sir-links-a-lot

Your “it’s been a long work day” post.

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Well, I took some work home with me Tuesday evening, which, combined with my beginning the process of a new End of Civilization post, meant not having enough time to do the entry I was planning for the site today. So, instead, let me leave you with a handful of links:

  • Pal Andrew of Armagideon Time fame just started up a new project: Wish You War Here, an exhibit of a collection of old photo postcards he rescued from a Woburn landfill many years ago.

  • Pal Dave reviews Day of the Doctor, the special 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.

  • Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai and his wife Sharon have some serious medical expenses, and they can use some help: details here about not only where to donate money, but also how to donate art for benefit auctions.

HOT LINKS, COME AND GET ‘EM!

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  • Pal Andrew has a new Nobody’s Favorites…and it’s a comic based on a game I used to sell a lot of, way back when.

  • True Opera Crime, featuring…the Bullfrog!

  • Bully, the little bull full of stuffing, knows how to appeal directly to my interests, by giving me COMIC BOOK WINONA RYDER!

  • Can’t say I remember this particular Sherlock Holmes mystery.

  • Finally created a category for those posts I did oh so long ago about those anniversary (or, as has been pointed out, “anniversary”) issues. I should about write more of these.

  • And in honor of this weekend’s 50th anniversary (“anniversary” used correctly, here!) celebration of Doctor Who, here’s our pal Bob giving us three reasons why Doctor Who is the best show ever, and then another 101 reasons!

This is a very lazy post…

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…in that I’m linking to someone who’s linking to stuff that I think is neat. Christopher Elam informed me that Megaton Man creator Don Simpson is blogging again, and not just on one site, oh no. On multiple sites, devoted to specific titles and characters. Chris has got the list right here, and you can see lots of unpublished pages, sketches, process material, etc. on all of Simpson’s sites. Note that some of the sites (particularly the Bizarre Heroes one) are Not Safe For Work, so wait ’til the boss ain’t lookin’.

How the Green Lantern movie could have become a box office success.

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So I was looking through this DC Sneak Previews freebie:


…which you know came out several years ago, since it actually cover-features superheroes who are (gasp) not in their mid-20s, and featuring previews of the Justice Society of America mini-series and Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn II. Of note is the intro to the GL:EDII preview:


…which features this phrase that pays:


Now that’s a slogan that would have brought attendees to movie houses in droves, should Warner Brothers’ marketing division only have dared to use it. Of course, that would have required a slight rewriting of the film to facilitate its use, but I think we all agree a rewrite for the GL film would not entirely have been out of order.

• • •

In other news:

  • Happy Sixth (Give or Take A Year or Three) Birthday to Bully, The Little Stuffed Bull Who Apparently Ages Like Jonathan Winters on Mork and Mindy!

  • Comic Book Galaxy is going off the air within a week or so, so if you’re gonna catch up on any articles there, now’s the time to do it. I wrote there for a while (I’ll repost the articles on my own site here, soon), plus I contributed this little blurb about the Thing (in relation to a still-MIA Barry Windsor-Smith graphic novel) which I think is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written.

    Thanks for asking me to contribute, Alan!

  • And now, your Indian-style Swamp Thing promo poster for the day, celebrating Charles Soule’s run on the series. BRB, going to India to get one of these.

 
 

images from DC Sneak Previews #1 (1991)

I said “Kryptonian elements” because I think I’m funny.

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Another swell drawing by pal Casie, who is, perhaps, speculating on the next revamp of the Batman movie franchise featuring those two lovable scamps. (To see other pics by Casie featured on this site, just click the newly-created “pal casie” tag! Or follow her on the Twitters to see ’em as she draws ’em!)

In other news:

  • There’s a new trailer for Man of Steel out, and it certainly looks promising, but we’ll see. It’s apparently sparked some debate about revisiting Superman’s origin yet again, but 1) from the trailers it looks like Supes’ origin, both the Smallville and Kryptonian elements, will be thematically important to the film as a whole and not just something to plow through to get to the action, and 2) it’s the first film in a potential franchise, not just for Superman but seemingly for DC heroes as a whole, so a little world-building from scratch is likely needed. Oh, and 3) it probably doesn’t hurt to remind folks who aren’t immersed in the mythology what the Superman story is all about.

    I seem to recall arguing before on this site, years ago, that you really didn’t need to retell Superman’s origin since everyone pretty much knew it, and getting plenty of arguments in the comments section against that position. Clearly it depends on the kind of story you’re trying to tell, in what context, and in the case of Man of Steel, where it’s the (hopeful) start of a new series, and it’s been a while since the last film (itself an odd cousin of the Christopher Reeve cycle of films), and the origin appears to be important to the overall plot, retelling that origin seems necessary. So, okay, I may have been wrong about the origin thing, in that post way back when. I’m allowed to be wrong about once or twice a decade.

    I also just joked on Twitter that they should go the super-decompressed route in retelling Superman’s origin, and devote the entire first movie to a science drama about Jor-El investigating Krypton-quakes, which just goes to show there’s no debate to which I can’t contribute nothing of any real use.

  • Pal Dorian is back to reviewin’ Doctor Who, as is pal Dave, and they’re both smart guys with intelligent things to say about a show I’m watching, and if you’re watching that show too, maybe check them out.

