pal plugging

Star surfing, across the universe.

filed under Categories collecting, marvel, pal plugging, silver surfer, star trek 18 Comments

So I got something in a collection the other day that I’ve never seen before. Well, I mean, I’ve seen the comic, of course, in its much more common “softcover book” variety. But for the first time ever, I’ve seen it in hardcover form:


It’s the 1978 Silver Surfer original graphic novel by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, along with Joe Sinnott, John Constanza, Glynis Wein, and cover artist Carl Norem, retelling an alternate version of the character’s origins without the involvement of the Fantastic Four. This was one of a handful of releases from Fireside Books/Simon and Schuster that included Origins of Marvel Comics.

Way back when, at onne of the local bargain stores, there were stacks of the softcover available at next-to-nothing prices. (Also available for deep discounts at the same store: DC’s Famous First Edition treasuries in piles and piles.) I never bought one then, which I of course regret, but not as much as I regret not buying all of them to now sell in my comic shop.

It’s probably because of that long-ago stock dump that I keep seeing copies of the softcover version turn up in collections. As I said above, however, this is the first time the hardcover edition has made its way into my funnybook-worn hands. The dust jacket has seen better days, but otherwise the book looks good.

Here’s the back cover:


The inner flaps of the dust jacket:


Unfortunately, there’s no design on the book’s covers themselves:


…but at least you get some inlaid silver lettering on the spine:


It’s a neat book, and believe it or not, for all the times I’ve come across it at both of the shops I’ve worked at, either in the original softcover or via Marvel’s later reprintings, I’ve never read it. I am seriously considering keeping this for myself. I know, I know, how am I going to make any money and stay in business if I keep all the cool stuff for myself (like all the Popeye comics and fanzines that come my way), but this is a neat time and I’m really tempted. I mean, I’ll at least give it a read before putting it out for sale.

• • •

My ol’ Pal of the Internet Kevin Church has written a nice piece in celebration of Star Trek‘s 60th anniversary, and I heartily recommend that you go read it.

I’m a little jealous of Kevin in that he remembers exactly when, and with which episode, he became a fan. I was one of those folks who picked up on Trek when it was in syndication in the early ’70s, that period when a lot of new fans discovered the series. I remember watching it on TV, both the original series and that cartoon, I had several of the toys (the Mego figures, the bridge set, even communicators and the tricorder), but I was perhaps too young to remember which episode to which I was first exposed.

And then Star Wars hit in 1977, and that began to occupy a large segment of my forming fandom brain…but I never forgot Star Trek, which has continued to this very day, finally achieving perfection with the greatest Trek series of all time:


“Search your feelings, you know it to be true,” as someone from a famous sci-fi franchise once said. I think it was Captain Janeway.

Seriously, Fred is all over the place.

filed under Categories pal plugging, retailing, this week's comics 3 Comments

On the comic shelves this week, a couple of comics by Close Personal Friends that I wish to point out to you, the potential readers of such:

First off is Fixation #1, part of the new line of crime comics from IDW:


This is written by Amy Chase, one of my regular customers and a Special Guest at the last couple of Free Comic Book Day events at the shop (here’s a nice photo of her at one, in her swell shirt), with some great art by Savanna Mayer (whose work you saw in Return to Sleepy Hollow, amongst other books). There’s moider at a convention celebrating the anniversary of a popular vampire film, but is it more than just an unstable fan? Read the comic and find out!

Also, listen to Amy chat about the series on the Cryptid Creator Corner podcast.

Also out this week is the Major Taylor hardcover from Drawn and Quarterly, about the first Black world champion cyclist:


…written and drawn by my old, old pal Fred Noland. I’ve known Fred since he was but a young’un, probably at least since the late ’80s. He was also part of the Full Frontal Harvey crew, our mini-comics concern from the mid-1990s-ish, which I’ve written about a bit. He’s had plenty of comics output since then, and you can see and read plenty of examples right here. And here. And if you’re in Berkeley, CA in a couple of weeks, you can see him in person!

Look, I just Googled Fred to see what I can link to here, and hoo boy there is A LOT. I mean, check it out, he’s everywhere. And good on him, Fred is a good guy and deserves all the success he gets.

• • • 

In response to my post about Marvel’s Midnight shenanigans, Dallas asks

“Your shoppe didn’t get the pdfs from a couple weeks ago for each of the #1 issues?”

