this week’s comics

You may now refer to me as “The Ever-Lovin’ Gray-Haired Mike.”

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The fact that there isn’t an ongoing Thing solo series with this exact title and logo:


…is a sad indication of our failure as a culture. How could a comic titled The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing not sell like gangbusters?

Also, said theoretical The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing logo would require that pic of the Thing in a circle just to the left of it at all times.

image from Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1 (1976)

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In other news:

  • I never got around to reviewing my picks from last week’s New DC #1 haul, but thankfully pal Dorian did. Dor points out something about Mr. Terrific’s name that…I hadn’t really considered. Hmm.

    In case you were wondering: I picked up Batwoman, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Green Lantern, Red Lanterns, and Demon Knights. Will be back for second issues on all these. Tried Mr. Terrific, but didn’t do anything for me, sadly.

  • Tony Isabella presents six-part behind-the-scenes look at an Ant-Man story he did with Steve Ditko, beginning with the introduction here and the first page of the story (including original Ditko pencils!) here.

    Also, at the end of this post, Mr. Isabella expands on a comment he left here, lamenting the lack of a creator credit for Jack Kirby in the new Omac series. I hadn’t noticed that lack of a credit, so shame on me for that. Another person noted that Kirby did get a credit in Demon Knights, so hopefully the same will pop up soon in Omac.

  • Bully, the Post-Flashpoint Little Stuffed Bull with an All-New Costume and Origin, details all those other changes made to the DC Universe you might have missed.

I was planning to write more about the new DCs this week, but got a late start on the post. Sorry.

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So the weekend before Justice League #1 was due out, I had a last minute feeling of “hmmm…maybe I should have more copies of this, since it is the first New DC title, and will likely sell well.” Thus, along with my regular reorders I sent in that Sunday evening, I put in an order for an extra bushel or two of that first Justice League comic.

Well, the immediate response from our distributor was “only available via back order,” which most of the time is the equivalent of “fat chance, laughing boy.” That, coupled with the reports of sellouts and announcements of reprintings, told me that my reordering was in vain.

…Until this week, when we received a big ol’ stack of Justice League #1, first printing, with our regular weekly shipment. Not sure how our distributor came across these (warehouse find? initial order for a now defunct store?) but there they were. And I threw them back on the new comics shelf, with a little “1st printing!” tag on them, and sold them for cover price. I didn’t do the “one per customer” thing, if only because 1) that results in panic buying, making people feel like they have to buy it rather than just picking it up if they’re interested, and 2) I didn’t feel like dealing with dudes returning to the shop five minutes later wearing a beret and a fake mustache saying “Bonjour! I am Monsieur I-Wasn’t-Just-Here-Buying-A-Copy-of-Justice-League-#1…may I buy a copy of Justice League #1?”

Speaking of panic-buying…remember a while back, when I looked at the sales patterns of the multiple Flashpoint tie-ins, and thought maybe the seeming new-series fatigue that sort of set in there may reflect a similar fatigue with this onslaught of DC debuts? Looks like the opposite may be true…with the constant sellouts and reprint announcements, this seems to be encouraging higher and faster sales than before, with folks not wanting to miss out. We planned ahead as best as we could, trying to anticipate sales among our clientele, but with customers from other comic shops coming to us for their books, along with a cascading demand feeding more sales and even more interest, we went from looking at our initial orders thinking “hope we don’t get stuck with these” to “oh crap, that’s not nearly enough.”

I did place back orders on everything hoping for a repeat of that Justice League situation, but lightning probably won’t strike twice. I did get some confirmations on some of my advance reorders, so we’re not totally out of luck. And I’m getting lots of the second printings as well.

In other non-DC news…the new Optic Nerve (#12) is out, and it’s a good’un. Actually, really good. Sergio Aragones Funnies #3 is also out, and you should be grateful that there’s a regular monthly booklet of cover-to-cover work by one of the world’s greatest cartoonists. You really should buy it. Mark Waid and Paolo Rivera’s Daredevil (also #3) is pulling off what I thought was impossible – me buying a Daredevil comic that doesn’t have the name “Miller” anywhere in the credits. Punishermax #17, that great comic with the worst name, (re-)introduces a character that usually isn’t of any interest when appearing in comics that don’t have the name “Miller” anywhere in the credits, but is sure used effectively here.

