"A most peculiar comic book experience."
So there I was, reading the Wikipedia entry on Plastic Man for no good reason, when I spotted this:
Here it is, just a little larger:
Is a citation really necessary for Woozy’s description as a “doofus?” Isn’t it fairly self-evident? He’s a goofy, silly sidekick for a 1940s superhero — of course he’s a doofus.
Ah, well. We all know you’re a lovable doofus, Woozy, citation or no citation:
Plastic Man #5 (1946) – cover scan from here
Good news for fans of Tales of the Beanworld, straight from the mouth of creator Larry Marder:
Deluxe hardcover reprints of the original series, followed by a new graphic novel and a new series. This makes me remarkably happy, as I do love the Beanworld. Shame that it has to be “deluxe hardcover” (read: expensive) reissues of the originals, but I’m sure it was either being released in that format, for various economic reasons, or no Beanworld at all.
A while back I suggested that Beanworld would make a good webcomic, while worrying that there may not be enough Beanworld fans around still buying comics (or even near a shop that would dare order something called Tales of the Beanworld which wouldn’t even have a zombie variant or foil cover or anything).
But then again, I do have customers at the shop who’ve kept Beanworld on their comic saver lists all this time, so who knows?
An observation about the forthcoming Iron Man movie:
Usually, as I’ve noted in the past, when a comic book movie is impending, there’s a sudden increase in interest in the related comics, at least until the movie is actually released. At that point the moving picture supplants interest in the printed page, so any brief bump in sales (or, in the case of Dark Horse books that inspired movies, a brief bump in people asking us for DH books that are unavailable for order) vanishes. Like during the run-up to Spider-Man 3, I had someone wipe us out on every copy of Amazing Spider-Man #252, the first appearance of the black outfit. (Wonder how he did on those?)
However, I’ve had no such bump in interest in Iron Man back issues. A couple kids have been poking through the bins in the Iron Man section, but no onslaught of people having to read this “Iron Man” thing, no speculators snapping up key Iron Man issues for presumably, slabbing ‘n’ throwing on the eBay.
Oddly, our customers are extremely enthusiastic about Iron Man the movie. They’re just less enthused in regards to the Iron Man funnybooks, which remain among our lowest-selling “classic” Marvel comics.
And speaking of the Iron Man, those Free Comic Book Day Iron Man HeroClix figures are on this week’s invoice, so hopefully they’re actually showing up…along with the couple of FCBD comics that have been AWOL. Thank goodness…maybe we’ll almost be ready for the event this year!
