I apologize for the quick ‘n’ sloppy weblogging for the last couple of days…my time has not been my own lately, and this “having a life” thing tends to get in the way of the important stuff: the funnybooks.

Anyway, you may have noticed that the sidebar links on my site and pal Dorian‘s has been sporadically up and down over the last couple of days. As I write this, Sideblog appears to be having some expired domain name issues which I certainly hope will be resolved soon.

So, um, anyway…how are you all doing?

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A conversation I had with a good customer of ours over the weekend:

CUSTOMER: “Hey Mike…how do you like this All-Star Batman and Robin comic? I’ve seen on the internet that people don’t seem to like it.”

ME: “All those people are wrong. The comic’s absolutely fantastic.”

And as some of you longtime readers will remember, I wasn’t lying to make a sale (something I never do anyway)…I genuinely enjoy this comic. HISTORY WILL VINDICATE ME.

(I’m also so tired of hearing about that “I’m the gosh-danged Batman” panel. IT’S EXPLAINED ON THE VERY NEXT PAGE. AAAAARGH!)

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Anyway, that was a good customer. If you want to hear about a few bad ones, I talk about them in my new “Behind the Counter” column for Comic Book Galaxy.

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This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but I was Googling up some info for something I was working on, and found myself on the old Journalista weblog. I ended up rereading a few of the entries there, which made me really miss that site. Man, Dirk Deppey did some good work there. Plus, he plugged my site here a handful of times, helping it blossom from the tiny seed into the obnoxious weed-infested shrubbery that it is today. So now you know who you can thank/blame for my still doing the daily weblogging thing after 2 1/2 years.

2 1/2 years of doing this every day. There must be something wrong with me.

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As Mr. Spurgeon would say, “Not Comics:” the trailer for The Wicker Man remake is out. It looks like they took the original, brilliant film, flipped the lid up, poured in a whole boxload of stupid, closed the lid, shook it a bit, and are about to put it into theatres.

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Employee Nathan: “So are all comic book writers heavy-set guys with beards?”

Me: “Yes. It was either write comics or program computers.”

Oh, relax, I was joking…some are scary bald guys. And I hear tell that there are (gasp) wimmen who do comics…I’m pretty sure that’s just a rumor, though.

Anyway, for some reason that started a discussion of Doom Patrol #45 (July 1991), featuring a story entitled “The Beard Hunter” by Grant Morrison (look, another bald guy), Vince Giarrano, and Malcolm Jones III.

The Beard Hunter is a Punisher parody who, as is probably obvious, kills people with beards. He’s hired by a high-ranking official of The Bearded Gentlemen’s Club of Metropolis, despite the club’s mission being at odds with the Beard Hunter’s own goals. However, this official believes B.H. has the necessary skills to kill Niles Caulder, the leader of the Doom Patrol, and bring back his beard, as punishment for Caulder’s refusal to sell his beard to the organization.

Yes, it’s all completely nuts, but there’s a specific panel I wanted to point out:

That panel has stuck in my mind all these years (particularly the evident futility of his attempts at criticizing Caulder), and of late, it’s morphed into a weblogging gag between me and Dorian. Any slight against us, our sites, or even other folks could be met with “I’m going to write a poem about this on my blog,” said in our best Comic Book Guy voices.

Yeah, I know.

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Batman with Unix commands animated gif. “#!BASH”

Li’l Abner looks on as Unwashable Jones interacts with some Shmoos (or “Shmoon”):

This was the strip from the side of the box for the recently-released Dark Horse vinyl Shmoo figure. Al Capp was a profoundly strange person, wasn’t he?

Denis Kitchen tells you all about Shmoos, with a nice pic of lots of Shmoo merchandise.

Mr. Kitchen also has a Shmoo button for sale.

The official L’il Abner site has a Shmoo profile as well, with a couple disturbing pictures. (Are there any non-disturbing pictures of the Shmoo?)

Episode guides for The New Shmoo cartoon from the Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo TV show.

From this page comes this animation cel from the Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo bumpers:

The Shmoo was also a trainee cop paired with Fred and Barney on Bedrock Cops. Yes, Bedrock Cops. Kids will watch damn near anything.

Shmoo salt & pepper shakers.

This page has a pic of a couple Shmoo clocks, if you scroll down a tad. And EVERYTHING’S ANIMATED.

“WORSHIP THE SHMOO.”

The Visible Shmoo. (I always pictured the Shmoo as being gel-filled, rather than having a skeletal structure.)

A photo gallery from the MoCCA “Shmoo Schmooze” — a launch party for the book The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo. (Get the book cheap from Bud Plant.)

It’s not on the interweb, near as I can tell, but issue #147 of The Comics Journal (from Dec. ’91) had an essay by Martin Williams called “The Hidden World of ‘Li’l Abner,” which discussed the hidden (and not-so-hidden) sexual content of Al Capp’s strips…including the phallic imagery of the Shmoos.

