…so here’s a discussion from the Greatest Internet Message Board Ever, Killer Movies:

“Could Batman Actually Happen??”

“Scenario: I’m a multi-millionaire who’s in decent shape and I’m bored. I decide to hire a bunch of personal martial arts trainers (the best money can buy) to train me rigorously for a year or so. […] Given the money and the will to do it, Batman as we saw him in the movie could actually exist.”

“Even if you did train yourself like him, you probably wouldn’t have the motivation to do it for so long and your psyche would probably not handle the continuous battle against the psychos on a regular basis.”

“you would break your ankle the first time you jumped off a roof”

“i dont think so yout hink theres a guy who owns a group of ninjas and a guy who always smiels and a guy who survived some cold liquid stuff i dont think so”

“There is a reason super heroes stay in the movie. Nobody gets as lucky as they do, or as close to death as many times as they do without dying.”

“fool, you can’t make a batman with gadgets and atheltic ability alone. tragedy is what made batman.”

“but if you did that, the cops would arrest you cuz your not a cop.”

“Likely? Not at all. Rich people are scum (seriously, what rich person ISN’T greedy?). As if any of them would be strong enough to be Batman. They’d do it for shits and giggles then give up after a week when they break a nail in a fist fight with a 13 year old car theif.”

“Couldnt have a Batmobile though, in a big city, you’d get stuck in traffic jams all the time.”

“Do you know how ****ing awesome it would be do see some man is a military TRULY realistic Batman costume stop some gangsta die pig die bling bling thug? ****ING AWESOMe. It’d be all over the news with security cameras and shit and be all over the internet.”

“Perhaps a group of Batmen, working like ninjas, would be possible for a short while.”

“I don’t think batman could hapopen. The three most likely superheroes would be Sandman (put people to sleep with sleeping gas that could happen batman should use that) Hourman (come takes a steroid to make himself strong it could happen) and Punisher just a crazy guy with guns.”

“I know what you mean about the character’s close up abilities to ours but never. You cannot imitate a comic book character. You can create your own symbol and become a new hero but not exposed. If you cannot keep a secret, forget it. These are my words.”

Well said.

I enjoyed doing the sales report post from yesterday, and while I’m just sitting around and waiting for people to come over and do some repair to the house, I thought I’d do it again. Enjoy, won’t you?

Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy – Sold very well, though there was some initial resistance from the older Rock fans to the non-Joe Kubert alternate covers. However, I am now getting requests from those fans for the other covers.

Showcase Presents – Hard to judge what’s going to sell. The Metamorpho volume did very well, the Justice League volume just kinda sat there. Green Arrow didn’t move as expected, but we sold out of Jonah Hex and House of Mystery immediately. Maybe the oddball titles are more in demand…if that’s the case, I expect Haunted Tank to do tremendously well.

Fury: Peacemaker – The first issue hasn’t exactly taken off, perhaps because people who want to read Garth Ennis’ take on the character preferred the over-the-top, black humored MAX line version to the relatively played-straight version in this series. It’s a good read, and maybe first issue sales will pick up once we get two or three issues in.

Mickey Mouse and Friends – I wish I could make sense of this title. Of the Disney comics, the Mickey titles always pale in sales comparison to the Duck books. And some months, this current series just sits there on the rack and doesn’t move a single copy. Then, for a few issues in a row, it’ll sell through completely. Very frustrating come ordering time.

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories and Uncle Scrooge – These high-end Disney titles ($6.95 the copy) sell okay in general, but they fly out the door in good numbers whenever there’s a new (or, at least, previously-unprinted in the U.S.) Don Rosa story inside.

Sable and Fortune – Combine a Spider-Man villain that isn’t nearly as interesting as Marvel seems to think she is, with a character that was pretty much only done right when his creator, Howard Chaykin, was working on him, and the end result? One D.O.A. mini-series. When it was time to call in order reductions on this title to our distributor, the customer rep didn’t seem terribly surprised.

Alias comics in general – Tenth Muse does okay, due to local artists working on the book. Other Alias titles…not so much.

Conan – Still selling well, with good back issue movement. Beginning to see an increase in interest in the original Marvel mags and comics again, too.

