Mikester

Wrecker, you jerk:

And apparently “Mr. Mxyzptlk” is another popular balloon in Gotham’s parade:

images from Detective #197 (July 1953), reprinted in Batman #218 (Jan/Feb 1970)

“Which comic series is better dc or marvel?”

“DC are the batman, superman, catwomn, green lanturn, aquaman, and wonderwoman heros.

“Marvel are Spider-man , X-men, The hulk, the avengers, The fantastic 4, thor and daredevil.

“I think Marvel are better for the fact of they Have X-men and daredevil.

“Go gambit and dare devil”

And the responses PILE IN:

“Marvel has Venom thus making it superior to everything else”

“I’m torn. Although Besides Superman, I think some of the other DC Comic charecters are wussies… LOL. If only Marvel had Superman… jeez…”

“MARVEL…because of X-men (don’t get me started on the movie okay?) but then again…nvmd marvel all the way”

“marvel arcade games!!=D and and and..THE MOVIES!!=D wonderwoman’s slutty.”

“Marvel 3 reasons

Apocalypse
Carange
Venom

the 3 most awesome villains”

“Marvel has venom and Carnage..thats it for me

oh and Spawn..I think”

WAIT SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET, so the correction comes quick:

“nope Spawn is a character from Mcfarlane comics”

Um…well, close enough.

This fella sums up:

“neither…comic books are stupid”

Well said.

In other news:

• Bitterandrew is well on his way to becoming the greatest webcomic creator ever.

  You should be reading Armagideon Time on a regular basis anyway, if you aren’t already. He’s a smart cat, that Bitterandrew.

• Things that disturb me:
  
  SEXY LEGO CATWOMAN
  Caught the trailer on the DVD for, um, ahem, 10,000 B.C. YES I RENTED IT SHUT UP and seeing Sexy Lego Catwoman walking toward me, swinging her hips…is this where technology has brought us?

• Speaking of DVDs: received the second installment of Cinematic Titanic, The Doomsday Machine, over the weekend, and as promised, unlike the last DVD, this one came in an actual case with an actual sleeve.

  And it also came with a hand-signed thank you note:

  
  Whether the whole cast signed these and they were randomly distributed in packages, or if Trace drew the short straw and signed ’em all, I have no idea.

  And I’m only a few minutes into the presentation, but there are a couple differences from the first DVD. There’s a very brief prologue/skit that takes place before the riffing begins, as we see (in CT’s characteristic “silhouette vision”) the gang arriving in a long hall outside the theatre. The picture zooms in on the theatre once the show begins. During the prologue, names and full color photos of the cast flash by on screen, introducing us to all involved, in the off chance you didn’t know already.

  There are also a couple of gags referencing Mystery Science Theatre 3000. RIFFING EATS ITSELF. And the actual film features a young pre-M*A*S*H Mike Farrell and a less-old Casey Kasem. Whether those are selling points or not, I’ll leave up to you.

• There’s also a new Negativland album due out soon, which sorta caught me by surprise.
• I realize those last two entries have really nothing to do with comics, but it’s stuff I like, so there you go.
• SWAMP THING CONTENT: Well, it’s someone else’s Swamp Thing content, but I haven’t mentioned my favorite swamp monster in a while, and this is what I’ve got. Over on Comics Bulletin, Jim Kingman waxes nostalgically about Swamp Thing #17 from 1975. (In response to Jim’s question — Bolt sticks around through issue #20, if memory serves, and that was pretty much it for him. I remember hoping, all those years ago, that Alan Moore would bring him back…but all things considered, Bolt was probably better off without Moore getting his hands on him! Who knows what terrible things would have happened to that character?)

Comic creator Michael Turner passed away Friday evening at the far too young age of 37. I realize I’ve been pretty critical of his work in the past, but I know he had his fans, and that he of course had family and friends who loved him, so my sincere condolences to all of them.

The Aspen Comics message board has posted addresses where you can send your own condolences, and places where you can make donations to Mr. Turner’s preferred charities.

• Over at WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, they’ve turned up some original master recordings of the background music for the ’60s Spider-Man cartoon, and it’s totally far out, man. You can read about it here and here, and pick up the accompanying hour-long podcast focusing on the music. It’s great stuff…give it a listen.

  EDIT: Matthew points me in the direction of someone performing covers of the Spider-Man background music. The world is large enough to contain even this. Also, that artist makes reference to another band that had covered that background music previously, though that CD is out of print.

