question time

Okay, it’s been exactly a month since I last dipped into the most recent question pool, so let’s knock out a couple right here:

William Burns lights a fire under my butt about

“Do the Black Mask Studios comics sell much for you?”

They do…okay, I suppose. Some better than others. There was a while there, a year or two back, where the investor-types were looking into new releases from indie companies for their next fortunes. It’s still happening to a somewhat limited extent, but mostly with, say, Aftershock and Scout, possibly because nobody’s quite sure how to order on a lot of these, meaning if one catches one, any given store is likely to be caught short.

But with Black Mask, Four Kids Walk into a Bank and Young Terrorists still get a small bit of attention…in fact, I just turned a customer on to the latter title, and he thinks it’s great, so, you know, they’re still capable of finding new readers. It’s hard, though, in the current marketplace, to get any sort of traction, but I’m glad companies like Black Mask, and Aftershock, and the rest are still hanging in there.

Rob Staeger grills me with

“I’ve recently been reading a bunch of old Warlord issues. They’re so enthusiastically batty! I was wondering what your thoughts are on Mike Grell and the evolution of his career. Are you/were you ever a fan?”

Sure, I liked Mike Grell well enough. I wasn’t a huge follower of Warlord but I had this digest collecting his several-issue battle with his wizardly arch-nemesis Deimos, and that was pretty good. I tried the monthly series for a while (though at this point I can’t remember if Grell was still involved with the series or not) but I didn’t like those single issues as much as that digest, so I didn’t keep reading.

I don’t know if I would say I was a “fan” in that I was a devotee of his work, but usually his art was professional and effectively presented the the stories it was illustrating, like in Green Lantern or in Legion of Super-Heroes. I haven’t read Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters in a while, so I don’t know how that holds up…all I seem to remember are some unfortunately violent bits that may not have aged well in the nearly 30 years since its release. And I read Jon Sable Freelance for a time, too, and the “usually” qualifier I used just a moment ago applies to this title, as the art got a little…sketchier that I preferred in the later issues of this series. I never did get around to reading Starslayer, though I own several issues for the Grimjack back-up stories and that early appearance of Groo the Wanderer. Should probably look at the stories in the fronts of those books someday.

Overall, I think his work is fine. I know he’s done a few covers for the recent Green Arrow series, and those have been nice. I can’t recall how much interior work he’s done of late (aside from a couple of those Arrow TV show tie-ins), but I wouldn’t mind seeing his storytelling in action on a regular basis again. I mean, if they can give Neal Adams regular Batman and Superman minis for him to be his Neal Adams-est, why not give Grell a short-run Green Arrow or Green Lantern (or Green Arrow AND Green Lantern) series? I’d read that.

Let’s dip back into the ol’ question pool for our next inquiry, coming from young Matthew Digges:

“Having been in comics retail for as long as you have, I imagine you’ve seen just about everything. Is there anything recently that filled you with surprise and/or delight?”

Goin’ on just about thirty years now in the ol’ comics retail game, he said all folksy-like. And it can be very easy, working behind the counter, to get a little jaded, to lose that sense of wonder and excitement, as you have to consider order numbers and sales and other business-type stuff just to keep the doors open. The trick is not letting that get in the way of the actual enjoyment of the art form, which of course you need to have in order to make informed decisions about all that running-the-store rigmarole.

It’s hard to be surprised by things, too…even back in ye olden tymes when I was but a mere customer, like many of you, I still had access to ‘zines and publisher handouts and such that kept me informed as to what was coming. That was nothing compared to today, with an internet rife with spoilers, and solicitation information easily accessible, and…well, I don’t have to tell you. Very few surprises catch us off guard any more, since most everything is telegraphed one way or another in advance. Even Marvel is ballyhooing some last page “internet-breaking” reveal in a new comic they’ve got coming up, so 1) we’re already primed for something at the end of that comic, and 2) now we get to spend a few months guessing what it is, and more likely than not overthinking and over-anticipating what that actual surprise is.

On the other hand…that’s just “surprise” over events and gimmicks and the like. I can still be surprised by picking up a comic I wasn’t planning on reading and getting immediately sucked in. The most recent example was Curse Words by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne. Now, I like pretty much everything I’ve read of Soule’s work for DC and Marvel, but even so I wasn’t planning on picking up Curse Words…’til I read the small preview I was sent, which hooked me immediately and now I’m regularly recommending that comic to customers. Now that’s a surprise, getting a comic I didn’t think much about before beyond “I wonder how many I’ll realistically be able to sell on the shelf,” suddenly becoming one of my favorites.

