Just a link for today.
Still pretty sick, pals, so all I have for today is Gerry Giovinco’s latest column on comics coloring from the ol’ Comico days. An interesting read!
You are currently browsing the archives for October, 2010
“Swamps are good for a laugh…”
Thanks to reader Justin for sending this my way…a picture of a display he took at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, explaining that swamps are good places, and not like what you see in, oh, issues #1 (Oct-Nov 1972) and #156 (July 1995) of Swamp Thing:
A closer look at the important part:
Like Justin says, “when these ‘scientists’ stumble onto a nest of Un-Men they’ll wish they’d learned” that “swamps are bad places!”
Kind of interesting that it appears they used an actual copy of #1 in the display. That’s a valuable funnybook classic, friends!
Anyway, special thanks to reader Justin for keeping this from being another sick day post. Oddball Swamp Thing pics are always welcome!
Sorry, gang.
It’s another Sick Day post…I’m experiencing some aftereffects from my root canal, which has left me with some uncomfortable swelling. It’s getting better, but it’s had me spending a lot of time taking medicine and resting, and not a whole lot of time generating site content.
Hopefully I’ll be up and runnin’ again tomorrow. Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you then.
What you don’t what to hear your dentist say as he’s looking in your mouth: “What the hell is that?”
The pain is (mostly) gone, but I’m still pretty wiped out from a night of not really sleeping, and a day of a mouth sore from multiple novocaine injections and metal tools digging into my teeth. Hey, who has abnormally long tooth roots? THIS GUY. Anyway, I’m keeping it short today, and let’s hope for a fresh start next week, without any unexpected medical shenaniganery.
BEHOLD:
- On one hand, DC Comics is dropping prices on many $3.99 titles down to $2.99. On the other hand, stories are dropping down to 20 pages from 22. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since, unless sales increase significantly across the board, this is only delaying the inevitable line-wide price increase. At the very least, this creates some breathing room to decide what to do next, which hopefully won’t be 20 pages for $3.99.
Judging from the reaction I’ve seen online, 20 story pages is less of a disincentive than the higher cover price, which only makes sense…no one wants to pay more money for funnybooks, especially in this economy. But I do worry a bit about the lack of perceived value. Is the loss of two pages really that big of a deal? Depends on the book, I guess…I’m not going to want to see three or four splash pages in one story any more, unless there’s darn good reason for it. Related: will there be a trend away from decompressed storytelling in the periodical market because of the page count decrease?
…Just some of the random thoughts that came to mind…when I’m fully functioning again, I’ll try to ponder it further. Plus, I’ll probably run the news past some of my customers, and get some feedback from them.
Also…was it Jenette Kahn who said that when she took over as publisher of DC, one of the first things she wanted to do is increase the page count from 17 to 23 pages, and give the kids more bang for their half-buck? That’s my memory, anyway…this current situation brought that to mind, for some reason.
One other thing: that new Jimmy Olsen back-up in Action Comics better spin off into its own series, if it’s losing its slot due to the price/page drop. I think we’re all down with a new Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen comic book series by that creative team.
And another other thing: Marvel announced that they’ll stick to $2.99 for new series starting in 2011. No word on page count, but I’m guessing they’ll keep at 22 pages, for now, just to stick it a little to DC.
- Give my pal Euge twelve bucks for his new album:
Limited edition CD of awesome nerdrap, with bonus disc and button, plus immediate digital downloads. GIVE THE MAN YOUR MONEY. (You can also listen to all the tracks from the main disc, in full, on that page.)BONUS: Unexpected Swamp Thing reference in one of the songs! I ain’t tellin’ you where.
Today’s post is called…
…on account of an emergency root canal.
Believe you me, I’d rather being comics blogging.
Sorry, gang…hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow.
Grim tidings.
So this was squirreled away in the corner of a page in the latest Diamond Previews:
…is the first solicitation for the revival of the ’70s Atlas publishing company…and…um, well. That’s certainly something.
Now, I realize you can’t go home again, and it’s not like Ernie Colon was going to come back and draw the book, picking up where he left off:
…Well, actually, that’s NOT where Colon left off, since that’s the second of three issues, but man, that’s a great cover.
Anyway, this new Grim Ghost seems…well, I guess the problem I’m having is that it is new, and I’m having a bit of dissonance reconciling this modern-styled, muscled and vein-y Grim Ghost with the Grim Ghost stories of my youth. Now I know how all you people who got the vapors over the new [UPDATED VERSION OF OLD DC AND/OR MARVEL CHARACTER] feel. Though I do have to admit that, following the slight shock I had after first seeing it, this new version of the Grim Ghost has grown on me a wee bit. You know, from the one whole image I’ve seen so far.
So I’ll give it a chance, I think…no idea how good it is on the scripting level, which means I’ll need to read it instead of just judging it by its cover. But I did really love that old Grim Ghost series, which at least earns this new series a chance from me (“he said self-importantly”).
I do like that the solicitation explicitly calls out Spawn, given that Spawn’s origin shares some…similarities with the Grim Ghost’s. You know, bad guy dies, goes to Hell, swings deal with Devil to come back to Earth to serve as Devil’s agent, Devil sends him back to Earth, but years past the time which the “hero” was originally from. Okay, like only five years in Spawn’s case, a couple of centuries in Mr. G. Ghost’s case.
However, if they revive Morlock 2001, I sincerely hope the title stays as Morlock 2001.
This post contains minor spoilers for the first two episodes of Smallville Season 10.
So I’ve finally caught up on the new season of Smallville…yeah, I was a whole week behind, boo hoo…and the first episode ends with Darkseid showing up. And we’ve had an obnoxious radio talk show host referenced on the program by the name of “Godfrey,” who is clearly supposed to be Glorious Godfrey, another of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters.
