I mean, nothing against Sweden, it’s a lovely country.

filed under Categories swamp thing 5 Comments

So ye olde Google Alerts pulled up this article about the recent Heritage Art Auction, and yeah, a Frazetta painting brought in a lot of dough, and sure, an Action Comics #1 sold for whatever, but what you’re here for is Swamp Thing news!

Bernie Wrightson’s original art for the cover for the first issue of the classic Swamp Thing series, published in 1972, went for over $191,000:

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…and Wrightson’s wraparound cover for DC Special Series #2 (1977) went for the relative bargain price of just under $66,000:

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What sort of surprised me is that these pieces were still out there, trading around on the market. It makes me wonder where all the Swamp Thing original art from House of Secrets #92 might be. Hey, if you see the original art for this cover pop up on eBay for, like, $100, maybe even $150, let me know, okay?

Speaking of original art, Twitter pal Jason pointed out this Amazon listing for the very-forthcoming Swamp Thing Bronze Age Omnibus due on in 2017. The listing notes that it includes House of Secrets #92 and Swamp Thing issues #1 through 25. As all true Swampheads know, the original series only published through #24, which has me wondering if the omnibus is going to include those unpublished pages from #25 that turned up in the original art marketplace a few years back. That would be nice, particularly if they were able to find other pages from the issue, if they exist.

It could just be a typo, though Twitter pal Christopher notes that the same information turns up elsewhere. That could just mean the typo’s in whatever press release got sent around to everyone, though. Wouldn’t be the first time a Swamp Thing #25 got typo-ed into existence…the Overstreet Price Guide mistakenly had it in their listings for a few years.

Anyway, it’s not like I’m not going to get one for myself, regardless. Can’t pass up my, what, fifteenth, sixteenth reprint of House of Secrets #92? Oh, and it’ll be nice to have the rest of the the Nestor Redondo-illustrated issues on good paper, after only getting three of them reprinted in that Roots of the Swamp Thing book from a while back. And speaking of that, the theoretical Roots of the Swamp Thing Vol. 2 that I wrote about a couple of years ago seems to still be a shadow of a whim of a dream, judging by this Amazon listing with no potential arrival date noted. If that even means anything. I have no idea. You should probably ask someone who knows something about comic books.

But regardless, thassa lotta Swamp Thing heading our way in our format or another. Now let’s hope this book sells well so we can get a second omnibus with all those Challengers of the Unknown and Super Friends and other Swampy appearances under one cover. And maybe that second installment of the Patchwork Man story that only appeared overseas, too. That’ll save me a trip to Sweden, at least.

I hope they do a year-long story about Superman having an ant head.

filed under Categories this week's comics 4 Comments

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• • •

flintstones2cvr

So Flintstones #2 from DC’s strange Hanna-Barbera revamp project isn’t quite as peculiar as the initial installment, but it does firmly establish the milieu as some sort of terrifying nightmare world. It goes well beyond the humorous shrug of the various appliance-animals exclaiming “it’s a living!” to…well, worse things, frankly. That’s just a small portion of the overall theme of the issue, which is a critique of consumerist culture, with a little poking fun at religion mixed in, and overall I think I’m beginning to really like this series. The first issue caught me off guard, as I said at the time, but I think with the second issue I’m catching on to what they’re doing.

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Superwoman squeezes a whole lot of storytelling into those 20 pages…many panels per page, lots of dialogue, along with an additional surprise character that I wasn’t quite sure I was expecting as a regular in this series. The title brings an additional permutation of the Superman franchise, which has been going in some unusual directions of late, and generally for the better. Like I said last week, I feel like this weird fiddling with the Super-books will all go away once the Rebirth event reaches its eventual conclusion, but in the meantime it’s nice to see them break out of their usual ruts. And I mean in a good well-thought-out way, not in the rushed-to-the-marketplace-New-52-retooling way.