Or the recent Flintstones reboot from DC…I planned on at least looking at the debut issue because I liked the artist…but that first issue was so different from what I was expecting I really didn’t know how to feel about it at the time. Since then, it’s become one of, if not my favorite comic of the past year, and I never thought I’d be saying something like that about a Flintstones comic. That definitely put Mark Russell on my “always buy work by this writer” list.

Now, for just plain “delight” at a comic’s very existence…well, I tend to enjoy all the comics I take home to read. But certain comics do stand out, mostly from amazement that they actually exist in today’s marketplace. The main one I’m thinking of here is Popeye, IDW’s ongoing reprint series of the original Bud Sagendorf Popeye comics of the 1950s/60s. That it’s lasted this long is shocking to me, but I’m glad it’s still here, showing off Sagendorf’s classic cartooning. In fact, a lot of IDW’s recent reprint work is great, such as reprints of 1950s mystery comics in Haunted Horror, or the complete reprinting of Berke Breathed’s Bloom County family of strips. Getting access to material like this is always a surprise and a delight.

There’s another aspect that I was going to say is unique to being a shop owner/employee, but upon a moment’s reflection, I realize it’s just another side of the same coin. As a comics shopper, I would get excited at looking through a box of unsorted, unknown comics, at a store or at a convention, not knowing what strange wonders I may find within. I get that same feeling now, when someone brings in boxes of comics that they’re hoping to sell to me. Yes, there’s a part of me that immediately responds with “oh boy, bet it’s another run of Brigade,” but there’s something about sorting through a long box of comics, wondering if there’s going to be anything unusual or neat about to pop out at me. It could be a Giant-Size X-Men #1 that I can sell for a lot of money in the shop, or it can be some rare fanzine that I don’t already have in my ‘zine collection. You never know!

And then there’s that feeling of finally filling that one hole in the collection. That’s always a delight, no matter how long you’ve been doing this.

So yes, Young Matthew, I can still be surprised and/or delighted by comics. This doesn’t even bring up how happy I feel when there’s, say, a new issue of Groo that’s out, or more Love & Rockets, or that Walt Simonson is doing a series based in the Norse legends. But there’s still plenty of joy to be had in the comics field, if you look.

Well, I was planning on doing some comic reviews, but ran myself out of time and energy, so I’m gonna put those off ’til tomorrow. But, in the meantime, since I’ve been thinking about doing this lately, I’ll go ahead and do it right now: let’s do Question Time again, where I welcome (hopefully comic book industry-related) inquiries from you, the people who haven’t realized you’re not supposed to be reading blogs anymore, and I answer them to the best of my ability. Or you can just suggest a topic you’d like me to discuss…at any rate, please just one question/suggestion per customer, deposited right here in the ol’ comments section.

Like the last time I did this, I won’t be answering your questions all at once in a week-long series of too-long entries here. Instead, I’ll probably address one or two topics per post, interspersed amongst the regular content and features of Progressivelyruinated.edu, such as “It’s the End of Civilization Already Again” and “Your Weekly Moment from Frank Miller’s The Spirit,” over the next few weeks or months or possibly eons…we’ll see.

Anyway, you guys ‘n’ gals usually cook up some good Qs for me to A every time I do one of these, so I’m looking forward to what you have to say. What, a website actually looking forward to comments? What decade is this? Again, please, one question or suggestion per person, gently placed in this welcoming receptacle. Thanks!

Nearing the end of the Qs here for me to answer:

Bretsector went no other way with:

“From one Yummy Fur fan to another…any hidden gems from the B&W boom/bust of the 80’s? I’ve been going through my old long boxes and found old Aircel, Fish Police, TMNT clones, Cynicalman, Giant-Size Mini-Comics, Poison Elves, Underwater, Caliber Press, etc. and wondered if any other one else on the planet still had a soft spot for some of these floppies?”

Funny you mention Yummy Fur, as I just came across those in my collection the other day (the personal collection in my somewhat less-vast Mikester Comic Archives, not the collection at Sterling Silver Comics, located in maybe too sunny Camarillo, CA) and paused for a moment to reflect on how long it took me to finally complete the run (with the last issue I needed coming from Scott McCloud’s collection, believe it or not). Yummy Fur was a fine, oddball series, but one I started reading just a little too late, and didn’t start picking it up ’til about issue #10 or so. At the time, most of the back issues were readily available, at least around here, and there was an eventual trade collection, so I at least had the full Ed the Happy Clown story (but not the Bible story back-ups or the letters pages).

