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So here’s another podcast on which you can hear the dulcet tones of my melodious voice:
The “Shame” in the title “Cinema Shame” refers to the show’s conceit, in which one of the folks on the show watches and talks about a film they really should’ve seen by now.
In this case, I am the one who is shamed, and the film in question?
Yes, that’s right, after years of me half-bragging “what is this ‘blade runner’ you speak of,” I finally sat down and watched a version of Blade Runner specifically for this episode. In fact, when one of the hosts, Allan, first approached me about this, the film I immediately suggested was this one, and Allan replied “yeah, that was the one I was going to ask you to do!”
So here it is, in all its one-hour and so glory, for you to enjoy! After doing this and of course the two shows for Vintage Video, I of course am now a Podcast Show Guest Expert, and look forward to doing even more of these, maybe even one specifically about comic books, someday.
• • •
Let’s do at least one
question from a reader today, and this time it’s Andrew who
asks
“Where is Groot currently?”
Andrew is of course referring to my giant Groot cardboard standee, which used to live in the front window of my store where the occasional group of tourists would stand before it and take pictures of themselves.
Well, I retired Cardboard Groot from that position a while back, replacing him with a Mandalorian standee. But Groot is not gone, instead having been moved to a position behind the main counter at my store, standing guard over the old sign from my previous place of employment:
And what does Cardboard Groot say about all this? “I am Groot” is his only comment, which I presume translates as “eh, it’s a living.”
• • •
Just a reminder to all my fellow U.S. citizens (not that you need a reminder, you’ve probably been getting a dozen emails/texts a day about it) to go out and vote Tuesday, if you haven’t already via early voting. And on a completely unrelated note, a whole bunch of your favorite comic book artists and writers put these informative comics together which may be of some interest.
• • •
Almost forgot: this Tuesday is not only U.S. Election Day, it’s also the 10th anniversary of the opening of
my store. Almost as if…I
planned it that way. (SPOILER: I didn’t.) Anyway, you can read what I had to say about my
first day of business way back when I had exactly 100% fewer Funko Pops in my shop. Honestly, I can’t believe how barren my shop looks in those old pics. Oh, to have all that open space again….
So I find myself in the position of gathering up and doing some research for a future post, and leaving myself with little time to write an actual post for today. As such, let me go ahead and look at some of your recent comments now, and I’ll return to your questions and having content soon!
Thom H asks
“I never read the Ostrander/Mandrake Martian Manhunter series. Is it good? From what I saw of it, it seemed kind of heavy and depressing. I don’t need my MM to love Oreos, but he can get kind of melancholy for my tastes.”
One of the reasons I want to reread Martian Manhunter is that it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and as such I don’t remember a whole lot of specifics about the run. I do recall enjoying it (I mean, it’s Ostrander and Mandrake, it’s gonna be good), but yes, as per Chris V’s noting of the tragic circumstances behind the scenes. It can be, as you say Thom, melancholy, but this superhero book embedded with emotional gravitas is well worth checking out, I think.
It’s not all like that…Ostrander has his silly side, and we get an issue about J’onn’s addiction to “Chocos” (the legally-distinct name of cream-filled cookies that are somewhat like Oreos).
The thing about J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, is that he’s kind of a blank slate. I mean, we know the basics…trapped Earth by accident, his family is gone, has a weakness to fire, disguised himself as a human detective. Outside of his appearances in Justice League of America, maybe, Ostrander likely wrote the longest and most in-depth examination of the character, fleshing out his personality, his backstory, his rogues gallery, and so on.
Yes, it can be a downer at times, but based on what memories I have, I still think it’s worth a read. And I’m looking forward to tackling that when I’m done with Spectre.
Plus, J’emm, Son of Saturn, pops up in it. That’s gotta sell you on it!
• • •
Oliver says
“Mandrake’s style was a bad fit for the post-Crisis Shazam reboot but looked much better on Batman and the Spectre.”
Back in 2010, I did a post about a short sequence from the Shazam! A New Beginning mini-series by Roy Thomas and Mandrake. Some comments to that post agree with you, Oliver, that Mandrake’s style was a poor match for Captain Marvel.
