So let’s start off Year #11 with a post about X-Force and Deadpool.

§ December 9th, 2013 § Filed under market crash, retailing, the eBay § 10 Comments

It seems really almost like yesterday I was setting up a table near the front of the store to show off all the editions of the brand-new X-Force #1, drawn by red-hot young artist Rob Liefeld. Each factory-sealed in polybags with one of five different trading cards, stacked up high and waiting for us to open our doors for that new comics day.

And did they sell? Oh Lordy, did they ever. It was 1991, the Good Old Days of Comics Retail, and anything that even just slightly smelled of being Hot and Collectible was in high demand. As I recall, a number of our copies of X-Force #1 shared a particular printing defect, a thin dark line that stretched down the front cover, painfully obvious and not obscured at all by the polybag covering. We pulled these aside for replacement from the distributor, but again, as memory serves, such was the demand for the comic that we were even able to sell copies of these, perhaps under the customers’ assumption that the comic’s presence within that sealed polybag thus ensured it was mint, regardless of the item’s actual condition. We noted the damage, we may even have dropped the price a bit to account for the flaw, but still they sold.

And everyone bought them. Yes, everyone. I bought one. I admit it. I was caught up in the hype and the craziness and it’s not like this was the only time I apparently overlooked any kind of deficiency in storytelling in my funnybooks.

If you were around buying comics in 1991, you probably bought one too. You may have bought one of each, to get all the trading cards. …Hey, I’m not judging. It was a weird time, and a lot of us conspicuously consumed a lot more comics-related product than was probably healthy. I’m sure most of us have full sets of the first series of Marvel Universe trading cards, too. (Judging by the number of people who try to sell these sets back to us now, I suspect Marvel went door to door and gave a set to every U.S. citizen.)

Anyway, we sold a lot of X-Force #1s. I’m sure a good number of them went into the hands of kids and teens who dived into the comics collecting hobby during its peak faddish phase, who dived right back out again as soon as that fad was over. I didn’t sell any full cases of them to single buyers, but I’m sure they did somewhere. They sold and they sold and they sold, and sales on the book continued to be strong, as both current issues on the rack and from the back issue bins, and so it went until the comics market crashed a couple of years later, and well, you can read more about that if you’d like.

X-Force continued with mostly reasonable sales, relatively speaking given the state of the marketplace, ’til it finally wrapped up in the early 2000s after a dramatic revamping of the book (and restarting as X-Statix). It’s had the occasional relaunch since then, selling on a much, much smaller scale (just like everything else in the comics market nowadays, compared the land of good ‘n’ plenty back in the early ’90s). Unsurprisingly, back issue demand has dropped, and most people who were interested in those early issues likely bought them as they were coming out. Plus, tastes have changed…what was “hot” and seemingly cutting edge in 1991 is now dated, its shortcomings more obvious now that we have the perspective of distance.

I was looking at eBay the other day, specifically looking at entries for sold items featuring Deadpool. Deadpool, who had debuted in New Mutants #98, just prior to that title being retooled into X-Force, who has been experiencing something of a renaissance over the last couple of years in a handful of popular series. Of late, I’ve noticed that sales haven’t been quite as strong for us on the various Deadpool projects that have reached the stands. The trade paperback collections still move quite well, but the bloom appears off the rose for the actual periodicals. A temporary dip? Burnout from overexposure? Anticipation dying down from a supposed movie that never materialized? Who knows, really, but it’s a trend I’ll need to keep an eye on.

However, back to the eBay. I saw some eBay sellers trying to move those early issues of X-Force with liberal application of “DEADPOOL! H@T! L@@K!” shouting from the auction titles, a desperate marketing move to rid themselves of stagnant product, not too dissimilar from using the “Copper Age” label to get folks to oh God please buy some of these copies of Arak Son of Thunder. In particular, I saw one or two instances of X-Force #1 being sold with a “DEADPOOL!” notice in the title, and I, a proud owner of X-Force #1 as I have explained previously, could not recall Mr. Pool’s presence in said comic, beyond being on one of the prepacked trading cards.

Turns out, sure enough, there he is, in one of the Cable Guide files that filled some space not taken up by house ads in the back:


This does not appear to be a sales incentive, it seems. Even X-Force #2, plugged by many sellers as featuring Deadpool’s second (in-story, as opposed to trading card or Cable Guide page) appearance, doesn’t appear to be gaining any sales traction. That these comics originally sold in quantities probably far in excess of the actual number of comic collectors still remaining in the marketplace is the main reason. In fact, I suspect there’s some kind of economic concept regarding the supply of things and potential demand for them that covers the situation quite nicely. (On the other hand, the aforementioned New Mutants #98, which sold okay back in the day but not nearly close to X-Force numbers, currently sells for big money whenever you can dig one up.)