Well, here’s the thing. My comic shop email box gets an enormous amount of messages. I mean, it’s so much, you guys. Personal emails from customers and other Real People get priority, then messages that look like they may directly impact my business (like sale notifications from eBay, or bank stuff), then emails from distributors and creators and publishers, then all the business loan/V1Agr4 come-ons, then messages from pal Ian.

I’m sure I’m missing a category, but the point is I get a lot to sort through over the course of my day, on top of already doing stuff just in-store to run my business, so there’s only so much time I can devote to the ol’ inbox. Like, the Real People Messages I obviously spend time on, but the distributor etc. emails I sometimes just look at briefly, or not at all. Maybe it’s just a brief glance to see if there’s anything that immediately needs my attention (like “Hi Mike, this is Distributor X, we’re dropping your discount to 2% unless we hear from you in the next four hours”), or if it’s a sales pitch (“Don’t forget to up your orders on Unicycle Tragedy #182 because something big we’re not explaining is going to happen in it!”).

In short, there’s a lot to go through, and, yes, sometimes something slips through the cracks. Like that email with the downloadable Midnight PDFs, which I tried to download right now but they’re already removed from the server. Ah, well. I mean, honestly, if I barely have time to get through emails, how much time am I going to spend reading full issue PDFs? …Okay, again, I really do try to at least give even the PDFs a once-over, but the number of times that sort of thing has influenced my order numbers is exactly zero. Whether or not I think something is great doesn’t matter, it’s what the customers want that matters, and my tastes don’t necessarily jibe with theirs. Otherwise that Santos Sisters issue with Flaming Carrot would have been my best-selling book of the month.

Yes, I suppose one could glean from a PDF the possible quality of a comic, and how that might impact comic sales, but that’s still a nebulous thing upon which to base one’s orders. The only real gauge for comic orders is comic sales, and sometimes, like with a new thing such as these Midnight books, we won’t know how well they’ll do until we see how well they do. I could have perused that Midnight: Fantastic Four #1, thought it was the greatest comic I’ve ever read, ordered a royal buttload of copies, and then see it wither on the rack as all the customers turned up their noses at having to start yet another event.

I actually think it’s going to sell fine, though we’ll see where things go with #2.

I do appreciate the advance PDFs…I know publishers are hesitant, they don’t want spoilers turning up on theresreallyasiteforcomicsgossipreadbylikeadults.lu weeks ahead of release, and I really should make more of an effort. However, to be completely honest, their impact on my ordering decisions is minimal, particularly in these days when orders are pretty close to the bone on most titles, both regular ongoings and new debuts. Like I said in that post, it feels like Marvel wants to get something comparable to Absolute Batman‘s seemingly-undying shelf life.

As hard as it may be to believe now, even that new Bat-title got relatively conservative orders from me. I ordered higher because 1) it’s a new imprint from DC that 2) is kicking off with a Batman book. And while I did sell through that order, it didn’t happen immediately. Over time I learned what the regular order numbers should be. Would an advance PDF (or in this particular case, the “ashcans” I received) have affected my ordering? No, not really.

I’m not saying advanced PDFs are not useful to others in deciding their order numbers. I just don’t put a lot of emphasis on them myself. Maybe that’ll change, maybe I’ll incorporate that information on a case-by-case basis. But reading a comic book that’s actually in my hand does more for my appreciation and experience than looking at a file on a screen…and if it’s a good one, I’ll definitely let my customers know about it. And if sales go up, so do my orders. It’s a more evidence-based method of ordering, and one that’s worked well for me over the years.

Time for my legally-mandated quinquennial (or so) posting about Ghost Rider.

filed under Categories ghost rider, pal plugging, zines 12 Comments

So I’m sure you all remember this comic:


Released at the height of comic book gimmickry, this comic (by Howard Mackie, Ron Wagner and Mike Witherby) featured a cardstock “pop-up” foldout in the center of the book, which was a fairly unusual addition in comics at the time. And what was on said fold-out, you may ask? Well, something particularly lurid it seems, according to the original solicit in Diamond Previews:


Now that sounds all the world like we’re gonna see the actual act of Danny’s throat-ripping, as depicted in the most mature of formats, the pop-up page. And as expected, such a classy turn of events got quite the press, like this featured push in Wizard Magazine #8:


…which emphasizes the depiction of said throat-ripping in the pop-up.