Schizo #4 – The long-awaited new release from Ivan Brunetti is selling okay for us, given the unusual size and price point…just had to put in my third reorder.

Maze Agency – First issue sold okay, second issue selling primarily to people who were fans of the previous Maze Agency series.

Freshmen – The “created by Seth Green” novelty has worn off. Sales way down.

Nodwick – Not a big seller, but with a vocal and loyal following.

Jonah Hex – Still maintaining its strong sales, with good back issue movement. I was lucky enough to get copies of #1 and #2 before DC ran out, so I’m able to feed demand for the time being.

Spider-Man titles – Sensational Spider-Man #23 seems to have confused a few folks…”What’s this? Where are the first 22 issues?” “It used to be the Marvel Knights Spider-Man title.” “What?” It’s selling okay, and that striking cover helps (hey, I happen to like Angel Medina’s work). The other Spider-titles are beginning to show more movement after an initial resistance to the 12-part “Other” storyline, with people catching up on the back issues they originally skipped. The variant/alternate covers for each “Other” chapter, while popular at first, no longer seem to be in demand. I think it was the “Peter Porker” cover that killed it.

Simpsons titles – Still strong movers, both as a new issue and as a back issue. Trade sales are good as well.

Speakeasy comics in general – Well, Beowulf does okay for us, anyway.

from Superman Family #195 (June 1979) – by Ross Andru & Dick Giordano

Some brief thoughts on recent funnybook sales trends at the shop:

Infinite Crisis – Sales up on IC and tie-in comics across the board. Firestorm in particular has benefited from the current crossover.

Walking Dead – Comic sales (new and back issue) are down, as are the trade paperback sales. I haven’t had to call in a reorder on these books in weeks.

Astro City – Trades are moving again, which is unusual since sales generally pick up only when there’s a series currently on the stands. Maybe in anticipation of a forthcoming series?

Marvel Zombies – Like printing money. And, surprisingly, copies are still available for reorder, so I’m able to (mostly) meet demand. I know there’s extreme demand for this series because, unlike every other Marvel series in recent memory, people will still buy the current issue even if the previous issues aren’t available.

Hellboy – The new comic by Mignola and Corben has sold very well. Trade sales still soft, but Hellboy Jr. is suddenly in demand.

Animal Man/Invisibles – Trades suddenly moving again, perhaps in the case of the former due to its possible connection to Infinite Crisis, and in the case of the latter possibly due to increased interest in Morrison’s work.

Sonic the Hedgehog – Sales down on the original series, Sonic X dead in the water. Still plenty of kids coming in…just not interested in Sonic right now, I guess.

Mad Magazine – Just noticed that I’m apparently the only person buying it from our store right now. Goes in cycles…it’ll consistently sell out for a few months, then die completely for a few months. We must be in the “down” part of the cycle.

G.I. Joe/Transformers – Someone please put these franchises out of our misery. Nobody cares anymore.

Red Sonja – Stealth seller. Always looks like we have a lot on the rack, always looks like no one is buying it…but then at the end of the month, somehow we’ve sold a bunch. Go figure. Must be ghosts.

Powers – Trade sales up, individual comic sales way down. It’s even dipped below our numbers when we were ordering it from Image. (I’ve discussed Powers‘ sales before, if you’re interested.)

Hulk – “Planet Hulk” storyline has bumped sales up…now we’re sold out of the first chapter. With no reprint apparently forthcoming, we’ll see how this hurts sales on future installments.

X-Men: Deadly Genesis – Strong seller, helped by availability of all issues. People seem actually interested in this crossover, as opposed to House of M which most of our customers seemed to buy sorta grudgingly.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac/Lenore/Squee – After all these years, still strong sellers. Very popular with our female customers.

All-Star Superman – Very strong seller. Tons of requests for #1s, and #2 is moving very well.

All-Star Batman and Robin – Also selling well…demand is increasing for all issues. Must be all that good word of mouth on the internet.

1. Big Bill Sherman has his own observations about the Bones comic book episode that aired this past week. Don’t know why I’m so interested in this, particularly since I didn’t see this episode, and don’t watch the show normally anyway. Just feel like picking at the “everyone hates comic fans” scab, I guess.

