all star batman

Maybe if the Champions showed up in the Life of Pope John Paul comic.

filed under Categories all star batman, marvel, retailing 7 Comments

So Marvel’s been teasing an upcoming series/event/thingie that involves a murder, prompting folks to draw comparisons to DC’s recently concluded murder mystery even comic Heroes in Crisis. Which, you know, fair enough…there’s no shortage of times Marvel’s copied something successful of DC’s, and DC’s copied something successful of Marvel’s. I’d just mentioned Marvel Comics #1000 a few days ago as a very recent example.

This time around, the general assumption seems to be that Marvel is biting DC’s recently concluded mini-series Heroes in Crisis, which also centered around a superhero-related murder mystery. I saw the reaction online from here and there wondering why Marvel “didn’t learn from DC’s mistake,” why they would model one of their own projects on something their competitors did that was “bad” and a “disgrace” or whatnot.

The answer, of course, was that Heroes in Crisis, despite what anyone may have thought of it online, despite what perhaps you thought of it…it still did very well. Sold well enough for individual issues to go into multiple printings to meet demand. And just from personal experience, many of my customers were really into it and greatly anticipated each succeeding issue. It had a base of readers who did like it quite a bit.

Despite online grousing, was well received by the comic buying public. Of course other companies would take inspiration from it. It has nothing to do with how good or bad you might think the actual story is — and personally, I thought it was 5 pounds of story in a 30-pound bag, with good intentions but questionable results — it made money, which is the most important metric for publishers.

Reminds me a bit of that classic Batman comic book series y’all liked so much, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, nearly every issue receiving an enormous amount of derision online. And yes, and I even said this at the time, as I recall, at least at our store it was one of the highest-selling, if not the highest selling comic for that period. Outsold X-Men, the other Batman titles, Amazing Spider-Man, several others…lots of people hating on it online, but someone was buying it. And it wasn’t all bloggers picking up copies to scan and mock on their sites.

Anyway, if you find yourself wondering why a publisher puts out this comic or that comic, or why they’d emulate someething their competitor did that you didn’t care for…it’s all about the…Washingtons? Lincolns? I don’t know your youth slang of today. But you get what I mean.

It did get me thinking a bit about different publishers mimicking the sales strategies of others. Especially after reading this week’s new issue of Doomsday Clock — only one issue to go, where hopefully the previous 11 issues of set-ups and mysteries will get resolved in a normal-sized comic and not an 80-giant giant like it seems it will require.

But despite that, what I was thinking was what Marvel-published work that had previous been standalone, but also highly regarded, would be the equivalent of DC’s ,cite>Watchmen? And, would also be highly inappropriate to mix Marvel’s modern superhero universe with it. Most of the things I was thinking of were either under the Epic imprint and not technically owned by Marvel…like an Avengers/Moonshadow crossover or something…or like The ‘Nam, but that had a Punisher appearance of all things, so I guess that was kinda done.

Marvels doesn’t really count, because that’s just the regular Marvel Universe, told with a then-fresh viewpoint and art style. Unless Marvel took a month to have all their titles transform their contents into Marvels-a-likes. We did have Marvel’s anniversary celebration of that series with tribute variant covers, so we got kind of a taste of that, with mixed results.

So anyway, if you think of a good one, let me know.

Yes, I know Tumbleweeds is done.

filed under Categories all star batman, comic strips, popeye 9 Comments

So Dave Carter of Earth sez in response to my last post, he sez

“I wonder if kids these days get exposed to Popeye like we did when we were young? I mainly learned the basics of Popeye mythology (Popeye, Olive, Swee’Pea, Bluto/Brutus, Wimpy, spinach, etc.) though the cartoon, which ran on a local UHF station. But I’m not aware of any way a kid these days would encounter Popeye unless it is purposely placed in front of them by an adult-type.”

…And yeah, that was something I was wondering about myself the other day. Well, in sort of a roundabout way, I suppose. I was wondering if we would ever see, arising from the newspaper funny pages, a strip that would achieve the near-universal recognition and/or influence of, like, Garfield, or Peanuts, or Dilbert, or even Popeye.

