Some burbling from Hibbs (new business)

Besides the time pressures lately (once we get used to this Kinder schedule, things should be smoother), I've been kind of unimpressed with most of the comics I've been reading lately. Its not even that I hate them or anything -- that's always worth a few inches -- but just that I've been feeling "Meh" about most stuff I'm reading.

It could be the lack of sleep, or it could just be me getting (more) jaded, I dunno.

So I'm really happy that in the last week or so I've read two things that fill me with enough love and joy to actually sit down and write!

We've received both of these books from Baker & Taylor, so I couldn't tell you if they've made it through Diamond's system yet, but both are well worth seeking out:

BURMA CHRONICLES HC: This is Guy Delisle's third "travelogue" book (the previous two are PYONGYANG: A JOURNEY IN NORTH KOREA and SHENZHEN: A TRAVELOGUE FROM CHINA). I quite liked the first, but thought the second was kind of flat. Maybe because North Korea is more mysterious than China? Maybe because there's more dramatic tension (such as one can get in an autobiographical comic!) in the repressive dictatorship than the less-repressive China? Maybe more interesting incidents happened in the first than the second?

Hard to say, but BURMA CHRONICLES, Delisle has a big return to form, with my enjoying this even more than I liked PYONGYANG.

This time through, incidents are often more fragmented from one another, and with a significant portion of the book being one-page relations, Delisle perhaps acts more like a cartoonist, and tries to find a punchline in each vignette.

Delisle's cartooning is deceptively simple, but there's a few places where his mastery of craft is really clear -- especially in comparison to some of the "bad panels" he shows (from lack of proper ink to draw with, or tendinitis at one point)

What I like best about these books is they both teach me something new, as well as being entertaining in their own right. Delisle comes off as an extremely entertaining person who'd you'd love to be seated next to at a dinner party while he regales you with stories of his trips. This is EXCELLENT stuff, and I highly recommend it.

My one complaint: the book is in a different format than the previous two (no dust-jacket [which I actually prefer] and just a little physically shorter), and isn't going to look as nice on the bookshelf.

TAMARA DREWE: Posy Simmond's new book isn't exactly "new" -- it's been out in the UK for at least a year, maybe more, but it is just coming out in the US now.

What a masterpiece!

It's sort of 1/3 prose, from three different characters thoughts, with a mix of panel narrative and single piece counterpoints to the text. It is bold, it is supremely assured, and I think it is the best piece of comic-ing that I've read this year.

The story sounds a little dull on summary -- it is about a writer's retreat and the characters that live in and around it, and how they react to return to the area of the book's title character, but it is sharp and expressive and extremely rich and vivid in detailing that world and the characters in it. I also liked how the book is ABOUT Tamara Drewe, but that the narrative focuses mostly on characters around her orbit.

I got lost in some of the British slang in a few places (thankfully, they explained what "paps" were a few pages on), and I think the TWO deaths at the end of the book lost some impact being piled upon each other, but otherwise I absolutely adored this comic, and give it my strongest possible recommendation. EXCELLENT!

What did YOU think?

-B

Some burbling from Hibbs (old business)

I'm off the school hook this morning as Tzipora is taking Ben in, so hurray I can babble for a bit!

Some old business first, before I say anything about comics...

1) The Bendis/Kirkman debate thing. They're both right (as such things usually go) -- it is EXTREMELY difficult to solely do creator-owned material and make a proper living from it, but when it works, it works amazingly well.

In a way, there are two kinds of comics shops, which for the purpose of this conversation, I'll call "leaders" and "followers". Leaders are always on the make for new voices and new ideas, and are pretty active in trying to identify new talent and to support them. Followers aren't interested in a work (and/or creator) until AFTER it's already broken elsewhere, so their risk is minimal. Getting through those first few ugly months of sales (Bendis' three-issue drop) is nearly entirely a function of the Leaders. I've long suggested that the real trick is making through your first 9-18 releases (largely depending on both how good you are, as well as your production schedule), until the Followers figure out there's something going on there, and that's the point you can start to profit from your creator owned work.

Doing "mainstream" Marvel/DC work generally does very little for your creator-owned profile, with a couple of rare exceptions where your first "notices" are coming from the M/D work. Mark MIllar might be a fairly OK example of that -- prior to his M/D work, there was very little "head turning" indy work from him. Sure, he got a little attention for SAVIOUR, but that never lasted long enough (or finished the story, even) to make much of a real mark. It was through doing increasingly higher profile material at M/D that got eyes on him for creator-owned material. But it is a rare creator that can do that because what you bring with you are associations from your M/D work.

See, generally speaking, in today's market (pretty much from the 90s on) any "base" you build from M/D work comes from the characters first, and the creative voice second, unless there's something strikingly different about that voice. Not a lot of guys really have that special thing, or rare alignment of circumstances to make it all work.

What I always tell creators is to build their own brand, a brand of themselves, rather than hoping that the M/D brands will rub off upon them. Bendis, for example, became hotter than sin as a M/D guy, to the point where he's one of the prime architects of the Marvel U. His sales on POWERS, meanwhile, haven't had any appreciable bumps, relative to the book being published by Image -- at least not the kind you'd hope for when you can say "FROM THE WRITER OF SECRET INVASION!" (or whichever) on the cover, y'know? Either way, "his" brand is inextricably tied with Marvel's brand right now.

Very generally, when a creator makes a reputation from M/D books that is translatable to creator-owned work, it isn't from the Big Books, but from the Quirky stuff. The audience for Spider-Man and X-Men or whatever isn't portable to your creator-brand recognition. The audience for the books/characters that people have written off can be.

Dunno if this is making any sense, it's too early in the morning.

2) The MINX thing. One thing to consider is that the "teen" reader devouring all of that Manga really really seem to be attracted to series, rather than titles or creators -- what they appear to be looking for is something they can read for a good long time, that comes out on a fairly regular basis to fill that jones. One-off titles don't show any great evidence of being popular in that demo. While some of the Minx books did eventually develop (or at least start to develop) sequels, the line was positioned very much as stand-alone books.

Spurgeon mentioned that he thought some of the demise might have come from the spending they did at the launch, and not getting the return they wanted from that, but that doesn't really sound like a DC thing to me -- they're usually pretty good at the Long Game.

In the DM, Minx looked like it was doing pretty well, to me -- probably enough to carry the line for a good while longer, so I think it's fair to think the problem is the bookstores.

I don't KNOW if any of this is right, but here's my educated guess. In the DM DC offered some big incentives to get stores to stock the books, so I suspect they did the same in the bookstore market. Bookstores, however, are a returnable market. My guess is what happened is that they way front-loaded copies into the bookstore market, and that most of them came back. I suspect that the Minx books had decent sales, relative to similar work from say, Vertigo (the OGN line, I mean), but that the big returns coming back made it so that any profit there, as well as the profit from the DM, was wiped out. Further, Vertigo-style OGNs launch first as a $25 (ish) HC, followed by $15 (ish) PB -- Minx books were only $10. The smaller trim size would make them a little cheaper to print, but probably not 1/3 less.

Retailers, in any market, fear the Stench of Death from a line. Once you're on our "bad producer" list (be that from quality, or policy), it's really hard to get off of it. Sometimes that designation comes from PERCEPTION, rather than reality. That is to say, you might not be looking at the number of copies that you sold as much as the number you SENT BACK. "Oh," you think, using imaginary and made up numbers, "normally I return 5-10%, and I've been returning 30-40% here; wow this line has the Stench of Death, let's cut back my orders to be REALLY tight"

It doesn't matter so much that you sold a modest and sustainable number of copies -- you THINK the line is a flop. In the DM you can see this sometimes in stores that don't do cycle sheets, where they "eyeball" the rack for sales -- if you see too big of a stack left over, you THINK a book isn't selling, and tend to cut it below it's actual market value.

My guess (and purely a guess) is that the actual sales of the line were probably good enough to keep it going on its own, but that the perception of the line meant that it needed to be a "hit" in order to keep going, and that the initial wave of returns were too high because the expectations for line were oversold...

Frack, I've been writing for 90 minutes? Got to jet over to the store to open. Back with some actual reviews in a few hours (it's a small enough week for comics that I'm sure I'll have time to bat them out)

Be right back!!

-B

Reviews And A Lot Of Other Mental Detritus

I know, I know. I've been gone for far too long again. What can I say? I've been busy. But just as my last appearance here was to tell you 50 things I love about comics, I'm giving you another list this time: 25 Entirely Random Thoughts About Comics From My Past Week. Feel free to rip apart any of these in the comments; that's what they're there for.

1. The Minx closure is just depressing, for reasons that Chris Butcher puts his finger on, in part, here. I'm nowhere near the target market for this line, but I enjoyed almost all of the books to varying degrees (including Clubbing, which seems to get beaten up in almost all write-ups for some reason. Yes, the art was on the sterile side, but I loved the writing. Also, despite what Johanna thinks, the line did have at least one person who loved it: my wife, who eagerly devoured each new release), and think that it was a wonderful balance to the genre-heavy rest of DC's output (Also, format-wise, I loved the $10 for a small OGN price point). I hope that everything that was already in the works for the line ends up at a new home somewhere.

2. Again to agree with Chris Butcher, the early closure of Minx has got to make Vertigo Crime editor Will Dennis very nervous about how his imprint is going to perform. That can't be fun, knowing that your line may have less than two years to prove itself.

3. While I'm talking about Minx: The second Plain JANES book, JANES IN LOVE, was much better than the first, even though I'm not sure I could coherently explain why. The writing was tighter and had a much stronger narrative arc, the art was - I don't know... weirder? More individual? More Jim Rugg-y? It felt more honest, less attempting to be generic, if that makes sense - and the book as a whole had a much greater sense of purpose than the first. Me, I thought it was Very Good.

4. On the other hand, THE NEW YORK FOUR disappointed the Local fan in me. That's not Ryan Kelly's fault (if anything, his art in this was stronger than in his Local issues), but Brian Wood's, and for the same reason that The Plain JANES disappointed: the book just stopped, as opposed to finishing. Obviously, a sequel was planned - and is being worked on as I type, I believe - but it doesn't stop this otherwise enjoyable (The guidebook commentary in particular is a nice touch, and Wood manages to bring some humanity to what could've otherwise just been a bunch of stereotypes) book from slamming on the brakes so suddenly at the end that you probably hit your head off the metaphorical dashboard. A high Okay, sadly.

5. My favorite new series to have appeared recently are both Vertigo books - House of Mystery and Air. Does this mean that we're headed back to a period where Vertigo is putting out a lot of good, surprising work again, or just that I'm getting old?

6. AIR's second issue is better than its first, by far (A high Good compared to an Okay, if you're going by that scale); I got sent previews of the first five issues from DC just after the first issue came out, and the fourth issue in particular just made me a massive fan of the series - which made me somewhat sad, because how many people will stick around to the fourth issue in this kind of market? Nonetheless, if you've bought the first two issues and feel like you're still on the fence, stick around until the fourth before you make a decision.

7. No, I can't tell you what it was about the fourth issue that I liked so much without ruining the surprise. Sorry.

8. The comic I'm most looking forward to read that's currently in my (growing) to-do pile? Andy Ristaino's massive The Babysitter, which just blew my mind leafing through the oversized, densely-packed, pages.

9. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's FANTASTIC FOUR #560 just continues their lackluster attempt at being imaginative without, you know, actually coming up with anything new. When The World's Greatest Comic Magazine reads as if it's stolen its plot from Heroes, which in itself stole its plot from "Days of Future Past," then that's not a good thing. It's such a... dull book, now. Not just in the sense of being boring (although it is; it's slow and unsurprising and unamusing, all of which the ideal Fantastic Four comic should never be), but also in terms of the visuals, with Hitch's overly-rendered, awkward figures buried under coloring that seems like sludge. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Marvel's offices to see discussions about this run - it's not in the top 20 best selling books, generating next to no buzz, and has roughly the same readership as Dwayne McDuffie's run. Is it a failure, considering what was expected? Oh, and Awful.

10. I've been reading a lot of Essentials lately, so part of my mind is convinced that it's not really the FF unless Joe Sinnott is inking, admittedly.

11. Also from reading so many Essentials: Ed Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA #42 is both Good and completely influenced by Steve Englehart's run on the book from the mid-70s - He even brought back crazy 1950s Cap! It's not just the cast (The Falcon, Sharon Carter, Red Skull and Arnim Zola? Come on); there's something about Bucky's character and the constant questioning himself about whether he's worthy enough of Steve Rogers' legacy that's 100% Englehart-esque. All of which is a good thing, in case you were wondering.

