Space Is The Place: Graeme heads out for interstellar policemen from 7/11

It's the war of the space opera epics this week, as the first non-special-oneshot chapters of both DC and Marvel's star-crossed slam-bang-fests shipped, inviting comparisons that'll probably do no-one any good. But let's try anyway, why don't we?

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST: WRAITH #1: Maybe it's Kyle Hotz's artwork - which, especially on the title character here, reminds me of Sam Keith's stuff - or maybe it's the choice of inverted word balloons for the eponymous hero, but I couldn't quite shake the idea that someone, somewhere, at Marvel sees this as "What if Sandman was a butt-kicking space mercenary?" It's an entirely unfair comparison, of course, because the story owes nothing to Neil Gaiman's gift to DC's intellectual property (although if you suggested that Wraith is Sandman meets Lobo, you're actually not a million miles away from the truth), but also a sign of how disinterested I found myself in the story and looking for distraction. There's nothing bad about the story, necessarily, but also nothing that makes me particularly excited about the prospect of checking out the second issue, nor about the idea that this will be a necessary piece of the whole Annihilation: Conquest larger story. Eh.

NOVA #4, on the other hand, is much more successful. While the superhero snob in me wonders when we're going to see an issue of the book that isn't a crossover with some larger event (even the first issue was pretty much an epilogue to the original Annihilation), the reader in me has to admit that the sudden intrusion of A:C brings a very enjoyable intensity and sense of disaster to the series. I'm not falling for the idea that Richard Ryder is, as suggested by the last few pages, dead, but I'm very much liking the idea that the creative team are ready to throw away the title character for awhile so early in the book's run. Good, and offering enough insight into the Phalanx that I'm even more curious as to where the larger story is going next.

Meanwhile, over at DC, GREEN LANTERN #21 takes the Sinestro Corps War storyline to the individual books, with surprising restraint - I have to admit that I was expecting some kind of obvious "Hal Jordan! I, Sinestro, am going to kick your ass!" moment in this issue, but instead the big guns seen at the end of the opening oneshot are purposefully kept in the background while the new Parallax essentially goes solo on a revenge mission against Hal. It's another well-done issue, giving this book an organic separation from the Green Lantern Corps book, even though the two series will be carrying the same story for the next few months, while also giving new readers all the backstory they may need both in terms of plot and psychological motivation. It's the wonderful lack of what you'd expect that made this so Good; much more subtle than something like Infinite Crisis, maybe Geoff Johns really did learn some tricks from the rest of the 52 writers after all...

POS Follies Part 6

Woof. So, first off, thanks to those who gave me Excel tips in the last post -- yep that's what I'm using. Wish I had those BEFORE I started doing the eyeball sort, but c'est la guerre.

'sfunny, I've been using Excel for like a decade (maybe more?), and I haven't got the SLIGHTEST idea how like 75% of it functions. I generally only need it to sort, or move chunks of data around, or that level of depth -- most of those options in the, say, "Tools" menu? Don't even know what they do.

ANYway, done with the majority of the database futzing -- yesterday and today I went and scanned in most of the barcodes that MOBY didn't already have (something like 600 of them?), but that was a pretty fast process, really.

There's still TONS of stuff w/o barcodes, or stuff that HAVE barcodes, but which won't scan, no matter how much I try -- but I have to say I'm more pissed about the former than the latter. There's a couple of surprising (to me at least!) publishers, like Heavy Metal, who never bothered to put barcodes on any of their books. I really can't figure it out.

I can get all of the comics that don't have them -- typically small/self-published books, or from publishers that didn't believe there was enough "critical mass" of retailers USING them for the time/expense in doing them, but my life will certainly have more of a pain in the ass from the OPTIC NERVE or LOVE & ROCKETS of the world, where we still sell 3-5 copies of each and every issue, each and every month. Having to slow down at the reg to either consult the "cheat book" (a binder with a bunch of non-barcoded items in it, with a user-generated barcode), or type-and-find into MOBY to look them up is not going to be fun.

I can deal with that pain for L&R or OPTIC NERVE, but I suspect that, come, oh let's call it 2009, I will no longer stock publishers-who-don't-barcode just from a hassle-vs-profit point of view, if they're not selling L&R numbers for us.

Anyway, as things stand, I think I'll be "done" with the database, latest, this time next week. Next week has several other things that need to get done (Tilting! And the SUPER SECRET THING that will make you go "whoa!" when we announce it [Very Soon!]; oh, and, just for good measure, the blackline of PREVIEWS showed up today, so ONOMATOPOEIA is presumably next week too!), so it will be "next Friday", rather than "Tuesday, latest" it would have been otherwise.

Really, all I have left to do is to set the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary distributors for the non-brokered publishers, which, I think, is less than 6 hours work. (It is probably 3, but I have to factor time to look-up-and-confirm-pricing on a number of books) My BIG PROBLEM with this, is there's a lot of items in the databse I'd want to set Cold Cut as the Primary, or Secondary-after-Direct-From-publisher, and I'm kind of dreading the possibility that Cold Cut might either close or drastically mutate in the next 3-6 months, causing me to have to edit thousands of records inside MOBY (not nearly as fast as Excel.... which could do it in about 9 keystrokes, total) -- in MOBY, you have to individually open each individual record of a product (or, I think, group -- which would make changing L&R, for instance, one action, rather than 20-something different ones)

The funny thing, is my orders to Cold Cut are probably poised to triple or better, because I won't be doing that ad hoc bullshit method I'd used before, but I'll now have a "one button" process to deal with it, and the encouragement to hit that button more.

I really and truly hope they find a buyer no later than San Diego, and that said buyer understands the potential they have there -- with just a couple of tweaks, Cold Cut could become a significant player, picking up the vast majority of the non-exclusive reorder business in the DM.

I want to comment on this a bit, because I think something that Dan Vado really needs to be stated again, a couple of times.

[So, in fact, let me give myself a clean paragraph break to make it easier to link, and take a deep breath to refocus my thought here]

ANY publisher who has signed a distribution deal with Diamond, that does not have exclusions, for Cold Cut or Last Gasp, or even possibly a new startup, where that publisher is sold to retailers at an "F" (45%) discount or less has made a terrible, terrible mistake that they really NEED to rectify at their next contract negotiation.

Why? Diamond assesses a 3% reorder penalty. That means your 45% discount, just dropped to 42%. Guess what? If Diamond is distributing your books, that means Baker & Taylor and Ingram has them. ANY chimpanzee, who pays on time, and places an order of 10 or more books (not of a single title, for a whole ORDER of books! Cake!), gets AT LEAST 42% off from B&T.

And Free Shipping.

And Returnability.

THEREFORE, at a 45% or lower discount -- again, that's the "F" code, or a "H" code for 40% -- it is actually CHEAPER for retailers to buy it from the Distributor that *Diamond* is selling to, than from Diamond, on a Reorder (and, in many cases, on the initial)

You want your retailers to get the BEST POSSIBLE PRICE on your wares, don't you? So they make lots of money, and buy MORE of your books, right?

THEN MAKE SURE there is competitiveness in the marketplace.

I kind of die inside when I ponder a company like Achaia -- they're exclusive to Diamond, no exceptions; They've been quietly building up a line of high quality titles with a fairly broad "real human" appeal... but because they are "Buy/Sell" with Diamond, DIAMOND DOESN'T HAVE THEIR BOOKS *IN STOCK* MOST OF THE TIME.