And that Sugar and Spike Archives is really good. Yeah, that doesn’t fit under “non-DC news,” since it is DC, but I don’t care. It’s great cartooning by Sheldon Mayer, and in every way deserving of its reputation.

Okay, let me complain about Superman’s new costume.

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To follow up on yesterday: I ended up not getting Justice League International…just seemed a little too…generic-y superhero, you know? I also picked up Omac, after giving it a look-through or two, and hearing a good word or two about it from comrade-in-funnybook-arms Chris Sims. It’s Keith Giffen doing a totally-nuts Kirby riff, and if you’re gonna do a book like Omac, Kirby it up as much as possible, I say.

And Swamp Thing…my mystical eye of Aga-Mike-o has peered across the nerdinet and has witnessed the pleasingly positive response most people have had to this new debut issue. Like I said yesterday, it continues the “Alec Holland evading his Swamp Thing destiny” storyline from the mini-series, and I’m assuming Scott Snyder will eventually provide the explanation for the sudden reseparation of Alec from Swampy, when the rejoining of the two was such a big deal at the end of Brightest Day. But, also like I noted, where the Search for Swamp Thing mini-series seemed awkward and forced, this new issue is more along the lines of what I want from a Swamp Thing comic…creepier and more introspective.

There’s also a bit of business introducing Swamp Thing’s next adversary, which features a certainly intentional reference to one of the more disturbing visuals from the Moore/Bissette/Totleben era. I don’t know that it’s supposed to be the same thing from the Moore run, but…well, I realize I’m being vague here, in an attempt to avoid spoilers. But you’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it.

One more thing, and this could be a SPOILER, I guess: this comic features, I believe, the second in-story appearance of Superman in his new costume that we’ve seen since the beginning of the relaunch. And while Yanick Paquette does a remarkable job illustrating this issue, there’s only so much one can do with that new Superman costume. It just plain looks awkward. Even the dude who designed the thing couldn’t make it work in the one panel he had to sell us on it in Justice League #1.

I like to think that I’m not simply being a typical reactionary comics fan, hating something because it’s different from what I’m used to. I mean, it’s…I’m not even sure how to articulate it. I think it’s a level of…pretension, perhaps, that seems uncharacteristic of what we think of when we consider the character of Superman. I think it’s that collar. It sort of gives him, like…airs of royalty, maybe? A “hey, this is my important uniform, I outrank you” kind of thing? And the action figure space-boots he suddenly has? It’s like Superman is slowly turning into the kind of superhero Old Superman opposed in Kingdom Come, with the overwrought, overdesigned ’90s tech-fest look.

Yes, maybe the red underwear over the blue tights was kind of goofy. Actually, there’s no “kind of” about it…it is goofy. And as someone reminded me on the Twitter not long ago, Superman’s costume is essentially just an old-timey circus strongman outfit. And…I’m okay with that. “Simple” works for Superman. So does “goofy” — it’s a little more humanizing, helping to bring a fantastic (in the original sense) character like Superman down to earth. (Compare also with the work jeans and boots costume in the new Action.)

Granted, that George Perez cover makes it look okay, but then, that’s George Perez. He makes purt’near everything look okay. But I’ll have to see what he does with it inside the book. Maybe once I get the in-story explanation for it (if there is one), I’ll be a little more accepting.

I mean, sure, if DC sticks with this costume, I’ll get used to it. But it’s really no improvement, especially if no one can draw it in an appealing fashion. It’s just change for change’s sake, and just one more shout of “hey, look, we’re different now!” among DC’s cacophony of similar cries.

So, in conclusion, I liked the new Swamp Thing comic. And let us put an end to the DC posts on this site…at least ’til next week.