Now…okay, I’m not trying to be contrary, I do agree with this sentiment, but in an odd way Mandrake’s art did fit this very specific version of the character. This was a darker, 1980s-post-Dark-Knight-gritty reinterpretation, requiring dark, gritty, moody art. The problem was that the entire series was entirely misguided, changing the tone of Captain Marvel too far. If DC has to squeeze the Shazam franchise into their larger shared universe, there are ways to do it, and it has been done (most successfully, I think, by Jerry Ordway’s Power of Shazam! series).
Mandrake’s work reminds me in a way of Gene Colan’s, suited for dark and moody tales while still adaptable to appropriate superhero books. As Oliver notes above, Batman and Spectre are solid fits for Mandrake, and for the stories Ostrander was telling, a good fit with Martian Manhunter as well. I’d like to see him do more Swamp Thing, which he’s done a handful of times in the past.
In fact, I’d love to see both Ostrander and Mandrake on a Swamp Thing series, doing what they did on Spectre and Martian Manhunter: a darker, edgier book that’s still on the outskirts of the regular DC Universe. Pulling together all the disparate strands of the character into some kind of cohesive, recognizable whole.
• • •
Anyway, thanks for putting up with this “fill-in” ppst, and for all your great comments. I appreciate all the feedback!
Answer a few more of your questions? Oh, if you insist!
Nate A asks
“Is the era of the superstar penciller over? Will there be another Byrne or Lee (proportionate to the current baseline sales) or did something happen in the market to make that impossible?”
That’s a question I’ve been thinking about since I saw you ask it. Given the current comics market ecosystem (and for the purposes of this question, I’m sticking to just the “superhero-dominated direct comics market” as implied by the examples of Byrne and Lee, otherwise I’d just say like “Raina Telgemeier” and be done with it) is, for whatever reason, isn’t one in which one or two artists can rise to dominance.
Part of it is the market size. In the 1990s, if a comic sold 500,000 or a million or more copies, that went a long way toward making its artist a “hot” one. Your standard comic book nowadays isn’t reaching such lofty heights. There are lots of good artists, and lots of popular artists working on great books that sell well (as graded on the current curve), but the “superstar” ranking probably remains an artifact of the ’90s.
And as such, the remaining “superstar” artists are the ones who achieved that status before and haven’t done anything to undermine it. Jim Lee is the superstar artist of today. Maybe Todd McFarlane. Byrne is basically retired, sticking to commissions and his X-Men fanfic. And there are a couple of others from that period whose fortunes have waxed and mostly waned over in the decades since.
There is a new Batman run by Lee, with Jeph Loeb, a sequel to that jukebox-musical of a popular story Hush, coming, and we’ll see how demand and sales look on that to determine Lee’s remaining superstar status. (Though his $20,000 price tag on commissions probably locked that in pretty well.)
McFarlane’s ongoing devotion to Spawn doesn’t necessarily burn up the shelves, but he still retains that superstar reputation. He has name recognition value, and customers are always curious about what he’s doing, and his old Spider-Man and early Spawn sell incredibly well. And if he were to ever do a Spawn/Spider-Man crossover special, that would probably be the biggest selling superhero comic in recent memory.
• • •
Matthew sorts out
the following
“You’ve had your own store for ten years (good job! congrats!), what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made (comics related or not)?”
Yup, it’ll be 10 years on…um, Election Day here in the States, it looks like. Huh.
Biggest mistake, I think, was not keeping all the stock in the backroom completely sorted from the get-go. Part of the problem was — and this is not something I expected — once you open a comic book store, people are dying to just give you boxes and boxes of comics. I ended up with several boxes from multiple collections coming into the store in short order, too much to easily sort right away, so they got put to the side to be done at a nigh-mythical “later date.”
At least most everything’s on shelves back there, though I wish I can devote the time to properly sorting everything out. It’s gonna take me hiring someone else to do it for me, because it’s just too many at this point for me to do it. But I go through ’em on a pretty regular basis so even if it’s not as organized as I’d like, I at least have a fairly good idea where stuff is.
