…and I was all ready to crank this sucker up and shoot video of it for the delight and edification of all, but alas, the “action” part of the Spider-Man Action Alarm Clock no longer appears to work:

Anyway, when the clock’s alarm sounds, you get a little playlet of the eternal struggle of man in blue and red leotards versus a guy in a green Halloween costume, as Spidey shoots out of the door at the bottom of the building, “climbs” up the wall, and dives into that top window, there, tackling the Green Goblin. And then Spidey cycles back down through the body of the clock, where he hangs out behind a couple of tiny rubbery doors waiting to be called forth again. The Goblin, however, is still hanging out in that top window, leering at you from your nightstand, mocking the futility of Spidey’s battle against injustice.

Also, there’s a button you can press to set off this whole drama at your whim. Again, theoretically, since ours is busted.

Apparently the clock also projects Spider-Man’s face on the wall, just in case you have any kids you need to terrorize first thing in the morning as they groggily wake themselves from a fitful sleep, subconsciously aware that the Goblin’s eyes are gazing upon them from his building-top lookout. But again, that doesn’t seem to work on the actual clock I have in hand, either. WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

The clock does come with a Certificate of Authenticity, guaranteeing that this is an Honest-to-God genuine clock that broke during on us during the, oh, seven or eight years we’ve had it:

I’ve had these things floating around the backroom forever, and I had to peel off the series of price stickers on each of these, with the progressively lower and more desperate pricing.

First off, Cameron Hodge, a character I’m vaguely familiar with only from seeing him on the covers of comics I process here at the shop…can’t say I’ve ever actually read anything with him in it:

WATER BLASTING BIO WEAPON.

Presumably this is analogous to an ability Hodge has in the comics and/or cartoon, but I suspect the less I know, the happier I am. But it’s hard to hate a toy that comes with a little squeeze box so you can shoot water at your friends. You know, if my old Darth Vader action figure, instead of having a lightsaber, had a little tube that ran through his arm and was fed by a squeezable water bulb, I would have happily spritzed the Rebels into submission. “BEHOLD THE SPRITELY WATERS OF THE DARK SIDE,” I’d intone deeply, as I gave Han and Luke what-for with liquid evil.

…

Um.

…

Anyway, get a load of this handsome bastard:

So onto the eBay with you, my two little shelfwarmers. May you find a home there; a better home, or worse, so long as it isn’t mine.

Running a bit late here, so lemme jot down a few thoughts I done thunk about a few of this week’s comics:

• The Flash #1 – Still seems like this is all entirely unnecessary, aside from being a repair job caused by the torpedoing of the franchise, but…well, it all seems pleasant enough, I guess. If there has to be a Flash comic book, this one will do…things are set up quickly, appropriately enough, and we jump right into the action, and we’ve got the Rogues, and we’ve got superspeed stunts, and it’s all very much a Flash comic. Not sold on the art yet, despite a couple of individual pieces standing out nicely. Maybe I’m just not used to it, in that the art feels…gentler than what I’m accustomed to seeing in edgy, no-holds-barred, in-your-face modern superheroic adventures.
• Brightest Day #0 – Spins right out of the plotlines left dangling at the end of Blackest Night. I know some respected colleagues of mine hated this comic with a passion, but I think it looks like it could be an entertaining tour through the DC Universe. Or it could crash and burn completely. I don’t know…it’s all set-up, delineating the multiple plotlines we’re going to be getting over the next year, so we’ll see how it goes. Knocking down the number of issues in this year-long event book from 52 to 26 seems like a very good idea, given that DC’s last 52-issue mini was painfully thin on plot.
• Black Widow #1 – A lot of “wait…another Black Widow comic?” from the customers, since this new issue came right on the heels of two designed-to-be-collected-into-TPBs-for-the-Iron-Man-movie mini-series. Still sold a few, so why should I complain, right?
• PunisherMAX #6 – Dumb name, but still a great comic. The Kingpin storyline of the first few issues transitions nicely into this new Bullseye story, and it’s ridiculous and gross and remarkably entertaining. Plus, there’s a bit of business in here reminding you that 1) The MAX version of the Punisher was in the Vietnam War, and 2) he’s totally in his late 50s/early 60s by now. I really like the idea of Nearing Retirement Age Punisher.
• Irredeemable Special #1 – Good book featuring three short stories detailing backstories for some of the supporting characters. Howard Chaykin draws one of the stories, which involves a house of ill repute and lots of girls in skimpy underwear, so it pretty much needed the Chaykin treatment.