Then there’s this front page headline in Comic Buyer’s Guide #950. BREAKING NEWS: THROAT-RIPPING:


As you see there, Marvel’s own sales director says this nigh-infamous pop-up “will make a Chicago butcher house look mild.” My Chicagoan readers, please let me know how carnage-filled a typical butcher house in your city is, compared to butcher houses in, say, Fairfax, or Portland. Any Portland. (EDIT: reader Matthew points out the connection that didn’t even occur to me…some English major I am.)

Anyway, what we’re being told here is that the throat-ripping we are about to behold in that pop-up in Ghost Rider #25 is gonna be something else. I mean, the butcher house comparison at least implies the pop-up’s gonna be a bloody mess, right?

Well, hang onto your flaming skull-emblazoned booty shorts, because here is a pic I took of comicdom’s most terrifying pop-up:


Ummmmmmmm, I don’t think this delivered what we were promised. There’s definitely some throat-action going on here, with the bad guy whose name I didn’t bother remembering has Ghost Rider by his. And there’s Danny, flat on the ground, post apparent throat-ripping.

The actual throat-ripping scene itself — and as an aside, I want to let you know that this is the most I’ve typed the words “throat-ripping” on my site, at least since the last time I wrote about dealing with comic distributors — appears on the page before the insert. Like so:


It’s…marginally more tasteful than what we were told to expect, I suppose. You know, as throat-rippings go. But as I recall at the time, the general feeling, at least around our store, was that Marvel may have had cold feet about something quite that brutal being depicted in what is essentially a gimmick common in children’s books, and thus did a last minute change to the art and story and pop-up.

I do not know if that was the case…and frankly, thinking about that now, I suspect that wasn’t the case. One possibility is that the lead time in producing this gimmick-laden comic would have precluded last-second changes to the final product, and I don’t recall Ghost Rider #25 was particularly late.

The other is that the content was being oversold, or that the promotion was being misinterpreted. But the original solicit, provided by Marvel, does say

“Blackout rips Dan’s throat out — a shocking turn of events depicted in an awesome, die-cut, 4-page pop-up center-spread!”

Oh, right, “Blackout,” that’s his name. But that’s pretty clear about what that pop-up was supposed to show. Not “Dan lying on the ground with his throat ripped out,” but actual, Stan Lee-approved throat-ripping, live and in color. (But in fairness to the sales guy, “bad guy fighting a leather-clad flaming skull dude in a cemetery” is probably much more extreme than what’s going on in your typical butchery, regardless of city.)

Ultimately, I don’t know what happened. Whether it was one thing then changed to another thing, or it was always intended to be like this and things just got exaggerated in the advertising, or what. But we were told one thing, and we got what we got.

This bit in Comics International #19 notes that speculation was afoot for this comic…not something I remember at our shop specifically at the time, but given the state of the comics market then, I don’t doubt it:


I like the incredulity of “a hot pop-up book.” I mean, like I sort of noted above, this gimmick is straight out of children’s books. Several comic book gimmicks came from children’s publishing. Hell, I had books with lenticular images when I was a child.

I don’t know if that speculation ever came to anything, as here in this dealer ad from Comic Buyer’s Guide #955, a few short weeks after that shocking headline feature, we got a guy just giving ’em away:


Speculator who got burned, perhaps? “What am I going to do with these 10 cases of Ghost Rider #25? Or those two cases of Magneto hologram cards, for that matter?”

This entire post came about because I just got to thinking about it again after pricing up a copy of this comic the other day. I have it at $4.50 in VF, by the way. You made $1.75 on that $2.75 investment!
 
 

Special thanks to Kwakk.info‘s ‘zine datebase, and Longbox Heroes’ library of ancient Previews! By the way, become a paid member of the Longbox Heroes Patreon so you can hear my contributions to their “Previewing the Past” podcasts!

SCIENCE!

filed under Categories pal plugging, publishing, superman 12 Comments

Thanks for the response to my Fantastic Four post, which, I have to admit, was a last-minute thing that I wrote with little to no planning. I do plan on returning to the topic, probably next week, with a little more thought to what I’m doing, I hope!

But for today, since I have a very early morning doctor’s appointment, I’m going to just point out that DC Comics is releasing 1972’s Action Comics #419 in a facsimile reprint edition this week.


Now, DC is releasing it because it’s the first appearance of the Human Target, who gets the occasional series and once had a TV show. But the big reason to pick up this comic is for its connection to the Hubble space telescope!