According to the sketchbook material in Justice League #1, the costumes could have been even more unnecessarily complicated.

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So yes, we sold out of the first issue of Justice League, the vanguard title for DC’s rebootalaunch, and orders have already been placed for the second printing. Had a few new faces come into the shop looking for it, had plenty of our regulars pick it up, and have been receiving calls from out-of-towners trying to track it down as their local suppliers ran dry. That kind of momentum isn’t going to keep up, of course, as media coverage dwindles and first-issue fatigue starts to set in as wave after wave of debuts hit the racks…but at least it shows some interest is there, and that DC’s new publishing initiative isn’t falling flat on its face saleswise from the get-go.

An interesting thing I’ve noted is the number of people asking when those next #1s were due to come out, and how surprised they were when I told them DC would be releasing several #1s every week for the next month. So apparently DC was successful in getting the word out there that there was a new Justice League #1, that there would be more #1s to follow, but not when they were coming? Or perhaps I just had a string of folks who happened to miss that bit of info. Or even more likely, people were still in denial that they have 51 more first issues headed their way. “Tell me it’s not true…it can’t be true!”

About the Justice League itself…well, yeah, as our intro to this new DC Universe continuity, it’s a little underwhelming. Superheroes meet, they fight, we get teased with the supervillain threat, oh hey there’s Superman, and suddenly “to be continued.” All very by-the-numbers, with nothing to intrigue or inspire the imagination. I mean, it looks okay, with Jim Lee turning in a respectable art job on this issue, even if Superman’s new costume continues to appear unnecessarily rejiggered. And I’m calling “no way” on Batman being able to yank Green Lantern’s ring off his hand without GL noticing. I mean, come on.

DC’s other release this week was Flashpoint #5, the conclusion of the whole crossover event hoohar that introduced this new DC Universe. I hadn’t read any of the previous issues of the mini, and the only tie-in minis I read were the Frankenstein series (which seemed to have very little to do with it) and Project Superman (the reasons for which I explained previously). However, having read plenty of superhero comics in my life, I don’t feel like I missed anything by not reading the first four issues of the series. I can pretty safely extrapolate how they got to this point, I think. But anyway, the only reason I did pick up Flashpoint #5 was for the Swamp Thing cameos. …Yeah, I know.

I was discussing DC’s new publishing strategy yesterday with a longtime customer of mine, and he was wondering when DC would switch everything back to the way things were, including continuity, issue numbering, etc. My response was that if things went badly enough that this new strategy clearly wasn’t working, this wouldn’t be the kind of problem that would be solved by reverting to the old issue numbers and the old DCU. As I said on this site before, this whole thing smacks of a “nothing left to lose” decision, that is was either this or “might as well shutter the publishing arm and give our characters to the movie and TV studios so they can make real money with them.” No idea if that’s actually the case, though this article [EDIT: link dead] makes it seem like it is.

At the very least, DC’s efforts are generating some activity and discussion among our customers, and that certainly doesn’t hurt. Whether it helps in the long run…well, let’s hope so.

Revised March 2021

The Department of Redundancy Department.

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So here’s the thing about that Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing series:

The end of Brightest Day was about the Swamp Thing “elemental spirit,” bereft of the personality template of Alec Holland and running amok, being brought back under control by “reinfecting” that elemental spirit with the personality of Holland.

The Search for Swamp Thing is about…the Swamp Thing elemental spirit, bereft of the personality template of Alec Holland and running amok, needing to be reunited with Holland’s mind to be brought under control. It’s repeating a conflict and, presumably, a resolution that we already saw at the end of the Brightest Day event (which, admittedly, was undone almost immediately as seen in one of the cliffhanger epilogues at the end of Brightest Day #24). Of course, we haven’t seen the last part of the story yet, but it seems like a done deal, judging by solicits for the upcoming Swamp Thing series, that Holland will once again become Swamp Thing. (SPOILER ALERT, I guess.)