And yes, I know “Superman’s girlfriend gets super powers!? WHA–!?” ain’t exactly a new story, but neither was “Superman’s identity — REVEALED!?” but taking those old Silver-Agey one-off plots and turning them into The Status Quo (for at least a while) is still an appealing way of doing things, at least to me. Remember, I was into that whole Superman Red/Superman Blue thing before it was cool!

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Darth Vader wraps up next issue, which kinda surprises me given that it’s been a success for Marvel (not that any of the Star Wars books haven’t been successes). However, it’s nice when it’s recognized that a series that comes to a natural conclusion (and will sell forever in collected book form) is preferred to an eternally-running series with diminishing returns. Or restarting with a new #1 immediately to boost up sales for another month or two. Not that we won’t see another Darth Vader mini-series at some point, I’m betting, but taking the first one off the shelves finally makes room for that Lobot: P.I. mini-series that I would totally write for free if Marvel is listening.

Anyway, this issue is like the total opposite of Superwoman in that it’s all big panels and light on dialogue, but for some reason I’m a little more forgiving of this in a Star Wars comic, probably because George Lucas has brainwashed me since I was a child. It’s mostly mindspace-type shenanigans, as Vader reflects on the incidents that made him who he is, so we’re getting a lot of Prequel Trilogy imagery mixed with the Big Guy as we’re familiar with him from the Real Trilogy, which is intrinsically interesting to the Star Wars nerd that I am. It’s not quite as shocking as the one appearance-of-sorts of Darth Vader in the Clone Wars cartoon series, but it’s neat to see nonetheless.

asbatman1cvrrebirth

Okay, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but 1) no, despite the name it’s not a continuation of DC’s finest Batman title, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, and 2) the multiple covers for this first issue reminds me of the multiple covers for the first issue of the somewhat similar Legends of the Dark Knight. At least this time they gave us actual drawings on each variant (well, except for the blank sketch cover)…I like that John Romita Jr. cover (pictured above) the best. A quick flip-through at least looks interesting, and I enjoyed Scott Snyder’s Bat-writing previously, so I’m reasonably sure I’ll enjoy this too.

[TEMPUS FUGIT]

Okay, fine, I read it instead of going to bed like a sane person. It’s a fun Batman comic, featuring our favorite Caped Crusader in some locations you don’t usually see Batman in. Plus, there’s the return of a character that I’ve always liked and that we’ll get to see more of (well, more or less…you’ll see what I mean) in the next issue. Don’t know if we need yet another Batman book, but so long as 1) they’re good, and 2) they’re taking different approaches to the franchise, I guess I’m okay with it, which I’m sure makes the folks at DC let out sighs of relief.

Bringing up the possibility of a Misfits of Science: Season 2 comic didn’t really fit in the body of this post, so here it is in the title.

filed under Categories indies, television 1 Comment

So when I was talking about the black and white boom books a while back (1 2 3) there’s one I totally forgot about and was reminded of when Zack Soto brought it up on his Twitter: MacKenzie Queen!

macqueentpb
Yeah, that’s the cover of the trade instead of one of the issues of the actual series, because if I’m going to “borrow” a pic from the Grand Comics Database, let it at least this time be one that I scanned for that site myself.

Anyway, I’ve written here before about MacKenzie Queen, mostly about the fact that it took me what seemed like forever to track down the last issue of the series. In fact, I found it after I bought the trade, because it figures. And you should go to that link for the ultimate punchline about the whole MacKenzie Queen #5 thing.

I definitely did want to point out this comic, even if it’s a bit after the fact of my black and white funnybook discussion, because this was the first time I was exposed to the work of Bernie Mireault, and just loved it to pieces. Beautifully detailed art delineating crazy magic and aliens and even music, with a great sense of humor…this was right up my alley. The Jam is a later series of his that’s just as great, and even just typing out that name makes me want to pull those out of the boxes and give ’em a reread. …Man, if only I had time to reread all the comics I want to reread.

