“Money? Oh, no thank you.”
The last time we had a comic book tie-in to the Fortnite video game, we were mostly caught offguard by its immediate and immense demand from customers, mostly from lots of new faces who wanted the codes inserted into the issues for the game. The end result was reports of shortages and price gouging, lots and lots of desperate phone calls looking for the comics, and DC reprinting the issues multiple times.
In the usual comic marketplace, second (or later) printings don’t see anywhere close to the same demand as the first printings (except sometimes from speculators who from all appearances randomly pick certain reprints as being “valuable” and snap ’em up for eBay sales). However demand for DC’s Batman/Fortnite reprints remained very high, often selling out as quickly as the first printings.
Sales on the series did become less frenetic eventually, as retailers were able to adjust their orders on the first printings of issues 3 (I believe) and above after seeing demand for the first two issues. As such, eventually there was plenty to go around (particularly in areas like mine where there is a high incidence of comic shops) and the desperation to track down these comics decreased. Plus, there was the hardcover release that not only collected all these comics together, but also included a code for all the items previously offered as well as a bonus item.
When the later printings came into stock, the primary thing I was asked about them was if the codes were still included. That these were reprints made not a difference to most of these customers, only that they could still get these game codes. As I recall, the people who did want first prints were almost exclusively existing comic collectors. The new customers, the ones that entered the shop to get added material for their video games, they couldn’t care less what printing it was so long as the codes worked.
Which brings me to the Marvel Fortnite: Zero War comic.
This was a slightly slower burn than the Batman/Fortnite book, at least for me. Probably several reasons for that, like being the second major publisher out of the gate to do this gimmick. Also, that initial order numbers were probably much higher this time, resulting in more copies to meet demand (again, especially in locales like mine where there are plenty of comic stores). My own order was…pretty high, but on its Wednesday release I began to think “uh oh, I may have made a mistake” as sales were not encouraging at first. That changed quickly, and by the weekend they were gone…and I’m still getting calls for them.
That I’m still getting calls now even after what I presumed would be a much higher print run and much higher local availability tells me demand likely exceeds those Batman sales. Maybe it’s just more people want “Spider-Man Fortnite” (which is how I’m hearing it referred to) than Bat-Nite, maybe it’s that we’ve had a year or so for awareness of “codes can show up in comic books!” to percolate throughout Fortnite fandom. Regardless, demand for these comics is still being driven by the inserted game codes, nearly all these new customers citing the codes are reason for their purchase.
Which is why it is exceedingly baffling that the second printing for this first issue will not contain the code. Quote from the solicit: “PLEASE NOTE THAT EACH SECOND PRINT ISSUE DOES NOT CONTAIN A REDEEMABLE CODE TO UNLOCK A BONUS DIGITAL COSMETIC IN FORTNITE.” (EDIT: originally used other solicit info which was vague; this is the info from the Penguin Random House solicit)
Now it’s possible I missed and/or forgot the announcement that only the first printings would contain the code. I’ve had a lot on my plate lately, so I wouldn’t put it past me to have overlooked it. I still ordered lots of the first print #1, so I did okay. And all the solicit for the first printing said was, quoting again, “Each first print issue contains a redeemable code to unlock a bonus digital cosmetic in Fortnite!” Doesn’t explicitly say “not in the reprints!” but, well. Again, could’ve missed that notice.
Still doesn’t make this any less stupid a decision. It’s the codes driving these sales. The reason the vast majority of people have been buying these, in my experience, was the codes for the game. If they’re reading these comics at all, it’s a secondary concern. Nearly everyone who asked about the Batman reprints asked if there were still codes. When I suggested that the first issue of this Marvel series would be reprinted, I was asked “would it still have the code?” Nobody is going to buy this to keep up on the story.
BEFORE YOU COMMENT/SEND IN EMAILS, I know I’m making some blanket statements here. There are always exceptions. As a Twitter pal noted to me, maybe the reprint is for “the discerning gamer whose only in it for the lore.” And I’m sure that’s the case. I HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT NOT EVERYONE IS BUYING THIS FOR THE CODES (OR SPECULATION).