12. In fact, between Brand New Day, Brubaker's Captain America and Dan Slott's plans for Mighty Avengers , Marvel's really going for a return for the 1970s these days. You could even argue that things like Secret Invasion and even Civil War are just longer, slower, versions of the kind of quasi-political things that Englehart and co. were trying to do back then, only taken much more seriously and to greater extremes. This can only mean one thing: Dark Reign is what happens when America is taken over the elf with a gun.

13. That said, four ongoing mainstream continuity Avengers books is insanity. Especially when you know that they'll all end up coming out on the same week. Which'll also be the same week that Invincible Iron Man and Captain America come out.

14. Completely random observation: Marvel events are all about bringing the books together and setting a coherent tone and overall plot for the universe going forward, but DC events are all about trying to launch different plots and tones - Look at One Year Later or all the different titles that have the Final Crisis branding.

15. DC's variety is never played up as the strength that it should be. The Batbooks aren't like the Superman books aren't like Wonder Woman, Flash (which is, admittedly, a bit schizophrenic in and of itself right now) and Green Lantern, etc. etc. - Why isn't this seen as a good thing by fandom at large? When a Marvel book comes through that is genuinely different and not smothered by the frowny self-importance of the Marvel Universe Status Quo Du Jour (like Hellcat or The Immortal Iron Fist, say), it seems much more of a surprise and like it's somehow slipped through the cracks... why can't DC play their books up as a whole line full of such happy surprises?

16. I just realized: Kathryn Immonen should write Fantastic Four.

17. TRINITY (#17 of which came out this week) reads really well in chunks - It's the DC event book for people who think that Final Crisis makes them think too much - but really poorly in single-issues (The most recent issue, when taken on it's own, for example, is just an Eh). When fight scenes last more than an issue, even with the shortened page-lengths of the split book format, then you should know that something's wrong. Also, is it just me, or does it feel as if the Busiek/Bagley strip is taking up less and less of the book as the series progresses? I don't think that it actually is, but it always seems to give the impression of being over too quickly.

18. If I were in charge of collections at DC, I'd put Trinity into a series of quick and cheap trades immediately, so people can realize that it really does read much more smoothly when you read a month or so at once.

19. Also, Mike Carlin? Page 7 of #17 isn't a third of the way through a 52 issue series. That'd be page 7 of #18. 17 x 3 = 51, remember?

20. My not-so-secret anymore shame: Brand New Day Spider-Man has grown on me. I'm sorry, but I'm a sucker for Spider-Man Done Right, and if you can get over the whole "they invalidated Peter's marriage and continuity oh no," this comes pretty close to it being done right in my eyes (It's not perfect, mind you, but it's enjoyable). New Ways To Die is almost undoing that, however, so there's still hope for my cynical side to win out.

21. Talking of New Ways To Die: A six-part story told in a comic that comes out three times a month and we really have to wait four weeks for the last part? How did anyone let that happen?

22. Why the hell is the internet suddenly bothered about whether or not Peter Parker slept with Betty Brant thirty years ago?

23. You know, it's kind of hard to argue with this year's Harvey Award winners. Congratulations, Doug! (And also Bryan, Brian, Darwyn and everyone involved in All-Star Superman.)

24. I want an Absolute All Star Superman collection already.

25. I have felt so guilty about not writing for Savage Critics for so long that I have just spilled my mind onto the keyboard and forced all of you who've made it to the end to read the above. I'll try and post more regularly and more coherently in future. Honest.

Arriving 10/1/2008

I've been having my ass beaten by everything going on -- Kindergarten (I honestly think that we totally over-schedule kids these days), massive shipping weeks, planning for Ben's birthday (next weekend he's five, sheesh), finishing the order form and so on. I am totally crushed, and I guess my fellow Critics are too, since everyone has been on Radio Silence this week.

Assuming I get the order form done in a reasonable amount of time tomorrow (I'm past the brokered pubs, so it's looking alright), I'll be back tomorrow with a review or three, but for now it's just a shipping list.

Unlike last week, where we got crushed beneath the heel of TOO MANY FRICKIN' COMICS, here is a list of (comparatively) COMPLETE GASPING FAMINE. There's a handful of interesting comics, BUT STILL...!

2000 AD #1601
2000 AD #1602
2000 AD #1603
2000 AD #1604
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #90 (A)
ANITA BLAKE VH LAUGHING CORPSE #1 (OF 5)
ARMY @ LOVE THE ART OF WAR #3 (OF 6)
ARMY OF DARKNESS #13
AUTHORITY #3
BATMAN #680 RIP
BATMAN STRIKES #50
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ORIGINS #10
BETTY #176
BEYOND WONDERLAND #2 (OF 6)
BOYS #23
CABLE #7
CITY OF DUST #1 A CVR PARRILLO
CIVIL WAR HOUSE OF M #2 (OF 5)
DC UNIVERSE DECISIONS #2 (OF 4)
DEAD #1
DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #9 (RES)
EL DIABLO #2 (OF 6)
ETERNALS #5
FIRE & BRIMSTONE #2 (OF 5)
FUTURAMA COMICS #39
HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS THE KNOWLEDGE #4 (OF 5)
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #6
INVINCIBLE #53
JONAH HEX #36
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #25 (NOTE PRICE)
LOONEY TUNES #167
MAN WITH NO NAME #4
MANHUNTER #35
MARVEL APES #3 (OF 4)
NEW EXILES #12
NIGHTWING #149 RIP
NO HERO #1 (OF 7)
PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #125
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #24 SI
RED MASS FOR MARS #2 (OF 4) (RES)
SAVAGE DRAGON #138
SPIDER-MAN MAGAZINE #3
SUB-MARINER DEPTHS #2 (OF 5)
SUPERGIRL #34
TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #30
TERROR TITANS #1 (OF 6)
TOP TEN SEASON TWO #1 (OF 4)
TOR #6 (OF 6)
TRINITY #18
VENOM DARK ORIGIN #3 (OF 5)
VIXEN RETURN OF THE LION #1 (OF 5)
WITCHBLADE #121
WORLDS OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS #4 BALAN CVR A
ZERO G #1 (OF 4)
ZMD ZOMBIES OF MASS DESTRUCTION #2 (OF 6)

Books / Mags / Stuff
ALCOHOLIC HC
ALTER EGO #81
BLACK HEART BILLY COLOR ED TP
BLUE BEETLE TP VOL 04 ENDGAME
BOYS TP VOL 03
BROKEN GIRLS GN VOL 01
CAIRO SC
CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED HC 03 THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
COMPLETE CHESTER GOULDS DICK TRACY HC VOL 05
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS TP VOL 03
DARK TOWER LONG ROAD HOME HC
DEAD AT 17 TP VOL 04 13TH BROTHER (RES)
EVERYBODYS DEAD TP
FEMME FATALES VOL 17 #4
GHOST WHISPERER HAUNTED TP
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY WEDDING ALBUM HC
GREEN LANTERN REVENGE OF THE GREEN LANTERNS TP
HARVEY COMICS CLASSICS TP VOL 04 BABY HUEY
JESUS HATES ZOMBIES LINCOLN HATES WEREWOLVES GN VOL 01 (OF 4
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #276 (NOTE PRICE)
JUSTICE TP VOL 02
JUXTAPOZ VOL 15 #10 OCT 2008
LOCKE & KEY HC
MARVEL ZOMBIES TP SPIDER-MAN COVER
NEIL GAIMAN GRAVEYARD BOOK HC
NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE HC
NUMBER OF THE BEAST TP
PUNISHER MAX TP FROM FIRST TO LAST
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 04
SFX #174
SILENT LEAVES GN VOL 02 EXCEPTIONS TO LIFE
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ARCHIVES TP VOL 09
SPIRIT HC VOL 02
STAR TREK NEW FRONTIER TP
SUPERMAN THE THIRD KRYPTONIAN TP
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #170
ULTIMATE IRON MAN II PREM HC (RES)
VAMPIRELLA CRIMSON CHRONICLES MAXIMUM TP
VICTORIAN TP ACT 05 SELF EXSOULMENT
VIGNETTES DIRECTORS CUT TP

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Arriving 9/22/2008

Big week!

A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #89 (A)
ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #10
AMBUSH BUG YEAR NONE #3 (OF 6)
ANGEL REVELATIONS #5 (OF 5)
ARCHIE #589
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #192
AVENGERS INITIATIVE #17 SI
BACK TO BROOKLYN #1 (OF 5)
BART SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR #14
BARTHOLOMEW OF THE SCISSORS #1
BATMAN GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT #5 (OF 12)
BLACK PANTHER #41 SI
BLUE BEETLE #31
CAPTAIN AMERICA #42
CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #49
CHUCK #4 (OF 6)
CTHULHU TALES #5 CVR A
DAREDEVIL #111
DEAD AHEAD #1 (OF 3)
DEADPOOL #2 SI
FABLES #76
FANTASTIC FOUR #560
FANTASTIC FOUR TRUE STORY #3 (OF 4)
GOLLY #2
HELLBOY THE CROOKED MAN #3 (OF 3)
HULK #6
I KILL GIANTS #3 (OF 7)
IMMORTAL IRON FIST ORSON RANDALL DEATH QUEEN
JACK OF FABLES #26
JUGHEAD #191
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #46
MADAME XANADU #4
MARLOW SOUL OF DARKNESS #1
MARVEL 1985 #5 (OF 6)
MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #40
MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #3
MEAT CAKE #17
MS MARVEL #31
MY NAME IS BRUCE ONE SHOT
NECESSARY EVIL #8
NEW AVENGERS #45 SI
NEW WARRIORS #16
NINJA HIGH SCHOOL #163
NORTHLANDERS #10
NOVA #17 SI
PERHAPANAUTS #4
POWERS #30
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS #6 (OF 7)
PROOF #12
PS238 #34
PVP #40
REIGN IN HELL #3 (OF 8)
RESURRECTION #6
RUNAWAYS 3 #2
SAMURAI LEGEND #1 Of(4)
SCOOBY DOO #136
SECRET INVASION AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #2 (OF 3) SI
SHE-HULK 2 #33 SI
SKAAR SON OF HULK PRESENTS SAVAGE WORLD #1
SOLOMON KANE #1 (OF 5)
SONIC X #37
SPAWN #183
STAR WARS LEGACY #28 VECTOR PART 9 OF 12
SUPERMAN #680
SUPERMAN BATMAN #52
SUPERNATURAL RISING SON #6 (OF 6)
TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #52
TEEN TITANS #63
TERRY MOORES ECHO #6
THUNDERBOLTS #124 SI
TRINITY #17
UBU BUBU #3
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR X-MEN ANNUAL #1
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #126
ULTIMATES 3 #5 (OF 5)
UNCLE SCROOGE #379
USAGI YOJIMBO #114
VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS #1
WALT DISNEYS COMICS & STORIES #694
WASTELAND #20
WILDCATS #3
WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS #7
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #28
WOLVERINE ROAR
X-FORCE #7
X-MEN LEGACY #216
YOUNGBLOOD #5
ZORRO #7

Books / Mags / Stuff
100 BULLETS TP VOL 12 DIRTY
ABSOLUTE RONIN HC
BACK ISSUE #30
BARKS ROSA COLL TP VOL 03 GOLDEN HELMET CHARTS COLUMBUS
BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE TP VOL 03
BLACK PANTHER TP BACK TO AFRICA
BLACK SUMMER TP
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG #72 BLACK WIDOW
COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 10 1969-1970
COMPLETE TERRY & THE PIRATES HC VOL 04 1941 1942
CONAN HC VOL 06 HAND OF NERGAL
CONAN TP VOL 06 THE HAND OF NERGAL
DRAW #16
GEEK MONTHLY VOL 2 #10
HELP IS ON THE WAY TP
INCUBUS GN VOL 03 (A)
JLA SALVATION RUN TP
KINGDOM COME TP NEW EDITION
MADAME MIRAGE TP VOL 01
MARVEL BOY PREM HC
MASCOT TO THE RESCUE YR NOVEL
MINIONS OF KA GN
PREVIEWS VOL XVIII #10
PUNK ROCK & TRAILER PARKS GN
RED ROCKET 7 TP (IMAGE ED)
SHOWCASE PRESENTS METAL MEN TP VOL 02
SPIDER-MAN FAMILY TP ITSY BITSY BATTLES DIGEST
STAR TREK ARCHIVES TP VOL 01 BEST OF PETER DAVID
STAR WARS CLONE WARS TP VOL 01 SHIPYARDS OF DOOM
SUBLIFE GN
UNCANNY X-MEN TP DIVIDED WE STAND
WIZARD MAGAZINE #205 GREEN LANTERN CVR
WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS TP ROOKIE
WONDER WOMAN THE CIRCLE HC
ZOMBIE-SAMA ONE SHOT

What looks good to YOU?

