Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinThe reason cows are out of season since 1969

§ August 18th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

New comics day. Wheeeee.

• Well, we finally got our copies of the JLA/Avengers hardcovers in. If you would have told me 25 years ago that someday there would be a $75.00 slipcased set of hardback books that had, among others, Blue Devil on the cover, I would have said two things – #1: “No way!” and #2: “Who’s Blue Devil?”
• Shorted on us by Diamond: Scott Pilgrim, our reorders of Spaghetti Western, and our reorder of Street Angel #1. Dang it.
• At last, ComicsOne has cut through all the coyness and baloney, and has distilled manga down to its basic essence*:
  
  
  High School Girls. Ask for it by name!

• Fantastic Four #517 is the only tie-in to the current Avengers storylines that I’ve read…and I’m hoping that the rest of the crossovers are not as much of a “red skies”** crossover as this one is. Really, you could have changed every occurrence of the phrase “the Avengers are disbanded” with “the Avengers are on a mission in another dimension” and had more or less the same story.
• One thing I like about Brian Bolland’s two covers for the Julius Schwartz tribute series DC Comics Presents is that he uses Julie himself in place of one of the cover characters. I thought that was a nice touch. This issue of DCCP, featuring the Atom, was a little more enjoyable than the previous issue. The Mark Waid story threatened to collapse beneath its own cleverness, but turned out to be fairly charming, and a nice cataloguing of the stories we’ve heard about Mr. Schwartz.
• Cosmic Guard by Jim Starlin – I offer no excuses for buying this. I’m a die-hard Starlin fan, and there’s no known cure (though Wyrd came close).
• The new Comics Journal is out, and it looks like a winner. Complete Toth stories and the forbidden “Goodman Beaver” Archie parody? That alone should be enough to get you to pick it up. Oh, and there’s some articles and stuff, too.
• Plastic Man continues to be fantastic. Look, if you didn’t like the initial storyline, go back and try issues 8 and 9. They’re lots of fun, honest! (And Kyle Baker gets in a good jab at his own publisher this issue…you’ll know it when you see it!)
• New Demo out this week. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
• Batman Adventures #17. The last Batman comic I’ll be reading for the forseeable future. And yes, the ending of the story depressed me. Ah, well.
• Rob Liefeld Sketchbook Vol. 1. Rob Liefeld Sketchbook Vol. 1.

  Rob Liefeld Sketchbook Vol. 1.

  Really, it’s the greatest thing ever. You have to see it.

• Dorian noticed a typo on the back cover of the new Superman: Godfall hardcover – “tmmediately” or something similar. “Way to put your best foot forward, guys,” Dorian says.
• The one problem with several DC Comics all being prebagged with those Sky Captain CDs is that the comics tend to look alike if you’re not paying attention, which probably explains why we were shorted a certain number of the prebagged Hero #19, and got that same number of extra copies of the prebagged Fallen Angel #14.
• I wasn’t aware that they were going to be changing the logo of Hellblazer to tie into the movie, but the new printing of the Original Sins trade paperback does indeed say “Constantine HELLBLAZER” on the front cover. Apparently the same thing will be done with the monthly as well. I wonder how long they’ll keep the logo after the movie’s over and done with?
• New Girl Genius is out, in a more timely basis than the previous issue. This is a great comic…shame the trade paperbacks haven’t been available from Diamond for a while.
• And then there’s The Moth #4 (beautiful art, adequate writing), Astro City Special #1 (excellent as expected), Terra Obscura Vol. 2 #1 (looks like it should be as much fun as the first series), Ex Machina #3 (continues to be compelling), and JSA Strange Adventures #1 (Johnny Thunder’s attempt at writing JSA pulp fiction is a great idea…let’s hope the execution lives up to it).
• We also received the promo poster for the forthcoming Hal Jordan Green Lantern series, that frames the image in such a way that you can’t see how his costume has been changed. That reminds me…so let me get this straight…you’ve been complaining for years that you want Hal Jordan back, and now that you finally got him, you’re going to continue complaining over the fact that the green/black balance in his costume has been slightly changed? Well, you all better run out and get your internet petitions started to correct this horrible affront.
• This isn’t a comic that’s new this week, but I just wanted to mention…things that manage to irritate everybody make me laugh. Really, this is the cover of the year.
  

*I’m only joking. Relax.

** Boy, did I show my age or what?

"Green Lantern, lend me your comb."

§ August 18th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "Green Lantern, lend me your comb."

from Justice League of America #17 (Feb 1963)

In which I take a look at things everyone else has already looked at.

§ August 17th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on 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!

More Harvey Hits.

§ August 16th, 2004 § Filed under harvey, watchmen Comments Off on More Harvey Hits.

