sir-links-a-lot

Suddenly…DEATH FROM THE BRUSH!

filed under Categories golden age, sir-links-a-lot 8 Comments

image from from Keen Detective Funnies #23(?) (1940)


In other news:

  • So they did that “largest gathering of superheroes” Megamind advertisement / world record attempt — which reminds me, is that really a Guinness Book of World Records category? — and sure, we can all make fun of it, but someone totally showed up as Popeye and I’m okay with that.

  • SPOILER ALERT: So the very last word of dialogue spoken in the last Cathy comic strip is “iPhone.” Seems…weird to me.

    And as I was writing that I saw that Adam Koford pointed out that the actual last words of the strip were “PAT PAT.” That mollifies me…somewhat. Not that I’ve ever really thought about Cathy or mentioned the strip on the site. (Well, mentioned it twice on the site, anyway.)

  • Speaking of Adam Koford, BEHOLD ORIGINAL MADE-TO-ORDER DRAWINGS FOR SALE. And at low, low prices! Tell him Mike sent you, so he can say “…Who?”

  • Speaking of comic strips, have I mentioned that pal Andres has a site devoted to Nancy’s aunt Fritzi Ritz? Complete with Fritzi Fridays? All documented, all true.

  • And on the topic of Nancy, Fantagraphics is trying to locate some dailies from 1942. I don’t have any, and I sure wish I did…but if YOU have any, please help them out! (And I’m not putting that out there just because I’m a nice guy…I want my Nancy reprint book!)

  • One final funnypages bit of business…yesterday was Peanuts‘ 60th anniversary. How did you celebrate? (Me…I went and talked to my old school building, played some tennis against “Crybaby” Boobie, and developed this odd rash on my head that looks strangely like baseball stitching….)

  • RevolutionSF has been doing a series of articles about comics that haven’t yet been collected into trade paperback, or have been collected but are long out of print. A couple that I’d add to the lists: a Hammerlocke collection would be welcome, which featured some nice Chris Sprouse art. And while I’d like to see a Spanner’s Galaxy trade, with Tom Mandrake’s art recolored and safely away from the Flexographic printing process which afflicted it during its original publication, I’m not holding my breath.

  • REMINDER: I’m still doing Estate 4.1, that wonderful, uplifting site where I point out delightful comments left by thoughtful users on news stories…though I may have to stop because I think I’ve found the greatest news story comment of all time.

    Honestly, this busts me up every time I read it, and I’m not sure I can even explain why. Your Mileage May Vary, as they say.

  • And now, sent to me courtesy of reader C. Elam, here is William Shatner for K-TEL:

I am very, very sorry for the last link in this post.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot 9 Comments

  • INTERESTING TIMES CONTINUE: The week after DC Comics imprints Wildstorm and Zuda were canned, Bob Harras, former editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, was named editor-in-chief at DC.

    This got some internet pals of mine talking about the Spider-Man Clone Saga, which ran, at least partially, under his watch. My contention was that the Clone Saga, while running way too long, and dealt a nearly-fatal blow to the Spider-Man franchise with the revelation that the Spider-Man we’d been reading for the last couple of decades was, in fact, the presumed-dead clone Spider-Man, started out as a good thing. Sales were strong, readers were interested in the story…it wasn’t the greatest story in the world, no, but it kept people’s attention and entertained them, at least until that particular goose was killed for its golden eggs. And until that saturation point was reached, as a person who was slingin’ funnybooks at the time this storyline was running, I can guarantee you that I was selling plenty of the Clone Saga comics to people who were into the story, and not just buying for investment. You can usually tell the difference.

    And, to this very day, I still have kids looking for and buying Clone Saga back issues (and anything involving Venom and/or Carnage). Far more kids, in fact, than are buying the currently-published Spider-Man comics. Or the currently-published Marvel anything. And I can see the appeal…lots of action, lots of villains, lots of just plain’ ol’ things happening in every issue. Frankly, whatever comics excite kids and get them interested in comics, I’m grateful for.

    So, there you go. I’m the guy defending the Clone Saga. …And All-Star Batman and Robin. And The Spirit movie. I deserve some kind of medal (“BIGGEST CHUMP, 2010”).

  • From a ’90s flashback to an ’80s one: a little bit about comics coloring from Comico Comics.

  • And speaking of internet pal Andrew: here’s his latest Nobody’s Favorites entry, featuring a character that, even at the time it was published, had my customers going “what…really?”

