Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.

filed under Categories End of Civilization 31 Comments

Sure, you may be offended by my building an End of Civilization post so close to New Comics Day, but it’s my right as an American, guaranteed in the Constitution, to put this post up whenever and wherever I want, and baby, you’re just gonna have to deal. Anyway, those of you who would like to sing along with my hymns of praise, please open up your copies of Diamond Previews, September 2010 edition, and join on in.

p. 59 – Milo Manara T-shirt:

“[Manara] has made a powerful name for himself producing comics that revolve around elegant, beautiful women.”

…Who are usually naked and having something awful happening to them, granted, but hey, they’re purty!

p. 95 – T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1:


Surely this will be the revival of a nearly-forgotten decades-old comics property that’ll catch on.

p. 129 – Blackest Night Orange Lantern 1:4 Scale Power Battery and Ring Prop Replica Set:


A collectible tchotchke based on an item that is, in the Lantern lore, representative of avarice…there’s a base level of irony in there, somewhere.

p. 131 – Brightest Day Series 2 Action Figures – Hawkman:


I didn’t think we’d ever reach a point in our cultural history where we had too many Hawkman action figures, but, well, here we are.

p. 140 – G.I. Joe #24:


“So, Mike, how can I get that rare Trevor Hutchison cover?”

“Well, first, you have to drink this.”

“Um…what?”

“Here, drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Never you mind. DRINK IT.”

“Okay, okay…now what?”

“Put this on.”

“Um…a dog collar? With a leash?”

“Do you want the comic or not?”

“Sure, but….”

“WEAR THE LEASH.”

p. 303-4 – Tank Girl: Bad Wind Rising #1:


Oh, no, those aren’t visible areolae above Booga’s hands in that full page ad for Tank Girl in the Previews. They’re…um, poker chips that he’s holding for Tank Girl. For safekeeping. Against her breasts. Um, yeah.

p. 322 – The Monster Hunter Survival Guide #1: The Undead:


Tip #1: Wear as little clothing as possible.

p. 333 – Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau:


Features several soft-focus shots, from many angles, of Trudeau’s photocopier.

(PLEASE NOTE: Haven’t read Doonesbury in years. No idea if the repeated photocopied panels joke is out of date. …Probably scanners and Adobe Photoshop nowadays, anyway.)

p. 345 – Deadman Symbol T-shirt:


“Hey, man, one of the Ds fell off your Daredevil shirt.”

p. 347 – Spider-Man: Swings Throw Blanket w/Sleeves:


Okay, sure, you can’t call ’em “Snuggies,” but surely you could have come up with something more clever than “throw blanket with sleeves.” Like “Robe of Shame,” or something.

p. 376 – Star Wars Pink Darth Vader Helmet:


“Um…Lord Vader?”

“YES, ADMIRAL?”

“Uh, I don’t mean to be…well, disrespectful or anything, but, um….”

“GET TO THE POINT.”

“It’s just that…well, that is…why are you pink pleasedon’tforcechokeme.”

“MY UNIFORM CAME BACK THIS WAY FROM THE CLEANERS. I SHALL UNLEASH THE FULL POWER OF THIS BATTLE STATION UPON THEIR FIVE LOCATIONS IN THE TRI-COUNTY AREA. NOW DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF THIS AGAIN.”

“Yes, Lord Pin…VADER, I mean Vader oh god”

p. 376 – Star Wars Logo Bookends:


Finally, something to hold up all my William Shatner-penned (well, credited) Star Trek novels.

p. 394 – Watchmen Rorschach Bobble Head:


It’s been a while since we’ve had a good entry in the “Entirely Inappropriate Watchmen Merchandise” series, but this’ll do. This will do.

p. 395 – Kick Ass Coffee Mugs:

“Each mug features a vulgar line from the graphic novel….”

Ah, so each mug features a line from the graphic novel, then.

