Mikester

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

filed under Categories End of Civilization 25 Comments

Oh, man, it’s been a couple of days, that’s for sure. But, here we go, a new installment of End of Civilization to delight and probably annoy. Download a copy of the March 2010 Diamond Previews from copyright_liberators_daily and follow along. (Also, I finally added an “End of Civilization” category, which only links to this post so far. I’ll add the rest later when I have a little free time!)

p. 132 – Ame-Comi Heroine Series: Star Sapphire PVC Figure:


Oh, good, this should end the debate about Star Sapphire’s costume once and for all.

p. 209 – Fame #1 Lady Gaga:


You know, for most of my End of Civilization entries, I’m only joking that the item in question indicates the imminent fall of the world.

Just sayin’.

p. 244 – The Talisman: The Road of Trials Volume 1 HC:


I’m about to do something entirely unfair.

What my original hardcover copy of The Talisman novel cost when I got it back in 1984: $18.95 (probably about $30 or so today)

What this graphic novel adaptation of the early portions of the novel costs: $25.00

Yes, yes, we’re talking about two different animals here, but still, I think it’s interesting.

p. 275 – Archie: The Best of Dan DeCarlo, Volume 1:


Boy, I sure hope they talk about how he created Josie and the Pussycats in these books. And why he moved on to drawing Simpsons comics and such in his last few years.

p. 328 – Marvel Comics Iron Man 2 Trading Cards:


So I’m assuming Iron 2 Man is about a steam iron magically transformed into a human, and the wacky adventures he has trying to fit into a strange new world. “Hey, man, don’t press me!” “Whoops, sorry, old habits.”

…

I’ve lost my mind.

p. 333 – Krypto Mad Dog II T-Shirt:


“Doggie style.” Hmm, let’s see, what do I think of when I see that phrase?

1. The punk band Doggy Style.

2. A literal reference to the fact that this is a style of shirt with the picture of a dog on it.

3. And nothing else.

p. 335 – Zombieland We Stand United T-Shirt:


I can’t help but think that this is just going to cause problems with people who don’t notice the Zombieland logo in the corner. “What, you got a problem with sick people, jerk?”

p. 373 – Wolverine & The X-Men Colossus Statue:


Oh, thank goodness, my Colossus “Tribute to Armpits” statue is finally on its way.

p. 378 – Sushi Erasers:


Ladies, gentlemen…let the pranks begin.

p. 378 – Mini Designer Chairs:


These are collectible 1/12 scale model chairs, sold in “blind mystery box” packaging.

I don’t have a joke. I’m too busy being stunned.

p. 379 – Marvel Comics Coloud Headphones:


“STUPID HEADPHONES NOT FIT RIGHT ON HULK’S HEAD. HULK CAN’T PROPERLY ENJOY GLORIA ESTAFAN AND THE MIAMI SOUND MACHINE. WANT RHYTHM TO GET ME TONIGHT.”

“War Journal Entry #5511: I had hoped the soothing sounds of Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man would ease away the pain I live with every day…the pain of loss that never ebbs no matter how many drug dealers or mob bosses I take down. But if Hulk doesn’t shut up about his Gloria Estafan record, I swear to God I’m going to shoot the son of a bitch.”

p. 380 – Tru Blood Soda:

“Tart and slightly sweet, Tru Blood pours like a regular soda but appears stormy and mysterious when poured into a glass.”

Well, hell, I’m sold. If it’s one thing I want to put into my body, it’s something “stormy and mysterious.”

p. 392 – Family Guy Clue:


“The loud, obnoxious character…did it in the living room…with the flashback to a pop-culture reference.”

p. 393 – John Wayne Monopoly:


“Ooh, I landed on The Conqueror square. What happens now?”

“You…really don’t want to know.”

Marvel Previews p. 24-31 – Spider-Man family titles:


That’s eleven different titles, including three issues of Amazing, two mini-series, a one-shot, and an annual. …Huh, I wonder how come Spider-Man‘s success doesn’t translate to comic sales? You’d think the transition from one movie every three years or so to nearly a dozen different stories a month would be a natural one.