  • Hey, you guys remember Ken Lowery, right? The guy I allowed to help me with writing Write More Good by, you know, fetching me coffee and stuff? Well, that boy’s got himself one of those fancypants Kickstarters to help him and his pal Robert Wilson IV fund a new one-shot comic. I contributed to the cause, and maybe some of you can help my pal out, too.

  • Speaking of helping, I was more than happy to assist pal Andrew with his latest installment of Nobody’s Favorites, even if all I did was shove a comic into an envelope and let the gentle hands of the post office bear it aloft to Woburn.

  • Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull Who Has Been Rebooted into a Stuffed Little Bull, gives those “WTF Certified” covers from DC Comics the ol’ what-for and shows everyone what “WTF” really means.

  • And lastly, on a more serious note…my best wishes to the people of Boston.

The Adventure of the Lazy Links-Post Because Mike Has a Dentist’s Appointment Early Monday Morning.

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So apparently that jam pic of Linus, Snoopy, Broom-Hilda, and the Demon that I posted way back when is making the rounds again, only this time it’s a pic of the original art from this auction site, and not a scan from the San Diego Comic Con ’74 program like my image was. The auction was back in 2008…I wonder what it sold for? Also, I’m amused by the link on the auction page that reads “I Have One of These to Sell,” like there’s two jam drawings by Charles Schulz, Jack Kirby, and Russell Myers. (Yes, yes, I know it’s just part of the page’s standard template, let me have my fun.)

Also, I see on my original post my addendum link to my comments section (for more info about the pic) is dead dead dead, thanks to my original third-party commenting system giving up the ghost a while back. Oh, the reliability of sorta-free technologies. Thank goodness I still have Google Reader to follow all my favorite websites!

In other news:

  • So have you seen what pal Andrew has wrought? ULTIMATE POWERS JAM, in which Andrew uses an old Marvel Comics role playing book to randomly generate a super character, and hands it off to his accomplices who then whip up an illustration and description for said character. Some pretty amazing and entertaining results so far…go check ’em out!

  • NOT COMICS: pal Dave’s Electronic Games Sunday, where Dave pokes through this archive of the Electronic Games magazine (which I myself read starting with issue #1 way back in ye olden days) and picks out items of note for our amusement and, usually, horror. If you’re old like me ‘n’ Dave, you’ll find this nostalgic. If you’re one of those punk kids that’s never known anything other than an X-Station or a DS-Boy, you’ll just pity us.

  • BEHOLD: GO-GO CHECKS

I figured Sluggo just sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.

filed under Categories retailing, sir-links-a-lot, sluggo, swamp thing 7 Comments

So Paul wrote in and asked if I had any comment on this week’s delayed arrival of Scarlet #6 from Marvel’s Icon imprint. And I said, “oh, was it late?” and I checked our cycle sheets at the store, and BEHOLD:

#1 – 7/8/10
#2 – 9/1/10
#3 – 11/4/10
#4 – 1/19/10
#5 – 3/28/11
#6 – 2/6/13

Wow, nearly two years between the last two issues. Not quite Ultimate Hulk Vs. Wolverine level, but pretty close. I probably just didn’t notice it because, unlike that Hulk/Wolverine thing, I didn’t have people asking me every day when it was coming out. Or any day, for that matter. Is anything really late if nobody’s waiting for it? …Ooh, okay, that’s a bit harsh. I’m sorry. But not too sorry, because I have to sell these things, and a two-year gap between issues is kind of bullshit, and certainly no way to keep a readership.

And of course there’s the other end of the spectrum, in which we got three issues of The Avengers over the last three weeks, which is also ridiculous. Or two issues of Superior Spider-Man over the last two weeks. Or seven issues of All-New X-Men since mid-November. I’d like to see comics released on a rational, responsible schedule, one where retailers and customers can plan out their spending, and one where the market isn’t flooded so quickly with consecutive issues of a series to the point of discouraging readership, but I suspect I’ll see “Steve Ditko Sings The Hits – Live On-Stage Revue” before that ever happens.

Mmm. Okay, now I’m angry. WHY MUST YOU POKE THE BULL, PAUL?

Let us go on to happier things:

  • I am getting comments and multiple emails from folks telling me that the current Nancy comic strips are retelling the origin of Sluggo. Read ’em yourself, starting here. …To think I’d ever see the word “reboot” in a Nancy strip, that wasn’t about, say, Sluggo putting on two pairs of boots.

  • Big Rich Handley, creator of the Roots of the Swamp Thing website, recently interviewed former Swampy artist Steve Bissette and former Thingy writer Nancy Collins. Good readin’ all around…go check those out.

  • This is interesting…John MacLeod, one of the contributors to this issue of Ultra Klutz I discussed a while back, popped up in the comments to that post with a couple of details about his contribution to the comic. And it turns out you can read his Dishman comics online (along with his commentary)…and be sure to take a look at his more recent project, Space Kid.

A little bully, a lot of swamp.

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Starting off Year Ten with a short ‘n’ lazy links post.

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Hey, I’ve been busy, what can I tell you:

  • Tony Isabella has a few supplementary stories of his own to go along with the recently-released Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and you can read them in these three blog posts: a one, and a two, and a three.

  • I’m a bit late to send folks to pal Andres’ Kickstarter page, as he’s already reached his funding goal, but go there anyway and check out previews for his forthcoming graphic novel Pariah, MO.

  • Pals Dorian and Ken take on the new movie trailers in this month’s installment of “In A World.”