I hope that’s not covered in an actual reindeer skin.
from Spinach Greetings! (1960)
“This panther needs FOOD!!”
from Pink Panther Vol. 2 #5 (March 1994)
LAVA LEOPARD.
Lady Death #20 Lava Leopard variant (2012) – art by Michael DiPascale
It’s not often Nancy and Popeye are described as “high-falutin’.”
So if you’re on your way to your local funnybook store, let me warn you, there’s about one million new releases out this week, or at least it felt that way as I was breaking down the shipment Tuesday afternoon/evening. I mean, not even counting Marvel’s apparently weekly new titles I was complaining about a few days ago, there was a whole lotta stuff. And on top of that, due to the vagaries of shipping caused by the holidays at the end of the year, we also received next week’s comics which we’re to hold ’til the on-sale date of the 26th, so I’ve got to keep those stored away for a week while ignoring the cynical part of my brain that tells me all these titles I’m holding aside are probably already in the hands of somebody somewhere scanning away and uploading them to your torrents and your napsters and whatever other crazy things you kids use what with your portable phones and hip-computers and such.
But enough cynicism…here are a few things this week that bring me joy and good tidings:
Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948 – pretty much the only thing that got me out of bed and into work Tuesday (aside from, you know, having to do my job in order to get paid) was the knowledge that this would be waiting for me inside one of the Diamond boxes. It’s a great book…a perfect book. In an ideal world, this is what you’d find in hotel rooms instead of Gideon Bibles. This is far better than what the world deserves…well, I deserve it, at any rate — I’m not sure about the rest of you. But you should get a copy anyway.
Classic Popeye #5, reprinting in its entirety the original #5 from 1949, including the two page prose story filler that nobody read back then and nobody’s going to read now. That’s okay…it’s cover to cover comics aside from that, and at $3.99 retail that’s a bargain for this swell and densely-packed comic.
…Look, it’s can’t all be high-falutin’ classic comic strip stuff. Sometimes I just want a goofy superhero comic filled with oddball ideas and fights, and Supreme works just fine. It’s hard to imagine Supreme having a life after Alan Moore’s run, with its deconstructive self-awareness, but Erik Larsen has simply pulled it back to straightforward Silver Age-y action. Well, maybe with a little self-aware poking at the genre, but it’s certainly more “let’s have fun” than Moore’s “let’s examine why this is fun while we’re having fun.” Um. Okay, something like that. Also, I wanted to note that I’m getting just the slightest “Howard the Duck” vibe off Squeak the Supremouse and his “trapped in a world he never made” predicament in the series, but if that’s just me, please ignore that I typed that.
“It’s learning, the way you always hoped it would be, with Sluggo.”
Just a short post to share with you a gift, sent to me by reader Eric – the Listen, Laugh & Learn record from 1982:
“It’s learning, the way you always hoped it would be, filled with songs and laughter.”
“It’s Nancy and Sluggo in their very first record album. They’re here to help your child explore new horizons in learning … with a few giggles along the way. Each story and song is designed to open up young minds to their endless possibilities as they Listen, Laugh & Learn with Nancy and Sluggo.”
“SONGS INCLUDE
Listen, Laugh & Learn • Video Brain • Figure It Out • Anything You Want • Perspecive • Listen, Laugh & Learn (reprise) • When the Levee Breaks”
Okay, maybe not that last one.
I have had a busy weekend, so I haven’t yet had time to give this “vinyl record album” a “spin” on my “record playing turntable” (kids, ask your grandparents what these things mean), so I have no idea if Sluggo was given the deep and rich baritone that he obviously should have. I’ll report when I can.
Also, I shudder to think at what lessons Sluggo has to impart, unleashing his terrible knowledge upon impressionable minds.
In which Mike kills all of California’s incoming tourism money from Vermont.
So I just started working on the Diamond order this month, where I will be ordering a number of these items non-ironically, what ridiculous hoops I have to jump through to get the variant covers, which of these Image #1s will actually sell more than a couple of copies, and of course how many hundreds of Swamp Things I’ll need for our shelves.
The craziest thing this time around is that Justice League of America #1, with its 53 variant covers (American flag, all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia). Folks have been buzzing about this since it was announced, and by buzzing I mean “griping and / or mocking,” but now I have to decide how to order the darned thing. Sure, get a bunch for our state of California, obviously, and I’m already taking some special requests for specific states. I did joke on the Twitter that I wondered if I only ordered, say, the Wyoming cover, what the customers would think, other than “Mike’s lost his mind again,” which, frankly, they probably think anyway. But if it somehow turns out there’s one cover that ends up being the “hot” one for some dumb reason, like maybe they screwed up the flag on the cover somehow and now everyone wants it as a rare “error” collectible even though every copy of that specific cover will be exactly the same (and sort of happened before when they messed up Mexico’s flag on this Superman annual)…well, what I can do about that. “No, sorry, ma’am, the New Hampshire flag cover with the boat pointing in the wrong direction is sold out. No, I didn’t order enough. I’m sorry, I didn’t expect so much demand for the New Hampshire variant here in California. Yes, ma’am, I’m stupid.”
