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So a brief discussion with Employee Timmy reminded me about something I’ve not talked about much on this site, even though it’s right in line with my many posts about high-profile funnybook events that get attention in the “real” world. And that thing Timmy had reminded me about is the events around “A Death in the Family,” the death of Robin story in the Batman comics that, the best I can recollect, was the first big event I had to deal with upon entering the high-finance world of comics retail.

Now I’ve written a lot about “The Death of Superman,” DC’s later high-profile event that, over its full run, embodied so much about the boom and bust of the comics market in the early ’90s. But for “A Death in the Family” — perhaps I hadn’t been on the other side of the counter long enough to realize what constitutes unusual marketplace behavior, to fully grasp the idea of the ebb and flow of the general public’s sporadic remembrance that there still exists such a thing as “comic books.” But I honestly don’t have more than a few half-remembered recollections of that particular event, aside from 1) it happened, and 2) we sure sold a boatload of those comics. I took a lot of phone calls from people looking for it, and…keep in mind I’m working off twenty year old memories here…some copies of #427 had the 1-800 number to call in and vote for Robin’s life or death, and some (the newsstand edition, I believe) did not, and it seems to me that we had both. Or that the 1-800 version sold out and we could only get the newsstand edition as restock, much to the chagrin of folks looking for “collectibles”…that feels right, but could be wrong. But, regardless of the details, there was enormous demand for this particular series, from regulars and from the general public.

Okay, I know that’s a lot to write just to say “I don’t remember a lot of it,” but at the very least I wanted to acknowledge this particular event as being my first involvement in one of these big comic events. I do wish more of it was stuck in my memory…if only I’d known that a couple of decades later I’d have a weblog, whatever that is. In particular, I really wish I recalled any in-store discussions about “A Death in the Family” with customers…I’m sure there was the occasional “I’m gonna vote to kill him!” comment, or “yeah, right, they’ll bring him back soon,” or “how much do you think this’ll be worth?”

Anyway, the death didn’t stick, so it’s all moot. But last I checked those original “A Death in the Family” issues are still relatively pricey, and still experience some sales demand, so there you go.

I believe the next event I had to deal with was the first Tim Burton Batman movie, though I’m pretty sure even as “A Death in the Family” was going on we had folks complaining about Michael Keaton being cast. But, I think, that’s a post for a different day.

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In other news:

• You don’t deserve it, but they’re giving it to you anyway: Chris Sims and Eugene Ahn have unleashed another installment of the War Rocket Ajax podcast, and they’re interviewing Comics Alliance’s Laura Hudson. Download it today…unless you’re chicken.
• Andrew has another Nobody’s Favorites entry up on his site, this time taking on a book from Marvel’s ill-fated New Universe line. Granted, Andrew’s spoiled for choice there, but just which New Universe title did he pick? Go read and find out. Yeah, that’s right, I linked the same post twice in a row in the same paragraph. What’s it to you?

  (And before any of you give me crap about making (very mild) fun of the New Universe, because someone out there is the World’s Biggest New Universe Fan and he’s about to post in my comments about what a big meanie I am, please note that I really liked Star Brand. So there.)

• Can you guess the mystery theme of Bully the Little Stuff Bull’s latest ten-of-a-kind?

  Okay, not much of a mystery, but it’s a fun collection of covers.

• Spotted an announcement of Dick Durock’s death on a message board somewhere, and, alas, the board’s built-in naughty word detector/censor resulted in this:
  
  Probably should’ve gone with “Richard” there, my friend.

1976 comic book ad

So a couple of months ago, we were joking about Dick Tracy villains at the store, and over the course of our discussion I knocked out a handful of super-quickie sketches to illustrate some of our ideas. And then I completely forgot about said drawings ’til I found a trio of scans of them on my little flash-memory-stick-thingie.