The main purpose of the series is, I guess, to reemphasize the return from the Vertigo imprint of Swamp and John Constantine, having Constantine interact with Batman, Superman, etc. (And just to keep Swamp Thing in the public’s eye, of course.) But really, if it weren’t for that Brightest Day epilogue re-setting up the Berserk Swamp Thing hoohar to be resolved, we could have skipped right from BD #24 to that new Swamp Thing #1 in September.

I don’t know. I’m too much of a Swampy fanboy to argue that there should be fewer Swamp Thing comics, and all things considered, I still find this comic to be inept but amusing. But it certainly feels…redundant in its goals, both in reestablishing the status quo for the character and reintroducing the character to the DC Universe, tasks already accomplished a couple of months prior.

Also picked up this week: the seventh volume of the Smurfs albums, The Astro Smurf. This is the Smurf story I’ve most recently read prior to this new publishing effort, having borrowed an older English album edition from pal Dorian about a decade ago. Haven’t read this new edition yet, but I liked it the last time I read it, and suspect I’ll still like it now, even if it’s in this smaller digest format.

Another new item this week I haven’t had a chance to read yet: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Century: 1969. Any new League comic from Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill is most welcome, even though Kevin’s response has me intrigued.

I expect plenty of agreement with at least part of the last sentence.

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So I generally like Daredevil, though I haven’t been much interested in what’s been done with the character over the last, oh, decade or so. When this new Daredevil #1 came out this week, I didn’t have any intention of picking it up, but 1) just look at this gorgeous cover:


…and 2) Mark Waid was writing it, so I thought I’d peek inside at a page. Or two. Then three. Then four. Then…ah hell, fine, I’ll buy it. It does a great job of giving a fresh, non-angsty start to the character without forgetting everything that’s gone before, with the vast majority of the past decade’s storylines basically summed up by Daredevil with (paraphrasing) “yeah, things have been pretty crap for me recently.”

The one recent plot development that does carry over into this new series is the public exposure of Daredevil’s secret identity, and the problems that Matt Murdock has trying to deny everything while that particular genie slowly crawls back into the bottle. It makes for an entertaining read, as this way of dealing with the identity-outing is quite a bit more down-to-earth and (please pardon the expression) “realistic”-seeming than, I don’t know, amnesia spells or deals with the devil or the thousand different ways Superman protected his identity in the Silver Age. No Daredevil robots here!

Anyway, it’s a fun book, with more of a classic House of Ideas feel with its appealing combination of melodrama, exciting superheroics, humor and charm. Here’s hoping it can avoid any intrusive crossover company events and be left to develop on its own, without interruption.

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Also of note: Sergio Aragonés Funnies, filled with single-page gags, autobiographical stories, and funny shorts, all from Sergio’s masterful pen. The only thing wrong with this comic is that it only started now, and hasn’t been running for decades.

Rocketeer Adventures #3 – each issue’s been a mixed bag, though that makes it sound worse than I mean. It’s all fine and entertaining, with some standouts and other stories just simply “pretty good,” which mostly only suffer in comparison to Dave Stevens’ original Rocketeer stories. So, you know, there’s no shame in coming in second to those. I liked Ryan Sook’s lead story in this new issue the most, and while I think I would have preferred Joe Lansdale and Bruce Timm’s story to be an actual comic story and not just prose-with-pictures, I’m not going to complain about a new Joe Lansdale short story that happens to be illustrated by Timm. I mean, honestly.

Also, each issue has featured the “main” cover by Alex Ross, and a more limited cover reusing Stevens’ art from previous Rocketeer-related publications. I’ve been sticking with the Stevens covers…nothing wrong with the Ross covers, but it feels more…”right” to get the Stevens ones, I guess. Or maybe I’m just being a sentimental ol’ dope.

This site does not condone the concussing of ponies.

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So now that I finally started using my Tumblr site, I believe I finally found a purpose for it (aside from using it to comment on friends’ posts and reblogging awesome things, like this unused Superman versus Titano cover by Curt Swan). I think I may be using it as a “commentary track” or “greatest hits” supplement for this site, revisiting old posts and images and providing some additional info, background material, or just reminding folks of some of the older, sillier stuff. Okay, I did just repost that recent Klarion pic but c’mon, that pic is fantastic.