• • •
Tom W dares to
ask
“Do your comics retailer abilities, honed over many years, mean your comics are in mint even after you’ve read them?”
Now, I wish I had the power to make low grade books suddenly mint just with my mere touch, but I know that’s not what you meant. If it’s mint when I get it, or “Near Mint,” more likely, or…let’s just say “new” condition…it stays that way after I’ve had my way. I mean, it’s not like I’m eating ribs or anything while paging through the latest Batman/Scooby Doo.
I am (contrary to popular belief) only human, and maybe I’ll accidentially drop or bump a comic, or otherwise damage it, and I just kinda shrug and deal with it. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
• • •
Thanks as always for all the great questions, pals. If you need clarification on any of my answers, always feel free to ask!
More of your questions, more of my answers!
ExistentialMan gets down to earth with
You’ve mentioned your comic reading backlog (and unfortunate eye challenges) several times over the years. I’m curious if you have a system for how you tackle your stacks of books. Do you just read them in the order you placed ’em in the longbox? Selectively choose back issues that relate to current titles? Toss a random dart at the stack? Please enlighten us.
For those of you new to the site, what EM is referring to is the fact I’ve had some vision issues in relation to actual physical problems with my eyeballs, discussed enough here that the topic has its own category.
Now, the eyeball situation has mostly stabilized, though I’m still getting treatments (i.e. the dreaded injections) in the left eye about once every couple of months…a vast improvement over getting shots in both eyes every month like I had been at the beginning. And I haven’t had a vision-obscuring bleeding incident in my eyes for quite some time now. So, you know, good news all around.
My vision is diminished from what it was, requiring glasses now. And though I no longer need the regular treatment on my right eye, the vision in that eye is impaired. I can see out of it, but not at the…resolution, I guess, as I can with my left eye, which is mostly at normal when using said glasses.
Anyway, as mentioned by EM, my reading had been slowed down a bit, after about an 18-month period at the beginning of all this when I read virtually nothing. When I did start reading again, it was slow going as I adjusted to my new vision status quo, and between bouts of eye-bleeds that would prevent me from reading again.
One result is that I gave up entirely on reading comics for a while, even during those periods when I could do so. I watched a lot of TV instead, which, thanks to a big ol’ flatscreen, was much easier for me to see than small print on paper pages. I was still picking up the comics I wanted to read, but setting them aside for a later date.
And that later date has been the last couple of years or so, as I’ve been making a stronger attempt at catching up on the backlog. I’ve adjusted to my vision, I’ve got a reading lamp that helps quite a bit, so I’ve been making some progress.
When I started to try catching up, my priority was the stuff I was reading on a serialized monthly basis. Gathering together all the Superman stuff, the Hulk stuff, so on and so forth, and reading through them a series at the time. Then, as new books come out, I read those as I get ’em and I stay caught up on those series.
Then there are the one-shots and the miscellaneous minis that have come out over the years, that got backlogged and I get to those as I find the time. There are probably still some of those DC/Hanna Barbera specials I haven’t read yet. But I’m getting through them as I can.
The real roadblocks are the magazines and the graphic novels/trades. I don’t get every issue of Back Issue, but about one out of every three issues or so there’s one stuffed with articles I want to read (“special DC Comics 1980s mini-series issue!” — DAMMIT) and I’ll pull it aside and I think I’m years behind on those and really need to stop picking them up. But then this month they had an issue about DC’s horror comics and DAMMIT.
Graphic novels, 100 to 200 or more pages a throw there, take a lot longer for me to plow through, but lately I’ve been trying to put more effort into reading them. For example, not long ago I finally read Matt Wagner’s newly expanded Grendel: Devil by the Deed, about a year after its release.
Now it’s not like I’m just talking home piles and piles of books every week. I have made an active effort to keep my personal pulls to a minimum, as I try to find a balance amongst 1) what new stuff I really want to read, 2) what I have time to read, and 3) how much backlog I still need to whittle down.
This isn’t even counting all the regular prose books I need to catch up on. I just read Opposable Thumbs, a book about the history of film critics Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, and their partnership, and it took me like a year to get to that.
