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Let us open the Tome of Conan Stickers,

and see what we find:

The exciting puffy Conan logo.

“Oh, wow, man, there’s my logo up there above me, and there’s another beneath my feet, too. Far out.”

Conan takes his lion-creature-thing for a brisk run around Cimmeria State Park.

“Conan finds your Lex Luthor cosplay to be inadequate! EAT MACE.”

CROTCH ATTACK IS GO.

Oh, if only there were some kind of “facial injury” sticker I could add to my collec…

…Ah, there we go.

Coming this week to finer comic shops, and even to ours, too:

It’s John Stanley, it’s Nancy, it’s awesome. Hopefully the reproduction looks a little better than the much-too-dark faux-yellowing of the pages evident in the Free Comic Book Day sampler advertising this release, but even still, it’s a must-have. Well, at least for me, I don’t know about you.

Some other things due out today:

• Batgirl #2 – Boy, looking at internet reaction you’d think Batgirl #1 kicked over everyone’s trashcans and set fire to their pets. But it sure sold well here, through our initial order and a reorder or two. Let’s see if folks come back for the second ish.
• Batman and Robin #4 – Grant Morrison’s still writing, Philip Tan is filling in for Frank Quitely on art chores. Should still be a great read.
• Blackest Night #3 – September’s been a bit moribund for us, but, ironically enough, this comic book about dead people should perk things up a bit. The customers are really into this series and the tie-ins.
• Brave and the Bold #27 – This is the first issue written by J. Michael Straczynski, and hopefully it’ll grab more folks than did his Red Circle relaunch. Well, it does have Batman in it, so already has bit of an advantage. But B&B sales never really recovered from losing the Waid/Perez team, so we’ll see if this reverses the trend. Plus, this issue has “Dial H for Hero” in it, and I’m a sucker for that.
• Captain America Reborn #3 – The second issue was a strong seller, and #1 is moving pretty well out of the back issue bins. Still pretty much just to the regulars, though…just because there’s “mainstream coverage,” that doesn’t mean the mainstream’s gonna be diverted through our doors. But hell, our customers are buying it, so I can’t complain.
• Citizen Rex #3 – New issue of Mario and Gilbert Hernandez’s fun sci-fi mystery mini-series is due out today. I’m always afraid this is going to get overlooked among all the event comics hoohar and the fact that this is coming from a publisher folks don’t normally associate with the Bros. (though Dark Horse has published Gilbert’s stuff before).
• Galactica 1980 #1 – I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that there’s a comic book version of this. I mean, sure, why not. Doctor Zee deserves his comic book face time, too (so long as he doesn’t jinx anything).
• Johnny Boo: Happy Apples HC – Another James Kochalka kids book…Kochalka’s work always sells, so I’m happy to have it.
• Marvel Zombies Return #3 – Yeah, this is over now. Sales aren’t even a patch on the first two series. However, I think once it’s in trade form and racked with the other volumes, it’ll probably do well. Unless people are completely sick of the zombie thing by then. Next trend? I predict “mariachis.” “Say, do you have the Mariachi Variant for Dark Alpha Flight #3?” “Why, sure I do! Look, they’re playing a quinceañera!”
• Vengeance of Moon Knight #1 – Giving it another go, I see. Marvel even put out one of those freebie “story thus far” booklets for Moon Knight that retailers could give away. I wonder if that’ll help any.
• Vincent Price Presents #12 – This series has yet to top the line “the android is the opposite of the vampire” from the first issue, but we still have a great fondness for this comic as we all take turns reading from it in our best (i.e. terrible) Vincent Price voices.
• Watchmen Movie Silk Spectre Deluxe Wig – Yeah, so? What’s it to you?
• Yotsuba Vol. 6 – Like Achewood last week, here’s another book the west coast is getting after everyone else. Well, folks have waited this long for it…what’s another week?

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Also released this week is a shocking 11-page preview for issue #3 of America’s Gorilla-est Comic, El Gorgo! If you read only one comic about a luchador gorilla scientist, make sure it’s this one!