I mean, sure, it’s not like the strips can’t be found, and even if people don’t have newspaper subscriptions, which nowadays is more and more likely, the comics can always be found online at the various syndication websites. But there that requires readers to go and seek the strips out, versus the strips coming into your home every day with the latest copy of the Oxnard Press-Courier (or your local equivalent). Near effortless daily access for readers of all ages compared to a readership comprised of at least slightly tech-savvy folks (or at least with tech-savvy relatives to show ’em how to get the new Marvin)…there’s going to be some attrition.

And not to mention selection…the latter group won’t be getting the full page or two of every strip in the paper, where they’ll at least be aware of Tumbleweeds, probably spending the couple of seconds to read it even if they don’t like it. Instead they’d likely pick and choose which strips they want to follow…no inadvertently scanning over strips they didn’t want to read, no basic knowledge of the strips they don’t see.

I’m making a lot of assumptions here. My thesis here essentially boils down to “comic strips aren’t the universal experience they used to be,” which I don’t think can be too heavily argued against, even if the reasons for this are up for debate. Is there going to be another licensing juggernaut like Garfield that spawns out of the traditional newspaper strip format? Or even from web-only strips? Surely there will be some marketing success with other strips, but only if they make it into other media, and not nearly on the scale of a slothful orange cat or a neighborhood filled with neurotic children.

Anyway, we were talking about Popeye. Popeye, of course, was immensely popular nearly from the get-go, with his introduction in the comic strip in 1929, and the famous cartoons, and, inexplicably, the chicken restaurant (RIP that tie-in license, by the way). But now, in 2018, like Dave said above, it seems like the number of opportunties for kids to learn about Popeye are drastically reduced.

The comic strip runs reruns of old Bud Sagendorf dailies, while still producing new Sunday strips by Hy Eisman. I don’t know how many subscribing papers Popeye has, but it can’t be too many, possibly only a fraction of the number it held in its heyday. You know, like almost every other strip.

The cartoons, which seemed ubiquitous on TV in my youth, have been relegated to the specialty channels. Not sure how often they’re shown, or what the viewership is, but certainly the numbers are lower there too.

And I don’t know how many kids are stumbling across the Official YouTube Popeye Channel…maybe some, I’m sure. Oh, and don’t forget the popular attraction in Malta built around the still-standing sets for the 1980 Popeye movie that starred Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.

I admit some bias…I don’t see Popeye on TV or in the paper or just by happenstance over the course of my day (well, yes, except at the store), so I’m assuming nobody does. When I see anything Popeye-related, it’s when I seek it out…like renting the archival DVDs of the original cartoons from Netflix, or watching, like I did very recently, that 1980 live action adaptation (short review: beautifully designed, wondefully cast, stupefyingly presented), or buying a specific issue off the eBay.

As it turns out, when I received that very Popeye comic in the mail at the shop, my niece (who used to be the 10-year-old niece I’d occasionally mention on this site and who is now my 21-year-old niece, in case you needed another shove towards the grave) happened to stop by to say hello. I said “hey, look what I got in the mail!” and she replied “hey, Popeye!” so she definitely knew who the character was. A while later, thinking about what Dave said, I asked her about how she knew about Popeye. Her reply was that, when she was younger, her dad’s parents would sometimes let her read her dad’s comics from when he was a kid, which included the adventures of our favorite gazookus which hates all palookas. And she would see Popeye cartoons on the very same cable network I’d linked above while pooh-poohing its viewership.

So, you know, it’s Popeye. He’s too tough to be forgotten, and he’ll find a way to connect with kids somehow. Maybe the audiences aren’t are huge and widespread as they once were, and it’s not as easy to just happen across any of his material, but he and Olive and Wimpy and Bluto (and Brutus) are all still hanging in there, waiting for that next child eventually to discover what E.C. Segar created for all of us so long ago.

“The crossover event of the century continues!”

filed under Categories all star batman, publishing 21 Comments

So just the other day I was reminded of Image United, Image Comics’ big crossover event featuring the company’s founders and their characters all doin’ something or other. The most recent issue of the series, #3, was released August 18, 2010. As of right now, Image United‘s gap in publication exceeds even Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk‘s delay between its second and third issues by about three months.

