Mikester

I have multiple pals Andrew.

filed under Categories nancy, pal plugging, self-promotion, sir-links-a-lot, sluggo 6 Comments

 

  • Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-ins were a hell of a thing.

  • Pal Andy is trying to raise funds on Kickstarter for his children’s book SpaceBear, so please help out if you are so inclined.

  • REMINDER: the Ultimate Powers Jam continues, in which Pal Andrew rolls up a character using the Marvel Super-Heroes role playing game system, and other folks step in to flesh out the character. Probably better than whatever comic you’re reading right now. Unless that comic is All-Star Batman, and nothing is better than that.

  • AND NOW, A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR: please buy some stuff from our shop’s eBay store. Dig some of these shirts, man. This Jar Jar shirt is made from real Gungan skin. Help me clear some of this stuff out…I need to make room! Thank you.

  • Humble Opinions…a new site offering comics and pop culture reviews and commentary. “Everything in Greece was on fire all the time” made me laugh.

  • I haven’t linked to swell chap Tony Isabella in a while, so here’s today’s post of comics reviews. I haven’t really gone out of my way to seek out other people’s opinions of the current Superman books. I’ve been enjoying them, thinking they’re an improvement on what’s been going on with the character since the New 52 hoohar began, so I was interested to see Mr. Isabella’s somewhat-opposed take.

  • It was pointed out in the comments that the Sluggo doll from this post was probably just some other doll repurposed into a Sluggo doll, and yeah, that’s probably what happened. It was still apparently marketed as a Sluggo doll (along with a Nancy doll) in the 1950s as a Post Grape-Nuts cereal promotion. Here’s a shot of them in their box. …Phew, Nancy didn’t make out so great, either. Assuming that is supposed to be Nancy and not some generic “Girl Friend” as the box would have it.

Miscellaneous Cat-Head Comics (1987 – 1992).

filed under Categories doog boog, from the vast Mikester comic archives 4 Comments

So I was looking at this little stack of Cat-Head Comics from the Vast Mikester Comic Archives, trying to decide which one to talk about, when I decided “ah, heck, let’s throw them all up there.”

Duck & Cover #1 (1988)

 

Duck & Cover #2 (1989)

Satire and poetry written by Stephen Beaupre and Steve Lafler, taking on politics, religion, big business, and more. A special appearance from Dog Boy in #1, putting the bite on Rupert Murdoch!
 

Femme Noire #1 (1989)

 

Femme Noire #2 (1989)

Mystical detective shenanigans by Lafler, with Maria (the title character) and her occasional love interest, Dog Boy’s pal BenB (the hollow-eyed fella on the cover of #1). Dog Boy makes appearances here and there over the course of the story.
 

Out the Next #1 (1987)

A Beaupre solo book, more or less, with “ART • DESIGN” and a cover by Lafler. Mostly text/poems by Beaupre with accompanying photos and drawings. The condition of this copy is a little rough, having found in a quarter box sometime in ’88/’89. You can see the tears at the top of the cover caused by careless box-thumbing. JUST SAY NO TO CARELESS BOX-THUMBING. No Dog Boy appearances aside from the back cover ad.
 

Prometheus’ Gift #1 (1992)

A couple of short stories, including the Jack Kirby-esque “Snakes!” Tiny Dog Boy cameos in a two-page art/text collage and on the cover, as well as two unpublished Dog Boy covers rounding out the book (as a “sleazy way to fill up space,” Lafler himself admits in the introduction).
 
Those Dog Boy appearances aren’t in the Doggie Style collection (unless I missed something), since that was primarily reprinting his solo stories from his own titles and Buzzard. Most of the above would have been out of place there.

Anyway, there’s some fine and strange comic-booking in the above publications, some of which I suspect are pretty difficult to find at this point (the indicia for Prometheus’ Gift includes the note “first printing October 1992, barely two thousand copies if we’re lucky”). Poking through all these again makes me want to go back and try Bughouse one more time, since that was the one Lafler project that never really grabbed me. I do own the first issue…I’ll give it another go and let you know what I think.

You can keep up with what Lafler is up to at his official site.

45.

filed under Categories old 24 Comments


 
• • •

 

“Hi Father.”

 

“Listen, son…you were out all night. Where were ya?”

 

“Uh…out…partying?”

 

“That’s cool. Listen, do you want to smoke a doobie with your old man?”

 

“No thanks, Dad. It’s 10:15 in the morning!”

 

“Your loss.”

 

“I’ll split it with my lawyer!”

 


 
 
 
 

Source. Also, happy birthday to blogging brother pal Andrew, who is hip and cool despite not yet being 45.