That’s not to say X-Force is now entirely unsellable. I’ve sold some of those early issues. There are still fans of that type of work. But it’s a weird sort of nostalgia that I get when I deal with these comics now, a reminder of a time when it seemed like the industry, the publishing industry itself, not the media adaptations, was an unstoppable juggernaut, an unending tidal wave of new comics and new relaunches and new #1s and Big Name Artists and new superhero universes and that we couldn’t see the bare ocean floor that wave was going to leave in its wake.

“Suddenly, ten years later….”

§ December 5th, 2013 § Filed under suddenly... § 31 Comments

I like to think of it not so much as “ten years of blogging,” but rather as “about a quarter of my life.”

But, you know, it’s been fun, sometimes rewarding, usually entertaining, and it gives me an outlet to go on and on and on and on and on about comics to people who might actually want to read what I have to say, as opposed to, oh, I don’t know, info-dumping on my poor customers stuck at the cash register who just want to buy the latest issue of All-Star Western. Speakin’ of, thanks to my customers to read this site and yet still come into our shop. You guys ‘n’ gals are troopers!

Also a big thanks to my girlfriend Nora, who still puts up with this comic book nonsense of mine, to my parents who either read the site or use my Amazon links, to pal Dorian, to my put-upon coworkers, to my fellow comic bloggers, and to my partners-in-crime the Bureau Chiefs. And, as always, to the inimitable Neilalien, who may only occasionally still post to his site from comics blogging Valhalla, but is still a big influence on what I do here.

Someday I may join Neilalien in that place of rest, but…well, for now, you guys are still stuck with me. A big thanks to all of you who still come back to my site, day after day, sometimes commenting, sometimes emailing, but hopefully always finding something worthwhile enough to keep you around. I appreciate it deeply.

This past year I didn’t do a whole lot outside my site, aside from my usual goings-on on the Twitter:

Sometimes I remind myself of my own mortality:


Sometimes I relate the important day-to-day responsibilities of store management:


Sometimes I just gotta vent:


Sometimes I have to let you know that my job ain’t easy:


And sometimes I have to reveal to you months after the fact that my dream was about comics creator (not so much comics blogger any more) Kevin Church (read ’em from bottom-to-top):


As long as I’m revealing things, I was also semi-secretly doing this Twitter account, Your TV Listings, for a few months. Might start it up again someday. We’ll see. But in the meantime, follow my regular account on Twitter! Learn amazing facts! Win prizes! (NOTE: no amazing facts or prizes are actually available.)

I was also interviewed about DC Comics’ 3D cover hoohar, as some folks suddenly remembered “oh, hey, here’s a guy that’s been doing comics retail for a long, long time…maybe we should ask him what’s up once in a while.” Feel free to ask me for my thoughts! I won’t bite! Unless you specifically request that I bite!

I sent a few scans of paperback book covers to pal Dorian for his Paperback Book Club posts. Halloween was the first of mine to hit his site, and hopefully more will turn up soon.

Plus, I may have made a cameo in an Onion article. Yes, I know that’s just a coincidence, but hey, close enough.

Anyway, as per usual for my anniversary posts, I like to present a few highlights from the last twelve months. I don’t know if anyone else finds these useful, but it’s a quick and convenient way for me to do a little commentary/follow-up on older posts, so I’m going to keep doin’ it:

DECEMBER 2012:

The recovery of a long-lost Swamp Thing artifact, my attempt at starting a beef with Vermont was for naught, I still need to give this record a full listen instead of just admiring the cover’s beauty, that last pic is the most terrifying Christmas image of all time…and here’s the cutest, an info-dump of Star Wars comic book nostalgia.

JANUARY 2013:

There are a whole lotta posts dealing with predictions for the new (i.e. this) year and covering predictions from previous years (1 2 3 4) and we’ll be doing that again in about a month so get your loins girded, I still can’t believe someone thought this logo was acceptable, I still sort of regret not going for this Nancy and Sluggo board game, that time I ordered comics based on a dream.

FEBRUARY 2013:

I finally get a copy of Yummy Fur #9 after looking for it for years, if you read only one Frank Miller joke on the Internet it had better be this one, the best thing about being Swamp Thing on Valentine’s Day is that you never have to buy flowers, I talk about comic ordering to you so I don’t stand around the store muttering to myself about it, the amount of support I received for this decision (inspired by our pals at Zeus Comics) far outweighed the grumpy message-boarders, oh hey Adam Warrock performed at our shop and it was awesome, I hope this British Dukes of Hazzard Annual will tell me whether or not Daisy loved flying.

