§ April 13th, 2007§ Filed under giant-size man-thingComments Off on And now, some reader-generated content.
I get some interesting e-mails, so keep them a’comin’, friends. I always like to hear from you, especially when you let me slide on coming up with my own content for a day send me neat stuff like this.
First, reader Caleb (from Every Day Is Like Wednesday) pointed me in the direction of a scene in this week’s Legion of Monsters: Man-Thing one-shot that resembles some Swamp Thing shenanigans from a few years ago. Now, I wasn’t planning on picking up this new Man-Thing comic, so I didn’t notice the scene in question at first…but darn if Caleb ain’t right. To wit:
Legion of Monsters: Man-Thing (2007)
Swamp Thing #159 (1995)
Aside from the shared swamp-creature-head-on-plate motif, the stories are entirely different in purpose and effect, so it’s certainly just a coincidence. Heck, the fact that Swamp Thing and Man-Thing debuted nearly simultaneously is a big ol’ coincidence in and of itself, so what’s one more?
The next item e-mailed to me comes from reader Chad, who quite correctly notes that I love finding and sharing oddball things on the eBay, and thus decided to send to me a link to some good old fashioned nightmare fuel. Ladies and/or gentlemen, I present to you Wonder Woman as you’ve never seen her before:
“Pose her every which way” indeed.
And, from one of my favorite webloggers, Booksteve, comes a note that he wrote about that Life is a dollar twenty-five paperback B.C. book well over a year before either Mark Evanier or I did. See, all three of us agree it’s a good gag! We must be right!
Speaking of repeating things from the past, I see that terrible Doomworld comic, based on the computer game, is making the rounds again. One of the very first posts on my site, near the end of 2003, was an entry about that Doom comic, where I mention that I’d been seeing references to it all over the internet. I guess, three and half years later, it’s finally cycled back into everyone’s awareness. If you hadn’t seen Doomworld already, it’s definitely worth checking out. It’s not just bad…it’s magnificently bad.
§ April 12th, 2007§ Filed under free comic book dayComments Off on Some Free Comic Book Day stuff, and another sad passing.
It just occurred to me that, aside from my mention of folks not understanding when the event actually is, I haven’t really said a whole lot about Free Comic Book Day.
Well, I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add beyond what I’ve already said last year (before and after), so aside from some comments about some of this year’s offerings, and any horror stories that may arise from the day itself, I’ll probably not be talking too much about it.
That said, I do want to note some things: Marvel’s offering this time around has the potential, for once, of actually being good. A new, full-length, Dan Slott written and Phil Jimenez drawn Spider-Man story, which will be out about the time of Spider-Man 3…barring any inappropriate content for younger readers (always possible, given Marvel’s usual “two giant steps backward for every tiny step forward” publishing strategy), this could make a nice all-ages giveaway.
On the other hand, we have DC’s Justice League of America #0.
Now, there’s a joke I use at the store every once in a while, when a customer asks me about trying jump into a new Marvel or DC series. If the title in question is one of those that requires extensive knowledge of that company’s “universe,” or just of the book’s history…if it just requires plain ol’ geeky knowledge, I’ll refer to the book as being “for the advanced reader.”
I would say that Justice League of America #0 is “for the advanced reader.” On top of needing to know your DC continuity (or whatever passes for it, nowadays), you need to be ready for the fact that the story jumps back and forth in time, from panel to panel. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed the comic when it was originally released, and the DC dork that I am got a kick out of all its continuity-candy. But it’s a real “preaching to the converted” offering…this is one of those FCBD comics designed to get folks already reading comics to try yet another comic they might not be reading. Non-comics fans, or even casual readers, may not be ready for a non-linear, continuity-heavy superhero book, particularly if their only regular exposure to comics is the comparatively more straightforward storytelling techniques in their local papers’ funnypages.
DC is also offering a comic based on their Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon, which makes up for it. This type of comic is a very effective tool for outreach to kids. “Hey, you watch that Legion cartoon? Here, have a comic based on it!” Replace “Legion” with “Justice League Adventures” or “Teen Titans,” and you have DC’s successful giveaways from past FCBDs. (I left out the Batman Strikes comic, since, well, our customers don’t seem to react well to that cartoon.)
I am looking foward to the FCBD Gumby Special (because the new Gumby comics rule your school), Owly & Korgi (because Owly is cuter than a cute thing that’s cute, with a side helping of cuteness), and the new FCBD Nexus Special (because Nexus is one of the Most Perfect Comics Ever, particularly with Baron ‘n’ Rude back at the helm, and you all better read this series or I’m going to your houses and giving you serious noogies).