To give you a good example, for the last few weeks I've been buying my copies of the MOUSE GUARD HC from B&T, rather than Diamond BECAUSE DIAMOND HAD NO COPIES, and B&T *did*. I'd kill to be able to buy, in open stock, virtually anything that Achaia produces... but because of the deal they locked themselves into, I usually can't.

Tom asked why the New Boom doesn't seem to be translating for publishers or certain aspects of retail? That's because the only publishers, on reorder, that retailers can "keystone" (double their investment) are the four brokered ones -- the ones without any 3% reorder penalty. Everyone else, you're crippled at the outset because of a regressive policy that dates from a different time of distribution. Even if you're an "E" (50%) publisher -- your Onis, your DEs -- you're 47% on a reorder from Diamond, *and* dependent on Diamond's whim of whether they *stock* your comic or not. Not "will order it, if a customer asks", but *stocks*.

Think about that VERY carefully the next time your contract comes up for renegotiation. Because I have to tell you that I think about those things constantly, and I'm the one buying your books.

[*puff* *puff* OK, rant over]

So, ah, where was I?

Right, assigning dists to the database. Quick process, I'm hoping. Then... Hm, another pass through the "series" codes (I want to make sure it understands that, say, BPRD, is actually the SAME book, despite restarting at #1 every 5th issue), and maybe futz with the author and illustrator fields a bit.

And after that, it's just another 2 weeks of scanning and looking for errors I missed before, but not the intensive 10-13 hours a day things I've been doing the last few weeks.

I figure, since I'm working from an existing database, that, of the data I'll be using (way under 10%), I'm still going to have 1-200 books with some sort of error that I didn't catch, and won't until things are running. But, hopefully, I'll be able to deal with those on the fly, and that they won't be too disruptive as things run.

But, pretty much, the overwhelming bulk of the Scary Database Project is pretty much done. There's still doing the physical inventory, and entering that data, but that will just be an ugly 8 hours that can't be done until the last second, anyway.

Right. Off to have some recreation, then back at it for Saturday...

Oh. And did I say to watch out for something Really Cool in the next few days?

Well, do.

-B

The ghost of Justin Hartley looms large: Graeme goes green from 7/11.

Is it that wrong of me that I couldn't stop thinking of Smallville as I read GREEN ARROW: YEAR ONE #1? It's not just the high concept "Superheroes before they were superheroes" aspect that reminded me of the show, but the execution of same - the wooden expositionary dialogue, the repurposing of the character as an EXTREME THRILLSEEKER, DOOD, the weird villain as security guard to rich boy thing... This first issue curiously captured the feel of the Smallville show much better than the Smallville comic did, which is even more unexpected considering that it's by the Losers' creative team of Andy Diggle and Jock.

It's tempting to say that neither of their hearts are in the book, but I'm not really sure that that's the case; Diggle's script, while featuring some show-stopping moments of clunkiness (The villain's speech when confronting Ollie towards the end of the book is stunning in its laying out not only the character of Ollie as the book starts, but of the signposting of what's going to happen to him during the course of this series: "Look at yourself. You're not Robin Hood. You're Peter Pan. You're the boy who never grew up - - because you never had to. You don't value anything, because you never had to earn it. You don't think the rules apply to you, because you've always been able to buy yourself out of trouble. And you don't give a damn about anyone but yourself - - Because you're still the same spoiled selfish little brat you were when your parents died... Because there's never been anyone there to say no." You kind of have to wonder if Diggle finished writing that and thought, "You know, I'm kind of done."), still has some nice moments, and Jock's art here seems a lot less rushed than his Faker, last week (His cover is beautiful, if entirely destroyed by the barcode and credits - Look at the naked version on the DC Nation page, and see how good the art itself is). Perhaps it's that there was some kind of editorial guidance pushing them towards the Smallville gene, or perhaps presenting heroes as self-centered teenagers (or whatever age Ollie is meant to be here - early 20s, I think...?) is the way to go when trying to reach a new market.

Despite all that, this isn't actually that bad an opener - Everything gets set up easily enough, even taking into account the signposted dialogue, and if everything feels somewhat tensionless, the fact that this is almost intended to be the least exciting part of the story has to be taken somewhat into account. An Okay opener, then, and here's hoping that it picks up the further we get into the story.

My gut tells me this isn't too great: Graeme gets space-age patriotic, 7/11

Since it was announced, I've been somewhat nervous of reading STEPHEN COLBERT'S TEK JANSEN #1. Nervous for all the right reasons, mind you; I really like all of the creators involved, and also find myself fairly fond of The Colbert Report as well (Although I still prefer The Daily Show, especially since Johns Hodgeman and Oliver joined the crew), but there just seemed either an optimism or the kind of ego that Colbert normally parodies to base a spin-off series on what was essentially a one joke idea ("The self-important news anchor secretly writes shitty sci-fi - but he's completely unaware of how shitty it actually is!").

Sure enough, the first issue struggles against the limits of the pretty limited joke; the writers do their best to expand the Tek Jansen universe with new characters and situations, but the problem is that doing so sacrifices the humor that Colbert specializes in (political and social satire) for something both more broad and narrow at the same time. There are political allusions in both of the stories - and in the first strip, also some Colbert Report injokes - but stripped of the real world context, they come across as weak and toothless.

The sad thing is, the writers are probably doing the best that they can with the core concept of the series, and the stories are fun enough (They're also attractively drawn; I just realized that I hadn't said anything about Scott Chandler and Robbi Rodriguez so far, even though both do a pretty good job juggling the likeness with the cartoony) - It's just that I think that the reality of a Tek Jansen comic is pretty much fated to just be Okay at best, always going to be less valuable in reality than in name-dropping theory.

POS Follies Part 5

Just jumping in real quickly to let you know the project proceeds. Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday I spent a total of 33 hours, in those 3 days, walking the store, pulling books off the rack shelf-by-shelf and checking to see if they had records already in MOBY's database. Basically, over those three days, I've touched every single item in the store (except the back issues) at least once.

(I also pulled a lot of stuff OFF the shelves for our sale box -- so, if you're a CE customer and you haven't checked the TP sale box in a while, NOW is the time to do so; there are some tremendous deals in there! [I just made Jeff Lester spend another fifty dollars, I am afraid])

This took a whole lot longer than the inventory will take (estimate: 10x longer) because I had to pull everything off the racks, shelf-by-shelf, carry it over to the counter and the computer, and type in a bit of its title in the cntrl-F Find box, then walk the books back and reshelf them. Whee, and stuff.

The FUN part of it was that MOBY's database uses DIAMOND's database at its core, and Diamond does not... well, how to be kind about it?

It is my understanding (perhaps out of date) that Diamond doesn't have a master file of what it stocks. Instead, the individual brand managers RETYPE THE ENTIRE CATALOG EVERY MONTH. Perhaps more importantly, Diamond doesn't have an exacting standard format that they use to present information, so it is entirely possible that you'll have a series of TPs that look something like this in Diamond's database:

DWEEZLEMAN VOL 1 TP DWEEZLEMAN DWEEZLES AHOY VOL 2 TP DWEEZLEMAN VOL 3 DWEEZLES BIG ADVENTURE TP DWEEZLEMAN GN #4 DWEEZLES NIGHT OUT

(this is an extreme "example", generally speaking no one series has more than 3 schema -- and even those tend to be multi-year 10+ volume series)

Because of this, if you were to sort your list into alpha-numerical order, it would sort like this:

DWEEZLEMAN DWEEZLES AHOY VOL 2 TP DWEEZLEMAN GN #4 DWEEZLES NIGHT OUT DWEEZLEMAN VOL 1 TP DWEEZLEMAN VOL 3 DWEEZLES BIG ADVENTURE TP

Which drives me insane when trying to work with the data.

