At last…at long last….

…Herbie Archives volume one is here.

The artwork is taken directly from the original comics, so you get the original coloring and the defects that sorta went along with it. But, Dark Horse did a good job given the printing quality of the source material, and it’s all perfectly clean and readable. The panel above was scanned directly from my copy of the book…pardon the minor moiré pattern, that’s my fault and doesn’t appear in the actual printed copy.

Also included are the several period house ads for Herbie, most of which were gag strips in their own right. The non-Herbie strips by the same creative team that rounded out some of the comics (like “Nellie No-Date”) do not appear, unfortunately.

However, I’m not going to complain too loudly, as I’ve been waiting for some form of quality reissuing of the original Herbie comics for years, as searching for the individual issues is 1) hard, as they’re not terribly common, and 2) expensive when you find ’em. Even as I was writing this, I just kinda looked over at the copy of the book sitting on the desk next to me, and I still can’t believe it’s actually here.

Anyway, I imagine you have probably guessed by now that I’m excited about this release, so let me move on to other stuff that came out this week.

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Well, I’m sure something else came out this week.

In other news:

• I haven’t had a chance to watch this Kirkman video yet…does he mention when we can expect the softcover volume one of his Walking Dead series to be available through Diamond again? It’s been months since I was last able to order it, and I’d like to be able to turn new people onto the comic when they ask about it.

  (Yes, I know there’s a $30 hardcover containing this material that’s currently available. That’s a bit less of an “impulse buy” than the $10 softcover volume one.)

• Moments when I feel guilty at the shop, from Wednesday:

  Customer: “Do you have any Ernie Bushmiller Nancy stuff?”

  Me: “Uh…you may be competing with me for those comics.”

• Polite Scott takes on that classic bit of comic book shorthand representing doctors…the head mirror.
• COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: I have auctions on the eBay ending tonight. If there’s anything there you’d like, and you want to help a pal out, please feel free to bid. All items personally touched by me…guaranteed!
• Oh, okay, I have things to say about a new release or two.

  First, Marvel wasted no time getting that new post-Garth Ennis issue of Punisher on the stands. I am curious about what sort of a sales hit this series is going to take…not that this new issue looks bad or anything. In fact, it looks pretty interesting (haven’t had a chance to read it yet), but I have several folks in the store’s comic saver service who only want Punisher if it’s written by Ennis. I’m sure they’re not the only ones.

  Also, I have to thank, I believe, Sims for recommending Marvel’s True Believers to me. It’s the return of former Superman writer Cary “Mr. Surprise” Bates to comics (aside from that DC Comics Presents Julie Schwartz tribute book), and it’s…surprisingly perverse and bit of a hoot. Who knew Mr. Bates had it in him?

  Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #1 has about a zillion characters on every page, with about as many panels, drawn in that way only George Perez can. And we haven’t even really introduced at least two of the three titular Legions into the story yet. It’s fun, if a bit cramped, so far. The more you know about the Legion, the more you’ll get out this series, I think.

  Trinity #12 – now, I’m not saying that it’s been bad…it’s been perfectly serviceable, and generally entertaining, superhero nonsense. However, with the introduction of the Crime Syndicate of Amerika, things seem to have a little more spark and direction than before. If you were iffy on the series previously, you might want to check out the last issue or two.

  Not a new release: Helen Killer #2 – okay, you don’t need to remind me to mail order this issue from the publisher anymore. My copy arrived on Wednesday, so at last I can finally finish reading the series.

  Hope it’s good!

Inside this issue of The Comic Reader #45 (Jan. 1966):

…I found this letter from the then-new editor, hoping to pick up a new subscriber:

Inside this issue of The Barks Collector #34 (Summer 1986):

…I found this note to retailers, detailing wholesale costs and information:

Mixed in with a pile of AMRA: Swordplay & Sorcery fanzines, of which this copy of issue #70 from 1982 is a sample:

…I found this rejection postcard:

This person just got told he wasn’t good enough to be an amateur. Dude, harsh.

(Okay, I know there are plenty of potential reasons why this person was rejected, and this particular ‘zine was pretty polished. But honestly, that’s the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the card, and I thought it was funny. Just a joke, son.)

REMINDER:

Herbie Archive Volume 1 is due out in your better funnybook stores this week! (At least, it’s on our invoice, so chances are reasonably good that they’ll show up with our shipment.)

HERBIE. Better than anything you’re already reading.

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The new DC solicits are up, and it looks like DC’s found a way to get another Sandman comic on the stands with Neil Gaiman attached…in this case, a comic book adaptation of Gaiman’s Sandman: The Dream Hunters illustrated novel. Well, it’s being adapted by P. Craig Russell, so it’s gonna be absolutely gorgeous and I’m gonna end up buying anyway. I’m a sucker. By the way, Dream Hunters came out ten years ago, apparently. How old does that make you feel?

Speaking of Sandman, his big sister Death makes an appearance in Madame Xanadu #6 (fresh from her appearances in Captain Atom and Legion of Super-Heroes! — okay, I’ll stop).

From the solicit for Super Friends #9:

“Happy Birthday, Superman! The Super Friends get together for a party celebrating DC’s first and greatest hero! But Lex Luthor wants to wish Superman a very un-happy day!”

This sounds cute. Almost too cute. This series is like a super-dense concentration of cute, practically a black hole of cute, its immense cuteness gravity dragging in…okay, I have no idea where I’m going with this. But I’m totally picturing Lex sneaking around the party, putting a frog in the punchbowl, hiding Superman’s presents in, I don’t know, the lead-lined trash bins, calling the police to complain about the party’s noise levels, etc.

I see Kevin Smith has a Batman mini (Cacophony) starting…I recall reading somewhere that Smith has all the scripts turned in (or nearly so). Let us hope. We don’t want another overly delayed Spider-Man/Black Cat, or an outright truncated Daredevil: The Target.

The DC Classics Library: Superman “Kryptonite Nevermore!” hardcover features classic Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson art on a classic Superman story, and I bet it’ll look great. Another Superman book due out is the Past and Future trade paperback, featuring time travel stories (including the story from Action Comics #300, which has one of my favorite covers). I really like these themed collections from DC…if we can’t have themed Eighty Page Giants any more, I guess these’ll have to do.

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As long as I’m linking to Comic Book Resources, here’s their story about Fox trying to prevent Warner Brothers’ Watchmen movie, claiming exclusive rights. Well, this should be interesting. At last, there’s still a chance that Watchmen will be adapted in the only format that makes sense for the complexity and density of the story: as a weekly cartoon sitcom, sandwiched between Simpsons and King of the Hill. “Don’t have a dead dog, man!” will read my wacky Rorschach t-shirt.

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Well, here we go again. Kevin points out some problems with another comics marketing e-mail, and I can’t wait to see how folks try to say the problem is actually a good thing this time. (Assuming they can address the actual point and not argue non-sequiturs again.)

Well, good luck, Kevin. You’re a braver, and more patient, man than I.

Speaking of Kevin, he was recently interviewed and totally pinned the blame for his comics blogging on me. So, all you Kevin-haters out there? It’s my fault, AND I’M PROUD. So bring it on, chumps.

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Okay, I was dumb and left out the link to Caleb’s Millennium post in my entry yesterday, until I was finally able to fix my mistake later that morning. So, here’s that link again for anyone who missed it. (Sorry, Caleb!)

So I was looking through a copy of Logan’s Run #7 (July 1977), and noticed this “next issue” blurb on the last page:

…which promises the revelation of a thing or two, plus a tease of a character’s return that apparently we should be excited about.

Well, this was the last issue of the series, and while I could care less about what’s “beyond Cathedral,” or what “Mind-Sin” is, I am left wondering about who the returning character would have been.

‘Course, the only one I think we’d all would have liked to see again is Box:

IT’S MY JOB

TO FREEZE YOU!
Or maybe it would have been Peter Ustinov’s character. The world will never know! (Or maybe it can be Googled up somewhere.) (And I’m not sure if either of those characters popped up in Marvel’s other “new adventures” issues…um, I forgot to check.)

Speaking of the Googling, I found this page, which has scans of some of the Marvel-produced Logan’s Run strips that ran in a British magazine. The page also discusses the other comic book adaptations of the film, and the books which inspired it…this review of the later Malibu Graphics comics made me laugh:

“These ‘new’ Logan’s Run comics are not to [sic] bad if you can overlook the fact that everyone looks like a Nazi elf.”

Wow. You know, I’m betting someone, somewhere is awfully, disturbingly, excited about the idea of a Nazi elf comic.

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So anyway, getting back to the first topic, there…anyone else have any particular favorite “next issue” blurbs in the last issues of series that were never followed up on? I’ve pointed out this one before, from the last issue of the original Swamp Thing series:

While Swampy ended up fighting some of Hawkman’s fellow Thanagarians a decade or so later, this “in the skies of Portland” battle with the Hawkman was a no-show. Ah, well.

If you can think of other similar examples, let me know in the comments.

And just a reminder: comments are still being moderated, and probably will be for a couple more days at least. I’ll get them approved as often as I’m able. Thank you for understanding, and I’m sorry moderation even turned out to be necessary.

Employee Aaron: “Hey, check out this Hostess ad!”

Me: “What about it?”

Employee Aaron: “Captain America uses Twinkies to distract the Cosmic Cube.”

Me: “No kiddin’.”

Employee Aaron: “No, really, check it out! See, the Cosmic Cube is even thinking about the Twinkie’s cream filling.”

Me: “Now, given the Cosmic Cube is all-powerful, it could just create its own Twinkies stash, right? It doesn’t need Cap as a Twinkie source.”

Employee Aaron: “Uh…”

Me: “That’s probably not the part of the strip I should stop suspending my disbelief over, is it?”

Yes, I know Seanbaby got to it already.

Bully‘s friend John is a friend of mine as well, and he asked that I help get the word out by crossposting this essay he wrote about some upsetting observations he made at the last San Diego Comic Convention.

His original post is here, along with links to more of John’s friends who are helping out.

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Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: “These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, ’cause I wanted to see what her reaction was.” This was only one example of several instances of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.

1. One of my friends was working at a con booth selling books. She was stalked by a man who came to her booth several times, pestering her to get together for a date that night. One of her co-workers chased him off the final time.

2. On Friday, just before the show closed, this same woman was closing up her tables when a group of four men came to her booth, started taking photographs of her, telling her she was the “prettiest girl at the con.” They they entered the booth, started hugging and kissing her and taking photographs of themselves doing so. She was confused and scared, but they left quickly after doing that.

3. Another friend of mine, a woman running her own booth: on Friday a man came to her booth and openly criticized her drawing ability and sense of design. Reports from others in the same section of the floor confirmed he’d targeted several women with the same sort of abuse and criticism.

Quite simply, this behavior has got to stop at Comic-Con. It should never be a sort of place where anyone, man or woman, feels unsafe or attacked either verbally or physically in any shape or form. There are those, sadly, who get off on this sort of behavior and assault, whether it’s to professional booth models, cosplayers or costumed women, or women who are just there to work. This is not acceptable behavior under any circumstance, no matter what you look like or how you’re dressed, whether you are in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit or business casual for running your booth.

On Saturday, the day after the second event I described above, I pulled out my convention book to investigate what you can do and who you can speak to after such an occurrence. On page two of the book there is a large grey box outlining “Convention Policies,” which contain rules against smoking, live animals, wheeled handcarts, recording at video presentations, drawing or aiming your replica weapon, and giving your badge to others. There is nothing about attendee-to-attendee personal behavior.

Page three of the book contains a “Where Is It?” guide to specific Comic-Con events and services. There’s no general information room or desk listed, nor is there a contact location for security, so I go to the Guest Relations Desk. I speak to a volunteer manning the desk; she’s sympathetic to the situation but who doesn’t have a clear answer to my question: “What’s Comic-Con’s policy and method of dealing with complaints about harassment?” She directs me to the nearest security guard, who is also sympathetic listening to my reports, but short of the women wanting to report the incidents with the names of their harassers, there’s little that can be done.

“I understand that,” I tell them both, “but what I’m asking is more hypothetical and informational: if there is a set Comic-Con policy on harassment and physical and verbal abuse on Con attendees and exhibitors, and if so, what’s the specific procedure by which someone should report it, and specifically where should they go?” But this wasn’t a question either could answer.

So, according to published con policy, there is no tolerance for smoking, drawn weapons, personal pages or selling bootleg videos on the floor, and these rules are written down in black and white in the con booklet. There is not a word in the written rules about harassment or the like. I would like to see something like “Comic-Con has zero tolerance for harassment or violence against any of our attendees or exhibitors. Please report instances to a security guard or the Con Office in room XXX.”

The first step to preventing such harassment is giving its victims the knowledge that they can safely and swiftly report such instances to someone in authority. Having no published guideline, and indeed being unable to give a clear answer to questions about it, gives harassment and violence one more red-tape loophole to hide behind.

I enjoyed Comic-Con. I’m looking forward to coming back next year. So, in fact, are the two women whose experiences I’ve retold above. Aside from those instances, they had a good time at the show. But those instances of harassment shouldn’t have happened at all, and that they did under no clear-cut instructions about what to do sadly invites the continuation of such behavior, or even worse.

I don’t understand why there’s no such written policy about what is not tolerated and what to do when this happens. Is there anyone at Comic-Con able to explain this? Does a similar written policy exist in the booklets for other conventions (SF, comics or otherwise) that could be used as a model? Can it be adapted or adapted, and enforced, for Comic-Con? As the leading event of the comics and pop culture world, Comic-Con should work to make everyone who attends feel comfortable and safe.

…if you were to look at the back pages of Fall of Cthulhu: God War #1, new this week from Boom! Studios, you will see a brief interview (and a fantastic photo) of Boom’s new boy editor pal Ian.

“WAY TO GO, BATMAN!”
Not that anyone needs a reason to cheer Batman, but these folks are cheering him specifically for making a successful strike against the bad guys during the Millennium crossover event. When his actions are explained to Superman, his response to Batman is “Really? You did that?”

Batman then says, humbly

“I only had a hand in it–!”

However, he’s thinking

“But I can’t deny that I’m glad you had none!”

Phew! Professional jealousy much? I know this is from the period just following the Superman revamp, when it was decided that, after years of being buddy-buddy, Batman and Superman would now have a more antagonistic relationship. (I’m assuming that’s what this is an example of in the described Millennium sequence, and not some kind of in-story plot point that I’m not recalling.) I think of all the mid-’80s revamps and restarts and other changes, that’s the bit of business I had the hardest time accepting. I liked Batman and Superman being best pals, and having adventures together every month in World’s Finest.

Come to think of it, that’s probably one of the most lingering, most pervasive changes to come out of DC’s 1980s revamp-mania: Batman becoming a more solitary, more pain-in-the-neck, more competent-than-thou character, at first primarily to Superman, then eventually to pretty much everybody else in the DCU.

They’ve been trying to slowly reverse that over the years, along with most of the rest of the mid-’80s editorial decisions, including having Superman and Batman on monthly adventures together again. It ain’t World’s Finest, quite yet, and while there’s still a bit of an edge to their relationship, I still prefer it to the characters not being pals at all.

I realize this is a grown man writing about how he likes Superman and Batman being buddies. Hey, I’m not bitter and sarcastic about everything.

And yes, I know they’re pals in the new Super Friends kids comic. Everyone‘s pals in the Super Friends comic!

Image from Millennium #5 (1987) by Steve Englehart, Joe Staton & Ian Gibson – mini-series now currently available in trade paperback from your finer funnybook stores

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In other news:

• Remember a couple of days ago, when I was grumbling a little about Gemstone putting out new issues of Walt Disney’s Comics and Uncle Scrooge the week after the previous issues were released, in an attempt to catch up on their publishing schedule? Well, Diamond sort of addressed the issue for us, by shorting us our Uncle Scrooges. “Be careful what you wish for” is the lesson learned, I suppose.
• Chris Sims talks smart about the Joker…what made the Joker the main Batman villain?
• If they’re going to let me into this site, then I’d better get cracking scanning and logging my mini-comics work!
• We sold out of Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4. Must order more Thrizzle. THRIZZLE US, COMICS DISTRIBUTOR.