§ December 4th, 2006§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on The Silver Surfer, summed up in four panels…
…from Spidey Super Stories #45 (March 1980):
Special bonus panel:
One of the other stories in this comic revolves around a charity footrace disrupted by the Green Goblin, and I find myself strangely fascinated by this runner:
The “Queen of the Runners,” complete with crown…what’s her backstory? Is she just a champion runner that’s a tad full of herself, or is she an actual monarch of a country solely populated by marathon runners?
Alas, we’ll never know, as her only purpose in the story is to allow the Goblin to make a bad pun:
I suppose it’s possible that this was a character from the Electric Company TV show (which the Spidey Super Stories ties into, in case you didn’t know), but Google-fu reveals nothing.
…
“Dear Marvel: I believe that there is a character in your library that has been long neglected, and in desperate need of a revival….”
§ December 3rd, 2006§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on I don’t know why I put the Hulk scan on this post, either.
DC Comics has announced their forthcoming imprint “Minx,” aimed at female readers that, as the linked article says, “may not be attracted to superheroes or manga.” And, as a person what sells the funnybooks, I think that’s a good thing, but whether this will actually attract a new audience or simply cannibalize sales from other comics remains to be seen.
Just in case you’re curious, here are the comics that, from my observations, have the larger female readerships at our shop:
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Lenore
X-Men and related
Fables
Love & Rockets and related
assorted manga titles (no particular title stands out)
And then there are titles that used to have a large female reader base…or a large reader base period…like Sandman (sales on the trades have dipped as of late) and Strangers in Paradise (started shedding readers about two years ago…and no, it wasn’t because of anything I did). Interestingly, those are the titles that are the usual clichéd responses to “what comics are good for women?”
And I realize nobody is going to want to hear this, but the original Chaos Comics version of Lady Death had a strong female fan base at our shop as well…and then she moved to Crossgen and started wearing clothes, which must have ticked off the character’s fans something fierce since, now that she’s at Avatar and in her usual bikini outfit, nobody reads her comics.
Just to throw it out there again…my girlfriend’s favorite comics are Spider-Man and the original Marvel G.I. Joe. That’ll throw off the marketing departments.
Dear Dark Horse,
Your window of opportunity to sell your Who Wants to Be A Superhero tie-in comic is rapidly closing. I was getting a lot of requests for it two months ago…not so much now.
But don’t feel too bad…I am loading up on your 300 hardcovers, since there’s no way on God’s green earth you’re going to have them available to comic book stores when the movie finally comes out (see also Hellboy, Sin City).
“1) The Multiverse would be back. I still say that the complexity of the Multiverse was not a problem. The problem was that the writers at the time had fallen behind their marvel counterparts in their sophistication. With today’s writers and the great possibilities of the Multiverse it would be unbelievable. Well, somewhat.
“2) DC and Vertigo characters would interact. So much of the DC universe was lost when they seperated these two properties. I know that they would have to tame down the Vertigo guys when they were in the mainstream, but it would be worth it to see Swamp Thing and John Constantine in the real world again.
“3) The real LSH would be back. The original can never be replaced.
“4) Hal Jordan would still be dead. For obvious reasons.
“So if you ran DC what would you do?”
The “real world?” Anyway, here are a smattering of responses from the thread:
“Retcon away some of the bad stuff from Identity Crisis. Either that or fire Meltzer.”
“Make a decent JLA title.”
“Lower prices of comics.”
“Minimize the graphic violence and the over explicite sex scenes.”
“Have polls with fans every once in a while to know if fans are happy in general or not.”
“Wouldn’t allow Frank Miller to do any art (cover or interior)”
“Put Ed Benes on all books with Leading Female characters (BoP, Catwoman, SuperGirl, etc.)”
“I’d have Frank Miller write Superman and Jim Lee to draw it.I’d also have Brian Azzarello to write Batman and have Lee Berjemo draw it.I’d kill off Dick Grayson and keep Jason Todd dead.I’d split Superman and Lois Lane up…infact i might kill off Lois.I’d create a Batman book that was aimed at ‘Mature Readers’,i’d have it more violent,that kind of stuff,just a bit more adult.I’ll have a think about some other stuff…”
“…in my DC ,Hal Jordan would be very much alive and kicking butt like he is now.”