Bluesky pal Paul Cornish had an article in Scientific American a while back explaining the connection, and now seems like a good time to link to it!

• • •

In other news, the new Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide is out, and you may notice a slight physical difference from the previous year’edition:


Don’t get too excited, the new Guide is actually about 100 pages shorter in length. It’s printed on thicker, and much lighter, paper, so it no longer feels like the solid brick it paper that it used to. It’s slight and airy, despite its bulky appearance.

The comic book price listings are still in the same print size, with about 40 additional pages. Also, the strips of three mini cover reproductions across the tops of pages have been reduced to just one scan in the page corners.

In this day of “Hot Comic Apps” and such, the Guide may seem archaic, but it’s still a useful base for pricing, so long as you, y’know, do your research on that small percentage of books that may be seeing current price fluctuations. But stuff like Captain Savage, you probably don’t need to worry about the Guide being too far off the mark.

It’s still frustrating that the Guide devotes pages in every volume to “Pioneer” and “Victorian” comics, while ignoring undergrounds, which are more likely to be encountered in the wild. And, are more in need of current, consistent pricing. And, frankly, every time I’ve tried to buy a “Victorian-age” comic someone brought into the shop, given that the comic in question is in worse-for-wear condition, going by Guide prices always results in a rejection of my offer. “It’s old, therefore it’s expensive,” of course. Nobody wants to know their century-old item is worth only about $20.

Also, Yummy Fur still isn’t listed. C’mon, guys.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say. Oh, should note my copy of House of Secrets #92 is now valued at about $3500.

Now do The World Below.

filed under Categories pal plugging, publishing 10 Comments

So it seems to be a big time for BIG COMIC BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS, with the Comicspro event going on currently at…um, wherever it’s taking place, I have no idea. But the news just keeps coming…like a comic with Jay and Silent Bob invading the Marvel Universe (scripted by Kevin Smith, natch):


…which, frankly, I don’t know if they’re going to go “full blue” with the dialogue like that Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob book last year. I mean, if it was just Deadpool, then yeah, I can see ’em swearin’ it up, but Jeff the Land Shark is there! You can’t say “fuck” in front of Jeff the Land Shark! Anyway, I may have more Smith tolerance than most of my fellow comics-noscenti, so I’m looking forward to it, at least.

And then there’s DC, surprise surprise, announcing more titles for their best-selling Absolute line: Absolute Catwoman and Absolute Green Arrow:


…which, I mean, why not. I’m hoping DC doesn’t kill that goose for its golden eggs by cramming as many titles under this imprint as possible. They’re not really doing it now, they’re taking it nice and slow, but while Absolute Batman is outselling every other comic on the stands, that’s not necessarily true for the other Absolute titles. There are one or two that I honestly don’t expect to be around within a year or so, but we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m already getting in-store interest in these new additions, so that goose ain’t dead yet.

The big, big news, which…was it from Comicspro? Ah, who cares, it’s still big news. Anyway, it’s the return of Paul Chadwick’s Concrete:


I actually had to go back to this “Final ’80s Countdown” post where I wrote about the Concrete comics to figure out where the character’s storyline left off, and it was the 2006 mini-series The Human Dilemma. Yes, that was 20 years ago, and it was almost Miracleman-esque in its leaving readers hanging on a cliffhanger for decades. (Yes, there were a few shorts collected into a 2012 one-shot, but that’s not quite the same.)

Anyway, I’ll be glad to see more Concrete, and hope it doesn’t take another 20 years for a 90-year-old Paul Chadwick to release the next one!

For the last bit of shocking news I’m going to mention here, we’re finally getting repri–er, excuse me, facsimile editions, of the Kurt Busiek/George Pérez JLA/Avengers mini-series this summer.


As originally, Marvel and DC will be splitting the publishing chores, with Marvel putting out #1 and #3, and DC releasing #2 and #4. From Marvel’s May solicits here (get that pop-up blocker ready). Shockingly, it’s only $5.99 per issue. The last reprinting was just a few years ago in a supremely-limited edition, so it’ll be nice to have this comic around again. Honestly, it should never be out of print.

There’s just so much more going on in the comic news world right now (a Hello Kitty comic? HELLO MONEY), and I suggest you seek out your favorite Genre TV/Movie Site That Has Some Comic Book News Squirrelled Away Somewhere and catch up. I bet I’ll have a lot more to talk about on Monday. I haven’t even mentioned pal Amy‘s upcoming mystery comic yet! Lots of comics coming out that Comic Fan Mike is excited about, and Retailer Mike dreads having to figure out orders for. Ah well, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

• • •

In old news, Comic Book Yeti presents a 1994 interview with Mike Mignola talking about his brand new comic book Hellboy! (That’s a silly name, it’ll never go anywhere.) It’s funny to see him talk about having John Byrne continue to be involved in the Hellboy production process (SPOILER: Byrne only worked on the one Hellboy mini, though did other unrelated comics that featured cameos from Hellboy characters).

And speaking of Comic Book Yeti, I did a podcast interview with them a while back. And hey, so did Amy, listen to hers too!

I mean, any Mike, doesn’t have to be me.

filed under Categories how the sausage is made, pal plugging, podcast, swamp thing 6 Comments

I apologize for missing my usual Monday update, and even not managing to get one available a day late for Tuesday. Most of you know my primary blogging time is late at night, after the day’s duties are done, and before go into my beauty sleep that still isn’t working. Unfortunately, the last few days I’ve been just too tired to Generate The Content™ that you’ve come to depend on here, the Internet’s Only Comic Book Website.

So now that I’m back, first let me tell you that I’m sorry that I keep identifying the artist of this proposed original cover for Swamp Thing #88:


…as the late Michael Zulli, but it is in fact by Rick Veitch, which I promise I knew, once, but somehow Zulli’s name got into my head, and there you go. Thanks to BobH for giving me a virtual punch in the arm to straighten me out.

And more Swamp Thing news out of the New York Comic Con from last weekend…DC Comics is teaming up with Boom! Studios for a comic pairing up our favorite muck-encrusted mockery of a man with the still-ongoing suspense/horror series Something Is Killing the Children, in a comic that could only be titled


Well, sure, why not. Also, Something Is Killing the Children has been going on for, like, 50 issues now, shouldn’t they have figured out what that “something” is by now? Sorry, haven’t read the series, no idea what’s going on in there.

But sure, I’ll read this new series, due out next year sometime, and who knows, maybe I’ll find myself hooked on the original SIKTC story. Yes, that’s how it’s abbreviated, that’s not a misspelling of the sound effect you get when Wolverine pops his claws.

What the Swamp Thing Is Killing the Children title reminds me of is that “If you see Swamp Thing, say Swamp Thing” faux poster that seemed like it was all over the internet a couple or four years back, and now all I can find is this Pinterest link.

Oh, and there’s also this fun announcement video for the Swamp Thing Is Killing… comic that you can see on the Instagrams.

• • •

Oh, hey, I’m still helping out the Longbox Heroes podcast boys with their monthly Previewing the Past show, in which they scour the 30 year old Previews (and other distributor) catalogs and deliver informative and funny commentary. I’m not on the podcast, but I write out my own notes and observations that they read out on the show.

Anyway, a new episode of Previewing the Past just came out, but its behind the Patreon paywall…pay $5 a month and get it right away, or pay just $1 and get it two weeks later. They’ve got plenty of podcasts to listen to, some free, some Patreon only, all worth listening to. Let ’em know Mike sent you.

This week’s new issue of Krypto is good too.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, pal plugging, the thing, this week's comics 1 Comment

Hi pals! I’ve been a tad out of sorts of late so the content-generating gears in my brain have been working slower than usual, for which I apologize. Proper content will resume shortly on this site, such as starting on answers to your questions and getting to the next entry in the Final ’90s Countdown.

In the meantime, why not hie yourself hither to the Longbox Heroes podcast run by close personal friends Todd and Joe, which while on the Patreon site, their main weekly comics podcast and their weekly After Dark show remain free. However, if you throw ’em a buck or five, you get all their bonus podcasts (sometimes right away, sometimes you have to wait a couple of weeks, depending on your subscription level).

Now, those bonus Patreon-only podcasts may be of interest to you, the Progressive Ruin Platinum Member Cardholder, in that I’m definitely involved in one, and may eventually be involved in the other. In the first case is their monthly “Previewing the Past” show, where they send 2 to 3 hours discussing the Diamond Previews released exactly 30 years ago this very evening WOOOoooOOOO spooky! And Todd and Joe were nice enough to invite me, or I shoved my way in, one of those two, and I’ve been supplying additional notes based on my own memories and experiences about some of the items in these old catalogs. Since, after all, I am quickly approaching my 37th anniversary in the business, so I sold all the stuff in those 30-year-old Previews!

I should emphasize I’m submitting written material for Joe and Todd to read, so you’re not going to hear my malodorous — er, mellifluous voice on the show. However, their other monthly Patreon podcast, “Comic Book Oddities,” is where the two lads discuss comic book movies of the past. The next episode’s movie is randomly picked at the end of each show, and somewhere in the mix is America’s greatest cinematic achievement, Frank Miller’s The Spirit. And Joe has said, on air, that should The Spirit ever turn up via random selection, they’ll find a way to have me actually on the episode. So, there you go, added incentive (or perhaps, decentive) to sign up.

And, um, okay, here’s some actual comic book stuff: I read this week’s forthcoming release of Marvel All-on-One #1:


…and it’s a hoot. All splash pages inside, as befitting a comic where the Thing just beats the stuffing out of folks. Don’t reveal the surprise ending to your friends!

Yes, I’m thinking about bringing “End of Civilization” back, just in time for Previews to (maybe) go away.

filed under Categories pal plugging, podcast 3 Comments

First, thanks for the birthday wishes from yesterday, both here and on the Blooskies. Much appreciated, and helped me get through some birthday blahs I was having. 40 didn’t do it to me, 50 didn’t do it to me, but 56 caught me by surprise. Ah well, it is what it is.

Second, don’t forget to get in your submission for the Final ’90s Countdown of indie comics. Represent your 1990s faves, and I’ll talk about ’em when I decide the voting’s over! (I’m already seeing some votes for titles I have literally nothing to say about, so it’s gonna take all my blogging powers for some of those write-ups!)

Third, I’ve added a couple new icon links in the sidebar, this time to more podcasts. That Vintage Video link has been there a while, since I’ve guested on a couple of episodes, and a third is coming soon-ish!

New to the sidebar is Longbox Heroes, a long-running weekly podcast of comics news and reviews hosted by Todd and Joe. I am officially a Friend of the Show, and they shout me out in every episode which is nice.

That link goes to their Patreon, but the weekly show is free. But, for only a dollar a month you get a lot of bonus material, including an additional weekly podcast (“After Dark”), a monthly review of the more offbeat superhero movies (“Comic Book Oddities”), and the monthly “Previewing the Past,” where they look at the Diamond Previews of exactly 30 years ago. It’s like my old “End of Civilization” posts, only much more thorough! And if you pay five bucks a month, you get all the bonus stuff right away, otherwise you wait a couple days for “After Dark” and two weeks for the rest.

Speaking of that “Previewing the Past,” the most recent episode, covering March of 1995, includes some contributions from me! I guess the guys were tired of me messaging them after the fact with some tidbit or two about what they discussed, since I’ve been in this business for so long I was selling the stuff they were talking about in those old catalogs. Anyway, they sent me a scan of the March ’95 book, I wrote up some notes on some of the items therein, and they used them on the show! So, if you sign up now, you’ll get to hear that (unless you join at the dollar level, in which case you’ll have to wait a week or so).

If you need additional incentive…on a recent episode Joe stated that for their “Comic Book Oddities” podcast, where the movies are chosen randomly from a list, if Frank Miller’s The Spirit comes up, they will move Heaven and Earth to have me as a guest commentator. To which I say, “My City Screams…to Be on That Podcast!”

Okay, and that other new icon added to the sidebar is for War Rocket Ajax, a show I have listened to since Episode #1 and plugged on this site even back then. Lots of great interviews to be had there, plus answering reader questions, entertaining lists of ranked comics, and a whole lot more. I am also Friend of the Show to these guys as well, occasionally sending in a contribution now and again. One of my faves is my thematically-appropriate submission for their Rawest Moments in Comics list, here on Episode 666. I even sponsored an episode way back when! Their Patreon will give you bonus audio and writings, too.

And it just occurred to me that I should have added icon links to the Comic Book Yeti podcast (where I was a guest recently) and to my pal Kurt’s Welcome to Geektown, for which I am a Patreon supporter.

Oh, wait, speaking of Comic Book Yeti, they put up a free bonus track from my interview on their Patreon. So please, check that out if you need to hear more of my melodious voice.

Sheesh, okay, this was supposed to be a short post, since it’s still technically my birthday as I write this, and in my aged, decrepit state I barely have the energy to spare. Thanks for reading (and listening!), pals, and I’ll see you Monday.