2. Recently received issue #45 of Comic Effect, a good old-fashioned fanzine, on real paper with staples and everything. This particular issue focuses on Superman and Superboy comics, with plenty of black and white cover repos, discussion on the changes Superman has undergone over the years, specific vintage issue reviews, and much more. It’s fun reading, and recommended for fans of Silver and “Bronze” age Super-books. Ordering information is available on the ‘zine’s site…this issue isn’t up on the site yet, but it exists, I promise.

3. “True Blue”

“…Do we really know the man in tights? One problem is that Superman’s back story was written on the fly, so to speak. Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster created the comic book character in 1938 (Action Comics #1), but soon Superman became the collective construct of an army of animators, radio and TV script writers and comic book authors all trying to catch the tail of the blue comet.”

Yes, I saw that “Shuster” was misspelled. Again. And that, eleswhere in the article, the Man of Steel mini-series was given the wrong release date…it was confused with the MOS regular series from ’91. And…well, there are a couple other mistakes, but otherwise it’s an interesting look at what a non-fan (I’m presuming) thinks of Superman’s current media presence.

from Justice League of America #162 (Jan 1979) by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin & Frank McLaughlin

You see, because Zatanna used her powers to mess with other people’s memories in Identity Crisis, and now there’s this whole brouhaha about it, and….

Oh, never mind.

Ain’t It Cool News sees a couple images from X-Men 3, hijinks ensue:

“This is gonna be ‘Street Fighter’ for 2006; I just hope nobody in the cast dies after it’s released, with their role in this turkey-to-be as their last.”

“It won’t look as bad as that on screen.”

“But hey, this instalment of X-Men looks completely comic book. Full to the seams with characters and too much plot and over the top.”

“X3 may indeed suck but at least i’m not gonna prejudge the thing based on a couple of mediocre publicity stills.”

“Superheroes are inherently stupid. And the movies need to reflect that fact.”

“This movie is not gonna be terrible I mean, no one really knows anything about it, and it is one of those movies that, right now, is trendy to not like.”

“I honestly think that Harry [Knowles] […] is lieing to everyone and telling them that it is actually the way Colossus is going to look. HARRY, you’re a journalist now, act like it!”

“Marvel is promising to screw up the amazing Hellfire club story to the same extent they blew the Daredevil-Electra-Bullseye story.”

“geez u people are talking as if the first two xmen movies were like the first star wars and empire strikes back. They were above average at best. Their costumes SUCKED!!”

“I like the fact that these are for the most part real looking people with these powers. Only ‘creatures’ such as the Hulk, or Beast, should be altered. I think it’s going to be a fun movie. You people all suck.”

“Marvel’s new Spidey suit sure to fall flat with fans”

“Marvel is called the ‘House of Ideas,’ but the same ideas, which are obviously being used over and over, are getting pretty boring.”

“French comic ribs Islamists and wins Muslim praise”

“[French Muslim Council] head Dalil Boubakeur praised its portrayal of arcane theological disputes in Islam as accurate and amusing.”

“Quintessentially different”

“‘Graphic novel,’ as a term, is an American contribution […] – as is the notion that comic books were written for only a juvenile audience.”

“…It can be roughly defined as a book that will still be considered a novel if converted to plain text format.”

“Etown’s very own ‘Superman'”

“If you could be any superhero, who would you be?
I want to be Superman. He can fly and that’s awesome.”

“SFist Looks With Dread to the East”

“Replace Minas Morgul with the Moscone Center, the Witch King with Kevin Smith, and put a ‘d’ in front of ‘orcs,’ and you’ve got WonderCon 2006. It’s coming this weekend, and you can almost smell the protective plastic bags and acne medication in the air.”

Two follow-ups from previous posts:

If you want to see actual photos of the Marvel mood rings shown in the advertisement I posted yesterday, hie thee hither to This Is Pop and drink in the beauty.

And the episode of Bones I talked about a week ago aired last night…didn’t see it, alas, but House of L did. Anyone else catch it?

