February 2019 – Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin

A big week for folks with lightning bolts on their chests.*

February 27, 2019 filed under this week's comics 12 Comments

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, either here or on the Twitters, due to my recent eye travails my ability to read at the pace I’m used to has been somewhat curtailed. I can read, but it takes a lot longer to get through a comic book than it used to. As such, the “to-read” pile at the secret Mikecave headquarters is beginning to pile up a smidgen, which is why I haven’t done a “this week’s comics” post on the ol’ site here in a while. By the time I get around to some of these comics, it’s more like “last month’s comics.” Which, granted, on Monday I did talk about a comic from a few decades ago, but, y’know, that’s different.

Despite all that, I have been trying to keep up with some comics…I’m current on all the Superman books, for example, and I’ve been reading the Detective issues leading up to #1000, and all the Hellboy stuff (though I think I’mm getting lost on some of the ongoing plot details again…I mean, I just reread ’em all back in 2013, guess it’s time for another go), and some others. And there are those I let stack up a bit before plowing through a bunch in a row (oh hello Flash).

But one comic I definitely kept up with was Mage: The Hero Denied (as you may have guessed I was leading up to, as per the image above), which would be the first on the stack to read every time a new one was unleashed over the last purt’near two years. Just when I got used to having a new one every few weeks, it’s gone again.

And even though it does come to a conclusion, I know I’m going to keep expecting a follow-up series in a decade or so. As I neared the end of this final issue, I kept expecting, I don’t know, something that stood out as a hint at more Kevin Matchstick adventures in our future. There’s a bit a dialogue that suggests, hey, maybe, but I’m pretty sure we’re done with Mage comics. BUT I’M STILL GONNA HOPE GOSH DARN IT.

So is it a satisfying conclusion? I think so…pretty much everything’s tied up, a plot point from earlier in the seies I kept waiting to come back to the forefront finally does, and all questions are answered about as much as you can expect them to be. And yes, there’s a fold-out. Wouldn’t be the last issue of a Mage series without one.

It’s hard to believe…I was going to say “hard to believe it’s over,” but it’s more than that. When I read the first Mage series, I was in high school. When the second Mage came out, I was managing someone else’s comic book store. This third Mage came out when I owned my own comic book store. I think it’s more like “I can’t believe something that was released and periodically returned during distinct phases of my life over a period of decades continued in a consistent and enjoyable manner and came to a conclusion on its own terms.” Not pithy, but it’ll do.

Okay, in fairness, I haven’t read this yet, but man oh man look at that cover by Michael Cho. That’s pretty swell. Even so, it was a hard choice to make as to which cover I wanted, since the “regular” cover was all Mister Mind-riffic:

I love the fact that the “serious” versions of Mister Mind DC cooks up still evoke the original design:

As to the series itself…it’s fine. Cap’s creator C.C. Beck would hate it (he hated pretty much all modern comics except Axa), but as far as current superhero comics go, it’s fun enough, and I liked the ongoing thing about Billy trying to come up with a superhero name for himself that isn’t just “Shazam” — a feeling I relate to since I really don’t like that’s what the character’s called now, as perhaps I’ve mentioned only about a hundred times on this site already.

But still…just look at that cover.

* Also, Flash came out this week…he’s got a lightning bolt on his chest, too. And there’s probably somebody else I’m forgetting. Look, there are lots of superheroes, I can’t remember them all.

Not from Grant Morrison’s The Filth.

February 25, 2019 filed under popeye 5 Comments

This is a hell of a thing to find as a back-up story in Popeye #108 (June 1971), especially it being the anniversary issue an’ all:

I feel like the funny animal potential for whales hasn’t been fully exploited. I mean, sure, there’s this, and I’m probably not remembering comic strip characters and such. But I think we can agree “whales” are far behind “dogs,” “cats” and probably “anteaters” in the Humorous Representation of Animals catalog.

And just to confirm, yes, I’m pretty sure those are supposed to be whales. Just look at this:

WHALE ANATOMY: 100% NAILED

And the expletive of choice was “Shazbot.”

February 22, 2019February 22, 2019 filed under question time 6 Comments

Well, you know what, I’m so close to the end of the questions here that I’m just gonna go ahead and wrap things up. I’ve kept you nice folks who asked them waiting long enough!

Tom Cherry pits the following against me

“If NANCY ever crossed over with PEANUTS, do you think Sluggo and Pig Pen would be friends?”

I feel like Pig Pen would be one the regular walk-on weirdos that Nancy and Sluggo would be all “whoa, check this oddball out!” for a one-strip gag and that would be it. There wouldn’t be any animosity as such, but probably not someone Sluggo could connect with.

