Not closed, questions, and an oddity.
What I don’t need to hear two minutes after we open our doors for New Comics Day:
“Huh, these shelves sure are bare. They must be going out of business!”
This said, loudly, to other customers. This said while we were breaking down the new comic order, with piles of new comics all over the place (since the shipment arrived late), and while I’m getting comics counted and thrown onto the racks. This said at least twice.
In fairness, once I explained to the customer what was going on, all was suddenly clear, but still, c’mon, I didn’t need to hear that.
Chris “Lefty” Brown had some questions for the webloggers a couple days back, which I hadn’t gotten around to yet because of my “yay me” post and my lazy Wednesday morning post. But, hey, better late than never:
“Sure we’ve all heard the horror stories of comic book retailing, but what would be your ‘aww shucks’ story to warm our hearts and weep manly tears?”
Since I first read this question, I put my thinker to the test and tried to dig up some event that could qualify as “heartwarming,” and I think perhaps the one that qualifies the most involves pal Sean, from his days of employment at the shop. It was during one of our infamous Midnight Madness sales, see, when Sean met a particular customer of ours, a young woman named Yvonne (another friend of mine), and thus began a relationship that resulted in their eventual marriage.
So, in an odd sort of way, by hiring Sean, by being friends with Yvonne, I’m responsible for their marital union. There’s your heartwarming story, buster.
“Has there been a big event book or series that didn’t disappoint and did change the status quo of the characters?”
I’ve touched upon this before, primarily on the lasting impact of crossover events, and I still think the only one with anything close to permanent impact is DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. Twenty years on, we’re still dealing with events from that series.
As for not disappointing…well, I’ve enjoyed many a crossover with “big changes” that were undone right away, so the permanence of said changes isn’t really a factor. (Someday I’ll get around to writing my defense of the original Secret Wars series.) But, again, I’ll say Crisis on Infinite Earths…not perfect, by any means, but beautifully drawn by George Perez, with pretty much every DC character you can think of, in what should probably have been the final word in way overblown event comics of its type.
“Incredible Hulk versus Swamp Thing, besides the readers, who’d win?
If it’s in the Incredible Hulk’s book, the Hulk would win.
If it’s in Swamp Thing’s book, Swamp Thing would win.
If it’s in a one-shot crossover book co-published by Marvel and DC, they’ll fight to a draw, then team-up to fight a greater evil (say, the dreaded Leader and Arcane team, combining science and sorcery to…take over the world!).
“What’s your single issue favorite back issue in your collection?”
I’ve probably answered this before, and I’m sure every time I answer this question, I give a different answer. My usual answer is, not a Swamp Thing comic, believe it or not, but Justice League of America #200, featuring a boatload of classic DC artists and new JLAers fighting the original JLA team. It’s a lot of fun, and a must for fans of superhero art. (Detective Comics #500 is a close second.)
An oddity from that Secret Crisis post…in the comments section, posted on April 24th, was this comment predicting events in then-future issues of Civil War a week or so before the first issue of the series was even released. The heck? I vaguely recall ignoring the comment as crazy talk at the time, but, dang if he (or she) doesn’t pin the Spider-Man thing, and the Clone Thor thing…and I don’t know if the rest of it has happened yet or not, but still, what’s up with that?
I was only reminded of it because someone left a recent comment in that thread that reads:
“Either ‘The Painted Doll’ [the commenter’s handle] works at Marvel and chose this fairly unknown blog to reaveal Big Secrets or he is a prophet!”
“Fairly unknown blog.” Hmph. Anyway, it is pretty weird.
