§ August 8th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on We wuz robbed.
At about 2:40 Tuesday morning, our store (Ralph’s Comic Corner, in Ventura, CA) was broken into and robbed. The burglar(s?) came in through the ceiling, knocking out electricity in half of the store in the process. One of the shelves on our new comics rack was busted, our ECs and undergrounds in the large glass case were stirred around a bit (but otherwise unburgled), and the only things we appear to have lost were early Witchblades and Spawns, a handful of Spider-Man, and a couple recent variant covers.
Mostly, we’re pissed about the mess left behind than we are about the missing books. What a nuisance. There’s still a big pile of ceiling tiles and wiring around our graphic novel section and our toy shelves that needs to be cleaned up. Plus, we just had a lot of rewiring work done on that side of the store, which has all essentially been undone.
Yes, we’re still open for business, and new books are out for sale. The show must go on, as they say.
EDIT: Our intrepid local newspaper has the story on its site, so here are my corrections: there are two stores – Ralph’s Comic Corner (the store I manage), and Seth’s Games & Anime (the games and, you guessed it, anime store we lease out space to). The street address we use is 2379, the Ralph’s storefront, though I suppose I can’t blame them for getting that wrong…the space Seth occupies is technically 2343, but no one uses that address for anything.
§ August 8th, 2007§ Filed under snarkComments Off on The snarkiest post ever posted on Progressive Ruin.
No, really, this may be the snarkiest thing I’ve ever had here. I’ve never been snarkier than this. You may have seen snark on other comic book weblogs, but you’ve never seen snark like the snark I’m about to give you.
I’m normally not big on snark, but I’ve got some snark building up inside me, and that snark’s gotta go somewhere.
No, honestly. I’m about to unleash some real snark, here. The more delicate among you may wish to avert your eyes.
I mean it…this post will never be featured on Snark-free Corner [EDIT: link dead].
Okay…if you’ve come this far, you must be ready for some snark. Prepare yourself for the snarkfest I’m about to unleash.
Image originally from this Wikipedia article on Power Pack‘s resident alien antagonists, the Snarks (AKA the Zr’nx).
§ August 7th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Mad, Marvel, Maggin, and (Un-)Men.
Pal M.A. Masterson left a comment to yesterday’s post where, aside from correcting my spelling of “potrzebie,” recommended a review of the Mad Magazine board game. His instincts are good; I did indeed own the Mad board game, and, as M.A. says, the object of the game was to get rid of all your money. Alas, the board game is packed away somewhere in the depths of the parents’ garage, along with my other old board games, and I have not yet been able to recover it. However, you can read more about it at Boardgamegeek, which has lots and lots of photos of the board and of box covers from many lands.
I also want to find that box o’games, because I desperately want to recover my copy of the Greatest Board Game of All Time, The Sinking of the Titanic. But I digress.
Anyway, what I do have is the Mad Magazine Card Game, published by Parker Brothers in 1979:
Similar to the board game, the object is lose all of the cards in your hand, while forcing your opponents to acquire more cards.
The card faces all feature artwork by Jack Davis:
The numbered cards feature sequential gags (I left a couple out in this particular sequence to fit ’em on the scanner):
Don’t really have much more to say about it than that…Boardgamegeek has more pics, plus more foreign editions.
Hey, remember when I used to talk about comics on this site, once in a while?
I’ve been meaning to praise the World War Hulk mini-series event Marvel’s been running. I’m not following all the crossovers, but the concurrent Front Line mini has been reasonably entertaining as well. Tim O’Neil has a few words about how surprised he is that he’s actually enjoying a Marvel series, and I can’t disagree with anything he says.
The big problem, of course, is how the series will wrap up in the Mighty Marvel “Status Quo – Successfully Maintained” Manner, since the Hulk 1) won’t be kicked off Earth for good, and 2) won’t be killed…oh, and 3) won’t conquer the Earth and become the ruler of the entire planet, as much fun as that might be. Or it might go the Civil War route, with a anticlimactic ending that simply leads into yet more crossover event fun. The book’s been pretty solid so far, though, so I’m not entirely without hope that we may, possibly, get some kind of reasonable resolution to the story. (Which will seemingly involve the Sentry, a character I didn’t have time for before, but has been used to interesting effect thus far in this series.)