So I was also editing titles as I went along to try and mitigate some of this. For myself, there's only ONE format that is appropriate and that's:

[Series Title] VOL [#] [Subtitle] TP ([optional notes])

I also am a total weirdo in that I like to add a zero to sub-ten-volumes entries (that is, it is VOL 01, 02, and so on to 09) -- that's because, since the volume number is in the title field (though we have a column for "issue #" as well of course) if you don't do that, an alphabetical report sorts like this:

VOL 1 VOL 11 VOL 12....19 VOL 2 VOL 20 VOL 21...29 VOL 3 VOL 30

(and so on)

(and yes, you *can* stretch this out to the 40s. No, not a manga series; Fantagraphics PRINCE VALIANT reprints reached well into the 40s)

With the "extra" leading zeroes, everything sorts the way its supposed to.

Also, this is where I hate the ABC line books -- rather than "VOL [#]" they are listed as "BOOK [number spelled out]" so that "BOOK FIVE" sorts before "VOL 05". Once someone from DC (I don't recall who, nor the context) indicated to me that they were that way because Alan Moore insisted on it, but whoever made the decision to have it that way in DIAMOND'S DATABASE should be taken out back and shot. That's not just from a POS POV -- I'm changing the titles myself, obviously -- but from an invoicing POV. DIAMOND prints their invoices in straight-alpha, which makes checking in fun fun fun.

There's also a lot of mislistings -- things categorized by Diamond as "comics" when they are actually "magazines", that kind of thing -- or bad listings. For instance, basically every book that's listed in the "book" section of PREVIEWS has in the "publisher" field the header of the category that it was listed in PREVIEWS. "How-To", "Art Books", "Fantasy/Sci-Fi" that kind of thing. Which is often annoying, but not something I'm going to fix now, because it doesn't matter *that* much, and I can always edited the important ones later.

Anyway, so that was Thur-Sat, the upshot of which is that I *could* take a hard physical inventory tomorrow if I needed. (that's end of the month though)

Sunday I vegged out.

Monday I hit the database for ~10 hours and found "all" of the things that I "should" be stocking, but didn't have on hand. This includes a lot of out of print stuff, but that will work itself out quickly. I found about 200 items. Approx 60% of them are probably OOP. Of the ones that aren't, about a quarter were on this week's restock arrival already.

I also noticed on Monday that, hm, a lot of items I have on hand don't have a barcode in the database -- this is probably because Starclipper (MOBY's "home" store) never stocked them (Diamond's database doesn't provide barcodes in advance, except for a very small handful of publishers). I hadn't realized that I was going to fill in quite that many holes, so I sorted the list of on-hand by barcode and made a sublist of the ones I'd need to scan in. About 800-ish titles.

Tuesday morning I started in on it, and got about 10% of the list done in an hour (which reminds me, I'm going to need to make another list of things that will need to have barcodes generated FOR them...), but then it was time for the New Books to arrive, so clearing that up will be Thursday and maybe Friday in the store.

Today I am at home and, literally, staring at columns of numbers. MOBY has separate data fields for "MSRP" and "MOBY price" -- that is, what the "price" is, and how much the program will charge you for it. But Starclipper, over the years, has put some number of objects on SALE... so I've got to go through and compare column A to column B.

THAT's why I'm typing this essay, BTW -- comparing two columns of numbers on a computer screen is not easy on the eyes, so every 5 or 6 PageDWNs I flip over here and type a paragraph or so.

The way I am doing this, I *know* I am making mistakes (or, at least, not catching some) -- if there's a $12.95/$12.99 discrepancy I won't be catching it in most cases (though I caught one!), and maybe not a $15.99/$19.99 one either. Thankfully, on the few occasions where it's a Starclipper-putting-it-on-sale situation (as opposed to data-entry mistake) they're generally cutting the price to half, making 5/9.99 easy to spot.

Right, so that's done, thanks for listening while I distracted my eyes. Off now to start messing with reorder points!

-B

The death of a party came as no surprise: Graeme starts the week off with an end, 7/11.

Given the, um, individual charms of Frank Miller's writing on All-Star Batman these days, I'm not sure it'll come as a massive surprise to anyone if I say that I'm not sure that MARTHA WASHINGTON DIES is worth the price of admission. But what was surprising - to me, at least - was that the story in this oneshot was clearly never meant to be anything other than the epilogue to next year's collection of all of Miller and Dave Gibbons' Martha Washington stories (Give Me Liberty from the 1980s - which I remember being disappointed by as a teenager, reading it and thinking "There's no there there. Is this really meant to be great? Am I missing something?" - and Martha Washington Goes To War from, I think, the early '90s). The strip in this issue offers no real story at all, other than fulfilling the promise/threat of the title, but also offers no context for anyone who hasn't read any of the earlier works. What it does offer is the chance to make cheap analysis into Miller's state of mind - the narration talks of an America under attack by "barbarians" who seek an "armageddon we'll never let them have" and chant, even though they've tried to destroy religion ("Back when there were churches. Back before the barbarians won their awful victory..."). Has this story now become all about Miller's 9/11 epiphany...? What else could it mean when Martha seems to become fireworks exploding in the skies above New York City, after all?

To call this "light" would be polite - It's 17 pages long, and of that, there are four double-page spreads and an additional four splash pages - and as nicely as Gibbons and colorist Angus McKie can make things, there's still a feeling of being somewhat cheated by the presentation of this as a full-priced comic as opposed to some kind of budget teaser for the complete book advertised on the inside back cover here. There may be some extra value for completists in the five page original synopsis by Miller for the opening of Give Me Liberty - although a cynic like me looks at it more as the only way they could make this book more than 20 pages long - but overall, this was a pretty disappointingly empty Awful.

At an alarming pace, running away from his face: Graeme finishes out 7/5, bald-head style.

So, Zuda Comics, huh? Why'd they go with that name, I wonder? Although I have to admit that I found Newsarama's interview with Paul Levitz about it curiously honest - Did he really admit that DC should be the last place you look to for innovation these days, or was I reading too much between the lines...?

While pondering that, let's look at the dying world of print:

ACTION COMICS #851: Pretty much an issue of filler with the exception of the last few pages - and that really wasn't where I thought the Luthor subplot from the Annual was going, thankfully enough - but when filler comes with a pair of 3D glasses, I'm pretty much sold. Okay, but I do feel sorry for those who looked at this without rose-colored (well, and blue) glasses.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #8: Surprisingly, not so great, and I'm not entirely sure why not. Normally I'm a sucker for both Morrison and Quitely and also Bizarro World stories, but this felt incredibly light and lacking on new ideas or surprises, for a change. Technically, it's still head and shoulders above almost every other superhero book released this week and still Very Good but I really expected more from this.

BLACK CANARY #1: Paulo Siqueira proves rather adept at the kid-centric portions of this somewhat unnecessary miniseries (Admittedly, I say that partially because Gail Simone isn't writing it; I loved her take on Dinah in Birds of Prey, and even though Tony Bedard follows it closely here, it's still not enough, dammit), but ultimately it still feels like retcons are being used to manufacture fake drama instead of trying to make an interesting story about Dinah herself. Okay, but it could've and should've been better.

