the Criterion edition DVD (he said snobbily), I always feel compelled to watch at least a little bit of it whenever I come across it on TV. It’s a great darn flick…I’ve referred to it as “the best superhero movie not based on a comic book,” and I’ll stand by that statement, mister, so don’t give me any guff. It’s got one of my favorite villain-comeuppances of all time, and no one plays “sleaze” like Miguel Ferrer.
Er, I got a little off the point, there. Anyway, I noticed something in the film last night that hadn’t occurred to me before. Comic books pop up once or twice in the film, and each time they appear (at least in the hour or so of the film I saw last night), Rom is prominently featured. Rom…the comic about the space warrior whose body has been mostly replaced by robotic parts. Hmmm. Coincidence?
Speaking of RoboCop, in the second film (the one written, at least in part, by Frank Miller), there is a scene where a computer screen is flashing through several files of criminals as candidates for the RoboCop program. Now, I haven’t seen this movie on regular television, so I don’t know if you can make it out on the small screen (maybe on the 50-inch plus screens you can), but all the names of these criminals are people from the comics industry. I remember specifically “Deitch,” “Crumb,” “Hernandez,” and (I believe) “Groth,” and “Kirby” might have been in there, too. Every name that flashes by was the name of some comics guy or gal. Hmmm. Coincidence? Probably not. Yeah, I was watching the computer screen instead of the actual action of the film. I was probably better off.
And on yet another unrelated note…welcome to Matt Maxwell and his new comics weblog Highway 62.