MARCH 2013:

Pal Cully and Jack Kirby, more than you ever wanted to know about me sorting my comics and rereading B.P.R.D., that friend of his who used to drive him to the shop every month still hasn’t called to tell us Errol passed away, I still haven’t found time to reread any of these suggestions, a selection of later Gil Kane Green Lantern covers just because, the debut of Spider-Man 2093, this was some good timing finding that old TV guide re: the ’60s Batman series, I am unduly proud of that Admiral Ackbar joke.

APRIL 2013:

So long to Carmine Infantino, Roger Ebert and George Gladir, I had no Clue this existed, “Beware of Women, Batman,” my heart just about stopped when I saw the loads of Free Comic Book Day comics waiting for us at UPS, the more I think about this the more terrible it seems, more of those Whitman pre-bagged comics.

MAY 2013:

Why would you name an octopus Ethyl, the Free Comic Book Day 2013 Post-Mortem, Old Man Plays Video Games, Looks Back Fondly on Days When Your Character Was A Square Box You Moved Around on Screen And That Was Good Enough for Everybody, surely we’re ready for the dark ‘n’ gritty reboot of Execution Buzzard, I don’t review the new superhero movies often enough any more, how I would resuscitate the Legion of Super-Heroes franchise, the many origins of the Heap, this seems to indicate someone shouted out the word “voodoo” during their merrymaking, another comic that took me a while to find, never too late for a post about Ross Perot, you never know when one of my images will have some alt-text.

JUNE 2013:

A brief update on some New 52 sales, I think I just threw that Eclipso comic back in the box without anything cover the jewel…again, there’s probably a way to make an online horror comic generator just using random panels from old comics, a part two on “How to Kill Juggling Nazis” is not likely forthcoming, oh hey I totally forgot I did review the Man of Steel movie, an alternate universe New 52 if I were in charge of DC Comics, Kim Thompson sure was responsible for some of my favorite Fantagraphics comics, I was going to use the phrase “lost their shit” but that seemed inappropriate for a post about Superboy.

JULY 2013:

Come to think of it, if you’re laughing for a full hour something’s wrong, some swell Odgen Whitney art on Modeling with Millie, I forgot to mail the stupid thing back to Diamond so I guess it’s mine now, some late-arriving Free Comic Book Day photos (featuring ME ME ME at least in one shot), if they actually make a Firestorm the Nuclear Man movie I will eat my fiery hat, seriously this Spider-Man knife is terrifying.

AUGUST 2013:

I’ve got a Dog Boy sketch in a big ol’ Dog Boy hardcover, I think the time is about right for a kinder reappraisal of the Howard the Duck movie, sorry Spider-Man but five hundred bucks can get you a good-sized flatscreen now, my initial reaction to DC’s 3D cover fiasco, Thanos buttons, Jack Davis is still with us (and I still can’t find my own copy of this comic), more 3D comics fallout plus I totally called that Killing Joke thing way before Grant Morrison, when I started this site this comic was priced by me only ten years ago, funny I just sold a boatload of old comics this past weekend, some comics don’t sell like they used to however.

SEPTEMBER 2013:

We still have this X-Men box kicking around the shop, nobody loves Terror Inc., the X-Men coloring book, the old Nickelodeon TV show that helped get me into Swamp Thing, a couple of posts regarding comic racking/retailing and restarting series (1 2), Cerebus parodies of new and old vintage, a Swamp Thing parody from Crazy, Swamp Thing on Blu-Ray, I haven’t yet lost my Swamp Thing marbles, Golden Age funny animals are so destructive.

OCTOBER 2013:

I was surprised by the number of folks who didn’t realize this Kirby-Swamp Thing connection, I have to thank pal Brook for introducing me to the idea of the sci-five, I follow up on that previously-mentioned Robot 6 interview, this is one crazy-ass sci-fi comic, each day Richie Rich wasn’t chased down and murdered by the common folk is a day I hope he appreciated to its fullest, turns out this comic is kinda pricey considering, maybe you’ve heard that Miracleman is coming back (1 2), I love my high quality print of this Swamp Thing cartoon (and you can get one as well), LIBRARY-CON 2013.

NOVEMBER 2013:

These really are the best Nick Cardy panels ever, whoa hey I’m reading an X-Men comic again until the creative team bails or I get sick of the crossovers, in retrospect I honestly have no idea why I thought renting this DVD was a good idea, HANDMADE WATCHMEN MAP, kids ask your grandparents about Image United, I think the lower end of the comics grading scale should go “good – fair – poor – storage unit,” Devil Scotty is the greatest.

DECEMBER 2013:

Why, it seems like it was just yesterday I was telling about you about this book, and it seems a few of you out there had the same experience with it.

Civilization also ended throughout the year, as I did my civic duty of going through each new issue of the Diamond Previews catalog to warn you poor bastards about the future that awaits us. (My personal favorite joke of the year was the Monopoly gag at the end of this installment.)