Marvel Previews p. 99 – Runaways Live Fast Premiere HC:


Hey, it’s that cover again! I think I’d almost be a bit disappointed if they fixed this little problem.

p. 100 – Avengers Red Zone Premiere HC:


Wow, they pumped up Johns’ name on the cover there to almost “Writers Who’ve Licensed Out Their Novels to Marvel” size on the cover there. Must be because of all the advertising DC’s been doing for them.

The world yet to come.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 13 Comments


Well said, my Tholian friend.

So with working on the book, trying to help with the launch of The Bureau Chiefs site in my own limited way, dealing with a migraine, and other personal life issues, I just plain ran out of time for good ol’ Progressive Ruin today. I know, I suck. Not that I didn’t work on PR a little bit…mostly more tinkering with some of the pages here as a result of all that stuff I blathered on about yesterday. But I’ve got things in the hopper, like an End of Civilization post, and other goodies, so don’t worry, I still love you, baby. I mean it.

Also, some of you suggested I elaborate a little on my aside in yesterday’s post about the creepiness factor of Alpha Flight, and that’s a darn good idea, so look for that in the future, too.

AND…I had someone ask on the Twitter if I was going to acknowledge the fourth annual Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk Day, which, by the way, was two days ago. I hadn’t thought about it, since the planets aligned, pigs flew, Hell froze over, and Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk finished its run, but I suppose there are some series out there still not officially canceled, but Good Lord A’mighty they’re running late. All Star Batman and Robin is well over a year late at this point, and, well, I’m sure there are other late books out there. Not just a month or two, but like six months or more. Is All Star Batman the current record holder? Shall I begin celebrating a day in that comic’s honor? I mean, I already celebrate the book, because it’s absolutely fantastic, but I’m no fan of its scheduling.

Anyway, thanks for your patience, internet pals, and hopefully soon I’ll get my act together here on the deadline front.

image from Star Trek The Next Generation #72 (June 1995) by Michael Jan Friedman, Gordon Purcell and Terry Pallot

Permalinks, Alpha Flight, Rudy, insurance, and ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin 12 Comments

So Neilalien had a short essay regarding Blogger’s dropping of FTP publishing, which, as you may recall, instigated my own switchover to the WordPress blogging platform. After reading what he had to say, I emailed Mr. Alien and talked over this situation, particularly in regards to “linkrot” (i.e. the breaking of links to my old Blogger permalinks, lost when I moved to WordPress). I was especially concerned since, not only did I break any incoming links from other sites, I had a habit of linking to past posts, so plenty of internal links were broken.

However, Neil suggested a solution which I’ve since implemented…republishing stripped down versions of my old archive pages through Blogger, containing all the old permalinks, which themselves include links back to the current version of my site. (I’ve also – hopefully – set those pages to not be indexed by search engines, so I shouldn’t have duplicate results on everything.) It’s not the most elegant solution in the world, but it’s better than people getting 404 errors all over the place. And I’m no longer breaking links in other people’s sites, which really did bother me.

From what I gather, if I’d been using Blogger’s “post-per-page” format instead of the “archive.html#4358435080490”-style permalinks, I wouldn’t be having this problem, as those appear to translate over a little easier. Or, at least, I’d be having different, more easily solvable problems. Unless there’s a solution I missed, which I’m sure I’ll hear about in the comments if I did.

Anyway, short version…old permalinks should go to something other than a 404 page now. Sorry for the inconvenience, and sorry for not being very considerate of you folks who suddenly found old links to my site suddenly not working. And now, I can put off trying to manually fix all my internal links, which would have probably driven me crazy when I hit this post.

A CAVEAT: at some point, I had an issue with some new update of Blogger or ‘nother, and my archive page URLs changed format. If you see links in earlier pages of mine to even older posts in this format:

“https://progressiveruin.com/archives/2004_04_25_archive.html#108291646897164207”

…you can remove the “archives/” directory, making the link this:

“https://progressiveruin.com/2004_04_25_archive.html#108291646897164207”

…which will work. I keep meaning to fix those, but, geez, who has the time?

Anyway, that’s a whole lot of “blogging about blogging,” for which I apologize. Thanks for your indulgence while I work out the kinks that still exist in my redesign.