Other people have noted that you can’t really go wrong with Hulk Smashing, particularly right now, as it’s been a while since we’ve had a good old fashioned readable Marvel-style melee. Plus, there’s a bit of catharsis to it as well, as Hulk is laying a beat down on the heroes that Marvel has invested a lot of time and effort over the last year or so in getting the readers to actively dislike. An odd publishing strategy, I suppose, making readers hate your headliners (and a couple second stringers), but it worked out for the World War Hulk series.
And there’s John Romita Jr. art. I love Romita Jr. art, but he so rarely draws anything I’d want to read. I think the last thing he drew that I read and enjoyed was Frank Miller’s Daredevil: The Man without Fear mini in ’93, so it’s been a bit of a dry spell for me.
I’ll also note that the comic is selling enormously well at the shop…the central mini-series is, at any rate, with only a slight bump on the crossovers, while the tie-in minis are solid mid-range sellers.
Former comics writer Elliot S! Maggin is running for Congress in California. And, by the way, I live in his district, so I can vote for him. Not sure if it’ll do any good…the incumbent has been there since, it seems, California first became a state. But, if I have to choose between that guy and the guy who wrote this comic…well, I know where my loyalties lie.
The first issue of Swamp Thing spin-off The Un-Men comes out this week. If you don’t buy it, you’ll make a Mikester cry. And surely you don’t want that.
§ August 6th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on Mad Magazine Presents Up The Academy (1980)
So the Mad Magazine content of the 1980 feature film Mad Magazine Presents Up The Academy is essentially the following:
1. It says “Mad Magazine Presents” at the beginning of the film (the title of the film is also presented in the Mad logo font):
2. A live-action Alfred E. Neuman appears at the close of the opening credits (reprised for the closing credits), courtesy of a fellow in what may be the most disturbing face mask of all time:
3. At the end of the film, as our main cast drives down the road into the sunset, they pass by our live action Alfred E. Neuman, who waves goodbye to the audience:
4. …And also has some parting words of wisdom:
5. There’s also a statue of Alfred E. Neuman involved, somewhere, but unless I blinked or was otherwise distracted or something, that statue never appears in the film itself. It’s there in the trailer, though:
Now, I hadn’t seen this film in years…like, twenty-five years at the very least, catching it on cable when I was but a young Mikester, and I could remember virtually nothing about it. The only gag from the film I remembered was the antagonist, Major Liceman, getting ready for the evening, and putting condoms in his wallet…giving one to his pet dog, as apparently the dog was expecting a little action from the ladies as well.
In the intervening years since I’ve originally seen the film, I learned that Mad’ s publisher William Gaines wanted nothing to do with the film, and demanded all references to the magazine be edited out. (And apparently, that was screwed up anyway, as some unedited versions of the film were distributed internationally.) And, of course, there was that two-page parody Mad itself did of the film, allegedly cut short by editorial because the film itself was so awful.
I’d somehow discovered recently that the film has since been rereleased on DVD, with the cuts restored, so I thought I’d give it a Netflixing and see how bad it was.
Oh, Lordy.
It’s one of the many, many Animal House knock-offs rushed out in the wake of that films success, in which a bunch of misfits take on the Establishment at whatever college/camp/high school/etc…in this case, a military academy. It’s only marginally funny, with fart jokes and an offensive stereotype or two (Tom Poston…Tom Poston…as a gay caricature, taking a little much joy in checking young men’s inseams for uniforms, among other uncomfortable moments). The Karate Kid‘s Ralph Macchio makes his screen debut here, as a standoffish tough guy sent to the school to be straightened out, and finds himself bunked up with a bunch of other outcasts (the politician’s son, the preacher’s son, the larcenous son of an Arabian Sheik). They’re under the oppressive, watchful eye of Major Liceman (played by Ron Leibman, who, perhaps wisely, had his name removed from the credits).