But most are. As was also pointed out, maybe the decision to omit codes in reprints might not have been Marvel’s decision. Or it could have been Marvel’s strategy to get higher orders on first prints to avoid having to do reprints. I have no idea. But it’s a regrettable decision that’s going to disappoint a huge new audience coming into comics, even if only fed in by a gimmick…but that’s still money that a tiny industry like comics can’t afford to lose the trickle-down from a business that makes some real cash.
Post coming later today.
Sorry, there is a new post for today, but I’m having trouble sitting at my computer due to a back problem. I’ll have it up soon. Thanks for understanding.
“Any Time Is Toad Time.”
Added another old comic to the personal collection this week, the relatively hard-to-find 1970 underground Tales of Toad by a pre-Zippy the Pinhead Bill Griffith:
It’s one of those comics I’ve kinda/sorta wanted to get, though all three issues of this series was reprinted in a good-sized anthology book of Griffith’s material some years back. But it’s nice to have The Original Thing…it’s like my semi-ongoing attempts to acquire the first 25 issues of Cerebus that I already have in the Swords of Cerebus reprint books.
Anyway, since I got a #1 in my hands, I went ahead and kept the 2nd issue that I’ve had floating around the shop for some time. Now I just need a #3 to show up eventually. I remember at the previous place of employment we had all three issues, and I probably should’ve picked ’em up then. But I also think that about the two copies of Cerebus #1 we had (original and counterfeit) and oh well.
I wanted to acknowledge the passing of comics artist Tim Sale, probably most famous for Batman: The Long Halloween, but I’m more a Superman: For All Seasons fan myself.
A unique talent whose contributions to the medium were always a special event. He’ll be missed.
I also saw that Everett Peck, probably best known in comics for Duckman, passed away this week.
I remember getting this in at the shop back in 1990, thinking “huh, what the heck is this” and taking a copy. Very weird and funny, and I was probably just as surprised as Peck was when it became an animated TV show. I honestly didn’t know much about him, so that article I linked was quite informative as to his actual breadth of work.
It’s a hard week for losing unique talents…my condolences to the friends, families, and fans of both Sale and Peck.
“The Hot Collectible of the 90’s!”
Okay pals, I know plenty of you reading this have been itchin’ to start a comic book collection of your very own. Well, everyone give a big thanks to the 1990s because they’ve got you covered with these two exciting packages!
First up is the Comic Book Starter Kit, original retail price, as it says right there, a mere three dollars and ninety-nine cents:
Does this kit have everything I ever needed to start collecting?
OH THANK GOD. Let’s flip this sucker over and take a peek.
Whoa nelly, it’s pretty wild they went with Toxic Avenger #1 to entice folks into entering the hobby. But then again, maybe it grabbed a few fans of Troma Films, so who am I to judge. Anyway, more on that comic in a second.
Here’s a closer look at the content list:
Okay, so let’s see. The New Warriors cover price was a buck, the Toxie book is $1.50, the 20 almost certainly polyethylene bags let’s say retail at about a nickel each for a total of a buck…we’re at $3.50 so far. With the Jim Lee cover-of-X-Men-#2 poster and that swank comic collecting guide…well, depending on how you feel about those I guess that can make up the $0.50 balance. A pretty good deal overall.
I have to admit I am this close to busting open the package so I can read what this guide has to say (though it’s probably just this):
…but I think it’s more of an interesting novelty item leaving it intact. Oh, and by the way, while I wanted to snicker at the “2 highly collectible comic [sic]” fact of the matter is that Toxic Avenger #1 does sell for a little bit of a premium. One of those speculator apps has it at $35, which ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. Only took 30 years to septuple your money, you clever investor you. I didn’t bother to look up the New Warriors issue…if it’s an $1800 book or something let me know. Before you buy it.
Anyway, the other collector’s pack I took in was this ’90s all-over bundle:
A mere fin for five…well, dollar comics, I guess it’s a push ’90s retail-wise. But for your convenience you have a couple two part stories gathered together here, so you don’t have to hunt them down. And you know these are good comics to have because it says right on the package:
It has a ™ on it so it has to be true.