And here you go…three Dick Tracy villains that never quite made it. Or maybe they did, I don’t know…I haven’t read every single strip:

EARNOSE

FACEFACE

DICK TRACY STRIP FACE

Okay, that middle panel is supposed to be a hand holding a gun. Look, I sketched out each of these very fast. Also, as I was putting this post together, I remembered one of the reasons why I held off posting these back when I originally drew them: I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s done that “Dick Tracy Strip Face” gag before, like in Mad Magazine or something. Or maybe I’m just thinking of the Kryptonian Thought Beast. However, if I inadvertently copied someone with any of these drawings…sorry!

Anyway, there you are, some quickly-done bad drawings by yours truly. Enjoy the horror!

Dick Durock, who portrayed Swamp Thing in two movies and the live-action TV series, has reportedly passed away.

The movies may have been of…varying quality, but they were certainly entertaining, thanks to Mr. Durock’s sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, sometimes outright silly, but always watchable, performances of the big green guy.

So long, Dick.

ad from Peanuts #9 (May-July 1961)

This is a retailer “shelf talker” for The Avengers from 1995:

This was supposed to just dangle off the edge of the comic shelf…here’s a pic of the whole thing:

Never much cared for shelf talkers myself…at the time this one came out, we didn’t really have the kind of comic racks that would accommodate them easily. Now that we do have racks that they’d work on, I still don’t use them…I don’t want them sticking out from the shelves, and I suspect they’d probably get very easily damaged anyway.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to mention about this shelf talker in particular. Mostly, I was just amazed at how…dated, I guess, the imagery is on this item. It pretty much just screams “1990s” at you, in very much a “we actually were buying comics that looked like this” kind of way. …Well, I shouldn’t be too harsh, since this is somebody’s childhood funnybook nostalgia, and I don’t mean to come down on anyone’s fond memories of this particular era. But still…wow. That’s certainly something. It’s certainly the most buff Quicksilver has ever been. Er, that is Quicksilver, right?

So it’s the time of year for the local weekly paper, VC Reporter, to list their Best of Ventura County awards…and we once again took the top spot for Best Comic Store:

Always happy to find out that people do appreciate what we try to do. What it is we do exactly, I’m not 100% sure, but thankfully folks seem to like it anyway. So thanks to all the local folks who voted, and hopefully we’ll be worthy of the same recognition next year as well.

Just a few words about some of this week’s new comics:

• Amazing Spider-Man #602 2nd Printing Variant – Is Amazing really selling out at enough locations to really warrant this many second printings? I mean, we order a couple of each just for those folks who want the different covers (and yes, those customers are out there), but I’m pretty sure we’ve enough stock on recent Spider-books to cover anticipated back issue demand.

  Okay, I probably answered my own question, there.

• Bart Simpson and the Treehouse of Horror #15 – These Treehouse of Horror one-shots always do well, regardless of any special guest writers and/or artists. In fact, I can’t even remember who’s in this one…hold on, here we go:
  

  “Guest edited by Sammy Harkham, the award-winning creator of the popular Kramers Ergot anthology, this year’s issue is jam-packed with some of the most idiosyncratic (and weirdest) takes on The Simpsons universe ever. Kevin Huizenga (Ganges) and Matthew Thurber (Kramers Ergot) collaborate on a story equal parts Lovecraftian eco-horror and Philip K. Dick identity comedy. Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots) does a creepy story featuring Milhouse, murder, and crawl space living. Harkham and Ted May tell a tragic monster tale of unrequited love, bad karaoke, and body snatching at Moe’s Bar. Ben Jones (Paper Rad) does the epic tale of how bootleg candy sold at the Kwik-E-Mart rapidly spirals out of control into an Invasion of The Body Snatchers-like nightmare of a Springfield filled with cheap bootleg versions of familiar characters.”

  Well, that sounds pretty good. The Jeffrey Brown story sounds downright terrifying.