  • Reader De, in the comments to yesterday’s post, suggested the site Comic Book Cartography, given my recent fascination with comic book maps. There are maps aplenty at this site, as well as other cutaways and diagrams and, thankfully, I didn’t duplicate any of this person’s posts with my recent entries. Anyway, go check it out…lots of good images from funnybooks of days gone by.

  • Adam Koford, the fella what does Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, recently uploaded some of his Disney Interactive Toy Story designs, and they’re adorable.

  • Longtime internet chum Mr. Dan Kelly gives me the beauty of a giant Luke Cage wall poster. Find more here.

  • Oh, dear: Hipster Hitler webcomics. Funnier than it has any reason to be. I double-dare you to wear the shirts from the strip’s store.

  • THIS IS TERRIBLE: here’s an auction I found for a JonBenet Ramsey black velvet painting. Nothing to do with comics, I realize, but good gravy, why would…how could…I…what? The description raises more questions than it answers.

Yes, it’s another map from an old comic book.

filed under Categories maps, sir-links-a-lot, supergirl 7 Comments

from Action Comics #337 (May 1966) by Otto Binder & Jim Mooney


You know, given that the Evil-Eyed People only have one entrance to their underground realm, you’d think folks would have since found some kind of alternative path that didn’t lead right towards it.

Then again, who’s gonna feel threatened by these guys?


Now we humans have smallish eyes with lids, and I don’t know about you, but I’m always getting, like, something blown into my eye out of my truck’s air vents, or an eyelash stuck in there, or just some random detritus flung into my eyeballs by a cool summer zephyr. Maybe I’m just lucky like that. But this guy…this guy…he’s gotta be peeling crap out of eyes constantly.

But on the other hand…the Evil-Eyed People are able to shoot fire out of their eyes, so if their eyes can handle straight-up open flame, having a gnat fly in there probably ain’t no big thing.

…This really wasn’t what I meant to talk about, here. I was going to comment on the map, because boy howdy I love maps in comic books, but…seriously, it’s a map with ant people, giant acorn trees (not “giant trees with acorns,” though they are big, but “trees with huge-ass acorns“), and Evil Eye People. What’s not to love?

Sooner or later we need to gather up all these comic book maps, and feed ’em into a Google Maps/Mapquest-esque database: “How do I get to Star City?” “Well, hang a left at Gotham City, go a couple of miles past the Justice Society headquarters, make a right at Titans Tower, and if you’ve reached Gorilla City, you’ve gone too far.”

• • •

In other news:

  • Amalgam Reborn, by Awesome Hospital artist Matt Digges. Not many there yet, but it starts off with “Batman Beyonder” and how great is that?

  • And now…the Worst Comic Book of All Time, courtesy Dr. K., a professor who’s studied, academically, stories featuring Chop Chop from Blackhawk, so he knows from terrible. By the way, the comic under discussion couldn’t be more racist if it tried, so be prepared.

  • Superman also hates vuvuzelas.

  • Here’s your odd Swamp Thing link of the week: a comparison between the behavior of a particular U.S. political movement of some note and the author’s attempts to cajole his parents into buying him a Swamp Thing action figure. …Certainly wasn’t expecting to read something like that this week. Also, that post made me feel very old.

  • Speaking of Swamp Thing, approximately 3,000 of you out there in the Progressive Ruin Super Agent Force emailed me the link to Daniel Crosier’s Deviant Art page featuring a wood-burned art piece of our favorite swamp dude.

    Here, let me get this out of the way, before anyone asks this:

    FAQ: Wouldn’t Swamp Thing, representative of Earth’s plant life, object to the burning of a piece of a tree?

    A: No. Swamp Thing is a fictional character, and can’t object to anything.

  • For more recent Swamp Thing-ery, hie yourself hither to Roots of the Swamp Thing, which has had a flurry of entries covering recent events and historical material involving the big green fella.

  • And finally:

    “The Joker becomes Swamp Thing Alec Holland does not become part of the Green, the Joker does. All Swamp Thing issues are retroactively taken out of continuity, replacing them with Joker-Swamp Thing. How does this affect things?”

    I shudder to think.

Behold my mastery of graphic manipulation.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, does mike ever shut up, employee aaron, market crash, retailing, siegel & shuster, sir-links-a-lot 8 Comments

So anyway, I did this as a quickie gag for a couple of friends in email, and the files have been sitting on my desktop for a few days, so what the heck, here you go:


SUPERMOBILE


CLARK KENTMOBILE

Just grabbed the pic via the Googling, so hopefully I didn’t offend anyone with my repurposing his/her scan. It was for the purpose of creating a better world, my friend.

Anyway, in other news:

  • Regarding that panel I posted yesterday…I felt a little funny picking out a panel by freakin’ Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, for a bit of good-natured mockery. I mean, it seems almost sacrilegious, doesn’t it? Anyway, that panel was from a strip called “Federal Men,” which ran for quite a while in the various iterations of early Adventure Comics. You can read descriptions of some of the stories here. A reprint collection of these stories would be interesting, but I’m not holding my breath.

    By the way, speaking of sacrilege: here’s reader Todd with his slight reworking of the panel:


  • Tom Spurgeon has some commentary from one of his readers about comic pricing and buying habits. In particular, there is some discussion about the likelihood of someone spending more than $20 a week on comics in the late 1980s. As someone who entered the high-finance world of funnybook retailing in the late ’80s, I thought I’d supply a brief bit of anecdotal…well, perhaps not “evidence,” but it may be of interest.

    Starting about the mid-’80s, and off and on through the late ’80s, our shop had a box of overstock and/or deadstock comics by the register with a sign on it that read “FREE COMIC WITH $20 PURCHASE.” And, it is my memory that the $20 level was originally picked because 1) it wasn’t a price level that was normally breached terribly often by the majority of customers, but 2) it was close enough to what a significant portion of customers were spending that the hope was that they’d plop another comic or two on the pile to hit $20 and qualify for their free comic.

    Now…and please consider, I’m working off decades-old memories here…I believe that we had some, but not a lot, of customers slapping on additional comics to get to twenty bucks, but that eventually we had enough people already buying twenty dollars’ worth of stuff without going back and grabbing an extra book or two that they got their free comic anyway. And, eventually still, sometime around the big Batman movie-fueled boom, we did away with it completely. (I suppose we could have just raised the price level to, say, $30 or $40 for the free book, but at the time rivers of cash were flowing through the direct market and thus, perhaps the need to encourage additional sales in that fashion was no longer as strong.)

    Later, we briefly did a “spend $50, get a free poster” thing along these same lines, which I’m pretty sure was in the post-market crash years of the mid ’90s. And that tells me that, even though the high-livin’ days of the boom were long gone, the customer base that remained was spending far more on average than they had pre-boom, so that $50 now seemed like the just-above-average typical sales level that seemed achievable.

    My memory was that was more about clearing out old poster stock than hoping people would hit $50, which, like what happened with the $20 level, is something people gradually started doing anyway.

    Wish I remembered more details about these things. Should’ve kept better notes.

  • Speaking of our retail past: Chris Sims recently concocted this Comics Alliance article about comic book bumper stickers, and in the comments section to it, someone mentioned our old “U.S. OUT OF LATVERIA” stickers that we had at the shop. [NOTE FOR MY DAD, WHO READS MY BLOG: Latveria is the fictional country that the Fantastic Four’s arch-nemesis, Dr. Doom, hails from.] Now, I tried to respond to said comment with a link to a post on my site featuring said sticker, but alas, the CA comment machine does not like linkity-links, so instead I’ll post that link here.

    And before you ask: no, I don’t have any more. Sorry, kids.

  • More Comico history: the transition to color printing, including some early and neat-looking coloring guides for a page from the original Mage series.

  • Pal Dorian does terrible things to an old DC subscription pitch. TERRIBLE THINGS.

  • Employee Aaron’s fiancée Kempo whips out her 2010 San Diego Comic-Con report, with lots of photos of the two of them eating meals.

  • I’d noted something on my Twitter the other day, and thought I’d repeat it here: you know what I’d like to see Christopher Nolan name the third Batman movie? The Caped Crusader. That’d be pretty awesome, right? Yeah, I knew you’d agree.

Meanwhile, in comics that (mostly) have nothing to do with the Hulk’s crutch…

filed under Categories dick tracy, hulk, secret wars, sir-links-a-lot 12 Comments

…here’s this Dick Tracy Weekly cover:


I’m pretty sure each of those panels were from different daily Dick Tracy strips, but between you, me, and the two-way wrist radio, I prefer to think that those are in fact four consecutive panels from the same single daily strip. That‘s a Dick Tracy comic I’d totally read…just a surreal jumble of mismatched actions and images, day after day, forcing the reader to bring his or her own meaning to what they see before them. But that would require the funnypages demanding some minor effort from the readers, and no newspaper editor wants to field that phone call.

Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, had a post about the current Dick Tracy strip a while back, and…well, no one’s gonna confuse that with a good strip, no, but the example panels Bully displays there demonstrate an almost mesmerizing level of…quality, shall we say, that probably provides amusement despite itself.

And then there was this.

• • •

In other news:

  • Like I said in the comments there, I absolutely have no memory of this character even existing. And I know I sold these comics to unsuspecting customers at the time.

  • Some discussion of early Comico Comics promotional material, including that swell Mage mobile we used to have here in the shop.

  • Apparently pal Ian is getting good value from Satan on the trade-in value for his soul, as not only is Ian writing Darkwing Duck for Boom! Studios, but now he’s got his mitts all over Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers.

    All kidding aside…good on you, Ian! Don’t forget us little people!

  • So anyway, I looked, and I can’t find anything in any Avengers annual (or Fantastic Four annual, or even West Coast Avengers annual) from that time frame where Reed and She-Hulk collect the pieces of the Hulk’s crutch. I really don’t remember that sequence at all. THE CRUTCH MYSTERY CONTINUES.

    However, I didn’t look for anything involving the Thing using a repurposed version of the Hulk crutch, as mentioned in that same comment. I mean, it’s not like I’m obsessed with this.

image “borrowed” from Comics.org.

More links to things other people are doing.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot
  • Ordered mere days ago and here they are, in my hot little hands…Lydia and She Died in Terrebonne #2, two exciting comics from Kevin Church and his super-pals (Max Riffner on the former, T.J. Kirsch on the latter) over at Agreeable Comics. Both are very handsome looking publications, and the contents ain’t half-bad either.

  • Also received this week was Awesome Hospital #1, collecting the strip’s first storyline by Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, Matt Digges, and Josh Krach. The print edition is apparently not currently available from sale, due to that initial print run selling out…but fortunately Mr. Digges happened by the shop and gifted me with a copy. It’s great stuff, so, if you don’t have yours, hound Sims ’til he goes back to press on it. He’ll like that.

    • Man, all these webcomics going to the print format…it’s the new hot trend, baby! Clearly the digital comics format is on its way out.

  • Bully the Little Stuffed Bull What Likes to Talk about The Comics explains Hydra to you, in the most fantastic way possible.

  • So Archie Comics introduced a new character into their books that also happens to be gay, and that introductory story…is actually pretty good! Pal Dorian tells you all about it.

Linking Accomplished.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot 6 Comments
  • Fellow Bureau Chief Eugene, AKA “Adam Warrock,” has unleashed the West Coast Avengers Mixtape, featuring, yes, raps about your favorite West Coast Avengers members. Completely free, completely available for download at that link, and completely awesome. And in case you’re wondering…yes, there’s a Moon Knight song.

  • That’s pretty harsh, Batman.

  • Some recent goodies from Armagideon Time’s Andrew: in appreciation of Tawny the Talking Tiger, strange clothing names of catalogs past, and Nobody’s Favorite, The Owl. Plenty of solidly entertaining and brain-filling reading.

  • Here’s a quickie three-pager called “The Bunker” by Kevin Church, Carlos Pedro and TJ Kirsch.

  • IF YOU MENTION THE NAME OF HARRY KNOWLES, HE WILL MAGICALLY APPEAR. (This is the review in question, in case you’re wondering.) (WARNING: review should not be read by anyone.)

  • Dean Trippe writes a letter complaining about a senator’s mailer presenting comic books in a negative fashion. Well, to be fair, exposing a kid to Marvel Previews at that early an age surely isn’t a good idea…but still, just coming right out and saying “without education, your kids could be (gasp) reading comic books” is not exactly thinking things through very well. I mean, God forbid kids get interested in reading.

Odds & Ends.

filed under Categories retailing, sir-links-a-lot 5 Comments

  • To you folks out there who 1) visit my site directly instead of just pulling the RSS feed, and 2) use some form of Internet Explorer, I apologize for the font size problem yesterday. I had an HTML tag that I didn’t close, and I didn’t notice since I’m on Firefox and that seems to correct for display errors like that, but apparently the problem caused IE, at least in some cases, to go haywire.

    Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s fixed now.