Anyway, personally I’m sort of tempted to get for myself the cover with the Virginia flag, since I lived there for a while as a child, and the flag is pretty cool, you’d have to admit. And I’d totally get the Louisiana flag cover if they replaced, like, Catwoman on the cover with Swamp Thing. But I think I’ll have to go with the California flag, clearly the most awesome state flag of them all, what with having a bear on it. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. Our flag rules. Eat it, Vermont!
Elsewhere in the order form I have to decide how badly Marvel pumping out their books on a biweekly or even weekly basis is going to hurt their sales with frustrated fans. This week we had Cable and the X-Force #1 and Avengers Arena #1, and the second issues for both will be next week. Avengers #1, out last week, will have a new issue next week. We’ve already had four issues of Iron Man since early November, and three issues of All New X-Men since mid-November, with #4 due next week. Plus there are the last issues of a couple of the previous Avengers series which sort of log-jammed in there over the previous few weeks. This isn’t so much “giving the fans more of what they want!” as just plain ol’ rack-crowding. I’ve griped about this before…I understand the seeming advantages of it (cannibalize sales from other publishers, more of your product on the shelves, don’t give readers a chance to decide if they want to keep following the title), but there are disadvantages as well (cannibalizing sales from yourself, discouraging new readers with the expense). Much in the same way restarting a title has its plus of being a good jumping on point, and the minus of…well, you know.
And then there’s Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1 (and don’t get me started on that issue number). This is the next Marvel property to get a film adaptation, but is there enough buzz around that movie yet to drive sales on this comic? I mean, the GotG stuff of late has sold…okay, but not like best-sellers or anything. These are pretty much the definition of B-listers, which isn’t a bad thing, of course, but trying to decide to order this as a typical second-string book like I probably should, or ordering it with an eye on interest generated by a movie, which I probably shouldn’t since the movie is still at least a year off…makes it a tad more complicated than it needs to be.
It’d be a lot simpler if they’d dump the rest of those Guardians and just do a straight-up Rocket Raccoon comic. You know that character is going to be the focus of all the movie advertising, and hell, who doesn’t love space raccoons with ray guns? Nobody, that’s who.
Oh, thank God I’m here to talk about that Superman trailer, surely you haven’t heard enough about it by now.
So certainly a lot of hay has been made out of this new trailer for next year’s Man of Steel flick, in which a young Clark apparently risked exposing his strange, otherworldly abilities while saving folks on a bus. Pa Kent seemingly isn’t thrilled about this, to which Clark remarks “should I have let them all die?” Pa’s response: “Maybe.”
Well, people certainly didn’t like that, as it seems quite at odds with the traditional view of Pa Kent as the wholesome farmer who instilled his solid down-to-earth values of fairness, honesty, and justice into his adopted boy. I suspect (despite my Twitter gag that Pa’s advice would inspire in Clark a reign of bus-destroying terror) that Pa may in fact have more to say in the actual film beyond the snippet of dialogue we’re dramatically teased with in the trailer. I would doubt we’re being given a Pa Kent who is literally telling his son that he should have let people die to protect his secret.
But then again, maybe the movie is giving us a darker, grittier Pa Kent. A Pa Kent who wants every body buried, every skeleton kept in its closet. A Pa Kent who cares so little for his son’s moral upbringing he won’t even tell Clark to put some shorts on, for God’s sake.
Anyway, the trailer looks interesting, if perhaps too serious. It definitely establishes Superman as a powerful and impressive being, somber and bearing the weight of responsibility for the world, but here’s hoping they make room for some fun as well.
Also, every time Superman movie buzz happens, I’m reminded we could have had Dudley Moore as Mr. Mxyzptlk and how disappointing every Superman film becomes in retrospect.
What once was lost, now is found.
So this is a thing that I thought was long gone, somehow accidentally lost or thrown out during one of my changing of domiciles over the last decade or so. However, it was recovered by my father just over this last weekend, found stashed away in my parents’ home where I apparently kept it for safekeeping during one of those moves. And thus, here it is, back in my possession, and I bid you cast your peepers upon this, and weep at its beauty:
This thick paper sign, dated 1990 and measuring about 22 by 30 inches, was intended for insertion in a metal standing frame that would sit out in front of the toy store, advertising to all the mall shoppers that located within that very business were such wonderful items as these awaiting purchase. And presumably when it says “Collect Them All!” it’s referring to the toys themselves, and not commanding you to collect all the Official Toy Headquarters.
This was given to me by a toy store employee at the time…no, I didn’t fall at his feet and beg for it tearfully, he actually was a customer of mine and just dropped it off at the shop for me of his own free will and not, say, by hypnotic suggestion. But anyway, now that I have it in my hot little hands, will I follow through with my promise at the end of this post and nail it to the front door? Or perhaps I simply will let this post stand as a testament to the fact that I, Michael Ricardo Anatoly Sterling, am the owner of the Last Remaining Official Swamp Thing Toy Headquarters in the Universe. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Starting off Year Ten with a short ‘n’ lazy links post.
Hey, I’ve been busy, what can I tell you:
- Tony Isabella has a few supplementary stories of his own to go along with the recently-released Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and you can read them in these three blog posts: a one, and a two, and a three.
- I’m a bit late to send folks to pal Andres’ Kickstarter page, as he’s already reached his funding goal, but go there anyway and check out previews for his forthcoming graphic novel Pariah, MO.
- Pals Dorian and Ken take on the new movie trailers in this month’s installment of “In A World.”