In other news…I’m sure most of you are aware by now of the Diamond street dates thing, in which retailers can get their comics on Tuesday in order to prep them for Wednesday sale, and woe betide you if you sell them early. I hear tell that Diamond has “secret shoppers” out there in the wild, enforcing the Wednesday street dates. Well, considering I yell even at Employee Aaron if he even looks at the books as I’m breaking down the order, I think I’m pretty safe there.

But anyway, this Tuesday, we had a large order of gaming product come in from Diamond, along with our usual comics order. I mean, a very large order. It was all prepaid for by a customer, so we had the coin of the realm on hand to take care of it, but still, it’s a bit imposing when you check the status of your UPS shipment and discover sixty boxes waiting for you. There’s always that fear that maybe your finger slipped while placing your orders three months ago and you accidentally ordered 15,000 copies of Green Hornet: Aftermath #4 and they all turned up today and OH GOD. But no, it was just the games stuff, and it was about fifty boxes all of approximately the same size and shape and while Aaron and I were tempted to build a fort with them, alas, we were too busy.

It was also a fairly sizable comics ship week as well, with a handful of notable items, like Superman #713, the next issue after the surprise Krypto fill-in for the scheduled Muslim superhero story. Some folks claimed the fill-in had something to do with the powers-that-be not liking the originally-planned story showing Superman rescuing a kitten, as it undermined the strength of the character or something. Well…guess what happens in this new issue? Go on, guess. Okay, it involves a roof, not a tree, but if anyone’s really going to split hairs over that, they are welcome to jump up my hinder.

Oh, and Superman #713 has this awesome Jeff Smith variant, and they should totally give Smith his own Superman series to do. (And speaking of Smith, the new issue of Rasl is out this week, too.)

The next issue of the Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown mini is also released this week, which turned out to be the only Flashpoint book I’m reading. I wasn’t going to be reading any of them, but those cats over at the War Rocket Ajax podcast convinced me to give it a try via their discussion of it on the show, and they were right: this is the stuff.

And this action figure is out this week. This is a gargantuan hunk of plastic. You could probably concuss a pony with this thing. I am praying this is how Tom Hardy looks in The Dark Knight Rises.

Don’t reveal the shocking ending of “Death of Spider-Man” to your friends.

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So anyway, that Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing #1 that came out this week…

…Well, I can certainly say that, as I was reading it, I was getting the vaguest shadow of an impression that the writer was perhaps trying to convince me that John Constantine may have something resembling a British accent. …It just felt laid on a bit thick, is what I’m saying.

And by the way, the Zatanna on the cover that was replaced by Hawkman on the cover is now back to Zatanna again.

None of that tells you if the comic is any good, and…well, remember when I mentioned that Tim O’Neil had asked me if I’d rather have no Swamp Thing comic than a bad Swamp Thing comic? I think I have my answer, since I’m apparently glad to have this comic.

Well, okay, it’s not as terrible as all that. It’s not all that good, really…I mean, God bless ’em, they try hard, and given the editorially mandated goal of squeezing John Constantine and his big swampy buddy back into the superheroic DC Universe…well, that’s certainly John Constantine interacting with superheroes, here. It’s kinda sloppy and rough-hewn, but I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy seeing Constantine reuniting with Zatanna and getting into Batman’s face a bit. (And there’s even a reference to the last time John ‘n’ Bats met.)

As I said when I originally addressed Tim’s question: when it comes to Swamp Thing, the filters tend to go down. There’s “appreciating the efforts of a writer and artist in telling their story,” and then there’s “oh boy, I wonder what’s going to happen to my favorite character next?” Swamp Thing is probably one of the very few characters that still trigger that latter fanboy response in me, where what is happening with the character is more important to me than how what is happening to the character is presented. I can recognize that perhaps this isn’t the best comic book in the world, but I didn’t loathe it like some reviewers I saw out there, and I still enjoyed it more for furthering the continuing adventures of Swamp Thing than for its artistic or literary merit. So, you know, I guess it was a success, at least for me.

