"Press your button to select a plot."
Just a brief list of observations from the last couple of days at the shop:
- Sales on the latest issue of Anita Blake are way off from previous issues, probably because of its lateness. Hopefully because of its lateness, and fans just don’t realize it’s out yet, as otherwise it means the bloom is off the Anita Blake rose, or something like that.
- Marvel’s taking orders for a second printing of Hulk #1. Is it really in that short of supply, or is this another “look, it’s a hit, honest, why else would we go to a second printing” deal like with Amazing Spider-Man #546?
- Speaking of second printings, I had someone ask if the Ultimates 3 #1 second printing had a variant cover, and I immediately started to cry.
- IT’S NOT MY FAULT EMPOWERED #3 ISN’T OUT YET. IT SHOULD BE HERE IN MARCH. NO REALLY LOOK FOR YOURSELF.
- There’s been some mockery of the sparseness of the Cloverfield cups. “Boy, they went all out on these things, didn’t they?” is a common refrain. They do look kinda plain, but it’s not like they were going to put pictures of the monster all over ’em or anything.
- Speaking of Cloverfield, one of my customers mentioned that he heard it was based on the old Rampage arcade game, and I thought, “oh, c’mon,” but then I Googled it up and WHAT THE HELL.
- Conversation with Customer Scott:
Customer Scott: “Is Rob Liefeld unable to draw a closed mouth?”
Me: “You probably could have ended that question three words earlier.”
- Customer Kevin was going to speak to an elementary school class about drawing and making comic books, and asked me if I could provide a bunch of Free Comic Book Day comics he could use for giveaways, which I gladly provided (after stamping the store address on the covers, of course…get those customers early!).
Anyway, Kevin came back to the store today to let me know things went swimmingly, and gave me a photo of himself with the class, all holding their comic books. I’m not going to post it here, since I don’t think the kids’ parents would want some complete stranger putting up images of their young’uns on his site, but it’s a very cute picture…it’s one of those photos where after taking the “nice” photo, you get to cut loose with the “silly” photo, and that’s the one I got. Man, some of those kids can pull some seriously wacky faces.
- A few words about the week’s new releases: Fell #9 – probably Warren Ellis’ sharpest, most concise, most accessible work, with experimental-yet-understandable artistic support from Ben Templesmith. Best bit: the representation of Fell’s mental pictures of what his unseen “perp” was up to.
Booster Gold #6 – Yeah, I wouldn’t get to used to this being the “status quo” for that particular character if I were you.
Groo: Hell on Earth #3 – I love Groo comics just about more than any other comic, but sometimes its occasional “message” comics just barely dance around the edge of being a little too heavy-handed.
Amazing Spider-Man #547 – So it occurred to me…if there’s a marriage between Peter and Mary Jane in the next film, how fast will that “deal with the devil” be undone?
Incredible Hercules #113 – Actually pretty good. Light, fun read…Hercules in the right writer’s hands is always a hoot, even though things take a serious turn at the end here. Plus, Wonder Man! In his old red jacket look, yet! (Yes, I know he appears in other books with his old look, but I don’t read those, man.)
- About a couple of next week’s Marvel books:
World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1 – A quick flip through our preview copy shows that this new series is right in line with the three classic mini-series of years past. The art’s a little slicker, but the characters still look recognizably like their old selves.
Marvel Zombies 2 #4 – While I hated the zombie overkill Marvel did with all those zombie variant covers a while back…I don’t have any problem with the Marvel Zombies series proper. It remains gross and dark-humored, but it feels like the steam is running out of this particular franchise. A Marvel Zombies 3 would really not be a good idea…which of course won’t stop it from happening.
- Only because it came up at work the other day…here’s a YouTube video showcasing my all-time favorite computer game theme music:
If you want to see seven minutes of the game in action, here’s a clip of the Commodore 64 version.
And here’s about 10 minutes of the C64 version of another game I spent far too much time on as a young Mikester.