According to the solicitation, the mugs are only censored for the ad…the actual mugs feature the naughty words in all their unfettered glory. And as hilariously inappropriate as having a mug that reads “Okay, you [c-word]s, let’s see what you can do” would be, especially just, you know, sitting out there on your desk in your cubicle…for some reason, having an actual censored version of the “You are a ******* ******” mug would be even better. Make all those c********** wonder!

Love Superhero Style.

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So regular commenter on the site, Roel Torres, and his drawin’ pal Scott Arnold have just unleashed their first comic book onto the world, Lightning Girl Loves Rocket Boy, an essentially done-in-one graphic novel featuring the romantic travails between two young college students who are also, it just happens, superheroes.

Roel was nice enough to pass along a copy to me, and I quite enjoyed it. I liked how the superheroics were pretty much just in the story for the purposes of how it affected the romance, and not the be-all, end-all of the story with a romantic subplot squeezed in. The dialogue is light and humorous when it needs to be, and services the romantic melodrama without being overly melodramatic and goofy.

Though it took me a page or three to get used to it, Arnold does a good job on the art, handling both the character interaction and the superheroics with his particularly stylized cartooning. All the characters are distinct and consistently portrayed and instantly recognizable, which is a plus considering the emphasis is on what happens to the leads when they’re NOT out in their superhero work uniforms.

The story itself is 50 pages long, but there’s a lot packed into it. There’s no wasted space on the pages, and no wasted time moving the plot along. No decompressed storytelling here. Yes, it’s a “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, does boy get girl back, I ain’t tellin'” plot, only with superheroes, and even with that twist, I’m sure we’re all familiar with the tropes of the genre. Even so, it still moves along at a quick and entertaining clip, and the basic story thread is given enough unique embellishment to go down easy.

If I were to bust the guys’ chops about a thing or two on the comic…having “The Beginning” at the end of the story? Oh, Roel ‘n’ Scott, say it ain’t so. You know the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys would totally rake you over the coals for that. Also, the computer lettering used in the book was…well, not terrible, but just slightly distracting, but I got used to it. And there’s a panel or two in the comic where the characters felt like they weren’t really integrated into their backgrounds, such as when they’re standing on a rooftop but it looks more like they’re hovering over it or pasted into the panel. But that’s just getting nitpicky, and any rough edges the comic may have is the sort of thing experience takes care of. (Plus, I like comics with a rough edge or two…I’d rather read a comic produced by amateur creators just starting out in the field, like this one, than a fifteenth Avengers ongoing.)

But, overall, a good first effort, and I’d like to see more from these fellas. Maybe not more of this specific story, as, even though there’s a “#1” on the cover (and, ahem, “The Beginning”), it feels like we reached a definitive ending with this story and it’d be a shame to undo that. It stands on its own as an enjoyable addition to the relatively-sparse “Superhero Romance” genre.

If you go to the official blog, you can read an extensive preview of the comic, and you can order your very own copy right here.

• • •

In other news:

  • I received my package of Neil the Horse comics yesterday, and they’re all in good shape, with only the first issue having a crease or two on the covers. Can’t really complain for a 99-cent bid, though I have to admit I’m not thrilled about paying a certain amount for shipping, and then seeing that the actual shipping cost was only about a third of that. But…full run of Neil the Horse, under nine bucks total, stop complaining, Mike.

  • Hey, Superman: Secret Origin #6 is coming out today. Finally. Took ’em so long, it’s almost time to revise Superman’s origin again.

  • Bully, America’s Greatest Little Stuffed Bull, presents to you Archie Comics Versus Kids’ Fads. It’s a battle Archie only rarely won, if ever. (Ignore the first reader comment, where someone proclaims Archie late to the party for featuring a Wii-type game on a cover. Um, the Wii is still selling, last I heard. DO NOT TEMPT THE BULL’S WRATH, COMMENTER.)

In which I advertise a comic even further by discussing its advertising.

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So Marvel and DC (well, mostly Marvel) regularly sends out packs of advertising postcards for shops to give away, usually listing all the tie-ins for a crossover series, or pushing some new title or storyline or what have you. They make for nice promotional items, and I’ve seen more than a few customers marking off titles they’ve picked up on the card’s checklists. And I’m sure a lot of them end up on display back at home somewhere…like, I’m not coming right out and saying that I have the “Planet Hulk” postcard on my fridge door, but I might.

