Mikester

Basically I just say I’m behind on my reading but here’s a couple of things I do like reading.

filed under Categories collecting, eyeball, legion of super-heroes, star wars 10 Comments

One thing I haven’t heard at the shop in a while is “wow, what a great job, you get to read comics all day!” Which is good, because that did get a little tiring to hear, and to explain (when I bothered to do so) that the one thing I really don’t have time for at the shop is reading comics. Particularly now, that I’ve opened my own shop, where the only hand on deck is me and spending the time to read a comic means less time pricing old comics or whathaveyou.

Does that mean I’ve never read comics in the shop? No, of course not…it’s just not something I’m normally inclined to do. The one time I can remember doing so at the new store was an issue of Doomsday Clock, I think. And, at the old store, back when DC and Marvel used to send out preview packs of full issues coming the following week, I’d make time to read Preacher whenever it showed up. However, beyond occasionally flipping through an issue to check for damage while grading or maybe briefly browse through one to find something for Instagram, and yes sometimes just to admire a page or two of art…I tend to leave the actual reading at home.

The big problem, of course, has been my eyeballs. At first, I just thought my vision was getting blurrier due to my encroaching decrepitude, causing my reading to slow down considerably (even with the assistance of progressively stronger dollar store reading glasses. And then once the actual problem was determined (“Oh hey the interiors of your eyeballs are bleeding.” “Wait, what”) and problems began to accelerate, clouding my vision or blacking it out entirely…well, “reading” became an activity that was off the table.

End result: huge backlog of reading. For nearly three years my reading habits have been impaired by my ongoing eyeball issues. For the first year, it was just “no reading,” as my eyes switched off being cloudy or dark or too blurry and so on. Then once my eyes stabilized a bit (with only occasional bouts of hampered vision)…I found I had fallen out of the habit of reading comics. Sure, I read one or two here and there (at least once using a giant glass lens as a magnifying glass) but mostly I just watched television.

Television, as it turned out, was a lot easier to enjoy with my sometimes not-clear vision, particularly with my TV’s large screen and the somewhat close proximity in which I sat. The bright colors tended to cut through whatever was in the way, and while things were still sorta blurry, at least I could make sense of what was happening. Ended up rewatching all of Babylon 5 during this period…it was all bright and colorful and those early CGI effects were crisp and clear and easy for me to see. (I do remember early on watching A Quiet Place on Amazon Prime, with one eye blacked out entirely, and the other essentially with rivulets of blood obscuring its vision…it was like looking through prison window bars.)

It wasn’t until relatively recently that I started making an effort at trying to keep up on the comics I like to read, to try to cut down some of the backlog. And I’ve made some headway…I’m still caught up on Immortal Hulk and the Superman books, for example. But it’s still slowish going, even with somewhat stable eyesight and real glasses. My vision isn’t what it was (my left eye being the strongest one, and my right eye, where all the problems began, being partially impaired and not able to easily read anything below a certain size), coupled with the fact that the backlog is…a little imposing, is still kind of putting me off a bit.

Plus, I’ve gotten into the habit of just watching TV instead, which is easier.

I’m working on it, though. I’m probably making it sound like I just have giant piles of comics teetering over me at home that I gingerly remove a single copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Blood from the top to peruse. I don’t actually pull aside a whole lot of comics for myself, but week after week after week of not reading them means to the “to-do” pile adds up faster than you’d expect.

THUS, THE CULLING BEGAN. I started going through the stuff I did pull for myself and deciding just what I can pass up for now. The big loser here, unfortunately, was Marvel’s many Star Wars titles. Not to say I didn’t enjoy them…I did, they were a lot of fun, but it’s just too much and with Marvel’s crazy publishing schedules, it just stacks up too quickly.

I am keeping one title around, however, even though I’m desperately behind on this title as well, is Doctor Aphra (which you may have been tipped off to by the inset pic here). I think of the new Star Wars series Marvel’s been cranking out, this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most. I believe I wrote on Twitter about the appeal of the character as filling the “morally ambiguous” role that Han Solo can no longer occupy after his turn in the original movie trilogy. It’s an exploration of this universe via a fresh yet cynical perspective, told with humor and the right amount of pathos. While there is some sort of redemption arc to her story, it’s a meandering one which means we get to see her be a space asshole, which is quite entertaining.

As I said, I’m way behind, so some of my above comments may no longer apply. The last issue I read was #26, which could mean I’m two years behind or six months behind, given Marvel’s aforementioned publishing schedules. But I’ve got ’em all stacked up here and ready to read, and all her previous appearances (in her own title and elsewhere) set aside for future reference. And all other Star Wars funnybooks…back to the shop with ’em. Hate to see you go, but what else can I do, really.

I plan on cutting other titles out of the backlog as well, though I haven’t quite decided what’s next. There are things I’ll always read, stuff I’ve followed for decades: any Hulk series, for example, or the main Superman books, or any Groo or Love and Rockets and related. But there’s the other stuff, the series maybe I just started, or comics I’ve been putting off reading for so long it’s pretty clear I’m not that interested in them. Or books I dipped back into reading, like Batman or Flash, decided “yeah, read enough of those” and stopped. Again, no critique implied of the books…they’re perfectly fine, I just don’t have time for everything anymore.