• • •
Adam Farrar gets up close and personal
with
“I’ve never read any of the original Popeye comics. But I’m missing out, yeah? My library has the six volumes from Fantagraphics. Should I try to find the pre-Popeye Thimble Theater strips to read first?”
Adam, Adam, Adam…how dare you come here, into my very own website, without having read any Popeye. Friend, run, do not walk, to that library and get those volumes into your hands. If it’s closed when you show up, break in. Do not delay feeding Popeye into your peepers any longer than you already have.
You do not need to read the earlier Thimble Theater strips. The first of those Fantagraphics volumes contain several non-Popeye TT strips, kicking off that storyline and eventually leading to Popeye’s introduction. That should give you enough of the taste as to what those early strips were like.
Should you ever decide to continue beyond those Fantagraphics reprints once you’ve caught Popeye fever, maybe you can try some Thimble Theater (available in very large and expensive, but nice, hardcovers). Or you can look at a bunch of the facsimile editions IDW published of 1940s-50s Popeye comics by Segar’s successor Bud Sagendorf, which can be found in single issue or collected form. there were also a couple volumes reprinting Bobbly London’s run on the strip from the late ’80s/early ’90s.
There’s a current Popeye comic, Eye Lie Popeye, done in a nigh-anime style that’s a little off-model from the original strips, maybe, but still a lot of fun.
But read those Segar comics! And always remember what Popeye says about cartoonists:
Going after a few more of your questions today. Didn’t really mean to power through so many in short order, as I meant to space ’em out a bit, but it is what it is. You know, folks can still add more questions to that linked post above!
Paul spooks me with
“How would you reboot the Harvey Comics Universe to make it appeal to the youth of today?”
That’s…a good question. My immediate reaction would have been, if we were still in the world of the CW attractive-20-something-year-olds-playing-teenagers TV shows, saying “make ’em all high schoolers with weird powers or obsessions or wealth” and go all Riverdale with it.
Or (and this isn’t inconsistent with my previous statement) take the supernatural characters (Casper, Hot Stuff, Wendy, Spooky, etc.) and make ’em paranormal investigators. The other kids (little Lotta Little Audrey, Little Dot) as part of their support team…Little Lotta would be the muscle when necessary, of course. Richie Rich is the money guy behind the team, funding their work and passing out assignments.
Not sure how, like, Baby Huey would fit in. But if I’m remaking the Harvey characters into an ersatz BPRD, then Baby Huey could be our Hellboy analog. “DUH, I HATE BOGGARTS AND NAZIS.”
And I’m really not sure how Stumbo the Giant works here. Maybe a recurring antagonist that the team has to take down?
Anyway, I’m kinda vague on details with some of the characters, I know, but if someone’s willing to give me a paycheck, I’ll flesh out the pitch.
• • •
William Gatevackes opens up with
“Who would be on your ‘Mount Rushmore’ of comic book creators?”
Assuming we’re limited to four giant heads on a mountainside, my kneejerk reaction if “Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster.” I know, I know, that’s a whole lotta white guys, I’m sorry. Maybe replace Ditko (who almost certainly wouldn’t have wanted a giant representation of his face carved into a mountain) with Osamu Tezuka. But then we’re stuck with all guys, still. So, what the hell, add a fifth head, and make it Ramona Fradon.
I mean, it’s hard to represent everyone who should be up there, especially if you’re limiting the number of visages. I’m not denying that so many people are worthy. However, I’m pretty insistent that Jack, Jerry and Joe have to be on there. And Bob Kane’s face can be on the trashcans for the tourists.
• • •
googum googumed.
“Hey, was ACTION COMICS WEEKLY direct sales only? I didn’t think it was newsstand, but just checking; figured you’d know!”
I am unsure. My source for checking this is the Grand Comics Database, where the Action Comics Weekly entry shows under the “Cover Scans” section no separate entries for “newsstand” and “direct” covers. (Compare to Fury of Firestorm, which does have separate scans for these variations.)
Here, on the cover of the first weekly issue, #601:
…you can see the little box that’s usually used for a UPC code, but instead it lists the names of the featured characters. Other issues retain the box but in a non-UPC shape. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one with the UPC code required for newsstand sales, and Googling about doesn’t seem to turn up any.