COUNTDOWN #43: Hibbs told me as he rings me up for this week that he's suddenly realized how badly this is going to read in trade, considering that this week's issue is all about the death of the Flash, which happened in another series altogether and wasn't even referenced in this book before last week. And he's not wrong, but that portion of the book was still more interesting than almost all of the actual Countdown-centric scenes that we got this issue. That said, everything is starting to pick up slightly, and I wonder if that's just because we're two months in and Dini et al always intended to start slow and speed up, or if it's down to the presence of new co-editor Mike Carlin, who joined the book with this issue. Either way, still Eh.

FAKER #1: I think I liked this, but to be honest, it all kind of rushed by without making too much of an impression - I feel as if I need to read the next issue (which will take me a third of the way into the series) before I could honestly say whether or not I thought it was worth my time, which leaves me somewhat ambivalent about the experience. Nonetheless, it's more proof that Mike Carey is a surprisingly versatile writer (Again, compare and contrast this to his X-Men, Re-Gifters or any other things released that he's worked on in the last month) and Jock is an engaging, if left-hand-biased, artist. Okay, I guess?

NEW WARRIORS #2: You know it's a bad sign when the thing that catches your attention most about a book like this isn't that - gasp! - the New Warriors are depowered mutants with new superpowers but that the book namedrops and uses the logos of MSN, Yahoo and Google. Between that and the Old Spice logo usage in recent books, it looks like Marvel has dived straight into the world of product placement with no fear whatsoever. Ah, this brave new world, etc. etc. As for the story itself, Eh; pretty much as you'd expect.

What did the rest of you think, anyway?

Arriving 7/11

Busy busy on the database, so just a list of comics shipping this week.... 100 BULLETS #84 (RES) 30 DAYS OF NIGHT EBEN & STELLA #3 ALIEN PIG FARM #4 (OF 4) AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #10 AMORY WARS #2 (OF 5) ANITA BLAKE VH FIRST DEATH #1 (OF 2) ANNIHILATION CONQUEST WRAITH #1 (OF 4) BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #7 BATMAN STRIKES #35 BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #176 BIG PLANS #1 BLADE #11 BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #127 BPRD GARDEN OF SOULS #5 (OF 5) CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #15 COMICS COMICS COUNTDOWN 42 DEADPOOL GLI SUMMER FUN SPECTACULAR DEEVEE 2007 DMZ #21 EXILES #96 FABLES #63 FANTASTIC FIVE #1 (OF 5) FRESHMEN VOL 2 ERIC BASALDUA CVR A #6 (NOTE PRICE) GEN 13 #10 GREEN ARROW YEAR ONE #1 (OF 6) GREEN LANTERN #21 GRIFTER MIDNIGHTER #5 (OF 6) HEDGE KNIGHT 2 SWORN SWORD #2 (OF 6) INDIA AUTHENTIC INDRA #3 JLA CLASSIFIED #40 JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #132 JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #7 LEFT ON MISSION #3 (OF 5) MAD MAGAZINE #480 MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS #3 MARTHA WASHINGTON DIES (ONE SHOT) MARVEL ILLUSTRATED MAN IN THE IRON MASK #1 (OF 6) METAL GEAR SOLID SONS OF LIBERTY #10 (RES) NEW AVENGERS #32 NEW EXCALIBUR #21 NEXUS #99 SPACE OPERA ACT 1 OF 4 NICOLAS CAGES VOODOO CHILD TEMPLESMITH COVER #1 NOVA #4 OMEGA FLIGHT #4 CWI (OF 5) PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #9 CWI SHADOWPACT #15 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #177 SPAWN #169 SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #20 STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION THE SPACE BETWEEN #6 (OF 6) STAR WARS LEGACY #14 STAR WARS REBELLION #8 STEPHEN COLBERTS TEK JANSEN #1 (OF 5) STEPHEN COLBERTS TEK JANSEN CASSADAY VAR CVR #1 (OF 5) STORMWATCH PHD #9 SUB-MARINER #2 CWI (OF 6) SUPERMAN #664 SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #5 TAG CURSED #5 (OF 5) TICK COMIC CON EXTRAVAGANZA #1 ULTIMATE X-MEN #84 VERONICA #181 WITCHBLADE #108 WITCHBLADE SHADES OF GRAY FOIL CVR #2 (OF 4) (NET) WORLD WAR HULK GAMMA CORPS #1 (OF 4) WWH X-FACTOR #21 XOMBIE SEELEY CVR A #3 (OF 5)

Books / Mags / Stuff ASHLEY WOODS 48 NUDE GIRLS SC BATTLESTAR GALACTICA VOL 1 REG ED TP CLUBBING COMICS BUYERS GUIDE SEP 2007 #1633 DEVIL DINOSAUR BY JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS HC ELRIC MAKING OF A SORCERER TP FALLEN ANGEL PREMIERE COLLECTION HC FULL FRONTAL NERDITY VOL 1 BIG BOOK OF EPIC FAIL TP GANZFELD 5 JAPANADA TP HEARTBREAK GN HELLBLAZER THE RED RIGHT HAND TP HULK VISIONARIES PETER DAVID VOL 4 TP LEES TOY REVIEW JULY 2007 #177 NAOKI URASAWAS MONSTER VOL 9 TP NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE VOL 2 I KICK YOUR FACE PREMIERE HC NODWICK CHRONICLES COLL NODWICK VOL 6 TP PS238 VOL 4 NOT ANOTHER LEARNING EXPERIENCE TP RAMAYAN 3392 AD VOL 1 TP SADHU VOL 1 TP SHOWCASE PRESENTS BATGIRL VOL 1 TP SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM GN (A) SQUADRON SUPREME HYPERION VS NIGHTHAWK TP TOYFARE SIMPSONS MOVIE FIGURE CVR #121 TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD VOL 1 TP UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS TP VIDEO WATCHDOG #132

What looks good to you?

-B

I'm tho Thor, I can hardly...: Graeme looks at a Mighty return.

It's not exaggerating to say that all of my positive feelings about THOR #1 come from Olivier Copiel's artwork. Which, considering I finished the issue and thought to myself, "Well, I might pick up the next issue to see where they go with this after all," is saying more than you may think.

J. Michael Straczynski's resetting of the Lee/Kirby dynamic here is the kind of thing that doesn't really make that much sense if you spend too much time thinking about it - I didn't read the last issues of the last run of Thor's title, but it seems from this issue that Thor didn't die after all, but just ended up in some kind of ideological limbo that was also inhabited by Donald Blake, who was (years ago) unmade by Odin, but that unmaking was then itself undone by the death of Odin, which somehow undid all of Odin's magic except for the bits of Odin's magic that are necessary for the series to work. I have no idea if any of this will be explained in future issues, or if it's just the kind of doublespeak that readers are expected to just accept as the necessary evil in order to get Thor back and move on, but I chose to go for the latter option and look at the pretty pictures instead. And what pretty pictures...!