That said, I did pick up this book last week:


…continuing the complete reprinting of the Legion of Super-Heroes that began in the Legion Archives hardcovers and living on in these differently formatted, cheaper to produce hardcovers which picked up where the Archives left off.

This volume brings us up to Legion of Super-Heroes #271, plus the Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes mini-series. That means we’re in the very early ’80s, and just about to the point where I started picking LSH off the stands. I was bit of a late starter, sort of, to the Legion, but I was instantly a fan and kept reading the book ’til about the New 52 era, which was just one reboot too many for the comic that had pretty much become known for its incessant reboots and the hope the New, Improved Legion would get traction this time.

Anyway, I like these books, and I suspect I’ll likely continue picking them up even as they start to overlap with the Legion comics I do have. You know, just to get the Great Darkness Saga on paper that isn’t terrible. I may stop once they hit that initial “direct sales only” series, which already exists on nice paper!

Did want to note that Paul Levitz, one time DC president/publisher and writer of the Legion, provides the introduction. He says that the contents within may feel a little…disjointed, due to various creative team pressures and deadline issues and stuff, but honestly when has a Legion story not felt somewhat like some of the pipes are rattling a bit? But Levitz does make some space to say some nice stuff about longtime DC editor/writer E. Nelson Bridwell, a fella that, from some things I’ve heard, may not have been afforded much respect from other folks in the field. Well, Mr. Bridwell’s writing, whether for a comic story or his explanatory editorial pages, were eagerly enjoyed by a young me, so he’s got my respect for certain.

Also wanted to note the artists in this volume…Joe Staton (always great), Jimmy Janes and Jim Sherman (both wonderful draftsmen…Sherman’s got a great splash with Light Lass that’s a knockout), and, of course, Steve Ditko. I’ve read that Ditko story before (hence the link to the previous post) and it’s pretty well out there.

You know, for someone who’s been having a hard time reading, I sure wrote a lot for other people to read. There’s some form of base irony there somewhere. But thank you for putting up with my typing, and we’ll chat again shortly.

Bringing out notably entertaining retired series.

filed under Categories publishing 23 Comments

So Twitter pal OneWordLong spends a few more words than that asking

“Q: I’ve always harbored a low key ambition to collect/read all the Malibu-verse books. I remember liking the printing and art as I flipped thru them in the day. But would they scratch that ‘lets read a Comics Universe’ itch?
I appreciate your thoughts. thank you.”

I was thinking about this since the question was posed, and was all ready to go with a discussion with what little I could recall of the Ultraverse, Malibu’s superhero universe imprint that launched in 1993. But then I remembered “oh yeah they had a superhero universe type thing that preceded that.” (I mean, aside from their brief stint publishing Image Comics, of course.)

Now I gotta be honest…my exposure to the initial Malibu-verse line was fairly limited, beyond, you know, racking and selling the things at the shop I worked at. Nothing against them in the slightest, or against the people making them (disclosure: I know Dave Olbrich, co-founder and former publisher of Malibu, and have had friendly dealings with other co-founder Tom Mason), but the 1990s were a pretty wild time for comics publishing and I could only pick and choose so much to read.

I will tell you one that, somehow, I just learned now (or had learned before and forgotten in the ensuing decades) by looking things up on the Wikipedias is that the initial “Malibu-Verse,” as represented by The Protectors (pictured) and its handful of spinoffs, were in fact revivals of now public-domain superheroes originally published by Centaur Publications in the 1940s. You know, had I realized that at the time, I may have been more inclined to stick my nose between the covers of some of those books.

Eventually Malibu ran a crossover storyline called “Genesis” (not to be confused with) that roped in some other of their titles into an attempt at a shared universe thingie (including Dinosaurs for Hire by the aforementioned Mr. Mason, a rudely funny comic), and despite this attempt at broadening the line (plus promotional POGs!) the line was effectively supplanted by Malibu’s launch of the Ultraverse in 1993.

As to scratching that “superhero univesre” itch, OneWordLong, you’ve probably gleaned already that I can’t speak too much to that. I mean, it all looks fine, and given its relatively short existence, it probably wouldn’t be too much of a burden to find them all. I liked Dinosaurs for Hire, but that’s a later added-value insert into the Malibu-Verse, and probably not what you were thinking about. But at the very least, get your mitts on the one with the die-cut hole through the entirety of the book (kinda the more precise version of this cover enhancement).

Now Ultraverse…honestly, I thought this was what you were referring to, OneWordLong, and given the breadth and depth of the line compared to its predecessor, surely you can understand why one would stick in one’s memory over the other. This was a much more ambitious project than the Malibu-Verse, with Big Creators and hologram covers and all sorts of those 1990s comics publishing shenanigans. It was a lot closer in style, I think, to the Marvel and DC comics that readers were more accustomed to, so even just beyond the number of releases it was bound to gain a little more traction in the marketplace.

Like Malibu-Verse, I didn’t sample a lot of it, but I did read a couple of series. There was Prime, a take on the Captain Marvel/Shazam dynamic where a boy is able to turn into an adult superhero (which had some nice art by Norm Breyfogle) but in retrospect perhaps reads a little differently now that we know of the extracurricular activities of one of the writers. It actually was a pretty good book, I thought at the time, about childhood conceptions of adulthood and heroism, but…yeah, it’s hard to revisit now. There were later issues not involving that writer, however.