“…I would make all the titles come out on time!! I would have artists of similar styles assigned to a title until it got on schedule. For example, say Green Lantern, have Ivan Reis do an issue, while Alan Davis works on the next issue, and Neal Adams is working on a third issue, maybe Mike Grell working on a fourth while Ivan gets another issue or two under his belt and gets back on schedule.”
“Id take Morrison off Batman and put in Kurt Busiek.”
This person really didn’t like DC’s recent direction:
“Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Judd Winick would be fired off of all titles they’re currently writing.
“Then I would launch an event called ‘Hour Zero.’
“In issue one, Ralph Dibny wakes up to hear his wife singing in the shower. They go to a birthday party attended by Michael Jon ‘Booster’ Carter, (not evil) Skeets, Max Lord and the recently retired Ted Kord.
“The Teen Titans are also there, except for Impulse who is off doing something with Wally West. Troia and Lilith are helping in the kitchen.
“We find out that Superboy Prime tried to free himself and reset reality again, but all he managed to do was retcon himself and everything since Identity Crisis out of continuity with no hope of any of that stuff ever coming back.
“The next six issues would spell out the new status quo without anybody gratuitously dying or being replaced by somebody else the readers don’t care about.”
Hey, pal Dorian, he also has an idea for improving your favorite character:
“Wildcat would start using gadgets and body armor.”
That certainly shows an in-depth understanding of what makes Wildcat work.
More:
“Conner Kent would find out that he never did have Luthor DNA and change his name to something that would keep DC from getting sued. He could be the new Gangbuster or something.”
“Newer modern villains would be used even after the writer who created the villain is no longer writing him”
“Comics would be cheaper”
“Feedback will be listened to”
“There would no more events with the word ‘crisis’ in the title. Ever again. Or a least as long as I was in charge.”
§ December 1st, 2006§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on One of these things is not like the other.
So here are three things I picked up for myself this week:
And yeah, I know, that one thing sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other two items. For all my high falutin’ talk on this site about the comics medium, and the entertainment world in general, my lowbrow tastes will occasionally shine through. But, you know, I gotta be true to myself, and if that means willfully revealing that I read The Comics Journal, then so be it.
Oh, okay, silliness aside…the new Journal has a great interview with Johnny Ryan, a brief but interesting interview with Golden Age artist Lily Renee (including reprints of some of her stories, featuring Senorita Rio and “The Werewolf Hunter”), and the lavishly-illustrated, cover-featured interview with Joost Swarte which I haven’t read yet, but c’mon, it’s gonna be a good read, too.
The new Acme Novelty Library is, as usual, filmed in Depress-O-Vision, flawlessly cartooned and emotionally uncomfortable, and, as always, highly recommended. And the new Star Wars book is…well, it’s a Star Wars book. Don’t you judge me.
Other new books this week:
Batman/Spirit – I wasn’t planning on buying this, but, heck, I figure I’m going to be buying Darwyn Cooke’s forthcoming Spirit series, so I might as well pick this up, too. I know there was some trepidation regarding Jeph Loeb’s involvement in this one-shot, but, eh, any minor rough spots in the dialogue are easily ignored in favor of the gorgeous, gorgeous art.
Batman #659 – Cliché-fest, at least given my brief glance through the book. At any rate, I didn’t see anything in the comic that made me want to pick it up. I think I’ll be skipping this fill-in story until Grant Morrison returns.
Nextwave #10 – Warren Ellis makes Forbush-Man scary. There’s a sentence I thought I’d never type.
Talent #4 – Nicholas, the man possessed by a series of spirits killed in a plane crash only he survived, finds himself inhabited by the ghost of a hitman, tracking down another hitman who may hold the secret behind the crash. This series, as it has from the start, remains fast-paced and interesting, a fun exploration of a clever idea.
Onslaught: Reborn #1 – I already made my opinion known on this comic, here on the site, but I try to keep it to myself at the store. I took some grief from folks who wondered why we even bothered to carry it in the first place…imagine the shock in their faces when I told them that, hey, Liefeld sells comics. Well, Marvel comics, anyway. Usually. I hope.