In fact, I’m having a hard time picturing any Peanuts character comfortably fitting into the Nancyverse. They’d all be annoying creatures to N&S. I mean, maybe Peppermint Patty…I could see Sluggo having something of a crush on her, while Nancy is totally put off by how pushy she is. …HOLD ON, LET ME GET MY FANFIC WRITIN’ PEN

• • •

@misterjayem spells out the following

“Will either of the Big Two ever again have continuity that stretches all the way back to 10 years ago?”

Well, here and there DC and Marvel make references to things that happened in the Long Ago Times of, like, 2002, or whatever, but I think the cohesive shared world continuity thing with a long history is a relic of the past. I feel like this is something they’re trying to do with Doomsday Clock, and restoring that sense of a lengthy continuity, but who knows if this will work any better than anything else?

Probably the best strategy, and probably the one that’s primarily being followed, is “we’ll access continuity and history when we need it,” and just otherwise do their own things without worrying about it. I mean, if anything, I wish they’d worry less about maintaining a consistent “universe” — that’s how you get all this rebootery.

• • •
BRR chills me with

“As a purveyor of back issues, would you like to see more editor’s notes*? They seem to disappear as a more ‘cinematic’ story style took hold, and I remember those notes occasionally driving a search through the local stores’ long boxes to get the rest of the story.

“* e.g. ‘Way back in Avengers#28!!’-ed”

Sure I would! Even more than just for storytelling clarity and sending people to my extensive back issue stock availble now at Sterling Silver Comics, located in the heart of beautiful Camarillo in Southern California, but for the connection between the creators/editors and the audience. Those editor notes made it seem like pals were sharing a cool story with you, that you were in a fun club where you got to enjoy these adventures with other like-minded people. The letters pages added to that feeling as well…when you bought a comic, you weren’t just buying that month’s tale of Spider-Man, but you were getting a piece of the real world community that built around reading that comic.

I might be romanticizing this a tad, but those little touches went a long way to making someone feel welcome in the worlds you were presented in these weird little booklets.

• • •

Robcat steals my heart, and my cat, with

“Ok, question. As a shop owner and collector and a guy who spends A LOT of time around comics, have you ever lost a substantial amount of money by accidentally damaging an issue of something yourself? Spilled coffee on Amazing Fantasy 15, opened a package containing Journey Into Mystery 83 and ripped the cover, that sort of thing? Not to wish you ill will or anything…”

Can’t say I’ve really done anything like that with comics, as such. I’ve had some close calls…just last week, when I was breaking down the new comics, I had pulled a water bottle out of the fridge that I hadn’t realized had been in there maybe a little too long, and when I opened it, the partially frozen state of it causes water to kinda explode out of it, just barely missing the stacks of new comics and the boxes of customer pulls I had out. That could have been a disaster of epic proportions.

Oh, and there was that time, early in my comics retail career nearly 30 years ago, when we were moving from the old store to a larger location across the street, that I accidentally dropped a short box filled with Golden Age books, spilling them all over the pavement. Thankfully, they way they slid out of the box kept them from experiencing harm, but still, nobody tell Ralph I did that.

The worst thing I did, also at the previous place of employment, that resulted in actual damage, was when I was moving some boxes or something around, and somehow forgot there was a big, fancy ceramic Spider-Man statue (one that also included, like, three or four villains of his) just out of my sight. Yup, ended up knocking it to the floor and smashing it to pieces. I felt the bump, heard the crash, froze, and softly uttered your favorite expletive of choice. As it turned out, the statue was basically given to us for free by someone just clearing their house of stuff, back before Marie Kondo made it cool, so no actual expense was lost. We lost the money would could have gained from selling the thing, but, well, at least nobody was mad. Your pal Mike got off scot-free that time.

Anyway, that’s all the stuff I’ll own up to. I have no idea how those boxes of Marvel Comics Presents caught on fire, and besides, you can’t prove anything, there were no witnesses.

• • •
And that’s it! Finally, all the questions are answered! Thanks for contributing, everyone, and I’ll probably open the floor to more questions soon. Or you can just ask me whenever you’d like…we’re pretty casual around here.

If you register that domain name, please use it for good, not evil.

February 20, 2019February 20, 2019 filed under question time 6 Comments

I bet you thought I forgot! You folks still have some questions I need to answer, so let me knock a couple out before this new medicine I’m taking knocks me out:

William Burns fires me up with

“Are all these monster mega digital comics sales making it harder for you to sell trade paperbacks?”