Copiel's choice of making Thor larger - or, at least, broader - than life manages to both differentiate him from Donald Blake and also give him the physique that makes you believe that he really could stand up to Ice Gods or whatever other Asgardian monstrosities come his way; I particularly liked his out of control eyebrows and broad nose, for some strange reason. The same cartoony impulse reappears towards the end of the book, with Donald Blake's new landlady, whose happy panel wearing glasses was a wonderfully welcome moment of visual comedy in a scene that could otherwise have been bogged down in too-clever dialogue. Copiel obviously likes drawing people instead of just superpeople, if you can understand the distinction; his body language and comfort with clothing (He understands how clothes hang on people, unlike so many superhero artists) are the signs of a smart artist who's looking to do something more than just whatever happens to be popular or hot right now, and his panel layout on the second-last page of this book - almost entirely silent - is something that makes me want to see what else he could get up to when paired with a writer who wants to challenge him a little more. I've been a fan of Copiel since his Legion work, but this book really makes me want to see him on something out of the mainstream so that he can show just how good he really is.

It's interesting; I know that I should give this book an Eh because, really, the story's not up to much at all and the dialogue borders on the pretentious and ridiculous. But the artwork is so good that I've kind of got to say that you owe it to yourself to at least take a look and decide for yourself whether this is as Okay as I ended thinking it was...

Sure, it may be not Ratatouille, but still: Graeme gets less than meets the eye.

NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS #1: The cross-marketing platform that Marvel have been waiting for rolls out - I'm sorry - into stores, in time to make everyone who reads it realize that, well, it's pretty Awful. There's something about this book that really makes you feel as if this is a half-assed attempt by Marvel to try and cash in on what they hoped would be a successful movie. It's a shame, really; the sheer nostalgic power of picking up a Transformers comic with that lo-fi version of the logo (Just like the old Marvel UK version of the comic when I was a kid!) managed to make me relatively hopeful that this could be something enjoyable and full of throwaway pop thrills, but it's clear that pop magic isn't what those involved were looking for - There's a self-conscious seriousness to the narration ("The engines of war. Sometimes they grind so loud in your brain - - They drown out everything else" ponders Captain America towards the end of the issue) that kind of ruins whatever dumb fun points the admittedly goofy plot (Megatron is increasing humanity's aggression so that the Avengers are fighting each other! Only the Autobots can save them from themselves!) has earned so far. More depressingly, Tyler Kirkham's artwork is so dull - it just sits on the page and does the job without any style or joy or anything, which is entirely the opposite of what was needed here. With a comic that brings superheroes and giant robots that turn into cars together, what I really want to see is some absurdist excitement about the whole thing, something that pulls me into the story and distracts me from the ridiculousness of the whole thing, and this attempt - while well-meaning (at least in the initial plot) - completely misses the mark.

Doesn't stop me wanting to see the Transformers movie itself, though.

Folks, you better stop and think: Graeme deals with Acceptance, 7/5.

You know, I really thought that Jeph Loeb was building to something with the whole FALLEN SON: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA thing. I don't really know why, to be honest; I'd been through Superman/Batman and watched as those 25 issues resolutely failed to have any real sense of resolution. I'd put that down to everything else that was happening in his life at the time, and kept this vague hope that - despite all the usual claims and complaints about Loeb's writing - he really could finish a story after all.

And it seemed as if Fallen Son was building to something, you know? The way that the characters followed through the individual issues, with Wolverine seeming to act as some kind of guide through the whole shebang... I honestly thought that there was going to be some kind of emotional payoff, at least, in the final issue. And with the rumors of spoilers and big events that should get retailers ordering extra copies, and of news coverage of this issue, I thought: Okay. We're building to something after all.

Except we're not.

It's not that the final issue is bad, per se. John Cassaday's art is fine enough - As much as I recognize how technically good he is, I really don't get why everyone loves his work as much as they do - and I appreciate the weird, Sinatra-esque take on Rick Jones (complete with apparently-receding hair, which amused me greatly for some reason), but there's no there there. I appreciate that Loeb (and, presumably, Marvel) felt that Captain America's funeral was enough of an event to finish the series with a bang (or dull thud of a coffin going into the ground, perhaps) but there's still no proper closure. Lots of flashbacks and lots of dramatic speechifyin', sure, but nothing else. Maybe that's to be expected - it is just a spin-off cash-in to the central plot from Captain America's own book, after all - but logically knowing that doesn't stop this from being a letdown that makes you go Eh.

And I need to be redeemed to the one I sinned against: Graeme finally gets around to thinking about criminals and diamonds.

In some weird, bizarro world somewhere in this fine multiverse, there is someone who knows what I’m talking about when I say that, for me, CRIMINAL #7 and THE BLACK DIAMOND #2 are distant relatives in some strange sense.

I mean, sure, when you read both back to back, you may not have any idea what I’m thinking, considering the very different executions of each book. Criminal, for those who haven’t been picking up the series to date, is pretty much the crime book out there to beat these days, and this issue – the second chapter of the second story of the series – demonstrates why perfectly. Over a plot of revenge and good people in bad situations (although, I have to admit, I have no idea if Tracy is really a good person or not; I just like the idea that he has some sense of honor as opposed to just being in this for revenge. But let’s face it, Brubaker trades in moral ambiguity in books like Captain America, so why should his crime noir book be any cleaner?), Ed Brubaker delivers a tight, tense script that doesn’t so much explain itself as hints at what’s happening and who to trust and leaves the rest to the reader. It’s writing that works through dialogue without being overly chatty, which puts it entirely at odds with Larry Young’s script for Black Diamond, also in the second chapter of its story (or third, if you could the preview released a couple of years back) and also featuring good people in bad situations.

Young’s script for Black Diamond is all about the dialogue, and I mean that in the best way. More than really being plot-driven (as I’d suggest Criminal is), this issue of Black Diamond is three different conversations that rejoice in language and digressions and little bits of information that aren’t important to the core plot but tell you about the characters nonetheless. It’s an incredibly chatty book, but done in such a way that you forgive the metatextuality of characters referring to themselves as literary devices, or the bigger-picture expositionary download of the middle conversation, because… well, it’s just plain enjoyable to read language being used like that (See also: Sorkin, Tarantino, Bendis, etc. Yes, I get that people don’t really talk like that, but I don’t see why that should affect my enjoyment of fiction).

It’s good that Young’s script is so strong, because Lee Proctor’s visuals are kind of… not. Actually, that’s not fair; the book is visually stunning, but that’s because of Proctor’s amazing coloring and his sense of page design – his linework itself is pretty static and infuriatingly inconsistent (Mostly in his female characters, who change hairstyles depending on which photoref he seems to be using, panel-to-panel), to such an extent that it snaps you out of the story every now and again, when you have to stop and wonder whether that’s a new character who’s just appeared, or a new look for the same character as the last panel. Criminal, meanwhile, has no such issue; Sean Phillips does work on this that should be used as masterclass fodder for artists wanting to see how to get emotion onto the page without it being melodrama, and how to tell a story effectively without the art overwhelming the story (Val Staples’ coloring is also to be pointed out as understated but entirely effective). That, in fact, may be the core difference between the two books – Criminal is a comic that works because the creators involved put the story first and submerge themselves in the work, whereas Black Diamond is enjoyable because of the creators being present throughout the book. If that makes sense to anyone that isn’t me.

Nonetheless, both books are well worth your time. Black Diamond is Good fun, Larry Young showing off his chops with Jon Proctor backing him up, and Criminal is Very Good, Brubaker and Phillips both perfectly in synch with each other and focusing on getting the job done, which seems fitting for a crime book (For those who liked Sleeper and, for some reason, haven’t picked up Criminal yet – You really should. As good as that book was, this is much better). Mama Crime Genre can feel happy that her children may not look much like each other, but they’re both doing just fine, thank you very much.

