Comments Off | Posted: April 10th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
This week’s shipping list is a doozie,
and my “highlights” are pretty longwinded, ok?
There are errors, which have been commented
upon and corrected already. I’m sorry.
DC Comics
JAN060288 BATMAN DARK DETECTIVE TP $14.99
This sort of fizzled for me near the end, but outside of the much-derided All Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder, this was my favorite Bat-centric title all last year. (Yes, I’ll give Monster Men a try in trade, ok?)
FEB060229 BATMAN YEAR ONE HUNDRED #3 (OF 4) $5.99
I feel like we’re waiting for the train to just pull into the station and unload 900 ninjas of badassedness.
JAN060355 DESOLATION JONES #6 (MR) $2.99
The first storyline of my favorite Ellis project of the moment wraps up. While I may not have been completely sold on Promethea once Moore decided to play Magical Mystery Tour Of Magic and Magick, Williams’s art on this has inspired me to go back and get the trades to see if I can make sense of it when read all together instead of in installments.
FEB060329 DMZ #6 (MR) $2.99
The beginning of Woods’s next longer arc and a birdie told me we’ll see more art from the design-fiend writer in a forthcoming issue.
JAN060323 SHOWCASE PRESENTS TEEN TITANS VOL 1 TP $16.99
Bob Haney madness? Yes, yes I’ll have some of that. I do hope these are better than the dreadful JLA stories that feature 1) unerringly consistent storytelling and 2) ideas that are never fully exploited to effect.
Image
SEP051688 CASEFILES SAM & TWITCH #23 (MR) $2.95
I have given this title one (1) new reader in the form of Jeff “Madman” Munson. I demand filthy monies from Image.
FEB061767 TOURIST GN (MR) $9.99
New Brian Wood graphic novel, about an oil rig and mysterious happenings. C’mon, you know there’s going to be some explodo.
Marvel
FEB062086 IRON MAN DEMON IN A BOTTLE TP $24.99
A while back I actually did a digest version of the follow up storyline to this O’Neill did:
Not to be conceited, but I think my writing is actually a lot, lot better than Denny O’s heavier-than-heavy-handed attempts to make his keyboard cry “Stop! We get it!” This is, as C. Elam mentioned in comments, the earlier material by Michelinie, which still manages to bore me pretty quickly. I vastly prefer Party Boy Tony Stark. I am a shallow individual.
FEB062028 MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX RESTRAINING ORDERS ARE FOR OTHER GIRLS $2.99
The Kyle Baker cover for this is worth the cover price by itself. I’ve yet to read the Redux title from two weeks ago, actually. Hrm.
FEB062085 YOUNG AVENGERS VOL 1 SIDEKICKS TP $14.99
I will be buying this, indeed. What I read, I liked, but I do my best to only reward Marvel for their better efforts in trade format, which makes me the sort of person who is killing the industry because The Thing isn’t selling enough as a loss leader.
Comics
FEB063027 ACTION PHILOSOPHERS HATE THE FRENCH $2.95
Between this and SlaVe Labor’s Nil, I’ve been exposed to more philosophy in the past year than I was in the previous 30 of my life, including college.
DEC052995 CHICKEN FAT SC $14.95
I am not a Will Elder fan, per se, but I think this is a fine, fine book that is worthy of attention.
FEB063203 LITTLE STAR TP (MR) $19.95
Are you a parent? Andi Watson will tug your heart strings with this elegant meditation on much of what you’re going through.
Or so I hear. I’m not a parent, and I don’t plan on having kids, Mom, OK?
No, look, my brother did that twice – I don’t have to!
We’ll get married sometime, OK? Do you have to do this here in front of everyone?
Man.
NOV053062 PAST LIES GN (MR) $14.95
I remember noticing this in the Oni solicits, but am unsure if it caught my eye enough to make me want to actually buy the darned thing.
FEB063011 THUNDER MONKEY #1 $2.95
OK, everyone who says Dan Slott is an amazing writer who needs to make more money? Here’s your chance because he owns part of this title unlike the other material he’s worked on and by supporting this, maybe you get to make sure that his family gets the good brand of Ramen for dinner.
Of course, it’s about crime-fighting primates, so I’m on it like tanning spray on Paris Hilton in February.
Next week, when Big Max comes out, I will make these comments. Thanks for the correction, Matthew Craig!
DEC052830 WARREN ELLIS BLACK GAS #2 $3.99
There’s 4 covers. Buy whichever you want. Fucking Avatar occasionally putting out a good comic and making me break my vows…
Comments Off | Posted: April 10th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Item One: Batman is the world’s greatest detective, yet he still insists he was created solely by Bob Kane. I also doubt Batman would admit he had a creator that wasn’t “Justice.”