That one I scanned above has received more reaction from our customers than any other card released so far. Okay, mostly it’s “they’re getting rid of a member of the Fantastic Four? Again?” but nearly everyone who’s seen the stack of these cards on the counter has commented on it. And really, this is about as perfectly pure and simple a targeted advertisement as I’ve ever seen. Okay, your average non-fan off the street may not get it, but every comic fan 1) recognizes this as the FF logo, and 2) knows that, hey, that should be a “4” in there, not a “3,” therefore something’s happening to one of the characters. The information on the back of the card is almost redundant…everything you need to know is pretty much right there on the front. (But if you need to know…it’s a storyline starting in next month’s FF. And you should be reading FF right now anyway, because writer Jonathan Hickman has been doing a good job on it.)

Anyhoo, just wanted to give some appreciation to this promo item. Well done, Marvel’s marketing department…well done.

• • •

In other news:

If one were to listen to the one year anniversary installment of War Rocket Ajax, featuring those Clown Princes of Podcasting Chris Sims and Eugene Ahn, you may hear them answering a Listener Question from a certain M. Sterling, at about the 1:27:30 mark.

EDIT 8-29-10: Had to shut off comments, as this particular post was attracting a lot of comment spam, for some reason.

FLINTSTONES OF TWO WORLDS.

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This is The Flintstones Double Vision (September 1994), a comic book adaptation of the live action feature film starring John Goodman as Fred:


The “Double Vision” in the title refers, not to the Foreigner song, but to this comic’s particular format…while at first glance, it appears to be a 3D comic:


…in fact, it’s two different adaptations of the same story! Looking only through the blue lens, you’d see the story as drawn with the characters resembling their live action counterparts (scans grayscaled for clarity):


Looking through the red lens, you’d see the story with the characters in their traditional animated form:


And if you were to look through both lenses:


OH GOODNESS DON’T DO THAT

Anyway, you don’t see anything in 3D, despite having to use 3D glasses for this particular gimmick. You do get to read a comic with one eye squeezed shut, and boy doesn’t that sound like fun.

An interesting thing on the cover:


They use “you know who” to make it rhyme, sure, but John Goodman’s name appears nowhere in or on the book, which I thought was odd since so much attention was paid to delineating the man’s features on the cover. But then, it’s not like actors get ballyhooed on comic book adaptations all the time as it is…you’re not getting the actor, anyway. You’re getting drawings of the actor. And there’s probably some additional licensing hoohar involved if you actually use the actor’s name, maybe…I really don’t know.

On the other hand, comic book adaptations of movies are kind of a moot point when you can own the actual movie about four or five months after seeing it in theatres, like I’ve written about before.

So, The Flintstones Double Vision…bit of an oddity, and a latter day example of a comic book genre that’s very nearly gone* nowadays. Also, it doesn’t appear to be in the Overstreet Price Guide, so I’m totally pricing this at $3000, and none of you can stop me.

* Yes, I know there’s a currently running adaptation of the Star Trek movie. That’s why I said “nearly gone.”

Here is what I found in my parking space behind the shop yesterday morning.

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Not sure who did it…my name is spelled correctly, so that rules Employee Aaron out.

Also, minor correction to my headline here…this is actually the space to the left of my normal parking space, and you can see part of my truck on the right hand side of the picture, there.

…Yes, this is really what I’m posting today. Sorry, been a bit occupied with some some other things I need to deal with. Normal service should resume tomorrow, with any luck.

I’m joking about the “young man’s game” thing.

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Neil the Horse is one of those series I’d been meaning to acquire for a while now, having somehow missed it during its original 1980s run. However, we never had more than a few issues at the shop, and didn’t feel like trying to track down the missing ones because I’m old and tired and back issue hunting is a young man’s game. But when a full run of Neil popped up on the eBay (and pictured above with the image from the actual auction) for an opening bid of ninety-nine cents…well, that was hard to resist. And I ended up winning the lot with that opening bid.