Here, have a pic of Leibman as Liceman:
The thing about Liceman is that he doesn’t come across as particularly evil or nasty…yeah, he’s kind of a jerk, but that’s hardly deserving of the utterly humiliating “revenge” the kids exact upon him at the climax of the film. True, he had done a few unpleasant things to them during the course of the movie, but one could argue the kids provoked him with their own misbehavior and troublemaking. He just seems kind of sad and lonely…he gives a big speech about how he only found friendship at the academy, the only place he felt he belonged, which colors how we see him through the rest of the film.
Okay, he’s not a good guy…but he’s not entirely unsympathetic, either. He’s not the irredeemably evil Neidermeyer from Animal House, in other words.
More jokes fail than work, but there is one solid gag I enjoyed. During a reception, a group of hideously off-key singers massacre a song, causing listeners to double over in pain from the sound, as well as busting glasses, bringing down buildings (via stock footage), and shattering the film itself (as the picture breaks apart and falls to the bottom of the screen). More of that type of humor would have been welcome.
Surprisingly, despite the bad jokes and other problems, the film remains halfway watchable. The actors do their best with what they’re given, it all moves along at a reasonable enough pace, and the soundtrack, which almost never lets up for the 90-minute duration of the film, is pretty damn good. Iggy & the Stooges, Pat Benatar, Cheap Trick, the Kinks, Blondie, Lou Reed, and plenty of others; check it out. It’ll never happen, but a CD release of the soundtrack would be welcome.
It’s just none of it has very much to do with Mad Magazine, really. I mean, aside from Alfred’s cameos. But what was I expecting…animated short “The Lighter Side of…” gags? Sergio’s Marginals running up and down the edges of the screen? At least one gratuitous use of the word “Potrzebie?” Fold-In: The Movie? Maybe something a little more like the early seasons of MADtv, with outright pop culture parodies with interspersed “Spy Vs. Spy” and Don Martin cartoons?
Anyway, there it is…Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy. Not a good movie, but an interesting product of its time. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, I should note that it’s directed by Robert Downey, Sr. You know, Iron Man‘s pop. Don’t that beat all.
§ August 5th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on The value of nothing.
Finally…finally…got around to doing something with those four or five long boxes’ worth of comic book collections that were basically just dumped on us. I didn’t have any time to deal with them when they were given to us, and I didn’t have any place in the back room where they wouldn’t be completely in the way, so I just piled ’em up behind the counters in our trading card area and said “I’ll deal with them later.”
Now, “behind the counters in our trading card area” is not an appropriate comic book storage area, I realize, but at the time, that’s the space I had, and that’s where they went. And not just one collection, multiple collections. “Sigh, another box of comics dumped on us…well, put ’em with the rest of them, and we’ll get to them eventually.”
‘Course, things being what they are, this is what happens. I need to go to the trading card area, to pull out boxes of singles for someone, or to get a set or two out of one of the cases. I have to maneuver around the boxes to get to anything behind those counters. I think “Gosh dang it, I have to do something about these stupid comics.” Then my work day continues, and I have other, more important things to do than go through a bunch of comics we didn’t really want in the first place, and so there they sit, out of sight, out of mind until the next time I have to get into the trading card cabinets. Which, to be frank, isn’t that often, which is the other part of the problem…since those collections aren’t constantly in my way, they remained low priority.
I realize this may not present me in the best light, but surely some of you folks out there have had a project or two to do that wasn’t exactly pressing, that wasn’t going to pay off for the effort you had to put into it, but sorta needed doing anyway. The kind of project that makes you think, “I’ll get to it eventually,” but you have other things that need doing, like, I don’t know, shaving the cat or arranging your socks by color, that are more important.
Anyway, like I said at the beginning, there, I finally got around to doing something with them on Saturday. The County Fair is going right now, so a lot of the townfolk are attending that rather than patronizing their local small businesses, leaving me with a little extra time to attend to those unloved, forgotten funnybooks. Well, the Bangles are playing there, and I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend that REO Speedwagon is playing, too, so, really, how can we compare?