According to our distributor, Image United #4 has a supposed release date of 12/25/13, which is, well, Christmas, but it does fall on a Wednesday this year, so I guess it’s theoretically possible it could be on sale that day, assuming your local comic dealer isn’t all sauced up on whatever else he’s put into the eggnog. Also, it’s the last on-sale date of the year, which means that’s likely just a placeholder date, sometimes used by Diamond on items with…indefinite arrival times.

A quick Googling shows a comment on the subject from our pal Rob Liefeld back in June, who gives us 2014 as The Year Image United Would Continue. …Anyway, show of hands from folks surprised by this publishing development? …Anyone?

In fairness, and spurred on by Employee Timmy who suggested this, I looked into the dates ‘n’ fates of the single greatest Batman series ever published, All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, by Arthur Miller and Jason Lee. I think. It’s been a while.

Anyhoo, the last issue published was #10, solicited February ’08 and released 9/24/08, well over five years ago, back when the sun shone more brightly, and I still had a good strong grip on my hopes and dreams. Orders for issue #11 were originally solicited April ’08, and then resolicited in September of that year. Issue #12 was solicited in June ’08, then again in October. Needless to say, #11 and #12 never came out, and both listings on the distributor site have a big fat red “CANCELLED” on them. They also both have FOC (“Final Order Cut-off”) dates of 12/31/19, so, you know, I have a long time to think about that. The series was supposed to wrap up in a separate mini-series, but nothin’ doin’ just yet. (Related: it’s a damned shame I’m not in that Wiki article as one of series’ defenders. I mean, who loved that comic more than me?)

I guess, kinda sorta, that makes All Star Batman a strong entry in the Longest Funnybook Publication Delay in The Middle of A Storyline That Still Possibly Will Get Completed Someday, since I’m not sure it’s entirely off the table. Another quick Googling shows comments from a 2012 interview with Jim Lee on a site not to be linked to or named here that he’s not given up on continuing the series. So who knows. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see it someday.

And then there’s that gap in Miracleman‘s publication, but let’s not get me started on that topic again.
 
 

image from Image United #2 (December 2009)

And yes, I titled that post that way on purpose.

filed under Categories all star batman, self-promotion 6 Comments

So Bob asked a few guest-bloggers to pop in and talk up stuff that they might like that other folks don’t care for, and I submitted this bit of hoohar just to be a problem. Find out why people are already heaping such ebullient praise upon this post as “what gives?” and “clinically insane!”

Anyway, don’t came back here to tell me I’m wrong. I’ll just assume you already think that.

The Easter Beagle brought me something special this year.

filed under Categories all star batman 3 Comments


Comics Alliance has a report from this weekend’s Wondercon that the very much delayed All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee will be returning next year, rebranded Dark Knight: Boy Wonder. In “I’ll Believe It When I See It” news, DC Comics is promising on-time shipping for the remaining issues of the storyline. Regardless, it’s good to know that there’s at least something in the works, and that the comic hasn’t been totally forgotten.

Over at that Comics Alliance post, Rocco has this to say in the comments:

“I’m sure Mike Sterling is thrilled..”

You’re darn tootin’ I’m thrilled, Rocco! It’s an Easter miracle!

Bat-talk.

filed under Categories all star batman

So I had a few responses to yesterday’s post about Batman and Robin, All Star Batman, and so on, and I thought I’d respond to a few of them here rather than hiding them away in the comments section.

  • First off is Dean, who sez:

    “I’ve never quite understood the logic of marketing something like ‘All-Star Batman and Robin’ as a periodical in the first place. […] The individual floppies were priced around $3 to start, so in essence DC was offering 264 pages of Miller-Lee for $36. Is there any chance that it wouldn’t have sold 100,000 copies had it been released straight-to-trade at that price?”

    Probably not, but all things being equal here, we’d still be waiting for that theoretical Miller/Lee All Star Batman book to come out, for the reasons Dean gives later in his comment. And given that the book is, shall we say, a bit challenging to a typical reader’s expectations for a Batman story, word of mouth reviews, from those less enlightened than All Star Batfans like you and me, may prevent some folks from picking up a $25 book, who may otherwise have sampled a $2.99 issue.