And now…some excerpts from DC Comics’ New Releases flyer from July 1986:

the Truk in question

promotional advertisement sent to retailers (October 1986)

While this is all-around bad-ass, the most bad-ass thing about it must be the fact that the drawing attached to the logo – the “anti” sign over the vial of crack – appears to be what the ‘Busters are actually wearing on their chests. No questioning of purpose with these guys.

I’m trying to picture similar logos for other superheroes, except that most super-types tend to be a little more open regarding the scope of their activities. Though I keep picturing Superman with a chest logo of an “anti” sign over a bald scientist’s face. He had to deal with a couple of different bald scientists early on, you know.

I was thinking a “no guns” emblem for Batman, but that doesn’t seem quite right. Maybe an anti-sign over a picture of a young Bruce kneeling between his dead parents, right smack dab center on Batman’s chest. …Yeah, okay, that’s a bit morbid. But you get the idea.

thehulkkilledmichaeljackson.com – Your one-stop shop for a handful of vague accusations and some awesome MS Paint drawings.

Found during a Michael Jackson image search. Yes, I was looking for Michael Jackson images. I had my reasons. Don’t you judge me.

little itty-bitty house ad (about 2 1/2 inches tall) from the end
of the letters column for Action Comics #593 (October 1987)

So a quick Googling tells me this is old news to current comics internet chatter, but my curiosity about where else Green Lantern foe Nekron has appeared turned up Green Lantern Annual #7 from 1998. The story? Dead Green Lanterns come back to life as a bunch of nogoodniks, and Nekron appears to be involved, somehow:

That third caption at the top reads “Instead of the Corps, I’ve found the Green Lantern Corpses!” Some deathless prose, there, eh, kiddies? heeheeheeheehee! [/cryptkeeper]

Yeah, the annual (and its possible precursor status to Blackest Night) has already been discussed in excruciating detail here and there on the ‘net, but I wanted to post this page because seeing this old-school GL digging out of his grave made me laugh and laugh for no good reason I can easily explain, aside from my own innate cruelty:

I find weird things funny, I realize.

In other news:

• Dr. K, a real life college professor, has just started a new feature on his site: Blackhawk Wingsdays! A new Blackhawk story discussed every Wedesday, and believe you me, the man knows his Blackhawk.
• Pal Dorian discusses more comics, by request.
• Andrew digs up another Nobody’s Favorite, and…woo boy, the bottom of the barrel gets deeper every week.
• Apparently there’s been some kind of behind-the-scenes shake-up at DC Comics. As I mentioned on Twitter, part of me secretly hopes Paul Levitz just quits DC and starts editing The Comic Reader ‘zine again.

…with 25% off all in-stock graphic novels. And hey, if you’re reading this, you can get in on it, too. Send me an e-mail, or even give me a call (805-653-2732) and let my soothing tones lull you into a shopping dreamland, and if we have it in stock, you’ll get it at the sale price (plus our very reasonable shipping costs). Offer ends at midnight tonight, Pacific time (and you’ll have to e-mail me after 6 PM, since I won’t be answering the phone at that point). And if you can’t get your order in before midnight…well, I can probably be talked into extending the deadline a bit.

And feel free to ask me for other stuff, too. Back issues, action figures, trading cards, whatever. If we have it, I’ll be happy to offer it to you.

Okay, I don’t often go for the blatant commercial announcement here on the site, but a combination of a slow-ish end of summer/September and some recent enormous distributor bills have things a bit tight around here, so I hope you’ll forgive this intrusion. I wouldn’t do it if we couldn’t seriously use the scratch.

Thanks, internet pals!