If I had to put my thirty nickels down, I’d say Action Comics Weekly was not distributed to newsstands because, like, your local convenience store or supermarket wouldn’t want to deal with a weekly book, or, since they weren’t used to dealing with weekly comics, take the previous issue off for stripped cover returns and replace it with a new issue, giving that old one only a weeklong sales window. I mean, I don’t know if that would’ve happened. And Marvel’s biweekly series Marvel Comics Presents had newsstand distribution for most of its run, so a quicker publication pace wasn’t a problem for them, I don’t think.
If anyone’s got more information on this than I do, I’m all ears. (Ew, gross.)
• • •
Derek Moreland
expands his territory with
“How are the ENERGON UNIVERSE (Transformers, G.I. Joe minis, Void Rivals) selling for you? Corollary question: is Transformers doing better now than the MtMtE/RiD days at IDW?”
They’re actually doing relatively well…the “name” series (Transformers and G.I. Joe doing the best, with Void Rivals trailing behind). My numbers on TF/GIJ were startlingly small when they were at IDW, but all it took was slapping an Image logo on them (and some smart marketing/creative team decisions) and suddenly interest is up again. Let’s hope it keeps up, as I can always use more good-selling books.
• • •
And that’s plenty for today. Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll be back on Wednesday, with any luck.
First, a couple of things:
One, I finally got a Threads account open under my original personal Instagram account name, mikesterjr. For various reasons I had opened one up under a different name, but ignore that one if you know about it…”mikesterjr” is where you’ll find me there. (Alas, “mikester” and “mikesterling” were taken by folks surely unworthy of my good name.) Anyway, not that I need another social media thing (Bluesky is mostly enough for me right now), but in this scary post-Xwitter world, I’m just trying to hedge my bets.
Two, blogging-and-birthday-brother Andrew is doing his Halloween Countdown over on Armagideon Time. One of my all-time favorite writers on these here internets.
Three, let’s try to get to another of your questions:
JohnJ hits me with
“How in the world do you decide how many variant covers to order of some books, especially with DC’s extra dollar for variant cardstock covers?
The multiple covers bit started when I still was ordering comics in the 90s and it drove me nuts. It’s got to be ten times worse today with damn near every book having multiple covers.
How about the blank covers for sketches? Do you have customers that ask for those?”
Yeah, I occasionally think about how good we had it in the ’90s in regards to variants. At the time, it was annoying because, unless it was a ratio variant where we had to reach certain ordering plateaus to get that 1 in 25/50/100 copy, guessing what covers customers were going to want was quite the trick.
And it’s even more of a trick now, given that nearly every Marvel and DC comic has multiple covers, and many Image books have variants, and several Dark Horse comics have variants, and oy Dynamite Comics….
For the most part, the customers mostly want the main (or “A”) covers, although some folks don’t care what cover they get. I order enough “A”s to cover pulls and rack sales, and a smaller number of each variant for impulse buys and for those occasions when people prefer that variant to the main cover.
In the case of DC, where the variants can cost a buck (or more, if it’s a fancier variant with extra embossing or whatever), I’m a little more stingy about ordering some of those, sometimes just getting one or two copies, or maybe skipping a variant entirely if past sales data for a title indicates a big fat “nobody cares” on those. But if it’s a variant by Jim Lee or Artgerm, I’ll get a few extras because those always sell well.
For Marvel and other companies, the variants all have the same cover price (aside from the ratio variants, though I’ll sometimes just put the 1 in 10 covers out at regular price) so I feel a little more comfortable ordering extras on those. Like I said, “A” covers are generally preferred, so I’ll order heavier on those, though I notice on indie titles, some people don’t much care which cover they get. It’s the Marvels where customers are a little more insistent on getting the main cover if possible.
At this point, I’ve been ordering these long enough to get a general feel for what covers sell in what quantities, though sometimes I’ll get surprised by demand (like, it took some reordering to get enough of the recent Doctor Doom variants on some recent Marvels), but my typical strategy of “lots of ‘A’s, a coupe or three of the variants” works out. And I can usually place reorders if necessary.