I’ve got to be real honest here…I haven’t the foggiest. I’m sure there must be some diverting of monies from physical copies in my shop (well, everyone’s shops) to digital alternatives. I mean, it’s not like folks stick their heads in the door, announce “I’m not buying the Unicycle Tragedy: The First Decade trade paperback from you because I’m getting all the issues for eight cents each on UpYoursSmallBusinessOwners.com,” then rush off into the darkness, laughing. Well, okay, there’s that one guy back at the old shop who came in on New Comics Day, looked around, and loudly asked the room “where I can download all these for free?” but maybe that’s not quite the same.

So…yeah, I can’t really say. I know a lot of my customers use the digital codes in their comics to supplement their reading, but they’re still coming in and buying comics. I’m sure I’ve lost customers over the years who decided that they preferred to just get everything digitally for shopping and storage convenience, I’m also sure there are plenty of folks who just get all their goodies online, period, and never thought about going to a store…do they count as lost sales, or are those sales that would never have happened in the first place, from people who never would have considered buying a comic save for being able to click a button and suddenly have it available on their devices?

That’s a lot of words for “I don’t know,” I realize. I hope I haven’t suffered too much attrition of this sort, and can only hope I continue keeping the customers I do have happy and freshly replenished with actual printed-on-paper comics on a regular basis.

• • •

David has this goliath of a question

“Realizing that Progressive Ruin is pretty much a one-stop shop for all the comics info I need, I do still like poking around the web reading other sites. Do you have any favorite websites for comics news/reviews/reporting? It seems so bleak out there.”

I’m glad I’m keeping you up on all the early 1990s crash-era news that you can use, David! But as far as other comic news sites…I don’t really have a particular one that I regularly look at. Comics Reporter is probably the best for the most wide-ranging of comics news from all parts of the industry, and…well, I’m sure you’re aware of all the more mainstream-y sites for comic news about The Big Guys, though at some places you have to sort of pick it out from amongst the movie/TV news and listicles.

Your best bet may be a curated social media feed…like, following the Twitter accounts of companies and creators that you want to keep tabs on, or Instagrams, or the nightmare realm of Facebook, and so on. Generating your own news site may be the way to go.

• • •

Chris Gumprich spends his question on

“If you could bring back one cancelled title that did NOT start a muck-encrusted mockery of a man, what would it be and why?”

Hoo boy, not even sure where I would start. I was thinking ‘Mazing Man but feel like that’s so much of Its Time that bringing it back would just feel weird. Maybe leaving it as the short-run 1980s book that it was, keeping it a special thing that was here and gone and didn’t wear out its welcome, would be the best.

So I’m going with Atari Force, which had a terrible name but was an amazing comic. Imaginative and beautifully illustrated, and I was really bummed when it got canned. I think some of the characters (like Martin Champion) are straight up owned by Atari (or whoever owns the Atari IP now) so I don’t think DC could bring it back as, I don’t know, Syzygy Force or something and continue their adventures. But it would be nice!

“(That counts as one question because I only used one question mark.)”

YOU NE’ER-DO-WELL

* * *
AN ADDENDUM TO THE RECENT END OF CIVILIZATION POST: I’ve been informed by Matt from Moment of Cerebus that there is in fact a House of Cerebus comic coming in early 2020! You can see the schedule here. …You know, I did see that list at some point recently…guess I missed that title or (more likely) I just forgot! Well, I look forward to seeing House of Cerebus, and totally hope it’s the parody of #92 I’ve been waiting for!

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

February 20, 2019February 18, 2019 filed under End of Civilization 8 Comments

GREAT SCOTT! It’s the End of Civilization, Marty! Hope into this DeLorean and we’ll travel back to February 2019 to try to stop it! We’ll use this copy of that month’s Diamond Previews that we found in a future comic book store/tattoo removal parlor to guide us along:

p. 50 – Little Girls TP:

Alas, no members of Oingo Boingo got back in time with any pull quotes for the cover.

p. 90 – Spawn #296:

Only four more issues to go before we can ratchet up the surprise from people shocked that Spawn is still coming out by adding on “yes, for over 300 issues now!”

p. 123 – Berserk Deluxe Edition Volume 2:

“Volume 2?” Oh, you mean Frenzy.

p. 132 – Star Trek Year 5 #1:

Revealing the tragic fates of Arex and M’Ress, which is why they don’t, like, help save the whales or search for Spock or anything.

p. 152 – TMNT Shredder in Hell #1 Director’s Cut:

Oh good, hopefully they’ll be restoring the scenes where he meets both Hellboy and Godzilla in hell.