Trypto the Acid Dog! #1 (Renegade Press, 1988).

filed under Categories from the vast Mikester comic archives 4 Comments


This comic came out just before my entry into the funnybook-sellin’ life, and as such I managed to miss it when it hit what I would eventually be able to refer to as “our shelves.” I read about it in the fan press so some such thing, or maybe just saw ads in other indie books, but 1) the title sounded funny, and 2) it was written by that fella from Lost in Space and that fella from Robocop and drawn by Steve Leialoha and thus caught my comic-collecting eye. You know, not in a “my GOD my life is incomplete unless I have this comic!” but in more of a “yeah, if I see it, I’ll pick it up” and thus did it go on the mental want-list.

At some point shortly after its release, I was at a comic convention in the Los Angeles area where I spotted a dealer selling…some comic or ‘nother, I don’t recall which one, but he was trying to move copies of said comic by having them packaged with a free bonus comic. Somehow I managed to notice that one of the comics was packaged with a copy of Trypto the Acid Dog! #1, and (as I recall) the price wasn’t too far off the mark from what Trypto‘s cover price was, and that’s how I got my hands on this here comic book, my friends. Can’t remember for the life of me what the other comic was, since I gave it away or who knows what, but here’s hoping it wasn’t something stupidly expensive today. (“Pffft, Amazing Spider-Man #129…who cares?”)

Anyhoo, Trypto the Acid Dog! is about a pet who gains powers from exposure to illegally-dumped chemicals, and uses said powers to avenge his family’s deaths at the hands of evil industrialists. Sounds a bit heavy-handed, and…well, maybe just a little (the evil company is called “Toxicem,” whose owner rants about the interference of “those bleeding-heart environmentalist scumbags”) but that’s a feature, not a bug, and the whole comic is a weirdly-funny, weirdly-sad, almost Golden Age-ish tale of the Little Guy getting his vengeance against The Big Guys. Worth checking out if you can find it.

I was reminded of this comic the other day when a customer asked us for it, and I once again confused “what Mike has in his personal collection” with “what the store has available for sale”* and said “oh, sure, we’ve got those” before finding out “no, I don’ts gots those.”

Trypto’s made a couple of other appearances as well, as noted on Mr. Mumy’s own site. I have the A1 anthology mentioned there, but I think I forgot the multi-issue appearance in Dark Horse Presents, and, as usual, now that I know about that hole in the collection, I’ve got to fill it. It’s an oddball little comic, and I hope that, as mentioned on Mr. Mumy’s page, that more Trypto adventures will someday see print.

EDIT 3/11: It’s been pointed out to me that pal Nat has a complete Trypto collection available for sale over at About Comics!
 
 

* That goes the other way, too…I’m sure I have something in my collection, only to realize no, I’ve just seen it at the store every day for the last couple of decades.

“The Adventures of Myrwhydden” – coming to DC’s New 52!

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$5.99 is an awful lot to charge for a new comic book (see also), given that not too long ago six bucks got you a squarebound “prestige format” funnybook that was 48 pages, no ads, and this here annual is 48 pages with ads and a staplebound spine and why, I can remember when comics only cost a dime and you could buy a car with a five dollar bill and have change left over for a down payment on a house, ah yes.

This Batman/Superman annual, written by Greg Pak, is very good, however, with some interestingly appealing art from Jae Lee, Kenneth Rocafort and Philip Tan…in particular, I was discussing with a customer of mine the other day about how Lee seems to be leaps and bounds beyond what he was doing back in the ’90s, when it was all jagged edges and silhouettes.

And for a six buck comic, you do get a fairly dense reading experience…plenty of dialogue and action and several panels per page, but never feeling cramped for space. Batman/Superman is one of the better Superman-related books, at a time when the Superman books across the board seem to be improving, and this annual is a solid, if pricy, example of the “New 52” Superman revamp actually working.


Not sure what I can say about this book that old chum Kevin didn’t already say. Nothing in this issue should come as a surprise to anybody who’s ever read, well, anything, but it’s all competently written and very pretty to look at, and I have to admit, the idea of “what if Flash Gordon came back to Earth to tell of his adventures and everyone thought he was nuts” is an interesting one. I suspect the relative simplicity of this initial installment will go away as Mark Millar delves more deeply into the “here’s a modern perspective/twist on 1930s space opera!” themes in future issues, but hey, maybe I’m wrong. I’m willing to be surprised. I very much expect Goran Parlov’s art will continue to look nice, regardless.


I was finally called out by a customer on my racking this comic in the general area of the other Archie comics, which I kind of wondered about doing myself, but kept them there anyway because that’s where I thought people were probably going to look for them. Hadn’t had any trouble yet, and we’re not selling them to kids, and even this customer wasn’t like angry or upset or anything…just mostly bemused.