• • •

Just so I have some comic book content today:

  • Action Comics #1 sells for one million smackers. I wondered when this was going to happen. I think, a long time ago, back in my BBS days, I predicted in a comics forum that we’d see this happen by the year 2000. Hey, I was close.
  • Friend of the site Tom Mason writes a bit about William Overgard, the cartoonist what brought us Rudy, and you know how much I like Rudy.
  • Andrew has another Nobody’s Favorite, and she was borne of Bill Mantlo’s Alpha Flight. (By the way, for a while there, Alpha Flight, under both Byrne and Mantlo, was one of the just straight-up creepiest superhero comics ever. And I really do mean that in a good way.)
  • I’ve unfortunately not been pointing out Dave’s recent series of posts discusssing the “Interplanetary Insurance” series from 1950s DC Comics. Yes, that would be tales of insurance sales and claims. With robots and aliens. In SPAAAAAAACE. This is both completely insane and completely awesome. Go, read.

Valentine’s Day II: The Reckoning.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 7 Comments

Okay, your pal Mike is still struggling with his migraine, and he has deadlines to meet on top of that, so instead of writing all that stuff I keep telling you I’m going to write, I’m instead following up on my Valentine’s Day post, where I presented a special card made just for me by pals Dana and Jorean. I mentioned then that they had made more cards that just that, and here are a couple of them:

The Blade card:

• • •
The Wolverine card:


(Red doesn’t react well to JPEG reduction, so let me transcribe: “Wolver HATES Valentine’s Day / Because everyone he has ever loved DIES – We hope you don’t die!”)

The metallic superhero sticker-thingies on the front don’t show up very well there, so here they are after I fooled around with the brightness/contrast settings:


Anyway, those are some swell cards, huh? And, um…I’m assuming “Wolver” is a thing for some fans, but I’m not Googling it up. I’d rather not know.

Not tonight…I have a headache.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 5 Comments

Yesterday was a rare Mike-less Saturday at the comic shop, as I was suffering the aftereffects of a pretty bad migraine headache. As opposed to, you know, all those wonderfully fantastic migraine headaches. As I write this (late Saturday evening) I’m feeling a bit better, but still not quite up-to-snuff enough to generate the post I was planning, so I’m entering Low Content Mode for today. Hopefully I’ll be back and functioning at full power for tomorrow.

Thankfully, so I have at least something on the site today, Pal Nat sent along this image based on the most recent Sluggo Saturday post, illustrating comic fandom’s everlasting dichotomy:


Okay, maybe not a dichotomy for everyone. I, for example, love both these comics. In fact, I’m hoping for a crossover. “I’m the gosh-darned Rena Titañon!”

Bully the Little Stuffed Bull also worked some of his hooved magic and whipped up this little number, plugging both me and Chris Sims in the process.

Thanks for checking in, folks, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

And now…some nightmare fuel.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 27 Comments

So I was talking with Employee Timmy about Smallville at the shop the other day, and I happened to mention “hey, you know who hasn’t popped back up on the show? Mxyzptlk!” Which is just as well, since the Smallville version was, well, kinda lame, but then I asked Timmy if he’d ever seen the Michael Pollard version of Mxyzptlk from the Superboy TV show. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t, since the show ran from ’88 to ’92, and Timmy was born, um, somewhere around 2004, I think. Anyway, I Googled up a YouTube clip on my iPad while riding around the store on my Segway, and here is what I showed him:


Given my usual luck with YouTube clips, it’ll probably disappear in short order, but what it shows is 1) Mr. Pollard popping up out of a pool in the full-on Silver Age Mr. Mxyzptlk outfit, 2) special guest star Richard Kiel as a larger, more menacing imp from the 5th Dimension, sporting a purple beanie and roughing up Mxyzptlk, 3) Stacy Haiduk in a swimsuit, 4) the finest special effects $3.98 could buy, and 5) not a whole lot of dignity. It’s…all a bit strange, and I suspect any attempt at doing a live action version of Mxyzptlk can’t help but turn out like this, but…well, it’s certainly something.

I really don’t remember a whole lot about this series, since I probably haven’t seen it since it originally aired…and even then, I only saw a handful of episodes. But my memory of it was that it wasn’t too bad…even the clip above is sort of amusing in a very peculiar sort of way, and honestly, I think my initial negative reaction to it came from the fact that I just wasn’t prepared to see what I had seen. I mean, how could you prepare for that? Purple-beanied Richard Kiel will be visiting me in my unquiet dreams.