So, any FCBD titles you guys ‘n’ gals are waiting for?
When I was a junior in high school, lo these two or so decades ago, I was in an art class, and one of our assignments was to draw a face, with an emphasis on shading. Well, it just so happened that I was reading a certain book at the time, and thought the author’s photo on the back cover would make a good subject for this particular project.
Normally, I wouldn’t whip out old, embarrassing drawings of mine…the eyes are a bit off-center, I realize, and it sorta looks like a cross between Bob Ross and Sidney from M*A*S*H…but, for Kurt Vonnegut, I can bear a little public humiliation. Besides, this drawing, for all its flaws, remains a favorite of mine, if only because it reminds me of Vonnegut and my love for his work.
It’s been a while since I’ve read, or reread, one of his novels, come to think of it. I suddenly have the urge to read Slapstick again.
§ April 10th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Coincidence, old posts, shipping costs, The Black Hole and D&D. And not a whole lot about comics.
Something must be in the air…after beating Mr. Evanier to the punch (by about 16 hours) with my discussion of my…or rather, our…favorite B.C. gag, it turns out that Mr. Folded Soup preceded me in my discussion of superhero cakes.
With the amount of content being generated for weblogs like ours, near-simultaneous duplications like these are almost inevitable. In the case of Mr. Evanier and I approaching our favorite B.C. gag from the same angle…well, Johnny Hart did just pass away, so naturally there’s going to be a lot of discussion about him, and this sort of coincidence was bound to happen. Plus, it just confirms Evanier’s already solid reputation as a man of quality and taste, since he’s agreed with me on a good B.C. gag.
But the cake thing…okay, that’s just weird. I happened across that auction on the eBay while looking for other stuff, and wanted to share. I had no idea Senior Soup recently addressed the topic, and in a far more amusing fashion (so go look already).
So, to sum up…nobody copied anybody, it was all just coincidence. Besides, if I was going to rip anybody off, it’d probably be Sims, since I could totally take him in a fight.
Speaking of the eBay…I’m linking to this old post of mine about how to ship comic books safely and economically for the benefit of Employees Aaron and Jeff, who hadn’t seen it. The topic came up when I came across the prop envelope from that post the other day, mixed in with my shipping supplies, and they were wondering just what the heck was up with it. “Look to my site, my friends,” I cried out, and lo, they did rush to their Internets and found themselves confronted with wisdom and glory.
Anyway, if you reread that post, please note that the flat rate priority shipping is now $4.05…soon to be $4.60, beginning in May.
Also speaking of the eBay, I occasionally get the urge to find the original Black Hole action figures for V.I.N.Cent and Old B.O.B., and I hie myself hither to the eBay and do some searching. I never bid…I come to my senses before I do so, but I do like looking at the figures, since those are probably two of my favorite movie robot designs. Yeah, I know that’s probably a weird thing to have favorites for…my nerdity has unplumbed depths.
Anyway, I found someone selling a V.I.N.Cent, but he was charging a cool $12.00 domestic shipping. Dude, I could probably ship that toy for half that price at most…unless it’s heavier than it looks, it would most likely even ship at the minimum $4.05 price. Six to eight bucks “handling fees” seems a tad excessive. Even using the flat rate priority box, it would only cost $8.10 max (or nine-something starting in May).
“So, Mike, bitchy much?”
Nothing really to do with comics, much like the rest of this post, but I came across this vintage Dungeons & Dragons ad in an old Omni magazine:
You know, I can think of a few times when I would have liked to have had a sword while out eating dinner.
§ April 9th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Great Zot.
One of my favorite gags from Johnny Hart’s B.C. comic wasn’t in one of the strips, but rather the title of one of the many paperback reprint collections:
By itself, I think that’s pretty amusing, but it’s this note on the title page (and also at the bottom of the front cover) that really makes it for me:
I wonder how high in price the title eventually got…though I suppose once you get to “Life is a five dollar ninety-nine cent paperback,” it’s no longer funny as much as it is depressing.
EDIT: Mark Evanier just put up a post discussing this very same book…and mentions that there was a British edition (Life is a fifty pence paperback).
Johnny Hart passed away over the weekend, and I know the man had his share of controversy regarding his strips, and that the strip’s humor suffered in its later years…but Hart’s earlier work is funny and witty and just plain silly, and as a young Mikester I read and reread and read again all the B.C. paperbacks I could get my hands on. So thank you for that, at least, Mr. Hart.