Al Capp’s Shmoo #1.

“‘The Shmoo Sings’ Vintage Children’s Record” – it’s an auction on the eBay, so I’m saving the pic here for posterity:

So it only took Tom Spurgeon doing 78 of his “Five for Friday” columns for me to finally get off my duff and contribute an entry to one of them…I’m in the latest one, “Name Your Favorite Sound Effects.” Yes, I manage to squeeze in a Swamp Thing sound effect, in case you were wondering.

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Er, sorry about yesterday’s post…pal Sean, Employee Nathan, and I were goofing on the Smurf life cycle topic a while back, and I’d forgotten about it until last Thursday, when pal Corey and I got into an unrelated Smurf debate (“Smurfolution versus Intelligent Smurfing”). So, anyway, I thought I’d share that with you.

Man, Smurfs come up an awful lot in conversation at the store. Nearly as often as Robocop does.

I am inordinately proud of introducing the phrase “Smurf-blown corpse” to the internet, however.

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Pal Dorian may be one of my best friends ‘n’ all, but he’s gonna pay for this, oh yes.

Someone at the store: “I read in the newspaper today that comic book sales are up 15%!”

Me: “Yeah, but around ten years ago they fell about 1000%.”

(I suspect the percentages on both sides of this exchange are of the “pulled out of our butts” variety, but you get the idea.)

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Also, for the first time in the nearly 2 1/2 years of doing this weblog, I got a note from my webhoster telling me that I’m using an unusual amount of bandwidth for this site. I’m hoping it’s just the combination of the increased traffic I’ve been getting lately, along with the large amount of images I’ve been posting. There had better not be any shenanigans afoot.

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Something I saw on the eBay today, while researching something at work (yes, I was really researching something, shut up): a set of the mid-’80s Man of Steel mini-series…wait, let me amend that, an incomplete set of the Man of Steel mini-series, missing #4. Minimum bid: $50. Shipping fees, for priority mail: $18.80. Shockingly, there were no bids.

A while back I spotted someone trying to sell a run of Infinity Crusade for $50. Hey, it just takes that one guy who has to have it right this second, I guess.

So a couple weeks ago I received from our distributor a reorder of Jonah Hex #1, and most of the copies had an orange ink mark in the corner (as pictured to the right). I know, it’s no big deal, but I think our customers would rather have copies with no ink mark, so I called them in as damaged copies, and replacements turned up in short order.

This week I received our order of the second printing of Fell #4…and one of those had a green ink mark, about the same size and in the same place as on the Jonah Hex cover.

So, hey, whoever’s waving the markers around at the warehouse…watch where you’re puttin’ those things!

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A few notes about this week’s comics:

Punisher: The Tyger: John Severin can still draw like nobody’s business, and Garth Ennis’ look at Frank’s childhood is both fascinating and unnerving. There was something wrong with that kid from the get-go, wasn’t there?

Hero Squared #1 – After a one-shot and a mini-series, the regular series finally launches, by creators Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Joe Abraham. Like I’ve said before, the combination of the humorous dialogue and the unique premise really drives this title’s success. The climatic battle of the book, involving Milo and Captain Valor (parallel universe versions of each other) and their girlfriends/arch-enemies Stephie and Caliginous (also paralled versions of each other), doesn’t involve a single punch being thrown, a single caped person being tossed through a building. It’s all in the dialogue, with witty jabs and sudden revelations, that’s far more involving and dynamic than any superpowered fistfight.

Second Wave: War of the Worlds #3 – Miles and the group of folks he’s joined up with try to escape a city under siege by Martian invaders…only to run smack dab into more Martians in the countryside. It’s a fast read, as once we leave the city the panels suddenly become large and spacious and dialogue-light…but that only enhances the feeling of immensity of the huge Martian ships/creatures. It’s a fun action movie of a comic, with leaves you wondering what’s going to happen next, as good serial fiction should.

Superman/Batman #26 – This is the Sam Loeb tribute issue, plotted by writer Jeph Loeb’s late son, and featuring contributions from folks like Brad Meltzer, Jim Lee, Joss Whedon, and others. The back-up story is a tie-in of sorts to Loeb and Tim Sale’s Superman: For All Seasons, related the story of young Clark and his pal Sam, obviously based on Sam Loeb. That story is a real heartbreaker, particularly when you think about how Jeph Loeb must have felt as he was writing it. I’m not going to be critical of this book…heck, I’ll even give Rob Liefeld a pass…as regardless of what you might think of the execution of this funnybook, you can’t deny that it’s certainly a nice gesture in honor of a young man who left this world too soon.

Mouse Guard #3 – Primarily being purchased by people looking for the new hot thing to invest in. Yeah, that is a shame.