True, the shipping cost is seven and a half bucks, apparently for parcel post, which is…well, I’ll let this old post of mine explain, but even so that’s still a full run of Neil the Horse for under ten bucks, and therefore I won’t gripe too much.

There are other indie series from the early-to-mid ’80s that I missed that the store doesn’t have and I’m seriously thinking about picking up for cheap via the eBay, because clearly I don’t have enough comics already. And I’m still looking for the elusive Yummy Fur #9, which (if I recall correctly) was one of the issues of the series not carried by Diamond, making it a bit of a rare item. Well, sure, I at least have the lead story reprinted in one of the Ed the Happy Clown trade paperbacks, but the knowledge that I have issues #1 through #8 and #10 through #32 weighs upon me in a way that only fellow obsessive-compulsive funnybook readers can understand.

And by the way, I didn’t say anything about it at the time…but as only vaguely implied in that how to ship comics post, I’d bought a run of Minx on eBay, which is an eight issue series, and the seller wanted to charge me twelve bucks to ship ’em. Twelve. Dollars. That’s crazy talk, and I told him so. He eventually saw reason, but I guess that was my fault for not nailing down shipping ahead of my bidding.

Odds & Ends.

filed under Categories retailing, sir-links-a-lot 5 Comments

  • To you folks out there who 1) visit my site directly instead of just pulling the RSS feed, and 2) use some form of Internet Explorer, I apologize for the font size problem yesterday. I had an HTML tag that I didn’t close, and I didn’t notice since I’m on Firefox and that seems to correct for display errors like that, but apparently the problem caused IE, at least in some cases, to go haywire.

    Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s fixed now.

  • I was discussing late comics with some pals the other day, because that’s the kind of thing I do after I get a couple of drinks* in me, and the topic of Batman: Widening Gyre popped up. So I went through the records, and here are the dates of release (well, actually, the date the invoices were generated, with the comic coming out the following Wednesday):

    #1 – 8/23

    #2 – 9/26/09

    #3 – 10/31/09

    #4 – 1/9/10

    #5 – 3/6/10

    #6 – 7/24/10

    So, eleven months or thereabouts, which averages out to about bimonthly, if one were to be charitable. Also noticed that this time around, I didn’t get the parade of complaints demanding the next issue during that extended delay between 5 and 6. Perhaps the reason is that, if one were again charitable, customers finally have learned to expect some comics to ship late.

    Hmm. When Batman and Robin is only a week late, I never hear the end of it. Funny.

  • So I was looking at Scott McCloud’s site, and he snapped a pic of some cosplayers he spotted while at the theatre to see Scott Pilgrim…and lo and behold, at the bottom center of the pic, with the green hair and baseball bat, is pal Dana, she of cookies, cakes, and holiday cards. I guess she’s dressed as, I don’t know, Matilda or something. Hey, I didn’t read this “Scoot Pogom” comic.

    Anyway, our little pal Dana is moving away and going off to big person’s school up north at the end of the week, so she’s just going to have to mail us cookies and cupcakes from now on. She’s not getting away that easily. But good luck, Dana! We’ll miss having you around, but we’ll still be able to annoy you via the Internet! Thank God for technology!

  • Reader JB sends along this link to a convention sketch of Swamp Thing by Bill Sienkiewicz. Pretty darn cool.

  • I don’t even have the words for Andrew’s latest Nobody’s Favorites. It’s a little outside the realm of comics, but Andrew wouldn’t break the format if it wasn’t for good reason.

  • Do nerds ruin everything? YOU MAKE THE CALL. (In this case, yes, but I’d totally buy one of these.)

  • James Marsters is returning to Smallville for that show’s 200th episode, but not reprising his role as Brainiac. He’s coming back as Legion of Super-Heroes member Brainiac 5. This is…actually pretty clever, I think. Plus, maybe we’ll get him slathered in green body paint which, it goes without saying, is a fetish for someone, surely.

* Diet Cokes, mostly.