I do have some customers who get every variant (or close to) of their favorite titles, so I make sure to accommodate them. And sometime a comic will pop up in the order form with more individual variants for me to order than copies I sell in the store, so I order enough “A”s and then pick and choose the likely variants that might sell, and hope for the best.
As for blank covers…I don’t always order those, but it depends on the title. I went ahead and got a copy of the blank Absolute Batman #1, for example (which as of this writing hasn’t sold yet, though I blew through all the other variants for this title in short order). Once in a blue moon I have someone show up asking for every sketch cover I have in the shop, so I like to have a few of those available.
I feel like, even as much of rambling answer I gave there, more discussion may be necessary. I mean, aside from the year or so I was doing these themed variant cover posts. Anyway, if any clarification is needed, just let me know.
• • •
Also, wish my dad a happy birthday today. He reads the site, so he’ll see it!
Attacking more of…wait, that’s too aggressive for a friendly site like mine. “Tip-toeing gently” through more of your questions today….
Joe Cabrera hails me with the following
“In general, do you enjoy today’s comics as much as those of yesteryear? If not, why? Is it nostalgia coloring your opinion, stories getting worse, unappealing plot directions, etc.?”
There…may be a difficulty now, particularly now that I own my own comic shop, in separating “comic books as entertainment” and “comic books as commodity that I need to sell to make a living.” Which is not to say I don’t still love comics, but I think too much of my mind is preoccupied with order numbers and rack sales and back issue pricing and all that jazz, and not to mention blog content, that maybe it gets in the way just a little of appreciating the comics from a purely fannish perspective, free of worldly capitalistic concerns.
The other issue here is simply time, in two senses. I don’t have the time to read comics like I used to. And comics I read long ago have had more time to percolate in my brain that comics that I’ve read last week. Take Swamp Thing Annual #2 from 1985, the one where Swamp Thing goes to Hell. I probably read that thing a couple of dozen times at minimum over the decades. I read it again not long ago when I suggested a sequence from it for discussion on a War Rocket Ajax episode. Compare with…what’s the last Swamp Thing series to come out? That Green Hell “Black Label” one? I can’t even say for sure I’ve read the last issue of that. And if I had, am I ever going to make time to reread it? I don’t know.
The way I’m reading them now, with less time to devote to them as purely entertainment (and combined with my various vision things that cause me to read a little more slowly), most comics are now one shot experiences for me, not books to revisit on a repeated basis. Which makes me a little sad, as I’ve read many comics in recent years I’d love to go back to, but I’m never quite sure if I ever can.
Am I answering the question? I still love comics. I think many comics coming out now are great. But I think for many of the reasons I mentioned above, I was just able to enjoy them more as a younger man, when I had more time to devote to them in a non-comics retail fashion.
All that said…this blog is part of the way I can still interact with comics both new and old, helping me to remember why I ended up in this business in the first place.
• • •
will richards
queries
“In your opinion, which are the most criminally un-reprinted runs of both Marvel and DC comics?”
From DC Comics…ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE ATARI FORCE
Fun sci-fi adventure expertly illustrated by José Luis García-López at the peak of his form, with the back half drawn by the also excellent Eduardo Barreto. Gerry Conway wrote most issues, and it’s a fast paced and creative comic that unfortunately was saddled with a title that likely kept folks away. Oh, and the lettering by Bob Lappan is a revelation as well.
It seemed like these might have been on a way to a reprint collection eventually, as a few years back Dynamite was doing some Atari-related comics. A collection of the original Atari Force digest-sized comics, the ones that were pack-ins with select Atari games, was announced but cancelled, and I guess that was that. I’d like these reprinted, too, at normal comic size which would be easier on the ol’ peepers.
Now, from Marvel…that’s quite the trick, since Marvel has reprinted tons of material, filling up those giant omnibuses and “Epic Collections” and so on. My initial thought was “The Last Galactus Story,” the unfinished John Byrne tale from the latter issues of Epic Illustrated, but that did get reprinted in an omnibus (still uncompleted).
I think what I’m going to pick, out of my own particular interest, is Blip, Marvel’s comic-sized video game magazine (with some comics, but mostly articles):
And what the heck, why not Marvel’s pop culture/young reader mag Pizzazz?