The ultimate goal with those comics is to dump ’em all into our bargain bins near the front of the store, which, you may be asking yourself, “Hey, why didn’t Mike just do that from the get-go, instead of bein’ all lazy?” Because, Ian, there’s some minor level of processing that needs to be done first. We need to make sure they’re all bagged…we have a box of used (but still good condition…we throw out the gross ones) comic bags taken off comics from other processed collections that we use for the bargain books. The comics that are already bagged need any preexisting price stickers removed or blacked out. We also need to get rid of the books I wouldn’t even sell in the bargain bins — torn, worn, cat pee, that sort of thing. The flip side of that is pulling out the books that I don’t want to sell in the bargain bin because they actually do have some value, or maybe we just happen to need them in the front of the store right now, and this saves me the trouble of digging our copies out of the storage room. For example, out of the books I was looking through, we needed a handful of Batman, Flash, and Silver Surfer books. Nothing major, nothing expensive…just run of the mill issues that we were missing up front and hadn’t yet been restocked.
Also, when I said these books were about four or five long boxes’ worth, that was just an equivalency. They didn’t come to us in long boxes…these books were in beaten, hammered brown cardboard boxes, or computer paper boxes, and the like. They were awkward, not easily stacked, which makes me wonder why I didn’t get around to the books before this. Except for the fact that the ugly, ungainly boxes just encouraged me to think “I really don’t want to deal with those right now.”
The reason I bring this up — and there’s a minor point to all this, somewhere…I’m circling around it, hopefully landing soon — is that there have been an awful lot of abandoned and dumped collections lately. You might remember this collection with its 117 copies of The Falcon and whatnot…but there have been several collections where we buy a handful of books from the person, refuse the rest…which end up being given to us anyway. Or, in some cases, we go through the collection, find nothing we want, and the person doing the selling tells us “Well, I don’t want to store them anymore, so you can have them.” It’d be nice if these were boxes full of, say, Adventure #247, but usually it’s the same ’90s X-books or Superman books or Valiant/Image books or whatever. Stuff we’ve seen plenty of, stuff we have plenty of, stuff we don’t want more of…and yet, there they are, dropped in our laps.
I realize that we’re our own worst enemies in this…we could very easily say “No, take the comics with you, we don’t want them.” We have said this, particularly in cases where the comics were obviously in unsellable condition. But, if it’s just common, low demand books, in relatively decent shape, we figure we can just use them for the bargain bin and take them in. But the sheer number of collections we’ve acquired like this lately — probably the other reason I’ve put off dealing with them, due to the overwhelming amount of books — has me curious. It used to be that if there was a collection we didn’t want, or even just a portion of it, the person would take those comics back and move along, either putting them back in storage or taking them to another store. If we didn’t value the books, the seller would sometimes take the position of “These are collectibles, I collected them, they must be valuable!” — and take them to another store to try to move there.
But today…maybe it’s folks moving out of the area due to the local increase in housing prices, dumping their collections because it’s less stuff to transport. Or after holding on to the comics for so many years, they finally realize they’ll never get anything for it, and rather than recycle the books, they’d dump them where they think people would appreciate them. Or for any number of reasons…but the collection dumpings are all from the result of people realizing their comics are worth nothing, or resigning themselves to the fact that they’ll never find buyers, or just deciding a large comic book collection is no longer something they need in their lives. One or two incidents of collection-dumping every once in a while is one thing…several in the space of the year is a little worrying. Almost certainly just coincidence, but that still seems like a lot of people in a short timeframe all deciding their comics were no longer of value enough to keep, either as a collectible or as an artform. I know I’m overthinking it, but it’s a curious trend, at any rate.
At least our bargain box hunters will be happy with all the new stock we’re getting.
The last few days:
Had a Giant-Size X-Men #1 in the case for all of about 5 minutes before it sold ($85 in Good to Very Good condition).
Sold three copies of Batman: The Killing Joke first printings…to the same guy.
Related: had a report from the San Diego Con that someone was selling one of the Killing Joke reprints for thirty bucks…compared to the $15 or so we sell our first printings for. That seller claimed it was a rare edition of the comic, and I can’t really argue that…I never see reprints of Killing Joke in collections. It’s invariably the first print, with the green logo.
Employee Aaron reported that a kid going through the bargain bins pulled up a comic and told his friend “Wow, look at this rare comic!” The book in question: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. God bless that kid.