In addition, I tried to do a little more actual comic-reviewing this year. It seems like people enjoy these posts, and I’m having fun with them too, so look forward to more of those coming up.

Again, I have to thank all of you for your readership. The old friends who’ve been reading since the beginning. The folks who may have just discovered me today. All of you make me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m doing something of at least a minimal amount of value here, and it means a great deal to me. I say every single time I do one of these anniversary posts that I’m amazed that anyone outside a small circle of friends has any interest in what I have to say, and it’s just as true now as when I first said it ten years ago.

Thank you.

For reading all that, here’s a picture of me from about twenty years ago, standing out in the middle of nowhere with the world’s puffiest shirt and apparently no comb:


Oh, for the days when the brownness of my hair didn’t come from a bottle.

See you all again soon.

“Pornorobots and video games that kill” — I’m pretty sure that’s just the Internet.

§ December 4th, 2013 § Filed under paperbacks § 6 Comments

So here’s one of those books that’s been sitting on my shelves at home for about three decades now:


I bought it from the local Waldenbooks (R.I.P.), having spotted this blurb on its cover:


…since I was totally in the bag for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and certainly in the market for something similar to read.

From what I can recollect via my vague, age-addled memories of the actual experience of reading the book, it wasn’t quite the madcap zaniness I was primed to expect from the Hitchhiker’s Guide comparison. My sense was that it was certainly a denser book, packed with more information and detail than the casual experience of the Douglas Adams oeuvre, and maybe one I wasn’t quite just ready to experience yet.

Here’s the back cover, to show you what I was up against:


Well, if Coast to Coast AM regular Whitley Streiber liked it, certainly I should give it another go. In fact, I keep meaning to. Every once in a while, I’ll glance at its spine on my bookshelf, and always the quiet half-formed thought “I should reread that” flashes through my brain for the split-second the title registers with me. It used to be that I’d reread books on a fairly regular basis, but now I have a lot more books (and comics!) and more new ones arriving on a regular basis, revisiting old tomes is a luxury I just don’t have much time for. But Terra is different, mostly because I suspect my desire for another Hitchhiker’s may have colored my initial reading, and I want to give it a fairer shake than I did.

And even if I never get around to reading it again, at least I have that peculiar cover to enjoy.

It’s stenciled backwards, so that drivers in front of me can read it in their rear-view mirrors.

§ December 2nd, 2013 § Filed under this week's comics § 5 Comments

(Again, despite the category I’ve filed this post under, these comics are actually from last week. Shhhh, don’t tell anybody!)


So a long time ago, back in the initial heyday of Image Comics, back when people were buying full sealed cases of The Pitt #1 and we could get a line down the block of folks just itching to purchase Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood, there was this oddball thing. It was nominally a superhero comic, I guess. There was certainly a dude in a costume, and there seemed to be a villain involved in the story. But it was all so weird and dark, and not “dark” in the “comics by people who learned the wrong lessons from Dark Knight Returns ‘dark,'” but as in creepy and moody and mysterious. It was right up my alley…

…but then I apparently went through one my periodic “purge the reading list” moods, and I dropped The Maxx after issue five or six. Not sure why, other than I needed to save money, but I kind of regretted it ever since. And somehow, despite the fact that, oh, I don’t know, manage a comic book store, I never did get around to going back and buying the back issues or trade paperback collections to complete the run.

Part of the problem was accessibility. Back issues of The Maxx have been hard to come by, at least around here, for years. Well, not the first six issues, which we’d ordered plenty of. After that, we scaled back the orders some, particularly since the Great Comics Market Crash was in full effect by that point and orders were cut on purt’near everything. As a result, issues 7 and up were in limited supply, only sporadically in stock. In addition, the Maxx TV show helped create a whole lot of fans for the series, it seemed, and to this day I think it is at least partially responsible for maintaining the back issue sales the series enjoys at our shop to this very day. At least, when we have those back issues available.

Yes, yes, I could have bought the trades. Never got around to it. Sorry!

But here we are, I’ve been given a second chance at buying the series, with improved reproduction and coloring and (ahem) a steeper price, but I intend on sticking with it this time. Here’s hoping sales allow them to finish the entire run.


Once again I jump into other people’s Twitter conversations, this time to opine upon Larfleeze, a comic about reprehensible beings acting awfully towards other deeply flawed characters, and what fun it is. It’s Giffen, DeMatteis and Kolins getting to have some entertaining space adventure that’s kinda sorta tied to the Green Lantern franchise, while staying mostly its own thing and not getting too involved in the other two dozen or so GL books DC’s currently publishing. We’re also getting yet another backstory for Stargrave, which should be amusing to the longtime Legion of Super-Heroes fan.

