“It’s The Zoot Suit Riots, Charlie Brown!”

filed under Categories peanuts 6 Comments

So as promised in the comments section for this post, pal Nat dropped by and gifted me with a couple of his extra copies of Charlie Brown’s ‘Cyclopedia. One of them, volume 11, “What We Wear,” contains the single greatest Snoopy image of all time:


I can hear hotlinkers copying and pasting the URL of that image all across the internettings. JUST DOWNLOAD IT AND UPLOAD TO YOUR OWN IMAGE HOSTS, YOU BASTARDS.

Ahem. Anyway, that’s likely not a Schulz drawing, but I would have paid one American dollar to see a sequence in Peanuts featuring this very version of Snoopy. Unless there’s a sequence I missed or don’t remember…there are 50 years’ worth of strips, after all. Yeah, okay, “Joe Zoot” would have seemed a bit…anachronistic, but it probably would have fit right in during that weird Peanuts period of the mid-to-late ’90s. My recollection Schulz was up to some odd stuff in his strips during that time.

But I’m pretty sure even then he never had Sally talking about naked people:


SALLY BROWN DRAWS THE LINE AT NUDISM.

I refrained from making the Def Leppard joke.

filed under Categories scans 5 Comments

So I was looking through some of Bob Rozakis’s “Answer Man” columns, which ran through DC’s comic books in the ’70s and a wee bit into the ’80s, and this particular question caught my eye:


Well, eventually both things come to pass…there have been several Human Target comics in the years since, and there have been not one, but two TV series. I was amused that the answer to this specific question was so exactly negated.

Some other Answer Man questions and responses I came across:

The joke here is too easy:


Frankly, I’m not even sure this question needed to be asked. It’s all right there, man:


(In case you were wondering.)

I didn’t even remember this, but of course Mark Waid didn’t forget…that man forgets nothing:


I will die if they bring it back 1) in current continuity (“Hey, technically I’m not flying across the country…I’m cruising comfortably“), or 2) it pops up on Smallville, where it would probably just be a Ford Festiva painted red ‘n’ blue:


And then there’s this:


“You’ve menaced the world with your secular humanism for the last time, Luthor!”

Now here’s an action figure I really wasn’t expecting.

filed under Categories green lantern 13 Comments

So coming early next year is this Green Lantern two-figure package, containing some fish-headed Lantern you don’t care about, and THIS GUY:


Yeah, that’s right, it’s Medphyll, your favorite humanoid-plant Green Lantern, in convenient action figure form for your entertainment and edification. If there are two things I never expected to see, as a longtime Green Lantern fan, it’s 1) Kilowog appearing in a live action film, and 2) a Medphyll action figure. (Oh, and I guess there’s a third thing: 3) a live action Green Lantern film.)

A quick Googling shows that this news has been popping up over the last couple of weeks or so, but I guess I hadn’t been paying attention, and didn’t know this figure was imminent until I spotted a photo in the latest Tomart’s magazine:

GAZE INTO

MY EYE

Those are some rich, full lips Medphyll has. HELLO, LADIES.

I thought for sure Medphyll had popped up in one of those DC Direct PVC sets, but no dice…oh, sure, Chaselon gets a PVC figure, but not our pal Meddy. (Has anyone ever called him “Meddy?” …How ’bout “Phil?” “Phyll?”) However, you can see a fanmade custom figure right here, which is a little less broccoli-looking than the official thing.

For more Medphyll action, here’s a previous post on this very site featuring Medphyll’s worst enemy.

Yes, he once appeared in an issue of Swamp Thing. And yes, I know of his appearances in Starman. We shall not speak of what happened to him in Starman.

I’m a difficult person to work with.

filed under Categories employee aaron, gelatinous cube 15 Comments

Mike: “I understand this new Dungeons & Dragons comic is actually supposed to be pretty good.”

Employee Aaron: “Yeah, it really was.”

