New comics day:
In the “Unintended Consequences” department…the release of Giant-Size X-Men #3 has resulted in a flurry of folks asking at the shop, “hey, where are issues #1 and #2?” (“Here you go…#1, only $675.00.”)
Speaking of GSXM #3…did anyone else think Neal Adams’ contribution looked a little on the rough side? Was he just cramped for time, or is that just how his style looks now?
Other new comics day stuff:
We got in restocks of the We3 trade paperback and the fantastic Super F*ckers (ask for it by name)…and they both sold out immediately. That’s what I like to see. We also sold out of the new Essential Fantastic Four, which came as a slight surprise to me.
Following Cerebus #4 is the Will Eisner Tribute issue, and includes the full four-page Spirit Meets Cerebus story from Cerebus Jam. Lots of info and interviews with and about Eisner, and worth investigating. (And is anyone else kinda disturbed by the continuing “Dave Sim’s Favorite Buffy Pic This Month” feature? Dave picks a still of Sarah Michelle Gellar and way overanalyzes it? I’m pretty sure he’s trying to be amusing, but it seems…well, I can’t quite put my finger on it.)
Captain America Bicentennial Battles trade paperback by Jack Kirby – if you never read the Bicentennial Battles treasury-sized comic from the ’70s, and you’re even slightly a Kirby fan…you must read this comic. Bicentennial Battles is Kirby at his most Kirbiest…it’s completely heartfelt, earnest, and downright nutty.
AEIOU by Jeffrey Brown – I don’t get it. Not trying to be contrary, or offensive, or anything like that…what is it about Brown’s work that makes people react to it so positively? Why do you like it?
The Black Diamond Onramp, new this week from AiT/Planetlar, is a teaser for a forthcoming series, revolving around the Black Diamond (an elevated cross-country superhighway where anything goes). It may be only a brief (but interesting) preview of the series, but the comic is packed with plenty of background material, with detailed character and descriptions, plus a Newsarama interview with writer/publisher Larry Young. That’s what I like about some of Ait/Planetlar’s releases…the transparency of the process of creating the books, either as part of the package itself (as in this case, or in Proof of Concept) or as a separate release (Making of Astronauts in Trouble, True Facts).
The rest of Black Diamond Onramp contains a few pages of Smoke and Guns, a tough gal with…well, guns-type comic by Kirsten Baldock and Fabio Moon, as well as Matt Fraction and Steve Sander’s Five Fists of Science with Nikola Tesla. Tesla? I’m sold right there. Altogether, a solid package stuffed with material, and well worth your three bones.
Darn you, Jim Henley!
He’s called me out on some new superhero-related meme/questionnaire thingie, so I’ll go ahead and answer it…but only because he’s a swell guy who’s said a nice thing or two about my goofy little site, here.
So, here we go:
If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)
Well, the easy answer would be “flight,” so I’m gonna say being able to shrink to any size, like the Silver Age Atom…it would be kind of neat, I think, at least for a while. And who wouldn’t want to be able to travel over a telephone wire?
Which, if any, ‘existing’ superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?
According to Jim (er, so to speak), “fancy,” as intended here, means “which character with whom would you like to bang the gong slowly,” and, quite frankly, that’s the kind of question that, once answered, you can never come back from. Once you’ve crossed the line and actually admitted that there’s a pen and ink drawing on newsprint with whom you’d like to get it on, you might as resign yourself to going to conventions dressed as, say, Green Lantern, looking for someone dressed as Sinestro to spank you.
That said…Kurt Schaffenberger’s Lois Lane. Totally.
Which, if any, ‘existing’ superhero(es) do you hate?
Jim beat me to my answer of “Gambit,” so…ah, the heck with it. Gambit. Feh.
OK, here’s the tough one. What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you’d be proud to mask under.)
“The Baron of Comics.”
For extra credit: Is there an ‘existing’ superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?
I suppose if I could be any hero, it’s be Superman…he’s got all the cool powers anyone would really want, anyway. Well, except telepathy. That’d come in handy, once in a while. Hmmmm…okay, I change my answer, I’d want to be J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, who has all of Superman’s powers and can read minds and can shape change and can turn invisible. There is that pesky weakness to fire thing (“Pain! My only weakness!”), but that can be dealt with. Plus, that’s a small price to pay to be able to transform yourself into Phoebe Cates, and….um, I didn’t just type that, did I?
Pass it on. Three people please, and why they’re the wind beneath your wings.
I hate passing it on, but I will anyway: Jog and Beaucoup Kevin, because I think their answers would be funny, and pal Dorian, because I’m a jerk.
