More quotation marks than a comic dialogued by Kirby.
So I love oddball promotional materials sent to retailers by comic book companies. My favorite is probably the bottle of Armstrong Ale that Valiant Comics sent to promote Archer & Armstrong back in the ’90s. (In fact, I’m pretty sure my old boss still has that bottle in the back room somewhere.)
This week, the weird promo item was an honest-to-Philips audio cassette tape to tie into this week’s release of Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye (which is one hell of a title, one must admit). It has a brief playing time, with a song (“Into the Cave We Wander”) on one side and an alleged documentary excerpt from Carson’s investigation of Poggy’s Cavern on the other, essentially making it a “cassingle” in the parlance of Ye Olden Times. (As opposed to a C-Dingle in the parlance of Slightly Less Olden Times.) Anyway, it’s weird, since I doubt too many stores nowadays have an in-store cassette player to pipe the tunes/spoken word track to their customers’ ears, but, you know, maybe some do. Or it can be used as a contest giveaway (buy a copy of the comic, get entered in the drawing…er, depending on your state’s lottery rules, maybe, I’m no lawyer), or if you like obscure-ish recordings, like I do, it’s yet another goodie to add to the collection. …A little investigation reveals that this was also given away at a “Young Animal” panel at a recent convention, and I suspect these tracks will be made available in wider release, probably as digital downloads, at some point, if they’re not already.
In case you’re wondering, the comic itself is fine…probably the most “traditional,” I suppose, of the three titles so far released under the Young Animal imprint. If you thought Doom Patrol and Shade the Changing Girl were a little too “out there” for you, this feels more like a simple updating of a Silver Age character that might be a little more accessible. But overall I think I like the aesthetic of the imprint…dense and complicated but mostly clearly told and enjoyable comics that don’t necessarily feel beholden to whatever related comics preceded them. This has me wondering about what Mother Panic, the first entirely original character (I believe), will be like, but if it’s presented in the same fashion as the others, I’m looking forward to it.
I had no idea how much I missed Love and Rockets in its magazine format until I was finally holding a new issue in my hands. Not to say I didn’t appreciate L&R or related works in whatever format I could get my mitts on, but there’s a bit of a nostalgic “going home again” sense in seeing it like this. In fact, I think I prefer the magazine format to the previous annual format, particularly since if the magazine comes out on a regular basis that means more Los Bros Hernandez pages per year, and who can say no to that? Also, it’s a bit easier to sell something at $4.99 a few times a year than it is to sell a $14.99 book even just once a year, which probably sounds strange but that’s just been my experience. Anyway, I’m glad Love and Rockets is still around in any configuration.
Ha. These two books are the ONLY reason I went into my local shop today. I picked up the Cave Carson because of the Tom Scioli backup which was beautiful if a bit hard to read but that’s what I was hoping was to be the Young Animal aesthetic. Great idea for a backup; breathing any sort of life into the most backup-y of characters is already a win. Underwhelmed by the lead as well, but disapointed I didn’t hear about that cassette. I would totally buy one.
Loved the new L+R and everything was just perfect about it. Perfect comic shop day, really.
For those curious, the song with Mike Oeming sketching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cq2REiaQoU
I second the support of the Tom Scioli SUPER POWERS backup story. I never knew I needed a LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND inspired Wonder Twins strip, but it turns out I do. I really, really do.
Thank either Hernandez brother you talk to next for the change in format. I hated waiting that long.