    There are pros and cons for both sides here, but I don’t think DC would ever have seriously considered releasing ASB as a book from the get-go, given it would probably turn into a much talked-about no-show like Miller’s theoretical Holy Terror Batman story.

    If the industry was a little further along in its transition from a periodical-based model to a book-based one, it could be we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But to have a new, ongoing Batman book by Frank! Miller! and Jim! Lee! on the stands is too much of an ongoing potential sales/publicity coup for DC to resist, potential delays aside.

  • Your Obedient Serpent (say, I’ve always wanted one of those!) says a thing or two about a thing or two:

    “So much of comic sales come from stores with subscribers and hold lists that there really ISN’T anything resembling consequences for late books. Bad books, sure; if something starts to stink, I’ll cross it off my list. If I have a budget crunch, I’ll start whittling away at the titles that are least-impressive. […] If a book is late or erratic, people are going to be MORE prone to keeping it on their hold list, because they know it’ll slip right by them if they DON’T.”

    That is true in the case of comic savers that the lists tend to remain fairly stable, and that lateness rarely plays into said savers dropping books. (Though it did result in more than one subscriber asking me why I didn’t pull Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk #1 and #2 for them after seeing #3 in their box. “I pulled those for you three years ago,” I’d tell them.)

    However, in this case I was still referring to rack sales. We do get a lot of walk-in traffic, so our percentage of new comic sales to comic savers isn’t as large as you’d expect. Like I said, Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk still sold well, and when All Star Batman does deign to come out, it’s usually our top selling comic (or close to) for the month. I think this is more an artifact of the modern comics business and customer expectations…after so many significant delays on high profile books, people have just become used to them. It’s Business as Usual.

  • Matthew (who’s recently sent me a couple of awesome logo banners that I’ll be using soon!) wonders the following:

    “I’m curious to know if folks who liked THE DARK KNIGHT film are coming in and checking out the Bat-books. If someone really dug that movie, or BEGINS, and decided to see what the comics were like I would imagine it would be a bit jarring to find out Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman right now. Or do you just recommend trades to those people (if they even exist. I’m assuming a lot here)?”

    I know a couple of people have already answered this in the comments, and I’m mostly in agreement with them. Dark Knight didn’t really create increased demand for Batman comics. Batman is just one of those characters there’s always demand for, regardless. You do bring up a good point that perhaps someone new to comics may be thrown off a bit by someone else in the costume, but…well, as Cole said in response to you later in the comments, there have been enough different interpretations of Batman over the years that anyone interested enough in the character to actually sample a comic can probably catch on pretty quick. The premise that Batman’s former sidekick Robin has taken over for his mentor is a simple one to grasp, even for people only vaguely familiar with the character.

    But as Matthew implies, if people want Batman Classic, it’s not as if there’s not 70+ years’ worth of previously-published adventures to choose from!

  • I’ve already covered a few things Cole mentions in the previous response, but he also sez

    “…Based on things Mike and others have said over the years, the connection between movies and serialized monthly comics doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as strong as it is for discrete works like Watchmen.”

    The other part of it seems to be that if there’s a bump at all, it’s usually 1) for the first film in a series (i.e. Spider-Man 2 and 3 didn’t help comic sales any) and 2) almost exclusively prior to the film’s release. So by default, the Watchmen movie would be the “first” in a “series” (oh God, let’s hope that’s not the case), thus bumping sales on the book. If there were a Watchmen 2: Seymour Rising (for example) I wouldn’t expect sales on the comic to experience anywhere close to the same bump.

    That said…sales on Watchmen at our shop have pretty much dried up. Used to be, for the last couple of decades, I’d have to order copies every week. Haven’t had to order one in a few months. Like since, oh, I think, around the time the film came out. Funny, we sell a lot of books here.