But that’s not what you’re asking about. I entered the comics retail world in the late ’80s, after the peak of the post Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-inspired black and white boom that began a few years earlier. I mean, I was buying comics, of course, but didn’t have the perspective of actually having to deal with stocking the things, or not stocking, as the case may be. Judging by later perusal of store backstock, former boss and then-provider of my funnybooks Ralph ordered fairly conservatively on the small press b&w titles. He did order them, because, y’know, you can’t sell ’em if you don’t have ’em, but he didn’t do anything like that one poor bastard I saw at a convention once, desperately trying to unload his longboxes full of Shadow of the Groundhog.

Okay, that’s still not you’re asking about. I was attracted to the small press stuff, having had an early fascination with do-it-yourself amateur publishing (both comics and prose), so I’d at least peruse the indies and see what caught my eye. One of my favorites from that period was…

…It’s Science with Dr. Radium by Scott Saavedra, published by Slave Labor Graphics starting in 1986 and running on and off, via minis and one-shots, ’til the early 2000s. Silly jokes, bad science, time travel, Elvis-worshipping alien invaders (called, of course, the Elvi) and fine cartooning by Mr. Saavedra. This was a good’un. (FULL DISCLOSURE: I’ve exchanged correspondence with Mr. Saavedra over the years, and he sent me this swell Swamp Thing drawing some time ago, and he’s even visited my new shop…but I assure you, my love for Dr. Radium was fully established long before any of that happened. Honest!)

Also recommended from the b&w boom period was PURT’NEAR ANYTHING BY MARK MARTIN:

An identifying characteristic of the b&w boom, in addition to the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] [animal] rip-offs of the Turtles, was parodies of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Mark Martin’s various Gnatrat comics (Gnatrat: The Dark Gnat Returns, Happy Birthday Gnatrat, Darerat & Tadpole, and Gnatrat: The Movie) ran from 1986 ’til 1990, and unlike a lot of the parody comics, were written and drawn with some real wit and style, getting some out-loud laughs while managing to go some fairly dark places, too. They really didn’t look or feel like any other comic on the market, and Martin would go on to do some pretty amazing comics work after this.

Stig’s Inferno by Ty Templeton was another good’un:

…though, sadly, the series was ended before the story was completed. As you might infer from the title, it’s about a fella named Stig who ends up journeying through Hell (without his pants) and hilarity ensues. Wonderfully drawn, with busy panels and funny background gags and well worth seeking out. And you can seek it out here on Mr. Templeton’s official site, where issues are scanned for your reading pleasure.

The last one (for now, ’til I can think of more) may seem a bit out of place, and probably not that obscure, given that it’s one of the first two publications to come from Dark Horse Comics:

…yup, Boris the Bear (begun in 1986 by Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley and James Dean Smith), which I think kinda belongs here as the first issue is clearly a reaction to the influx of Turtles knockoffs and parodies flooding the marketplace at the time. And by “reaction” I mean “Boris straight up murders thinly-veiled characters from other black and white comics.” It’s all in fun, more or less, and clearly cathartic, though I wonder if I was actually in the retail end of things at the time, how much more cathartic it would have been. Anyway, Boris continued on through Dark Horse and other publishers, generally parodying (usually in a less violent manner than the first story!) a different aspect of the comics world in each issue. Of note is a gag in issue #2, where a Portland, OR street scene is covered with “Tom Peterson” signs, which I would not have understood if I didn’t have a good friend who was a Portland resident at the time (and still is!), and had already explained to me who Mr. Peterson was. (And also had sent me a “Moon over Portland” postcard with Peterson’s face in place of said Moon.)

These are just a few that immediately came to mind. I need to dig further through the collection and see if there’s anything a little more on the obscure side that I can feature. Like Ant Boy:

You said you liked Cynicalman, Bretsector? Here’s another comic by Cynicalman’s pappy, Matt Feazell. Well worth seeking out both issues!

Bet you thought I forgot about those questions!

Zeb muscles in with

“We all know anthologies just don’t work in the North American market–at least not as ongoings–but why is that? Is it the cost? The format? Just plain ol’ ‘I want only one story and damn you to Hades if you can’t give it to me’?