I would love having either of these, even if no one else would.
• • •
Dave Carter votes
for
“Who is your favorite comic book Doctor? (either MD or PhD…)”
Well, only one answer to that, natch:
• • •
No better place to leave off than that! Thanks, pals, and I’ll see you on Friday!
So I asked you for questions, and you delivered! I’m not going to be answering these with every single future post ’til I’m done, but I’ll dip into these as needs must. And those needs must today, so let’s get crackin’!
First off, it’s Customer Sean with this
“I wonder if Stan Lee was a fan of All-Star Comics during the 1940s–as a newspaper article from ‘The Daily Bugle’ appears in All-Star Comics no. 30. Perhaps Earth-2’s iteration of J. Jonah Jameson was a cub reporter at The Daily Bugle at that time–and maybe he had it in for The Tarantula…”
At this point, Sean drops in a link to a page from that All-Star Comics from 1946, which features this panel:
Now, real world answer, “Daily Bugle” is a generic enough newspaper name, like “Daily Globe” or “Daily Express,” so it doesn’t surprise me this name shows up in a Golden Age DC book. And I seem to recall it showing up as a newspaper name elsewhere in non-Marvel, non-Spider-Man comics. And I wonder if “Daily Planet” showed up in Golden Age Atlas Comics.
But if we were to follow Sean’s train of thought, putting ol’ J.J. at the apparently-in-the-DC-Universe Bugle in the ’40s…well, that timing would work out putting Jameson as the head Bugle honcho during the 1970s Spider-Man/Superman crossover, shown here with DC’s Morgan Edge, the Big Man on Top for Galaxy Communications:
Therefore, that All-Star Comics #30 can be said to take place on whatever multidimensional Earth where the Marvel and DC characters coexist. If only we had a regular monthly comic for that very Earth.
• • •
Paul Engelberg sails in
with
“How have Ahoy Comics done in your shop?”
They’ve done…okay. I like them, they’re high quality books with top notch talent, but they don’t sell very high numbers for me. Which is okay! Not everything has to be a best-seller.
My favorite of the bunch, and I believe the longest-running series of mini-series from Ahoy, is The Wrong Earth:
…with one of the greatest premises of all time: a cheery superhero from an innocent, goofy milieu (like the 1960s Adam West Batman) switches worlds with his modern, dark, gritty counterpart (like every post-Dark Knight Returns Batman), and hijinks ensue. It builds on this premise and becomes increasingly complex and fascinating and well worth a read.
I also enjoy Second Coming:
…in which Jesus returns to Earth and partners up with a superhero, and…hijinks ensue! Interesting and wild ideas about both religion and superheroes abound. TOO HOT FOR DC COMICS!
• • •
Mike Loughlin moves on in
with
“Which current comics have your customers interested and excited?”
Well, the newest Big Thing that everyone’s asking me about is an entry in DC’s newest Marvel’s Ultimate-Comics-killer imprint, Absolute Batman:
I know folks online have had some fun at its expense, and it does look…a little odd. But in the real world, I’ve got lots of people asking for it. How long that interest will last, I of course can’t say, but I expect Absolute Batman to outsell the other launch titles featuring Superman and Wonder Woman by about 2 to 1, at minimum.
The other comic that’s got folks excited is, speaking of MMarvel’s Ultimate line, Ultimate Spider-Man:
…which, surprise surprise, outsells the other current Ultimate comics by about, oh, 2 to 1.
• • •
Okay, that’s enough questions for now…come back next time when I’ll be…answering more questions? Or doing something else? I don’t know…I’ll find out when you do!
Unfortunately, your pal Mike is a little under the weather, so I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a couple of years: I’m asking YOU for your questions!
That’s right, plug in your questions (or even topic suggestions) into the comments section on this here post and I will get to them within a hopefully reasonable amount of time. Just a couple o’rules:
1. ONE QUESTION PER PERSON, PLEASE. I only have so much life left to live, and need to attend to as many of you as possible.