This issue especially I can’t sell to kids, given the remarkably upsetting circumstances Archie finds himself in, and that subtext I’d mentioned before basically becoming straight up “text.”

Still very well done, however, and especially affecting given the characters starring in it. And Harvey? The jalopy makes an appearance.


This comic from the fringes of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboyverse” remains pulpy good fun as always, but I’ve noticed an upward bump on sales on this title (and Baltimore as well). After always selling the same amount of copies month in and month out, we’re suddenly experiencing sellouts and requests for back issues. I think readers generally like Mignola’s storytelling but are gravitating toward these series that are more episodic and easier to follow, versus the B.P.R.D. books that have mostly plateaued.


Speaking of sales, not long ago I had a brief interchange with Richard Neal, co-owner of Zeus Comics way out there in the far-flung wilds of Texas, regarding post-Geoff Johns Green Lantern sales. My comment, that sales were “withering away,” may have been overstating things slightly, which is unusual given the Twitter platform’s capacity for nuance, I realize. It was Johns’s strong direction for the franchise that kept the four titles selling as well as they did for as long as they did, and with DC’s huge emphasis on his departure, that was a pretty strong cue for readers to depart as well. The main GL title still does…okay, but not nearly as well as it did before, and the other titles, rather than withering away, have already withered away to much lower numbers and are now basically staying there. There’s the odd bump or two with cross-title tie-ins like the “Lights Out” storyline, but that’s about it.

The real test will be the new Sinestro title debuting soon. Comic fans like Sinestro…heck, I like Sinestro, but we’ll see if they’ll like him as the star of yet another monthly Green Lantern franchise book instead of just appearing in already existing series.

Links to make you thinks.

filed under Categories pal plugging, sir-links-a-lot 3 Comments

 

normalman – The Novel TPB (Slave Labor Books, 1987).

filed under Categories from the vast Mikester comic archives 1 Comment


I bought the first issue of normalman back in the early days of my “hey, I just found a comic shop and I really want to try comics by people other than Marvel and DC” phase, mostly because, well, it looked like it would be funny.

And it was! This probably remains my favorite work by Jim Valentino (then, only “Valentino”)…fun, goofy comics about the one guy without powers on a planet filled with superheroes and villains. I recognized the subjects of the parodies on each cover, even if I didn’t specifically know a whole lot about all of them at the time. A couple of friends of mine were also reading the series, and we had a good time talking about some of the gags in the book (such as the ongoing, issue-after-issue roll-call of the Legion of Super-Heroes parody, and the highly*-entertaining-to-a-bunch-of-teenagers Man-Man, with his Ganja-Breath.

Normally, I don’t try to buy collections of comics I already own, though looking at the shelves I can see that despite repeatedly claiming so, I’ve done it more than a few times. It’s hard to resist a nice-looking trade paperback sometimes, especially if the better paper and clearer reproduction improves on the original. The original series was in full color, wrapping up in a 3-D annual, and, well, I don’t have anything really against 3-D as such, but I tend to prefer my comics in two dimensions, and not read through a pair of cardboard glasses with colored lenses. The trade is in black and white, and I think the content suffers a bit as such…the color of the original series was part of its charm, I think. However, the tradeoff is that I can now more easily read the story from the 3-D annual without trying to figure out where I put my 3-D glasses this time, instead of just keeping them in the bag with the comic like a reasonable person.

I wasn’t really seeking a collection of this series or anything. It just so happened that, at some point in the early ’90s, we were putting together a wholesale purchase from Slave Labor Graphics at the shop, and I happened to see this book in the catalog. “Huh, I’d never seen that collection before, that’ll be neat to have” I thought, and added it to the order on a whim. And here it is, still on my shelves, a couple of decades later. Almost right away there were some issues with the book, with the first few pages beginning to come loose from the spine, which bummed me out a bit. Otherwise, it’s still a nice package…

…which has been totally supplanted by The Complete normalman, released by Image Comics in 2007 and including all the normalman-related material published after the first book’s release (like the normalman 20th Anniversary Special). Doesn’t seem to have Max the Magnificent however, which features not only Max, who’s popped up in normalman, but also an appearance from Captain Everything, so you normalman completists will still need this.

Anyway, that newer collection is pretty tempting, and still available from Diamond. That’ll be neat to have.
 
 

* Obvious pun obviously intended.

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

filed under Categories End of Civilization 23 Comments

So I totally forgot that last month’s End of Civilization entry was the ninth anniversary of what I consider to be the very first EoC post, about the Buffy replica stake.

Nine years. Nine years of near-naked Japanese girly statues. Nine years of crazy prop replicas. Nine years of Monopoly jokes. Nine years of Marvel’s publishing shenanigans. Why, it only feels like I’ve been doing this for about 108 months.