§ August 4th, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on "Fool! With my brain power — I can twist your ectoplasm into so much mindless mist!"
Here is one of my all-time favorite Justice League of America sequences: while the disembodied mental projection of supervillain Hector Hammond gloats over a fallen Justice League, Professor Martin Stein (himself the floating disembodied mental projection portion of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man) decides to take action….
from Justice League of America #205 (August 1982) by Gerry Conway, Don Heck & Romeo Tanghal
§ August 3rd, 2007§ Filed under UncategorizedComments Off on A little San Diego swag.
So as I mentioned a couple days ago, I had a number of goodies and freebies acquired for me from the San Diego Comic Con, since I wasn’t in a position to attend yet again. My freebies, let me show you them:
This is the item I’d mentioned the other day, a thick “catalog” of the kinds of advanced tech available in the Eureka TV show’s mileu. The “Eye-Pod Sky Satellite Tracker,” the “Thought Messenger Earpiece” — each complete with product descriptions, diagrams, and photos of each of the show’s stars accompanying nearly every entry. This was a well thought-out, attractive advertisement for the show.
I wasn’t really planning on buying this, a novel detailing the events on Krypton, the lives of Superman’s parents Jor-El and Lara, up until the planet’s destruction. Still not, really, but this excerpt booklet is signed by the author, so what the heck, it’s a nice keepsake.
(And that’s how “packratting” works, friends.)
This Futurama mini-comic contains a new story plugging the forthcoming direct-to-DVD revival of the series, with the premise of the Package Express crew being invited to “Packagecon in Space Diego.” Sample dialogue from the book’s beginning:
Bender: “…I demand a hero’s welcome after 72 network episodes.”
Fry: “‘Network episodes?'”
Leela: “That’s what we call the deliveries we made for the Box Network, a division of Twentieth Century Box.”
Bender: “And by my count, we did 72 primetime episodes.”
Fry: “‘Primetime?'”
Leela: “That’s what we call deliveries between 8 and 11 PM, or 7 and 10 on Sundays.”
Nice slam at Fox and their program-killing scheduling changes (see also The Tick live action series) in that last bit there.
This is a Con-exclusive variant cover for the last issue of that Flash series-that-wasn’t. Shame about the comic inside, but that variant ain’t half bad lookin’. (Though it’s still not as good as the cover that inspired it.)
A handful of different cover flats for Star Trek novels were brought back from the Con, and I kept this one to remind myself to look for the book when it finally comes out. I don’t read a whole lot of Star Trek books any more, aside from the William Shatner ghost-written novels (as those are constructed from pure Nerdgasmite and a lot of fun) and the Peter David novels (like the one above), which are generally clever and entertaining.
Actually, glancing through the other Trek novel flats we received, some of those grabbed my attention as well. One follows the adventures of the Enterprise-E after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis, the last Next Generation film, in which Picard has lost Riker to his own command, must deal with the loss of Data, has Worf as his new first officer, and hijinks ensue. Another book follows Riker to his new ship, the Titan, and the adventures he has there. Makes me wonder, just a bit, if the Trek books are going to attempt to follow the Star Wars novel template and maintain a tighter continuity among the books in their post-Nemesis universe.
These are kinda geekishly cool…portable Flash drives designed to look like Star Wars characters (and apparently prepackaged with Star Wars content on the drives, like wallpapers, movies, and sound bytes). Come to think of it, in the movies, wasn’t Artoo kind of like a giant rolling Flash drive, anyway? He kept getting plugged into different machines, from Imperial computers to X-Wings, and people kept putting info onto the drive willy-nilly (Death Star plans, holograms of princesses)….
A few good buttons this year, not too many…this one ties in to the Heroes TV show….
…and this little teeny-tiny one (blown up good ‘n’ big here) ties into some old obscure comic strip I’m sure you’ve never heard of.
That’s not nearly everything that was brought back for me…I have about a million promo postcards that I’m not sure what I’ve going to do with, but I also got a free paperback science fiction novel (Spin State by Chris Moriarty) which looks pretty good, and plenty of freebie bookmarks to use with it. And I was also given a copy of the Con’s Event Guide, which not only details all the panels I missed, but also has a swell cover by Sergio Aragones.