I also enjoyed Sludge, of course, given it was another take on the Swamp Thing/Man-Thing type of character, with the bonus that my favorite Man-Thing scripter Steve Gerber was the writer. Again, been a while since I’ve read these (but they’re still there in the collection, waiting for that far-off day when I’ll have free time), but I remember enjoying them. One quirk about the character that I remember is that, due to his injured mental state, he’d mix up words in his head…like thinking “I gotta smash that doily” instead of “I gotta smash that door” — you know, like that, only better written because I’m no Steve Gerber.

Oh, and then there was Rune, featuring one of the Big Bads of the Ultraverse. The series primarily grabbed attention due to the work of Barry Windsor-Smith, but interest wore thin once he was off the book (which is a terrible thing to say given that the follow-up team did fine work, but the people wanted BWS, who’s a tough act to follow).

There was a lot of interesting stuff under this imprint, and if you’re looking for a weird short-run superhero universe to get into, OneWordLong, this might be a little more what you’re wanting versus the previous Malibu-Verse. Unfortunately, with Marvel’s buyout of Malibu, the end of the Ultraverse gets tangled up in the Marvel Universe, which likely causes the thread to be lost, or at least diluted in relation to whatever shared universe the U-books were putting together. (And given that current owners, Marvel, seem unlikely to bring any of the Ultraverse properties back*, there’s at least a definite end to its existence.)

Some of the titles had followings, at least for a while, after the imprint’s demise. Still had people looking for Mantra (about an ancient male warrior trapped in a modern woman’s body…given our modern increased sensitivity toward transgender issues, not sure if that’s aged well or if it even relates), Firearm (written by James Robinson), and Lord Pumpkin (a more horror-edged comic). Exiles was interesting, a team book that had been solicited for further issues, but surprisingly killed off in issue #4 to, I guess, show how new and unpredictable the Ultraverse was (a publishing trick that was equally annoying many years later when The Walking Dead pulled that same nonsense).

Oh, and there was the team book Ultraforce, where (good news) early issues had George Perez art, but (bad news) were written by that writer I didn’t name who also worked on Prime. So, you know, up to you if you want to deal with that.

And there you are, OneWordLong, simultaneously more and less information than what you were looking for. I don’t know which briefly-existing superhero universe you would prefer, but you can either pick the one with the cover die-cut into the shape of the hero’s head, or you can pick the one where a version of the #0 of one of their titles came with a VHS copy of an original movie based on the series. I ENVY YOU NOT THE CHOICE, MY FRIEND.
 
 

* Unless Disney finds out about them, of course.

I’ll lay off the boner jokes this time.

filed under Categories batman, giant-size man-thing 4 Comments


So reader Paul reminded me of this: the Blackthorne Publishing edition of Boner’s Ark, published in 1986. Boner’s Ark was a newspaper comic strip created by Beetle Bailey‘s Mort Walker in 1968, and it ran, I was surprised to learn, until 2000. At my previous place of employment, we had one copy of this book floating around that I tried, for a very long time, to unload on eBay…in fact, at this point, I can’t even remember if it ever sold or it’s still languishing in a box in the back room over there.

At any rate, we had that item around for a good, long time (and if my former boss Ralph ordered it when it was new, then he had it in his stock three years prior to my even working there). But in all the time I was trying to get this book to sell, I don’t believe even once I thought about the naughtiness implicit in the name.

Now, much like the deal with Bill Finger the “Joker’s Boners” story he wrote, we can’t say for sure that Walker intended any kind of dirty meaning in title. I’m inclined to think not, that he liked it just because it’s a silly name and it signals that Captain Boner is bit of a goof-up (and let’s face it, Captain Boner is a genuinely amazing name). But we also know from some of the naked Ms. Buxley pics you’ve maybe seen (and some of the more adult-ish gags in Beetle Bailey*) that Mr. Walker was bit of a dirty bird and surely he knew of the alternate meaning of the word. (Plus, as Turan tells us of Scott Shaw!’s experience, if there’s a question of whether or not a cartoonist meant something to sound dirty, the answer was usually “yes they did.”)

Now, last time I suggested that, given the date of story (1951) and the seeming lack of evidence that the term “boner” was in wide use, if at all, I concluded with the assumption that Finger was likely not aware of the double-meaning at the time. But…thinking about it, Bill Finger was a writer. Maybe he wasn’t a young teen hep to the new jive, but as a professional writer he would have been more likely than the average person to have had an ear out for interesting turns of phrase, be they passé or Today’s Newest Thing.

Of course, we’re about 47 years too late to ask Mr. Finger if he’d meant the story to be a string of endless double entendres, or just purely as a synonym for “mistake.” Much like Jane Austen’s use of the word “nice” in correspondence, there remains some ambiguity. Though to be fair, Austen did include a passage expressing some feelings about “nice” in Northanger Abbey, and far as I know Mr. Finger never did the same with “boner.”

So ultimately the question is “did ‘boner’ mean, well, you know, ‘boner’ back in the 1950s?” Reader CP Bananas peeled away an excerpt from the OED featuring their information about the word and sent it my way, for which I thank this person for the contribution. It includes an attribution for the meaning with which we’re concerned from 1936:

“In his dream he had a feeling he was ‘pulling a boner.'”

…and the OED notes that while this usage is meant to refer to the then-popular sense of the term of “making a mistake,” the context made clear it was specifically the sexual definition. So at least there was an explicit, so to speak, antecedent for that usage in that form prior to 1951.