M: “So are there any gelatinous cubes?”

EA: “Sorry, Mike, but no.”

M: “How ’bout displacer beasts? At least one?”

EA: “Not one.”

M: “Okay, fine…mind flayers?”

EA: “No.”

M: “Beholders. There has to be a Beholder in this comic.”

EA: “There sure isn’t.”

M: “This is a Dungeons & Dragons comic, right?”

EA: “Right.”

M: “Just checking. Is there any point where a character has to save vs. petrification?”

EA: “What? No, of course not.”

M: “Are there any instances of a gnome using his infravision?”

EA: “None noted.”

M: “Are there any bards?”

EA: “Are there ever any bards?”

M: “Point taken. …Does anyone detect traps?”

EA: “Nope.”

M: “Does a magic user gather material components in order to cast Magic Mouth?”

EA: “Not that I noticed.”

M: “Does a thief manage to do quadruple damage on anyone using a sneak backstab attack?”

EA: “Not once, no.”

M: “Does anyone, at any time, use a ten foot pole?”

EA: “No.”

M: “Are there any morale checks made to see if a character’s followers desert or not?”

EA: “…What?”

M: “Are any limbs severed as the result of rolling a natural 20 during a sword attack?”

EA: “How would that even work in a comic?”

M: “So does a character tell another character ‘I do not want to be in an adventuring party with you, as I am Lawful Good, and you are Neutral Evil?'”

EA: “That’s not something that happens, no.”

M: “Does anyone put on a cursed ring and suddenly exclaim ‘oh no, I have suffered an irreversible loss of three points of Constitution?'”

EA: “I can safely say this didn’t happen.”

M: “Is there any kind of kobold attack?”

EA: “No….”

M: “Does anyone shout to his comrades ‘this creature can only use his ranged attack once every five rounds — let’s go!’ at any time during a battle?”

EA: “No.”

M: “Does any character have his or her soul cast into The Void as a result of drawing from a Deck of Many Things?”

EA: “Uh-uh.”

M: “This is going nowhere. Let’s go back to the basics. …Is there a dungeon in this comic?”

EA: “Yes!”

M: “Now we’re onto something. Is there a dragon?”

EA: “Well, not exactly.”

M: “Oh, so there’s, like, a wyvern.”

EA: “No, no…there’s a dragonkin in the story. Well, maybe, he kind of looks like one…sorta dragony.”

M: “A dragonkin. What’s that?”

EA: “A half-human/half-dragon. You can play as one in D&D.”

M: “No, I’m sorry, no player-character monsters in my campaign.”

EA: “Now, Mike, a couple of these things you’re asking about were in the #0 issue.”

M: “I’m going to need all of these things in every issue.”

A swirling whirlpool of nerdiness, slowly dragging us in.

filed under Categories collecting, swamp thing 14 Comments

Here’s some follow-up to this entry about sorting my Superman comics, about which Tom Spurgeon said “isn’t for anyone,” and man, ain’t that the truth. That was a weird, obsessive thing for me to do, wasn’t it? Ah, well. ‘Course, that’s not going to stop me from doing it again, because some of you had questions:

  • Chris McAree asks

    “I was wondering what you, or any of the other readers of this blog do when a box early in the alphabet becomes overfull? When your Avengers box can finally hold no more do you start a brand new box after finally getting those ten missing issues from the Roger Stern run, or carefully and meticulously move the last ten issues from box ‘A’ into box ‘B’, box ‘B’ into box ‘B2,’ (cause god knows there are a lot of Batman issues out there!) and so on until you have wasted a couple of hours a finally reached box ‘Z is for Zatanna?’”