So, in conclusion: MacKenzie Queen and The Jam…two more positive results from the black and white boom of the 1980s. ASK FOR THEM BY NAME.

• • •

In other news, the long-running Wild Cards anthology series that took comic book superheroes and turned ’em into prose (and then people would occasionally turn them back into comic books, for some reason) is apparently just about to get a live-action adaptation, apparently. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long, kinda sorta, especially now when people are scrambling for superhero stuff to turn into movies and hopefully get some trickle-down from that enormous pile of Avengers movie bucks.

I’m only “kinda” surprised because, as has been brought up in the occasional discussion I’d get into friends with this, the sheer number of different writers and characters they’ve created for the series might complicate any media adaptation deals, though I have zero idea what kind of agreements were in place for this very thing. And it might have been the cost…a superhero TV show means lots of special effects, and while those are probably cheaper to do now than they ever have been, it still ain’t free, and multiply the number of different effects they’d have to work out by the number of characters that could be involved. I mean, there are ways to work around this, of course.

On the other hand, given that George R.R. Martin was one of the instigators of this particular book project, I’m not surprised someone finally pushed this project forward. Seems like I remember a long time ago, reading in Comics Scene, that this was a possible Disney project at one point, maybe?

But whatever. I do look forward to it, as a Wild Cards fan since that first paperback came out way back in 1986 (thirty years? good gravy…and I know it has a 1987 copyright, but I’m about 98% certain it came out in late ’86). I’m trying not to get my hopes too far up, given my reaction to another adaptation of something I greatly enjoyed, but if they can sell me on a live-action version of The Great and Powerful Turtle, I think I’ll be okay with it.

And speaking of comic book TV adaptations…is Dreadstar still in the works? Oh Lordy I hope so.

Gaspar Saladino (1926(?) – 2016).

filed under Categories obituary, swamp thing 2 Comments

Gaspar Saladino was the letterer’s letterer, providing logos and text for many a comic book for several decades, for Marvel and DC, and designed logos for all the 1970s Atlas books (such as this great one for Grim Ghost), and many, many more.

And of course he created the logo for a comic book series of particular importance to me:

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And also did the lettering within, designing the distinct balloons for both Swamp Thing’s thoughts and his rare vocalization:

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He was a great talent, and an essential part of the look-and-feel of those early Swamp Thing comics. He’ll be missed.

Mark Evanier has an obituary (he mentions that there’s some question to Saladino’s actual birth year, hence the question mark in this post’s title), and Todd Klein has an overview of some of Saladino’s early DC work (parts 1 2 3).

So long, Gaspar.

The whole “Superman” section of this post sort of got away from me here.

filed under Categories superman, this week's comics 5 Comments

younganimalpreview
So I have to say I was pretty amused by this week’s preview booklet for DC’s “Young Animal” imprint. As you can see by the cover, it apes the look of DC’s Who’s Who series, down to including Who’s Who-style entries for some of the characters in the first few pages. The rest of the pages are filled with art samples from the forthcoming titles. Mostly I’m impressed by the “lo-fi” nature of the preview, a black and white digest-sized pamphlet that stands out in this age of full-color sampler comics and full-size first-look magazines, selling ideas, not production values. An interesting statement on the aesthetic of this line, I think.

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What’s interesting about the Superman titles during DC’s “Rebirth” initiative is that, all things considered, people shouldn’t like them. This is about as convoluted a set-up as you can have for a Superman franchise, involving parallel universes and whatnot, and oh Superman and Lois have a son, too…but ultimately people are interested. It’s a combination of “here’s something sorta new with the character” and “this isn’t the New 52 version of Superman you didn’t like, but the one that’s been around since the 1980s Byrne revamp, more or less.” The hooks for the two series have been engaging (with Action focusing on the maybe-redemption arc for Lex Luthor and the mystery of the Other Clark Kent, and Superman focusing on the Supes/Lois/Jon family dynamic).