“Too long/didn’t read” version: Your pal Mike loses his critical faculties when it comes to Swamp Thing, so don’t count on him for an unbiased review of this Search for Swamp Thing mini-series.

However, when I tell you that the Return of Swamp Thing movie is a piece of cinematic genius, that’s not just crazy old man Mike talkin’…that’s indisputable fact.

A couple of other funnybooks from this week:

  • The regular edition of Ultimate Spider-Man #160 (the final, I guess, chapter of the Death of Spider-Man storyline) comes in the Death of Superman-esque black bag:


    The variant cover, available in 1 in 25 or 40 or whatever, comes in a red bag:


    The “blank sketch” cover, which you can presumably take to a comic artist at a convention or something and have ’em draw their own Dead Spideys, comes with no bag:


    …And seriously, they should have put this in a clear cellophane wrapper. Not to protect the contents of the story from lookie-loos or anything, but, you know…blank cover, “blank” bag? As opposed to the black or red bags? No? Well, I was amused by the idea.

    We may be pretty much at the end of the run for media-driven non-comic readers coming into stores to get the latest Big Death Issue. When the Human Torch allegedly “died,” I noted at the time that even the media coverage gave a slightly cynical spin on the matter, and that I didn’t see that much of a bump in sales to many people beyond regular customers.

    This time around…well, we ordered equal numbers of The Search for Swamp Thing #1 and Ultimate Spider-Man #160. By the end of Wednesday, the first day of sale for both, we were nearly out of the Swamp Thing comic, and we’d barely moved any copies of Ultimate Spider-Man. …I know what you’re thinking, and I promise, I had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t until late Thursday afternoon, when I started having a string of people I’d never seen before show up asking about “that Spider-Man comic,” so I’m guessing it turned up in the local paper or on the news or something.

    Of course, most of the coverage I have seen (primarily online) has emphasized that it’s not the real (ahem) Spider-Man, but from the alternate Ultimate line, which may have dampened the media-driven investor interest somewhat.

    I will say that sales have come up slightly on Ultimate Spider-Man as this storyline has progressed, given the moribund state the Ultimate line has been in for quite a while. That’s what was so surprising about this new issue just kind of sitting there on the shelf, untouched and unloved, for New Comics Day.

  • And then there’s Superman #712, which was supposed to be a story guest-starring a Muslim superhero, but was pulled at the last second and replaced by a long-shelved Krypto issue that ties into Infinite Crisis, of all things. As you might suspect, there’s a big Internet hoohar over this, but I’ll just let pal Dave summarize the silliness with his comprehensive Metafilter post.

    As for the Krypto story itself…when it was first announced, years ago, that a Krypto solo issue was prepared but pulled from publication, with no explanation forthcoming, for some reason I kept picturing, like, really over-the-top dramatic reasons for DC shelving the story. “THE DEATH OF KRYPTO!” or “KRYPTO COMES OUT!” or “KRYPTO MEETS JESUS!” or some other kind of earth-shatttering story where things will never again be the same.

    Of course, it’s nothing like that…just a quiet follow-up to Infinite Crisis that kind of loses its impact this far along from the event (and not helped by art that, unfortunately, really did nothing for me). But I’m all for Krypto stories, and I suspect we’d better enjoy this one while we can, since there may be no room for flyin’ superdogs in the new post-September DC publishing regime. Except maybe in Tiny Titans, of course.

    Then again, Grant Morrison will be writing Superman….

So perhaps you’ve heard that Swamp Thing is in Brightest Day.