Item Two: Bob Kane must have had a veritable truckload of promo photos of himself and the Batmobile when this ad ran (in ’76.) A deep, evil part of me imagines him looking at stacks and stacks of these things on the night of the show’s cancellation, wondering if he’d ever manage to do anything with his paper monument to egotism as tears streamed down his credit-taking cheeks.
Item Three: “Send Check or Money Order To Batman.” Yeah, and when you don’t get your record, what’re you gonna tell the mail fraud people? “Look, I sent Batman a buck-thirty and…”
Item Four: I suspect this is the most work Kane did on Batman since the mid-1940s.
Item Five: You may ask yourself, “Did the cover for the record actually feature the Gotham Guardian?”
In fact, it did! More from Hank Leids’s manager can be found over at this page at SilverBulletComics.com.
Comments Off | Posted: April 10th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m sure that “Steve Ditko draws the Fantastic Four!”
sounded like a good idea at the time. Note: he’s
inking himself here, so it’s not a “Colletta.”
(Script by Ed Hannigan in a decidedly retro mood, from
Fantastic Four Annual #16. It’s not a good comic.)
Comments Off | Posted: April 9th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Genius Covers Sunday Presents
Devil-Dog Dugan: A Career Retrospective.
That’s it. Three issues with some great covers.
Comments Off | Posted: April 8th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Comments Off | Posted: April 8th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Saturdays are Jack Kirby’s day, I’ve decided. Deal with it.
Also: I don’t feel like reviewing this week’s books, particularly. Chris did a decent job the other day, even if we have wildly divergent tastes. (IE, mine are “good” and his are “dubious at best.”)
This card is from a set entitled The Comic Art Tribute To Joe Simon And Jack Kirby. The back goes into detail concerning the (brief) decision to go into photographic covers for the romance and crime comic lines. As it was much easier to find pictures of pretty girls to slap on the front of Young Love than copyright-free tough guys on Justice Traps The Guilty and the like, Joe and Jack themselves posed for a few of these. Only two were used, this cover from Headline Comics being one of them.
Yes, that’s Kirby doing the gangster bit in front of what looks like a makeup mirror. I suspect they’re praying that Roz doesn’t burst into the room, demanding to know exactly what the hell is going on.
Special Bonus Link: Go check out the Jack Kirby Comics Weblog, now at its new location at Kirbymuseum.org.
Comments Off | Posted: April 7th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Click to read the greatest story ever
about a midget cop named Joe Little that
was reprinted in DC Special #10.
Comments Off | Posted: April 6th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
It looks like the DNS has started propagating and even though I’m not quite done with beating the template into submission, go take a look at Whiskey And Failure Dot Com, my dedicated photoblog and “other things” site.
That’s right: pictures and haiku, bitches.
Comments Off | Posted: April 6th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
BeaucoupKevin.com Presents
“How Many Gay Porn Titles Can You Fit On
The Cover Of One DC Special From 1971?”
Comments Off | Posted: April 6th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Smallville In Copyright (Or Is It Trademark? I Think It’s Trademark Here, Because We’re Talking About A Character And Not A Story.) Violation Shocker!
LOS ANGELES, CA, United States (UPI) — Warner Bros. says it will appeal a federal judge`s finding that the WB`s ‘Smallville’ may be violating the copyright owned by the creator of ‘Superboy.’
A partial summary judgment was handed down in Los Angeles March 23 finding in favor of the widow and daughter of ‘Superboy’ creator Jerome Siegel, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.
Judge Ronald S.W. Lew also said Joanne Siegel and Laura Siegel Larson had recaptured the ‘Superboy’ rights as of Nov. 17, 2004, which puts the ownership of ‘Smallville’ episodes since that date in doubt, Variety said.
Time Warner, Warner Bros. and DC Comics unsuccessfully sought a motion saying ‘Smallville’ did not infringe on the ‘Superboy’ copyright because the 5-year-old series centers around teenage Clark Kent and does not depict the costumed superhero.
Warner Bros. said it ‘respectfully disagrees’ with Lew`s rulings and will pursue an appeal.
The copyright infringement suit filed in 2004 by Siegel and Larson is still pending with no start date set.
Another article with opinion and a little more in the way of background here.
Well-written Newsarama (!!!) article about the original complaint here. Just do yourself a favor and skip reading the messageboard where someone lists their home theater setup in their signature. Christ almighty, that place is like a breeding pool for supranerds.
Anyway, interesting conundrum for Warner Brothers here, especially with a high-profile relaunch of the movie franchise in the offing. I’m just of the mind that any Superboy product without scenes like this:
…is not a
true Superboy product.