So, I’ll ask you folks…did you like (or not like) the show? Should I seek out a DVD rental or two to refresh my memories, or should I just let those memories fade gently away?

• • •

I still plan on doing a little follow-up on some of the later questions you folks dropped into my comments sections over the last week. Thanks for reading and participating!

The Progressive Ruin Questionnaire-Fest 2010 Part Four: Dead Man’s Party.

filed under Categories question time 10 Comments

I’m feeling a bit run-down as I write this, I’m afraid…I was going to beg off, but there are just a few questions left and I’d like to get them answered. So let’s see how I do today.

  • Steve Cameron asks

    “With so much getting collected now, most stores have sold off their old issues to give most of their floor space over to trades and manga and graphic novels and what not, but I understand that Ralph’s still has a lot of back issue bins. Do you still do a lot of sales in old floppies? How’s it changed from a decade or two ago?”

    Actually, I don’t think it’s changed all that much. Since we’re one of the few stores left that still has deep stock in back issues, we still remain a destination for folks seeking out old comics. It’s still about the same percentage of the business we do now as it’s always been.

  • Erik has a question or two for me:

    “If I download comics that aren’t collected am I still killing comics?”

    Yes. Now that the police have heard your confession, they will be by to collect you in the morning.

    “What’s better, Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen?”

    Oh, that’s a toughie. A real toughie. We’re talking two very different takes on essentially the same subject: the dissection and, to a certain extent, parody, of a genre, with Dark Knight taking a more visceral approach, and Watchmen a more mechanical one. If I have to pick one, I’d say Watchmen, if only just barely. Like exactly one micron of difference.

    “Who would win in a fight, Supergoof or Mighty Mouse?”

    Mighty Mouse is clearly the more powerful and competent of the two, but never underestimate the power of Supergoof’s sheer dumb luck. I’d say it’s Goofy for the win.

  • Allan inquires

    “What do you think is the most significant contribution to society you completely failed to make because of a) comic books and b) your blogging about comic books? How many people do you think would be alive today if you had chosen a less geeky path? And if the answer is greater than one, does the thought of this ever keep you awake at night or do you consider the existence of Progressive Ruin to be more important than any one nameless individual’s life?”

    Well, let’s face it, I was never going to be a doctor or a fireman. It was either this or librarian…and I’ve done the librarian thing, and I like this better. I can sleep well at night being reasonably certain that no one’s life depended on my life choices.

    Besides, I know for a fact that my being in a comic retail job was directly responsible for a couple of my friends marrying each other, so chalk one up for the nerd life!

  • Keith must know

    “Another question relating to the secret genius behind Progressive Ruin.
    Noticing employee Aaron (with his hair cut) has a girlfriend, I have not help but be a bit skeptical, is she real or is she one of those ‘I have a girlfriend, but she lives two states over’ kind of girlfriends? Bonus question: If real, is she shorter than him? (As if that’s even possible?)”

    I can absolutely verify the existence of Employee Aaron’s girlfriend. She’s been coming into the store since she was just a wee thing, and, in fact, just saw her here at the shop the other day.

    She is just a bit shorter than Employee Aaron, but then Aaron’s taken to wearing his KISS-style boots with the six inch lifts, so perhaps that’s throwing off my eyeballed measurements a bit.

  • Jay V asks

    “Do you have any thoughts/opinions on Charlton comics? How about Gold Key? Do you have any back issues of Wacky Witch?”

    Charlton Comics have this almost endearing half-assedness about them, so I can never really dislike them too much, even if a lot of them are, well, kind of crap. But I read a lot of them as a kid in the ’70s, so I have a soft spot in my head…er, heart for them.

    I’m okay with Gold Key. Lots of nice covers, some swell TV tie-in books, handled the Disney line, and Turok was under their banner for a while, so I’ve got no beef with them. I read a handful of their digest comics as a young Mikester, too.

    You know, we have back issues of Wacky Witch at the shop, but I can’t recall if I’ve ever looked inside one. I’ll have to correct that omission.

  • MichaelFromJamaicaNY entreats

    “Can you help me open this jar of Palm Hearts?”