Other comments to Wednesday’s post brought up several usages of “boner” in seemingly innocent fashion, across many decades past that Batman story I keep going on about. In my very unscientific survey, that would seem to tell me, even as the naughty definition became increasingly attached to the term, the primary meaning of “mistake” remained the dominant one. Also mentioned was the supporting character from the Growing Pains sitcom, nicknamed “Boner” after his last name of “Stabone” — probably intended to get laughs just based on the fact it sounded dirty, because 1980s sitcom, but I’m sure no exact reference was made to that meaning otherwise the FCC would’ve had some words. And maybe they did, I don’t know.

I don’t know where this leaves us, exactly. I feel like, given the existence of the base term “bone” meaning essentially the same thing as the vulger version of “boner,” I would say that it did exist, at least for some people, as an active naughty word. As such, chances are good someone read this story at the time and got a solid dirty laugh out of it. But as to whether or not Bill Finger his own self loaded up the “boners” on purpose for Big Laffs…I don’t know. I still tend to think not, but it’s not impossible he did.

Or, as my experience with the Boner’s Ark book, maybe it’s just all in context. “Boner” wasn’t meant to carry its sexual definition in the Batman story,” so nobody thought about it that way and it wasn’t inteded to be read that way. Or it’s a secret dirty joke from across time left for us by Mr. Finger and his accomplices

Okay, if you have more to add, you know where the comments section is. I didn’t mean to change the main blog into “Mike Sterling’s Progressive Boner” an’ all, but I was doing it…FOR SCIENCE.
 
 
 

* Look, you’ve read the strips, General Halftrack might as well have been named “General Boner.”

This is kind of hard to figure out.

filed under Categories batman, giant-size man-thing 19 Comments


So a few decades back, my maternal grandmother (whom we called “Nana,” as “Grandma” “sounded old”) gave me the above book, found in one of her visits to a second-hand store. It is, as it says, the Dictionary of American Slang, and it is a first edition from 1960. It was, and still is, the source of much education and enjoyment, beyond immediately looking up all the dirty words I could find, of course, but even doing that was turned out to be more informative than prurient. It was a great gift, and one I still treasure to this day, though I know it has since been revised and updated, and there are any number of competing volumes on the same topic.

So why do I bring this up here, other than to show off something neat from ye olde Mikester bookshelves? Well, it came to mind while listening to pals Matt ‘n’ Chris on the latest “Every Story Ever” special from their War Rocket Ajax comics podcast. In said special, where they rank comic stories submitted by listeners, with Identity Crisis at the bottom and a comic that isn’t an issue of Swamp Thing at the top, a listener sent in Batman #66 (1951) for their consideration.

Oh, which comic is Batman #66 (1951), you’re asking? “Why, we’re not familiar with that particular issue!” you add. To which I respond, “oh, you know this comic.” In fact, there was a time on the internets where you couldn’t avoid the continuing mirth this comic inspired, with its panels scanned and uploaded and shared and hotlinked to the point of everyone everywhere getting an eyeful of Joker’s boner:


Yup, it’s that story, officially titled “The Joker’s Comedy of Errors!” and, according to the Grand Comics Database, credited to writer Bill Finger and artists Lew Sayre Schwartz, Charles Paris, and, surprisingly, Bob Kane, who apparently did draw the figures of Batman and Robin themselves, probably under duress.

Anyway, you’ve seen the panels, there are lots of talk about “boners” (in the meaning of “mistakes”) and reading those panels in our hip, modern, ironic age, where “boner” can mean something else entirely…well, you can see how the story comes across quite a bit differently now. The entire story is “boner” this and “boner that” – “how can he force you into a boner?” “They laugh at my boner, will they?” “More boner crimes to come!” And so on.

Now, the Bits Boys on War Rocket Ajax contend, as many do, that at the time of the comic’s publication in the early 1950s, “boner” did not have the more vulgar meaning associated with it today. In contrast, I posted on the Twitters that the writer of the book knew exactly what he was doing, entertaining himself with a story-long dirty joke that he got past his editor.

Which got me to thinking. I once heard that pretty much any filthy word you know now, people knew back then, and whatever scatological or sexual term you may utter ain’t any different from what your great-grandpa would say. You don’t need to tell me that’s overstating it a bit, as I’m aware. But it would seem that “boner” in its vulgar sense wouldn’t necessarily be a recent innovation, would it?

Thus, to the slang dictionary, where the definition of “boner,” as it stands (heh) in 1960, according to this book’s editors:


That’s that then, I guess, right? Well, not necessarily, in that 1) this is the first edition of this work, and perhaps future revisions have expanded the entry and provided more dating citations, and 2) I’m sure some slang didn’t make it in, either from limited use or just not being picked up during the research phase.

And then there’s this…the definition for “bone” just a couple of entries earlier. Didn’t take a pic, as it’s a long (heh) entry, but definition #5 is “[taboo] The penis, esp. the erect penis.” So at least by 1960 the base (heh – okay, I’ll stop) of “boner” is present and notable. It feels like it isn’t that far of a jump from “bone” to “boner,” particularly since the term “boner” already exists in a more socially acceptable form and thus was a recognizable variant of the word.