    Well, my collection is sorted out, more or less, like this: several long boxes divided up by company, so I have a bunch of DC long boxes, about half as many Marvel boxes, a Gladstone/Gemstone box for all those EC reprints, a bunch of Misc. Indie boxes with the books ordered by company and then by title within, and so on. And then I have a bunch of short boxes sorted out by individual titles and/or franchises, like a couple of boxes for Justice League stuff, a Groo box, Swamp Thing boxes, etc. If one of those boxes starts overflowing, like the Justice League box, I start filing them into an overflow box shared by two or three titles that are also overflowing, until I get around to making a new box for that title.

    This, I think, makes it a little easier to add boxes when you need to expand, since you’re not shifting comics through the entire collection, but just through the section of the collection you need to open up some space in. …I have no idea if any of that made sense.

  • Longtime site reader “O” the Humanatee! has a couple of questions:

    “…When sorting alphabetically, does one use the common-sense title (say, Spider-Man rather than Amazing Spider-Man), the full title as it reads on the cover, or the title shown in the indicia? Should you group all titles starring a character together? Surely, it is an abomination against God to put Detective before Defenders just so you can group it with other Batman titles! Are you going to put Action in among your Lex Luthor comics?

    And what should I do when the title changes mid-numbering? What do I do with ‘Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ and ‘The New Teen Titans’? What, I beg of you? WHAT?”

    Usually I go by the title on the front cover, because I’m going to remember that more easily than the official title on the indicia. And, as I said in the response to the first question, I have some franchises lumped together in their own separate boxes…so all my Batman books are separated out, filed together alphabetically. (And before you ask, Superman/Batman is filed with my Superman comics.) (In the Superman “specials/annuals/minis” boxes, which come after the post-Crisis series boxes, because I don’t have enough Superman/Batman to justify a box just for it, oh God, I’m doing it again.)

    When a series undergoes a minor title change while keeping the numbering, I generally just keep filing later issues as if nothing happened, which is exactly what I did with your Tales of the New Teen Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes examples (and which also answers Thwacko’s later question about Peter Parker/The Spectacular Spider-Man). Plus, in both cases, I have Titans and Legion in their own boxes.

  • Anonymous took advantage of my triangle numbers category and commented

    “I looked at the Nov 2008 post about Superman triangle numbering, and the post included a comment about the Legion of Super-Heroes’ triangle numbering, saying something along the lines of ‘Remember when the Legion could support two monthly books?’ Without commenting on how successful the current Legion venture is, funny how the market actually IS currently supporting two Legion books.”

    That’s true, it is, but every time they relaunch the Legion franchise, it seems like there’s a brief surge of interest at first…and then it goes back down to what it was selling before, or a little less. The current titles are selling for us at what is about the lower edge of “mid-range” — not a best-seller, like Morrison’s Batman stuff, but not at the “why did they bother” range, like the dozen or so minis companies tying into forthcoming movies. Anyway, when I wrote that old post, that was more or less true, but the push given the Legion by the Final Crisis crossover, and the additional anticipated sales goose of the return of 1) the original continuity Legion, more or less, I think, and 2) old Legion scribe Paul Levitz returning as writer probably encouraged DC to take a chance with a second Legion book. But, given that one of the books is named Adventure, if the Legion thing there doesn’t work out, they can always replace it with a new lead without having to cancel it.

  • Michael G. notes

    “I empathize. Have you ever tried shelving Acme Novelty Library? The first 15 issues are all out of order and most of them won’t fit in the same box!”

    Ah, yes, those things. I have a pretty good-sized bookcase with a shelf large enough to hold even the tallest Acme volume, so I just have all of them together on that one shelf. It’ll do, it’ll do.

Woo boy. Here, after all that, let’s look, courtesy ProgRuin fan Todd, at some footage of the Sega Genesis Swamp Thing game prototype being demonstrated.

And, in other Swamp Thing news, Gail Simone describes her awesome, but ultimately not used, series pitch for the big green guy.