POS Follies part 4

Right, so where was I? Last Friday I lost a few hours because the firewall router I was trying to install wasn't working with the modem for some arcane reason I can't begin to understand. I had my dad come (over three tries) and get it going (he was a network guy for PacBell before he retired), but that cost me some precious computer time on Friday.

Saturday, Sunday, and much of Monday were lost to me because I kinda forgot it was "that time of the month" -- order form for August, and subscription set up for July, and the general "end of the month blues" of paying bills, etc.

Tuesday, the comics arrived. Can't sell them until Thursday, but we have Tuesday delivery, and since Wed was the holiday, it was either Tue-for-Thur, or Thur-for-Thur, and I chose to have the piles of boxes in the store, thanks.

Wednesday.... well, despite the holiday, I HAD to get back to the database. So I did. All day. "Finished" the comics section of it. And the magazines (though, come on, how much work really needs to be done there?)

Thursday was today, and it was New Comics Day. And I worked it alone, because Sue is off at a wedding. And yet I still mostly managed to deal with the Book part of the database for most of the right hand side of the store.

Friday is tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finish off the right hand side of the store, and maybe (MAYBE) the center too.

I'm piling up a bunch of books to put on clearance, too -- nothing like touching every book in your store to go "and these must go away!". I'm hoping those will be put into the sale boxes by Saturday, but who really knows, might not be until Tuesday.

Saturday will be my normal weekly reorder pass, but if I haven't finished the center-of-the-store, then I'll have to do that as well, being wholly under Rob's feet. He'll like that.

Sunday... well Sunday, I'm hoping I can rest.

Monday, all day at home working with the books inventory of all of the things we DON'T have in stock, and setting up primary and secondary and tertiary distributors for them, as well as reorder points for the stuff I actively want to stock, and so on. Unlike the comics, where there is necessarily a reorder point except "huh, sold out, get more", basically every book needs to have a decision made about it about HOW MANY I want to keep in inventory at all times. That will take me 3 (?) days... so, since Tuesday is Comics-arrive, I'm planning on being done by Thursday early AM (Because, damn it, I have to have time to take Ben to the park!!!!). Then next Friday (a week from tomorrow) will go towards all of the "behind the counter" (T-shirts, toys, whatever is in the case) stuff, which, hopefully, is only 3-4 hours work, max.

Then normal-weekly-reorders on Saturday, rest on Sunday, then start thinking about writing a TILTING around 7/16, to run on 7/20.

There's also something else going on on Monday 7/16, but you'll hear more about that a little later.

On 7/28, Mark Richman, programmer of MOBY, is coming to SF to reimport back our now edited version of the database, and to train us on the system, Unless something goes categorically wrong (and, hey, shit does, in fact, happen), we should be trained on MOBY on Monday 7/30, and POS is "live" as of that point, just before my "Dream Date" of 8/1. So, fuck yes.

That also means that, between (let's say) 7/16 and 7/28, I HAVE to get the database finished, no screwing around. I think that's an easy deadline (unless I biffed something hard I really should be done with a week to spare), but it IS a deadline, and I have to remain aware of it all the way along.

And somewhere in there is the new ONOMATOPOEIA (I'm guessing we'll have the "blackline" of PREVIEWS on the 17th or so, for a we-photocopy-it date of 7/20 and PREVIEWS street date of 7/25, but I never keep PREVIEWS dates straight in my head)

OH, and the deadline to Turn In next month's orders is 7/31, which means that I can't possibly work the order form in the 7/28-7/30 window I would normal do.... because we're being trained in MOBY right then. Gonna have to figure out a way to do it all on Wed 7/26, because there's not a whole lot of other day options available to me right now.

And, the normal end-of-the-month functions (like bill paying!) seem like they're going to become first-of-the-next-month this cycle, whooops.

So, this is what July looks like to me, wheeeeee. But at the end, I'll have POS and a much better control of my inventory, so this "Lost Month" will be all worth it, I think.

Anyway, just letting you know I'm alive, and why I'm leaving Graeme out to fend for himself right now (Sorry, G!) -- and why my wife hates me because she's having to shoulder like 96% of the entertaining-Ben duties (Sorry, Tzipora!) -- but it's just going to be an ugly July.

More as I have time -- now to take a shower, and maybe pretend I'm a human being entertained by some recreational activity for an hour or two before I sleep...

-B

Seeber rabber hobbersobben, what did you expect?: Graeme is rushed.

No time for blog, Dr. Jones. With an Independence Day that involved a flooded toilet, family visits and absolutely no time whatsoever to sit down and write about The Black Diamond and Criminal as originally planned, you're going to have to wait a little bit longer for new reviews from me, I'm afraid. How did everyone else enjoy the holiday yesterday, anyway?

Everybody knows, everybody knows, everybody knows: Graeme only lives a day from the 6/27

Happy Independence Day, Americans. Congratulations on getting rid of all those British bastards, other than those of us who came back years later because we, too, were sick of Britain. Do you mind if I take advantage of the day-later-new-comic-shipping to finish up with this week's books?

DAREDEVIL #98: Hey, look! She's not dead after all! Brubaker and team follow up on the advertised peril for Matt's wife Milla with a tense one-issue take on the "a hero pushed to the edge" theme that works because it is only one issue, and because it doesn't end the way you might expect. Good, but - and this is nitpicking - that cover was kind of generic and off-putting after some of the great ones we've seen lately, wasn't it?

FANTASTIC FOUR #547: Dwayne McDuffie, you are to be congratulated for taking a book like the FF, bringing it back to its old school roots and making it work - Finishing this issue with the explosion of... well, something, alongside a caption from the Wizard (of all people) proclaiming "the end of the Fantastic Four!" was a wonderfully welcome piece of cheese that capped off a pretty Good issue overall. McDuffie manages to convey the idea that the FF are an extended family rather than traditional teammates without having someone come out and tell the audience as usually happens, and the mix of comedy and drama here - ably handled by the equally old-school Paul Pelletier - feels more in tune with the series (and the Marvel Universe in general) than all of the police state nonsense happening elsewhere. I'm dreading what happens after this team leaves, though.

THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #6: Really, remarkably Excellent; I can't get my head around the fact that this book has become one of my favorite titles out there right now, but this final chapter of "book one" (according to the last panel of the issue) is a perfect example of the mix of action, humor and fast-moving mysticism that keeps me coming back issue after issue. The fact that David Aja's art is really something special (and keeps getting better) doesn't hurt either.

SHE-HULK #19: So, wait, this all happens after World War Hulk? Doesn't explicitly stating that a couple of times, kind of... I don't know... suck a lot of tension out of WWH, considering that the Earth seems to be pretty much the same as it did before the Hulk invaded, and Iron Man's definitely not dead and all? Not that I expected anything else, but it seems somewhat self-defeating to have one of your books come out and outright state those things before the second issue of your massive event comic has even come out. That said, I see why that swerve had to be done; it'd be hard to leave the series on the same comedic tone as you started within the current MU framework... Shame that the results are so Eh, however.

SILVER SURFER: REQUIEM #2: You don't need to read this (beautifully-painted, but essentially boring) comic; I'll summarize it thusly: "So, Spider-Man: Would you like to ride my surfboard?" "No thanks, but I'm sure my wife would." "...Okay then." "Awesome!" That's pretty much all there is. It's very pretty, but Eh on every other scale, cosmic or otherwise.

SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #31: New writer Tony Bedard may think that he's tying up some loose ends from Mark Waid's run, but "where is Cosmic Boy" really isn't one of them - What happened to him in Waid's last issue was one of the best things about that issue, and it's depressing to see it discarded so quickly, especially in favor of what looks to be a pretty Eh new status quo.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #1: The problem with this book isn't the execution - Jeff Parker's script is very cute, and Roger Cruz's art has some really nice touches (Remember when he was a Jim Lee clone? He's a million miles from that now, thankfully) - but with the lethargy about the concept in the first place. Monthly retro tales from when the series wasn't popular at all? How do you sell that to the legions of readers out there who would rather read about Wolverine's mohawked son? It's a shame, because this is a fun little book that deserves a wider audience than it'll probably receive, thanks to the crowded X-franchise and the not-especially-outstanding Eric Nguyen cover. For some reason, I think that digest collections will be where this series will prosper; charming one-offs seem more weighty in anthologies, if you ask me. Good, if light.

PICK OF THE WEEK is Iron Fist, and even if the whole comic hadn't been awesome, Misty's line about loving "that crazy white girl so much I could holler" would've probably gained the crown alone. PICK OF THE WEAK is Return To Wonderland, because, well, ick. TRADE OF THE WEEK for me is tough, because I've been working through Green Apple purchases, so for me it's probably been the Comics Journal Library Vol. 1: Jack Kirby collection of essays and interviews, because you can never have too much Kirby. Tomorrow: The New Comics Mainstream. Or something.

That's why I persist while others can resist temptation: Graeme continues to Countdown, despite his best intentions.

So, really, now that we're at #44, can we start to think about what's wrong with COUNTDOWN? Eight issues in, and there's only one plot that really working for me - Jimmy Olsen discovering his crazy superpowers and not being all angst-ridden about the whole thing. Which, considering all the other plots that are also in the book at this point (Mary Marvel gets her powers from Black Adam, the Flash villains do... um... something, Holly from Catwoman also does something, and there's lots of multiverse things going on that are somewhat unclear), isn't a really good sign. Maybe not so coincidentally, Jimmy's story is also the only one in the series that doesn't rely on you reading another comic to understand it - Even if you didn't know who Jimmy was, you could still understand the basic "someone seems to get magic powers when they least expect it" sequence of events. Everything else in the book fails to hold onto your interest because it's not about anything other than other comic books, and in order for that old trick to work, it takes more skill and humor that this book offers.

That's what's so depressing about this comic, I think; that so much of it feels as if it's the comic equivalent of a circle jerk. When more than half of the comic reads as though you have to have read other comics to understand it and read plenty more to understand what's going to happen - And with at least three spin-offs with "Countdown" in the title due to appear in the next few weeks, there's definitely the feeling that you'll be needing plenty more than the next 44 issues of this series in order to get the whole story, which seems more than slightly overwhelming at this stage of the game, considering how offputting and insider the story itself seems. The idea of keeping up with this series just in terms of what's happening, never mind being sympathetic to any characters or whatever, is exhausting in and of itself in a way that 52 never was. This was something that I seem to remember Dan DiDio using as a selling point for Countdown, pre-launch; that it would be able to interact with the rest of the DC Universe instead of staying in its own missing-year "bubble". The only problem with that is that what should be used as an occasional easter egg and/or gag seems to have become the entire purpose of the whole enterprise, replacing things like "plot" or "characterization."

(Also, am I the only person who's surprised at the way that Countdown seems to be so devoid of either of those, considering the writers involved? Sure, Tony Bedard, Sean McKeever, Adam Beechen et al may not be Grant Morrison, Mark Waid or the other 52 writers, but they're still not exactly talentless - Even allowing for the group voice model, I'm surprised that we've not seen flashes of each writer's personality come through at any point yet.)

I ended up buying the first issue of Countdown (much to Hibbs' amusement, given my review of it), thinking that it was something that I'd want to reread down the line in bigger batches. The second issue put paid to that notion, but at this stage, two months in, I kind of wish I'd kept up with it and could read the first eight issues all at once to see if the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Despite everything, I want to like the book, partially because of my continued 52-related goodwill. It's just that, with every Awful issue, I feel as if that gets harder and harder.

Arriving THURSDAY 7/5

Remember: because of 4th of July, comics will be on THURSDAY this week. If you go into your LCS on Wednesday, they will only point at you and laugh.

2000 AD #1541 2000 AD #1542 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #61 (A) ACTION COMICS #851 ACTION COMICS 3D VAR #851 ALL NEW ATOM #13 (CD) ALL STAR SUPERMAN #8 AMERICAN VIRGIN #16 ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #2 ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN DIRECTORS CUT #1 BETTY & VERONICA #228 BLACK CANARY #1 (OF 4) BLACK DIAMOND #2 (OF 6) CAPTAIN AMERICA #25 DIRECTORS CUT CITY OF OTHERS #3 (OF 4) COUNTDOWN 43 CREATURE FROM THE DEPTHS (ONE SHOT) DANGER GIRL BODY SHOTS #4 (OF 4) DAREDEVIL BATTLIN JACK MURDOCK #2 (OF 4) DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN #6 (OF 7) DETECTIVE COMICS #834 DEVI #12 DYNAMO 5 #5 EXTERMINATORS #19 FAKER #1 (OF 6) FALLEN SON DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA IRON MAN FANTASTIC FOUR AND POWER PACK #1 (OF 4) FINAL GIRL #3 (OF 5) GARTH ENNIS CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD #5 (OF 6) INTO THE DUST #1 IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN #10 WWH JONAH HEX #21 JUGHEAD AND FRIENDS DIGEST #21 JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #35 LONERS #4 (OF 6) LOONEY TUNES #152 MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #29 MARVEL ZOMBIES ARMY OF DARKNESS #5 (OF 5) MIDNIGHTER #9 MS MARVEL #17 CWI NEW AVENGERS TRANSFORMERS #1 (OF 4) NEW WARRIORS #2 CWI NIGHTWING #134 OUTSIDERS #49 PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #113 PIRATES VS NINJAS II UP THE ANTE PIRATE CVR #1 (OF 8) PS238 #24 PUNISHER #49 PUNISHER PRESENTS BARRACUDA MAX #5 (OF 5) RAY HARRYHAUSEN PRESENTS 20 MILLION MILES MORE #1 RUNAWAYS #27 SCALPED #7 SIMPSONS SUPER SPECTACULAR #5 STAR TREK KLINGONS BLOOD WILL TELL #3 SUPERGIRL #19 SUPERNATURAL ORIGINS #3 SYNCOPATED COMICS VOL 3 TALES FROM THE CLIT (A) THOR #1 TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD IMAGE ED #7 (NOTE PRICE) ULTIMATE POWER #6 (OF 9) UNCANNY X-MEN #488 UNCLE SCROOGE #367 WALT DISNEYS COMICS & STORIES #682 WARD O/T STATE #3 (OF 3) WELCOME TO TRANQUILITY #8 WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO FEEDBACK (ONE SHOT) Y THE LAST MAN #57

