So Wednesday we received a couple new Sesame Street Cine-Mangas from Tokyopop, Elmo & Zoe Fly A Kite and Happy Hungry Monsters, which is actually one of the few good uses of the “let’s construct a new story out of stills borrowed from several TV episodes” Cine-Manga format. Nice, big, colorful photos in a book that’s a little larger than the normal manga format (if a bit thinner) and competitively priced with other children’s books. 
There may have been a slight nostalgic feeling, as I remember reading several Sesame Street books as a kid, and it’s always nice to see old friends Grover and the Cookie Monster still getting the attention they deserve. (I don’t know about these Elmo and Zoe newcomers, though.) The Happy Hungry Monsters book does have a slightly disturbing scene where a milk carton with an eyeball tells Cookie Monster about how great milk is, basically cajoling CM into sucking out the carton’s innards. Well, perhaps put more delicately than that, but still.
Other new releases include the first installment of Top Ten mini-series, the one not written by Alan Moore, which has caused some small measure of consternation here and there. Well, don’t worry, it’s fine…author Paul Di Filippo doesn’t quite have the juggling of several storylines down like Moore did on this series, and he’s not quite as subtle with the character nuance and motivation as Moore is…but heck, it’s still darn good reading, and it’s nice to see these characters again. And it’s illustrated by Jerry Ordway, who’s more or less incapable of doing a bad drawing.
The arrival of Star Wars: General Grevious #4 prompted pal Dorian to ask me if there was any contextual evidence in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith for the apparent fan-belief that Grevious was, in fact, a resurrected Darth Maul. To which I said “wha-huh?” People aren’t really thinking that, are they? I mean, c’mon.
So Marvel can’t wait to rush out reprints of books that really don’t need them (like, say, any given issue of Captain America), but for Defenders, a book we’re actually seeing demand for, and the first issue of which has completely sold out…I know it says sold out at “retailer level,” but my reorders all went to backorder, which means “no dice, jack.” Shame, as I would have bumped orders way up, but there’s no point since people won’t want to have only four issues of a five issue series.
Dear kid in the store on new comics day: no, you may not lie down completely flat on the ground in front of the register so you can read comics neither you nor your parents intend to buy. Yes, I guess that makes me the jerk.
(Don’t worry…I didn’t make him cry or anything, and in fact I gave him some left over Free Comic Book Day comics, because I am right and good. Practically saintlike, in fact.)
A few days ago, a customer said something quite nice as he was walking into the store: “You know, every time I walk into this store, no matter how busy or not-busy it is, you guys are always working! I’ve been to a lot of stores where the guys behind the counter are just reading comics, but you guys — you guys are always doing something.” That made me feel pretty good.
Of course, on Wednesday pal Cully caught me paging through a comic…”reading on the job, eh?” Ah, well…the job can’t be all fistfights and gunplay, you know.
And remember…