First, if you’d ever wondered why the otherwise seemingly normal-looking Elastic Girl appeared to be stuck with a group of heroes who were (for the lack of a better term) “freaks,” it was probably because she kept doing weird crap like this:

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Second,

“SORCERER!”

images from Brave and the Bold #65 (April-May 1966)

• Achewood: Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar HC – Yeah, I know everyone else got their copies last week, but for some reason the occasional Dark Horse trade or hardcover takes an extra week to get to folks on the left coast. But that’s okay, because a new Achewood collection is worth waiting for. If one were to make a list of the Top Ten reasons the internet was created…well, okay, “Porn” would be #1, “Funny pictures of cats with grammatically incorrect captions” would be on there somewhere, as would “Every bit of media ever generated, ever, just free for the taking!” — but also on the list would be “Delivery system for Achewood.” God bless that strip.
• Cursed Pirate Girl #1 – Okay, that’s actually a reorder for myself, since somehow I managed to miss it the first time around, but Employee Aaron came back from the San Diego Comic Con with a copy of #2, and it’s easily one of the most lavishly illustrated comics I’ve ever seen. I grabbed my own copy of #2 when it finally passed through Diamond’s pipes and ended up in our shop, and I’m waiting for #1 to be in my hands before I sit down and start reading the thing. But flipping through it…it’s absolutely beautiful. Here’s the official site for the fella what cartoons it.
• Doom Patrol #2 – Actually preferred the fun Metal Men back-up to the lead story, though that’s not to say I didn’t like the lead. Just that the Metal Men story seemed…less weighted down with backstory, I guess. It’s hard to read Doom Patrol stories without thinking of all the retooling and revamping and the misguided “restart from scratch” strategy of the last reboot, which isn’t the fault of the current DP creative team, I realize. But, I do like the Doom Patrol, so I’m sticking with it.
• Grimwood’s Daughter HC – Ooh, I remember this when it ran as a back-up in Dalgoda all those years ago. Haven’t read it in a decade or two, but I remember liking it, and hey, Kevin Nowlan drew it, so you know it looks great. Interestingly, according to Nowlan, some of the original art couldn’t be tracked down for this new hardcover edition, so he redrew some pages. Huh.
• House of Mystery #17 – I keep getting this comic, but darn if I can remember from month to month who is what character, and who is doing what to whom and where. But I like the idea of threading short stories into the narrative, and those have been more fun and memorable than the main plot.
• Incredible Hercules #134 – Forgot this has temporarily gone biweekly. I mean, I like the book an’ all, and it is one of Marvel’s best titles…but I don’t know that sales really warrant it, and honestly, the last thing Marvel needs to be doing is cranking out more books-per-month to cannibalize sales from their own output.
• Little Lulu Vol. 20 – Bawlplayers & Other Stories – I do appreciate that these reprint volumes are in color, now, but I’m wondering if Dark Horse is going to go back and reissue the older ones in color as well. It’s hardly necessary…the books were just find in black and white, aside from the occasional storytelling glitch where color was important to the plot (requiring a special one shot color volume to represent those particular stories). Plus, I don’t know that, in this economic climate, folks who were buying these volumes from the beginning would be terribly anxious to “double-dip” and rebuy colorized versions of books they already own.

  All that aside…every Little Lulu book is worth buying. A true classic of the medium.

• Love and Rockets Vol. 2 – Doesn’t seem like it’s been a year since the last issue, but I guess it has. It’s 100 pages of the Hernandez Bros., of course it’s worth buying.
• Marvel Zombies Return #2 – It’s beginning (yeah, I know…”beginning”) to look like Marvel’s super-zombies are nearing the end of their sales life. Or should I say “unlife?” (click) Bringing back the characters from the initial two, wildly-popular, series hasn’t helped.
• Models Inc. #1 – I’d mentioned this title before, as Project Runway‘s Tim Gunn is appearing in it and was making the talk show rounds talking it up shortly before we had to finalize our orders on this issue. Still have yet to have anyone call or come in to ask about it (other than the one sarcastic guy).
• Shield #1 – Sadly, it looks like the Red Circle heroes are turning into non-starters. The books aren’t bad, but people just don’t want to invest time and money into a bunch of new titles starring these characters. This is the first ongoing series out of the Red Circle revamp, so we’ll see if this’ll grab folks the way a series of weekly one-shots didn’t.
• Watchmen Movie Silk Spectre costume – Yes, we had a special order for this at our shop. I’m sure Employee Aaron will enjoy wearing it around the store very much.