Sometimes I’ll even talk about the new comics.
So to tie in to the whole “Secret Invasion” company-wide crossover thing, Marvel has been sneaking “stealth” Skrull variants into a book or two each week, where a character on the cover is recolored and otherwise altered to resemble a Skrull. I talked about this a few days ago.
And wouldn’t you just know it? DC Comics just has to go and horn in on the action. So there I am, counting the new arrivals Wednesday morning, checking for shortages and damages to call in to the distributor, and what do I find?
A stealth Durlan variant.
I was shocked, shocked I tell you, at DC’s blatant mimicry of Marvel’s groundbreaking promotional gimmick. And look at it…it looks like they just got, I don’t know, some blogger with too much time on his hands to poorly paste in Chameleon Boy’s face using a freeware graphics program. Shameful.
In other slightly less spurious comic news:
- Last month I noted that all of our copies of Cable #1 had loose center pages, and at the time the word was any replacements were unlikely.
Well, this week, we not only received the replacements on the damaged copies I called in, we also received an additional number of “promotional copies” at no charge, equal to our original order. So, apparently, the loose centerfold problem was widespread enough to necessitate a rerelease of the issue. If you got a bunk copy, you might want to contact your local comick booke shoppe for a replacement.
- Thanks to Polite Scott for letting me know about a Swamp Thing reference in this week’s Wonder Woman #19. Swamp Thing completists, take note! (By whom I mean me and Rich.)
- I’ve always really liked the Fantastic Four as a concept, though the comic itself has only occasionally been good in its post-Lee/Kirby days. Every time there’s a significant creative team change or other change in direction, I’ll check the comic out. The latest iteration, featuring the work of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, has kept my attention so far…not subtle in the slightest, but pretty and interesting. The new issue, #556, features an extended fight scene in a snowstorm, with a whole lotta characters, and sorry to say the snow effect is remarkably distracting. Perhaps that’s a realistic portrayal of how such a battle would work, with everything obscured by the weather and making things hard to follow, but it didn’t make for a good reading experience for me. Yeah, I know, “suck it up, old man.”
- Comics Journal #289…yes, I bought Comics Journal at the same time I bought Fantastic Four. Somewhere, Gary Groth is shedding a tear. Anyway, the new ish has an interview with zombie master Robert Kirkman as well as several pages of the comic strip Minute Movies, dating from the 1920s, and printed at a size that may threaten what’s left of my eyesight, but I’m still gonna read ’em, gosh darn it. Also of note for comic strip fans is R.C. Harvey’s concise history of Mutt and Jeff.
- A new Titans series launched this week, featuring pretty much the same cast of characters from the original New Teen Titans. But, really, do you need any other Titans books beyond Tiny Titans? This is such a kind, gentle, and amusing book, with appealingly cute cartooning. Okay, I flinched a bit when I saw Dr. Light in the first story of this week’s issue, but that’s because I’m a bad person.
- Fans of George R.R. Martin’s superhero sci-fi Wild Cards shared universe will want to know that the first issue of the new comic book series came out this week. Haven’t had a chance to do more than flip through it yet…the art doesn’t really do anything for me, at first glance, but what I’ve seen of the story shows promise. I’ll report later once I’ve actually read the thing.
- Jughead’s Double Digest features the “new look” Jughead on the cover, and…gah:
I’ve tried to keep an open mind with this new look Archie stuff, but good heavens that’s ugly. - New Mutants Classic TP Vol. 3 – featuring the whole Bill Sienkiewicz “Demon Bear” storyline that I remember buying off the rack way back when. This made me feel old.
- Aqua Leung Vol. 1 came out. Kevin liked it.
- And volume 9 of the Complete Peanuts, covering 1967 and 1968, is out this week. Apparently it doesn’t feature as many “lost strips” as previous volumes, but it does have an introduction by John Waters, so things balance out.
However, there is a real lost strip, as one strip in the volume is accidentally repeated, replacing another. According to editor Kim Thompson, the missing strip will be printed in volume 10, and the slipcased version of 9/10 will be the corrected editions.
