In which I take a look at things everyone else has already looked at.
I was going to make a more-extensive post about the recently-released X-Force #1, but Paul O’Brien has pretty much got it covered. I will say that we’ve sold well over half the copies we’ve ordered since it came in last Wednesday, and I’m fairly certain we’ll have a sell-through on it. It’s a comic everyone makes fun of by an artist everyone makes fun of, and yet it sells. A thought I had today as we were doing cycle sheets for the store was that maybe people are buying it in the (probably accurate) belief that Liefeld won’t be on the book for long, but they don’t want to start buying the book with issue #4 (or whatever). I suppose that falls under O’Brien’s category of “completists.”
I would survey our customers myself, but it may seem a little unnecessarily confrontational to ask each person who picks up the book “WHY ARE YOU BUYING THIS???”
Anyhoo, let’s take a peek at those new DC solicits, shall we?
- Now that they’ve cancelled the one Batman-family book I was reading (Batman Adventures) I can skip right past that section. Wheeee!
- Everyone’s talking about the Superman: Secret Identity trade (see, Dor, I told you it’d be $19.95!), and I second everyone else’s recommendation that you buy it. Good stuff, and deserving of a wider audience than it received (though it sold pretty darn well at our shop).
- Re: the Jim Lee run on Superman – I think maybe a similar approach to Lee’s run on Batman may have been more widely accepted by fans…where Lee gets to draw Every Superman Villain Ever. Just a thought.
- JLA Classified #1 – Grant Morrison. Gorilla Grodd. A match made in heaven.
- Now that we’re done with the stupid vampire stories, Doom Patrol appears to be on the upswing. (You: “Dogpile on the John Byrne fan!” Me: “NOOOOO!”)
- Please read Fallen Angel. I like this comic, and I want to see more issues of it. It’s good. Honest. You can trust me.
- Dave Gibbons drawing JSA? Jumpin’ Judas on a pogo stick!
- Rick Veitch writing The Question – Veitch superhero comics are always incredibly bizarre, and I expect this title to be no exception.
- I’m a little more favorably inclined toward the Space Ghost comic than my respected coworker is.
- Wild Girl by Alan Moore’s daughter Leah Moore should be interesting…I liked her work in the Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales book, and it has art by Shawn McManus, which I always enjoy.
- Everyone seems to be taking the loss of writer Will Pfeifer as an excuse to drop Swamp Thing. But not me! I’ll always read you, Swamp Thing. You’re my special friend…no one else understands me like y…er, I wasn’t just using my out-loud voice, was I?
And regarding pal Dorian’s comments on my complaining about how they get Kilowog’s arms wrong on the new action figure. Well, they do! Look at the cover scan here (sorry, the scan’s pretty small)…there’s Kilowog in the background, with little tiny upper arms (sorta like Popeye), which is how we was drawn for the several issues following. Soon, however, he was being drawn with “normal” upper arms, which is how he’s drawn to this day. Hey, this isn’t silly stuff like “Jack Black as Green Lantern” or “misogyny in Identity Crisis” — this is important!