Speaking of backstory, this issue starts to look back at Larfleeze’s origins, which make him seem even more terrible, and his own reaction to this revelation are a few more steps toward rounding out the character a bit. Who knows if this supposed history is really true at all, of course, but seeing a crack or two in Larfleeze’s wall of greed and self-centeredness makes for interesting reading.


Full disclosure: I’m Twitter-pals with this comic’s writers, Adam P. Knave and D.J. Kirkbride, which is why I picked up this book in the first place (not to slight the swell work by artist Robert Love, of course). I enjoy the idea of a short-run superhero book exploring one specific problem (in this case, an immortal superhero looking to become not-immortal…i.e. end his life), you’re in, you’re out, no set-up for a Whole New Superhero Universe, no ongoing franchise…just “here’s our idea, here’s how it plays out, The End.”

Unless of course it is a set-up for a new universe/franchise. I guess I’ll find out in a couple of issues. But the first issue is fun, with the reader’s sympathy for the hero established very solidly early on, so that you want to know how this all turns out for him. It’s all a lot more light-hearted than the premise would imply. There are a couple of chuckles to be had, honest!


I was already buying Justice League Dark, so I didn’t have to go out of my way to pick up this Swamp Thing appearance. I’ve definitely received what I wished for, a Swamp Thing more directly tied to the DC Universe, what with him discussing the evil parallel dimension (or whatever) Crime Syndicate with John Constantine, which is probably not something the me of, oh, four years ago would ever have imagined as happening. In a Justice League book, no less. It’s all goofy adventure-drama, in the middle of a crossover event I’m otherwise not reading, but I get the gist. Swamp Thing also has these massively long word balloons which always seem wrong to me, despite the ol’ restriction on Swampy’s ability to speak having been done away with at the end of Alan Moore’s first storyline on the book.

Oh, and I also felt compelled to buy the 1:25 ratio black and white variant as well as the regular cover:


…because apparently I have the word “SUCKER” stenciled on my forehead.

Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

§ November 28th, 2013 § Filed under End of Civilization § 8 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks who celebrate such things, and Happy Thursday to everyone else…but regardless of how you spend your last Thursday in November, let us all come together and pay tribute to the most inevitable of events…the End of Civilization, as represented in the fine items offered for sale in the latest Diamond Previews catalog. Wipe that turkey off your fingers, swallow that last bit of green bean casserole, and follow along in your own copy of the December 2013 Previews as we learn what to expect in The World That’s Coming! And there may be a gratuitous Arlo Guthrie reference in there, too:

p. 150 – Justice League War Action Figures – Wonder Woman:


Relive the exciting moment in the Justice League War animated movie when Wonder Woman’s head was zapped by Brainiac’s shrink gun!

p. 154 – Superman Pool Cues:


This will go nicely with my Green Arrow dartboard, my Batman Family foosball table, my Black Canary Karaoke set, my Royal Flush Gang Video Poker machine, and of course my Mr. Freeze air hockey game.

p. 158 – The X-Files Conspiracy: TMNT:


I swear to God, I keep imagining the next X-Files movie as a crossover with the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, and there’s a scene with Gillian Anderson exchanging dialogue with a dude in a Raphael costume and how sad is it that this will never happen. (But then again, the way things are going, never say never.)

p. 164 – Judge Dredd Mega City Two #2:


I am vacillating between “I totally want this to actually be what’s under Dredd’s helmet” and “even ‘censored’ seeing a pic of Dredd without his helmet like this feels so very wrong.”

Also, even stripped to his judgement-shorts, Dredd is never…unarmed, apparently.

p. 253 – Bat Fighter T-Shirt:


Okay, I get this is supposed to be a parody of the Batman logo, but honestly, it just looks like a straight-up Star Wars t-shirt. Not joking, not criticizing, just genuinely curious…how much grief does this company get over these only-just-barely-a-parody items from the actual owners of the properties?

p. 267 – Crossed Badlands #33 Blazing Hot 4 Cover Set:


Well, could have been worse…Avatar could have followed DC’s lead and combined these covers into a single lenticular image.

p. 376 – Doctor Who White Ghosts Audio CD:


Someone out there is desperately waiting for the audio adventures of The Curator, since a cute homage to the past from the recent Doctor Who 50th anniversary special obviously just can’t be left alone.

p. 389 – DIY Create Your Own Trading Card Set:


“At last, my Polar Bear Eating Vanilla Ice Cream in a Snowstorm trading card set is here!”

p. 394 – Star Wars Yoda Backpack Sand T-Shirt:


“OH GOD GET HIM OFF MY BACK HE’S CLAWING ME, HE’S CLAWING”

Related: all Yoda-in-backpack images pale in comparison to the greatest Yoda-in-backpage picture of them all.

p. 394 – Mephisto Red Heather T-Shirt:


Okay, all I can figure is that at this point, they’re just randomly picking comics to put on t-shirts. I mean, how did that get onto a shirt before this cover?

p. 394 – The Punisher Pixel Punisher Logo Black T-Shirt:


“IT’S TOO DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE, TAKE THIS.” [old man hands over full run of Punisher Armory]

p. 404 – My Little Pony “Rainbow Dash Face” Men’s Boxer Shorts:


I find the unfortunate boxer-flap abuse potential of this particular item to be…upsetting.

p. 411 – Alien Metal Bottle Opener:


Remember when the Alien was this mysterious and terrifying creature, of whom you were only able to see fleeting glimpses in the film you were probably too young to be watching anyway? …The mystery is pretty much gone, is what I’m saying.

p. 430 – The Twilight Zone Mystic Seer Replica (Red Version):


Yeah, okay, another high-priced prop replica for an old TV show, whatev….

“Complete with napkin holder and menu holder….”

Hmm. That’s nice, I guess.

“…It features a working coin mechanism and can act as a bank.”

Whoa. Keep talking.

“It even dispenses ‘fortunes!'”

Okay, I think I’m sold, but I’m not sure. Seer, will I buy your prop replica?

…

…

Oh, right.

p. 431 – Batman Arkham City Nightwing Arsenal 1/1-Scale Replica:


I feel like I’m missing out on Swamp Thing weapon replicas. Like, where are my replica Swamp Thing Hallucinogenic Tubers? (Ends up being a box full of plastic potatoes.)

As for this particular item, the set includes this:


…a letter to Dick Grayson from his mother, which ends with “We just got confirmation on the Gotham Show. How Exciting!”

How depressing, I think you mean.

p. 444 – Doctor Who Eleventh Doctor 15-Inch Talking Plush with LED Light:


And what he says is “whoa, whoa, WHOA, watch your hand there, buddy!”

p. 444 – Doctor Who 24″ TARDIS Plush with Lights and Sound:


NOT A SEX TOY. Hopefully. No hanky-panky in the TARDIS, but with the TARDIS…well, whatever you do in your own home, and all that.

p. 446 – Doctor Who Dalek Mr. Potato Head:


The Daleks as they are scared kids into hiding behind the couch. If they looked like this, Doctor Who would’ve scared kids into therapy.

p. 487 – Monopoly Wizard of Oz 75th Anniversary Edition:


Do not pass GO, do not pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

Marvel Previews p. 4 – Fantastic Four #1:


Presumably related to Fin Fang Foom, the famous Marvel Monster. Or maybe you’ve heard of his other lesser known cousins, like Ding Dang Doom, Ring Rang Room, or Big Bang Boom.

I can make up these names all day. I’m not proud. Or tired.

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

§ November 27th, 2013 § Filed under sir-links-a-lot Comments Off on Your “it’s been a long work day” post.

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.

“The magnet of self-revelation draws him on from facet to facet!”

§ November 25th, 2013 § Filed under star trek § 4 Comments

Over the years I’d seen plenty of the late ’70s Dynabrite comics, but mostly just the Disney ones. What’s nice about these Dynabrite comics is that they’re reprints of selected stories on nice white paper, with good printing, under thick covers. They’re sort of proto-trade paperbacks collections, staple-bound and inexpensive.

I’ve never seen the 1978 Star Trek Dynabrite reprints, collecting stories from the Gold Key series. At least, not until they showed up in a collection the other day:


Captain Kirk says “shop around, maybe you’ll find this comic for less than cover price!”


Actually, $0.69 wasn’t too bad for what you got. Comics were about 35 to 40 cents or thereabouts for the typical 32-page format (with about 20 or so pages of comics, more or less). The Dynabrite format was 48 pages, no ads, and white pages:


And if you were really lucky, you got a shot of Montgomery Scott with devil horns and breathing fire:

HOT LINKS, COME AND GET ‘EM!

§ November 22nd, 2013 § Filed under sir-links-a-lot Comments Off on HOT LINKS, COME AND GET ‘EM!

 

  • 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!

Yes, I know the most recent iteration of the Scooby-Doo cartoon is supposed to be very good.

§ November 20th, 2013 § Filed under this week's comics § 13 Comments

(SPOILERS ahead, most likely.)


A long time ago, a particular image fixed in my mind. It was inspired by the various reimaginings of older, innocent comics in the light of deconstructive reconsideration, like The Dark Knight Returns or Miracleman, with a bit of Alan Moore and Don Simpson’s “In Pictopia” thrown in. It was an image from a comic story that will never happen, not within our lifetimes, at least not officially, unless with some changing of names or just straight-up Air Pirates-ing it.