-B

God's in his Heaven - All's right with the world!

All Star Superman #12

This is the last issue of this series, barring future specials or two-issue story bursts from writer Grant Morrison and various unknown possible artists - regardless, it surely is an ending. A GOOD one, as a single issue, if sapped of immediacy by Morrison's rigorous prior explorations of his themes, in more interesting single issues (I'm thinking #10). Frank Quitely & Jamie Grant do keep the pace nicely -- which means some fine physical poise and a few helpfully low-detail clouds of dust in various backgrounds -- although this isn't so much a grand finale as a concluding step off the ledge into inevitability.

But then, the issue is titled Superman in Excelsis, so maybe a bit of godly distance is appropriate. And Morrison's approach to the Superman mythos is nothing if not Catholic! Allow me go into some detail, thus ruining all surprises forever. This is a capstone issue, one covering the top of Superman's tomb. Yes, he does die - sort of. He 'dies' in that he has to leave humanity to their own devices by becoming a prolonged temporary part of the sun -- poisoned by Solaris the Tyrant! -- thus joining fully with the source of his powers and literally shining his radiance down on Earth.

It's fully the end of Morrison's take on the character, one that saw him face down his mortality by confronting various doppelgängers and alternate visions of himself, to the eventual effect of his preparing humanity to take the next step without him; Morrison is maniacal in his enthusiasm for the character, gleefully pushing him in ever more heavenly directions, at one point having him literally create our universe -- presumably after this 'death' he rises again as Superman Prime, as per issue #6 and Morrison's own much-referenced Old Testament of JLA: One Million -- but his is a theology that realizes the day-by-day is utterly left to people, who have the potential to be like gods themselves.

But Superman knew that before he knew it, you know? As Our Hero noted way back in issue #2, concerning the gates to his mighty Fortress:

"One day some future man or woman will open that door with that key.

"When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes."

Knowing all we know now, the obvious suggestion is that superheroes will stop dropping from the sky into the heartland and start rising from the grass itself. Which isn't to say that no mortals at all can fly in the present:

I like that Morrison has characterized Lex Luthor as the world's most pompous skeptic -- because it's funny -- but I like even more that it isn't the skepticism that makes Luthor wicked - it's his unwillingness to use his obviously formidable talents to do anything but stroke his own persecution complex. As Quintum notes at the end of this issue, without a Superman to tangle with, Luthor simply fades away.

Oh, did anyone else think Quintum was somehow Luthor in disguise for most of this series? I sure did - that was my big secret theory. But I think Morrison has done something more interesting; if Luthor is Superman's most profound mirror image, then Quintum is ultimately Luthor's, being a mad genius who struggles to accomplish things ("...the measure of a man lies not in what he says but what he does," as the series' first collected volume opines), and generally needs Superman to haul his sorry rainbow ass out of trouble. He's completed a journey by the end of the series too, his similarities to Superman's foe finally representing humanity's progress in the post-Superman era, where a statue stands in a park like in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, although Morrison's story doesn't turn on any loss of powers from this world - just the opposite.

All of this, granted, doesn't make for so much a pleasing issue of a comic as an assurance that notions raised in prior issues would reach completion. Issue #12 itself is actually a pretty low-key thing, with nearly half its space given to an elegiac cruise with Jor-El over an erupting Krypton (cute reversal of the famously concise destruction sequence from issue #1), and a mostly plain Superman/Luthor final throwdown in a dim Metropolis (we don't see the deadly blue sun until the end); I wish there'd been less orthodox superhero hitting and more of Luthor's gradual awareness as to the nature of the universe due to his artificially heightened intellect.

In the end, he can only weep from the human enormity of it all; fascinatingly, Morrison then has Superman make the cynical (if not unfounded) assumption that Luthor is merely realizing how he's been outsmarted again, allowing some gentle ambiguity to linger regarding both icons' positions as Greatest Good and Greatest Ill. It does make sense from this series' point of view, dealing in archetypes but unwilling to let any character sit quite still in his or her prescribed roles (and feel free to insert your favorite enlightenment-through-drugs-in-a-Grant-Morrison-comic joke here).

I look forward to reading through this whole series again, carefully, from start to finish; I'm sure there's plenty of variations lurking around, not to mention one million allusions to other works that I've missed. Yet I also think it's a very simple story, one that certainly doesn't need every last image to be puzzled over and indexed. Quintum's final stroll may lead to a colorful solid wall on that last page, but I think it's plain enough that whatever's behind it will be the new humanity, the people to lift the half-million ton key, the genetic mix of man and superman that will be the true descendants of the man of the title, sometimes peeking their heads back into the past, in that undying spirit of aid. Inspired.

Hibbs' thought for the day

It's said that this week's ACTION and DCU: DECISIONS were also pulped because of some sort of other problem -- ACTION for showing Clark drinking beer on the cover. His bottle is now very glaringly labeled "SODA POP". You just know that Pa Kent has a moonshine still...

But DCU: DECISIONS is even weirder for me -- apparently it was to "de-Condi" one of the candidates, but between solicitation and publication, the cover suddenly now has a piece of graffiti on a wall that says "Heroes don't vote!" which, to me, is like 10,000 times worse than Clark drinking a brew, or Condi in the DCU. To me, I read it as "Hey kids, be a hero: Don't vote!"

*brrr*

God, I have to finish this Tilting I'm writing, more later.

-B

Arriving 9/17/2008

Here's what we're getting this week...

ACTION COMICS #869
AGE OF SENTRY #1 (OF 6)
AIR #2
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #12
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #572 NWD
ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #8
ATOMIC ROBO DOGS OF WAR #2 (OF 5)
BATGIRL #3 (OF 6)
BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #11 RIP
BETTY & VERONICA SPECTACULAR #85
BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #2
BIRDS OF PREY #122
BOYS CLUB #1
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #17
BROKEN TRINITY #2 KEOWN CVR B
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #5
CASEY BLUE BEYOND TOMORROW #5 (OF 6)
CASTLE WAITING VOL II #12
CHECKMATE #30
CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #3
DC SPECIAL CYBORG #5 (OF 6)
DC UNIVERSE DECISIONS #1 (OF 4)
DC WILDSTORM DREAMWAR #6 (OF 6)
DEAD SPACE #6 (OF 6)
FALL OF CTHULHU GODWAR #2 (OF 4) CVR A
FAMILY DYNAMIC #2 (OF 3)
FLASH #244
FOOLKILLER WHITE ANGELS #3 (OF 5)
FUZZ & PLUCK IN SPLITSVILLE #5 (OF 5)
GHOST RIDER #27
GLAMOURPUSS #3
GODLAND #25
GRAVEL #5 WRAP CVR
GREATEST HITS #1 (OF 6)
GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #5 SI
HELLBLAZER #247
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #121
INDIANA JONES & TOMB OF THE GODS #2
IRON MAN DIRECTOR OF SHIELD #33 SI
MAD MAGAZINE #494
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #28
MARVEL APES #2 (OF 4)
MIGHTY AVENGERS #18 SI
MOON KNIGHT #22
PUNISHER #62
RANN THANAGAR HOLY WAR #5 (OF 8)
ROBIN #178
SCALPED #21
SECRET INVASION THOR #2 (OF 3) SI
SIMPSONS COMICS #146
SKRULLS VS POWER PACK #3 (OF 4)
SPIKE AFTER THE FALL #3 (OF 4)
SPIRIT #21
SQUADRON SUPREME 2 #3
STAR TREK ASSIGNMENT EARTH #5
STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF OLD REPUBLIC #33 VINDICATION PART 2 OF
STORMWATCH PHD #14
SWORD #11
TANGENT SUPERMANS REIGN #7 (OF 12)
TINY TITANS #8
TITANS #5 (RES)
TRINITY #16
TRUE BELIEVERS #3 (OF 5)
UNCANNY X-MEN #502 MD
WALKING DEAD #52
WAR HEROES #2 (OF 6)
WORLD OF WARCRAFT #11
X-FACTOR #35
X-MEN FIRST CLASS VOL 2 #16
YOUNG X-MEN #6 MD
ZOMBIE TALES #5 CVR A

Books / Mags / Stuff
ABE SAPIEN TP VOL 01 THE DROWNING
ASTRO BOY TP VOL 1 & 2
CAPTAIN AMERICA TP VOL 02 DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA
CINEFEX #115 OCT 2008
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG IRON MAN MOVIE SPECIAL
COMICS BUYERS GUIDE #1647 NOV 2008
CRIMINAL MACABRE MY DEMON BABY TP
ESSENTIAL IRON MAN TP VOL 01 NEW PTG
GIANT ROBOT #55
HEAVY METAL NOVEMBER 2008 #119
HUSTLERS TABOO ILLUSTRATED #6 (A)
INCREDIBLE HERCULES AGAINST THE WORLD TP
INTO THE VOLCANO HC
JANES IN LOVE
JSA PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN TP
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA TP VOL 01 TORNADOS PATH
LEES TOY REVIEW #191 SEP 2008
LOCAL HC
LOVELESS TP VOL 03 BLACKWATER FALLS (RES)
MANGA SUTRA FUTARI H GN VOL 03 (OF 5) (A)
PANTHEON TP VOL 01 WELCOME TO THE MACHINE (RES)
PATH OF THE ASSASSIN TP VOL 13 HATEFUL BURDEN
POWER PACK TP DAY ONE DIGEST
SOUVLAKI CIRCUS HC
SUPERMAN KRYPTONITE HC
ULTRA TP VOL 01 SEVEN DAYS (NEW PTG)

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Retailing: You Fucking Asshole Cunts!

As everyone probably knows by now, the latest issue of ALL-STAR BATMAN had a unfortunate printing error where the black bars over numerous swear words printed too light, letting you see the swears underneath.

DC caught this only after the books were printed, in hand at Diamond, and already in the process of being distributed. They attempted to get the distribution ceased, but because of the mechanics of distribution, some copies (largely, but not exclusively, to those who get "early" delivery) made it to stores on the East Coast and Midwest and South. No one on the West Coast got any copies whatsoever.

Some percentage of stores who received these copies decided that, rather than destroy the copies, as DC comics asked (but could not, at least within the terms of their TOS, DEMAND -- there may be some other legal principle I am unaware of that they may have done so, I do not know), that they would sell them instead. Whether that percentage is 1% or 10% or 98% we have no way of knowing, though I imagine DC and Diamond will be able to come to a pretty fair estimation.

Some percentage of THAT group further decided, since we now have nationwide and international tools to sell material, to put these on the internet in places like eBay, and were therefore handed a free pile of fifty dollar bills.

I have to say that I think that the PEOPLE who bought those copies for, in some cases, over $100, are extremely foolish. A year for now, no one will care or remember, and you'll be lucky to get even $5 for them, but there you go.

This is going to be very costly for DC, in reprinting the book, and what I imagine is a few frenzied hours at Diamond as they tried to "unpull" as many copies as they could, but it has several pernicious effects on retailers as well. First off the "bad actors" (those who have no LEGAL reason to comply, decide they also have no MORAL one to do so) are all REWARDED for being such.

One such retailer is Mitch Cutler of St. Marks in New York. I'm not singling Mitch out because of any animus -- I actually quite like the man, and I shopped at his stores in the Summers as a teenager (My Mom lived across from Washington Square park) -- but because he was quoted in the New York Post:

"We've sold a lot," said store owner Mitch Cutler.

"We didn't destroy it because we couldn't know everyone would destroy it," Cutler said.

The comic is currently doing "Dark Knight"-like business on eBay, with copies selling for between $20 and $250.

Cutler was selling copies at his store for cover price, $2.99. "There's no need to inflate the price," he said. "It's wrong and evil and slimy."

The funny thing is that Mitch is trying to take the moral high ground, apparently thinking since he isn't hyper-inflating them he is the "good guy" in this.

The problem is that the "good actors" (that is, the ones who respect their trading partner's wishes, even though they have no compelling LEGAL reason to do so) then get screwed.