  • Bill D. notes

    “…There are plenty of people out there who consider themselves Batman fans without ever coming into contact with the comics. I saw a contestant on Jeopardy’s Teen Tournament a year or two back who talked about being a huge Batman fan, and was obsessed with the movies, the cartoons, the games, and the toys. When Alex asked him about the comics, the kid said he didn’t have any of the comics, and that they actually held no interest for him at all.”

    I encounter that a lot at the shop, actually. Lots of “big fans” of Wonder Woman, or Silver Surfer, or Superman, looking for stuff with those characters…but not the comics. The iconography of the figures is what’s attractive for those people, and, you know, that’s fine.

    Wonder Woman in particular is a popular favorite for this type of collector. We try to order WW merchandise whenever we can, because that stuff is like printing money, honey.

  • My longtime customer Jo comments that she didn’t care for Batman and Robin specifically because of the character filling the Robin role. And I can see that…he can be a bit offputting, but that’s what I’m liking about the particular dynamic here. It actually reminds me a bit of the portrayal of the Batman and Robin team in All Star Batman, with an antagonistic sidekick constantly giving grief to Bats.

    Of course, you’re not supposed to like this new Robin…he’s a nasty little jerk, he’s rude to Alfred (and nobody’s rude to Alfred), and he’s clearly going to get some sense knocked into him along the course of this storyline. So, Jo, if you don’t like him, keep reading…he’ll get his comeuppance!

  • JBS says

    “Judd Winick and Ed Benes – a solid creative team? huh?”

    I knew someone would say something about that. And, yeah…it’s a solid creative team featuring talents that are competent and proven sellers. I know people gripe about them online, but those folks generally don’t represent actual real world comic sales. As pal Dorian says in his following comment, this comic functions as “counterprogramming” — if you don’t like that Batman book, maybe you’ll like this one. If you don’t care for Morrison and Quitely’s take, you can have this more traditional version by Winick and Benes.

    Plus, Winick’s previous run on the Bat-books was well-received and a good seller, so I’m looking forward to his return to the title. (Yeah, yeah, I know…”well-received? Huh?” Don’t you start with me.)

  • Chris T wraps it up with

    “I never knew Rick Veitch had a blog. Thanks for tip!”

    You’re welcome! Rick Veitch’s weblog is awesome, and everyone should check it out every day. SO SAYS MIKE.

"Recall Explicit Swearing Error Banned Alternate Mint"

filed under Categories all star batman

Various ways the misprinted All Star Batman and Robin #10 is being described on the eBay:

Banned edition

Bat-ho variant

HOLY F&#@ All Star Batman & Robin #10 BANNED potty

Batman F-Bomb #10 Recalled Error

Recall Explicit Swearing Error Banned Alternate Mint

ERROR RECALLED NM/M F&#@ WOW

Holy #*&$ Batman!! Printing error shows foul language

RECALLED – Swear Words

You know, it’s not really banned, as such.

Interestingly, I found one auction ended with a “Buy It Now” at about ten bucks for a current, non-misprinted version of issue #10. It’s not unimaginable, I suppose…a number of years ago, I used to list brand new comics on eBay every week at cover price, and occasionally one would get multiple bids, driving the price up. But I looked at this auction for the F-bombless version of ASBAR, and found this in the item’s description:

“Corrected Edition
Already Sold Out at Diamond ! Definitive Collector’s Item with Error Variant!”

They’re trying to say “this corrected edition also has an error variant, maybe you’ve heard of it,” which is likely there just to get the word “error” into the description text to grab searches. But I think it’s within the realm of possibility that whoever bid on this may have thought “say, this item comes with the error variant! Woo hoo!”

Hey, it might have happened.

I should also note that prices are coming way down on the misprinted #10…my prediction a while back that I’ll be able to get a copy for about five bucks or so within a few months is well on its way to coming to pass.

  • DC Comics cans its Minx imprint. Don’t have much to say about it myself, other than they didn’t do all that well for us, either, but Kevin Church has some extended commentary (beginning with some joke commentary which, really, may be more true than one would initially think), and longtime comics blogging treasure Johnny Bacardi gets into it as well.
  • All but two of our copies of Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #14 were misprinted, featuring repeated pages. Retailers, check your copies…customers, check yours, too.