I generally prefer Action, and at first I wasn’t entirely thrilled with this week’s issue of Superman…there’s a whole lot of fighting with the Eradictor, and not a whole lot else…but it does provide the next step is Jon’s evolution as the Son of Superman, and that does leave me wanting to see more. Which, of course, I’ll eventually be getting in the forthcoming Super Sons book, co-starring Damian Wayne…which makes me wonder. Did DC’s relative success in giving Batman a biological son pave the way for DC doing the same for Superman? But then, a father/son dynamic has been present in the Batman comics for decades…it’s just now the son is actually his son, not a ward or an adoptee, so there’s not really any change in that dynamic.

I guess in the Superman franchise, Supergirl sort of filled the role of the mentored youngster, but that’s not really the same as “Superman has a child.” He’s not even really had any kind of established Robin-esque sidekick like Batman, despite Supergirl’s occasional guest appearances. So, while Batman having a son didn’t really affect the franchise, giving Superman a son does alter things from the established model quite a bit. (It strikes me, sometimes, how lonely Superman seems to be in the pre-Crisis days…going to the empty Kent home, keeping his double life secret from his friends, even separated from Kandor in either its shrunken city or on-an-interdimensional-planetoid forms.)

Anyway, this is just a lot of meandering about a current plot development that will likely go away in whatever big shakeup the whole “Rebirth” thing is eventually leading to. The current story of “Parallel Universe Superman” will probably be wrapped up sooner rather than later, and whatever permutations that make this Superman differ from the Official Licenseable Version will be sanded away. But in the meantime, the Superman books have made for intriguing reading, if only for exploring how flexible the franchise is after nearly eight decades of existence.

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

filed under Categories End of Civilization 14 Comments

The End of Civilization is staring us right in the eyes, friends, and you get to stare right back into that abyss with the latest issue of Previews! Grab your copy (the August 2016 edition) and follow along, why don’cha?

p. 44 – Serenity: No Power in the ‘Verse #1:

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Man, musical comics are really hard to do, so how are they going to pull this…oh, it’s short for “universe.” Never mind.
 
 
p. 54 – Muhammad Ali HC:

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I know this is supposed to cover his life as a whole, but it’d be a shame to have his team-up with Superman compressed to just a few pages.
 
 
p. 80 – Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #1:

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“Oh yeah? Cybernetic lip, cybernetic lip!”
 
 
p. 122 – He-Man/Thundercats #1:

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He-Man’s gonna have a lot of ‘splaining to do to the Thundercats regarding the whole “Cringer” situation.
 
 
p. 284 – Archie Meets The Ramones #1:

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Okay, every single time something like this comes up I always make a joke like “and then they should team up with G.G. Allin!” which is exactly what I said when this series was originally announced.

So let me change my reference: boy, I sure hope the Archies meet Throbbing Gristle next! “IN THIS ISSUE, JUGHEAD MEETS THE HAMBURGER LADY!”
 
 
p. 302 – Big Trouble in Little China/Escape from New York #1:

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greenwarlord
 
 
p. 338 – Betty Boop #1:

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I freely admit I did not know I needed a Howard Chaykin-drawn Betty Boop drawing until I saw it in this Previews.
 
 
p. 485 – Super Mario Adventures GN:

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This is the weirdest variation on the old “two brothers on opposite sides in the Civil War” trope that I’ve ever read.
 
 
p. 508 – Wonder Woman Coloring Book SC:

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“So what color should her panties be?”

“FRANK, NO”
 
 
p. 509 – Home Alone The Authorized Coloring Book SC:

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At last, my days of coloring in unauthorized Home Alone coloring books are over.
 
 
p. 509 – 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die:

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Oddly enough, one of the movies listed is actually titled 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die.
 
 
p. 526 – “For Darkseid” Red Heather T-Shirt:

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And also “FOR ZARDOZ!”
 
 
p. 630 – Star Trek Pizza Cutter:

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Obviously based on that scene from “Who Mourns for Adonais” when Apollo grabs the Enterprise with his giant projected hand and uses it to cut his godly-sized pizza.
 
 
p. 643 – Howard the Duck Molded Head Mug:

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Either the greatest piece of Marvel Comics merchandise of all time, or the one artifact by which future civilizations will pass their harshest judgement.