Someone ask Geoff Johns to bring back that Qwardian in the derby hat.

filed under Categories gil kane, green lantern 8 Comments

How evil is Green Lantern’s arch nemesis Sinestro? Why, he’s so evil, he’s coming in a very solid second, just behind Gypo-Bax, in the Most Evil Citizen of Qward popularity contest:


I do have to admit that the very idea of Sinestro desperately trying to win a popularity contest tickles me. I can just picture Sinestro handpainting a bunch of “VOTE SIN” construction paper signs and hanging them around the school. But then again, the very idea of Sinestro fretting about a contest like this, while appearing a bit silly to adults, would probably resonate with the school-age children this comic was aimed at.

But seriously, This Guy:


…he’s like the Qward Dimension Evil Anti-Matter Duplicate of Doiby Dickles.

And that he’s Sinestro’s “campaign manager” is a hoot, too. You know Sinestro didn’t hire the guy, that he just kinda declared himself Sinestro’s campaign manager, and Sinestro simply can’t shake him off.

…

Oh, speaking of Green Lantern, I guess there’s a trailer out for the movie.

images from Green Lantern #15 (Sept 1962) by John Broome, Gil Kane and Joe Giella

In which I tell you more about how I sort out my Superman comics than you ever wanted to know.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, peanuts, superman, triangle numbers 21 Comments

So thanks to pal Nat for dropping by yesterday’s post, being a good sport, and laying down some Peanuts knowledge re: the production of those Charlie Brown ‘Cyclopedias. If you missed that comment, go back and check it out. Thanks, Nat!

Another comment, from reader “Masonic Youth” (good nickname!) mentioned a book I hadn’t heard of before, called Will Eisner’s Gleeful Guide to Living with Astrology, a picture of which you can find on this Amazon listing. I didn’t find a whole lot of information about it via the Googling, though Gary Groth describes the book as “satirical” in this appreciation of Eisner’s work. Would kind of like to see a copy of this…or maybe Mr. (or “Ms.” or “Mrs.” — I shouldn’t presume) M. Youth, who has a copy, would be nice enough to give us a brief description of the book. (You can see images and descriptions of some of the other books in this series…but not the astrology one…on this page under “Humor.”)

Boy, that was a whole lot of links squeezed into a small space. Let me try to talk about something that doesn’t involve linking anything. Well, maybe one thing.

So, on Monday, I was recovering from some follow-up root canal business, and I decided to sort through and put away some comics that’d been piling up in the “Hey, Mike, log these and sort them into your Vast Comic Archives someday” boxes that occupy a corner of the bedroom. I’ve actually been doing this on and off as I’ve been finding the time over the last few weeks, putting away some Hulks here, some Justice Leagues there…and finally, I decided to tackle the Superman books.

Now, here’s the thing about the Superman books, particularly the (for the nerdy) post-Crisis (or for the non-nerdy) mid-1980s and forward run of the series: as some of you may know, the three, sometimes four, and very briefly five ongoing Superman series had “triangle numbers” on the covers, a separate numbering system (presented within a little triangle shape also bearing the year, hence the name) indicating what order the comics should be read in. This ran for little over a decade, starting in the early ’90s and running ’til the early 2000s (and popping up again briefly in the last couple of years). So, those comics I have sorted in triangle-number order, making for ease of rereading in all this copious free time I have to reread long runs of my old comic books.

In addition, at some point during the ’90s, back when I was still young and full of hope, I decided to “chronologically” sort the post-Crisis, pre-triangle number issues as well, even though at that time the books weren’t quite as intertwined as they would be later. And if that weren’t enough, even after the triangle numbers ended, I continued sorting the Superman books into the boxes in chronological order. Because I’m crazy.

Anyway, I realized I was, ahem, a couple of years behind in getting the books sorted into the proper boxes, so without doing a little research I wouldn’t be able to sort out the Superman books in exact order. Oh, sure, I could do them by month, putting all the May ’09 books together and so on, but I wouldn’t know for sure if the May ’09 Action Comics came before the May ’09 Superman comic or not, without having to pop ’em all out of the bags to check the “coming soon/next week/next issue” box, and who’s got that kind of time?