p. 232 – Giant Super-Cerebus Annual #1:

C’mon, Dave, do these just long enough so that you eventually do a cover parody of House of Secrets #92. Look, “House of Cerebus,” I’ll let you have that for free. EDIT: Whoops! Dave beat me to it!

p. 291 – Star Wars Leia Organa Rebel Leader in a Box:

I had a joke for this but I’m holding it back because 1) I’m keeping people from um, actually-ing me with “Carrie was cremated,” and 2) a rare bit of taste.

p. 296 – The Worst Book Ever HC:

That’s a weird trade dress for the Purgatori collection.

p. M17 – Bruce Lee Minimates Series 1 Box Set:

“The many looks of Bruce Lee are on display here, as his Dojo, Clawed, Casual, and Completely Nude looks make up the four-pack.”

p. M117 – DC Heroes 5.5oz Scented Candle Tins:

You can light up the Harley Quinn candle to disguise that smell when you’re reading this comic:

p. M118 – DC Comics Batman Bat-Signal Kitchen Timer:

Surely some kind of Clock King timer would have been more fitting.

p. M118 – DC Heroes Batman Bat-Symbol Apron:

The Batman ’66 version of this apron just has a big “KISS!” sound effect printed on it.

Marvel Previews p. 100 – Star Wars Age of Rebellion Grand Moff Tarkin #1:

Here’s hoping Tarkin is a weird 3D CGI rendering in the comic while everything else is traditionally illustrated.

“Leaps and bounds” — I see what you did there.

February 13, 2019 filed under fantastic four, marvel, promo 8 Comments

From Marvel Comics Retailer Spotlight #16 (August 1990), here is the hype for the Walt Simonson/Art Adams “New FF” run on Fantastic Four #347 through #350:

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s what the first issue looked like:

Now, it’s been a long time, and I think in 1990 I was still in the “huh-yuk, I’m a’sellin’ comic books!” starry-eyed haze and not worried overly much with the behind-the-scenes ordering hoohar that the boss concerned himself with, so I probably didn’t know at the time that this first issue was in fact returnable. (Returnability is only occasionally afforded to retailers on certain books today, but it was a real rarity back then.)

As it turned it, it sold extremely well, eventually going to a second printing (also not a very common occurence in those long-ago Young Mike days). I know we didn’t have much backstock on it, and we’d buy back copies as they came in collections. This was quite the popular item for some time after its release, and even still today gets an inquiry from curious fans here and there.

It’s an interesting look at the cross-promotion and sales strategies used for a comic that one would think would almost sell itself anyway. This was during the big 1990s comics boom, so something like this seemed like it was almost guaranteed to outsell the Bible anyway, but even in those times when the gold poured out of the rivers and the oil flowed freely, no one was going to take any chances. Even dragging in ol’ Fin Fang Foom and referencing the rest of the Marvel Monsters to get that crowd (you know, “them”) shows the extent of hype for this book.

The listing of each guest star and why he’s of import is certainly a sign of the times, when any of these characters popping into any book usually meant at least something of a bump upward, if not necessarily in rack sales, but at least in retailer order numbers. It may still sorta be true today, but not nearly to the extent it once was, a combination of readers being a little choosier with their comics money and the fact that “Special Guest Appearances” of “hot” characters are no longer the huge sales pull due to overuse and overexposure. Wolverine’s “sales power,” once taken for granted as shown here, is no longer the sure thing.

I think most interesting to me is the characterization of this storyline as a “fill-in,” which I think maybe surprises me a little. It never felt like a fill-in, like some inventory story or reprint pulled out of storage thanks to the Dreaded Deadline Doom. I mean, it was the same regular writer and a special guest artist…it may have interrupted the main storyline, but it didn’t feel intrusive (like a fill-in in the Simonson run a couple of issues later, which was…okay, but it was a real case of “well, I guess this’ll do ’til Simonson’s back”).

Anyway, this is one of those few cases where the publisher was all “better order lots of these!” and being correct. It was quite the item, and stil is today, thanks to fans with long memories or a deep interest in comics past. Also a rare encouragement to stock up for later back issue sales, which you don’t see too much of anymore. (I think Crossgen was the last company to really push the “better have back issues for new fans!” thing.)

But as far as that advice to place copies of this comic “all over [our] comic racks” — yeah, I know one of Marvel’s publishing strategies was (and maybe still is) to make a retailer fill up his/her shelf space with all the Marvel product they could possibly carry, and crowd off everyone else. I mean, I get it, they wanted copies of this next to Ghost Rider, etc. However, I’m pretty sure we just had them up on the rack under “Fantastic Four,” and it seemed to do fine.