Jack, Richard, and Jerry.

filed under Categories obituary 4 Comments

As I’m sure you may have heard, Jack Davis, “MAD‘s Maddest Artist,” passed away this week at the age of 91. Now, I loved MAD, and I loved the work of Jack Davis both there and in the other EC Comics (this is probably my favorite horror cover of his). If you remember, a few years back a rumor briefly went around that Mr. Davis had passed away, and I had a tribute post ready to go. I held off posting ’til I had confirmation, and of course it turned out he was fine. But, not one to let a little bit of work go to waste, I posted it anyway, because why not celebrate a great talent while he’s still with us? We should do that more often.

So, here’s that post, with plenty of links to samples of his work. Like all of the man’s art isn’t permanently embedded in our collective consciousness anyway.

Another comics artist passed away this week: Richard Thompson, creator of the strip Cul de Sac. Unfortunately, his strip ran at a time when I wasn’t really paying attention to the comic strip world, beyond archival reprints of other older strips. I’d seen his work, of course, and always made the mental note of “I’ve got to dig into his material,” but never got around to it. What I’ve seen of it, though, has always impressed, and it’s clear from the outpouring of grief at his loss just how much love and respect he had earned. In a way, I’m sort of lucky…I still get to discover how wonderful his talent was, and that excitement of being exposed to a new great work is still before me. This time, I will seek it out, and not just put it on the back burner.

Also passed away this week is one of the stars of the Babylon 5 television series, Jerry Doyle, who played Garibaldi. He was the down-to-earth, sardonic voice that grounded all the alien warfare and ancient prophecies and other sci-fi shenanigans…sort of a gruff “everyguy” that you couldn’t help but like, even as the character went through some dark places. The creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, wrote this funny and touching tribute.

As much as I want to write “enough already, 2016,” I’m going to point you to pal Andrew who has some smart words on what Achewood so accurately calls “the only game in town.”

“Arcane is, like, grody to the max.”

filed under Categories cartoons, swamp thing 4 Comments

So the full Justice League Dark animated movie preview is out there on the internettings, which is a special feature on the soon-to-be-released-in-physical-media-preferred-by-the-old Batman: The Killing Joke DVD and/or Blu-ray that some of you out there seem to be very excited about. Anyway, the video clip I have here is just the short version of said special feature, which you can go out there and find if you’d like, but I wasn’t comfortable just posting it in its entirety:


Of note: Matt Ryan, star of the Constantine TV show and reprised the role on an episode of Arrow is back providing the voice of John Constantine in…Constantine’s first animated appearance, I think? Unless someone hid him in the background of an episode of Teen Titans or something.

Also, Swamp Thing is in the cartoon, his first animated appearance since this cartoon and the one or two sneaky cameos in one or two other DC animated thingies. No voice credit for ol’ Swampy as yet, so I happily throw my hat into that mossy ring. I always imagined him with a sassy valley-girl type voice, as I’m sure all of you have, too.

And they weren’t happy about Thor being called the “God” of Thunder, either.

filed under Categories pal plugging, sir-links-a-lot 1 Comment

Longtime reader Wayne passed these two screen shots my way, from an episode of the TV series Naked City. He apologizes for the time stamps, indicating that the images are from the year 2025, if man is still alive…oops, wait, wrong year. Anyway, Wayne was reminded of this after I pointed out another funnybook cameo in a moving picture entertainment, and here you can see Amazing Fantasy #15, with the first appearance of what’s-his-name:

…and Journey into Mystery #83, the debut of that other fella:

Okay, sure, this bit of TV trivia has made the rounds before, but hey, it’s neat, so why not put it here, too. Now if anyone has stills of that 1980s episode of the 700 Club where they go after comics, and are particularly unamused by crucified Professor X in the X-Men graphic novel, please feel free to send those my way, too!

