And then there were some new comics this week.

filed under Categories this week's comics 12 Comments

The weird thing about coming across previously unreprinted strips in The Complete Bloom County (volume 3 of which was released this week) is that you feel like a bunch of your friends finally got around to telling you about this great time they all had a while back, and, oh, wait, we never told you? Man, you should have been there, it was awesome. And you’re all: “I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about any of this. I’ve been missing out all this time” and you feel just slightly put out about it.

Or maybe that’s just me. I did read all the original Bloom County collections to the point of memorization, almost, so seeing “new” strips comes as a strange shock, even more so than seeing long-lost Peanuts strips in the Fantagraphics collections. Not sure why that is, really…perhaps that there are so many Peanuts strips and strip collections and so on that it doesn’t feel odd when you spot a strip you hadn’t seen before. Whereas the number of Bloom County books are, what, less than a dozen? And it feels more like a “continuity” strip than Peanuts…when a sequence is suddenly placed back into its original context in the middle of other much more familiar storylines, the effect is jarring.

And there I go overthinking it. I’m just glad there is a Complete Bloom County series at all. I kinda wish creator Berke Breathed supplied more strip commentaries, as those have been entertaining, but…well, I’m not gonna complain.

By the way, in volume 3, there exists the single most terrifying image ever presented in the comics format: the reveal of Opus the Penguin’s post-plastic surgery nose. To this day that disturbs me with its unnaturalness. (No, I’m not posting the picture here. You’ll have to go find it yourself.)

Some other brief thoughts about this week’s new comics:

Issue #4 of The Simpsons spin-off Comic Book Guy actually has some Comic Book Guy in it, which is nice…series has been a fun read overall • • • Incredible Hulks #614 is almost like daring me to read it…I couldn’t care less about Hulk’s son, Skaar, or whatever, and the only reason I picked it up is because I’ve been reading this comic since I was 12, which is the worst reason in the world to read anything and I’ll have more thoughts on this (and another long-read title that I really am dropping) in a future post • • • I do like Green Lantern comics an’ all, but we don’t need three ongoing titles (two of which came out this week)…so, no reason at all why the story in the Emerald Warriors comic couldn’t have been folded into Green Lantern Corps? • • • Irredeemable #18 drops about as nasty a bit of business performed by a “hero” as I’ve ever seen in a superhero book, and I don’t mean by the series’ main antagonist, the Plutonian…a genuinely upsetting reveal • • • So, is Batman saying “‘the average guy’ isn’t our problem” in Superman #702 quite possibly the worst characterization of Batman ever? And like people asked me when I brought this up on the Twitter…which Batman is this, anyway? The still time-lost Bruce Wayne or current cape caretaker Dick Grayson? disregard that…it’s Dick • • • Muppet Sherlock Holmes #2 continues to cater to my strange fascination with Sherlock Holmes pastiches. And it’s Muppets, and Muppets are always wonderful. If you do not love the Muppets, then we have nothing more to say to each other. …I SAID GOOD DAY • • • Untold Tales of Blackest Night is entirely unnecessary, but if you needed more Blackest Night stuff, here it is, and it’s about as good as you’d need it to be. The Animal Man segment feels like a set-up for a new series • • • I like Hellblazer, so I’ll be reading this City of Demon mini-series, but honestly, it’s not like Hellblazer is selling so crazy-hot that we need what amounts to two of ’em on the shelves at the same time. Should have been folded into the regular series • • • the first issue of Strange Tales II (indie artists take on Marvel Comics) didn’t start off with a bang like the first issue of the previous series did…still, entertaining reading, with the standout being the Galactus/Magneto team-up by Perry Bible Fellowship‘s Nicholas Gurewitch • • • Turok Son of Stone #1 is out, and…I don’t know, I love the old Dell / Gold Key Turoks, and every time there’s a new revival, I realize you Can’t Go Home Again. Kinda like Turok himself, in a way…okay, I’ll stop • • • nice of DC to announce their intention to keep the $2.99 price point, saving customers money, just the week before releasing four Bruce Wayne The Road Home one-shot tie-ins at the same time, or five if you count Return of Bruce Wayne • • • Tiny Titans / Little Archie may actually contain too much cute. It’s a beauty to behold.

Yesterday was the Monty Python reference, today is the Firesign Theatre one.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, employee aaron, pal plugging, retailing, sir-links-a-lot, watchmen 5 Comments

So Wednesday I had a customer ask me where he could find the Black Freighter comic book, as seen in the Watchmen film. “Only in Watchmen, my friend,” I told him, but I’m still really surprised no new comic-format tie-ins to the film were released. A “replica” Black Freighter comic would have been kind of neat, and perhaps not as…off-putting to the purists as, say, a Nite Owl & Silk Spectre mini-series. Well, there was that fan-made attempt at reconstructing the comic from its excerpts in Watchmen. But I suppose the Black Freighter DVD that was released made an actual comic book release redundant.

…Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m about a year out of date with this Watchmen movie tie-in talk. Look, I’ve been out of it for about a week, and this guy really did ask me this yesterday. I gotta work with what I got, man.

Also, pal Brandon passed this link along to me, and I was going to put it up as one of my sick day posts, but a quick Googling showed that it already made the rounds on some of the comic news sites. But, eh, what the hell…a song about Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. It ain’t too shabby.