Slightly related story…when I was a senior in high school, just about to graduate, I went on a tour of the University of California Irvine campus for their annual “spend your parents’ money at our school” membership drive. The mascot of the school is the anteater, inspired by the anteater character from B.C., and the sound effect associated with that character, “Zot,” also became a part of the school’s culture.
Anyway, as our particular group was being shown around campus, our student tour leader attempted to explain the mascot to us. After telling us it was an anteater, she explained that the school cheer was “Zot” because “um…I think it’s because that’s the noise an anteater makes when it eats an ant.”
So, yeah, pretty much no clue that it came from B.C.. Okay, it may have been technically correct, at least on the comic strip’s terms…and no, I didn’t try to elaborate on her explanation. I didn’t want to be that guy. Well, not until I got my own weblog, anyway.
Speaking of those paperback reprints…I haven’t been to the humor section of a bookstore lately, at least not looking for strip reprints, but it seems to me that this particular format is pretty much dead. Instead, we have those larger format books, like the collections for Foxtrot and Dilbert. The last time I saw those old-style paperbacks was in the late ’90s, when I was on a Peanuts kick and I was tracking down reprints of those latter-day Schulz strips. There was at least one Peanuts collection I found in that original paperback format, and it was priced (as I joked about that B.C. paperback above) at $5.99. I thought that was just a little too dear for what I was getting, so I passed on purchasing (but in retrospect, the cost per strip was probably comparable to what you’re getting in, say, one of the later Foxtrot volumes…someday I’ll do the math).
So, is that standard-sized pocketbook strip reprint format gone now? A quick Amazon search on the most likely suspect to still be in that format, Family Circus, reveals that it’s been about ten years since the last release in that format (and Good Lord, thirty-two bucks?). I guess the perceived value of those smaller reprint books just isn’t enough to maintain sales, compared to the larger volumes.
One more thing about B.C.‘s influence on me…whenever I see a “DIP” or “DIP IN ROAD” street sign, I always, always, recall this cover:
“These DC comic characters are long ago retired. They were revived again in the 1980’s with a more futuristic design but these are the originals from the ‘good old days’ DC comics!
Features
1. A durable heavy-duty aluminium pan about 36cm x 35cm. 2. Plus Batman and Superman plastic face and shield (5 pieces total) 3. Pan takes 1 standard 2-layer cake mix 4. Baking and Decorating Instruction booklet 5. An additional retro cake leaflet 6. Fabulous collectable and practical use for the home baker or retail cake designer”
There’s a newer Superman cake pan available, but it’s not quite as charming as the ’77 model:
from Firestorm the Nuclear Man #4 (Sept. 1978) by Gerry Conway, Al Milgrom & Jack Abel
Me: “You know what I like about Firestorm?”
Employee Aaron: “No, what?”
Me: “Well, Ron Raymond [Firestorm’s secret identity — well, one of them] is on the school’s basketball team, and he’s always getting picked on by the school brain, Cliff Carmichael. It’s some kind of weird parallel universe high school where the jocks get bullied by the smart guys.”
Aaron: “So what parallel Earth would that be?”
Me: “I’d call it ‘Earth-Remarkably-Improbable.'”
To be fair, Cliff Carmichael always was one of my favorite antagonists in comics, Asimovian sideburns and all, and that switcharoo on the expected relationship between the smart guy and the athletic guy is clever and amusing. Alas, and almost inevitably, Cliff was turned from a regular everyday jerk into a supervillain, and that was pretty much that.
In other news:
I’ve suddenly had a bunch of folks sending me this link to a kids book entitled The Swamp Thing, which has nothing to do with big green fella up there in this site’s title banner, aside from the name. It seems to me I’ve seen this before, on one of my many internet searches for “Swamp Thing’ — I may have linked to it before, but trying to Google up occurrences of the phrase “Swamp Thing” on this site seems too much like a fool’s errand to even try. But thanks to you all for the comments and e-mails…it’s good to know you folks are thinking of me!
A follow-up to my comments yesterday about the less-than-stellar sales debut of Fallen Son: Wolverine: well, movement on this issue improved on Thursday, and we’ve gone from “oh, God, this is going to tank hard” to “well, maybe we can sell through what’s left over of this issue once a Fallen Son one-shot comes out that people actually like, causing them to look for previous installments.”