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So here’s the regular cover for this week’s Brightest Day #24, featuring Swamp Thing as drawn by Gary Frank:


I like the detail of the scarlet snake (I think it’s supposed to be, anyway…I don’t see any red-on-yellow-kill-a-fellow of the coral snake) entwined in Swampy’s shoulder:


And yes, the variant cover, available to retailers in a 1/10 ratio to the regular cover, also featured Swamp Thing (as drawn by Ivan Reis):


Yes, I’m picking up this cover too. I’m buying two copies of the same comic just for the covers, you bastards. Also, is Swamp Thing coughing up the White Lantern rings, or opening his plant-hole wide to receive them? Or maybe they’re just hovering around his face and he’s agape in astonishment. Who knows.

And then there’s the 1/10 variant for the final issue of the Justice League: Generation Lost series, which I swear is mocking me personally:


I mean, just look at this:


Dicks.

…

Yes, I’m getting this cover too. Jerks.

But apparently we needed to bring that Trouble mini-series back into print.

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  • So it’s a good thing DC Comics has knocked the majority of their funnybooks down to the $2.99 price point, because you’re gonna need that money you’ve saved to buy their books this week. We have one $5.99 book being released (Action Comics #900), and for $4.99 each, the last issues of DC’s two year-long mini-series (Justice League: Generation Lost #24 and Brightest Day #24) and issue #50 of Justice Society of America. I gave up on JSA a while back, but I read the rest of these, and I may be double-tapped on Brightest Day #24 if the variant cover also features that big green swampy fella. Because, you know, I’m a sad completist.

  • So Secret Avengers #12 and Secret Defenders #12.1 in the same week? Seriously?

  • Here’s something I get asked for at the shop a lot: a trade paperback collection of Secret Wars. Oh, sure, there’s a hundred buck hardcover omnibus edition, but that’s bit of a harder sell than a theoretical $24.99 paperback containing the 12-issue series. But I bet we could sell a bunch if such a trade paperback were to be brought back into print.

    Funny, I have a lot of Civil War trades here.

  • Speaking of Secret Wars, I was speaking of Secret Wars the other day on the Twitter, and I had someone ask me if it was any good. My response was that it read like a transcript of a kid playing with his action figures (fitting, considering the Secret Wars toy tie-in line), and that it was, in a way, a form of naïve art. Like, all the basics of superhero comics distilled down to its very essence, without concern for subtlety or style.

    I’m not saying this to be critical…I like the Secret Wars series just for what it is. It’s…well, I was going to say it’s “not pretentious” but of course it is, at least in conception, if not in execution. But it’s a dumb superhero comic and sometimes you just want to read a dumb superhero comic where superheroes fight supervillains and Secret Wars fits that bill and it’s just fine.

    Anyway, Secret Wars: let’s have a trade of that, Marvel. I mean, c’mon.

  • And a trade for Infinity Gauntlet, too, for God’s sake. I get asked for that all the time. EDIT: Forgot there’s a hardcover edition coming out soon. Well, that won’t be as easy to sell as a paperback, but at least it’s something.

  • Also, it would be nice if Batman: The Dark Knight Returns were available for reorder, which it hasn’t been for the last couple of weeks. I know, I know, it happens, but still, this is one book that I hate to be without for the shop. This is, like, one of the very basic foundations for a graphic novel selection at a comic shop. You’d think everyone would have a copy by now, but no, I’m still selling plenty of them.

  • So we opened the store for Easter, which we never do, but I had to be at the shop anyway to get some work done, and, you know, what was I going to do with my Easter, anyway? Yardwork? Clean house? Hang out with family? Pfffft.

    Anyway, it’s a good thing I did, because a couple of regulars dropped by to pick up a lot of books they’d special-ordered, to the tune of several hundred dollars…okay, they were going to buy the books eventually anyway, even if they had to come on a day other than Easter, but still, better to get that money sooner than later. And I had another customer I hadn’t seen in about a decade pop in and drop some mad cash on back issues. And we were just generally busy the entire day, ultimately doing better business than we usually do on Sundays. (Also, Awesome Hospital‘s Matt Digges stopped by, because he took pity on me.)

    So, for future Easters I suspect we may remain open. I’m still closing on Christmas Day, though. And on Lefthanders Day, because I can only take the cruel oppression from you fascist righthanders for so long.