How?

1) Some percentage of customers, when faced with a store that has one of these, and one that does NOT have one of these will choose to take that week's custom to the "bad actor". Not JUST that issue, but, well, they're there already so why not pick up ALL of that week's comics? The stores that complied with DC's wishes are out of pocket not just on the mistake, but on a whole host of other comics. DM retailers, as always, buy non-returnable, so that's 100% out-of-pocket.

2) Some percentage of customers, when told either "Sorry, we never received it" or "Sorry, we've destroyed them as we were asked" will assume that the retailer is LYING, and will become angry. Angry customers are not good for business, either near- or long-term. Entire buying relationships can be disrupted over something like this, I've seen it happen many times before.

3) Our partners, both at the publishers and at Diamond, who many retailers have been working on for years, if not DECADES, in trying to make to-store distribution a little more sane, now have fresh ammunition to completely dismiss us. As one DC executive said on the CBIA this morning (and I paraphrase to stay within CBIA rules), "This is why we don't have street dates"

Well, fuck.

One of the most incredibly fucked up things about New Comics distribution is that we don't have a Street Date. Most stores in most places get Wednesday delivery, for Wednesday sale, wholly dependent on their shipping option. This means most stores are waiting around for a UPS truck, and that many stores are OPEN and full of customers clamoring for the comics while they're trying to count them in, pick and pull subs, merchandise the store, etc. This sucks, this really really really really sucks, and it's a huge waste of manpower and frustration levels. A massive pointless waste, with no upside.

It also means that if your shipping option FUCKS UP (rare, but not especially unique), and, say, loses your shipment, or delivers it 6 hours late, you're not 100% hosed on New Comics Day's sales.

A very small number of stores have Tuesday delivery -- most of these are chains who need the extra processing time to move product from a central hub to client stores. But due to a series of strange and unusual incidents in the Bay Area involving multiple distributors competing (pre-exclusives), many single-stores in the Area are "grandfathered in" for Tuesday shipments. I'm one of them.

I would never EVER EVER go back to Wednesday receipt. Seriously, I'd close my store rather than go back to that. It was hell, and I'm a decade older and a decade more out of shape, and shipment sizes in terms of line-items have done nothing but increase. I'm too old for that shit.

I've been a tireless advocate for Street Dates for, like, ever, and I think it would have nothing but benefit for the overwhelming majority of real comic book stores in running smooth and professional operations.

So, to Mitch Cutler, and every other retailer out that there that decided they should sell these copies of ALL-STAR BATMAN: Fuck You Very Much. Hurray, you've just pushed EVERY OTHER RETAILER IN THE COUNTRY back (at least) another five years! Great job! Thinking of yourself before the wishes of your partners or the rest of your industry ("We didn't destroy it because we couldn't know everyone would destroy it") means you've just painted EVERY OTHER RETAILER IN THE COUNTRY as an irresponsible fuckwit too. There's no doubt that any retailer who decided to mark those copies up is a far greater douchebag asshole, but you don't get any points for selling something you were asked not to for fucking cover price!

So thanks to you, one and all, who just had to go fuck it up for the rest of the retailers.

Cunts.

-B

Abhay's Sixth Review Of SKRULLS VERSUS NEW YORK Isn't Very Cheerful For Some Reason.

BEFORE WE JUMP: Are fans excited about the SECRET INVASION? Can I watch them be excited? Through binoculars? Part of the pleasure I hoped to have from SECRET INVASION was voyeuristic.

My emotional investment in the "Marvel Universe" is greater than an average person, true, but my suspicion is that it's far, far, far behind that of the dedicated fans. The guys who love that company. The guys who have a favorite superhero they’ve been reading about for years. The guys who own costumes, and try to talk girls into attending Comic-Cum 2008. The Marvel Zombie. The True Believer. The Huddled Masses. The guys who get blamed for every single thing that's gone wrong with comics.

Part of what I hoped would happen in reading this series, in writing about it every month, involving myself with it, watching fans, watching fans react to it, trying to be as excited as them-- part of what I hoped would happen was that a window might open for me to that enthusiasm. How can you not envy their enthusiasm? Didn’t I use to be more enthusiastic? Not just about Marvel Comics? About life?

So I say to myself, maybe it’s just a question of sense memory. Maybe I can remember how to be that person again, just by moving like he moved! Sure, that sounds completely wrong and doomed for failure, but: maybe a comic like SECRET INVASION could be a road back to some hypothetically more hopeful, more open, more eager person I imagine that I used to be. If I could feel excitement, unembarrassed excitement about something as dumb as a Marvel superhero comic book again, maybe I could take that feeling into other parts of my life; I could become a person unafraid to be unapologetically enthusiastic, again; I could bend spoons with my mind, Uri-Gellar-style. Maybe I'd find out something about Love. Maybe I'd find out that sometimes letting go is the only way to know what you need to hold onto. I didn't see the movie DAN IN REAL LIFE, but I really wanted this to be like the trailer for that.

I wanted SECRET INVASION to tell me that I deserve to be loved-- I don't think there's anything weird about that.

But, obviously, it hasn’t worked. It isn't working. Where's my enthusiasm? What's there to be enthusiastic about? Is anyone out there fired up about the SECRET INVASION? As far as I know, angry fans haven't even demanded anyone be fired once over SECRET INVASION -- demanding someone be fired is how they show their affection. Like Lennie petting the mouse from Of Mice and Men.

Instead, this crossover which should be completely exciting is all over-shadowed on the Internet on Wednesday by ALL-STAR BATMAN printing errors, which... Are you as excited by the ALL-STAR BATMAN printing errors as I am? It's the closest comics get to nip-slips. "Oooh, I shouldn't be seeing this, but I am, because of an 'accident'." It's not a printing error; it's a nip-slip!

The same day the ALL STAR BATMAN issue came out, photos came out of the very untalented Ms. Jennifer Aniston wearing a black dress that to her surprise became transparent when exposed to flash bulbs. Coincidence? Or cross-promotion?!

It's weird to know, after all these years, if those black bars on Batman's dialogue had been removed, we'd have found out that Batma was saying "Criminals are a shit-guzzling and cowardly lot of ax-wounds, who like to fuck babies in the ass while they're shitting even though their herpes sores are flaring-up" all along--? I knew those black bars were awfully big, but I didn't realize Batman was going so hog-wild under there, all these years.

How can SECRET INVASION compete with a nip-slip? By advancing the storyline another 2 whole minutes? Shya'right. But... Awww, hell, show me your nipples, SECRET INVASION #6.

AND NOW WE HAVE JUMPED:

What a fucking failure!

Wow: they just fucked that one up completely.

This comic really lacks the eye of the tiger, man. This isn’t Rocky Balboa at the end of ROCKY 3; this is Rocky Balboa at the beginning of ROCKY 3. This book is an exhibition match with Thunderlips.

Thunderlips, yo.

****

Finally! Finally, we get page after page attacking the true enemy: LIBERAL PROTESTERS.

Where the fuck did that shit come from??

Page after page, not of the first or second or even third issue, page after page of the SIXTH ISSUE-- it wasn’t spent escalating the stakes of the comic, it wasn't spent dealing with characters we care about, it wasn't spent paying off earlier scenes. The fucking SIXTH ISSUE was spent introducing an entirely new cast of straw-men liberal characters, and then attacking them for being naive about the nature of evil.

First, let me just say, on a political level, this comic can go fuck itself. You know-- one pretty easy way a person could read this comic if they were so inclined is that it equates protesting wars with supporting terrorism. I don't think the people who made the comic think that. I don't think they were thinking at all. I don't think they made a big priority of thinking.

Second, the liberal woman character is from INDEPENDENCE DAY. The lady character in the Los Angeles section of the movie who goes to celebrate the aliens arriving on top of a LA skyscraper and gets vaporized in the first 10 minutes? Same exact shit. Don’t be ripping off INDEPENDENCE DAY unless you’re willing to go full-on Goldblum. This comic wouldn’t know full-on Goldblum if the Goldblum poured water on its hand in order to explain Chaos theory.

Three: what does that liberal moment accomplish? Nothing in the issue, not a goddamn thing, whatsoever. But does it accomplish anything conceivably? Anything? Oh, it could be argued that it portrays SECRET INVASION from the street-level perspective. Uh, Except: fans already spend time and money on that. They spend money on SECRET INVASION FRONT LINE. They spend time on the SECRET INVASION web-comic. What does this scene accomplish??

***

There’s also a 2-page splash of New York in ruins. Because I didn’t know that New York was in trouble before now. They hadn’t told me that information in the last 5 issues of nonstop New-York-in-trouble scenes. That came as a COMPLETE SURPRISE.

Even if you want a splash page on New York—- what, they couldn’t do a 1 page splash? What does a 2 page splash accomplish that a 1 page splash wouldn't have? How is that not padding?

Or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about: maybe people buy superhero comics to look at splash pages of New York City. Maybe that takes 2 pages so people get doubly excited. "Look how much New York I'm getting for my money!" I didn’t realize that’s why people buy comics.

The splash pages are to convey the horror of what’s gone on in New York while the characters on the page before spent FIVE ISSUES on a half-hour long scene in the Savage Land. Except they… don’t bother to show any characters reacting to the splash! That moment of horror that double-page splash is designed to create? Off-panel. Characters reacting? The drama of their reactions? Oh, fans don't want that! They just want New York drawings-- that other stuff is just icing.

What the fuck?

***

Anything I would guess fans would want to see isn’t here. Fans don’t want to see Hawkeye after the last page of the last issue? Fans don’t want to see more of Iron Man interacting with the Skrull Queen after their earlier confrontation? Fans don’t want to see more of Nick Fury doing … anything, after all the build-up for him? Anything at all?

Speaking of that scene-- remember that last page of Hawkeye in the last issue, where Hawkeye is all “We’re going to get those Skrulls?” Remember that? Don’t worry if you don’t because you get two more pages of that EXACT SAME SCENE, except Iron Man and Luke Cage saying the same thing instead. That’s a good scene because they’re different characters than Hawkeye. That’s not repetitive at all! That’s not repetitive at all! That’s not repetitive at all! That’s not repetitive at all! That’s not repetitive at all!

I can’t tell if the villains joined forces with the heroes because there are two characters in this comic with red hoods—uh, both of whom are men. Did all of the villains in the Marvel universe team up with all of the heroes in the Marvel universe (holy shit!) OFF PANEL so that the comic could spend time attacking liberals?

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt they didn’t fuck up that badly... I literally can not tell.

Remember that cliffhanger a couple issues back, where it’s like “Oh my god, y’all, Captain America and Thor are going to show up?” Guess what the payoff of that was?

ONE PANEL.

Captain America says “What’s shakin', bacon” to Thor. Thor says “Give me some love, turtle dove” back. That’s it. That moment was a moment they promised fans would be awesome, and they failed and they failed spectacularly. Fans got one panel. It was a cliffhanger in an earlier issue-— what is a cliffhanger but a promise to fans that awesome shit will ensue? And what's the pay-off?

ONE PANEL!

Holy shit, y'all: they're asking people to pay money for this! Think on that, for a moment. HOLY SHIT, Y'ALL!

Two page splashes of New York, three pages of snarky attacks on liberals, and four pages of wannabe-George-Perez spreads is supposed to make up for a story that’s not doing it’s job. Wow.

Do you think they can rally from this issue? You know, if I had to bet money, I'd bet against them. I don’t think they can rally. It's possible. It's conceivable. But... it'd be an upset. For me, personally, there’s nothing here.

I just look at it, and think, you know, they weren’t hungry. They didn’t have the fire in their bellies. They didn't want the belt badly enough.

*******

I’d seen the basic facts about that issue of some SECRET INVASION tie-in or another, where the Skrulls were making all the Reed Richards Skrulls in order to figure out how he thinks. I’d hoped that it was a hint that my theory was right, and that the Reed Richards we’ve seen throughout the series was a Skrull all along. That the Skrull-ray he invented was a fake, and that the superheroes killed last issue were the real deal. I just think that would be really entertaining.

But with this issue, the way things are playing out, it seems like my theory is a big load of bunk.

But what do we have instead?

The Skrulls imitated Reed Richards but not long enough to find out how he’d stop them…? Here’s the Skrull’s stated motivation: “We hate Reed Richards because he stops us every time. But we’re not going to plan for him trying to stop us. We're not going to find out how he'd stop us this time and plan for that. Instead, we’re going to go play boggle with Catherine Keener.”