Yes, I know about that History of the DC Universe drawn by Pérez.

filed under Categories indies, marvel, pal plugging 28 Comments

So pal Nat has published via About Comics the complete Dalgoda Omnibus:


Featuring all the comics by Jan Strnad and Dennis Fujitake and others, starring your favorite space dog. Also includes images of promotional artwork, retailer posters and signs, and mag covers. Of note…I helped a very tiny bit with this publication, providing a scan of a magazine cover for the book’s art gallery. I’m thanked in there and everything.

So anyway, if you want copies, they’re out there for sale…and I’ll have ’em for sale at my shop, too. If I run out, I’ll just give pal Nat a ring-a-ding and get some more!

(I wrote a bit about Dalgoda here as part of my Final ’80s Countdown series on fave indie comics.)

• • •

Okay, I was maybe a little too harsh on my assessment of Marvel Saga, that company’s attempt at retelling the history of their shared universe via panels and sequences from their long history of publications, with additional text filling in the gaps. Like so:


A couple of you in the comments there expressed your appreciation of that project, which made me rethink my opinions on it. I may have come at it from a retailer perspective, looking at unsold copies sitting in a bin and so forth.

But I forgot what it’s like to be a fan, new to all this nonsense, not having immediate access to Everything That’s Come Before in the comics you were just starting to read. It reminds me a bit of a certain Mr. Roynaldo Thomas and his work at DC Comics in the early 1980s, particularly this series:


…where I, a kid who didn’t have a full run of every Golden Age superhero comic ever printed, could learn about DC’s past characters in stories set in a time from which they originally came into existence. And then there was the America Vs. The Justice Society mini, with its copious footnotes detailing the decades-past stories referenced during the main plot.

I devoured this stuff. I loved learning about DC’s Golden Age via these new comics. As it turns out, I find them somewhat hard to read now…just kinda overly dense and clunky in a way I don’t have patience for. Which isn’t to say I don’t still have positive feelings towards those comics and how they helped fill in some comic knowledge gaps when I was a young and eager fan.

And so, there’s Marvel Saga, presenting the breadth of the Marvel Universe, a relatively stable and consistent setting compared to DC’s own superhero setting which had at that time (and several times since) been recently reset. Plus, this particular format (previously used for the Super-Villain Classics retelling the story of Galactus) made a recent appearance in the similarly-purposed History of the Marvel Universe from just a few years ago:


I take back my initial dismissal of Marvel Saga and acknowledge its use as a guide through the company’s continuity, especially for those folks who could use the introduction or the refresher. There can be a steep learning curve for folks trying to get a handle on a superhero universe’s fictional setting, and books like this help. Sure they could use Wikipedia, but it’s more fun through the comics themselves.

I was a Kite Man fan before it was cool, thanks to Jenny.

filed under Categories pal plugging, podcast, self-promotion 7 Comments


So it finally happened, for the first time since 2009…I was actually on a podcast to specifically talk about comics! The show “Let’s Talk Shop,” part of the Comic Book Yeti empire, had me on to chat with host Byron about my many, many years in comics retail. We talk about how I got started, Diamond Comics’ current travails, how to get kids reading comics, and, yes, POGs. It only takes an hour of your life, which surely you can spare, so tune in why don’t you.

If you want to hear me blather away on even more podcasts, hie thee hither to mikesterling.com and look for “PODCASTS!”

• • •

A big congrats to Jenny Blake Isabella (formerly Tony) for taking the big step in making the transition to her true self. It’s a hard thing to do, especially in the current environment, but I’m glad to hear she received an enormous amount of support from her fans and friends.

(And before anything thinks I just did something rude there…she makes it clear in that linked post that “Tony” isn’t a dead name far as she’s concerned, so I included it here for clarity.)

Jenny has been a longtime online pal, supportive of this silly blog I’ve been doing for probably too many years, and very supportive (as a former retailer herself) when I opened my own shop, finally. I consider her a friend in the weird online semi-parasocial way we all make friends over the internet nowadays, and I swear, someday I’m going to meet her in person and have her sign my favorite thing she ever wrote.

Best of luck to you, Jenny, and I hope everything continues to go well.

• • •

So my discussion of the comics in that 1985 Bud Plant catalog from the last couple of weeks isn’t quite done yet. I still have a few words to say about that Marvel Saga series, so come back next week when I hopefully will remember to grab an issue or two from the store for scanning purposes. Somebody remind me.