And what’s this?
Don’t you threaten me.
Flipping it over they make good on said threat, with a copy from what must have been a vastly overprinted run:
Here’s a guide to what’s inside, and, y’know, for five bucks I guess this is okay:
The way this is packaged, the last line of the contents is cut off, so we may never know what Spider-Man lends to NFL™ Superpro. It probably says “hand,” but it could be “ten bucks.”
In terms of today’s value, I don’t believe any of these became huge collectibles. I mean, maybe the Spider-Man issues have a little premium attached to them, though they’re hardly the most in-demand parts of the run. There was some brief demand for Sleepwalker of late, but sorry, no demand for NFL Superpro. Maybe if it was NFT Superpro…nope, wait, just checked, too late for those, too.
Like I mentioned, I’m probably selling these intact as the novelties they are, so whoever buys them can bust ’em open or leave them as is. Whatever they want to do, because as this headbanded hero “Treat” ( think) says:
WELL SAID.
Just a bunch of dorks, hanging out.
So I’ve been on podcasts before…I was on an episode of the long-running Star Trek podcast Look at His Butt (Kirk’s butt, not mine) way back in 2009, and I was on Kid Chris and Dafna’s Bispectacult podcast in 2007 (available here on the Internet Archive). (Don’t ask for part 2…it was never uploaded and long lost.)
And that’s it, right? I never appeared on a podcast again, and all was right with the world.
…
WRONG, SUCKER, because I was invited to participate in the swell Vintage Video podcast, a show devoted to discussing all the major films of the 1980s in chronological order. I first found out about it when I was going on about the Stunt Rock movie earlier this year, and a longtime customer of mine turned me on to an episode of the podcast discussing that film. While the hosts of the show were not quite as…enamored with Stunt Rock as I was, I enjoyed the show and continued listening, randomly picking out past episodes from their sizeable catalog while keeping up with the new ones.
And here I am, a few short months later, actually on an episode of the show., discussing the 1981 animated cult classic Heavy Metal!
How I came to connect with the show is explained in the podcast itself, right near the beginning, so please give it a listen as I stammer out the story.
Anyway, host Patrick offered to have me on, and I thought Heavy Metal might be a good choice given my background in comic bookery. And having listened to the episode, I think I did…better than I expected to. Granted, Patrick did some heavy editorial lifting, cutting and adjusting and discarding the parts where I sound dumb…more than once I started a comment, paused and said “whoa, I need to try that again” and everyone was very patient with me. I am not a natural extemporaneous speaker, prone to stuttering and misspeaking, and probably something that can be worked out if I did more than three podcast recordings over 15 years, but I think overall I did okay.
One of the things I didn’t get too much into (despite Patrick straight up asking me near the beginning) was my experience with the film itself. I mean, I suppose I was probably old enough to have gone to the movies and seen it during its original theatrical run, though I imagine as a 12-year-old it might have been a trick to manage without a parent taking me. Thus, my viewings of the film were relegated to catching it on cable TV occasionally, probably bits at a time and never the whole thing in one sitting. I know I eventually watched it all properly once it hit VHS, though the circumstances around that are long forgotten. Probably a friend owned or rented it.
In more recent years I borrowed a DVD of it from Netfilx, and just a few months ago I found myself watching it on the Pluto TV streaming service. And now, needing prepfor the podcast, I purchased a Blu-ray for cheap off that Big Internet Store. I officially own my very own personal copy of Heavy Metal that I can watch at my leisure. Though, to be honest, I watched it fairly intently a couple times over the last two weeks while taking notes, so I’m probably good for a bit.
For Look at My Butt, we recorded over Skype. For Bispectacult, we just sat in my previous place of employment after hours, with Kid Chris and Dafna on one side of the table, me on the other, the minirecorder between us. But for Vintage Video…well, I don’t know if they’d want me to go into their full set-up, but there was definitely a table with professional microphones and pop filters that we all sat at. And there we were, Patrick to my left, cohosts Richard and Jesse to my right, and I was feeling just a little gunshy once the actual recording was about to take place.