I don’t understand that at all. Does anyone even understand that?

***

Could someone tell me anything this comic did right?

I’ve learned enough over the years that a reaction this negative usually means it’s as much if not more me and what’s going on in my life than the comic itself. Which-- you know, it’s been a long day. Sure. It's been a long day. It's been a long month. Maybe I’m in a worse mood than I realized tonight.

But... What did this comic do right?

***

Go to the tundra.

Learn to make comics again by chopping wood. Carrying timber. Turn this around.

Go to the tundra!

Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my chances Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast You change your passion for glory Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past You must fight just to keep them alive

Chorus: It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight Risin' up to the challenge of our rival And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry They stack the odds 'til we take to the street For we kill with the skill to survive

chorus

Risin' up, straight to the top Have the guts, got the glory Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop Just a man and his will to survive

chorus

The eye of the tiger (repeats out)...

Spoken like a spoke: Douglas catches up on periodicals, quick-hit style

I got to read two weeks' worth of individual issues at once. Behind the times! Oh no! Under the cut: AMBUSH BUG, ROGUES' REVENGE, JONAH HEX, AVENGERS both MIGHTY and NEW, SECRET SIX and some spoilers.

AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #2: The premise of this mini, as I understand it, is that each issue is Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming riffing on some project in recent DC history; the first one was a reasonably pointed take on Identity Crisis. This one seems to be about the run-up to Infinite Crisis, but there's not much to say about that--a death-of-Ted-Kord scene, a couple of near-miss OMAC gags--so Giffen and Fleming spend most of the issue riffing without a theme, and their jokes don't go anywhere. A low EH, but I'm looking forward to the 52 and Countdown issues...

FINAL CRISIS: ROGUES' REVENGE #2: I used to actively dislike a lot of Geoff Johns's comics--I thought they leaned hard on gross-out sadism and obscuro continuity to cover up for what they lacked in plot dynamics and character development. I'm not sure if my sensibilities have shifted or if he's just gotten significantly better over the last year or two, because I've been thoroughly digging most of what he's been writing lately. This issue is as gruesomely violent as any mainstream comic I've read lately, but it roars--I'd say it's just a well-constructed crime story that happens to have costumes and powers, but actually the costumes-and-powers stuff (as well as some backstory from his old Flash run that's spelled out briskly and fairly gracefully) is central to the way the story comes together. And I love the ragged, nasty grain of Scott Kolins' line here. VERY GOOD.

JONAH HEX #35: Gray & Palmiotti's ongoing series about sexual assault in the Old West gets a special issue drawn by J.H. Williams III, maybe my favorite artist currently working in mainstream comics, and he digs into the dust-and-sagebrush look with relish. But the gunfight half of this issue is the most generically written Western I've seen in a long time, and the premise of the rest--in which Hex gets some psychedelic roofies in his drink from a couple looking for him to knock the woman up because he's too ugly for her to fall in love with... well, it's pretty GOOD as long as you just look at the pictures, anyway.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #17/NEW AVENGERS #44: Has anyone put together a comprehensive Secret Invasion chronology? At this point, with the main action of the invasion treading water in the Savage Land and the two Bendis Avengers books flashing all over the timeline, I'm losing touch with how these stories fit into the overall scheme, and what they signify. In particular, I'd appreciate it if somebody could explain what's happening in this particular Mighty (aside from its cute cover nod to TALES TO ASTONISH #27): so the Skrull replacements for Hank Pym keep going off-message and being killed and replaced? But after Criti Noll/Pym gets killed, he's replaced by another Criti Noll? Or another Skrull pretending to be Criti Noll pretending to be Pym? What? And, in New, the Skrull "clonepod" Reed Richards only has access to the real one's mental abilities if he thinks he's the real one? Both OKAY, but I'm impatient for everything to click together.

SECRET SIX #1: It is a personal weakness of mine that I really prefer first issues to act like first issues. Having only read bits and pieces of Gail Simone's Secret Six projects in the past, I found myself navigating through this page-by-page just fine, but wondering what exactly the premise of the series is. The title includes a "six," there are four characters visible on the cover, on the inside there are five members on the team but the promise of a sixth (why would there have to be six?), and... what kind of team is it? They have missions? They're assassins and thugs? They're sort of in Batman's good graces? Why do they work together? As usual, Simone is more than solid with the character stuff (the best bit here is Deadshot blithely ignoring a stickup at the convenience store where he's buying ice cream until he finally gets fed up and demonstrates how one should hold up a convenience store), but this is very oddly paced--the opening scene setting up a creepy bad guy who talks like Herbie Popnecker seems like it'd be more appropriate for an issue that doesn't have a big "#1" on the cover, for instance. OKAY.

Arriving 9/10/2008

Hm, I wonder why ALL-STAR BATMAN is getting pulped? They didn't distribute it to the west coast at all, so I may never find out...!

100 BULLETS #95
1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS ADVENTURES OF SINBAD #3
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #88 (A)
AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #24
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #571 NWD
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #123
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #21
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ORIGINS #9
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #164
BIG HERO 6 #1 (OF 5)
BLOOD BOWL #3 (OF 5) KILLER CONTRACT CVR A
BLOWJOB #23 (A)
BOOSTER GOLD #12
BPRD THE WARNING #3 (OF 5)
CABLE KING SIZE SPECTACULAR #1
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #29
CIVIL WAR HOUSE OF M #1 (OF 5)
CRIMINAL 2 #5
CRIMINAL MACABRE CELL BLOCK 666 #1 (OF 4)
DAMNED PRODIGAL SONS #3 (OF 3)
DARK TOWER TREACHERY #1 (OF 6)
DARKNESS #5 KEOWN CVR A
DEAD SHE SAID #3
DEADPOOL #1 SI
DEAN KOONTZS FRANKENSTEIN VOL 01 #3 (OF 5) PRODIGAL SON
DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS #10
DRAGON PRINCE #1 JOHNSON CVR A
DYNAMO 5 #16
EPILOGUE #1
EX MACHINA #38
FINAL CRISIS REVELATIONS #2 (OF 5)
GEN 13 #22
GENEXT #5 (OF 5)
GOON #28
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #12
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #28
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #30
I KILL GIANTS #2 (OF 7)
INVINCIBLE #52
KICK DRUM COMIX #1 (OF 2)
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #18
LONE RANGER #13
MARVEL ADVENTURES HULK #15
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #43
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT MARVEL KNIGHTS 10TH ANNIVERSARY
MS MARVEL #30 SI
NEOZOIC #6
NEW EXILES #11
NYX NO WAY HOME #2 (OF 6)
PATSY WALKER HELLCAT #3 (OF 5)
PAX ROMANA #3 (OF 4)
REAR ENTRY #18 (A)
RED SONJA #37
SALEM #2 (OF 4)
SECRET INVASION #6 (OF 8) SI
SECRET INVASION INHUMANS #2 (OF 4) SI
SECRET INVASION RUNAWAYS YOUNG AVENGERS #3 (OF 3) SI
SECRET INVASION X-MEN #2 (OF 4) MD
SIMON DARK #12
SIRIANUS #2 (A)
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #192
STAND CAPTAIN TRIPS #1 (OF 5)
STAR TREK MIRROR IMAGES #3
STAR TREK ROMULANS HOLLOW CROWN #1 (OF 2)
STAR WARS CLONE WARS #1 (OF 6)
STRAW MEN #2 (OF 12)
SUPER FRIENDS #7
TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE #4
TRINITY #15
TRON #6
ULTIMATE ORIGINS #4 (OF 5)
ULTIMATE X-MEN FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1
WELCOME TO HOXFORD #2
WOLVERINE SAUDADE
WONDER WOMAN #24
WORLD OF WARCRAFT ASHBRINGER #1 (OF 4)
X-MEN MAGNETO TESTAMENT #1 (OF 5)
YOUNG LIARS #7

Books / Mags / Stuff
AMERICAN WIDOW HC
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL HC VOL 02 FIRST NIGHT
BATMAN THE BLACK GLOVE HC
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG #71 QUICKSILVER (C: 0-1-3)
COMIC BOOK COVER PORTFOLIO #2 JUSTICE COLLECTION
COMICS NOW #3
DUGOUT GN
ENIGMA CIPHER TP
ETERNALS BY JACK KIRBY TP BOOK 02
FREDDY VS JASON VS ASH TP
GOOD-BYE MARIANNE GN
GOTHAM CENTRAL HC VOL 01 IN THE LINE OF DUTY
GRAPHIC CLASSICS VOL 06 AMBROSE BIERCE NEW PTG
GYPSY JOE JEFFERSON GN
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN PREM HC
PRINCE OF PERSIA GN
SIXTEEN MILES TO MERRICKS & OTHER WORKS SC
SPIDER-MAN RED SONJA TP
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #169
TOYFARE #135 STAR WARS CLONE WARS CVR
ULTIMATE POWER TP
VIDEO WATCHDOG #143 (NOTE PRICE)
VINTAGE DC COMICS 2009 WALL CALENDAR
X-MEN VS APOCALYPSE TP VOL 02 AGES OF APOCALYPSE

What looks good to YOU?

-B

#1 is the loneliest number of all

So, about that retailing thing...

Ah! No, just kidding!

How about some reviews, this time of some of the new #1's from this week...

ADAM STRANGE SPECIAL #1: Much like the HAWKMAN SPECIAL #1 from a few weeks ago, this tries to set up a new status quo projecting Adam as one of the "Aberrant Six" with a lot of yadda yadda yadda set up about Synnar and some cosmic problem, and blech, I don't find any of this compelling whatsoever. Adam starts jumping through time, rather than space, which you know, could actually maybe be a somewhat interesting twist on his basic set up... but absolutely nothing of consequence is done with this concept, other than maybe showing a future where Alana appears to hate him, essentially negating everything interesting about Adam Strange to begin with (he's always always trying to get back to Alana) If "Synnar" was a compelling villain, then maybe this setup would be interesting, but while Kirby got away with doing a misspelled "Dark Side" in the 60s, that doesn't fly in 2007! At least HAWKMAN had some really nice Starlin art. Rick Leonardi just isn't in the same league. I really hope we don't have to sit through four more specials to get to the rest of the "Aberrant Six and have an actual story happen... AWFUL.

JONAH HEX #35: Well, OK, it's not a #1, but I feel compelled to bring up this issue, with fucking nice J.H. Williams art! This gets my vote for the prettiest comic of the week. I don't buy the plot at all, where they try to rape a drugged Hex (imagine the howls if the genders were reversed!), but the art is nice enough to make me not care too much... GOOD.

MARVEL APES #1: I was walking in expecting to loath this, what with that "preview" they ran in whatever Spider-Man special that was a few weeks ago, where it read like a really bad CAPTAIN CARROT, with half of the puns. So, I was pretty surprised that this was as an enjoyable read as it was, was actually set in "real" continuity, and had some genuine character development. Albeit with The Mandrill. Still, all of that rates it an easy OK.

MS. MARVEL ANNUAL #1: Hey it says #1 on my invoice, so it counts! This was a fun Bugs Bunny story. Bugs is played by Spider-Man, and Ms. Marvel gets the Elmer Fudd role. Not strictly the choice *I* would have made in casting the lead as Elmer, but sure, why not? This was surprisingly OK, but should have ended with Ms. Marvel having her face ashy and hair frizzed out from an explosion or something...

SECRET SIX #1: This comic was pretty wrong, with its love of casual violence and female lap dances, but I think it was probably my favorite capes & tights book of the week. I'm not sure that this is sustainable as a monthly ongoing title, but here's a place I'm willing to find out. VERY GOOD.

SUB-MARINER: DEPTHS #1: Lovely lovely art, but the protagonist isn't really on view, and I found my head nodding as I tried to get through it. Still, LOVELY art, and worth an OK on that basis alone.

TWELVE #1/2: Slightly cheating again for this pack of golden age Timely reprints, but holy cow there's an AWESOME Basil Wolverton Rockman story buried in here which is worth the purchase price all by itself. It's really amazing how strinkingly different it is from the comics that surround it. The package as a whole: OK. That Wolverton bit? VERY GOOD.

OK, I need to get back to work now! What did YOU think?