  • I was discussing late comics with some pals the other day, because that’s the kind of thing I do after I get a couple of drinks* in me, and the topic of Batman: Widening Gyre popped up. So I went through the records, and here are the dates of release (well, actually, the date the invoices were generated, with the comic coming out the following Wednesday):

    #1 – 8/23

    #2 – 9/26/09

    #3 – 10/31/09

    #4 – 1/9/10

    #5 – 3/6/10

    #6 – 7/24/10

    So, eleven months or thereabouts, which averages out to about bimonthly, if one were to be charitable. Also noticed that this time around, I didn’t get the parade of complaints demanding the next issue during that extended delay between 5 and 6. Perhaps the reason is that, if one were again charitable, customers finally have learned to expect some comics to ship late.

    Hmm. When Batman and Robin is only a week late, I never hear the end of it. Funny.

  • So I was looking at Scott McCloud’s site, and he snapped a pic of some cosplayers he spotted while at the theatre to see Scott Pilgrim…and lo and behold, at the bottom center of the pic, with the green hair and baseball bat, is pal Dana, she of cookies, cakes, and holiday cards. I guess she’s dressed as, I don’t know, Matilda or something. Hey, I didn’t read this “Scoot Pogom” comic.

    Anyway, our little pal Dana is moving away and going off to big person’s school up north at the end of the week, so she’s just going to have to mail us cookies and cupcakes from now on. She’s not getting away that easily. But good luck, Dana! We’ll miss having you around, but we’ll still be able to annoy you via the Internet! Thank God for technology!

  • Reader JB sends along this link to a convention sketch of Swamp Thing by Bill Sienkiewicz. Pretty darn cool.

  • I don’t even have the words for Andrew’s latest Nobody’s Favorites. It’s a little outside the realm of comics, but Andrew wouldn’t break the format if it wasn’t for good reason.

  • Do nerds ruin everything? YOU MAKE THE CALL. (In this case, yes, but I’d totally buy one of these.)

  • James Marsters is returning to Smallville for that show’s 200th episode, but not reprising his role as Brainiac. He’s coming back as Legion of Super-Heroes member Brainiac 5. This is…actually pretty clever, I think. Plus, maybe we’ll get him slathered in green body paint which, it goes without saying, is a fetish for someone, surely.

* Diet Cokes, mostly.

I’m not interesting, but these people are.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot

Starro in my eyes.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot 10 Comments


So Employee Aaron brought me one of these swell Starro masks from the San Diego Comic Con, and now I wear it as often as possible. Particularly when I’m working the cash register.

In other news:

  • Every time Chris Sims decides to say something about a Kevin Smith comic, hilarity ensues in the comments. (Widening Gyre #6 certainly is…something else, I’ll give it that. I like the general idea of it, which is “What Happens The Day Batman Lets Down His Guard,” but the execution is a bit curious, to say the least.)

  • Internet pal Dave celebrates the eighth anniversary of his weblog this week. Them’s a lot of Legos, my friend. Congrats, and here’s to many more years!

  • “The Apocalypse came and went, and no one attending San Diego Comic-Con really noticed. When they emerged from the convention center on Sunday night to find the world in ruins around them, they realized that they had been spared for a purpose. They realized that the wasteland around them held nothing for them, least of all a return to their old lives.

    “They realized the Con could go on forever.”

    BEHOLD: THE LONG CON.

  • Pal Dorian brings you…Previews for Gays! (By the way, Dorian gave me the joke for the Warlord of Mars entry in yesterday’s End of Civilization post.)

  • So they’re trying to find a new superhero show for their network after Smallville finally leaves the airwaves. I’m hoping for Blue Devil.

  • So the leaked trailer for the Thor movie popped up on the Internet in the last day or so, and it’s appearing and disappearing as lawyers send out copyright nastygrams as quickly as possible. Now, I’m not saying I saw the trailer online anywhere, but if I did see it, I’d say it was surprisingly Disney trailer-esque in its ability to apparently reveal the entire content of the film. It does look like it’ll be pretty good…or, at least, I’d imagine it’ll be pretty good, if I’d seen anything I could have passed judgment on. Which I didn’t.

  • Speaking of trailers: STARE INTO THE FACE OF HELL

  • REMINDER: I’m still asking for your single favorite currently-running comic book series, so drop your answer into the comments on that post. Just one title, please, with an explanation or without. No idea what I’m going to do with this information, but I’ll come up with something. Hopefully.