I did some further online research, which of course required typing the word “boner” into website after website — hello, NSA! — and didn’t find very many helpful citations. One that did seem to support the idea that ol’ Bill Finger was pulling a fast one in his funnybookin’ was this entry from Entomology Online, which notes

“Meaning ‘erect penis’ is 1950s, from earlier bone-on (1940s), probably a variation (with connecting notion of ‘hardness’) of hard-on (1893).”

I checked for “bone-on” in my Dictionary of American Slang and found nothing, which again could just mean it was missed in the initial surveys.

This other online source, Green’s Dictionary of Slang, has as its earliest citation for the meaning we’re seeking as 1966. And Merriam-Webster cites a date of 1896 as the earliest use of the word “boner,” admittedly not in its naughty sense. But the construction “boner” existed in the world, and again, I contend it’s not that big a leap from “bone” meaning an erect penis to “boner” meaning the same thing.

Whether it was in common usage by the early 1950s is another question. I think it’s possible Bill Finger would have known the other meaning of the term…we would have only been about 37 at the time, still young enough to have been at least vaguely aware of the New Hip Slang all the kids were using, but, to be honest, probably old enough not to want to screw up a paying gig by trying to get a dirty joke into print in a children’s comic book.

As such, my assumption is…while “boner” (or at least close variations of it) may have been in use with its sexual definition at the time, Finger most likely used it innocently in this story. Howver, I’m guessing a non-zero percentage of readers in 1951 probably found this as funny as a bunch of bloggers did circa 2006, for the exact same reason.

Now this whole Toni Gay/Butch Dykeman thing that pal Andrew reminded me about:


…I mean, there’s no reason to expect that was anything but innocent comic booking, surely.
 
 
 
 

Note: I know about the Nicholas Cage dirty word documentary series on Netflix.

Also, if you have additional information/links regarding the history of “boner” — yes, please leave that in the comments. We’ll get a grip on these boners yet!

Eye’m doing okay.

filed under Categories eyeball 1 Comment

Hi pals…just checking in to let you know that my vision is recovering and with any luck, I’ll be back to at least almost normal over the weekend. Thanks for your comments, tweets, and emails of support (including a surprise one amended to a receipt includeed in a package from an eBay purchase I made!). It’s nice to know that even with all the TikTokking and YouTubing and such such throwing content around, this old-timey comics weblogger can still garner some welcome support. It’s much appreciated.

See (heh) you on Monday.

Site on hold for a few days.

filed under Categories eyeball 6 Comments

Been a while since I’ve had to give the ol’ “eyeball is bleeding, can’t see” excuse, but…feh. Sorry about that…with luck I’ll be able to function reasonably normally by the end of the week. Thanks for your patience.

Okay, one more thing about the predictions.

filed under Categories predictions 4 Comments

So Turan reminded me of two other superhero movies that made it to the big screen last year. It was regarding superhero films that underperformed and how that might hurt the prospect of further flicks, and really the only one I saw (well, not counting the last-minute release of Wonder Woman 1984) was the Birds of Prey movie.

One of the films was Bloodshot, based on the Valiant Comics property, which did $33 million worldwide on a $45 million budget. It was released on my birthday (aw, you shouldn’t have!), March 13th, which was approximately a week before California basically shut down due to the COVID virus. It’s hard to judge how well the film would have done without a pandemic on the loose, but I’d hope its ill-timing won’t be held against future Valiant films. Look, at least get me an X-O Manowar movie, I’d like that.

The other film was New Mutants, which I’d entirely forgotten about and never saw and couldn’t tell you a thing about it, aside from apparently Illyana’s awful characterization, the fact that it had the release had been delayed for like two years, and the that they finally released it into theaters last fall when it was becoming progressively a bad idea to “go out in public” and “be around people.” Anyway, it made about $46 million worldwide on a budget Googling says is between “67 and 80 million,” so yeah, it tanked. But I don’t know why anyone would have expected anything else, given the timing.

Now I don’t expect the performance of either of these to be held against the very idea of “superhero/comic book movies.” Clearly the pandemic impacted their performance, a situation original predictor ScienceGiant, nor any of us, could have known about at the end of 2019. And even if they underperformed without COVID times…well, Bloodshot is a minor character from a small-ish publisher, and the New Mutants film is the last hurrah of a long-in-the-tooth franchise already past its money-making days (at least at its pre-Disney studio) which had already seen one major flop in the pentultimate series entry X-Men: Dark Phoenix. So, you know, expectations probably weren’t that high to begin with.

At this point the only thing I can see hurting the very idea of “comic book films” is something happening with Marvel’s output. Marvel is kind of the backbone of cinematic superheroing, and if we suddenly had two, three, five big Marvel flops in the row, that would probably discourage other studios from running out and optioning Valiant, or Image, or Atlas/Seaboard funnybooks and the like. But all the Marvel movies are hits, and so long as they continue to be hits, comic book movies likely won’t go away. Even if a Marvel movie does tank…well, the Star Wars franchise survived Solo, and went on to have a billion-dollar film in Episode IX, so it’s not necessarily fatal.

So that’s more than I intended to type on the topic. If you wanted a shorter answer…comic books are seen as a strong enough source for film material that some of the movies based on them underperforming won’t hurt future comic movies. Unless, like I said, Marvel blows it with a bunch of films and poisons the genre forever.

Your 2020 Predictions, Part Five: The Fate of Luke Skywalker!

filed under Categories predictions 5 Comments

Alrighty then, let’s see if we can wrap up this look back at your 2020 comic industry predictions today! And don’t forget to get in your 2021 forecasts (without, you know, predicting things that have already been announced…don’t think I didn’t see that!).