The basic set-up is that Goofy is visiting Mickey Mouse at his home. At some point, Mickey leaves the room, and Goofy follows. The panel I picture in my head is of Goofy glancing down at Pluto, who is dozing near the fireplace. There is some nearly-unreadable expression in Goofy’s face as he gazes upon his fellow dog. Is it pity for a distant cousin, separated by evolution, like a Homo sapiens sapiens looking at a chimpanzee in a cage? Is it disgust at another canine, one who settles for a life of sloth and pampering, not struggling to better himself as Goofy did? Is it sadness for a dog whose options in life have brought him to this low position, unable to escape? Guilt that he, Goofy, was able to advance while Pluto remained simply what he was?

At any rate, it’s basically picturing a “serious” version of the old question of “if Goofy is a dog, and Pluto is a dog, then why…?” by making Goofy himself seemingly aware of the discrepancy between his own dogness and Pluto’s dogness. Yes, “dogness.” I tried “caninity,” which is actually a word, but I liked “dogness” better.

Broader still, it’s a layering of depth and meaning far heavier than the subject can realistically support. Does anyone really need a serious in-universe examination of what exactly the difference is between Goofy and Pluto, and what that difference means to both of them, personally? I can see gags based around Goofy and Pluto deciding to trade places, and the difficulties that arise there, and in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if there was such a cartoon at some point.

So anyway, Afterlife with Archie #2. Taking the Archie universe, throwing it into a horror/zombie genre story, and just plain ol’ going for it. It’s a mostly serious take on a group of characters designed specifically to generate gags based on their personality differences, so there is that small measure of reexamination of the Archie gang and how they relate to each other. Sure, there’s the darkly ironic gag of Jughead, the character defined primarily by his love of eating, becoming the first zombie in the story. But the other happy, upbeat stories that usually abound in the their world are replaced with darker and / or more complicated issues: Betty and Veronica’s usually friendly adversarial relationship is suddenly a lot less friendly. Moose thinks maybe the zombified Jughead is “juicing.” There’s the reimagining of Sabrina’s aunts…what if they were scary witches? There’s the oddly incestuous subtext between Cheryl and her brother Jason. There’s the closeted lesbian couple who aren’t nearly as comfortable about coming out as prominent gay Archie character Kevin Keller.

And, unlike my Goofy ‘n’ Pluto thing, and against all odds, this works. If you told me a year ago, “hey, what if they the Archie characters and put ’em in a zombie story,” I would have thought that was a terrible idea. Even when this series was solicited a few months ago, I thought…well, the creative team of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla inspired some confidence, but even still I thought this was some chance to take. But going all out as they did, making the zombie genre a framework on which to build an alternate Archie universe where not everything works out in the end, not every relationship problem is solved with a pratfall, a laugh, or a humorous comeuppance, and where tragedy is not just a mild plot bump in the middle of an eight-page story…that’s what makes the project work as well as it does.

I probably really shouldn’t be racking this on the kids’ shelf.


Almost the exact opposite of Afterlife with Archie is this comic, reviving the Batman/Scooby-Doo team from those decades-old episodes (and, okay, a relatively more recent Batman: Brave and the Bold installment). No darkness, no grittiness, no ironic reconsiderations of milieu or character, no snark, no winking at how silly this all is (aside from a knowing gag or two kicking at the fourth wall a bit). You just get delivery on the promise of the cover, with Batman and Robin teaming up with Scooby and the gang to solve some crimes and catch some bad guys. It’s all light and fun and certainly a much-missed version of Batman. “Dark Avenger of the Night” is fine an’ all, but sometimes it’s okay to turn on the lights and let Batman see what he’s doing for once.

Also, for not having seen an episode of Scooby-Doo in years (aside from the aforementioned Brave and the Bold cartoon), it’s so ingrained in my head that I could easily hear all the gang’s voices as I read this comic. Nice nostalgic flashback for an old coot like me, and probably fun for the young folk, too.


This series is over, with a follow-up mini-series coming early next year, and, well…it was okay, I suppose. Felt like it was maybe an issue too long, the art felt a little uneven at times, but overall, I enjoyed it. It fills its function as side stories to the books, and specifically the books, as the comics are written by Dexter’s creator, novelist Jeff Lindsay. That’s the primary selling point; it’s that these are written by Lindsay is the reason I’m reading them.

I will note that this cover, while still obscuring the face of the title character to avoid confusion with the television show version, comes the closest thus far to making Dexter look like his portrayal by actor Michael C. Hall. Not complaining or criticizing, just acknowledging the difficulty involved in managing this particular license, where the literary version of the character is at a disadvantage when translated to a visual medium, when another, slightly altered but much more in the public awareness, version preexists.

And like I said, next year, “Dexter Down Under.” “You call that a knife? This is a knife!” (Dexter unfurls carrying case of terrifying blades in all sizes.)


