"We are the pet cats of Kryptonian criminals!"

§ February 4th, 2007 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "We are the pet cats of Kryptonian criminals!"

On Saturday, a customer asked me, in all seriousness, “When DC Comics published ‘The Death of Superman,’ did anyone get fired for that?” I told that person, no, probably quite the opposite…sales on Superman books skyrocketed, at least for a while, so I’d imagine there were no complaints businesswise within DC.

But I’ve been pondering the question. “Did anyone get fired for ‘The Death of Superman,'” as if the story were somehow snuck out of the offices, to the printers, to the distributors, and to shops without anyone but that particular creative team knowing what was going on:

Mike Carlin (then-editor of the Super-books): “Say, Dan, I’d just thought I’d check in and see what’s been going on in the Superman books lately. What can you tell me?”

Dan Jurgens (writer/artist Superman #75): “Oh, you know, the usual…we have that Satanus storyline still going on, Mr. Mxyzptlk’s popped up again, and, um, I killed off Superman…oh, and Lex Lu….”

Carlin: “Whoa, wait, hold on…you did what?”

You know, like that.

I also had to spend fifteen minutes of my day listening to someone explain to me why the funnybook he brought in was actually in Very Fine condition, and not the Fine condition I told him it was. This is my life, and welcome to it.


Found on the eBay:

So I was doing some searching for Lobo items on the eBay (don’t ask), and turned up a couple things worth noting:

“Omega Men #3 1st Lobo Bondage Cover DC” – only brought up because I’ve never thought of this as having a “bondage cover” (and thanks to the Overstreet Price Guide, among others, for helping instill this into our heads as a category for collectible comics)…but, well, I guess it is a bondage cover at that. Though, lacking any kind of punctuation, that auction title makes it sound like it’s Lobo himself who’s actually in bon…um, that’s enough of that.

But then I saw the title of this auction, which contained no clue to what it actually was other than it had something to do with Lobo:

“THE BADDEST OF THE BAD…LOBO THE BOUNTY HUNTER!!!”

Turns out it’s for a Simon Bisley Lobo poster. When I write my own listings for the eBay, I tend to be very brief and to the point…dry but informative is what I’m going for, I suppose, which may be why I love the unadulterated Lobo fandom present in this description:

“AWESOME LOBO POSTER. THIS IS THE GUY THAT KICKED SUPERMAN’S BUTT SO BAD, SUPERMAN HAD TO USE A HOLOGRAM TO ESCAPE! AND LOBO WAS DRUNK WHEN HE DID IT! […] LOBO IS THE GREATEST. I’M GLAD HE NEVER BECAME TOO COMMERICAL.”

Yeah, Lobo never sold out, man! God bless this eBay seller.


A brief discussion pal Dorian and I had at the shop:

Dor: “Hey, there’s a continuity error in this Krypto comic.”

Me: “How so?”

Dor: “It shows the pet dogs of the Phantom Zone villains…but the Phantom Zone villains had pet cats!”


At which point Dor managed to disgust even himself.

And yes, 1) we know there are several ways to work around this (they had both dogs and cats as pets, it’s different PZ villains than the ones who had cats, etc.), and 2) WE’RE ONLY JOKING.

But seriously…honestly…we need a Showcase Presents Krypto book. That’s more cool than any of us deserve.


I know a lot of you saw this insert in the new issue of Wizard, but here you go:

“Justice Awaits at the Dark Edge of Night

Replica knife features a dynamic sculpture of the Caped Crusader, and full-color artwork on the porcelain blade.”

As a customer pointed out whilst we were pondering this at work…wouldn’t having a three-dimensional Batman figure as the handle make the knife a little hard to hold? Well, of course, it’s not like you’re gonna be using this knife to open the past-due electric bills or the packaging on the government cheese. It’s just going to sit on the mantelpiece and look…well, “pretty,” or “disturbing,” or “pretty disturbing.”

Ultimately, though, this is probably the last thing in the world I expected as a Batman tie-in. Okay, maybe not the last, but it’s up there.


Thanks to you folks for contributing your own ideas to the image of Dino I’ve been abusing. If there are any others out there I don’t know about, drop a line in that comments section. I’m thinking about making an archive page for all the pieces, so point me in your direction if you’ve got a Dino pic I haven’t seen.

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