Catch up on the previous parts, if you haven’t already (one, a two, three, and four), and let’s get started!

LondonKDS falls down with

“1) DC gives up on normal periodical comic books – future publishing will be ‘prestige’ format Black Label, graphic novels for kids/teens, and four monthly magazine-format anthology comics of 120-200pp each. They will be
‘Superman and related characters,’ ‘Batman and related characters,’ ‘DC Universe,’ and ‘comics set in the TV Arrowverse continuity.’ Stories from the anthology magazines will be sold individually as digital comics”

While none of this came to pass, I do think this is a not unthinkable path forward for DC at some point. However, given the Arrowverse shows appear to be faltering a tad and dropping off the air, I don’t know we’d get much before a series or two of “Green Arrow Seaon 9” comics or whatever.

“2) Marvel officially gives up on completing Gaiman’s Miracleman, instead tries to imitate Doomsday Clock and does a crossover between Earth-616 and the Miracleman universe which goes down like a lead balloon.”

I would read this a million times, but alas, no go. Frankly, I’m surprised “Marvelman” hasn’t made it into the regular Marvel Universe yet. I mean, they did pay real money for the character, only for the reprints of the Miracleman version be overpriced with production issues prior to stalling when it came time for the new stories, and the reprints of the original ’50s comics weren’t something anybody wanted. It’s (ahem) a miracle there aren’t five comics starring Marvelman right now.

“3) At least one of the recently-founded minor comics companies goes down the tubes after failing to sell any of its titles for film/TV development.”

Feels like comic companies come and go all the time, vanishing without a trace and no clue as to what they departed (other than, you know, the usual reasons). I think this year COVID may have shuttered publishers more than making it to the silver sceen.

• • •

William Gatevackes swings open with

“1. There will be a return to DC/Marvel crossovers, but they will be treated as big events this time around. A+ list creators, big story lines and…lasting effects on the character’s continuities.”

Honestly, I kinda half-expected something like this to happen as some kind of show of solidarity/sales boosting event for the industry to help counter impacted sales stores have experienced during the pandemic. Anyway, I’m not resting ’til I get an official Swamp Thing/Man-Thing crossover event.

“2. The BIRDS OF PREY film will flop because of its R rating. Warners won’t see this and instead will blame it on the mostly female cast.”

Well, it did $200 million on an $84 million budget, so not really a flop, but probably didn’t perform as well as they wanted. I don’t think WB specifically blamed g-g-g-girls for the underperformance, but I’m sure plenty of online dudes couldn’t wait to do so.

Plus it was released in February, and I think we were all beginning to realize we were in deep poop with this whole COVID thing around that time. I don’t know if BOP definitely took a hit because of this, but I’m sure it didn’t help.

“3. Marvel Studios will do a stealth introduction of the X-Men/FF characters into the MCU. Something like in the form of Latveria casually being mentioned in BLACK WIDOW or Magneto being referred to as Wanda’s father in WandaVision.”

Speaking of COVID, all the Marvel movies and Disney+ shows and such were pushed back, so if any X-Men/FF references are made, they await our return to movie-going in…2023, probably?

• • •

ScienceGiant grows on me with

“You know what? I’m going to lob some evergreen softballs at you Mike. Have fun!”

I HATE FUN.

“1) Wow! I still can’t believe in the year 2020 that comic book creator said something so clearly insensitive and/or misogynistic.”

Well, this isn’t exactly the circumstance of his fall, but the sexual misconduct accusations made at Warren Ellis i was not a story I was expecting to happen. I’m sure there are more fitting answers matching the tone of your question, but…man, that one is just at the forefront for me.

“2) Wow! That highly anticipated film of fantasy/science fiction/comic book IP certainly underperformed. The backlash bodes ill for the genre and that means fewer movies like it next year.”

I don’t think the previously mentioned Birds of Prey hurt the prospects of future super-movies. Besides, most people who saw it really liked it, so it was received well at least. We may get fewer superhero movies next year anyway, if only because, well [gestures at everything],

“3) Wow! Another fine example of ‘over promise, under deliver.’ It was anyone’s guess when the next issue of that series was going to be released, wasn’t it?”

Especially with that two month gap in comics publishing in the middle of the year! Not what you meant, I know, but it’s what happened!

“4) Wow! Lucy pulled the football away AGAIN on Charlie Brown.”

Lucy? Charlie who? Can’t say I’m famliar.

• • •

Bully, the Little Predicting Bull, horns in with

“Well, I’ve been dead wrong every year I predicted comics would be printed on slices of ham, so it’s time to get serious.

“In 2020, comics will be printed on slices of turkey.”

I’m sure there were some turkeys out there making comics, but no comics on turkey this year, Bully.

[MEANWHILE, IN THE YEAR 2078]

“SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF COMICS! OF COMIIIICS!”

• • •

DavidG provides wideband coverage with

“1. The unbroken 25 year streak of no new Miracleman will continue in 2020.”

2020’s Marvel Comics #1000 contains one brand new page of Miracleman by Gaiman and Buckinham! Look, what else do you want, a continuation of the previous series? Let’s not be greedy!

“2. DC will finally crack under the pressure of public opinion and will throw a ton of money at Helfer and Baker to complete the ‘Body & Soul’ storyline in The Shadow. It will be everything we have waited for and more.”