Mona Lisa Eve Of All Saints #1 – I suppose the involvement of Tim Vigil should have indicated that this was an Adults Only title…but I was so busy breaking down the order and pulling for the comic savers that I never even checked. So there it was, right on the rack next to Metal Gear Solid, for most of the day. Hey, kids, comics! Luckily I didn’t sell any of these on Thursday…”luckily” being relative, of course.

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So, are you folks finding the “Links Pal Dorian and I Found” sidebar link-log useful? Interesting? Can you tell who’s posting what? (I bet in at least a couple cases you’d guess wrong!)

Cracked Collectors’ Edition #16 (1977) – art by John Severin

“V versus The Joker”

“Two people heavy on insanity. V uses his to help other people and society, but nonetheless operates on a different mental level than others. Joker – what else can you say?
Both are great at bold, complicated plans no regular person would try.
Who is standing at the end?”

“is there prep?”

“no prep.”

“If their is no prep joker will lose badly. V owns.”

“V obviously in a straight fight. I would love to see them have a conversation though.”

“im gonna say joker cause no way he will put up a stright fight and i dont know for sure about v but joker does not die unless his joker card is destroyed”

“V is like a low level deathstroke- Has strength,speed,endurance,healing,and brain power to put him on meta-human stage.”

“they both laugh at eachother when they first meet at how insane they are and then V guts him with a knife.”

“V is like Batman-lite… hech he is more like Punisher-lite”

“Actually in terms Of V. Remember he lives in a hitler like society where he can barely get his hands on anything. Not every hero has billions of dollars to get equipment.”

“you never know for all you know when V does that hand thing you find out it was one of jokers guys in disguise then a metal card flies into V’s skull from behind hay it might happen you guys cant count the joker out people he once took fear gas to the face from scarecrow it didnt do NOTHING to him and he almost killed the guy with a chair.”

So a while back I mentioned that there was a glitch in the ordering system over there at Twomorrows…for some reason, another person’s order got appended to my account, which made it look like I was trying to mooch two free magazines instead of one from their Free Comic Book Day giveaway.

Well, apparently it was all sorted out, since I got my magazine today (Back Issue #3, if you were wondering). Phew, I was beginning to worry…I kept picturing Twomorrows putting a big banner on their site reading “MIKE STERLING IS A BIG CHEATER-PANTS” if the ordering problem never got addressed.

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A thought that occurred to me over the weekend, and never got around to posting…I hadn’t seen any kind of sales bump at the store on X-Men comics during the lead-up to the new movie’s release. I mean, the X-books usually sell fairly well, but I haven’t seen any increased or unusual demand for trades or new issues or anything…aside from the first issue of Wolverine: Origins, which was going to sell well, regardless.

I haven’t seen much increased demand for the Superman comics either, beyond a few extra sales of some of the trade paperbacks DC made available to retailers on a consignment basis (including Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale’s Superman For All Seasons).

Not sure why, unless folks just prefer their superhero action in moving picture form instead of dead trees ‘n’ staples form (which is clearly obvious, given the real money movies make versus the lemonade stand money comics pull in).

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I just noticed that I had the wrong date on my X-Men movie review post all day. Sigh.

STRIKE A POSE
Well, actually, all things considered…X-Men: The Last Stand was a perfectly watchable popcorn movie. It ain’t deep, it ain’t meaningful, but the film never drags its feet, Sir Ian McKellen (Magneto) and Hugh Jackman (that claw guy, whassisname) steal the show yet again, and overall, it’s more of an even film than the previous two efforts. It never quite reaches the heights of the best parts of the previous two installments, but then, there’s nothing in this movie that reaches the nadir of “Do you know what happens when a frog is hit by lightning?” Oh, and speaking of which, Halle Berry (Storm) even manages okay this time.

Anyway, I’m going to talk about specific elements of the movie, which will involve revealing big plot details, so SPOILER ALERT is in effect. When you next see a picture of Sir Ian striking yet another pose, the SPOILERS will be over.

Okay, ready? If you haven’t seen the movie, skip to the next pic of Sir Ian…last chance!

SPOILERS AHOY

• Okay, Stan Lee shows up in his required cameo early on, and, though the man has received some grief from me in the past, I did appreciate that X-writer Chris Claremont was given a cameo as well. I mean, the man has toiled in the X-Men mines for 30 years, surely this is the least they could do for him.
• For a very, very brief moment, as the “In the not too-distant future” subtitle flashed on screen, and we went into the Sentinel battle sequence, I thought we were gonna see the “Days of Future Past” storyline. Yeah, I know, I wasn’t really expecting it, but there’s always that little fanboy voice in your head that whispers these things to you, and you can’t ignore it.
• In the “works on paper, not in live action” department, we have a tie between the Colossus tossing Wolverine “fastball special” bit, and the “Angel flying” effects. Neither are terribly convincing.
• Kelsey Grammer as the Beast worked better than I expected…I mean, he never looks like anything but a guy with a blue furry suit glued to him, but what the heck, it was close enough for horseshoes.
• Is it just me, or did the sun come down awfully fast just before the climatic battle scene? Okay, it was about sundown as Magneto was hauling the bridge over to Alcatraz Island, but it seemed like it was still fairly bright out as the bridge dropped onto the island, and then it was suddenly pitch black as Magneto’s crew were disembarking.
• Speaking of Magneto’s minions…okay, a while back I finally got around to watching Robocop 3 via the Netflix. In that film, there’s a wild street gang terrorizing the community…and of course, they’re dressed as stereotypical “punk rockers,” with Mohawks, leather, studs, oddly colored hair…you know, typical movie punkers. And as I was watching this, I thought briefly about how you don’t get enough of that kind of casting and costuming any more for your typical movie street gang…just dressing a bunch of extras up as what you think punk rockers look like and instructing them to act crazy and menacing.

  Well, it lives on in the new X-Men movie. Okay, it’s modernized slightly, with a lot more tattoos and piercings, but it’s basically the same thing. Look, I find my amusement where I can get it.

• Rogue wasn’t so much a character this time around as she was a thematic plot device, demonstrating that while the threat of a “mutant cure” is held in low regard by most mutants, there may be actual cases where such a cure would be desirable. This grey area is barely touched on, and when it is it’s usually in the implied context of “Rogue, why would you want to cure yourself, even though your power basically cuts you off from any kind of human contact and clearly makes you miserable?” Of course, it’s all a moot point anyway, since the last pre-credits shot of the film seems to indicate that the cure is only temporary.
• Yes, I said “the last pre-credits shot” since there is a coda at the very end, after the thanks to the caterers and the soundtrack album info. You know, I wish filmmakers wouldn’t do these, since, um, credits are a lot longer than they used to be.

  Anyway, I told you a couple days ago that some knucklehead started to blab about that ending…he didn’t give away the whole deal, but just mentioned the character involved. That was enough for me to figure out what that coda was going to be as soon as all the elements involved in that coda had appeared on screen.

  Grrrr…that dumb kid.

• Famke Janssen looked very menacing as the out-of-control Phoenix, though she didn’t get to do much more than stand around as special effects swirled things around her. Still, there were some nice Phoenix visuals involved…and as for that character she killed off early on…well, we never did see a body, did we?
• WOLVERINE: “Get everyone out of here…I’ll stop Phoenix, I’m the only one who can!”

  KITTY PRYDE: “Um, actually, this mutant kid we just rescued has the ability to strip away the powers of anyone in his proximity.”

  WOLVERINE: “What did you say? Couldn’t hear you, what with all the fighting.”

  KITTY: “Oh, nothing, nothing…you just go do what you do best. Good luck with that.”

  Okay, given that Phoenix was dissolving anyone who got to close too her, getting Leech near enough to effect her wasn’t likely…but still, I know you thought it too. DON’T DENY IT.

• I knew from the moment they confronted each other on the street outside that clinic that we were going to get a Pyro versus Iceman battle, and I wasn’t disappointed. I even pictured the two of them, shooting their fire and ice powers at each other, with the “beams” colliding in the center, EQUALLY MATCHED. We did finally get an Iceman that was completely iced-up, like in the comics…not sure the effect was 100%, really, but I appreciated the effort.
• I also liked seeing Jamie Maddrox, the Multiple Man, make an appearance, albeit as a bad guy. Makes me want to see a live-action version of Peter David’s X-Factor (not that I’m holding my breath). Juggernaut was silly but fun, Kitty Pryde finally gets some significant screen time, and Colossus was wisely kept underlit or in shadows (but we get a nice gag of an unarmored Colossus hauling a huge TV under one arm through the school halls).
• Standout scenes: Wolverine attacking Magneto’s forest camp, Phoenix destroying her family home, Sir Ian McKellen doing purt’near anything. I particularly liked that McKellen’s Magneto expresses genuine shock and loss at the passing of his greatest rival.
• Kind of a downbeat ending, with major characters having died, especially since the plan appears to be that this will be the last X-Men movie…though I wonder if the box office take will change that.

SIR IAN MCKELLEN SAYS THE SPOILERS ARE OVER
Man, Sir Ian had some great “I’m usin’ my powers” poses in this film.

So, to reiterate…perfectly fine ‘n’ brainless action movie. Maybe a few too many characters, and maybe not enough plot…but that even one watchable X-Men movie was done is nothing short of a miracle. That there were three X-movies that were reasonably entertaining…well, no one is more shocked than me.

But, really, let’s not have a fourth one. No reason to push our luck!

EDIT: SPOILERS in the comments section, too, just so you know.