2. KEEP ‘EM COMICS INDUSTRY RELATED. I mean, if you ask me a rules question about beholders in your D&D campaign, or my best stock tips, I can give it a shot, but keep in mind a) my D&D knowledge peters out sometime around the late 1980s, and b) I don’t have money for things like “stocks” or “bonds” or even “medicine” so take my answers with a grain of salt.
So there you go…throw them my way and I’ll get to them as I’m able. Thanks pals, and hopefully I’ll be up and running again as normal by Wednesday.
Twitter pal jd asks the following not-easy-to-answer question:
“…Why do some comic shops succeed and some fail? What are the major factors that go into longevity?”
Egads. Where do I start? Where do I end? Where do I go in-between?
The barest minimum answer I can give to “why some succeed and some fail” is “the businesses that make enough money to pay expenses and provide a living for the owner/employees succeed, and the ones that don’t fail” which, of course, applies to pretty much any retail business you can think of. But what is it specific to comics that feeds the rise and/or falls of those stores?
In slightly less general terms, I think a long-standing store should have
1. Knowledgeable, friendly employees
2. A wide and relatively deep range of stock
3. Some measure of cleanliness
…which again isn’t exactly comic-specific, but I think these are the positive qualities for a comic store to be around more than a year or two.
Those are just the things within the control of the store itself. That doesn’t take into account things like your potential customer base, the quality and proximity of competition, the overall health of the comics business, etc.
This is immensely simplified. Factors such as “expanding too much just as the market downturns” can take out a shop. “Being in a bad location,” or “being a good store but being outcompeted,” or “having the building you’re in get bought by a new owner who promptly prices you out by raising the rent too high,” “the partners who own the store got into a fistfight and now that store’s shut down,” “owner dropped dead” — could be anything, really.
I know during the ’90s boom a lot of shops opened up and I’m sure many of the proprietors smelled some easy funnybook money and dealt heavily in “hot” books. Once the fad died and the market crashed, all those “hot” comic customers dried up and without any longterm committed clientele, many of those shops vanished.
And this isn’t even touching really on distributors suddenly going under, taking retailer money and product with them, leaving stores in the lurch. Which is what has me wondering if we’ll see a return of that particular problem in this new no-longer-beholden-to-Diamond-Comics direct market world.
Ultimately, all I can do is control my store and do what I can to keep it vital. I’m not the biggest store around, or the fanciest, or the most monied, but it’s operating at a level I’m comfortable with, one that pays the bills and affords me a living and the occasional eye injection, and is (usually) stress-free, despite my distributors’ best efforts. But I try to be helpful and friendly, try to stock what I can (and am willing to reorder what I don’t have), and have fair pricing on my back issues.
Now if someone were to open a big ol’ comics emporium right across the street from me, I might take a hit, but I’d like to think I’d engendered enough loyalty to keep at least some of my customer base. I mean, I’ve been doing comics retail for three and a half decades now…it’s too late to go find a real job.
Oh oh oh, I forgot one…a store should have some kind of internet presence. Without going into too much detail, there was a shop I knew about that, when I went to look ’em up online, the only thing I found was a mention of their shop on someone else’s Instagram. Anyway, that shop wasn’t around too long.
• • •
As long as I’m taking Twitter queries,
here’s one from a couple of weeks back from Joseph Z:
“What is the most reprinted comics story of all time? Story, not issue. My guess would be Spidey’s first appearance from [Amazing Fantasy] #15.”
That’s certainly a contender, and I’m presuming we’re not talking print runs but rather “most individual reprints of the same story in different comics or trade paperbacks.” I feel like the first Batman from Detective Comics #27 may be a small contender, though the look of the story hasn’t aged well and likely wouldn’t appeal to most modern audiences.
Now a while back I listed off the various House of Secrets #92s I had. I admittedly had too many and have more on the way. Thus, that was 8 reprints of the original Swamp Thing story…with more acquired since this, and more about to arrive. So…a dozen or so now, 15 maybe?
I’m hard pressed to think of an individual story that comes close (and also it’s super past my bedtime right now)..if you’ve got an idea, throw it into the comments and we can do a little digging. It’s probably going to end up being something at Disney or Dell, isn’t it.
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