    By the way, what I’ve been able to read of this issue is typical top-notch Treehouse of Horror funnybooking. Includes a black and white Death Note parody (in that manga Simpsons style that’s been getting some play over the last year or two), and Gilbert Hernandez’ installment is just downright peculiar. And great.

  • Pal Dorian looks at Green Arrow strutting his stuff, and uses the single longest Green Arrow panel scan I’ve seen on a website. IT’S HUGE.

In case you haven’t read enough about this lately.

filed under Categories all star batman

Verbatim asked:

“So how many of the ‘C’mon, I know you have some of those All-Star Batman #10s in the back. How much are you asking?’ phone calls have you gotten?”

Not nearly as many as I was expecting, given the fact that it’s apparently made it into real world news sources, in print and on TV. Normally that means “crazed rush by folks who haven’t been in a comic shop since the last news report about comics,” but I didn’t really see it this time. Maybe awareness of the situation hasn’t yet reached that critical mass required to trigger the sales rush, or everyone skipped the middleman and went straight to the eBay, where there’s approximately one gazillion copies up for auction. Or no one felt like calling us this weekend. (sniff) Nobody loves us….

We did have a handful of inquiries, mostly from regulars, and we did have a couple of folks who were driven into the shop by the news reports. One of them mentioned to me another prize of his collection, his copy of Adventures of Superman #596 featuring an allegedly prophetic scene of destruction involving buildings similar to the World Trade Center.

But no, we received no copies of All Star Batman #10: Frank Miller Unfettered. Figures…here I am, one of the few people on the internet bold enough to have declared my love for this series almost since the beginning, and took the attendant scorn and abuse from the unbelievers…and I didn’t get a copy. The fates mock me openly. I’ll have to be satisfied with these ginormous scans (click ’em for expanded hilarity)…at least until the eBay prices dip down to about the five buck level in a few months, and I’ll snap up a copy or three then. Er, I need the extra copies for friends. Yeah.

On a related note, I did a completed-auctions check on the eBay for Wolverine #131, with the typo/offensive slur…found one that sold for $2.99, another for $5.50. Okay, that comic is ten years old now…maybe I’ll have to wait a little longer than a few months for ASBAR #10 to drop in price, but it will eventually, I’m sure.

Received the first of a few boxes of a massive collection of miscellaneous funnybook and rock ‘n’ roll collectibles and magazines…which included multiple bags of pinback buttons. I loves me the pinback buttons, as some of you may remember from a few years ago when I scanned multiple samples from my button collection and posted about them for, oh, months on end. Well, brace yourselves, because I’ll probably be doing it again.

Here’s a sample:


I know it’s a promo for a fast food joint/restaurant, but I’d prefer to think it’s either the worst piece of character-based Achewood merchandise…or the best.

All Star Batman and Robin? "All Star Batman!"

filed under Categories all star batman, here comes the april fool 1 Comment

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All Star Batman and Robin:

“All Star Batman and Robin All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman [sic] All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin!”

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All Star Batman and Robin:

  • All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman? All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin All Star Batman: All Star Batman.
  • All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder…All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin, All Star Batman All Star Batman. All Star Batman!
  • All Star Batman All Star Batman and Robin All Star Batman All Star Batman:


    All Star Batman? All Star Batman and Robin:


    All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder!

EDIT (4/2): Good God, did I really type all that? What was I thinking?

Anyway, have some screenshots of the event: 1 2 3 4

More racial sensitivity in comic books, selling out, shameless shilling, on becoming a tool for big media, and the menace of Arcane’s hair.

filed under Categories all star batman, death of cap, racial sensitivity, retailing

From Detective Comics #355 (Sept. 1966):


Man, our Native American friends are always getting it in the shorts thanks to our old funnybooks. I’d like to think that, maybe, the comic is commenting on the short-sighted, stereotyping attitudes of some of the wrestling match’s audience members, but since the story also gives the Arizona Apache an “AIEEEEE” battle cry, well….