-B

Before you go: Jeff Finally Gets Around to Love & Rockets New Stories #1

My timing, as is typical, is atrocious: I've been meaning to write a review of this book ever since I bought a copy at SDCC. Since it just hit stores this week, I all but exhort you to dash out and buy a copy: not just because it's Love & Rockets and it's the Hernandez Bros., and not even because it's the Hernandez Bros. at what may be at the start of (yet another) period of sustained excellence, but because both Jaime and Gilbert give you, in their own way, their versions of Final Crisis and Secret Invasion and the comparison and contrast may soothe and intrigue you.

[More exhorting and coercing and hopefully avuncular rib-poking behind the cut.]

Although it starts as a typical Locas story, with Maggie at her apartment complex talking to her pal Angel about a mysterious tenant, "The Search for Penny Century" changes gears very early on, as Angel, finally alone, changes into costume and scales a roof:

Y'see, the core of the first issue of L&R: NS #1 is 50 pages of Jaime Hernandez doing superheroes, and it so openly and easily moves back forth between the silly and the stellar, it reduced me to a piece of gibbering fanboy protoplasm. And isn't that supposed to be the point of Final Crisis and Secret Invasion? (In fact, although I knew better, I approached Jaime at the table and asked if the story was meant to be a reaction of Marvel and DC's current addiction to big events. He was, thankfully, entirely gracious about it, and just said that he thought it'd be fun to do something with a lot of energy.)

I could go on to summarize what happens in the story, but I think that does it a degree of disservice. Let's just say that Jaime, like Grant Morrison, creates a ton of new characters in a short degree of time and yet, for me, does a much a better job of convincing me to care about them. This shouldn't be particularly surprising, of course: Jaime is, in the very best sense, a cartoonist, and cartooning not only allows for any number of narrative shortcuts, the shortcuts produce a feeling of delight when done correctly.

And this, by the way, is why my timing is so atrocious: If I'd written this review when I'd intended, my comparison of Jaime's story to Final Crisis would be more in a "huh, isn't this funny?" kind of way. Coming now on the heels of my review of Superman Beyond #1, the comparison seems more confrontational, and corrective, than I intend. On the other hand, if you want to buy a copy of L&R:NS #1 to apply the reasoning of my Superman Beyond review to it and show why I'm full of shit, I don't mind at all...as long as you buy a copy of this book.

It'd be a disservice, by the way, to suggest that Jaime's story is the only reason to pick up L&R:NS #1.

Beto contributes a story about a pair of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis analogues that end up on an alien planet, getting superpowers, battling each other, and killing hundreds of aliens. Again, this neatly lines up with current trends and obsessions in current work-for-hire capes & tights, but it's also deeply goofy, hugely fun, and any resemblance to current superhero big events is probably entirely unintentional.

It's a much shorter piece than Jaime's, as Gilbert's peripatetic attention span sends him in several different directions at once. There's cartoon characters engaging in compulsive behavior:

and oblique, evocative non-narratives:

and a fun little story that Mario writes and Beto draws, and a story written and drawn by Beto--that reads a bit like if Vittorio De Sica and Gabriel Garcia Marquez had collaborated--that isn't particularly fun.

Anyway, this is far afield from my usual "blah, blah, blah" type of review, but I hope it nonetheless convinces you to at least pick up the L&R if you find yourself at the comic store this weekend. I thought the book was a knockout, and this is a great place to jump on-board if you never followed Los Bros before.

(Oh, and super-thanks to Fantagraphics for keeping a very well-tended Flickr stream. This review, quite obviously, would've been enormously different without it.)

Retailing: Cory's right

Cory Doctorow makes a really sensible suggestion right here, that I think every comics publisher should immediately implement.

This would have instant great benefits for me. I don't know about any other POS system, but MOBY has a space on the Individual Item display page (that shows me the sources I can buy a book from, ordering information, price, every transaction I've ever made on the item and so on and so forth) that displays the covers.

Currently, that image defaults to the item code on the Diamond website, though it can be edited to show another source. The problems are three there: 1) Diamond, of course, has to carry it, 2) You have to log on to Diamond's retailer site, which autologs you off after 30 minutes or so, and 3) Diamond is VERY liassez-faire about what size image the put in the standard path. Sometimes you get postage stamp sixed pics, othertimes the largest possible version where the window can only display the first quarter or so of it.

I use the feature ALL the time when people ask about something I don't have. Especially because, in comics there are TONS of "variant editions", and titles starting over with incredibly minute naming variations, and so on, so pinpoint THE thing someone wants to buy is really important.

An ISBN and UPC directory would be VERY helpful, and, besides the whole "having to rename the files" thing, is something that really COULD be implemented "tomorrow". It's just too simple and easy and smooth of an idea.

AND IT WILL HELP SELL MORE BOOKS.

It would also be of great use to me both as a blogger who is basically stupid when it comes to html -- I never ever have art in my posts because I'm pretty dumb about how to do it. This idea would make it trivial.

It would also be of HUGE use to me in putting together ONOMATOPOEIA, the store's print newsletter. CEO (as we call it) has to be out at the same time as PREVIEWS so that we have enough time to collect orders from people properly. But only a handful of publishers actually have publicly available art BEFORE PREVIEWS ships, which is when I need it the most. (Fantagraphics wins the prize here, they have a FTP site with art up, typically, 6 weeks before PREVIEWS ships -- that's a fantastic lead time)

ANyway, I think this is a stupidly good idea, and I urge any publisher reading this blog to immediately implement this idea (though we'd need to add UPCs for the comics)

-B

Diana's 50 Favorite Moments In Comics

Because all the cool kids are doing it! In no particular order, my 50 favorite moments in comics:

1. SWAMP THING #56, "My Blue Heaven": Stranded on a distant planet, the Swamp Thing recreates his hometown and is content to live an empty fantasy until a replica of John Constantine starts voicing some inconvenient truths. It's even creepier when you realize that every character on the Blue Planet is really just Swamp Thing throwing his voice.

2. BOX OFFICE POISON: Towards the end of the book, Hildy tells Ed about her little sister Marlys. It turns out the reader has already met Marlys in an earlier, seemingly-unrelated part of the story... a part that becomes incredibly tragic once the missing context is in place.

3. WHY I HATE SATURN: Anne sets out for California to find her sister, only to get hit by the Deluxe Edition of Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it will. If it can't go wrong, it will anyway.

4: NIKOLAI DANTE, "Amerika": After a decade of watching Tsar Vladimir commit atrocity after atrocity, Nikolai reaches his breaking point and stabs the Conqueror, only to be struck down a moment later by Konstantin.

5. SPIDER-MAN 2099 #25, "Truth Hurts": One of the better examples of the "everything you know is wrong" plot twist - Miguel learns about his mother and Tyler Stone, and the whole story gets turned on its head.

6. FANTASTIC FOUR #524, "Tag": The Fantastic Four are racing across Manhattan to reclaim their lost powers, but Reed has sabotaged Ben's equipment, intending to become the Thing himself and leave Ben human. But Ben figures it out and swaps his gadget with Reed's, unwilling to let his best friend take the fall for him.

6. STARMAN #80, "'Arrivederci, Bon Voyage, Goodbye": Jack Knight leaves Opal City.

7. CATWOMAN #19, "No Easy Way Down": Still reeling from the aftermath of the Black Mask's attack, Selina gets drunk and decides to rob a museum, until Batman talks her out of it.

8. RUNAWAYS #16, "The Good Die Young": Alex is revealed as the Pride's mole. Quite literally the last character I suspected.

9. INCREDIBLE HULK: FUTURE IMPERFECT: The Hulk defeats the Maestro by sending him back to the gamma bomb detonation, turning Bruce Banner's entire history into an ouroboros.

10. DAREDEVIL #182, "She's Alive": Convinced that Elektra faked her death, Matt digs up her coffin, expecting it to be empty. It isn't.

11. FRAY #8: Melaka kills Urkonn, her mentor and friend, when she realizes he murdered Loo to get her to accept her destiny.

12. DEADENDERS #16, "Smashing Time": Even after the universe rewrites itself, Noah (formerly Beezer) has a moment of distant recognition when he finds an abandoned scooter in the middle of the road. For a split-second, he can almost remember the friends and the life he left behind.

13. BONE #37, "Harvest Moon": In a genuinely creepy scene, a disoriented Thorn pulls her cloak over her head, looking exactly like the defeated Hooded One. It was ultimately a red herring, but that doesn't change the "brr" factor.

14. BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: Jarred out of a vegetative state by the return of his nemesis, the Joker's first words are "Batman. Darling."

15. SPIDER-GIRL #41, "Funeral For A Fiend": Normie Osborn (Harry's son) stops by the hospital to visit Mary-Jane Parker. As he turns to leave, he bumps into Peter - and for a moment, Peter only sees the Goblin and Normie only sees Spider-Man. Then Peter offers his hand; a moment later, they embrace, finally laying the past to rest.

16. TOP TEN #11, "His First Day on the New Job": This is such an Alan Moore thing to do: Joe Pi, the latest officer to join the Neopolis police department, is a robot. He's also the most human character in the series. When Joe realizes Irma Geddon's kids were attached to the late Sung Li, her previous partner, Joe decides to cheer them up with a trick of his own.

17. NEW X-MEN #149, "Phoenix In Darkness": In many ways, I see this as the quintessential post-Claremont Magneto story - "I am your inner star, Erik. I am the conscience you can never silence. I will never let you be."

18. HELLBOY: THE RIGHT HAND OF DOOM: Igor Bromhead has bound Hellboy using his true name, Anung un Rama; moments later, the demon Ualac steals the Crown of the Apocalypse off Hellboy's head. Things seem pretty bleak until Hellboy is informed that "Anung un Rama" quite literally means "he who wears the crown" - that no longer applies to him, so it's not his name. The spell is broken, and much butt-kicking ensues.

19. DEADPOOL #11, "With Great Power Comes Great Coincidence": Deadpool and Blind Al time-travel into a Stan Lee/John Romita Sr. issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. The whole issue's hilarious, but special mention goes to Deadpool's reaction to Harry's (and Norman's) "unique" hairstyle.

20. ASTONISHING X-MEN #15, "Torn": Cassandra Nova turns Wolverine into a six-year-old girl. Awesome.

21. THE AUTHORITY #12, "Outer Dark": The death of Jenny Sparks.

22. GRAVITY #5: His nemesis, the Black Death, has been defeated, but Greg Willis still doesn't feel like a superhero... until Spider-Man stops by to congratulate him on a job well-done.

23. ULTRA: SEVEN DAYS #8: Having been told by a psychic that she would find her true love in seven days, Pearl reaches the end of day 7 alone. When she realizes it's not going to happen, she maintains her composure until someone asks her for the time, at which point she starts crying.

24. BIZARRO COMICS: Mxyzptlk browses through the Hall of Superman Spin-Offs.

25. VEILS: Vivian discovers the truth behind the story of Rosalind and the Sultan.

26. WATCHMEN: The whole book is one big Favorite Moment for me, but if I have to pick a scene, I'll go with Ozymandias' revelatory monologue in the penultimate issue, coupled with the immortal "I did it thirty-five minutes ago." I'll bet you guys anything the studios will rewrite that "downer" ending so that Rorschach and the others save the day.

27. Y: THE LAST MAN #30, "Ring of Truth": Hero faces her demons.

28. COMMON GROUNDS #4, "Time of Their Lives": Forty years after their last battle, Blackwatch and Commander Power meet again. But they're not who you think they are. That last panel with the newspaper clipping turns the whole story on its head.

29. ALIAS #28, "Purple": It's a complete deus ex machina, but I can't help smiling whenever I see that double-page spread of Jessica punching the Purple Man square in the mouth.

30. SANDMAN #37, "I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying": Barbara defiantly crosses out Alvin's name on the tombstone, and - in Tacky Flamingo lipstick - writes WANDA instead.

31. SUPERMAN: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW?: With the Fortress of Solitude under siege and Superman preparing for his last stand, Jimmy and Lana sneak out to fight the gathered villains themselves. "We're only second-stringers, Jimmy, but we'll show 'em... Nobody loved him better than us. Nobody!"

32. ASTRO CITY #0.5, "The Nearness of You": Michael's decision to remember Miranda puts your typical Crisis-esque multiversal time-travel epic in a completely human context.

33. FABLES #55, "Over There": Having heard the Snow Queen's plans for the conquest of Earth, Pinocchio lays out a surprisingly vivid counter-scenario where the human race unites with the Fables and tears the Adversary's Empire apart.

