So here’s a thing that slipped past me: I was looking at our invoice for this week’s comics shipment, and noticed that Spawn #202 was on the list. “That’s funny,” I thought. “Didn’t #201 just come out a week or so ago?” And to the cycle sheets I went, and, yes…in just over a month, #200, #201, and #202 have (or are just about to) come out.
That’s not the thing that slipped past me. This is the thing that slipped past me…seeing on the cycle sheets that during 2010, only four issues of the regular Spawn series were released. And the reason that slipped by me is that…nobody complained. Not a single “when’s Spawn coming out?” that I can recall. Now, I know we have people who buy it at our shop…we don’t sell a lot of copies, not like in its heyday when it seemed like everyone was walkin’ up to the register with a Spawn in one hand, a Wizard in the other, and a copy of any given Valiant Comics title in their third hand. But we pretty consistently sell low but steady numbers on the book (with the extree-sized #200 moving about another 40% more copies than normal).
But it seems strange to me that a title that was once so prominent could fall out of notice, that it could be running so late and not attract my attention, or any customer complaints, by doing so.
On the other hand, I’m also not getting any complaints about the lateness of Image United, the “jam” book featuring most of the original Image artists, only because if this had come out on time, I’m pretty sure most everybody would have died from shock.
In other recent funnybook news, people sure have been commenting on the cover to Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 at our shop:
You can see a larger pic if you
go to DC’s page for this issue and click on the pic. But, yeah, that’s an eyegrabber (er, so to speak, given that’s the Emerald Empress and her Eye an’ all), with Keith Giffen and John Dell doing their Kirby-est on that image. No idea if that comic itself is any good, having unfortunately dropped
Legion from the reading list after 25+ years of following the title, but, you know, it looks okay, just giving it the ol’ flip-through. It’s the old Legion creative team of Paul Levitz and Giffen together again, which I know might grab the interest of some of you folks.
Something I’ve been getting a lot of requests for in the last week or two is Weird Worlds #1, the premiere issue of DC’s new sci-fi/horror anthology. And I’m suspecting it has something to do with this: here is the cover to #1:
And here is the cover to #2:
Yeah, I know having Lobo on the cover should have been a clue, but sometimes when you’re scanning the rack, you need that logo to pop out at you, and, well, with DC’s white cover theme that month, the titles were all shoved into the corner and not exactly obvious. And so, there were quite a few people who didn’t even know #1 came out, and starting asking for copies when they spotted that logo on the rack on the cover of #2.
Of course, it’s not unusual for people to ask for copies of the first issue because they didn’t notice something was out ’til they saw the second issue. Happens all the time. But it seems to be happening a lot more with Weird Worlds.
And because folks have been asking: yes, I’ve read Aaron Lopestri’s “Garbageman” serial in these first two issues of Weird Worlds, which is very much in the vein of the “man becomes monster in accident, seeks to regain humanity” genre that Swamp Thing belongs to. And it’s fine…I liked Lopestri when he worked on that other title in this genre, Sludge, and while there’s not a whole lot new here, “Garbageman” is still entertaining.
However, it does have me wonder when DC will just put out a Swamp Thing comic, already. They keep trying to fill that niche with comics like “Garbageman” and that Solomon Grundy mini, but, man, I wish they’d quit dancing around Swampy and just throw him out there, already. Okay, I know word on the street is that he’s involved in this whole Brightest Day event hoohar, but we’ll see what happens.
…And that was my “I Demand That a Certain Comic Book Publisher Bend to My Will and Bring Back My Favorite Character” whiny complaint for the day. Hope you enjoyed it.
reportedly had a print run of 
out there for those of you inclined towards Kindling. 