    Sure! What you do is you kind of bang the lid of the jar against a countertop, which hopefully will loosen it up a bit. If it’s still a bit tight, try covering the top with a paper or cloth towel, and grabbing and twisting the towel-covered lid. That should give you enough traction to get it loose.

    • Rich Handley wonders

    “Since changing over from the prior blog site to the new ultra-white version, have you seen a change in your traffic? Does it look like most of your regulars made the jump to the new location?”

    Traffic appears to be about the same, thankfully. I think there may have been a slight dip when my RSS feeds changed, but I think everyone’s caught on by now. I hope.

  • Josh Perdue needs to know

    “Years ago in college I had a class with this girl who was a friend of a friend. We sat beside one another in class and used to chat sometimes and she was always very friendly. Then all of a sudden one day she was very rude to me. I used to see her outside of school and say hi and she would reluctantly acknowledge me, then ignored me outright.
    What did I do?”

    Lady Ruinites out there reading this post, look away for a moment.

    …

    Okay…Josh, there’s only one answer to this, and the answer is this: Chicks, man…chicks. Who can figure ’em?

    …

    All right, gals, you can come back to the site now! (Phew, good thing none of them read what I just wrote!)

  • Tom Mason asks

    “What are the three biggest things – hit comic book movie, blogging, distribution changes, crossovers, clean windows, Virgin Comics, anything really – that have had a positive impact on the store?”

    Hmmm…I’d say 1) trade paperback/book collections and the audience they attract, 2) moving to a larger space all those years ago (though we could stand to have more space now!), and 3) movies and TV shows and just plain ol’ increased media presence of comic book properties (not that it directly translates to equivalent sales, but it does bring in some interest from new readers).

  • Progressive Sterling’s Mike Ruin (hmm…odd name) wants to know:

    “Who would win in a fist fight: Chris Sims or Dave Campbell?”

    Well, Campbell’s got some reach on him, but Sims has watched enough wrestling to try something that would end up hurting them both. So the only winner would be me, as I laugh and laugh.

    “From a strictly visual point of view: do you think Swamp Thing looks better than Man-Thing? WHY??:O”

    I’d say they both have their visual appeal. Man-Thing certainly is more monstrous than Swamp Thing, but Swampy as drawn by, say, Steve Bissette and John Totleben sometimes seems to have almost infinite detail to him. I’d say as long as Swamp Thing is being drawn as a swamp monster, and not just as a big green guy, he’s the more interesting design if only that you can read his expressions and emotions. Though the completely blank look on Man-Thing’s “face” is terrifying in its own way…AAARGH too wishy-washy to pick one. It’s my weblog, I say I like ’em both just fine. So there.

    ”’Swamp Thongs’. For the ladies. Sexy or not?”

    So, they’d be all…leafy, or vine-y? …Sorry, man, can’t see it.

  • Roger Green asks

    “I had to delete you from my weblog on Blogger then reinstall you. I assume that’s tied to your new feed. Is that a common issue or am I merely technologically cursed?”

    No, that was caused by the new RSS feed the changeover created. I did publish one last post to the old feed asking everyone to change over to the new feed, and I may do another one in case anyone missed it. So don’t worry…I broke the link on your site, not you!

    • deadlytoque asks

    “I’ve never read any comics with Thor or Iron Man, but I am keen on both characters. I’m a fan of Matt Fraction and also of Warren Ellis, and (to a lesser extent) J. Michael Straczynski . I also like the new Marvel Adventures stuff.

    “If I buy Fraction’s runs on both titles, as well as JMS’s Thor and Ellis’s Iron Man, and then some of the MA: Iron Man books… will any of them make sense to me? Or will my total lack of knowledge of the decades of continuity exclude me?”

    I think you’re okay. You’ve read comics, you have some passing familiarity with the characters, I say jump on in. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere, and none of these books have any kind of steep learning curve preventing you from catching onto the stories.

  • Metz77 wraps up today’s questions with

    “What do you think of Fantastic Four right now? I’ve never been a fan of the series before but the current creative team seems good. Do you think it’ll last?”

    I’ve always liked the Fantastic Four, though I don’t always like what’s being done with the title. But, right now, with Jonathan Hickman on writing chores, it’s been a fun, strongly written, and tightly focused book. Imaginative, a little weird, stories don’t go on for too long, and all the characters seem reasonably in character. Can’t ask for more than that. As for how long it’ll last…as with all good books, it’ll feel like it ended too early.

