DUDEs, Discos, and Derring-Do.
Yes, I changed the corner box image already. Usually I change it once a week, but I didn’t care for the pic I used this time (but it’s still represented on this page). So, instead, you get another picture of America’s favorite hero, CAPTAIN DUDE.
Speaking of CAPTAIN DUDE, the upshot of his story is that he isn’t really the fancypants he presents himself to be. He basically acts and dresses like that to make himself appear larger than life, a morale-boosting hero that gives the other grunts something to talk about. Or complain about. Or give the enemy something to aim at, what with those brightly-colored shirts he’s wearing. Anyway, that copy of U.S. Marines #1 was the best fifty cents I’ve spent on comics lately.
That’s right, only fifty cents. It was one pre-loved comic.
Boing Boing links to this site, which features MP3 files for the Mad Magazine flexidisc “It’s A Super-Spectacular Day.” The original disc had eight different series of grooves, so depending on where you put down the needle, you’d get a different ending to the song. About three or four years ago, I was on a “recording records to my computer to convert to MP3” binge, and “It’s A Super-Spectacular Day” was one of the records that made the conversion. Well, the first five or six versions of the track were easy to grab, but trying to get those last two took forever.
It does make me wish that more of Mad‘s flexidisc offerings were available on CD…there’s Mad Grooves, and apparently flexi tracks are also on the Totally Mad CD-ROM collection (where the “Super-Spectacular” MP3s above came from). I remember really enjoying the entirety of the Mad Disco flexidisc, which may say something unfortunately revealing about me.
Looking at that Mad Disco cover at the last link really made me feel old. I remember buying it when it came out, despite being really, really outraged at the price. Your standard Mad was $0.75, and the thicker specials were $1.50 (even the ones with flexidiscs, such as the very one that had the “Super-Spectacular Day” record). That Mad Disco was two bucks, and it was the same size as a regular issue. (I remember it being even thinner than a regular issue, but my memory may be playing tricks on me…Overstreet says it’s 36 pages.) I don’t know why I didn’t just pass it up, but I guess, being the Mad fan that I was, I couldn’t stand the idea of letting an issue slip by.
And don’t get me started on Alien: The Illustrated Story. $3.95!? And it fell apart almost as soon as you tried to read it? You bastards!
Return to Comics sums up my feelings about the new Zoom Suit comic at the end of his post. We have yet to sell one copy of at our shop, which is funny, because back in October I received a letter from this publisher telling me that fans in our area were writing to the company and requesting promo materials for this comic. Surely they weren’t trying to suck me into the hype whirlwind that’s been surrounding this comic for months now?
Anyway, like Kurt at Return to Comics, I read a copy of this that we received a couple months ago, and it was…eh. I’m guessing I’m not the target audience for this (i.e. someone who’s been reading comics for more years than probably is healthy, and has seen it all before). It’s certainly colorful, there’s definitely a lot of money put into it (both the comic’s production and the advertising), and it’s not terrible, really, just kinda average; unfortunately, no one around here is buying just yet. Maybe the prerelease hype has been going on for so long that nobody’s realized that, oh, hey, there’s actually supposed to be a comic book coming out. Though I imagine the actual performance of the comic is secondary to getting a movie/toy/video game/miscellaneous licensing deal of some kind. Can’t blame ’em, really…that’s where the real money’s at. Good luck to them, at any rate.
Found a really stupid and embarrassing typo at the end of this post from Bat-Week…using “worst” when I meant “worse,” and it’d been like that for months. Gaaah…Mike no like think.
I go on and on and on about price guides over in my new Behind the Counter column at the slightly refurbished Comic Book Galaxy. Believe it or not, I actually cut some stuff out…man, don’t I ever shut up?
