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§ January 18th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
CLARIFICATION: I hope no one looked at my semi-snarky comment from yesterday’s post, regarding people not recognizing certain comic book characters, as being indicative of a “clubhouse mentality” at our shop. Believe me, I’m not down on people just because they don’t know the intricacies of our business…I don’t stand over them, arms crossed, saying in a haughty Comic Book Guy voice “I believe you have called the winged Thanagarian warrior by the incorrect name of ‘Birdman,’ when it is, in fact, ‘Hawkman’ — please leave my store.” I’m just amused by it, and see it as an indicator of public awareness of certain characters.* That person who repeatedly looked at the Archie comic (the one where the “Archie” logo was in big red letters and took up a quarter of the cover) and called him “Richie Rich” still baffles me, however.
WEBBING BLISS: Spider-Man crashes a wedding (bottom of page)…as do some Stormtroopers. Hopefully not the same wedding.
MY COMICS WEBLOGGING OBLIGATIONS: DC Comics solicits are up…comics and merchandise:
Superman Vs. The Flash TP – I already have all the stories reprinted herein, but I appreciate that DC is still doing relatively inexpensive themed reprint books of its older material. In fact, I just recently reread the first two issues of DC Comics Presents, which are included in this volume, and, while nicely illustrated by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, the story doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Identity Crisis #1-#7 final printings – oh, dear. Well, they are still selling fairly well for us right now, but I’m not sure how they’ll being doing two to three months down the road when these reprints finally arrive.
The OMAC Project #1 – it’s another spin-off from this year’s Big DC Event, but the magic word “OMAC” is in the title, and I gotta give it at least a look.**
Solo #4 – I concur with esteemed weblogging collegue pal Ian: big book o’Chaykin? It’s a must have. (And so is Columbia, Chaykin’s Wildstorm offering.)
Bite Club TP – yup, more Chaykin…in a very reasonably priced ($9.99) paperback. That seems a bit odd for a one-off book (as opposed to the under-$10 volume 1s for Fables and Swamp Thing).
The Batman: Joker Maquette – I suppose someone somewhere likes the Joker’s redesign for the Batman Strikes cartoon. Can’t say I’ve met that person.
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies Series One – is there something wrong with their thighs?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH COMIC BOOKS: One of my favorite bands, Honest Bob And The Factory-to-Dealer Incentives, has a new album out, and you can listen to samples (and possibly even buy a copy) right here. Their highly recommended first album is also still available.
* Almost everyone recognizes Plastic Man, for example…but, given that most people who recognize him ask about Hula-Hula, clearly it’s just because of the cartoon show.
** There used to be a large office building in our area with the acronym “OMAC” in giant letters on the building’s side. Yes, I though of the Kirby character every time I saw it. How could I not?
§ January 18th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
DARN YOU, SCIENCE: I had a big ol’ post ready to go…at least, until the computer crashed while I was trying to save my work. Rats.
I’ll try again tonight (since I’m off to work now), but in the meantime, go check out Scott’s Nikolai Dante: The Romanov Dynasty trade paperback giveaway.
§ January 17th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Bits ‘n’ pieces.
WE LOVE THE FREE COMICS: Now here’s a contest! Alan David Doane, Slave Labor Graphics, Jim Rugg, and Brian Maruca are holding one whopper of a Street Angel giveaway!
RECOGNITION IS HARD: I’ve spoken before about how certain people will come into our store identify Green Lantern as Green Hornet, or look at a picture of Hawkman and call him Birdman. Okay, if you’re just looking at a picture of the character, and you have no knowledge of comics, I suppose I can see why a person would do that. But, if you, a fully grown adult with (I’m assuming) reading skills, pull up an old Archie comic, with the huge logo reading “ARCHIE” across the top of the comic in full view, and you say, repeatedly, “oh, look, it’s Richie Rich” — I don’t know how to react to that.
A while back, I was reading a Stephen Baxter novel (Titan, I think), and I had someone get a good look at the cover and say, “oh, reading Star Trek, huh?” Apparently anything space-related is from Star Trek. I believe this is a condition related to the “Archie/Richie Rich” incident…a condition called “we don’t care about your stupid interests…why don’t you watch sports like a normal person.”
WE MUST STOP THE INTERNET: Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers fan fiction. Some stories are rated “R” for violence. No slash, I think. I hope. (via Portal of Evil)
WE LOVE THE SILLY COMICS: Action Comics #393 (Oct. 1970) features the story “The Day Superboy Became Superman” — no, no, he doesn’t become a man that way.* In short, Clark Kent is a student at Metropolis University, and as Superboy he’s continually putting the smackdown on underprivileged people who keep sneaking onto the school to cool off in the pool, steal food, and so on. They’re only doing so out of need, but Superboy sees it only as breaking the law, and treats the perps as such. A student activist named Marla is riding Superboy about how he’s treating these poor people:
“Look at this miserable slum, Superboy! While you’re preventing catastrophes on remote worlds, who prevents disaster in your own back yard? When will you do something for these people?”