And in all my griping over the last few days about my painful dental issues, I see I never did mention that poor ol’ Employee Aaron managed to get one of his toes broken. No, no, not as a result of a cruel and unfair punishment meted out by me for violating one of our draconian workplace rules. This time. He was doing something at home, like, I think, saving a bunch of nuns and orphans from a buffalo stampede, when he tripped and fell, and, whoops, there goes the pinkie toe. So Sir Aaron Limps-a-lot is staggering around the shop, I can’t talk to anyone because my cheek has swollen up into a hot, painful lump the size of a Ford Festiva, and Ralph has pneumonia, dengue fever and the yaws…we’re a fine bunch.

Speaking of Watchmen, and not speaking of all us sick crew, as I was trying to find that Black Freighter reconstruction, I came across this photo of (presumably authentic) Watchmen film props for the Black Freighter comic and the Tijuana Bible. The user who uploaded that image has other Watchmen items from the film, including some of the magazines…that New Yorker would be a neat item to have.

In other news:

  • So former employee pal Sean‘s band, The Kill Junkies, just released their first album Steamroller which is available from Amazon in that convenient MP3 format. It’s more metal than a really metal thing filled with metal, so it may not be for gentler ears, but Sean’s a swell guy and I’m happy to support his creative endeavors.

  • And now…NAKED SUPERMAN AND BATMAN (safe for work, from a Code-approved comic)! I find the jar containing the brain of the Gorilla Boss (visible in one of the panels) to be simultaneously creepy and sad.

  • I am slowly…very slowly…almost too slowly…going through and tagging my older posts, and the most recent effort was made tagging most of my Watchmen posts. Now you can more easily find my writings on that particular topic, including the single greatest Watchmen post to ever appear on any comic blog, ever.

I don’t want to go on the cart.

filed under Categories sick day, sir-links-a-lot 4 Comments

Hey, gang…I’m finally feeling a little better, thanks to these horse pills the doctor gave me, and while last night was probably the most miserable I’ve been, I believe I’m past the worst of it. Thank you for all your well-wishes, and hopefully I’ll be back to business as usual on this site by tomorrow.

I do have a couple of links, though:

“Swamps are good for a laugh…”

filed under Categories swamp thing 6 Comments

Thanks to reader Justin for sending this my way…a picture of a display he took at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, explaining that swamps are good places, and not like what you see in, oh, issues #1 (Oct-Nov 1972) and #156 (July 1995) of Swamp Thing:


A closer look at the important part:


Like Justin says, “when these ‘scientists’ stumble onto a nest of Un-Men they’ll wish they’d learned” that “swamps are bad places!”

Kind of interesting that it appears they used an actual copy of #1 in the display. That’s a valuable funnybook classic, friends!

Anyway, special thanks to reader Justin for keeping this from being another sick day post. Oddball Swamp Thing pics are always welcome!

Sorry, gang.

filed under Categories sick day 7 Comments

It’s another Sick Day post…I’m experiencing some aftereffects from my root canal, which has left me with some uncomfortable swelling. It’s getting better, but it’s had me spending a lot of time taking medicine and resting, and not a whole lot of time generating site content.

Hopefully I’ll be up and runnin’ again tomorrow. Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you then.

What you don’t what to hear your dentist say as he’s looking in your mouth: “What the hell is that?”

filed under Categories pal plugging, retailing 13 Comments

The pain is (mostly) gone, but I’m still pretty wiped out from a night of not really sleeping, and a day of a mouth sore from multiple novocaine injections and metal tools digging into my teeth. Hey, who has abnormally long tooth roots? THIS GUY. Anyway, I’m keeping it short today, and let’s hope for a fresh start next week, without any unexpected medical shenaniganery.

BEHOLD:

  • On one hand, DC Comics is dropping prices on many $3.99 titles down to $2.99. On the other hand, stories are dropping down to 20 pages from 22. Not sure how I feel about that, especially since, unless sales increase significantly across the board, this is only delaying the inevitable line-wide price increase. At the very least, this creates some breathing room to decide what to do next, which hopefully won’t be 20 pages for $3.99.

    Judging from the reaction I’ve seen online, 20 story pages is less of a disincentive than the higher cover price, which only makes sense…no one wants to pay more money for funnybooks, especially in this economy. But I do worry a bit about the lack of perceived value. Is the loss of two pages really that big of a deal? Depends on the book, I guess…I’m not going to want to see three or four splash pages in one story any more, unless there’s darn good reason for it. Related: will there be a trend away from decompressed storytelling in the periodical market because of the page count decrease?

    …Just some of the random thoughts that came to mind…when I’m fully functioning again, I’ll try to ponder it further. Plus, I’ll probably run the news past some of my customers, and get some feedback from them.

    Also…was it Jenette Kahn who said that when she took over as publisher of DC, one of the first things she wanted to do is increase the page count from 17 to 23 pages, and give the kids more bang for their half-buck? That’s my memory, anyway…this current situation brought that to mind, for some reason.

    One other thing: that new Jimmy Olsen back-up in Action Comics better spin off into its own series, if it’s losing its slot due to the price/page drop. I think we’re all down with a new Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen comic book series by that creative team.

    And another other thing: Marvel announced that they’ll stick to $2.99 for new series starting in 2011. No word on page count, but I’m guessing they’ll keep at 22 pages, for now, just to stick it a little to DC.

  • Give my pal Euge twelve bucks for his new album:


    Limited edition CD of awesome nerdrap, with bonus disc and button, plus immediate digital downloads. GIVE THE MAN YOUR MONEY. (You can also listen to all the tracks from the main disc, in full, on that page.)

    BONUS: Unexpected Swamp Thing reference in one of the songs! I ain’t tellin’ you where.

Today’s post is called…

filed under Categories sick day 13 Comments

…on account of an emergency root canal.

Believe you me, I’d rather being comics blogging.

Sorry, gang…hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow.