Well, perhaps it’s a bit early to judge, but for its first day of sales, Fallen Son: Wolverine (the first “death of Captain America” spinoff) just kinda sat there. I hardly moved any copies. It’s not as if we weren’t busy…we had plenty of customers come in, and we sold tons of comics, but perhaps nobody wants to read a series of one-shots featuring characters being mopey about a hero’s death that’ll be undone in short order anyway.

Ah, well, at least it has nice art by Leinil Yu inside. Maybe sales’ll pick up on it by the weekend. And I know I’ve said it before…but all those folks who rushed in to buy the Cap death issue? They’re not going to come back for this. They’ll be back eventually…in a few years, when it’s time to sell that death issue for the thousands of dollars it almost certainly will be worth.

Also from Marvel, the “Planet Hulk” storyline wraps up with this week’s issue, laying the groundwork for the forthcoming “World War Hulk” event, and giving Hulk plenty of reason to be pissed off at Earth’s heroes. I’m a longtime Hulk fan, and I love the premise of WWH (heroes try to get rid of Hulk, and not only does Hulk end up gaining experience in war strategy and leadership, but he also gets plenty of reason to really be mad), and I am looking forward to the event…but still, I gotta wonder, how’s Marvel going to screw this one up? They already throttled sales on later issues of “Planet Hulk” by not rushing out, for once, a trade paperback for the early issues, allowing readers to jump on and follow the story. And once WWH gets going…will it have shipping delays, like Civil War? Will it have heroes acting remarkably out of character, like Civil War? Will it sorta peter out in the end, like, oh, say, Civil War? I hope not.

Oh, and apparently WWH will involve the Sentry, a character Marvel keeps inflicting on us, even though I’m not convinced anyone actually likes him. Am I wrong? Let me know.

Here’s a little something about the new issue of Justice League of America…it has two covers, which fit together to form a larger image of the team. One cover prominently features Superman and Batman, the other Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. I have them racked side by side on the shelf, and, if given the choice, people tend to take the Supes/Bats cover. Also, it may also be as folks are perusing the shelves from left to right, they hit the Supes/Bats cover first, and that’s the one they grab. So, as I was pulling books for our store’s comic savers, they all got the WW/GL cover to redress the balance. ‘Course, that won’t stop them from swapping out for the other cover, but hey, at least I tried.

Something else: I screwed up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer #2, forgetting to bump our orders up after seeing sales on #1, thus causing us to run out right away. Now, when I placed our reorder on the first issue, effectively doubling our order, a while back, I may have been a little on the optimistic side, as the initial rush of sales ended up fading away right quick. They picked up slightly recently, and I think it’ll be a consistent back issue seller, at least while the series is running, so I’m not worried about having the extra stock. My reorder on #2, however, is slightly more realistic.

The other Whedon-written book this week, Runaways, will be the test on whether Whedon can sell comics to his fans that are 1) not based on one of his TV properties, and 2) not featuring Marvel superheroes that those folks would recognize from movies or TV shows. Given the large number of customers we had on Wednesday, and the number of copies of Runaways we didn’t sell that day, it doesn’t look good. But, again, it’s just one day, and maybe once word gets around that, hey, Whedon’s writing a new series, it’ll move. I managed to handsell a copy or two on the basis of Whedon’s name, so maybe those two factors I mentioned won’t be too much of a detriment.

…

Geez, I’m a grump. Okay, one thing I did love this week: Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness #2 had the greatest last page ever. Well, it made me laugh, anyway.

from Wonder Woman #62 (Nov/Dec 1953 – 1977 reprint)

I think I’ve seen this particular sequence featured somewhere-or-other before, but I couldn’t Google it up, and, what the heck, it won’t kill anyone to see it again. Maybe.

I have no reason for posting these two Batman panels, aside from 1) they amused me, and 2) they’re good examples of how Batman generally isn’t presented anymore:

from World’s Finest #250 (May 1978) by Gerry Conway, George Tuska & Vince Colletta

You know, for my money, Batman doesn’t fight Panzers nearly enough nowadays.

In other news:

• A couple folks popped up in the comments section for this post, opining that perhaps the kids drawings were in fact by an adult attempting to mimic a childlike style. I’m inclined to disagree…something about the designs, and particularly the wording of the descriptions, just speaks of their authenticity to me. I also noted in the comments that, perhaps, any similarities in the artstyles could be attributed to an adult redrawing or tracing the originals due to reproduction/printing concerns.

  I don’t know, honestly…if any of you folks have better info, pass it along my way, if you could be so kind.

• “The Ignoble Death of Captain America.” BeaucoupKevin makes with the funny.
• I was talking with a customer of mine, a longtime Transformers fan, about how I have several friends and acquaintances, all about a year or two younger than me, who were big, big fans of the original Transformers TV show. I apparently had just fallen out of the TV cartoon habit, and thus missed catching the big Transformers wave that swept away those folks. I am really ignorant when it comes to Transformer stuff, and said as such to my customer.

  He said that this makes me the perfect test audience for the Transfomers movie, since all the old fans will probably be frustrated by one aspect of the film or other…the whole “that’s not what [character] looks like!” thing. I’d be going in with a fresh, open mind, unfettered by preconceived notions of what the Transformers are and/or should be.

  Then again, I would be attending this movie with my preconceived notions about director Michael Bay, who can blow things up real good, aaaaaand that’s about it, really. (And just to cut you off, World’s Biggest Michael Bay Fan, I’m exaggerating a tad. Relax.)

• We’ve lost a little something with all the upgrading in printing processes for funnybooks. Chris Karath shows us what.

So of course it’s on April Fool’s Day that I get linked to by Boing Boing, thus giving several presumably-new readers the idea that I’m obsessed with Kevin Church. Well, I’m not, honest! He’s just a pal. A sexy, sexy pal…er, anyway. I still do think there’s a market for those t-shirts, though.

That was kind of a last second thing…my initial plan was to parody a certain new comic book weblog, but I wasn’t sure enough of my readers would know to whom I was referring, and it may have come across as mean-spirited, which wouldn’t have been my intention, so I thought I’d better pass. Next year, though, watch out.

My second idea was to do yet another parody of the “Captain America’s dead!” media debacle, with “MIKE STERLING KILLED – FOUR DECADES OF NERDITY COME TO END,” but I’d already gone down that road with my “death of Batman” story. Plus, the only real joke I had was that the sole clues would have been a torn piece of a Wildcat t-shirt in my left hand, and a blood-splattered Dolly Parton CD near my body.

Speaking of Wildcat-loving Dolly Parton fans, I had some fun on Saturday helping pal Dorian set up his April Fool’s post. Yes, that’s really my arm in that picture. Look how strong and manly it is. Also, Dor and I putting together that image with the puppy wetting the Wolverine comic drew some odd glances at the shop — Dor trying to pose the puppy, gently pouring water onto the pages and smearing it just the right way. A couple times I had to tell customers “don’t try this at home!”

“What?!?” you may be crying out. “You…you poured water on a comic book? A Wolverine comic book? Oh, the humanity!” Don’t worry, oh delicate reader…let me tell you about where this comic book came from.

Well, actually, it’s not so exciting. It’s another typical example of someone calling the shop, excitedly telling us about his huge collection of comics from the ’60s to the ’90s, all in “very fine to near mint condition” and all “in the original bags.” Well, surprisingly, the collection did indeed have comics from the ’60s to the ’90s, and unsurprisingly, they were mostly in lousy condition. There was a small stack of stuff we could use, plus several boxes of stuff that ended up getting dumped on us. Most of those comics are destined for the dollar boxes, but there was a pile of coverless and otherwise unsellable books that we ended up with as well. It was that pile that the stunt comic used for Dor’s April Fool’s post came from. (It was one of the piles from that collection that Dor’s puppy is sitting on, as well.)

An interesting find in this collection were a handful of DC reprints produced for Pizza Hut in the late ’70s, such as this one:

Here’s a closer look at the Pizza Hut blurb across the top:

I can just see kids across the nation in ’78, reading this comic and asking “Mommy, why is Wonder Woman tied up…again?”

Some of the filler non-Wonder Woman material in that particular issue includes a couple pages on “Unlucky Brides” and “Lucky Brides” — wedding-related folklore, such as “If a girl is the least bit superstitious, she should not accept an engagement ring containing pearls, as it is fated to bring tears to a marriage.” (This message brought to you by De Beers, apparently.)

It also includes this bit of business, which is just slightly disturbing for some reason:

Gee, thanks for the stretchy comforting hand, Elongated Man!

So, what new arrival was Mike most excited about this week, you may be asking?

Chamber of Mystery: Witchcraft, from Olympian Publishing, features 13 stories from pre-Comics Code horror comics, and I do love the pre-code horror, as do all decent, right-thinking people. The stories are in color, and reproduction is mostly good…there is some fuzziness in the images, here and there, but it’s only a minor issue, and almost certainly can’t be helped given the quality of the printed pages the pages were shot from. The only qualm I have with the book is that it’s far too short…these brief, weird, and just downright goofy horror stories go by far too quickly, leaving one wanting for more. However, given that the book is marked “Volume 1,” hopefully more volumes will follow. As wonderful as EC Comics’ horror titles were, and as thankful as I am for the availability of modern-day reprints for those comics, the horror output of their competitors is woefully underrepresented with recent reprints, so this volume is quite welcome. Perhaps the stories aren’t nearly as polished and professional as EC’s, but they do have kind of a bizarre “anything goes” charm missing from the slightly more mannered EC formula.

Something else I would have liked in this book is extra editorial content, perhaps with publication, artist, and other historical information about these stories and the comics they come from, but perhaps I’m a bit spoiled by the precedent set by New England Comics’ Tales Too Terrible to Tell. The lack of this material, however, doesn’t diminish the fun. Some additional amusing touches include the cover image being shot from an actual, “distressed” cover of an issue of Witchcraft (complete with a missing piece at the bottom edge of the cover), and a period Charles Atlas ad on the back cover.

Plus, you get to see that Joss Whedon was beaten to the punch by about fifty years:

---

In other news:

Mark posted this at BeaucoupKevin’s forum, and I was so flabbergasted that I had to share it here with you, too:

(original here)
Oh my goodness gracious. I thought that guy I once saw with a bloody-“S” “Death of Superman” tattoo was something else. I clearly had no idea.

If you’d like to see what cover would be tattooed on my back…please, enjoy.

Yes, it’s once again that time, when Mike stays up way too late scanning things out of the latest Diamond Previews catalog and makes fun of them. Sweet, gentle fun, with nary a harsh word nor ill feeling in sight. Well, not until I get to the Star Trek cards, at least.

Whip open your April ’07 copy of Previews and follow along, yes? Yes! (And look for links to the previous…oh, Good Lord, 25 installments in the sidebar.)

p. 189 – Spider-Man 3 New Goblin Statue:

Okay, it’s in silhouette because whatever licensing agreement that’s in place is preventing the unveiling of the statues too early, or the paint jobs are still being finalized, or something like that. Doesn’t really matter. But, honestly, it totally looks like the Goblin is giving us a full-on porn pose there. Er, so I’m told. “Get a load of this, Spider-Man! Ah HA HA HA!”

p. 197 – Marvel Universe Civil War Nitro Bust:

“Hi, kids! I blew up an entire town filled with civilians, kicking off the interminable Civil War crossover, and I gave Captain Marvel cancer! Relive those fantastic moments with my celebratory statue!” (At least the “exploding crotch” display sort of makes sense with this character.)

p. 197 – Marvel Milestones Magneto Statue:

“Comes with extra interchangeable head!!!”

You get your choice of “that pointy piece that sticks down just over my nose is making me crosseyed” Magneto and the combo “my contacts have clouded over/I really need to make a dental appointment” Magneto.

p. 198 – Marvel Zombies MiniMates:

Okay, it’s not a actual solicitation, but an ad for a future solicitation, but I just wanted to say that this series of MiniMates looks, well, kinda cool.

p. 268 – Dynamite Select: Red Sonja Turner Statue – Artist Proof Signed Edition:

Look out for the giant phallic symbol, Red Sonja!

p. 293 – Spent HC:

It’s a collection of Joe Matt’s Peep Show, and if you’re familiar with the man’s material, you’ll find the title of this collection to be both hilarious and just slightly nauseating.