Superboy’s response?
“You and your bleeding heart! I have more important things to do!”
Anyway, Marla’s off-campus “school” (actually a condemned building) where she tries to help the poor is demolished while she’s still inside, since she apparently didn’t hear the heavy equipment approaching. Superboy arrives just in the nick of time to listen to her dying words:
“The kids…my students…there’ll be no one to teach them now…to educate them for a better life! …Promise me you’ll help them…”
Guilt trip in hand, Superboy decides to go into action. He smashes down a row of abandoned buildings, and begins to build a brand new school at super-speed. However, even as the poor people in this slum area cheer Superboy’s efforts, he has some qualms:
“They’re applauding my super-feat! But is that all Marla wanted? Didn’t she tell me I’ve got to stop acting like a Superboy and start thinking like a Superman?”
He stops the rebuilding, and tells the crowd “I could have rebuilt the entire slum area…”
Several months later, after construction on the school is completed, a dedication ceremony is held. As the school, and the Superboy statue in front of the building, is about to be dedicated in Superboy’s honor, the Young Adult of Steel interrupts. Using his super-strength and his super-sculpting skills, Superboy remolds the statue into the likeness of Marla:
“…Who gave her life for the children of the slums — and who helped Superboy become Superman!”
And, presumably, there was much snickering by the audience after that, until they realized that probably wasn’t what he meant.
* You’ll have to see DC Super-Stars #12 (Feb 1977), “Don’t Call Me Superboy,” for that! And it’s with a woman brainwashed by a Kryptonian robot, no less.
§ January 16th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Browsing Pop Culture Junk Mail, I found links to PCJM’s webmaster’s other weblog on MSNBC, where favorite (and not-so-favorite) comic strips are being discussed.
Also via Test Pattern, the MSNBC.com weblog, I found this old article about Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. I know we’ve all seen it before, but it’s still fascinating reading…and it has me wondering as to the extent of Watterson’s involvement in the forthcoming complete C&H collection.
§ January 16th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
1. Here’s another reminder to go enter Laura’s Colonia contest, Trade Whore’s Gotham Central giveaway (ends tonight), Ferret Press’ Strangehaven contest, and DougBot’s America: The Book giveaway.
2. Speaking o’Laura, she very thoroughly covers Aquaman’s story from More Fun Comics #73.
3. And as long as I’m on the topic: Smell of Steve’s Black Aquaman!
4. I don’t…um, I, uh…I don’t know what to say.
§ January 15th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
As mentioned way back when, one of our customers won The Goon‘s “Create A Monster” contest (here’s the Google cache for the Dark Horse page that announced the results). The prize packages arrived a couple days ago, and, along with the shirts and shotglasses and the autographed paperback, we received the above sketch by The Goon‘s creator Eric Powell. Pretty darn cool.
Visit the official Goon site at TheGoon.com.
§ January 14th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Well, that doesn’t look too good for Elektra.
EDIT: Didn’t notice that The Beat beat me to it. Oops! (But, hey, Elektra‘s at 6% now! Things are looking up!)
§ January 14th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on A few quick links.
1. Baboon Books‘ Richard Marcej now has his own weblog: The Baboon Bellows. Comics, birthdays, and, yes, baboons. Go visit, won’t you?
2. Scott Saavedra has just posted his Dick Sprang-ish Batman/Two-Face drawing. Nicely done!
3. Tom Spurgeon reports on a columnist’s unfamiliarity with shopping in a comic book store, and notes that said columnist was prevented from buying a whole stack of a certain issue. That reminded me of something that, thankfully, we haven’t have to do at our store in a while. It used to be that a comic would come out that was red-hot, and reorders weren’t to be had, so in order to make sure everyone was able to get a copy, we’d put up a sign by the comic reading “1 per customer.” However, while this prevented the first “investor” in the door from buying every single copy, this did have the unintended result of encouraging people who wouldn’t have bought it in the first place to grab one. “Hey, only one per customer? Must be hot…better buy it!”
I always wanted to try an experiment, by putting a “one per customer” sign on a comic that wasn’t hot and seeing if that improved sales…but I like being able to sleep guilt-free, so I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
§ January 14th, 2005 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Look in this dog’s eyes and tell me you don’t see a creature desiring vengeance upon whoever made it dress like this.
(may get a pop-up…not sure, I keep that stuff disabled)
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