Everyone made me feel very welcome, however, and my initial nervousness as the actual recording began (you may be able to hear a little warble in my voice right at the start…I certainly felt it!) turned into a genial chat with pals talking about this nutty film. The folks with whom I was recording are well versed in the movie industry, and in fact work in it, and I hope my comics nerdiness kept up with their showbiz nerdiness. It got to be so fun and casual that I would occasionally almost drift away from the microphone before reminding myself “oh, right, we’re recording this.”
I was trying to think of material we didn’t go into that I could cover here, like the name of Sternn’s little floating robot (Beezer…I choked and forgot it!), but I think I hit a lot of the points I wanted to make, that I printed out on notepaper at just slightly too small a font for me to comfortably read. Edited out of the final recording were a couple instances of me saying “hold on, let me look at this.”
It was an enjoyable experience with some great people, and I recommend that you all check out the Vintage Video podcast, even the episodes I didn’t do. It provides a nice overview of each movie, dives deep into the credits of the cast and crew, offers up trivia and commentary along with a synopsis of the film, and makes for an fun and oddly relaxing listen.
I will tell you it was strange to play the final product and have this permanent reminder of a discussion I had a few days ago. Only, y’know, better, with all my weird tics and pauses cut out. Wish I could do that in real life! Anyway, tune in to find out what my favorite line reads of the film were, which segment was my favorite and how I finally realized the story’s connecting element doesn’t really matter except as a red herring, and which segment I never really cared for before but discovered a newfound appreciation! And did I mention a certain other movie during this podcast? Mmmmmmmmaybe.
Thanks again to Patrick, Jesse and Richard for having me.
A special big stuffed thanks to Bully the Little Substitute Bull…
…for filling in for me last week when I had health stuff, family stuff, all kinds of stuff keeping me from my regular blogging shenanigans.
I apologize in advance to anyone expecting more Bully and only getting me here. I’m not quite as little or bull-ish, though I am a bit on the stuffed side, but I hope you folks will stick around as I go through the usual nonsense I’ve been delivering here for over 18 years now.
If you want to keep up with Bully’s happy trails throughout the internet, you can visit his long-running website Comics Oughta Be Fun! as well as his equally fun Twitter feed.
Thanks Bully, and always remember:
Progressive Bully #7: You didn’t think you’d get me out of here without one of these, did you?
Thanks, folks! We now return you to your regularly scheduled Mike. — Bully
Progressive Bully #5: Color My World-616.
H’lo everybody! It’s your old pal Substitute Mike, aka Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, here to amuse and educate ya. As that frog says, when he isn’t busy embarrassing that guy by refusing to sing “Michigan Rag,” it is Friday, my dudes, and time to brush away the busy work week and devote your attention to personal rest and relaxation time. Yeah, all week long you’ve been working for the man (or the woman; I don’t wanna be sexist here) and making money for them, but now you’ve got your paycheck and you’re gonna cut loose and get wild! So do what I do: get out your crayons and let’s color!
I find it works best to get yourself the biggest box of crayons you can find, but what you’re really gonna need here is a whole lotta red, white and blue.
That’s because tonight we’re all coloring in the Captain America Coloring Book (Whitman, 1966), 64 full-color black-and-white pages of star-spangled excitement, adventure, and dynamic tension! Check it out: we’ve got robots, flying saucers, a crumbling city, and a mountain to color! Plus, that guy in the front, what-‘is-name. 49¢: cheap!
First up: prepare to spend a lot of time coloring the sky blue, or, if taking place during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, red. Captain America is floating in the sky above, keeping watch on us and reporting straight to Santa about who is naughty and who is nice. Yes, famous Watcher in the Sky Captain America, as seen in his many exciting comic book adventures!
Now is the time in our arts and craft activities where I stop and give you some background: this coloring book’s story and pictures are based on two Silver Age Cap adventures from Tales of Suspense, so-called because Cap is clearly being suspended here. But would it surprise you to learn that in the comic itself, this scene is a teensy bit more dramatic?
from Tales of Suspense #75 (March 1966)
You can use this page as a suggestion for coloring! Draw in some bomb-bursts and shrapnel. Maybe even turn it upside down so it appears more dynamic! Unleash your inner Stan Goldberg and go nuts, folks! For maximum adventure, however, please color inside the lines.