For those of you who don’t know his work, rest assured that Joe Matt shoots off a big load of laughs on each and every page. You gotta hand it to him.

Why, yes, those were masturbation jokes! Thanks for noticing!

p. 317 – Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between #6:

This isn’t a comment about the comic being solicited, but rather a blurb inserted into the accompanying image:

Hmmm…”Original Series Year Four?” Seems that someone saw how well Buffy Season 8 was received and thought that particular strategy might boost the Trek comic license as well. Certainly couldn’t hurt, since the Next Generation comic is currently selling (at least for us) like Dixie Chicks albums at a gun show. (I’m selling one copy to someone who just gets all Trek comics on her comic saver list at the shop.)

p. 415 – Dalekmania 2008 Wall Calendar:

Don’t worry, Whovians, I’m not singling out the Dalek calendar for abuse…I just wanted to point out that the last thing I really want to think about in March is calendars for NEXT YEAR.

But, honestly…a calendar full of pictures of Daleks kinda is at the crossroads of “cool” and “downright peculiar.”

p. 436 – The “Quotable” Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Trading Cards & Album:

“There’s an old saying: fortune favors the bold.” – Captain Benjamin Sisko

“I’m a doctor, not a botanist.” – Dr. Julian Bashir

“If only there were some way we could resell the same old stills and promo shots to our dwindling fan base.” – Whoever is in charge of Star Trek now

And, hold on a second…one of the featured quotes is a character quoting someone else?

p. 441 – Countdown: Jimmy Olsen t-shirt:

Normally, I’m not a big fan of the insular fannish t-shirt, but “JIMMY OLSEN MUST DIE” is enough of a bizarre non sequitur that it would probably amuse folks who have no idea what Countdown is, or even only know Olsen from his various video incarnations. (“Hey, why does Jimmy Olsen have red hair and freckles? He doesn’t look like that in the movies!”)

p. 447 – Caution: Reanimated Corpse t-shirt:

I’ve encountered too many comic book store and game store clerks for whom this shirt would simply be redundant.

p. 463 – A Charlie Brown Christmas Plush Puppets:

“…These replicas of your favorite characters from the animated classic cartoon dance like puppets when you bush [sic] the button in their bases.”

And yes, the puppets include the world’s saddest Christmas tree. Or, as it is officially known, and indicated on the puppet’s base: “Pathetic Tree.” Fantastic.

And I suppose there’s a joke somewhere in the catalog’s typo of “bush” for “push,” and the presence of the Pathetic Tree, but I’ll let you smart folks make up your own.

p. 486 – She-Dragon Variant Statue:

Remember what I said, at the end of the previous End of Civilization post, about how the neighbors would most likely react to seeing that Marvel Zombies statue?

Yeah, that goes for the topless green mohawked woman, too.

p. 524 – Playing Card Throwing Stars:

Since these are under the category of “Fantasy Cutlery,” I’m assuming that those are indeed sharp, bladed edges on those “playing cards.” Just what you need to give your Gambit costume that final, fatal touch.

p. 528 – Snakes on a Plane Talking Pens:

Why, hello, several months ago! Too bad you weren’t offered to us then, when they might have sold!

But, then again, they do feature the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, which, as entertainment features go, is reasonably timeless. Oh, what to do, what to do….

p. 528 – Star Wars Super Deformed Plushies:

Okay, first…isn’t Yoda already “super-deformed?” And second…I think that Darth Vader doll is giving us a preview of the inevitable “Star Wars Babies” license that pal Dorian warned us all about long ago. And, um, should Space Hitler really look all that cute and huggable?

p. 538 – Transformers Monopoly:

I hate this. No reason, it’s completely irrational of me, but I hate this item. I hate that it even exists. I hate that someone even thought to combine these two things into this unholy amalgam.

Well, here, let me give it a chance and at least look at the product description:

“Transformers Monopoly is the first and only game that allows you to buy, sell, and trade the planets, bases, locations, and transports in the race for Energon Cubes and Anti-Matter in order to own and control the Transformers universe!”

Hmmm…nope, I still hate it. Sorry, Transformers and/or Monopoly fans…I’m just going to have to be unreasonable about this.