Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
Sparing you the worst since 1969
So after all the brouhaha regarding Fallen Angel, guess which comic I forgot to buy this week? Don’t worry, I remembered today. Sheesh.
Speaking of which, the pencils for the autographed bookplate (original offer here) are posted on Peter David’s website.
Jog has a nice review of In The Shadow of No Towers, and a lot more informative than my “well, I’m not sure about the quality of the spine” review.
Would you hate me if I said that the stills from the Sin City movie haven’t exactly reassured me about the film?
Remember that Bush vs. Jesus ad from Mad Magazine I mentioned this morning? Well, apparently it’s taken the internet by storm…I’ve seen it referenced, or outright scanned-and-posted, in about a dozen places so far (like here). If you haven’t got your copy of Mad yet, go take a look.
I find myself with very little to say about this week’s comics. Well, Fables gave us a werewolf fighting Frankenstein’s monster, we got some time-travel shenanigans (and another appearance by my favorite Golden Age villain) in JSA, and the relationship between Lana and Superman goes in a direction I really wasn’t expecting in Action.
The highlight of the new issue of Mad Magazine, #446, aside from the excellent-as-usual contribution by Sergio Aragones (“A Mad Look at Paparazzi”) is “The Bush Campaign’s TV Commercial If He Was Running Against Jesus.” Obvious, yes, but still amusing. Also good is “Your Candidate and My Candidate” (“Your candidate waffles on the issues. / My candidate sees the merits of both sides of the argument.”) All in all, another fine issue of this American institution. Some of the jokes have a little dust on them, but hey, so do I.
There was also a new volume of the Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks series, which I can’t afford at the moment, but will buy eventually since this is the only Masterworks series I’m following. It reprints issues 61 to 71 (and Annual 5) — a little past the peak of the Lee/Kirby collaboration on the series, but still great stuff. It’ll be nice to have on good paper. I don’t get the “variant” covers on these…there’s the new trade dress, and then there’s the variant “classic” look of the dustjackets, hearkening back to the original appearance of the Masterworks line all those years ago. Well, I do get why they’re doing it…for those fans who want their new volumes to match up with the old volumes, but why are they five bucks more? Are the print runs on the variant covers that much smaller that they have to bump up the price to cover costs? They’re already fifty bones as it is. (We ordered equal numbers of each cover, by the way.)
Newest self-contradicting title: Essential Super-Villain Team-Up. Gives me an excuse to link to this old post of mine, though. I jokingly suggested at work yesterday that Marvel should do an Essential Marvel’s Greatest Comics, just to screw with people.
Additional linkage:
Chris Karath has one of my favorite comics/media weblogs, but since it’s not on the Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000, I’m afraid some comics weblog fans may be missing it. So go take a look, won’t you?
Also, I finally added The Sock Drawer to the weblogroll.
Long day at work (what with it being comic book day and all), and I haven’t even had time to read any of my new comics yet. I’m writing this weblog entry instead…see what I do for you people? Anyway, I’ll probably have some kind of comics overview tomorrow.
We did get in Art Spiegelman’s new book In The Shadow of No Towers, and I can say it’s a very nice-looking package. The first half of the book, which relates Spiegelman’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks and the country’s response, is visually very compelling, looking for all the world like one of his old RAW magazines. The second half is classic comic strips from the beginning of the last century, thematically linked to Spiegelman’s observations in the first half. I haven’t had a chance to read and see for myself if it deserves the mixed critical reaction it appears to be receiving, but at the very least it’s visually appealing. My one concern is that the book’s spine may not be up to the job of repeated readings…it feels awfully darn fragile.
In other news:
Found via my referral stats: my favorite page linking to the Seven Deadly Harveys.
Milo George, who always delights and baffles, presents The Greatest Flash Gordon Daily Strip Ever.
In case you missed this link at the end of my interminable Superman post from yesterday, you’ve gotta see the Superpup page. No, it’s not a hoax…I’ve actually seen the show in question. (EDIT: Just noticed that pal Andy has linked to the page as well…so you better go see it fast, just in case bandwidth issues knock it out! Just in case, here’s an Angelfire page with more stills.)
For Scott Saavedra: more Space Canine Patrol Agents info here, here, here (warning: gnarly pop-ups), here, and, because God is good, Space Canine Patrol Agents fan fiction (with special guest-star, Ace the Bat Hound)!