Comments Off | Posted: April 5th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Dear Mike Gagnon:
I’m going to quote or paraphrase or whatever Alan David Doane here: shut up and make some fucking comics. Please stop doing press releases and thinking that’s going to sell your comics. Stop giving us non-sequiturs like “Every comic is perfect bound instead of stapled and made of the same high quality paper and covers that the company uses for its graphic novels. This means that it will be the only line of comic books that can also be easily carried and stocked in traditional book stores.” Just plain stop if you’re not going to actually make an effort that’s worth a damn.
Where are the previews of your books? Oh, they’re here, not on the self-publishing-sounding Open Book Press website. Maybe it’s time to unify your “publicity” and “marketing” efforts and make it easy for your target audience to find out more about your offerings.
Lazy rhetoric is not going to win you readers, no matter how convinced you are of the power of free press release websites. Look at AiT/Planet Lar or First Second or Drawn And Quarterly or Fantagraphics for inspiration in how to get people wagging their tongues about your offerings instead of laying dead fish out on the stoop and expecting people to believe it’s a sushi buffet.
XOXO,
Kevin.
Comments Off | Posted: April 5th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
(Warning: sound.)
Comments Off | Posted: April 5th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Comments Off | Posted: April 4th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Today, I want this machine very, very badly.
Yes, that’s Gene Colan art.
Comments Off | Posted: April 3rd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Whatever are we going to tell Midge?
He looks so glum in this one.
It’s OK, Moose. It gets easier
after a few tries, or at least
that’s what I heard from that
one guy that time.
If you want to ruin your enjoyment of these
fine panels, click here and here.
Thanks to Aaron for the source material.
Comments Off | Posted: April 3rd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Every Monday, Diamond sticks their
shipping list up on the internerdatron.
This is what I’m getting this coming
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
DC Comics
JAN060306 CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN STOLEN MOMENTS BORROWED TIME TP $16.99
Howard Chaykin’s probably-not-in-continuity and very insane miniseries featuring a meaner all-new version of the venerable Silver Age team is well worth it for the sort of people that love the man’s work.
I am one of those people.
FEB060276 JONAH HEX #6 $2.99
Man, I love this book.
JAN060366 WINTER MEN #4 (OF 
(RES) (MR) $2.99
Seriously, with the delays in this, I have no idea what is going on.
Other Companies
FEB062813 EMO BOY #6 $2.95
I still think this book is a screaming hoot and Emond’s doing more with the concept than I would have expected, which is a welcome relief compared to most of these sorts of things.
DEC053115 REVOLUTION ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #3 (OF 6) $3.95
Last issue featured brain-modified chimpanzees flying F-16s and shooting down Air Force One. I’m sorry, but that’s right up there with “last survivor of a doomed planet.”
FEB062786 SUPERIOR SHOWCASE #1 $2.95
Finally, AdHouse’s arty take on the superhero pamphlet gets a release. I’ve been looking forward to this since it was announced and I’m 90% certain this won’t disappoint me.
Wow, this is a short week for me. Excellent. Now I can order an extra beer when we go out for dinner!
Comments Off | Posted: April 3rd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
First seen at The Comics Journal‘s messageboard in a post from “Fufu,” edited into one image to be more portable:
Comments Off | Posted: April 3rd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Do you want to see a panoramic photo of Comicazi, aka My Shop, aka That Place I Spend Too Much Time At For Someone Not On The Payroll?
Sure you do. Click here to open it in another window. I think it’s pretty neat, even if there’s a couple of small glitches thanks to my using a wide-angle converter.
Speaking of photos, I’ve gone and purchased a Macro lens for my Canon Digital Rebel XT. This weekend’s output consisted mostly of test shots, which you can see here.
This has been your obligatory “Kevin spent too much on his camera and you’re all going to suffer for it” post. You may now go about your business.
Comments Off | Posted: April 2nd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Y’know, Ragnell uses Katma Tui in her final call for the feminists blogger carnival thing she’s working on (I think that’s the technical name) and I go and undermine the whole point of her post by doing this…
Comments Off | Posted: April 2nd, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Let’s show Michael Lark some
love with this week’s
Genius Covers Sunday
Scene of the Crime is a well-done mystery
miniseries that Vertigo put out one day when nobody
was looking. Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark working
together…why does that sound so familiar?
Good stuff well worth checking out.
I’m sure this comic would be clicks and whistles to
my monkey brain, as it involves some obscure facet
of Hawkman continuity, but man…it’s pretty lookin’.
This isn’t the best comic ever, but it may well be
the best Elseworlds book to come out. Superman
punches aliens, Lex Luthor chewing scenery, and lovely
art by today’s subject, who also worked on the 30s
future-retro Terminal City.
Not even Mad Alex Toth could complain about the tribute
that Lark performed here.
This is the best Joker cover ever. I’m pretty sure
I’m serious. Maybe that Kyle Baker piece for The
Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told or Bolland’s
The Killing Joke come close.