Mama Bull picked me up this coloring book during her weekly shopping at the local Piggly-Wiggly because it features my favorite comic book villain, that Famed Frenchman of fearsome feats, Batroc the Leaper! Here’s a great chance to wear your orange and purple crayons down to the nub giving him all his glorious secondary-colors-are-for-villains shading. Or, since he’s leaping straight at you, color it to accentuate the 3-D effect! (3-D glasses not included with this blog.)
You might remember this tale in the comics as the one that also introduces Sharon Carter, Agent 13, the daughter niece descendant of Captain America’s World War II love, Peggy Carter. Steve tries to intervene in her not very subtle spy-drop, but Sharon’s so annoyed her word bubble turns yellow.
Say, can you guess what’s in that mysterious mailing tube?
No, not that one. Get out of this part of Tales of Suspense and back into the Iron Man section, Hawkeye, ya load!
Sharon heeds her secret spy instructions of “run away!”, and I sure hope you have a lotta red crayons.
A good Batroc deserves a second coloring page. Go nuts, color him red, white, and blue and make him into the hero of this tale: Capitaine Française!
Remember, as befitting the original comic book: color Batroc triumphant over Cap. Quite frankly, it’s the way Stan Lee probably would have wanted it, and you don’t wanna disrespct his memory now, do ya?
The second part of the coloring book adapts a story from TOS #78, which depicts a casual meeting of Cap and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.* (*Sitting Habitually In Efficient Little Domiciles)
Go ahead, I know you’re dying to do it: give Nick Fury a green suit.
In the comic book, their meeting is a little more visually vigorous: less sitting around on comfy chairs, more dodging the little training robots that gave Luke Skywalker such a hard time with the blast shield down. You may have noticed Jack Kirby is doin’ the art chores on these stories, so the coloring book can only pale in comparison before the King.
from Tales of Suspense #78 (June 1966)
What’s up, Nick? Fan mail from some flounder? (Hope you have a big green crayon now.) Go with your instinct and draw a pretty picture on Nick’s eyepatch. He can’t tell!
Strange happenings! Weird happenings! Like, say, your chance to color in a scene from the latest Michael Bay explodo-ganza! Please: do not draw in Shia LaBeouf.
Tank Creature! Now that he’s so popular, collectors are flocking to their local coloring book stores to hunt down his first appearance in slabbed 9.0+ graded, uncolored-in copies of the Captain America Coloring Book.
But hey, coloring book, that’s kind of a dull-looking mundane generic robot that would probably be more at home as George Jetson’s wise-crackin’ valet who gets him out of scrapes with Mr. Spacely, than as a fearsome foe for the Star-Spangled Avenger. I betcha Kirby woulda drawn a more impressive robot!
Ummmmm. (tugs collar, makes choking noises) Okay, say what you will, but Jack Kirby could definitely design a more impressing robot-making device than this “Robot Factory and Final Testing Pool.” The robots are having a nice schvitz!
Oh come on now comic book, stop tracing Jack Kirby!
You’ve probably run out of red and blue crayons by now, so try this out: color Cap yellow, blue and black, stare at him for several minutes, and then look away to a plain surface so you can see the real colors imprinted on your vision. Weird, ain’t it? How do you feel about your eyeballs now, kids?
Knockout pills? On a robot? Sure (giggle) Cap, you try (chuckle) that out and
Hotchy motchy, it worked!
Still, where’d ya get that idea, coloring book? Didja steal it from Kirby and Lee? Betcha did.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this fine evening of coloring along with me. Please make certain to put your crayons neatly back in the box and store them in the drawer, because if you leave them lying around on the floor, you’ll get in trouble. That’s not just good advice from Captain America and Nick Fury; that’s a proclamation from my mom.
Bonus special extra coloring page of Batroc! Because, and I hope you know it, I love you all.