If you like the old comic covers, get yourself over to the Viper Comics Raw Feed for some of Greg Gatlin’s spicy delights. I have no idea why I just typed the phrase “spicy delights.” I apologize.
To steal an observation from pal Dorian, everybody may be talking about Amazing Fantasy, but has that translated to sales?
The first issue of the British comic Dandy sells for £20,350 (just over $36,000, to us Colonials).
You can find the cover and 5 pages from the Cure issue of Rock ‘n’ Roll Comics on this Cure fan site.
Just added to my weblogroll: the mighty Mae Mai, the unique Utopia Moment, and the crispy Christopher Butcher.
Johanna’s Fallen Angel contest ends today, so go enter, you slackers.
If you don’t enter (or you enter and don’t win) you can always step into your local comic shop tomorrow (REMEMBER: NEW COMICS ARE ARRIVING TOMORROW, not today) and pick up a free copy of Fallen Angel #1. Quantities are pretty limited (retailers are only getting copies equal to half their orders on Hellblazer #200), so act fast.
EDIT: Because I’m an idiot, I forgot to put in the link to Johanna’s contest page when I originally posted this message. I fixed it now, not that it matters…but I did post the link a couple days ago, so hopefully people saw it there. Sorry, Johanna!
So a few days ago I was listening to a Los Angeles radio talk-show trio who, between talking about stories they say they got out of the newspaper but really just stole from Fark, made a brief mention of the forever-forthcoming new Superman movie. One of the trio said something to the effect of “why are they doing another Superman movie? Haven’t they done enough movies and TV shows about him?”
Honestly, I had trouble disagreeing with him. Will filmmakers have something new to say about Superman this time around, or will it be just another special effects extravaganza, with more budget than sense? We’ve already seen the straight-foward adventure angle (the movie serials and the George Reeves TV show), the focus on “realistic” effects (the Christopher Reeve movies…at least at first), and the romantic angle (The Adventures of Lois and Clark…not a bad show, for at least the first season). Supes’ younger years have been pretty well covered as well, with the Superboy show from the late ’80s/early ’90s, and of course the current incarnation of Smallville.*
So, if that fella on the radio show is any indication, there may be a percentage of the movie-going audience who’s not going to be terribly interested in seeing yet another Superman film, unless they have some kind of new take we haven’t already seen. (Personally, as I’ve stated before, I think they should just wait for Smallville to run its course, then do a Superman movie with the same cast. It’ll never happen, but it would be nice.)
And that got me to thinking about a somewhat-related topic…when’s the last time anything interesting has been done with Superman in the comics? Now I’m not talking about the Elseworlds or graphic novels or such. I’m talking about the actual (Adventures of) Superman and Action comic series, the ones that have been published continuously since the 1930s, plus the newer Superman series that began in ’86…the series that are published pretty much solely to perpetuate the trademark shepherd along the legend of the Superman character. By “interesting,” I don’t mean temporary costume changes (like the electric Superman), or storylines (like Supes’ “death” and return). I mean significant, permanent changes to the character or to the dynamics of relationships within the books.
The most recent change is probably the marraige of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, putting to an end the quintessential comics love triangle. Prior to that was Clark telling Lois that he was indeed Superman, putting an end to one of the primary Superman plot-movers from the last half-century. Before that were what are turning out to be the only two major surviving changes made by John Byrne during his ’80s revamp – the removal of Superboy from the Superman story, and the survival of Ma and Pa Kent into Clark’s adulthood. Before that was the decision to make Clark Kent a TV reporter (which he was though most of the 70s into the mid-80s), and before that…the addition of another super-powered Kryptonian (Supergirl), maybe? The addition of his life as Superboy?
And what will be the next big change? The seemingly-obvious one would be the addition of a super-baby for the happy couple, but that may bend the Superman formula to the point of breaking (and wouldn’t bode well for Lois, as anyone who’s read this essay could tell you). More likely we’ll get another company-wide revamping of the superhero characters, resulting in a “back to square one” continuity for the Superman cast. Or, less drastically but still tragic, the loss of one or both of Superman’s adoptive parents.
In case you couldn’t tell, I don’t really have much of a point to all this, beyond considering what changes could be made to Superman without interfering with the character’s current raison d’etre: merchandising and other mass media tie-ins.