I was sick yesterday (and still just a little under the weather today), and since 1) it was my day off, and 2) we’re having some slightly inclement weather out here in sunny Southern California, I spent the entire day inside, either in bed watching TV, bundled up in front of the computer to make yesterday’s post, or reading funnybooks.

In order:

TV: Didn’t watch that much, actually…saw most of an old episode of Battlestar Galactica (I haven’t seen this show in years…it’s really not very good, is it), and watched my DVD of Ed Wood, still Tim Burton’s finest film, I think.

Yesterday’s post: Luckily I had made those scans a couple days back, because I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the time doing so Monday morning, given how I was feeling. That’s also why I didn’t include much explanatory text, which is probably for the best…what could I have added? I probably could have mentioned (which I will now) that this was only a portion of Eisner’s art from this booklet. The thing is chock-full of his illustrations…I would have scanned even more, but my bandwidth is taking a pretty good hit this month as it is! (I need my pal Andy’s one terabyte limit!)



Funnybooks: I recently got my hands on some DC 100-pagers from the 1970s, as well as a couple issues of Superman from 1972, so I spent part of my day paging through those. Among these comics were Our Army At War #242, with plenty of classic war comics as only DC could do them. My favorite story from this comic was probably “Battle Hats,” in which various pieces of military headgear exchange battle stories from their unique perspectives…with word balloons and everything. Fantastic.

In other news:

Laura is still seeking entries to her Colonia giveaway contest…and in case you haven’t heard, publisher Larry Young has sweetened the deal by contributing a piece of Jeff Nicholson’s original art from the series. So, go enter already.

Pal Dorian has posted his explanation as to why the forthcoming V for Vendetta film will almost certainly be no good. Be sure to read the comments for that post for good discussion. (I will note to Sean that I also am part of that incredibly-small minority that doesn’t have high hopes for the Sin City adaptation…I do hope I’m wrong!)

And like pal Dorian, I too shall add Trade Whore to my comics weblog listing…and plug his Gotham Central TPB giveaway as well.

1. A couple nights ago, I had a dream that I was carefully preserving collectible Swamp Thing chocolate bars, and that I needed to take pictures of them for this website.

That’s all kinds of pathetic, on so many levels.

2. Somehow, all this time I thought I had Fortress of Blogitude on my links list over there to the right, and it turned out I hadn’t. Oops. Well, go visit his site lots and lots to make up for my oversight.

3. Yesterday, at the store:

Pal Sean: “If I were to buy any of the DC Archives, I’d buy all the Flash ones.”

Me: “You should buy the Green Lantern Archives, too.”

Sean: “Why?”

Me: “Because they’re buddies!”

4. Also at the store…the way we have our comics racked, the “mature readers” Marvel and DC titles are placed on the topmost shelf, to keep them out of the hands of the young, the impressionable, and the outright deranged. So, for the last couple of weeks, what cover immediately draws my eye, up there on that top shelf? Why, the one with the flaming upside-down pentagram, of course!

5. So the upcoming Megacon ’05 is going to have both Sam Jones and Sam Jones III as guests? That’s just plain mean.

From my post last night…look, I liked Identity Crisis for what it was, but even I thought this article was a little over the top. I mean, up there with Crisis and Watchmen? I think, if I had to place IC on a chart, it would be a little below Invasion! and above Millennium…and waaaaay above Genesis.

And, for my nerdy nit-pick, both DC and Marvel were doing mini-series before ’82.

From this morning, I found this press release about the Katy Keene celebration doing some random news searches on Google or Yahoo or some darn thing. I like that statement in the release about how Katy Keene is somewhat out of the public’s eye…no, you think? Actually, I have had interest in the Katy Keene back issues at the store…invariably, it’s from older folks who read it as children. I even had one customer, long ago, ask me to help her find the issue where her costume contribution was used and credited to her* — but she had no idea what issue it was! I think we had it narrowed down to about the right decade, eventually.

And from this other post…once again, the specter of a decades-old TV series arises in the form of a sound effect-filled headline. The actual article itself is just dandy…I certainly can’t fault the idea of a comic book club at a school…but I was really hoping I’d seen the last of that type of headline. Oh well.

* I always liked that about Katy Keene (and also about Sugar & Spike and the 80s version of Dial ‘H’ for Hero)…the reader participation aspect in the stories. And they always gave credit where credit is due…very important, as I’m sure you’ll all agree. Anyway, is there any comic today doing anything similar?

“Wham! Zoom! Comic Book Project Improves Literacy in New York Schools”

“Artist Jerico Woggon Celebrates His Work and the 60th Birthday of Retro Comic Book Supermodel Katy Keene”

From The Star Online:

Since the introduction of maxi/limited series in 1982, DC Comics has succeeded in delivering a killer product every decade. In the 80s, it was Crisis on Infinite Earths (and to the sentimentalists Watchmen) followed by Kingdom Come a decade later. Although we are just into a new year and midway into the first decade of the 21st century, my third re-read has given me adequate reason to conclude that Identity Crisis has already got this decade all sealed up.

Okay, okay…in my discussion regarding the new Youngblood and “Doctor” superheroines in my last post, I forgot the female version of Dr. Light. I also forgot that Dr. Fate was a lady for a brief period of time. Still, my point still stands that…um, well, there’s a point there, somewhere.

Also, there’s a new comics weblog out loose in the wild, by the name of Filing Cabinet of the Damned. To his post championing a new, as yet unmade, Marvel HeroClix character, I can only say “well said, sir, well said.”