“Have you found the usual reluctance of people to commit to anthologies with the Legends of Tomorrow book? I was curious about whether this could finally be the book that breaks the curse but have seen nothing about it anywhere online.”

There was a point when regular monthly or quarterly anthologies were the norm rather than the exception in comics, way back in Ye Golden Age, with the idea being that even if a potential reader doesn’t care for one or two features therein, there’s gonna be something that grabs him or her. Why, just having one character or story in a comic would be a disaster! What if a kid doesn’t like that one thing? THAT’S A LOST SALE!

At least, that’s how the conventional wisdom went, anyway. If I were to hazard a guess as to why anthologies have a harder time getting traction in today’s market, it’s possibly the costs involved. A comic reader, faced with the cover prices in today’s market, isn’t going to want to spend money on a comic that he or she may only partially enjoy. If you’re spending $3.99 on 22 pages of comics, you don’t want 6 pages of that comic spent on a back-up story you’re not interested in reading. That’s a bigger risk than dropping a quarter on a 64-page anthology back in the 1940s. And yes, inflation and all that, but still, people tend to be a little more risk-resistant with their comic book dollars nowadays.

Not to say anthologies haven’t been successful…Marvel Comics Presents had a good run, featuring multiple serialized stories in each issue, though having a Wolverine story cover-featured on most of ’em helped. Action Comics Weekly didn’t do too badly, either. And there are tie-ins to crossover events, like Civil War II: Choosing Sides, where hopefully the interest in the event itself will be enough to attract sales, even if perhaps not every story in the issue may be of equal attraction to everyone.

A lot of what I’m talking about here doesn’t completely apply to indie anthologies, but even those have bit of a struggle on comic store shelves. A couple of recent ones started out strong, but even those have petered out to low sales. Dark Horse Presents is still hanging in there, but sales really depend on who’s in the book. Again, it’s possible it’s the perceived value versus cost…why spend that much money on something you’re not going to read completely.

You bring up Legends of Tomorrow, where DC took a handful of planned titles that would probably struggle on their own and squeezed them together into a bargain book (“an $11.96 value for only $7.99!”). That’s selling…okay, but I suspect it’s not long for this world either. I’m reading it, and I’m enjoying all of it, but I can see not every comic in the volume appealing to every reader. I’ve mentioned on the site before that this particular format DC has used of late is potentially the future of periodical comics, but a more tightly-themed presentation (the all-Superman one, or the all-Wonder Woman one) and the context of “this is the only place to see the ongoing in-continuity adventures of your favorite characters” is what’s going to make the sales.

Aside from that possible fate, anthology comics, at least from the Big Two or Four or However Many There Are Now, will probably be limited to the occasional short back-up in one of the regular monthlies, as opposed to a dedicated book with four or five stories in each issue.

Again, this is a fairly myopic view, focusing on superhero ‘n’ related anthologies that publish on a regular monthly, or semi-monthly, basis. This doesn’t address the annual or bi-annual or one-shot comics anthologies like Kramers Ergot, which are different animals entirely, filling entirely different audience demands.

“You can turn any existing other character in the DC Universe into the new Swamp Thing, who do you choose and why?”

Dan Cassidy, in a last ditch effort to rid himself of the Blue Devil costume that had been mystically bonded to his body, finds himself in a remote Louisiana bayou. Here, he has heard of many strange paranormal events, and believing he can tap into whatever magic that may exist in these dark waters, Cassidy begins the final ritual to cast off his azure-hued prison.

However, something goes terribly wrong. The ambient magical forces that drift through the air react violently to the many candles lit as part of the ritual. Flames exploding around him, his own “skin” burning, Cassidy casts himself into the swamp in an attempt to alleviate the pain…unknowingly diving into the same murk long ago imbued with the bio-restorative formula that permeated the seared flesh of a similarly aflame Alec Holland.

Soon, the waters are still, the fire dwindled away in the wet of the surrounding bog. Hours pass. And unseen, beneath the surface of the bayou, plants altered over the decades by chemical formulas and magical events wind their way into ruined human flesh.

Days pass. The water’s surface begins to tremble. Then, busting out of the marsh, a hideous…thing arises. Covered in mud and moss, the faintest hints of blue peeking through skin of green and brown, two misshapen horns jutting out from its ungainly head…red eyes flash open…the eyes of…

…SWAMP DEVIL.

(And Skinslip? You ask “why?” I say “why not?” Also, I like the recursion of a guy trapped in one unwanted “body” being trapped in yet another one.)