I don’t know if that’s a frown or a robot moustache.
“Hey, Enndo, can you go wiggle the handle so the toilet will stop running?”
“Hey, Enndo, can you obey NoMan?”
“…Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Hey, Enndo, can you go wiggle the handle so the toilet will stop running?”
“Hey, Enndo, can you obey NoMan?”
“…Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Usually I have a few words of introduction to my End of Civilization posts, but after looking at this cover for the April 2012 edition of Diamond Previews:
p. 66 – Marvel Classic Character Series 2 #1:
p. 74 – Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1:
p. 76 – Before Watchmen: Comedian #1:
p. 132 – Superman Family Adventures #2:
p. 150 – Mars Attacks #1:
Ah, but I kid. But I can imagine what the price guide listings for this are going to look like: “‘Destroying A Dog’ cover – $45.00. All other covers – cover price.”
p. 151 – Mars Attacks #1 Complete Comic Book Box Set:
p. 166 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 1 – Change Is Constant Deluxe Edition:
p. 236 – Richie Rich Gems: Treasures TP:
p. 256 – Soldier of Fortune Magazine Presents #1: Stealth:
2. Didn’t Soldier of Fortune magazine have, in the 1980s, a comic in the back pages with some scantily-clad gal explaining different types of military equipment and tactics? Where’s our collection of those strips?
2a. Don’t ask how I know about that.
3. Nothing to do with these comics, but I remember a classified ad in the back of an issue of SOF offering the services of “Jon Sable, Freelance.” …In-joke from the editors, or innovative marketing from First Comics? I’ll never know.
3a. Don’t ask why I was looking at the classified ads in Soldier of Fortune.
p. 279 – Dark Shadows #9:
p. 318 – Alien The Illustrated Story:
p. 345 – The Amazing Spider-Man Kit:
“OW! A–a Spider-Man! It bit me! But why is it burning so? Why is it glowing that way?”
LOOK OUT, HERE COMES…THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN-MAN!
…I need a vacation.
p. 354 – Porn King The Autobiography of John C. Holmes SC:
p. 371 – V for Vendetta “Accountable” Black T-shirt:
p. 383 – Universal Monsters Select Metaluna Mutant:
p. 384 – Walking Dead Mini-Mates Series 1:
p. 391 – Mr. Potato Head The Wizard of Oz Collector’s Set:
p. 391 – Battlestar Galactica Lt. Starbuck / Android Sister Action Figures:
No, no, not of Dirk Benedict. I mean of this:
p. 406 – Star Trek Captain Kirk 1/4 Scale Statue:
p. 407 – Star Wars Logray Mini-bust:
p. 431 – The Avengers Movie Life-Size Stand-Ups:
p. 435 – Star Trek The Next Generation Facepalm Magnet Set:
p. 442 – Monopoly The Godfather Collector’s Edition:
p. 442 – Phineas & Ferb Collector’s Edition:
p. 442 – Street Fighter Collector’s Edition:
Marvel Previews p. 67 – Marvel Silver Surfer Sculpted Bottle Opener:
“TO ME, MY HERALD…GALACTUS MUST POP OPEN THIS BOTTLE OF COSMIC BREWSKI.”
“But, my master, I must surf the spaceways! I must fly amongst the stars, I must…oh, okay, fine.”
POP…fssssh. “AH, THAT HITS THE SPOT OF GALACTUS.”
“…This is so degrading.”
…that I’ve been in bit of a Low Content Mode this week. Sorry about that, but there’s been a confluence of events and moods and time constraints that’s been in the way of producing daily content here. Which also means that I’ve not yet finished the new End of Civilization post, which usually would be up the Thursday after the release of Diamond Previews. There will be an EoC post, but it’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow.
Again, I’m not goin’ anywhere, but your pal Mike needed just a slight break from the site for a while. I still love you! Well, like you. …”Like” you, at least. I mean, I’m not totally disgusted by you, by any means. Mostly.
Just so there’s something about comics in this post, I did read this week’s new issue of Superman, with the debut of the new creative team. Other than editorial notes pointing out tie-ins to stories in other current DC titles I’ll never get around to reading, I thought this issue was…a little better than the previous storyline. At the very least, I felt like the character of Clark/Superman was a little more relatable than in the earlier issues. Probably didn’t hurt that the new creative team isn’t trying to squeeze 40 pages of story into a 20-page package, which sounds like “hey, getting my money’s worth!” but in practice results more in “infodump” than “story.”
That new costume, though…bleah, I say again.
And now, a speed-accelerated video of the creation of a CGI Swamp Thing:
Swamp Thing from Bryan Wynia on Vimeo.
It came to him in unquiet dreams borne of reading both the recent Nancy Is Happy collection and this site, said reader John L., and thus did he create this most terrifying image. What is seen cannot be unseen:
2. Man, what did Heidi ever do to them? “Hey, yeah, take that, the Swiss!” (Well, okay, maybe this.)
3. Remember when bippies roamed the earth, and the betting thereof was repeatedly encouraged? Thankfully, a bippy-based economy never took hold.
4. All in all, I’m frankly not sold on this unholy amalgamation of “nutty stickers” and “daisies.” SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE, MODERN TECHNOLOGY?
Having read and reread and rereread the previous Nancy strip collections and nearly committing all their contents to memory, having some new (relatively speaking) material to enjoy really is a treat. Plus, getting to see some of the more explicitly propagandistic wartime material (Sluggo throwing a firecracker at a globe, which blows off the country of Japan, for example), as well as some of the more politically-incorrect gags (a couple of punchlines which play off the stereotypically-slanted eyes of Nancy’s Chinese friend), is certainly interesting from a historical perspective.
I also like the red lettering for the years and page numbers on each page…really gives the book a unique look. And there’s plenty of Sluggo in this volume. Mike, like Nancy, Is Happy.
The appeal of the series is of course the “complete” aspect, where we get to see strips that eluded the previous paperback reprintings and are finally seeing the light of day for the first time since originally popping up in the funny pages. I’ve noted before that my prime Peanuts reading was when I was but a young Mikester in the late ’70s/early ’80s, where I read just about every Peanuts book I could get my hands on, thus making the reprint-debut of strips in the Complete Peanuts volumes presenting years prior to about that time of particular interest to me. I missed most of the ’80s Peanuts strips, except possibly for having read them once in the newspaper way back when, which makes these more recent Complete volumes almost all new to me.
A number of years ago, just prior to Peanuts ending, I got back into collecting the paperback reprints of the later strips, which, at that point, seemed to be collecting full dailies for each year, or at least close to it. Thus, once we move into the ’90s volumes for the Complete Peanuts, I’ll likely have read most of those strips…but I’ll keep getting these new collections anyway, because I’m a sad old fanboy who has to have the full set, that’s why.