Books / Mags / Stuff 10 20 & 30 VOL 1 GN (RES) AMAZING TRANSFORMATIONS OF JIMMY OLSEN TP ANITA BLAKE VH GUILTY PLEASURES VOL 1 HC DM ED BATMAN EGO AND OTHER TALES HC CAPTAIN AMERICA WAR & REMEMBRANCE TP NEW PTG CATWOMAN 13 INCH DELUXE COLLECTOR FIGURE COLLECTED NORMALMAN TP CONAN HALL O/T DEAD & OTHER STORIES VOL 4 TP DAMNED VOL 1 THREE DAYS DEAD TP DRAGON HEAD VOL 7 GN (OF 10) ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS VOL 3 TP FOLLOWING CEREBUS #10 (RES) GEN 13 BEST OF A BAD LOT TP GIRLS & GODDESSES PIN UP ART OF JOSEPH MICHAEL LINSNER HC GOLDEN AGE DR FATE ARCHIVES VOL 1 HC GOOSEBUMPS GRAPHIX VOL 2 TERROR TRIPS SC GUNSMITH CATS BURST VOL 2 TP INVADERS CLASSIC VOL 1 TP INVINCIBLE VOL 8 MY FAVORITE MARTIAN TP JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL 8 TP KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE VOL 19 TP MARVEL VAULT MUSEUM IN A BOOK SPIRAL HC OUTSIDERS VOL 6 PAY AS YOU GO TP PTOLUS CITY BY THE SPIRE VOL 1 TP REX LIBRIS TP SILVERFISH HC TEZUKAS BUDDHA VOL 8 JETAVANA SC UNION JACK LONDON FALLING TP USAGI YOJIMBO VOL 21 MOTHER OF MOUNTAINS TP

We also recieved (from Baker & Taylor) FLIGHT v4, Douglass Wolk's READING COMICS, and... hm, what was the other thing... oh yeah, a Fox?atomic prelude to THE HILLS HAVE EYES. That doesn't count what will come in tomorrow from B&T either...

What looks good to you?

-B

Don't just succumb to the wishes of your brothers: A quick look at Wonder Woman #10.

WONDER WOMAN #10: Poor Jodi Picoult. I know that her run hasn't been met with anything resembling critical acclaim, but holy crap, was she given a pretty shitty set of circumstances to work in. First off, she ends up having two fill-in artists within her five issue run, and then a crossover comes in midway through her run completely derailing anything close to whatever coherent story she was attempting to write - The fact that her final issue on the book offers no sense of resolution (and, in fact, ends with a cliffhanger that I honestly have no idea in which book it'll be followed up on - Here or Amazons Attack? Or neither?) just kind of offers a perfectly scale model of why Picoult was pretty much screwed on this gig no matter how great her writing was. Way to go, DC. Your first female writer on Wonder Woman's solo book, and you made sure that she had a completely unsuccessful run that you're still putting out as an expensive hardcover collection with her name in big letters on the cover to try and convince people to buy it nonetheless. "Sigh," as they say.

This issue is pretty much Crap, for multiple reasons, almost none of which have anything to do with the talents of any of the creators involved. Because of what the editorial powers-that-be at DC want, pretty much nothing actually happens in this issue, with the one plot development managing to be undone in the issue of Amazons Attack! that also shipped this week (which, to be complete, is Eh, and equal filler. But at least it's the middle of a run), and the feeling of "who cares?" pretty much dominates the entire experience (DC definitely doesn't seem to).

Poor Jodi Picoult. Gail Simone, I hope you get better treatment.

Stable as a castle made of sand: Graeme meets a book that he really dislikes...

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES: RETURN TO WONDERLAND #1: There's something about this comic that makes me feel guilty in a way that not even the ridiculous breastage of Madame Mirage managed. I was amused to read the Newsarama review of the book and see the reviewers address, and then apologize for the gratuitousness of the book: "I just think the outfit and look of Calie on the cover screams SuicideGirls. That's what I thought when I saw it, and call me "horndog" if you must, but it caught my attention, and it appealed to me. The interior art had one questionable moment with the thong in question, but, I will say it was preceding actual sex, not a peek-a-boo as Calie was getting ready for school, or some such. I can guarantee that girls her age, in her shoes, wouldn't be wearing granny panties."

So maybe it's just me that thinks that it's kind of... offputting... to see the shot of the teenage girl half-naked, her ass on show to the audience, taking up half of the page by the second page of the story. Or, you know, the upskirt shot of the teenage girl a few pages later (which apparently isn't questionable, according to the reviewer above). Or perhaps it's all the cleavage shots of the teenage girl - including the shot from above, peering down into her cleavage - and the way that the artist continually accentuates her breasts even when it's a shot from behind the character (but when you show her from behind, then you get to show her thong peeking up from her low-riding jeans! "Bonus!"). Maybe I'm not thinking SuicideGirls enough, when I wonder what the all the T&A actually adds to the story, and all, but still. Dude. It's cheap thrills from a fictional high school girl's breasts and ass for no reason other than cheap thrills. Is it so wrong of me to feel like that's kind of... wrong?

I could go on about how bad the story is, and how unoriginal the entire story is, but it's really not worth the effort - We've all read multiple "dark takes" on Wonderland before, and we've also read the stereotypical troubled teen dealing with disaffected youth and uncaring parents thing, as well. The only thing that's worth mentioning is how unconvincing the whole thing is, and how little the writing attempts to make any of the characters sympathetic or even three-dimensional. It's entirely lazy and convinced of its own genius even as it lacks any shred of same. Add that kind of writing to such generic but exploitative art, and you're left with a book that's completely self-satisfiedly Ass.

It's not easy being green: Graeme crosses over from 6/27

WORLD WAR HULK: FRONTLINE #1 and WORLD WAR HULK: X-MEN #1: Yeah, and see, this is where the event starts to fall apart. You see, I can buy (and, for that matter, can enjoy) the whole “Hulk comes back to Earth and tears shit up” idea from what I’ve seen in the core book and the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk crossover issues, because it all ties together relatively well – the Hulk lands back on Earth with his alien buddies, and they’re all pretty pissed. They give the world 24 hours of warning, and then it’s on, including Iron Man getting beaten to crap. Fine. That makes sense.

But the idea that the Hulk has time for a side trip to Xavier’s School for Wacky Mutant Children and Adults, because he wants to ask Xavier whether he would’ve voted with the Illuminati members who sent him off the island… Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me. And it doesn’t work for multiple reasons – When did he decide to do this? How does he know that Xavier was part of the Illuminati in the first place (I thought he just knew that the four characters were responsible for sending him off-planet, not that they were four members of a secret society for which he knew the entire line-up)? Why does it matter whether Xavier would’ve voted with the other members or not (If Xavier says “No,” then is the Hulk going to say “Yeah, okay. Thanks,” and then leave?) – Doesn’t it seem a bit calculated to think of doing this in the first place, therefore cutting down on the “He’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!” pitch of the event? That’s really the main problem of the X-Men spin-off; that it feels like an add-on, as opposed to something that’s part of the main event, and an add-on that doesn’t really care about story logic or consistency as much as it cares about shoe-horning another X-Men series into the sales projections for the year. Awful

That said, the Frontline series is even worse. After a reasonably suspenseful opening – I like the paranoia of wondering where the pigeons have gone – the book that loses focus entirely. The aliens are giving people their guns in exchange for beer? Manhattan doesn’t get entirely evacuated after all (Wasn’t that a plot point in both World War Hulk #1 and the Iron Man tie-in, that it was completely evacuated)? Or, weirder still, the police department is working with the alien invaders after someone steals something from one of the invaders? What the Hell is that? And, maybe more to the point, if Paul Jenkins didn’t have anything resembling a coherent plot for this series, then why is he the one writing it? Very, very Crap, and more proof that it never pays to be optimistic about the possibilities of Marvel not managing to run an enjoyable crossover into the ground with unnecessary and badly done spin-off series.