• Batman and Robin #2 second printing – Now this we can use. This series has been like printing money so far, and we’ve been selling through, or close enough, our full orders.
• Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #8 – Sold well for us when Mike Kunkel was writing and drawing it. Not really selling quite so well, now.
• Dark Reign The List The X-Men one-shot – We ordered relatively low on these “The List” one-shot tie-ins to the company-wide Dark Reign crossover, based on sales of the previous one-shots and minis. I mean, some of those minis are selling in the single digits for us. But the first couple of these one-shots (Avengers and Daredevil) ended up acquiring a small level of demand, causing us to sell through our initial orders and, in the case of the Avengers, wait for an actually-needed second printing. (I read the writing on the wall early enough to get in a reorder on the DD one-shot prior to its sellout.)

  Guest that’s what happens when you have one-shots featuring your marketable characters/franchises, and not, say, “The Hood.” (Though I thought Sinister Spider-Man would have done better than it did. Ah, well.)

• DC Library Batman A Death in the Family HC – Hey, remember when DC would do those cheap, quickie paperback reprints of the “hot” storylines…the Death of Superman, and this one, the Death of the 2nd Robin. $4.95 a pop, if I recall correctly, and a good deal it was. Not sure we need a forty dollar hardcover of this particular storylines, but 1) you do get some Jim Aparo art, and 2) it gives me an excuse to again whip out this old “Death in the Family” animated gif I made a couple of years ago:
  
  Hypnotic, ain’t it?

• Justice League Cry for Justice #1 & #2 2nd printings – For those of you who hated these the first time around, now’s your chance to hate them again!
• Liongate Films Leprechaun #4 – Hey, that’s how it’s invoiced. That way you don’t confuse it with any other concurrently-running Leprechaun comics. Anyway, I’m really hoping for Leprechaun in Space or Leprechaun in the Hood comics based on those films from this franchise.
• Superman: Secret Origin #1 – Now that the Siegel estate has the rights to the specific details of Superman’s origin, this comic is all about how a scrawy scientist Dr. Bruce Kalel ran out into a testing field to save a trespassing Jimmy Olsen from the impending Krypton Bomb explosion, and got caught in the blast himself, giving him incredible super powers. That should hopefully clear up any copyright hassles for DC.
• Wednesday Comics #12 – The last issue…the series’ sales more or less kept consistent throughout the run, and I thought it looked great. And now I’m getting asked how DC’s going to collect this into a trade or hardcover. My answer is usually “expensively.”

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In other news:

• Pal Nat would like to correct some assumptions some of you may be making about the Kirby family’s intentions regarding characters Jack created for Marvel.
• SO IT’S COME TO THIS: The new War Rocket Ajax podcast is here! Join Chris Sims and Eugene Ahn as they rap their way into your hearts with their Jeff Parker interview! A nurse will be stationed in the lobby in case anyone listening to the podcast suffers heart failure caused by awesomeness.

A New York fire company patch, featuring a familiar fellow:

Another auction had this larger scan, which shows more clearly the actual detail on the patch’s material:

Swamp Thing looks kinda like a Rankin Bass character. Swamp Thing Is Comin’ to Town, The Year Without Swamp Thing, Mad Monster Party…oh, wait, that last one kinda works.

Anyway, I wonder who the Swamp Thing fan was in this particular company. And, more importantly, how he managed to convince everyone else to go for it. “Swamp Thing is awesome, he’ll look great on the patch!” “Uh, wasn’t Swamp Thing that one Adrienne Barbeau mov….” “SWAMP THING. IS. AWESOME.” “Okay, okay, fine, we can have a Swamp Thing patch.”

…Well, that’s pretty much how I would have argued for it, anyway.

…but dig this crazy horror record ad from 1973:

It’s a little Hieronymus Bosch meets Jack Chick, kinda sorta. Okay, maybe not Bosch, I was just trying to get all fancypants on you, there. And fine, maybe not so much Chick, either. It’s more like “aw, crap, we need some filler art for this Halloween record ad…anyone here in the office got a free minute?” But in fairness, they probably spent more time on the art than in editing the copy. “Haloween” indeed.