• • •

And speaking of Elvira, which I was a few days ago and linked back to just a couple of paragraphs back, reader Paul directed me to this story of how Cassandra Peterson might be hanging up the ol wig ‘n’ dress for good. As Peterson herself says in the story, she’s been saying she was going to stop portraying Elvira for like three decades now, so I suspect the Mistress of the Dark will still be around a bit longer.

• • •

Reader Daniel, remembering that I featured Condorman on my site once or twice way back when, thought I would be interested in this Sunday newspaper strip adaptation as well. And sure, of course I would be. No idea it ran in the papers, though I do have memories as a young Mikester of various short-run strips tying into something-or-‘nother in the funnypages, and I suppose this is yet another example of that.

• • •

And finally…I helped Bully, the Little Bull What Don’t Need No Help, with a pancake post! Go, enjoy the yumminess!

“You drive to the Final Order Cutoff, get out of your car, cut off your Final Order….”

filed under Categories question time, retailing 3 Comments

Okay, he also has some pog-related questions there, but I’m not quite ready to tackle those yet. However, PTOR has the honor of having the last question from that last Question Time post from all those months ago, and that question is THIS:

“How do you keep on top of Diamond / Previews constant ‘newly announced product’ and ‘just now added-on variants and reprints’ that are announced DAILY (with their own dedicated web pages on the Previews site)?

“I’m just a guy trying to keep up with the solicits of pretty much ONE CHARACTER (Doctor Strange, natch) and the constant newly announced stuff is hard to consistently track.
How do you do it for your entire store’s new inventory?”

It’s actually not as bad as it seems. Yes, there’s a constant stream of emails and announcements and whathaveyou, but when it comes to actually ordering all these different items, there’s generally only one or two places to go.

In the Diamond retailer website, you’ve got the Final Order Cutoffs page, where you can adjust your initial orders on comics and toys and other products from select vendors…generally Marvel, DC, IDW, Dark Horse, Image, Zenescope, and some others. Usually any newly announced variants or reprints from these companies will get listed here. This is the place where, if you noticed that your order of 100 copies of X-Squirrels isn’t selling very well on the rack, and you feel like your pending order of 75 copies of issue #2 is going to be way too much, when that issue shows up in the Final Order Cutoff listings you’ll have your chance to drop those numbers down to the far more reasonable 5 copies you should have ordered in the first place.

Then there’s the Previews Plus order page, where all the new products…not just comics, but pretty much everything Diamond carries…show up for your ordering pleasure. Sometimes there’s overlap with the Final Order Cutoff page, but if there is whatever numbers you may have placed will be shown here too. But generally this is the place where you put in your numbers for new product that didn’t show up in the monthly catalog.

Pretty much all new product that Diamond announces shows up in one place or the other. There are rare exceptions, such as the rush print job DC tried to do on the 2nd print of DC Universe Rebirth. We were told to contact our sales rep directly with orders, as, due to its rushed nature, it would not be in the Final Order Cutoff listings.

Occasionally there are special lists made available for other new products (like offers for some San Diego Comic Con exclusives), which are made obvious to anyone logging into Diamond’s site. Like, literally a banner across the top of the page telling you “HEY, PLACE YER ORDERS ALREADY, SHEESH.” Well, maybe not in those words exactly.

And then there are periodic liquidation sales and other special offers, which either show up in email or just when you go to Diamond’s site, but that’s for previously-available product and not quite as vital, but definitely welcome. You just kinda have to keep an eye out for those.

New product, though…the announcements come all the time, but there’s really only a couple of places to put in your orders, so it’s reasonably easy to keep up on that stuff.

And now that I’ve revealed all these secrets to you, PTOR…I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill you. Nothing personal. But that’s just how it goes in the world…of comics retail.