I know some follow-up questions popped up in later comments sections, but those will have to wait for a day when I’m not dead on my feet. Thanks for reading, internet pals, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll be a bit more up to speed.

The Progressive Ruin Questionnaire-Fest 2010 Part Three: Good for Your Soul.

filed under Categories Uncategorized 10 Comments

You have-a the questions, I have-a the answers:

  • caman agus sliotar wants to know

    “Why won’t Mr. Ellis put out Fell in a timely manner?”

    I’m probably not the best person to ask that. I wish it would come out a little more often, as I do have customers asking for new installments, and it does make for a good impulse buy at only $1.99 a pop. (I did notice that the first issue is no longer available for reorder, so unless they bring it back into print, the day of selling runs of the series may be over.)

    “Does every arc get put out in hard and eventually soft cover trades or do only some get this treatment? If it’s not every book how do you think they decide what gets hard cover? Obviously ‘blockbuster events’ types are a given but what about the rest?”

    It sure seems like everything gets put out in trades, doesn’t it? I’m trying to think of something recent from Marvel or DC that either hasn’t ended up in a collected edition or isn’t destined for eventual collection. Not a whole lot, is there?

    As to why some get hardcovers and others don’t…just someone in editorial deciding which titles would be more likely to attract that hardcover-buying crowd, is all. The more popular the item, the more likely the hardcover release I suspect is the rule of thumb, though I’m sure someone will pop into the comments to set me straight. As for the less seemingly-popular items that get reprinted, it may be a matter of going to a hardcover edition to add to the perceived value of a higher pricepoint to counteract the expected lower sales…or, heck, instead of speculating, let me just say the reasoning is “money” and leave it at that.

    “Why does a shop owner I sometimes frequent get mildly angry at the idea of me giving, oh, say some plastic colored promo rings, to my 6 year old son?”

    Because some shop owners need to catch a clue, I think, or at least work on socializing themselves enough to be around other human beings. Man, kids love those rings…why would you not want to let them have some?

  • Brad adds to the iPad discussion from yesterday:

    “What happens to the ‘average’ comic store (most of whom already diversify to some extent into rpgs, heroclix, ccg’s and the like) if the DM shrinks, even by a nominal extent? How much of an overall market change do you think the status quo can handle without yet another retail-implosion? And most importantly, are there advantages to the DM that could be created by better access to digitally distributed comics work?”

    That’s hard to say without it actually happening. When the market crashed in the ’90s, we were able to stay afloat on sales from our game store and, God help us, POGs (though we still did okay, if not great, in comic sales, thanks to back issues and a loyal clientele for new books). If the market crashed again, due to a shift from physical items to digital (let’s say), maybe we could adapt (as discussed in yesterday’s post) but I can see a lot of stores going away, print comic sales going down as they lose their outlets, and so on until there’s no one left but guys like us selling runs of Dazzler to hipsters and the elderly.

    If done properly, however that may be, there is a possibility that collected print editions of digital-only comics could support the direct market, but we likely won’t know for sure until The Big Change happens…if it does.

  • Pal Sean asks

    “OK Mike, I got one. Do you sometimes think of just how different your life is since starting this site? Is it strange?”

    Well, in a way, it’s not that much different, since in one form or another I’ve been talking about comics in online arenas for about twenty years now. But I’ve never really had an audience quite this size before. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t be part of a book deal if it weren’t for the people I “met” because of this site, I wouldn’t be interacting with a bunch of interesting people (bloggers, commentators, comic creators, and the like) from all across the world, and I wouldn’t be basically synonymous with “Swamp Thing” and/or “Sluggo” with all those folks.

    “And I have one for your lovely girlfriend: when the hell are you and Mike getting hitched?”

    I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear the question.

  • Scott Rowland asks lots of stuff:

    “What’s your dream reprint project from DC? Marvel? Dark Horse? Image? Anybody else?”

    DC: Sugar & Spike, Scribbly, or pretty much any Sheldon Mayer production.

    Marvel: A full-color reprint of the ’70s Man-Thing comics (including the Savage Tales debut and the stories from Fear).