It takes a lot to get me to buy any of the comics review/interview/history magazines nowadays. I used to buy a lot of them, back when I had more time to read them, and before I started writing a comics weblog, which I’m sure is only a coincidence. Today, I’ll pick one up if the overall subject matter interests me (like Back Issue‘s special treasury edition), or, like this week, if the mag covers all those extra-sized anniversary issues I so enjoyed when I was a kid. I’ve written about anniversary issues here way back when, not long after I started this site; Flash #300 and Detective Comics #500 are two favorites that are in fact discussed in this very magazine, and it’s nice to get a little behind-the-scenes information on them after all these years.


She’s not on the cover, but this issue features my favorite Catwoman, along with a cute musical in-joke, in a story drawn by Colleen Coover. …Remember when people thought Adam West Batman was something to be ashamed of? How wrong they were.

I was also going to include the year 2051, but I think 2045 was already pushing my expected life span a bit.

§ November 18th, 2013 § Filed under peanuts, retailing § 8 Comments

So there are those reality TV shows where folks buy the contents to abandoned storage units in auction, and then do their darnedest to pull a profit out of whatever they happen to acquire. I happened to see an episode where one of the buyers was digging through the boxes in the unit he purchased, and suddenly lifted up a handful of comics books which he declared to be worth five bucks each. The onscreen tally was thusly updated, $5 times whatever number of comics he had in his hand. Of course, watching this at home, knowing the kinds of comics one usually finds in these units, I suspected the value was closer to about five cents per book.

I vaguely recall a backstory for one of the participants in these shows involving a discovery of a comic book collection that actually was worth something, containing comics that people would want, but that is almost certainly the exception, not the rule, and I’m guessing the handful of comics that gentleman was waving around was more likely 1990s Brigades than 1940s Batmans.

The main reason for that is, given the prominence and popularity of these storage unit/collectibles shows, of late I’ve been seeing an increase of folks coming by the shop, introducing themselves as buyers of old storage units, and presenting for sale whatever comics and other related items they’ve found in said units. And so far, I’ve yet to see a whole lot of any significant collector’s value. It’s bulk ’80s and ’90s comics, generally, and any older comics I’ve seen brought in from these storage auctions have been damaged to the point of being unsellable. Or, at best, in poor enough condition that any offer I make based on what I think the comics could sell for is rebuffed by the sellers, disappointed that they’re not going to make their fortunes.

It’s not unfriendly interaction, by any means. They’re not sure what they have, and I think I’m fairly successful in communicating to them that I’m not trying to undervalue their material in order to get my hands on it cheap; I’m genuinely trying to explain to them why the comics aren’t worth a lot, or aren’t in demand. I had to explain to one person that the comics they had would have been worth something if they weren’t all water-damaged. To another I had to explain that while he may have seen the same comic on eBay for hundreds of dollars, the torn-up copy he had wasn’t worth anything close to that, and in fact I probably couldn’t sell it for any price. No acrimony, no accusations…most everyone’s been understanding and reasonable and believe you me, that’s a relief.

These storage-unit collections aren’t always a bust. I do occasionally find things I can use, though nothing’s been terribly expensive. I sometimes get the “aw, I thought these would be worth more” response, but they are still happy to get the money, and I certainly hope they know I’m giving them as fair an offer as I’m able.

And once in a while, after I look at a collection and decline it, the person selling it decides that they don’t want to bother taking it with them and just dump it on us as a donation. Usually I’ll just throw ’em in the bargain bins, or (ahem) the recycle bin. However, just recently this one fellow, whom I unfortunately had to inform that his books were in unsellable condition, said “well, I had this, too, and I don’t want to deal with it, so you go ahead and keep it,” and tossed one of these on the counter before departing:


That would be a 1967 Peanuts wall calendar (or, rather, the Peanuts Date Book 1967). Here’s a shot of it opened up:


It’s not in bad condition…no water damage, no writing, doesn’t even appear to have been used. At worst, it may have been flipped through a few times, but otherwise it seems to have just been stored away for 46-something years. A quick look at Amazon shows some reasonable pricing in the $20-$25 range, plus some…enthusiastic pricing at nearly $200. EBay shows one being offered in the $12 range ($16 Buy-It-Now), and none showing up in the recent sales search. Had he actually offered it for us to buy, I probably would have passed, since old calendars, even neat collectible-ish ones like these, are a real bear to sell. But getting it for free? Heck, I’ll just keep it in the personal Peanuts collection, and besides, the calendar will be good again in 2017, 2023, 2034, and 2045, so I’ll be saving a few bucks those years.

I’ll still happily look through anyone’s abandoned storage unit collections. I’m sure the long promised copy of the first Superman that everyone’s claimed to have once owned has to turn up eventually.

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