• Currently reading: Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw…700+ pages of comics, all centered around an excruciatingly detailed examination of the members of a family, interacting with each other and on their own. It’s tragic, gross, funny, uncomfortable and compelling…it’s certainly an immersive experience, and I’m only about 1/6th of the way in. I can only admire the amount of effort that went into the world-building for this story, and Shaw’s dedication to assembling 700 pages of comics to relate it in such detail.
• This man went to go see Steve Ditko for his birthday, and drew a comic strip about it. (via Mr. Dan Kelly)
• A couple of things about Final Crisis:

  First, it’s selling just fine for us. In fact, when I checked our cycle sheet numbers, the first issue of Final Crisis just barely outsold the first issue of Secret Invasion at our shop. Now, granted, there may have been a few people buying one of each FC cover, which would inflate the numbers a bit…but we haven’t been experiencing too much of the “gotta buy both” reaction to this comic, so it isn’t that much of an impact. Even so, it’s hardly the blow-out people are trying to characterize it as, for whatever reason.

  Second, I don’t get the complaints that Final Crisis is hard to understand. Prediction #3 appears to be a “hit,” I think.

  Third, the complaints about continuity problems with the New Gods involvement…well, fair enough, and particularly noticeable in the midst of DC’s ongoing attempts at revitalizing/spring cleaning their shared universe continuity. But even that’s not a fatal problem…given how most people reacted to Death of the New Gods and Countdown, you’d figure they’d jump at the chance to ignore those series. And I have kind of a personal workaround anyway…given Morrison’s take on the New Gods and how powerful and godlike they really are, perhaps the cosmic impact of their actions leading up to, and including, their deaths affected the reality around them, causing universal “glitches” of sorts, resulting in repeated, or even contradictory, events to occur. Hey, why not? Works for me, anyway…if Marvel can have the Spidey/Mephisto/Mary Jane thing, then let me have this. (EDIT: Reno informs me that Grant Morrison had a similar suggestion in regards to dealing with the contradictory accounts.)

  Fourth, I was watching some of the Justice League cartoon marathon on Boomerang Saturday night, and boy, I sure liked seeing the New Gods in animated form. Okay, that has nothing to do with Final Crisis, but I do like my New Gods cartoons.

• DC’s newest weekly Trinity remains strong in the sales department (we just sold out of #3, necessitating another reorder). I figure we’ll probably hit the “weekly fatigue” drop off point in a few weeks, with sales shooting back up again near the series’ end (which is what happened with previous weeklies 52 and Countdown).
• For being “Marked for Terror,” “Keith Partridge” sure is cheery:
  
  “Rock’s first family hits a new high in adventure!”

  Ah, yes, “high” — very amusing.

Not that we really had that much space to spare this time, but I couldn’t resist racking the new issue of Hulk like so:

The two Final Crisis covers grab the eye as well, partially because 1) it’s a striking design, and 2) that odd-looking Flash image:

I think we ended up dumping all those comics into the bargain bin, too, except for the Spawn #1.

Things Youngblood #1 had that most comics haven’t: a huge line of customers outside the door of the comic shop before it opened, anxious to buy that comic. (I think Superman #75 and another Liefeld masterpiece, X-Force #1, also had lines-before-we-opened type sales.) Looking at Youngblood now, it’s hard to imagine that something like this could generate so much excitement.

It was once a hot, in-demand comic.

Now it’s in the bargain box.

And unlike what I sorta implied here, Darker Image #1 didn’t just come with a Bloodwulf card, as the copy in this collection had a Maxx card. So each copy of the comic was packed with one of probably 3 cards (the other likely card being Deathblow by Jim Lee). I know I have spare copies of Darker Image in the back room, but I never got around to double checking which trading card came with what comic.

Here’s a thought that occurred to me yesterday: So, you know that KISS magazine that Marvel Comics published…the one that had real KISS blood mixed into the ink used to print that mag. I wondered, if there were a G.G. Allin comic back when he was still alive, what he would have put into the ink used to print his comic. Frankly, if all he put in there was blood, we’d be lucky.

Yeah, I know…”ick.”

Processing the order of a mail-order customer, one who gets his shipments on a bi-monthly or quarterly basis, I noticed something. In the three month period since I’ve last shipped to this customer, we’ve had:

4 issues of X-Men First Class
2 issues of JSA
5 issues of Mighty Avengers
4 issues of New Avengers
5 issues of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
3 issues of Star Wars: Dark Times
2 issues of Star Wars: Rebellion
5 issues of X-Men Legacy

And no issues of Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, in case you were wondering.