One last note…as to this being the Punisher’s “most unique” role…yeah, I think there’s a challenger.

I never did buy that Swamp Thang parody comic…wonder who worked on that?

February 11, 2019 filed under promo 2 Comments

Now I’ve probably shown you this before, I think:

…a promo piece from the early to mid-1980s featuring Dalgoda, a fine science fiction comic by Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake that deserves to be collected (along with the stories from the Flesh and Bones mini, and a back-up in that Doomsday +1 reprint series, and probably something else I’m forgetting…Anything Goes, maybe?) into a fancypants hardcover. Hey, if they could do it with Puma Blues and Border Worlds, right? Anyway, this sign dates from those long ago pre-Mike in Comics Retail days, but I seem to recall seeing it on display in the shop at the time.

Same with this next item, pulled out of the endless boxes of old promo material that my former boss passed along to me:

I have yet to find the matching “OPEN” sign (and yes, pal Tom, I checked the other side!)…as I recall, this part was taped into the window in such a way that the “OPEN” sign could slide in front of it when necessary. I suspect the “OPEN” half eventally disintegrated from constant handling, given the state of the “CLOSED” portion here.

Anyway, Dalgoda hardcover. Someone get on that. In the meantime, I’ll add my copies of those comics to my “Pile of Stuff Mike Was Reminded of While Blogging or Tweeting and Would Like to Reread Someday.”

Next up, a couple of promos for Wizard, that price guide and news magazine that somehow I didn’t think I’d miss once it was gone, but it did go a long way to getting even casual fans excited about comics. In a very facile, surface-level way, usaally, sure, but I don’t think any retailers nowadays would really turn down anything getting folks hyped about the weekly funnybooks.

But perhaps I digress. There were a few of these 9 by 12 inch mini-posters that I found in The Box, which were basically just reproduced images of forthcoming Wizard covers. Like, for example, this one by Sam Kieth:

Not really much to say except “that’s a neat image.” I always liked Kieth’s work, and I especially liked it those couple of times he drew the Hulk. Glad he’s still out there doing stuff for us to enjoy. (Kieth, that is, not the Hulk…well, Hulk too, I guess.)

Kieth also drew this image for Parody Press in 1992:

Parody Press was sort of dismissed at the time, but I’d like to go back and see what creators worked on some of these titles. Sam Kieth just did the cover for this particular comic, though he (and Mike Baron) wrote a couple of the stories. And it looks like Ty Templeton drew a “pin-up” page, too! Huh. (I do know I have a current pal who wrote a Parody Press title back then, but I’ll let him out himself if he wishes!)

And going back to Wizard…boy, doesn’t this promo flyer sum up the ’90s something fierce:

“Order with reckless abandon,” indeed. I’m pretty sure that was printed on the covers of the distributor order forms at the time.

Why isn’t “Smile…Doctor Doom Loves You” still in print?

February 6, 2019 filed under marvel, merchandise 5 Comments

So please let me know if you’d like me to put in orders to Pacific Coast Distributors for you on any of these items from their August 1984 catalog (click to expand):

“Any room,” you say? I say every room! Redecorate the interior of your house solely with mighty Marvel banners!

I remember seeing these banners around the old shop back when I was but a mere customr, and then eventually selling the last two or three still languishing about the backroom when I was doing the eBay thing for that same shop a couple of decades later. The one I remember specifically is that Alpha Flight pennant. I bet that Spider-Man one will still sell great today.

Now these things:

…Sure, it’s a little more common knowledge nowadays who the “X-Men” are* but I can only imagine how the mundanes reacted to the whole “Mutant Maniac” thing. …By the way, do people still refer to non-nerdy folk as “mundanes” or is everybody too infected with nerdiness now to be separated out? Gobble gobble one of us, and all that.

When discussing these on the Twitters pal Andrew noted that his younger brother still had a “Follow Me to the Secret Wars” bumper sticker on this car. As I said to Andrew, given its current non-awareness by the general public, I can imagine the uninitiated seeing that and thinking it’s some kind of political statement or somesuch. Or, like, some conspiracy-minded talk radio thing. It can serve multiple purposes!

And I was serious about the subject line. That Doctor Doom sticker needs to make its comeback, especially if this image of ol’ Vic were used on it:

* A story I’ve told before, but worth repeating: one of my earliest experiences in comics retail was, sometime in the late 1980s, someone calling the shop alarmed that these X-Men books she just heard about were “X-rated,” hence the name. “No, lady,” I replied, “the 1990s aren’t here yet.”