As you may be able to tell, this is stupid. Sure, it made sense when the multiple Superman series were effectively a weekly serial, and you had to read them in a certain order, but nowadays, with one Superman book actually featuring Lex Luthor with a Jimmy Olsen back-up and is totally awesome, and the other Superman book featuring Superman walking across the country and being a smug asshole to the locals, and never the twain shall meet, the need for maintaining the exact release/reading order of the various series as they related to each other is hardly necessary.

Just so you know, I am aware of how obsessive-compulsive this all sounds. Thought I should mention that, the further along into this I get.

But I decided just to make the cut-off issue for this chronological sorting Action Comics #800 (April 2003). There are a few inter-series storylines past that, but I figured that was far enough beyond the constant intertwining of the series to allow for splitting the titles back up into their individual runs without causing too much inconvenience when I’m in my 90s and I decide I want to reread all my Superman comics. Plus, given how often I seem to be able to put comics away at home, I no longer need the additional time-sink of sorting the damned things chronologically. “Title” and “issue number” are enough, thank you.

I pulled myself back from the brink. There’s a happy ending after all! I’m no longer obsessed about comics, he said in his nearly seven-year-old daily-updated comics blog.

In case you didn’t get enough Superman triangle-number talk, and boy, I’m sure you didn’t, I actually made a category for it so you can see what I said about these things the last time DC tried to implement them.

And here’s where I find out how many astrologers I have as readers.

filed under Categories peanuts 8 Comments

So pal Dorian gave me this book over the weekend:


It’s volume 8 of Charlie Brown’s ‘Cyclopedia (1980), covering stars, planets, and plants, too, for some reason. It’s a collection of science facts accompanied by appropriate Peanuts strips and various illustrations with the Peanuts gang doing things of varying scientific value. You can read more about this series at pal Nat’s site in this entry specifically about the set this book is from, and this series, which was the actual source material from which the ‘Cyclopedia series drew.

Nat notes that some of the strips had their dialogue changed to more closely fit the material at hand, though it looks like some of the spot illustrations of the Peanuts gang were either cobbled together from various sources, sometimes over backgrounds obviously done specifically for the book (like a two page spread of various characters standing along a pier stretching out over a polluted lake…it almost looks like the characters were pasted into the image), or maybe even drawn specifically for the books, perhaps by Schulz, or more likely by studio artists. I have no idea, and I hereby invoke the name of pal Nat to shed some light on this if he’d be kind enough to do so, should he happen to drop by the comments.

In this illustration from the book, Linus reveals his secret hippie leanings:


This next image is kind of awesome, not just because of Snoopy tripping shrooms, but because of Woodstock face to face with a terrifying and comparatively photorealistic chipmunk:


Being this was 1980, and woo and magical thinking were running rampant through society (unlike now, where we’re all completely rational and sensible and there isn’t a half-dozen TV shows on the air devoted to people wandering through dark houses and pretending there are ghosts) , a page was included devoted to astrology. This was the amusing illo that ran on that page:


Linus and Sally’s word balloon order is a little wonky, and Charlie Brown’s balloon was cut off in my scan (too close to the spine…it reads “That’s all!? That’s it???”) but it’s a nicely skeptical take on the matter, compared to the actual text piece on the page which describes in a mostly neutral tone what people who follow astrology believe. I say “mostly” because the last line of the piece is


Man, those close-minded scientists, not buying into things that have no scientific basis whatsoever. Isn’t that just like them?

Anyway, it’s a neat and colorful little book, and now I kinda want to track down the rest of the volumes on the eBay. …Great, something else to collect! According to the back of the book, one of the other volumes is entitled “The Body,” and I’m picturing it as being page after page of images like this (except, of course, for Frieda’s cat, who, by all appearances, has no bones).