34. H-E-R-O #4: Jerry finally does something heroic, after losing his superpowers.

35. EXILES #34, "A Second Farewell": Mariko gets another chance with Mary.

36. DOCTOR STRANGE: THE OATH #5: Doctor Strange and Night Nurse get together. Aww, they're so cute!

37. MY FAITH IN FRANKIE #3: "You've broken Commandments One through Three, Seven and Nine. I'm taking you down, Frankie."

38. THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY WEEN: MONKEY TALES #6: Barry jumps into the past to save Sara's life; when he realizes he's succeeded and everything's back to normal, he heads into the kitchen and promptly bursts into tears. It's a powerful reminder that, despite his intellect, Barry's still just a kid.

39. EMPIRE #5: Golgoth realizes his daughter Delfi has become as corrupt and monstrous as he is. So he snaps her neck.

40. MARTHA WASHINGTON: GIVE ME LIBERTY: President Howard Nissen tears down Cabrini Green at Martha's request.

41. THE BIRTHDAY RIOTS: Troy Adams' death shakes Max to his core - when the rioters surround his car the next day, Max just opens the door and lets the crowd beat him, in penance for his betrayal.

42. SUPERGIRL #79: Seconds after she decides to live Kara Zor-El's life, Linda Danvers chafes at all the "secret weapon" talk and goes public, changing everything.

43. LOKI #1: It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing, but Rob Rodi suggests a different angle on the Loki/Thor rivalry: in a flashback, we see them as teenagers, and Loki idly carves a heart in the dirt as he watches Thor.

44. MAUS: Not so much a "favorite" moment as one that haunted me for a long time; Vladek describes a particular instance in the Nazi purges where they murder crying children. Despite the fact that it's cats and mice - or maybe because of that - it's an image that stuck.

45. THE SURROGATES #5: Rather than face the reality outside her apartment, Greer's wife kills herself. The real world has a price.

46. ZENITH PHASE 3: Everyone's pretty shocked that the self-absorbed, spoiled superbrat Zenith sacrificed his life to save the Multiverse. Turns out he didn't: that was his mirror-universe double Vertex, the guy who actually was a hero.

47. CRIMINAL #5: For a split-second, you think Leo might have made it in time to save Greta. But, of course, he doesn't.

48. I, JOKER: The unnamed protagonist finds the last recording of Bruce Wayne prior to his death.

49. V FOR VENDETTA: Valerie's letter.

50. WE3 #3: 1 starts howling and wailing for 3 as it goes off to face 4 alone. Breaks my heart every time.

More of that retailing stuff...! Ahhhhh!

I was a little hesitant to post something else retailing related so soon, but we've had two reviews up in the last 2 days (and I'll be writing something tomorrow or Friday, I promise!), so I feel OK about mentioning this nice article by Richard Bruton of Forbidden Planet's blog where he discusses my last two TILTINGs. He has some kind words, and I always appreciate other retailers discussing the topics I bring up.

But there's a little bit of grousing behind the cut....

buuuuut... Dirk Deppey, dependably, uses the opportunity to misunderstand the Direct Market YET AGAIN.

Dirk starts by dismissing the idea of a "book glut" (which retailers are using in a specific way -- much like the "B&W glut" and the "speculation glut", including the understanding that such gluts tend to eventually self-correct, though they almost always take publishers and retailers with them before they do so), by likening DM stores to Generalist book stores.

Thing is, DM retailers are not Generalists -- they're specialists. Not terribly unlike Science Fiction bookstores, or Mystery bookstores, or going a smidge more afield, a Jazz-specialist record store, or an "midnight movie" or "international"-specialized video store. All of those things exist within San Francisco, and, yeah, when I go into one of them I pretty much expect them to have "everything" that I might want to buy within their specialization.

I don't expect a generalist like B&N or Borders to have more than a "token" amount of specialized genres. I mean, sure you expect to see Asimov and Heinlein in the Sci-fi section, but I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have, dunno, Neal Asher?

I'd expect that Borderlands, here in SF would have him though... or at least know what I was talking about in the first place, and where to point me if they didn't. That's the point of a specialist, really.

Borders carries SF, but they also carry mystery, romance, history, maps, comics, and a gajillion other things. The two cases aren't really that comparable, except maybe for the "Pop Culture"-style DM store, that aren't necessarily "comic book stores" per se.

Listen, we live in an environment where "Embarrassment of Riches" seems to describe it pretty darn well, so it's a funny thing to be talking about "too many books" -- but when a retailer says that, what they're actually talking about is "too many books that don't sell". I think we're ALL very excited (display issues aside) to have many many books that sell. We're less excited about books that don't sell and clog up the racks and make the rest of the store look bad.

As noted, this will eventually be self-correcting, as, presumably, more retailers start to get a handle on their inventory and start making decisions like I have (example: this month I didn't order just under half of the TPs that Marvel offered... not even a single copy. I just couldn't see the demand), but in the meantime, it's a lot of chaff to sort through to get to the wheat.

Then Dirk makes the pitch that we need returnability.

*sigh*

Look, we have returnability right now -- it's called "using a bookstore distributor". I've used one for years. Any "DM" retailer can use one at any time, there's no penalties upon us for doing so. Well, except for lower discounts, and paying shipping two ways and tying up money until the returns are available. Oh, and the 10% (of total purchases) limit on returns, too. But I've bought thousands of dollars of stock "returnable".

I haven't returned any of it, because shipping, administration and labor costs soak up any real savings you could have gotten, and leaves you with nothing; whereas buying non-returnable leaves you eating some books, but at least you still own them so you can discount them away.

Dirk suggests that ComicsPRO can "negotiate" for better returnable terms. There's two little problems there. First is: there are pretty significant limits on what a retailer organization CAN do, based on Federal Anti-Trust laws. Seriously, talking about numbers, discounts, any of that kind of stuff has to be done EXCEPTIONALLY carefully, when it can even be done in the first place, or you run the risk of getting your ass thrown in Federal prison. ComicsPRO has paid for excellent and in-depth counsel and has a comprehensive policy involving anti-trust issues, and this is not something that is at all trivial to do, even if there was desire among the membership for it.

The second little problem is that were we somehow able to "negotiate", say, a 5% better discount on returnable items, Diamond (or whoever we convinced to do so) IS LEGALLY OBLIGATED (cf: anti-trust law) to offer that same EXACT deal to all comers. Like Borders and B&N and Amazon.

There's a third problem too: Diamond is set up to NOT do returns. For them to have a REAL returns program would be a really fundamental change in the physical way that they do business, and it would be to NO GAIN FOR THEM. Because MOST of their business comes from the brokered publishers, they can't possibly make money processing orders, then processing returns, because they're not buying books, then reselling them as a traditional distributor does. The work based on a fee-structure. What THAT means is that if Marvel/DC/Dark Horse/Image agreed to returns that were "better" than the current deal, they'd have to pay TWICE: once to us (the "better deal"), and once to Diamond. I think it is pretty safe to say "not going to happen".

At the end of the day, I don't think returnability will do anything significant to increase sell-in -- because the problem isn't the books that are selling... those you just reorder; The problem is the ones that aren't selling. No amount of returnability would get me to order something that I can't discern an audience for. MS MARVEL v 3 HC doesn't look any more attractive if I can possibly return it when it doesn't sell. Nor does a $125 96 page KRAMER'S ERGOT, for that matter. Fuck, can you even imagine the hassles of trying to ship back a broadsheet-sized book if you don't keep the original box, and/or you don't have a shipping department? *shudder*

My favorite part is this bit: "It might even give shopowners an incentive to experiment with reaching out to those new customers that the Direct Market so clearly needs right now." Which doesn't even make sense on the face of it: YES, there are what any reasonable comics-loving person would probably call a "bad comics store" that is closed and insular and geared exclusively to culture and commerce that Dirk doesn't care for. Fuck, I don't care for it either! But, THOSE stores will never ever EVER "experiment" like that because all THEY care about is the lowest hanging fruit in their own mono-focus.

Stores that DON'T myopically mono-focus already have an "experiment" budget. I call it the Mercy Fuck, personally. I probably WILL buy a (1) copy of the 96 page $125 KRAMER's ERGOT because, like Kenny Penman suggests, it's a "Trophy Book", and it is expected that a store like mine would have a copy of that. I do not actually expect to sell one in anything like a reasonable time frame, but I'll order one, and if I were to sell it in a reasonable time frame, I'll order another and be excited!

At the end of the day, were I a publisher, I'd be looking at consignment rather than returnability as the solution for the more commercially marginal projects. No one is going to order what they honestly don't believe they can sell, EVEN IF they can return the unsold copies; they, however, might be willing to accept cost-upfront-free copies to establish that a market exists for that product. The difference is who pays when.

-B

Obsolescence & Model Kits: Jeff Looks at FC: Superman Beyond #1 and G-Mo in the DCU

I remember when I was a kid being entranced with model kits. It was a different time then, back before semi-autistic engineers could make themselves rich with their penchant for elegant complexity: instead of writing computer code, they wrote tactical charts for historical wargames, assembled model kits of cars, ships, jets, and rockets (and, occasionally, monsters and robots), and crafted massive model train sets in garages and basements. Painstakingly, they assembled private landscapes--usually based on an actual historic train route--stipling mounds of carved foam to create textured boulders; studying photographs to create detail accurate train yards; rigging lighting; recreating timetables. Until finally, the engineer was done: he'd remade a corner of the world to scale. It looked perfect, ran smoothly, and made you ache to look at it--because it was devoid of people. I never felt so sad as when I looked at a perfectly constructed model train set.

Whereas model trains made me sad, the model kits filled me with frustration. Even the simplest was well beyond the scope of my clumsy fingers and lazy soul. You had to snap and clip plastic parts off a manufactured lattice, then sand the barb from where the part connected with a lattice, glue the parts together, wait, paint them, wait, apply decals, construct the diorama in which to...I'll be honest, I never got past clipping the third or fourth part off the lattice. Part of it--most of it, actually--was shameful laziness, but some of it was the suspiciousness with which I regarded the model makers. After all, if I was supposed to do all that, why didn't I just carve the god-damned thing out of soap? It seemed to me they were taking advantage of my desires (and the abundance of industrial grade plastic at their disposal), turning a tidy profit by promising a completed product for which I would do the majority of the work.

I realized just yesterday, that those feelings of frustration and shame and suspiciousness, are my constant companions when reading most of Grant Morrison's work for the last five or six months. At some point, Morrison stopped writing stories, and began churning out mental model kits of stories, which only work if you take the time to snip them apart, study the instructions, and assemble them yourself.

[More in this vein, alas, behind the cut.]

I have theories as to why Morrison has turned down this path. Many, many, theories. The least generous theory is that Morrison is a brilliant manic-depressive who can cogitate like a motherfucker in his manic stage, falls back on his tropes when he hits his depressive phase (or just stops producing altogether), and is smart enough to make it all sound like it was one organic plan after the fact. So, for example, you get something like "New X-Men" that generates tons of new ideas in the beginning, hits a bad patch where it's all about Mutantbolik and his flying saucer girlfriend, then sprints through a "widescreen" finale (followed by a rushed two part epilogue that jams in all the stuff he never got around to).

A more generous theory is that while Morrison has the mind of a formalist, he's got the heart of an anarchist. If a storyline of his takes too long, he can't help but think of ways to fuck it up and make it more interesting, even if those new ideas invalidate the groundwork he laid. I'm thinking here, again, of his New X-Men storyline, but also The Invisibles, which mutated as it went along, ending far from where it started. Because Morrison constantly layers in allusions that work on multiple levels, it's easy for him to claim victory in the end by suggesting the level that didn't satisfy wasn't the one you weren't supposed to be paying attention to. In some cases (Sea Guy or The Filth, let's say), I believe that's absolutely the case and in some (Xorn, and the New X-Men run being characterized by Morrison as a conscious deconstruction of how the franchise defeats the author), I believe that's absolutely Morrison talking out his lipstick-smeared butthole.

But most generous of all my theories is that G-Mo has constructed a way to promote the work on the Internet that doesn't involve running a forum, or having a Twitter account, or keeping track of his Myspace friends: the individual issues aren't stories jammed with easter eggs, but easter egg hunts cordoned off by a ribbon of plot. The stories themselves aren't particularly difficult, but tracking the details of the plot through the thicket of detail can be, which is where all the online annotations come in handy. As Abhay pointed out in his brilliant recreation of a Marvel panel at SDCC, readers today don't really have any idea how a story works--they only want to know what will happen to the characters they follow, hitting Newsarama day after day to get the spoilers, with no real interest in the story that ostensibly explains exactly that. And companies and creators play along, spoiling stories to lesser and greater degrees so as to build buzz and heat from the resulting discussions and outcries. Morrison's brilliant and daring twist is to construct stories so people will hit the Internet not to discuss what will happen, but to figure out what is happening. Next to the way Mark Millar promotes himself on the Internet, it looks downright elegant.