And apparently I haven’t learned my lesson, because I’m doing it for another month. Get your March 2014 edition of Diamond Previews and follow along, as I hypocritically make fun of things I’m probably ordering for the store, and, in at least one case, myself:

p. 48 – Star Wars Rebel Heist #2 (of 4):


So, get ready to see this comic, and its eventual trade/hardcover collection, going for stupidly high prices on eBay shortly after Marvel takes over the franchise and the book’s printing lifespan of a couple of months or so is put down right quick.

Nice cover, though.

p. 89 – Marvel Classic Character X-Men 94 #3 – Cyclops:


“Ooooh, I’ve got such the headache, and massaging your own temple just doesn’t do it!”

p. 96 – Superman: Doomed #1:


1992: Line wrapped around the block, everyone waiting to get their “last issue” of Superman.

2014: Occasionally a customer will glance at this cover. “Huh, I thought Superman was dead. They’re still making his comics?”

p. 161 – DC Comics Icons Superman 1:6 Scale Statue:


“Clark? Clark, what’s taking you so long in the bathroom?”

“I’m…uh, I’m oiling my costume, Mom!”

“(sigh) I don’t know about that boy.”

p. 227 – The Walking Dead #127:

“In the aftermath of ‘ALL OUT WAR’ we discover…A NEW BEGINNING.”

Well, off to the next community of survivors who aren’t all that they seem!

p. 271 – Carpool T-Shirt:


So the difference between this “parody” shirt and what could actually be a Deadpool shirt is…what, exactly?

p. 275 – Sonic Super-Sized Digest #7:


I haven’t seen so many wieners in a piece of Sonic the Hedgehog art since the last time I looked at Tumblr.

p. 315 – Iznogoud Volume 9: The Grand Vizier Iznogoud GN:


Mike, circa 1989, helping a customer with back issues: “Here’s the Ms. Tree box…oh, ‘Ms. Tree!’ ‘Mystery!’ I get it!”

Mike, about a month ago, helping a customer look for humorous European graphic novels: “Here’s Iznogoud…oh, ‘Iznogoud!’ ‘Is No Good!’ 25 years later, I’m still stupid!”

p. 415 – The Quotable Doctor Who Wise Words Across Space and Time HC:


Simulate being in a crowd of Doctor Who fans by reading this book out loud to yourself!

p. 417 – Planet of the Apes Miniature Book Kit with Sound:


Okay, forget the sound bit (not Charlton Heston growling “write me out of most of the sequel, damn you,” but it should be), but let’s focus that this comes with a bag of actual sand that you can spread out on, I don’t know, your mantle next to Great-Aunt Gail’s urn as a base for your Taylor and Horse versus Lady Liberty diorama.

Here’s hoping the eventual The Shining Elevator Scene Kit comes with a pouch of fake blood.

p. 442 – Spider Pog T-Shirt:


Sometimes I mock Previews, sometimes it mocks me back.

p. 457 – Sin City Monopoly:


“Go to the electric chair. Go directly to the electric chair. Do not cross Senator Roark.”

p. 459 – Darth Vader Tinned Mints:


“haaaaaa PURRRRR haaaaaa PURRRRR”

“Why, Lord Vader, may I compliment you on how fresh your breath smells today!”

“ARE YOU SAYING MY BREATH DOES NOT NORMALLY SMELL FRESH?”

“N-n-no, Lord Vader, I, uh, I’m just….GACK! (choke!)”

“FEEL THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE. AND ALSO THESE TASTY, FRESHENING MINTS.”

p. 459 – Space Dog Tin Toy:


Man, this early version of K-9 is pretty rough.

p. 498 – DC Hero Swamp Thing Sofubi:


The upside of Swamp Thing comics not being published: much easier to keep up on buying appearances and merchandise.

The downside of Swamp Thing comics currently being published: “$119 for a Japanese import Swamp Thing toy! SON OF A BITCH”

p. 503 – The Beatles Yellow Submarine Titans Mini Figures:

“We are all
Tiny plastic things
Tiny plastic things
Tiny plastic things”

p. 527 – The Walking Dead Daryl Crossbow Mug:


I didn’t get this before, and I don’t get it now. Is “If Daryl Dies We Riot” really that strong of an iconic quote from The Walking Dead? Some kind of rallying cry, a mission-statement-y kind of thing? I mean, I’ve watched the whole series so far, and I don’t even remember anyone saying this. Not saying they didn’t, just that it apparently wasn’t all that memorable.

Now, if at some point Rick looks at the screen and declares “we ARE the walking dead,” put that on a mug.