I’ve got quite enough of these comics, thank you.
If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting from this morning’s post, it was Lex Luthor penis jokes.
Anyway, I was doing some inventory work at the shop today, and it struck me that there were certain comics we really don’t need to order ever again:
1. Benefit comics – Okay, sorry, I know they’re for good causes, but with the possible exception of Marvel and DC‘s respective Africa benefit comics, as well as Marvel’s initial foray into their 9/11 exploit-athon, they just plain don’t sell.
2. Comics celebrating the anniversaries of other comic book stores – If I’d had the time and money, I may have done such a comic for our store’s 25th anniversary, but I would have just sold it locally. Why would any customers of any other comic shop care about our anniversary?
3. Comics featuring the fictionalized adventures of real people – The era for this type of comic was decades ago…nobody cares now.
4. Youngblood.
5. “Sketchbook issues” for series that haven’t officially started yet.
6. Mini-series for characters that already have several monthly titles on the stands – Sweet jumpin’ Judas on a pogo stick, aren’t eighteen Spider-Man comics enough to tell the stores that apparently need to be told?
7. Any autobiographical comic that tells us more than we need to know about the subject’s masturbation habits – Not quite the problem it was several years back, during the great Joe Matt/Chester Brown era, but, really, enough is enough.
8. Any comic that has any combination of two or more of the following words in its title: “Elementals,” “Sexy,” “Lingerie,” “Special.”
9. “Comics” that are basically illustrated short stories…text with the occasional image. Neil Gaiman just barely got away with it with his Sandman: Dream Hunters…you, sir, are no Neil Gaiman.
10. Nude variant covers- c’mon, that’s just embarrassing.
And I haven’t quite reached the end of my patience with Sandman spin-offs that aren’t by Gaiman, since DC wisely cut back their production once the diminishing returns threatened to set in.
But, honestly, no more Youngblood. That needs to stop.