I think the forthcoming Fallen Son: Avengers one-shot will probably have pretty good sales right out of the gate. At least at our store, people don’t tend to buy every Wolverine series and/or appearance that Marvel cranks out. Contrast that with the Avengers…most of our Avengers-reading customers are more likely to pick up the attendant tie-ins and spinoffs. If they buy the Fallen Son tie-in, and realize it’s part of a series, there’s a chance they’ll want the Wolvie one-shot and the following issues. A small chance, I know…don’t crush my hopes.
“It’s like something out of a comic book: Police cars mobilize, attempting to track down Batman. But Monday afternoon, the Hesperia Unified School District Police were taking it very seriously.
“‘A school teacher on her way home passed a bus stop and saw a bunch of kids at a bus stop, and there was a person in a Batman costume standing next to a van, playing a flute,’ Chief Bob Mosley, formerly with the Los Angeles Police Department, said Thursday.”
[…]
“Those with information about the Batman incident are asked to call the Hesperia Unified School District Police….”
§ April 5th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Some Marvel sales, JLA covers, and general griping.
Well, perhaps it’s a bit early to judge, but for its first day of sales, Fallen Son: Wolverine (the first “death of Captain America” spinoff) just kinda sat there. I hardly moved any copies. It’s not as if we weren’t busy…we had plenty of customers come in, and we sold tons of comics, but perhaps nobody wants to read a series of one-shots featuring characters being mopey about a hero’s death that’ll be undone in short order anyway.
Ah, well, at least it has nice art by Leinil Yu inside. Maybe sales’ll pick up on it by the weekend. And I know I’ve said it before…but all those folks who rushed in to buy the Cap death issue? They’re not going to come back for this. They’ll be back eventually…in a few years, when it’s time to sell that death issue for the thousands of dollars it almost certainly will be worth.
Also from Marvel, the “Planet Hulk” storyline wraps up with this week’s issue, laying the groundwork for the forthcoming “World War Hulk” event, and giving Hulk plenty of reason to be pissed off at Earth’s heroes. I’m a longtime Hulk fan, and I love the premise of WWH (heroes try to get rid of Hulk, and not only does Hulk end up gaining experience in war strategy and leadership, but he also gets plenty of reason to really be mad), and I am looking forward to the event…but still, I gotta wonder, how’s Marvel going to screw this one up? They already throttled sales on later issues of “Planet Hulk” by not rushing out, for once, a trade paperback for the early issues, allowing readers to jump on and follow the story. And once WWH gets going…will it have shipping delays, like Civil War? Will it have heroes acting remarkably out of character, like Civil War? Will it sorta peter out in the end, like, oh, say, Civil War? I hope not.
Oh, and apparently WWH will involve the Sentry, a character Marvel keeps inflicting on us, even though I’m not convinced anyone actually likes him. Am I wrong? Let me know.
Here’s a little something about the new issue of Justice League of America…it has two covers, which fit together to form a larger image of the team. One cover prominently features Superman and Batman, the other Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. I have them racked side by side on the shelf, and, if given the choice, people tend to take the Supes/Bats cover. Also, it may also be as folks are perusing the shelves from left to right, they hit the Supes/Bats cover first, and that’s the one they grab. So, as I was pulling books for our store’s comic savers, they all got the WW/GL cover to redress the balance. ‘Course, that won’t stop them from swapping out for the other cover, but hey, at least I tried.
Something else: I screwed up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer #2, forgetting to bump our orders up after seeing sales on #1, thus causing us to run out right away. Now, when I placed our reorder on the first issue, effectively doubling our order, a while back, I may have been a little on the optimistic side, as the initial rush of sales ended up fading away right quick. They picked up slightly recently, and I think it’ll be a consistent back issue seller, at least while the series is running, so I’m not worried about having the extra stock. My reorder on #2, however, is slightly more realistic.
The other Whedon-written book this week, Runaways, will be the test on whether Whedon can sell comics to his fans that are 1) not based on one of his TV properties, and 2) not featuring Marvel superheroes that those folks would recognize from movies or TV shows. Given the large number of customers we had on Wednesday, and the number of copies of Runaways we didn’t sell that day, it doesn’t look good. But, again, it’s just one day, and maybe once word gets around that, hey, Whedon’s writing a new series, it’ll move. I managed to handsell a copy or two on the basis of Whedon’s name, so maybe those two factors I mentioned won’t be too much of a detriment.
…
Geez, I’m a grump. Okay, one thing I did love this week: Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness #2 had the greatest last page ever. Well, it made me laugh, anyway.