  Also, this time I went for the Retailer Incentive Variant, presenting all the previous “Giant Letter” variant covers from the series that spelled out the title. Thought it was pretty cool, couldn’t resist it.

…or the most beat-up:

from The Tandy Computer Whiz Kids (Fit to Win Edition) (1988) – art by Dick Ayers & Chic Stone

Sorry for the Low Content Mode over the last day or two…I’ve been otherwise occupied with, you know, things and stuff, which hasn’t been leaving me with a lot of prime blogging time. And, frankly, I’ve been going through a bit of a low point re: blogging enthusiasm, and I needed to recharge the batteries a little. Writing a longish review/reminiscence for another site (which should be up soon) helped pull me out of that funk a bit, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal in short order. Thanks for your patience, internet pals!

In the meantime, let’s see what other people who do have something to say…er, have to say, I guess:

• Congrats to Tim O’Neil, who reached his 1000th post, and cites me as one of his inspirations, which is extremely nice of him. He and I have been doing the blog thing for more or less the exact same amount of time, except he did the smart thing and only posted when he felt like it. Anyway, Tim is one of those few bloggers whose posts I immediately jump to whenever I see he has something new up in my feed reader, and I’m always rewarded with something insightful and amusing. Like, for example, this initial installment of his examination of the work of Frank Miller, which already promises to be a good read.
• Tom Spurgeon reviews The Art of Jaime Hernandez, which is absolutely a beautiful-looking book, and highly recommended. I’d been meaning to mention that our store gets kinda/sorta mentioned…not by name, but as the “local comic shop in Ventura” that was the first to carry the original self-published version of Love and Rockets. I seem to remember seeing that original #1 in the local Big Indie Record Store at the time, too, but maybe I’m remembering wrong. I am old, you know…the brain’s the second thing to go.*
• I’ve mentioned before that Andrew is one of my favorite comic bloggers…intelligent, witty, and has a fantastic Bostonian accent that’s a pleasure to listen to over the Xbox Live chat function, helping to ease the pain of his unerring ability to slaughter me repeatedly whenever we play Grand Theft Auto IV together. Anyway, all that preamble is about is to get you to visit this link to another entry in his ongoing series “Nobody’s Favorites.” This time he talks about a character in a comic that I see all the time at the shop, but I think, to this day, I’ve never actually looked inside it. And Andrew’s post makes me glad I haven’t.
• I haven’t linked to them in a while, but every week I download and listen to War Rocket Ajax, the Podcast That Walks Like A Man, and you can listen to the newest episode right here. This is a shorter episode, with Chris and Eugene shootin’ the breeze for about an hour. Good stuff, and one of the very few comic podcasts I listen to.
• Who’s got webcomics for sale in print form? Why, Agreeable Comics does, with new print editions of She Died in Terrebonne and The Loneliest Astronauts available at prices too low to mention here! Also available for sale is the first book collection of The Rack, which features one strip written by ME!!!!!!!, and a bunch of strips by some other guys whose names escape me.
• I should note that I’ve been working on The Bureau Chiefs site, the home of the folks what brung you Fake AP Stylebook. One feature I work on has a name that may be familiar to longterm fans of my site: “This Is A Fetish for Someone.” Mostly it’s just pics of terrible things found by me and the rest of the Chiefs, combined with a short comment or two from me. I also assist pal Dorian and the other Chiefs in the production of his News Briefs column, providing smart-alecky commentary on current events. It’s a lot of fun, and I hope you folks enjoy it as well. Or, at least, aren’t terribly offended by it.

Hmmm…well, I actually feel a bit of that blogging enthusiasm coming back after writing all that. I guess the cure to “not feeling like writing” is “writing anyway!”

* The first thing to go? “Lack of excess ear hair.” Look forward to that, younglings.