I realize that I’ve been on some kind of weird Harvey Comics trip lately, but when you get right down to it, that’s really the only kind of Harvey Comics trip you can be on, given how downright peculiar Harvey strips can be. So, for today’s funnybook follies, I’m taking a brief look at some odd things in Harvey books that have caught my eye lately.

First off is this Richie Rich story, where a burglar fixes it that the Riches’ robot maid Irona appears “sick,” and while she’s away recuperating, the burglar will arrange to have his own robot maid accomplice take her place. Anyway, the robot is rushed off to a hospital, apparently owned by the Rich family (and not just intended for rich people, though that probably can be inferred):

However, it’s not just a hospital, mind you! It’s a towering hospital…just for robots!

Now here, in this Little Dot story, we have Dot being given a tour of a large department store by her aunt. At the beginning of the story, Dot spots a sign warning shoplifters that they will indeed be prosecuted. However, thoughout the tour, Dot’s aunt keeps taking items, eating snacks, etc etc without paying a cent. A sample:

It all turns out okay in the end, though, as Dot’s aunt is in fact the owner of the department store! Setting aside that Dot probably should have known that from the start, there is still the ethical question of the aunt’s behavior. Yes, she does own the store, but isn’t stealing from your own store still stealing? At the very least, isn’t it a bad example for the employees? It certainly must be confusing the issue for poor, impressionable Litte Dot.

Back to Richie Rich — the one thing that really bugged me about Richie Rich, aside from his obviously untreated case of macrocephaly, is how he lords his wealth over his poor country friends Freckles and Pee Wee:

Someday the proletariat will rise up and overthrow their capitalist oppressors.

Harvey has an important lesson for kids in this next Richie Rich story, in which Richie’s dad Mr. Rich is replaced by an evil duplicate. However, Richie has a cunning plan as to how to tell them apart:

Yes, only the morally just can handle smoking.

And lastly, the origin of Dr. Manhattan from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, as reenacted by Baby Huey in Harvey Hits Comics #3 (March 1987):

For comparison, selected panels from Watchmen #4 (December 1986):

§ August 15th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

Okay, so I was rewatching the Justice League Unlimited cartoon from last night, and got to thinking — if the wording of Mordred’s spell is to be taken at face value (“I don’t want to see anyone older than me ever again!”) and given that Morgaine Le Fay reveals to the heroes that she’s been taking care of Mordred for “millennia,” wouldn’t that mean the spell would only affect Morgaine, maybe the Demon, and any other immortals that happen to be around? Or am I overthinking it? (Yes, I know, I probably am.)

So, a couple nights ago pals Ian, Dorian, Tom, and I headed for the local sports bar to discuss the forthcoming domination of the comicsweblogosphere by the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs (which is, as always, ACAPCWOVCCAOE for short). Well, okay, we really weren’t discussing that…anyway, Corey was in parts unknown, and Fleshhead was, I don’t know, probably in jail or something, so it wasn’t a full meeting. (And I had to part ways with them early on as it was, given my health has been pretty spotty lately.) But I was thinking…this was the second time I had been in this particular bar. The last time was when I was hanging out with a comics artist that we had at the shop for a signing. He needed a ride back to the airport, which I was giving him, but he wanted to stop at ye olde local sports bar to watch that day’s Big Game. So, yes, I spent the rest of that work day drinking Cokes and watching TV and getting paid for it. That, my friends, is the American dream.

Speaking of work, today I had a customer tell me a couple reasons why he comes to our shop. Reason one was the large back issue selection. Reason two: “the guys behind the counter aren’t creepy.” High praise, indeed.

§ August 15th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

Well, last night we had another new episode of Justice League Unlimited, featuring…Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern. Rats. I was looking forward to seeing new characters, but I guess we have to wait ’til next week. According to the episode guide on the Cartoon Network site, we were supposed to get episode #3 last night, but instead it was episode #5 that was shown. Ah, well. At least we got to see Baby Demon…cute to the point of being appalling.

Speaking of the Demon, it appears that John Byrne’s new title for DC Comics is Blood of the Demon, discussed in detail here (and also mentioned at Franklin’s Findings and Highway 62). The discussion that follows (which, like most Newsarama discussions, should have a sign posted at the start that reads “Abandon hope, all ye” etc. etc.) quickly descends into, as Franklin notes, a battle between the Byrne lovers and the people with slightly more realistic expectations (i.e. “Byrne haters”).

I also noticed a lot of talk about the decision to do away with the Demon’s rhyming dialogue. That should come as no surprise to anyone who’s read Byrne’s take on the Demon in recent years, as Byrne would do whatever he can to get around writing it, probably because 1) that’s not how the Demon’s creator, Jack Kirby, would have done it, and 2) because rhyming dialogue is a pain in the butt to write. For this series, since Will Pfeifer is on dialogue chores, it wouldn’t be Byrne’s problem, but given the “back to basics” take on the character, the rhyming dialogue was probably the first thing to go.

And, you know, that’s fine. Alan Moore (who introduced this particular variation on the Demon during his run on Swamp Thing) and Matt Wagner did the dialogue the best, though Alan Grant should get some kind of award just for doing it for so darn long on the previous Demon monthly series. But, after so many years, I think I’m kind of burnt out on the rhyming-Demon thing. And Byrne seems to be at his best when playing with Kirby’s toys anyway, so I’m willing to give this Blood of the Demon series a shot.

In other news:

Precocious Curmudgeon takes on Identity Crisis criticism. Hey, it made me laugh.

Pal Dorian goes through some search terms used to find his site. (“Mallard Fillmore subtext?”)

§ August 14th, 2004 § Filed under harvey Comments Off on

from Friendly Ghost Casper #10 (June 1959)

§ August 13th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

Yesterday, as I was going over orders, I actually found myself saying this to pal Dorian: “Hey, do Venom and Carnage actually appear in the Venom & Carnage comic?” Yes, that’s what Marvel has driven me to.

On a completely unrelated note, here’s a link to a comprehensive website by someone nearly as obsessed with Swamp Thing as I am. (courtesy Thrillmer)

(Real content will resume shortly…weblogging time has been in short supply!)

§ August 12th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

Pal Josh has posted some of his San Diego Con photos. Three words: Angry Caveman Robot!

§ August 12th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on

How the day began:

Pal Dorian and I are unpacking the new comic books, and I see that the only DCs that come bagged with the Sky Captain CDs are Legends of the Dark Knight and Nightwing:

Me: “Oh man, that Sky Captain CD only comes with comics I don’t buy.”

Dorian: “I’m getting both of those comics – I guess I can give you one of the CDs.”

Me (poking fun at the tone in Dorian’s voice): “…’he said grudgingly!'”

Dorian: “That’s the only way anyone can talk to you.”

Anyway, definitely the best-looking new arrival of the day was the Jimbo in Purgatory hardcover by Gary Panter. My goodness, it’s a nice-looking book. And it’s HUGE. And it manages to have gold-foil highlights on the front cover without looking ugly. I couldn’t swing it today, but it will have to be a purchase soon.

Didn’t have much of a chance to read all the comics I did manage to get this week, but I did get through the following:

• Identity Crisis #3 – and the hits just keep on coming. Now when I think about this comic I just laugh, because I can’t wait to see the inevitable online blowing of gaskets each issue brings forth. The comic itself was enjoyable, and though Dorian pointed to this Identity Crisis message thread as an example of comic message boards gone wrong, I did find it somewhat refreshing to see some people simply arguing about whether or not a particular super-villain could take on this group of super-heroes.
• DC Comics Presents The Flash – this week’s Julius Schwartz tribute comic is the first real disappointment, as neither story really sticks out as anything special. “Disappointment” may be too strong a word, as I did enjoy it…but nothing about this comic really screamed “special.” The second story (by Dennis O’Neil and Doug Mahnke) comes close, as the Flash pops in for a visit with his “old friend” Julius.
• Fables #28 – a flashback to Bigby’s adventures in World War II, which reminds me ever so slightly of “The Creature Commandos”*. If I may second the plea of another comics weblogger: please, no more cursive font in the captions!
• Haven’t read it yet, but wanted to put in a mention of Daisy Kutter: The Last Train #1, which looks like a lot of fun, and is a bargain for $3.99 for a prestige format funnybook. The cartooning on this book is really appealing…go look at the preview at that link and check it out for yourself.
  

Also, as Dorian has mentioned, we did not get our copies of the oversized JLA/Avengers hardcovers. Aaargh! So we got charged for them, but we can’t make any money on them yet. Very frustrating.

X-Force #1 came out today. Hoo boy. Everything old is new again, my friends, and Rob Liefeld’s art is at its Rob Liefeldest. I know everyone makes fun of his work, but by golly, it still sells. Well, it’s nothing like last time…when the original X-Force #1 came out, we had devoted a small table just to that comic, and we had hordes of people charging in the door to buy handfuls of them. Of course, that was back in the boom days of the comic market, when the rivers ran with gold, and comic store entrepreneurs lit their expensive imported cigars with burning $50 bills.

By the way, any statements by a certain Mr. The Dog regarding what I may or may not allegedly do to anyone buying X-Force #1 can not be proven in any court of law.

* If you want to read more about werewolves** fighting Nazis in World War II, may I suggest Robert McCammon’s novel The Wolf’s Hour, which also evokes that “Creature Commandos” feeling.

** Yes, I know Bigby isn’t technically a werewolf. Close enough.