    Dark Horse: Not a whole lot from Dark Horse that isn’t available in one form or another. Maybe they can pick up one the titles in “Others,” below.

    Image: A good reprinting of Matt Wagner’s first Mage series, without the futzing around with color effects and the typo-ridden relettering. (Though I have the excellent Starblaze reprints, so I’ve got mine, suckers!)

    Others: I’d like to see a collection of all the ’70s Atlas Comics, just so I can stop hunting the damned things down myself. And I’d like to have the original Metamorphosis Odyssey serial from Epic Illustrated under one cover…it’s been collected before, but not very well (it was all in black and white, and had some production issues as I recall). I’d also like to see more reprinting of some of the off-brand horror comics of the 1950s.

    “Do you think the current spate of event storylines with multiple tie-ins offered is training even long-term collectors to wait for the trades?”

    Probably not quite as much as you’d think…most long-term fans, at least the ones I deal with, would rather have the individual issues than the collections. I think to a certain extent we’re still dealing with a divided market, which some people are getting the stories in trades, and the others in serial format. I’m not saying there isn’t any overlap…of course there is, but I don’t think one is really replacing the other just yet.

    “Who would win: Herbie Popnecker or Sugar Plumm?”

    You know, I was going to say “Herbie” because Herbie always wins, but man, Sugar is the immovable object to Herbie’s unstoppable force. But I think Herbie is too much of a good guy to put a fight against a baby girl, anyway.

    “Why the heck is there not a Sugar and Spike collected edition?”

    Because DC hates money. Surely that’s the only reason.

    “How do you think retailers can compete with something like Amazon when it comes to TPBs?”

    That’s a tough question. It really comes down to some customers wanting to see something in person before buying it, and not wanting to wait for the mail to bring it. Plus, there are always those saintlike folks who want to support their local businesses. We can’t compete on prices, but we can compete on being friendly faces in a nice store. Well, mostly friendly faces, anyway…that’s why I have employees Timmy and Aaron.

    “What’s the current count on HOS 92 reprints you own? (I’m too lazy to look back through the site). Is there any other story you have that approaches that number? (Me, I think I have about 9 or so copies of the Spider-Man origin).”

    As of this post, I have twelve versions of the first Swamp Thing story from House of Secrets #92. Still, not nearly enough.

  • Nate queries

    “Do you worry about the future of your career in direct sales? Do you think there will be enough fanboys that need to hold a piece of paper to keep direct sales going?”

    As I’ve said, we’re probably big enough with enough diversification in stock to survive a market shift created by digital delivery. And I think the “all-digital” revolution for comics is still quite a ways off, iPad or no iPad, so I don’t think it’s an immediate job-killer for me, at any rate. It would probably take an additional generation or three of kids accustomed to reading material solely in digital form before the print market drops below sustainable levels.

    But I think there will always prefer printed matter to digital displays. Maybe not a lot of them, maybe about as common as people who collect wax cylinders today, but they’ll exist. And I’ll still sell ’em funnybooks!

  • Matthew Allison asks the worst thing ever:

    “How much is The Legend of The Dark Night #1 worth if it’s the yellow cover?”

    If you hide a dollar in its pages, it’ll be worth a dollar.

    “How much will it be worth ten years from now?”

    It’ll be worth one Jovian Space-Credit.

    “How much more is it worth if it’s signed by Billy Gibbons from The ZZ Tops?”

    Man, I love the ZZ Tops. They’re my favorite Motown group. Clearly any comic signed by one of its members would be worth exactly One Trazillion Dollars.

  • Rich Handley ponders

    “If I turned my long-dormant Swamp Thing site into a book, do you think DC’s lawyers would break down my legs and THEN issue a cease-and-desist, or would I get the cease-and-desist first and then the broken legs?”

    If you ask them nicely if you could use DC’s characters ahead of time, maybe the lawyers would let you slide with just a busted ankle or something. I really don’t know…do the people who put out Draw and Alter Ego get DC’s permission to run all the DC art they do? Or is it fair use for review/discussion purposes?

    “’Sluggo-Thing’: Best. Crossover. Ever… or just plain stupid?”

    Nothing this beautiful could ever be called stupid.

• • •

Tomorrow…the shocking conclusion!