On the other hand, maybe it’s a subtle criticism of the usage of stereotypes within, not just the world of pro wrestling, but entertainment in general, which is a layer of metatext too great for some dumb mid-’60s Batman comic (which clearly just used these clichés to sell the character’s Indian-ness) to support without collapsing into a black hole of overanalysis.

Didn’t stop me from trying, though, did it? Sigh…such is the burden of the comics blogger.

In other news:

  • I mentioned it here, and I gotta tell you, after the weekend, we’re down to one copy of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. Okay, we didn’t start with too many to begin with, but that we still managed to move copies of this book is just mildly stunning.
  • Also following up on that Wednesday post of mine, we sold through all our Captain America #34s, but solely to our regular comic buyers. In our area, at least, all that real world coverage just preached to the converted, if it influenced them at all. So it did sell a little better than normal, just not “crazy better” like the “death” issue did. So, basically, it sold like we thought it would.

    I’ve noticed that some of the real world coverage is still rolling out, here and there, so I suppose there’s still the possibility of a new customer or two curious enough about this here new Cap fella to make it to the shop and inquire after copies. ‘Course, they’ll have to wait until the “variant cover” 2nd printing, or the dreaded “Director’s Cut,” if they’re still interested.

  • With that Project Superpowers #0 priced at a buck, people are a little more willing to buy two copies in order to get both halves of that Alex Ross connecting cover (pictured at the top left right here. It would have been nice to have one wraparound cover instead, however.
  • If I may direct your attention to the sidebar for a little shameless shilling, I’d like to point out that due this week is the animated Turok Son of Stone DVD…I’ve only seen this trailer, which makes it look like it’s sticking, more or less, with the original concept of the character, and none of the sci-fi “dinos with guns” trappings tacked on later. Well, maybe with a lot more blood, but close enough. No idea if it’s any good, but thought some of you would like to know that it’ll be unleashed this Tuesday.

    Also, I missed that the new Ms. Tree novel Deadly Beloved and the latest Wild Cards novel Inside Straight have been released. So, I thought I’d pass that info along (as well as Amazon store sidebar links, nudge wink) in case any of you missed that, too.

  • So at the store, we regularly get free merchadise bags from a promotional company that produces said bags advertising various movies and TV shows. We’ve had Torchwood bags, and South Park bags, and, currently, we have a bunch of bags advertising the Terminator TV show. The box they came in was getting a little ratty, so I decided to move our stock of these things into a new container…and in the process, I found this little doodad, packed in among the plastic sacks:


    It was a little Terminator flashlight keychain, which I thought was kind of a neat thing, so I threw it in my pocket and continued the repacking of the bags.

    When I got home later that evening, the porch of my house was pretty dark, and I remembered that I had the flashlight on my person. Instead of briefly fumbling with the keys, trying to get the right one into the keyhole, I thought I’d save myself that one whole extra second and shed a little light on the matter. And I was surprised to see this:


    I though it was just a plain ol’ flashlight, but it instead projects an ad for the show. That pic’s a little blurry, but you can see the Terminator skull and the logo. Cool!

    I know, it doesn’t take much to amuse me. Also, it hasn’t inspired me to start watching the show, so I guess as a TV show promoter, it makes a good dark porch illuminator.

  • For those of you that were wondering, and I bet you were…my copy of the Swamp Thing TV show DVD set came in the mail a couple days ago, containing two full seasons of wonder and beauty. Well, okay, actually it just contains the Swamp Thing TV show. There are a couple special features, interviews with the character’s co-creator Len Wein, and with the actor under the rubber swamp outfit, Dick Durock.

    I only just started watching the episodes themselves, and I’d forgotten just how…metallic and gravelly, if you get my meaning, Swamp Thing’s voice sounded on this show. Also, I have lots and lots of footage of Arcane’s Dennis Miller-esque hairdo to look forward to.

    I hadn’t seen the show in years, and for some reason, my brief exposures to the show left me with the impression that there were lots of shots of Swampy standing in bushes, behind walls, etc., all to save the cost of having to get poor Mr. Durock in the full get-up. I guess I’ll be seeing if that impression was true.

    And remember, kids…do not bring your evil here, or face…


    THE WRATH OF SWAMP THING