So, you folks what attended the San Diego Con…what was your favorite freebie?
§ August 2nd, 2007§ Filed under popeyeComments Off on Radioactive Man, odd inquiries, monsters, shilling, bills, and Popeye.
So, at long last, I got my 7-11 exclusive Radioactive Man funnybook (#711, natch), courtesy pal Brook. He heard of my need, kept an eye out, and lo, he did find a stack of freshly delivered Radioactive Man comics in the distant and wild jungles of Montalvo, and picked up a copy for me. He’s a swell guy, that Brook.
I’m not sure what the distribution is like on these things…is there just one batch shipped per store (when Brook went back to check for more copies at that particular 7-11, they were gone), are there follow-up shipments, does every 7-11 get them? I have no idea. The 7-11s in my neck of the woods never seemed to have received any, or they only received one shipment and blew everything out already.
Anyway, I’ve discussed the contents previously (two reprints, one new story), along with a couple gag ads I suspect have seen print before, and the new front and back covers pictured above. It’s a nice little package, and even the shrinkwrap is attention-grabbing…here’s a close-up of the top of the bag:
If you still want a copy of this, haunt your local 7-11, or wait a few weeks for the Simpsons movie to be out of theatres, and copies of this comic should be cheap and plentiful on the eBay.
Apparently I missed a weird moment or two at the store when I was out on Monday. There was a customer there who was following Employee Aaron around and asking him an endless series of questions. Here are actual examples:
1. “Why does Cthulhu have to be so scary?”
2. “Do I look gay?”
Wow, how do you answer that? “First, Cthulhu is scary because he wasn’t hugged enough as a youngster and now he’s acting out. Second…yes.” Okay, I have no idea what the guy actually looked like, but if someone asks you that, you might as well just say “yes” and see what will happen.
Also, apparently the most popular weapon used by comic book characters is the katana. Sure, why not?
MY NAME IS HORACE
Sorry, just watched the Monster Squad DVD, and that’s been stuck in my head ever since. Even more so than “Wolfman’s got nards!” And you know, when my pal Rob and I were sitting in the movie theatre, and we heard that particular bit of nard-related dialogue, we both knew right then that a cinematic legend had been born.
Now, perhaps this film hasn’t aged quite as well as its thematic cousin The Goonies…the effects are a little more creaky, the plot contrivances a little more, well, contrived. Plus, I think I’ve had sneezes that are longer than the runtime of this flick. But, it’s an amiable enough movie with plenty of laughs and amusing performances by the leads, the monsters themselves are nicely designed, and the DVD release (which I’d been anticipating for quite a while now) has about a bazillion extras, so…well, I don’t buy too many DVDs any more, but I had to have this one in the collection. Plus, it does the “fighting all the classic monsters in one movie” thing a hell of a lot better than Van Helsing.
Those of you offended by crass commercialism, turn away for a moment.
I was going to put up the Babylon 5 link with yesterday’s post, until I realized I was talking about how the version of the DVD distributed by a major national chain comes with extra material, and putting up an Amazon link with that seemed…well, kind of silly. But, if you don’t care about the extra comic book, there’s a link for your convenience.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to fill up my site with Amazon ad after Amazon ad. I will use them once in a while, but I won’t overdo it, I promise. (I have another DVD in my possession at the moment that I’ll eventually discuss here, and that’s definitely getting an Amazon link posted with it, just out of sheer perversity).
And why the Popeye DVD link? I mean, aside from the fact that old Popeye cartoons are the Greatest Thing Ever? You’ll see in a moment.
One thing I’m glad about the San Diego Comic Con being over…that mad crunch of product being released over the last month in order to have it out for the show has finally lightened up a bit. Combined with the higher than usual number of “event” books and Big Releases, along with folks trying to get their books out before the end of the month so they wouldn’t be considered late and made returnable…our distributor bills were insane.
Luckily business has been pretty good, but still, those bills were reaching ’90s boom levels, almost.
I would note that Popeye seems a little out of character, as he would help anyone in need regardless of how freaky they may seem, but I don’t want to be that guy, you know?