I am never ever ever going to find out how this story resolves, am I?

“3. Disney will announce that the next Star Wars movie will be a Thanos origin story featuring Jedi AND sassy droids, in a desperate attempt to reboot the franchise, and hopefully capture some of the Marvel magic.”

Can you imagine if this had happened? Online dudes would’ve flipped their lids and…I don’t know if they’d be mad about it or not, to be honest. Meanwhile, the general public would just kinda shrug and buy their tickets.

• • •

ExistentialMan individually thinks about the following

“1) DC will continue to publish fewer books than Marvel and be just fine.”

Given DC got hit with layoffs and reorganizing, not sure I’d say were “fine,” as such. Again, probably another COVID-related thing that no one could have accounted for because who knew a pandemic was on the way?

“2) The DC 100-Page Giant books will continue to sell at a steady pace throughout 2020. They will also not be released in digital format.”

The Giants program was replaced by multipacks, as discussed in a previous installment of this predictions coverage. But some of the previous original stories from the giants are making it to digitial. Just think of me and my store fondly, on occasion, as you all switch over to reading exclusively on your tablets and phones as I’m sure Jack Kirby intended.

“3) The Netflix/Millarworld show Jupiter’s Legacy will be released in 2020 to excellent reviews.”

Not out yet! One or two stills I’ve seen look pretty good, though, at least as far as costuming goes.

• • •

“1. Image comics will launch an extremely successful mega-hit series like Saga or The Walking Dead… BUT… It will be launched and planned as an ongoing series, but only 5 issues will ever come out and the series will be abandoned, like many others before it (like Bitch Planet for example).”

I guess Department of Truth had a strong start, but it wasn’t like wild Walking Dead numbers or anything. Too early as yet to see if it’ll break that five issue benchmark. however!

“2. Marvel, seeing the success of their 2019 X-Men relaunch, decide to add more titles to their X-Men line-up and have them all be interconnected. There will be the usual suspect, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, X-Force, X-Factor and New Mutants as well as more obscure ones like: Fallen Angels, Excalibur, Caliban the X-cellent, Stacy X vs Opioids, X-treme X-Men, Krakoa: The inner life of a living island, Marauders, Space X: The X-men in Space, Jean the Phoenix and Me, X-ceptional X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Krakoa’s Taxation Time, Roadwork: The Krakoan’s Gate Traffic Controller, ClassiX X-Men, Exiles, New X-Men, Weapon X, X-Men Legacy, X-Men 2099, X-Men party like it’s 1999, X-cetera. This dilutes the brand and sales plummet across all titles. In an attempt to boost sales, Marvel begin making ‘Pog’ variants”

I’d be all in the POG variants, natch. And yes, Marvel is (surprisingly slowly) adding titles to the X-side of their publishing line. So, not quite to the extent (X-tent?) you feared but I get what you’re coming from given Marvel’s long-standing publishing strategy of “if one sells well, two will sell better.” I will note that there’s been no X-book yet called X-Cetera is an absolute crime.

3. Another year without Lego comics

There some books featuring comic book characters, but no LEGO-themed comics, like there should have been to tie in to LEGO movies and toys and games because this industry just keeps walking the “no money to be made here” path. Ah, well, what can you do…just build your own superheroes in LEGO and have adventures with them, I guess.

• • •

Welp, Phinally Done with your 2020 predictions. We laughed, we loved, we all learned a little something. Thanks for contributing,o pals, and we’ll be back next year for the 2021 predictions! Of course, I’ll have posts wetween now and then, so I hope you return!

Your 2020 Predictions, Part Four: Behemoth from the World Below.

filed under Categories predictions 7 Comments

So here’s another bucket full o’funnybook foresights from you, my friendly readers, left a year ago on this very internet web homepage. There have already been three parts to this year’s journal (one and a two and a three)

And like I keep reminding you, YOUR 2021 COMIC INDSTRY PREDICTIONS ARE WANTED…NAY, NEEDED! Get ’em in before, you know, February hits, at the very least.

Okay, let’s see what you characters have for me this time:

Rob S. steals my heart with

“1) Josh Williamson will move from Flash after issue 100 (or what would be issue 100, since they’re renumbering). It’ll be the longest run of a writer on a Rebirth title, surpassing King on Batman. He’ll move on to a JSA book.”

It looks like #762 (or “#101” by this volume’s original numbering) appears to have been his swan song on the title, so you did, you magnificent bastard. As for moving on to a Justice Society title…I could’ve sworn I’d seen news about a JSA comic coming soon-ish, but darned if I can track it down now. Thus, let me put a pin in that part of the prediction ’til I can jumpstart my head and figure out where I saw that, if in fact I did.

“2) The DC Walmart books will get another revamping sometime this year, as their schedules and plans become clearer. Also, the previously announced and canceled DC War Giant will arrive around May, for Memorial Day.”

Appears they were revamped into prepacks of 4 individual comics (with “collectible backing board.” DC seems to have put the kibosh on the giants for now, both through Walmart and in comic shops. At least the Our Fighting Forces giant did get released on May 27th…so, same week as Memorial Day, anyway!

“3) Adam Strange’s ‘mystery co-star’ in the Tom King/Mitch Gerads/Doc Shaner Strange Adventures book will be Deadman, another former star of the title.”