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New comics day…and guess whose store was shorted all their copies of Star Wars Empire, Ghost Rider, Teen Titans, Jeremiah Harm, JSA, Blade of the Immortal, Casefiles Sam and Twitch, and Invincible? Why, that would be our store! Yay! Fortunately, Diamond is sending out replacement copies for all these (well, except Jeremiah Harm, which went to back order) in an emergency shipment that hopefully will be at the store today, but more likely will be here on Friday.

Grrr…that really cheeses my crackers, I’ll tell you what.

Anyway, let’s talk about the new books that did arrive, and maybe quell my raging anger:

Hey, if you’re at your local comicks shoppe and you see someone buying all nineteen X-Men titles that came out this week, pull ’em aside and tell him or her (ha, just kidding, it’ll be a “him”) to put a couple back and buy something good for once. And that “something good?” Why, that would be Tales Designed to Thrizzle #2, of course. Take a gander at the cover here. Now I’ve been trying to come up with some kind of pithy description of the book to entice you into buying it (“an extended-narrative Far Side,” “retro-weirdo comics…from the future“) but as you can tell from my examples, I suck at it. It’s just plain weird, imaginative, and puzzling fun. And you’re not going to experience a phrase like “we’ve had to move out of our house because of Baby Poop ‘n’ Tell” in that new issue of X-Men Unlimited, I bet.

Little Lulu Vol. 8: Late for School – I can’t believe we’re already up to eight volumes in this series. And, no, I haven’t read it yet, but the past seven have been nothing short of excellent, and I have no reason to believe this new volume won’t measure up. This is 250 pages of classic cartooning for a bargain price, and if you don’t like Little Lulu, you can’t be my friend. So there.

Fables #46 – Now, I loves me the Fables…myths, fairy tales, folklore, that’s all stuff I’ve had a lifelong interest in, and having a comic book based around these subjects is right up my alley. Fables is one of those comics I look forward to the most each month. Aaaaand if you’re waiting for a “but” to pop up in this paragraph, here it is: but, I really really really hate it when they use the “cursive” or “handwriting” font in the captions. Now I know Fables isn’t the only book to use this font…I think it just annoys me more when Fables does it because I like the book so much, but I don’t want to try to read that horrible typeface. Feh. (Yeah, I know, “boo hoo, Mike’s aging eyes can’t read a comic book caption.”)

Spike: Old Wounds – Um, yeah, I like the Spike character and all, and his appearances in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel shows are usually the best parts of those series…but this comic isn’t really all that great. The art is by the same artist that worked on the previous Spike: Old Times one-shot (which I spoke about way back when), and, like I said then, the panels seem sparse and empty, and anything that isn’t a photo reference (actors’ faces, or backgrounds, or cars) looks amateurish. In fact, in some of the panels it almost looks like photostats of the actors’ faces are just pasted onto the artwork, and the disparity between the detail on the face and the lack of detail everywhere else is distracting. I mean, it’s not all bad…the story, involving Spike’s possible involvement in the murder of the Black Dahlia back in the ’40s, gives us a nice look at Spike’s past, and the artist does have moments when he can manage to make the photo references of the actors look natural, which is admittedly tricky. And the cover is nice. Overall, though…probably best for hardcore Buffyverse fans, though I don’t know who else would be buying it anyway.

Jeremiah Harm #1 – I realize I said we didn’t get ’em yet, but it just so happens I have a review copy here…the art by Rael Lyra is very detailed and nicely done (see it here), and, along with writers Alan Grant and Keith Giffen, does a good job in presenting an alien society that feels weird and “alien-y,” while still keeping grounded enough for we humans to relate to the situation. And that situation, in a nutshell…a group of bad aliens bust out of space prison, the the only way to get ’em back is to set free an even badder prisoner…the titular Jeremiah Harm, bounty hunter…from Earth. To be honest, aside from the excellent art, the story didn’t grab me at first, and I began to see Harm as a “Lobo-lite” — only natural, given Giffen and Grant’s involvement — but once I read Harm’s dark-humored exchange with an informant at the end of the book (which, I guess, is sorta Lobo-like anyway), and given the interesting conflict Harm finds himself with regarding where the escapees end up, I find myself looking forward to the next installment.

Incredible Hulk #92 – Holy frijole, this “Planet Hulk” storyline is going to take a year? (And is anyone else reminded slightly of the “let’s dump the Hulk at the interdimensional crossroads where he can’t hurt anybody” storyline from about twenty years ago?) An interesting bit of business that I didn’t realize…a forthcoming Giant-Size Hulk comic, while tying into the “Planet Hulk” stuff with a new story, will also contain a full reprint of the sold-out and still in demand Peter David/Dale Keown Hulk: The End. Wow, it’s about damned time.

Showcase Presents House of Mystery TPB – Several hundred pages of horror comics by Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Bernie Wrightson, Sergio Aragones, Neal Adams…if you like comic book art at all, you need to have this book. And the first person to complain “b-b-but it’s in black and white” is going to get such a pinch.

Supergirl #4 – I’m still not buying this title after being burned by the extremely poor first issue, though a quick glance through this new issue seems to show some improvement. However, I am enjoying these Silver Age tribute covers (you can see the Supergirl one here, though the final printed version has Supergirl in all black with silver highlights). If only the inside of the book were more like that.

Conan Limited Variant Cover #24 – This is the one where the lady that was wearing the bikini top on the regular cover is now, gasp, topless. Oh, look, nipples. How shocking…will the Union stand?

Not that you need me to point out something on Newsarama, but this Mike Parobeck retrospective on the tenth anniversary of his death is a must-read. Parobeck was one of my favorite cartoonists…I was going to say “at the time,” but he remains one of my favorite comic book artists, and his loss was a great one.

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I also learned on Newsarama (among other sources) about the “Man of Miracles” figure in a forthcoming Spawn toyline. Looks like Todd McFarlane is continuing his quest to muddy up the issues regarding ownership of the Marvelman/Miracleman character. Oy.

I went to pull some choice quotes from the Spawn message board thread regarding this particular figure line, but the proliferation of giant signature images completely shut my brain down. Particularly the CGI dancing anime girl. What th–?

Well, here are a few comments regarding “Man of Miracles,” anyway:

“Man of Miracles looks nothing like he did in the comic… what a jip. He still rocks.”

“I AM SO BUYING MAN OF MIRACLES!!!! Obviously, it is Miracleman, just however McF managed to reimagine him so he could use him… But I will get that one, as it’s the closest thing I will likely ever get to an actual Miracleman figure”

“I think that the idea of Man of Miracles being an updated Miracle Man.
is too cool. I dig the updated uniform and do not care that it it not
comic accurate.”

“Man of Miracles: Boring. The comic version would have been a cool figure, he needs the face tatoos if nothing else.”

“MoM: Not good and will still be on toy shelves in 2007.”

“I am so friggin’ tired of Todd’s random obsession with this lame character and his annoyingly proliferated need to use it regardless of infringing ownership rights.”

“I know that another company is releasing old Miracleman comics, so I would take that as a sign that Todd doesn not have the comic rights for Miracleman. However, by the statue and 3″ figure, we know that he does have the figure rights. So, he looks different in the comic because he can’t look like or be Miracleman, but this series presented Todd with the opportunity to make a Miracleman figure, to which he has the rights.”

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To follow up on a previous post, Chris “Lefty” Brown’s weblog can now be found at leftybrown.blogspot.com…at least until the situation with his former web address is cleared up.

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As long as I’m pointing to past posts, I tried desperately to find something substantial online regarding the Olivia Newton-John and (I believe) Dino De Laurentiis Silver Surfer film project for yesterday’s post. There is a brief mention in the Comics Journal thing I linked, but I was hoping to find a little more on the topic. Of course, there may not be more, aside from “well, we were going to make this movie until realized it was a lot of money for something that was going to be a flop, so we gave up.” Ah, well. I just wanted to bring it up in case some of you didn’t know such a thing had actually almost come to pass.

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The newest installment of Mike Sterling’s Behind the Counter is now up at Comic Book Galaxy, where I lead off with one of my favorite puzzling back issue stories. Enjoy, won’t you?