Under this theory, the fact my enjoyment of Final Crisis didn't really start until I read Douglas' annotations, or that my enjoyment of Batman R.I.P. derives entirely from commentary of fine internet including (but not limited to) Mindless Ones, Funnybook Babylon, and our own critics and commenters, is all part of the plan. Indeed, even though I picked up the majority of the references in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1 covered by David Uzumeri's annotations, his willingness to analyze Morrison's intentions on the fly (particularly during that five page Monitor origin sequence) gave me a greater appreciation of the work, and even helped me uncover new layers of interpretation.

However, while they gave me the tools to appreciate the work, they didn't give me the tools to enjoy it which suggests that something has gone terribly wrong, either with me or this devious master plan I've capriciously attributed to the book's writer. Honestly, I'd be more willing to attribute this to me if I wasn't reading a comic book where five supermen board a yellow submarine to sail through the metaverse--and one of those supermen is a drugged-out Dr. Manhattan analogue. As Graeme McMillan so frequently says to me when discussing comics, "Come on! How can you not love that?" Honestly, it's such a direct descendant to batshit Steve Gerber stories from the '70s, I can see how I could love it. I should love this book.

And yet, I don't. I mean, I think I'd give it a high OK or something (particularly if you have stereoscopic vision and can take advantage of the 3-D glasses, which I don't and can't) because it's pretty and cool and brings back stuff from Morrison's Animal Man run.

And yet.... I dunno. It could be the model kit factor, where I'm a little frustrated that for $4.50 I get so much frickin' event and so little story. There's not really what you would call much of a plot revealed in all these pretty pages: Superman gets recruited by Zillo Valla (although no one uses that name until the last four or five pages and, at least in the case of Superman, it's not clear how he learns it), they board the Ultima Thule, things go wrong, they end up in Limbo, people make arbitrary decisions--honestly, at this point, it's not really too different from a Friday the 13th movie. You've got the bullying jock (Ultraman), the kind-hearted peacemaker (Captain Marvel), the druggie nerd (Quantum Superman) and the kid who dies the first time he has sex (Overman). If the second issue has Superman in a bra and panties running screaming around the perimeter of a lake while being chased by a chainsaw wielding Anti-Monitor, I won't be too surprised.

I don't think it's the model kit factor, in short. I think Morrison has fallen prey to the Model Train set mindset. Everything looks gorgeous, and the detail is planned out to a staggering level, but there aren't any characters in Superman Beyond #1: there are people with names, their basic character and that's all you got. While Morrison has used such deliberate flatness to extraordinarily good effect in All-Star Superman, I find it more disappointing here simply because there's not thirty-plus years of character identification with most of these characters, and the ones for whom there are--Captain Marvel, for example--get about three lines that aren't purely exposition. It's not surprising Morrison uses a musical motif to explain the travel through the metaverses: he's using the characters in this book (and perhaps in his others) like leitmotifs, thematic markers that gain complexity when contrasted with other markers.

It's a very smart way to deal with work-for-hire superheroes--you can't change them or develop them, after all, so half the traditional conception of what makes a story is out the window anyway. But it may be that I find I prefer the illusion of change and development to no development whatsoever, no matter how much room you clear up for phantasmagorical imagery once you chuck that illusion. For example, if Morrison recognizes that the character with the most depth in Superman: Beyond #1 is Merryman, the King of Limbo, he seems unaware of what this might mean. It's not that every character is too delightful to be consigned to Limbo, but that in innumerable universes where everything happens but nothing has any lasting impact, it's really no different to a single space where nothing happens--the former is just prettier than the latter, and it takes a little longer for boredom to set in there. But once it does, it doesn't matter how many times the trains trundle past their scale-model mountains. No one waits near the flickering waxy light of the station for them to arrive, and when the creator leaves the room, it's as if none of it ever happened.

An added day before the new comics means another day with which to file my review from 8/27: Jog Enjoyed His Holiday

Kick-Ass #4 (of 8)

Say, did any of you hear about that one comic book writer and the video he put out? I did too, and I've thought of absolutely nothing this week other than creator-owned comics by popular Marvel/DC writers. No wonder I lost all that money at the casino - I need to concentrate to get those random number generators on my side. I was obsessed, readers, and it soon became plain that the only way out was to conduct an investigation into an actual, real-live creator-owned funnybook by a top superhero scribe.

And this very week had not only one of those, but no less than the current best-selling creator-owned pamphlet-format series in the Direct Market:

I've actually been following Kick-Ass -- that bloody saga of a young man in a 'realistic' world who sets out with a costume and a dream to become an authentic goddamned superhero -- since issue #1. A lot of people didn't like that first issue much at all, but it gave me a smile. Granted, I'm the sort of person who would smile at a teenage superhero being electrocuted through his testicles, so I guess I'm part of the target audience, but even beyond that I found myself enjoying the little asides and bits of conversation.

I might have made a mistake there, though - I'd thought stuff like the lead character's out-of-touch pop culture referencing or his decision to kick off his crime-fighting career by picking a fight with random black kids spray painting a wall were indicators of his cluelessness. It really seemed to me that his actions had a way of undercutting his narration (insisting that he's a completely normal young man!), thus reinforcing the comedic insanity of dressing up like a fantasy character to fight crime in the real world. Even then it was sort of like pointing a cannon at a barrel of fish, but it did have penciller/co-creator John Romita Jr., inker Tom Palmer and colorist Dean White putting together an attractive cartoon world for everything to take place in, and it was all pleasantly unpleasant enough.

Now we're up to issue #4, casting news concerning the upcoming movie is all over, and the comic has gotten progressively less realistic to the point where I wonder if 'realism' itself wasn't the primary joke here. I got an email on Thursday declaring that Millar had ruined the series with this issue, which has Our Hero's low-ambition adventures bumping into the work of two actual superheroes, or at least gangland assassins with a thing for dressing up in costume and leaping across rooftops under the cover of night. They're cruel, violent and prone to shouting things like "Where the hell are you going, asshole? Off to phone your lawyer? Hoping someone cares about your underprivileged childhood?" at weeping, unarmed targets, which I presume is supposed to make them horrible yet appealing to the forbidden desires we all share, this being a Mark Millar comic and all. Relatedly, they also might be manifestations of the dark side of the lead character's superhero dreams, the ugly implications of running around outside the law made flesh and steel.

The problem with all that? It transforms the book into an especially typical superhero thing, with its idealistic young protagonist forced to consider the existence of those who've gone too far as well as more obvious antagonists; Millar does not use the fact that all of this occurs in a world where superheroes shouldn't exist at all to any interesting effect. Really, he seems more interested in the contrived comedy of the lead character pretending to be (ulp!) gay in order to get closer to the object of his teenage affection, which strikes me as bolstering one type of familiar contrivance (the superhero type) with another (the teen romance type) in hopes that something multifaceted will result.

And it doesn't help at all that the particulars are so dull - I'll grant that the generic mobster villains are maybe supposed to be uninteresting, given the story's milieu, but ultraviolent Hit Girl and Big Daddy are unadorned character types straight out of the Frank Miller playbook, and giving the former a dirty mouth and a specifically young age doesn't do much to burnish her - this kind of lil' lady killer character is also present in The Boys, where she isn't much more interesting, but at least Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson play up the alien nature of such a creature of contradictions, if only by having her sleeping on a table or something during the talky parts. Millar's version just seems more calculatedly vulgar, and therefore, in theory, funny.

But then, Millar does know his market, and keeping a project of this type nice and close to what's familiar in shared-universe Marvel/DC works, with added gore 'n cussing and a sprinkling of realistic grit... yeah, a little bit more of what the company-owned books can't quite offer has a simple, compelling logic to it, especially when dealing with a writer who's helped to define what today's superhero books feel like. For me, the series' progression has steadily devoured nearly everything I've found interesting or amusing about it. I should add that the art continues to be very nice, with colorist White adding a delicate texture to the mayhem with his washy hues (I particularly like when he adds a reddish sheen to characters' noses in close-up), which does drag this up to an EH, and it might even keep me reading long enough to see where this storyline winds up.

Arriving THURSDAY 9/4/2008

Here is what Comix Experience is receiving this week.

REMEMBER: Due to the Labor Day holiday, comics in the US will be 24 HOURS LATE, and will not be for sale until THURSDAY, 9/4. If you go in on Wednesday, you're LCS will probably laugh at you behind your back!

If you live in Canada, where they don't have a Labor Day, comics ship as normal for Wednesday.

It's a small week, but with a couple of decent books...

ADAM STRANGE SPECIAL #1
ARMY @ LOVE THE ART OF WAR #2 (OF 6)
AUTHORITY #2
BATMAN STRIKES #49
DETECTIVE COMICS #848 RIP
EL DIABLO #1 (OF 6)
FABLES #75 (NOTE PRICE)
FRINGE #1 (OF 6)
GREEN LANTERN #34
HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS THE KNOWLEDGE #3 (OF 5)
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #5
JONAH HEX #35
LOONEY TUNES #166
MANHUNTER #34
NIGHTWING #148 RIP
SECRET SIX #1
STORMING PARADISE #3 (OF 6)
SUPERGIRL #33
TITANS #4
TOR #5 (OF 6)
TRINITY #14
UN-MEN #13
VINYL UNDERGROUND #12
WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #5 (OF 12)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #570 NWD
DEAD OF NIGHT DEVIL SLAYER #1 (OF 4)
ETERNALS #4
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #5
IRON MAN GOLDEN AVENGER
MARVEL APES #1 (OF 4)
MS MARVEL ANNUAL #1
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #23
SECRET INVASION FRONT LINE #3 (OF 5) SI
SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE SEASON 2 #2 (OF 5)
SUB-MARINER DEPTHS #1 (OF 5)
TWELVE 1/2
UNIVERSAL WAR ONE #3 (OF 3)
VENOM DARK ORIGIN #2 (OF 5)
X-MEN MANIFEST DESTINY #1 (OF 4) MD
X-MEN ORIGIN BEAST
2000 AD #1599
2000 AD #1600
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #12
ARCHIE DIGEST #247
ARMY OF DARKNESS #12 LONG ROAD HOME
BAOBAB #3 (RES)
BOYS #22
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #18
END LEAGUE #4
GALAXY QUEST GLOBAL WARNING #2
INTERIORAE #3
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #142
NEW BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON ZERO #12
SAMMY THE MOUSE #2
SAVAGE DRAGON #137
SAVAGE TALES #9
SPAWN #182
TANK GIRL VISIONS OF BOOGA #4
VERONICA #190
WITCHBLADE #120 HALEY & NOWLAN CVR B

Books / Mags / Stuff
BAD BOY 10TH ANN HC (DE) (RES)
BLEACH TP VOL 24
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 05
COMICS JOURNAL #292
COUNTER X TP VOL 02
DEATH OF THE NEW GODS HC
DEITCHS PICTORAMA SC
DR FATE COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY TP
GOOD NEIGHBORS HC VOL 01 KIN
HELLBLAZER THE LAUGHING MAGICIAN TP
ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #23
IMMORTAL IRON FIST TP VOL 02 CITIES OF HEAVEN
INVASION TP
IRON MANUAL TP
JUDGE ANDERSON TP SHAMBALLA
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #275
KRAZY & IGNATZ TP 1943 1944 HE NODS QUIESCENT SIESTA
KUROSAGI CORPSE DELIVERY SERVICE TP VOL 07
LOVE & ROCKETS NEW STORIES #1
MARTIAN CONFEDERACY GN VOL 1 REDNECKS RED PLANET
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN TP VOL 10 CRISIS DIGEST
MPD PSYCHO TP VOL 06
NARUTO TP VOL 31
PORTABLE FRANK SC
SHOOTING WAR TP
SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN TP VOL 04
SLOW STORM GN
STICKLEBACK GN
SWORD OF RED SONJA DOOM O/T GODS TP
TRANNY GN
TWELVE PREM HC VOL 01
WAITING FOR FOOD CRUMB PLACEMAT DRAWINGS HC VOL 04
WITCHBLADE SHADES OF GRAY TP

What looks good to YOU?

-B