‘Twasn’t Deadman, alas, but I wouldn’t mind seeing this team do a Deadman mini, actually.

• • •

Dave Carter hauls in the following

“1) After the huge success of Action #1000 & Detective #1000, and to a lesser extent Wonder Woman #750 & Flash #750, DC’s 5G reboot will see a return to legacy numbering for many of the DCU titles.”

Would’ve been nice. Like, let’s get Justice League back to its original numbering. Who knows, with Bendis coming onto that title, maybe there’s a chance? We’ll see.

“2) Wonder Woman 1984 will be the highest grossing movie by a non-Disney studio.”

Well, all things considered…yes, actually, far as I can tell. I mean, in worldwide totals it, but just domestically The Croods, for which there was apparently a sequel, took in a bit more green. Anyway, who the hell is going to movie theaters right now. I mean, domestically, mostly.

“3) Someone publishes a comic featuring super-hero (or otherwise fantastical) versions of the Democratic & Republican presidential nominees fighting it out via fisticuffs.”

Seemed like, aside from the plethora of Donald Trump comics, we didn’t seem to get a whole lot of this sort of comic this time ’round, versus like how it was in the Obama era. THANKS, OBAMA. Anyway, there was an issue of Donald Who Laughs that looked like it had Trump versus Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I think that was as close as we got. Look, we were all hoping Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente would have had his own comic book last year, because if any name needs to be logo on a cover….

• • •

googum googummed

“1. Some Black Label or such book is going to take off for DC; and they’ll of course take the wrong lessons from it and try to cram all sorts of titles in there.”

Did any of them really “take off” this year? I mean, they mostly all did well, and people seemed to like them, but nothing stands out as spurring on more of the same. I mean, aside from having multiple Joker titles in the imprint. Anyway, I thought I remember reading that some new overseer at DC ain’t thrilled about “mature reader” books, so who knows what’s gonna happen.

“2. After Iron Man 2020, Marvel will follow-up with some of their other futures between then and 2099; like Deathlok and Killraven.”

If those characters (and related timeframes) did make an appearance, I don’t think it was anything major. I didn’t read many Marvel titles (or much of anything) this past year, but I can’t say I’d seen much along those lines.

“3. This would be late 2020 at best, but assuming some orange clown doesn’t win re-election, Marvel is going to have some comics that assumed he did, or that a more conservative regime is in place. (I think Dark Reign did the same thing some time back? Like it didn’t fit under Obama.)”

It’s my sense Marvel didn’t do much in this vein, but again, like I said, I didn’t read much Marvel this year, so if anyone has a better clue to what googum has googummed, please drop it in the comments.

• • •

Jeff R. rites

“1. Kalel Kent, Superman III of 2020 will appear in continuity during his year.”

THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY in that I don’t think this happened. I miss the Superman of 2020!

“2. At the end of the year we still won’t know when Doomsday Clock is supposed to be happened with regard to DC continuity around Alfred, Superman,etc.”

Well, we sort of know it takes place before Death Metal, I think. I mean, kinda sorta.

“3. The legion will still be going at years end and will have a cw show announced.”

Well, yes, technically it was still going since #12 is out this week, but after the Future State mini the series doesn’t seem to be back on the schedule. …Would love to see a live-action LSH series outside of their guest appearances in Supergirl but not holding my breath.

• • •

Andrew-TLA ventures on with

“1. Dark Horse will lose another of their major properties, either creator-owned or licensed.”

Were the losses of Alien and Predator known by the end of 2019? You know, it was probably presumed but it was definitely a thing in 2020. Especially once Marvel started announcing Alien variant covers for their comics late in the year.

“2. Rumors will fly fast and furious on the alleged news sites about possible casting choices for Wolverine and the Thing. That one of them will eventually be proven right is down more to the fact that every possible name was listed rather than any sort of insider information.”

I don’t think there’s been any Real Announcements as per actual casting, so alas, we have to wait to find out if Daniel Dae Kim really will be Wolverine or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be the Thing. (Don’t lie, you know these are great choices.)

“3. Comic books will continue to be published in their traditional single-issue format.”

Despite my best efforts, yes.

• • •

@misterjayem “at”s me with

“2020 in review:

“1) It was the best of times,”

Well, I’m not so sure about that.

“2) It was the worst of times,”

But here, I think you might be onto something.

“3) J.A.K.E., the G.I. Robot”

Had to do a little Googling to check, and there was surprisingly a handful of appearances in recent years, but alas, not in 2020, when we needed G.I. Robot the most.

• • •

The King of the Moon waxes and wanes with the following

“The witch who put a curse on Mike’s eyeballs will finally be brought to justice”

Not yet, but definitely being held at bay. (And let’s be fair, it could be a warlock.)

“Disney+ announces a Power Pack cartoon”

Supposedly there’s a film in the works, but the fact that there’s no Disney+ cartoon could only mean Disney has decided they’ve made enough money and don’t need to make any more.

“Johnny Tremain – the motion comic”

Just no appreciation for the classics these days, what can I tell you.

• • •

Okay, we’re within spittin’ distance of the end here, and hopefully I can wrap it up next time! Thanks for reading pals, and I’ll see you soon.

Sorry, pals…

filed under Categories low content mode 2 Comments

…the next part of the prediction-fest will be up tomorrow.

Hope everyone’s having a good Monday, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.