The (Semi-) Week in Review.
One of the problems with updating this site every day, particularly with the running-off-at-the-mouth posts that I’m prone to do, is that topics and issues I bring up may appear to be thrown out there and abandoned as I move on to the next post. However, I promise, I read every comment left on every post…even if you’re responding to a post from a year ago, I’ll see it.
And, if I can, I’ll follow up on responses sooner or later…which I’m gonna do now.
From Tuesday’s post, where I talked about origins and endings in children’s programming, I stated that the producers of the current Teen Titans cartoon stated that there will be no team origin. Well, apparently they had a change of heart, as commenter Dave was good enough to let me know. If you missed it, here’s the description for episode #62 Dave pointed out:
“How did ROBIN meet STARFIRE? What was BEAST BOY’s first joke? Why did CYBORG build his Sonic Cannon? When did RAVEN first call the Titans her friends? Return to the very beginning and see how it all started – from the word ‘GO!'”
Cool, no?
I also mentioned this story I spotted on FARK (and now beginning to make its way across the Comicsweblogosphere) about an IRS agent allegedly shoplifting comics…which kicked me off on the general topic of shoplifting at our store. There are other memorable accounts of would-be thieves that we’ve tagged (like the mother and her two kids who tried to work as a team to steal things from us…and failed miserably at it, or the kid from out of town who tried to steal from us, and whose parents were in a rush to continue on their trip and wanted to leave with their kid before the police arrived…yeah, I bet) but most of them are just depressing. Look, no one gets into selling funnybooks to get rich…stealing from your local comic book store can seriously hurt the bottom line. We’re just trying to make a living, y’know?
Wednesday’s post was about the mostly forgotten Marvel property Seeker 3000, and the neat idea of the villain of the piece being the heroes’ own shipboard computer’s personality. I found that idea quirky enough to be amusing, and, as far as I know, mostly unique (outside of the Red Dwarf example I cited). There are plenty of examples of non-villainous characters going through the personality-upload process (commenter Philip mentioned Jack’s dad, the original Starman, as the personality in the Mother Box computer in James Robinson’s “Starman in Space” storyline, for example). One person mentioned to me elsewhere that the whole Seeker 3000 concept may have been…inspired by a previously published sci-fi story (I mean, beyond the Star Trek/Star Wars influence). Anyone familiar with Seeker 3000 and its possible similarity to older stories?
Thursday was my monthly End of Civilization post, where I pour through the order form and pick out the things that amuse and enrage me. In response to an example of the latter, the Sin City expanded edition, it was pointed out to me that it was no secret that when the first edition came out, a second “special edition” was to follow. That still doesn’t make that right. I didn’t like it when Lord of the Rings did it, I wasn’t happy about the Star Trek: Nemesis thing, and isn’t there like a dozen versions of American Pie on DVD? Feh. The end result is that there may be a small number of people holding off on buying DVDs if there’s the slightest chance that a future “special edition” may come out. Granted, probably a very small number, but still, this sort of behavior can’t help consumer confidence.
Something I missed in my overview, since I tend to overlook the Marvel solicitations, but pal Dorian was terribly amused by this, and I gotta bring it up: Astonishing X-Men Saga, taking the twelve issue run by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday and condensing it down to one 48-page one shot, since the other 200+ pages were just unnecessary filler.
How ’bout reprinting the 12 issues in two manga-sized paperbacks at that $7.99 price point you have for the Spider-Girl books? They’d probably sell like crazy in that format.
And that Essential Godzilla paperback…okay, now while I think that’s brilliant, I didn’t know Marvel still had the rights to reprint it, and I can’t imagine them paying out the money to regain the license. I’m assuming there’s some reprint clause in the original contract letting them get away with it…anyone know for sure?
At any rate, if you want it, put in your orders now in case the book disappears right quick like the Essential Conan volume.
For reading this far, I give you breakdancing Transformers (via Metafilter).