Now, I love all this Fourth World stuff. It’s Kirby completely unfettered, with pretty much every crazy idea getting slapped down on a page, and all of it, somehow, working. The very idea of live-action renditions of these characters showing up in the prime time TV series is fantastic, though I’m sure we’re not getting full-on in-your-face 100% accurate translations of Kirby’s designs. But, um…that CGI Darkseid from the end of the first episode looked pretty darn close.
But, you know, what the hell? Why not Kirby it up? It’s the last season…it’s not like they have to be afraid of getting canceled or anything. What’s the worst that can happen…viewers might accidentally be exposed to something awesome?
And there’s incentive! As I promised on my Twitter thingie, I would give the producers of Smallville three whole dollars, in genuine American currency, via PayPal, personal check, or money order, if they give us a live action version of the Fourth World’s embodiment of Death, the Black Racer:
And I don’t mean “This week on Smallville, Clark and Lois visit a ski resort and encounter a young man with strange powers” and it’s a dude in a red and blue ski outfit, with yellow gloves and a stylized wool ski mask that kind of looks like a knight’s helmet. I mean, I want a guy, in that armor, wearing that helmet, and freakin’ flying.
I will accept no less.
Plus, if we’re opening up Smallville to Kirby’s Fourth World stuff, that means the way is finally cleared for this show’s long-awaited special guest star…Mr. Warmth himself, Don Rickles:
(If you want a little background on why and how this even happened, here you go.)
A couple of other notes about Smallville:
- I think I would have been on board with Old Clone Lex being the new replacement Lex Luthor for the show, which even kinda sorta follows what happened with Lex in the comics that one time, if you squint a little:
Frankly, giving us a Lex that ain’t afraid to leave some toothmarks on the scenery is what this series really needs. Of course, given what happens in the story, this option is kind of out of the question.More likely, Young Kid Lex Clone, rescued from the labs, will probably age-accelerate into the show’s previous Lex, actor Michael Rosenbaum, assuming they can throw enough money at him to get him back on the show, shave his head, and reprise his role for an episode or three. (I understand why maybe he’d not want to, but it seems like it’d be bit of a disappointment not to finally get our Superman Versus the Lex Luthor Who’d Been Around for Most of the Show’s Run confrontation.)
- You know how some folks were wondering…well, how I was wondering, anyway, about how they were going to resolve the secret identity situation, given the fact that Clark’s been toolin’ around for ten seasons with no glasses, and that when he finally puts on the Superman costume, everyone he knows is going to look at him and say “hey, Clark, what’s with the get-up?”
I think I finally figured out the producers’ solution. They’re just going to make sure all of Clark’s friends already know about his super powers, and that any folks outside his circle of friends don’t really care about Clark enough to notice that the guy in the blue suit and red cape is him.
That’s gotta be better than my previous assumption, that since Smallville and now Metropolis are apparently the Head Trauma Capitals of the World, the subsequent brain damage everyone has by being knocked out by the Bad Guys of the Week will block their memories of Clark’s dual identities.
Sure, why not.
- For more Smallville commentary, Chris Sims and David Uzumeri will be reviewing every episode this season, starting here. God speed, my friends.
Suddenly…DEATH FROM THE BRUSH!
image from from Keen Detective Funnies #23(?) (1940)
In other news:
- So they did that “largest gathering of superheroes” Megamind advertisement / world record attempt — which reminds me, is that really a Guinness Book of World Records category? — and sure, we can all make fun of it, but someone totally showed up as Popeye and I’m okay with that.
- SPOILER ALERT: So the very last word of dialogue spoken in the last Cathy comic strip is “iPhone.” Seems…weird to me.
And as I was writing that I saw that Adam Koford pointed out that the actual last words of the strip were “PAT PAT.” That mollifies me…somewhat. Not that I’ve ever really thought about Cathy or mentioned the strip on the site. (Well, mentioned it twice on the site, anyway.)
- Speaking of Adam Koford, BEHOLD ORIGINAL MADE-TO-ORDER DRAWINGS FOR SALE. And at low, low prices! Tell him Mike sent you, so he can say “…Who?”
- Speaking of comic strips, have I mentioned that pal Andres has a site devoted to Nancy’s aunt Fritzi Ritz? Complete with Fritzi Fridays? All documented, all true.
- And on the topic of Nancy, Fantagraphics is trying to locate some dailies from 1942. I don’t have any, and I sure wish I did…but if YOU have any, please help them out! (And I’m not putting that out there just because I’m a nice guy…I want my Nancy reprint book!)
- One final funnypages bit of business…yesterday was Peanuts‘ 60th anniversary. How did you celebrate? (Me…I went and talked to my old school building, played some tennis against “Crybaby” Boobie, and developed this odd rash on my head that looks strangely like baseball stitching….)
- RevolutionSF has been doing a series of articles about comics that haven’t yet been collected into trade paperback, or have been collected but are long out of print. A couple that I’d add to the lists: a Hammerlocke collection would be welcome, which featured some nice Chris Sprouse art. And while I’d like to see a Spanner’s Galaxy trade, with Tom Mandrake’s art recolored and safely away from the Flexographic printing process which afflicted it during its original publication, I’m not holding my breath.
- REMINDER: I’m still doing Estate 4.1, that wonderful, uplifting site where I point out delightful comments left by thoughtful users on news stories…though I may have to stop because I think I’ve found the greatest news story comment of all time.
Honestly, this busts me up every time I read it, and I’m not sure I can even explain why. Your Mileage May Vary, as they say.
- And now, sent to me courtesy of reader C. Elam, here is William Shatner for K-TEL:
