For Sims, On His Birthday

A Reminder

My photos from the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con.

Back From San Diego.

1.
14 hours door-to-door travel getting home, so I’m not in the best of moods. You probably know this if you follow me on Twitter.

2.
Finally got to meet the internet’s own Dorian Wright along with Employees Tim and Aaron of Ralph’s Comic Corner. The amount of gossip concerning Mr. Michael Sterling and his (my lawyer says I have to call them “alleged”) abuses of their goodwill and supple young flesh was, frankly, a bit disconcerting.

3.
I was on a panel about marketing your indie comic. It was all very sudden – I was brought in as a last-minute replacement for Shannon Wheeler – but I think everyone had a good time. BOOM!’s Chip Mosher quite rightly dominated the event and Heidi MacDonald’s feedback on how to get noticed by sites like The Beat was really great. Outside of reminding people that they’ve always got to hustle and they can’t act like they’re too hip to market themselves, I just kind of sat there and made farting noises with my hands, which seemed to work pretty well.

4.
I said I wasn’t going to spend anything. $600 later, well…

5.
It should be noted that a big chunk of that was me buying the original art from my two Cthulhu Tales stories from Joe Abraham, though, so I think that’s fair enough. Joe and I may be doing a thing. It’s all very vague at the moment but he wants to start drawing more and I’m always looking for artists to bend to my will. No, I will not give you his contact information, Chris Sims of the Action Age.

6.
I’m very sure I’m going to miss some of you, but it was great to see Jenn, Paul, Darlene, Jodi, Ren, Sherri, Nate, J. Ho, Matt, Gillen, McKelvie, Marc, Layman, Starros, Jeff, Vendetti, Les, Ryan, Ryan’s Hot Wife (I hope she knows that we call her that,) Declan, Alex, Will, Dale, Tony, Andrew, Dafna, Ming, Katie, the Periscope gang, PJ, Sarah, Gardner, Chris, and especially Carla and Lance Hoffman, who looked really really terrific, even after everything they’ve been through.

7.
Photos will be up sometime. I took maybe 50 or so.

8.
I’ll be back next year. With The Rack and a table of its own.

Yes, I am attending SDCC this year.

Here’s some answers to questions you didn’t even know you were going to ask:

• No, I’m not going in any sort of official capacity, and I’m traveling light. I’m bringing the camera and I’m just going to enjoy myself this time instead of trying to run around constantly. I say that every year, but this year I’ve got exactly two items scheduled and the rest is wide open. I might blog a bit, but really, what can I add that’s new to that discussion?


• No, I will not have copies of The Rack: Year One (Mostly) with me. I will now have very few copies of The Rack: Year One (Mostly) with me. I will also have some buttons and odds and ends. If you want to make sure you get a copy of the book, you’ll need to order it online.


• Yes, I am considering getting a table for next year, especially as I have been harangued by several people who have reminded me that the small press area at SDCC for four and a half days costs less than two days at MoCCA.


• No, I can’t really help you get a gig with BOOM! Studios or anyone else.


• Yes, you can buy me a drink. Or iced coffee, black. Starbucks is fine. There’s a couple of kiosks. Why are you standing there gaping at me when I could be enjoying an invigorating drink right now?

“We came in peace for all mankind.”

RJ White reviews the Criterion edition of Namor’s THE FANTASTIC FOUR.

The story’s pretty well-known- in the early 1960s, not long after their disfiguring accident and entry into the public eye as the short-lived “science vigilante” group the Fantastic Four (Reed “Mr. Fantastic” Richards, Susan “Invisible Girl” Storm-Richards, Ben “The Thing” Grimm and Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm) fell upon some financial hardship, due to poor investments. Monarch/industrialist/part-time terrorist Prince Namor of Atlantis (sometimes known as the “sub-mariner”) decided to privately fund a film starring the team. Namor even started his own production company to produce the film, but the whole thing turned out to be some sort of elaborate scheme in which he had planned to kill them. Thwarted somehow, he went back into the sea and the film was completed by an uncredited Samuel Fuller.

THE RACK: A Reflection

You can skip to the bottom if you read comics you don’t enjoy and don’t want to be lectured to.

OK, here’s the thing. People email me wanting to know what I think about things. Not, like, things I care about, but things like DC’s upcoming Blackest Night or the return of Steve Rogers. I think it’s nice that people want to know my opinion on something that obviously means something to them, but (and God, this sounds even more egotistical than usual) I don’t spend any time at all thinking about that sort of thing anymore. Over the last year or so, I’ve started to create more than react, and I’ve opted to be more positive in general about comics, sticking to talking about what I like and actually want to read versus whining about matters that don’t interest or excite me at all. So, if you want to know what I think about comics happenings along these lines, the answer is more-than-likely going to be “I’m not.”

If DC wants to do a Green Lantern-themed remix of Marvel Zombies, that’s fine. It’ll probably sell very well to the sort of people who want that sort of thing. (I actually really enjoyed The Sinestro Corps War, but that seemed to fill up my space magic-ring-themed mega-event reserves to their required levels pretty handily, with the upcoming Wednesday Comics strip by Busiek and Quinones keeping things topped off.) If Marvel wants to resurrect a character that nobody with half a lobe in their skull thought would stay dead, that’s fine. I’ll read it in the book format because I think Brubaker’s done a bang-up job with the title, and I’ll write a one-off comic strip about how the marketing stunt around it ended up doing at a fictional comic shop because that’s the sort of thing people like, but I can’t imagine devoting any real thought to the matter unless it was my bottom line that was being affected by the whole issue.

In the past couple of months, I’ve seen some people who I thought were smarter get caught up in grinding out content about what they hate about comics, and it baffles me. Why rehash the “news cycle” that Newsarama and CBR are working when you can celebrate how cool, how vital comics are by pointing out smaller titles that you enjoy? Don’t get me wrong: there’s some reviewers whose insightful savaging of the mainstream is something I enjoy and look forward to, but they’re actually coming up with useful analysis of the medium and its trends, not pissing and moaning about how comics aren’t what they think they should be and how Dan Dildio (I swear I saw that yesterday) needs to fuck right off.

(The short version: If you don’t think you’ll like something, ignore it. Something better will come along. That’s what I do and don’t you want to be just like me?)

What I’ve Been (Listening, Reading, Watching)

Super-Brief Metapost

1.
The hard drive on my main machine, the beloved Cerebra, has given up the ghost and while The Macintosh Doctor can install a new (larger) one for a very reasonable cost, he can not magically make it appear any faster. There’s not going to be any staff picks on The Rack this week because of this. Fantastic timing, really, what with us giving out about 500 or so postcards during MoCCA. At least I have a Time Machine backup so I can be up and running quickly enough after he does his thing.

2.
Speaking of: MoCCA was great, but ludicrously hot, particularly on the first day when the floor was filled with people and the comics-buying frenzy was in full swing. I’m really glad we did it, but I’m not so glad that I looked even more pathetically fat and sweaty than usual. You never hear about a comics show that’s too cold, do you? Anyhow, I got some nice-looking books, missed out on some things, but I did get to meet a lot of people that seemed to not hate me, which was a bit disconcerting.

3.
I’m wandering the streets of New York today. There’s a Lydia strip going up in a while, but don’t expect much in the way of content outside of me stalking an wireless spot at noon so I can get in on the Pet Shop Boys concert pre-sales.

My site is back and we’ve got CONTEST WINNERS, people!

So, that outage is over now, I guess? The working theory is that we ran into a known issue with wp-cron.php, a scheduler that WordPress uses to talk to servers so there was a lot of advanced UNIX stuff being used that just passes over my head like a pteradon. Thankfully it happened on a holiday so you, the teeming masses, weren’t left completely without inane ramblings and poorly photochopped comic book panels.

But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You want to know if you got yourself some fancy comic books, right?

Something that I realized I didn’t do with the post announcing the Potter’s Field contest is to let you all know that there were actually three copies of Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta’s book up for grabs. Silly me! Anyway, there were over 300 entries from around the world, but the random number generator at Random.org made sussing them out pretty simple. The winners are as follows: KT Wiegman of Los Angeles; Jeff Metzner from Exton, PA; Chicago’s own John Pontoon! I’ve forwarded your contact information to Chip Mosher at BOOM! and you can expect to see something in the mail in the very near future, gang!

We may have another contest as early as tomorrow, so come back soon, y’hear?

ALSO PICTURED: Rice Cooker, Mugs, Toaster Oven, Tacky Countertop.

Debuting at MoCCAFest 2009.

More details here.

And then there was the time…

…that this guy took photochopped content from my site and ran it on his blog, unattributed.

Look, I’m fine with anyone borrowing stuff I do; that’s the nature of the internet. In fact, I rather like it when people think something I’ve done is decent enough to be used on their sites, but if you’re not going to ask outright, at least throw some damn credit my way.

I’m going back to damn bed now.

Dammit.

There’s a buncha DVDs on sale at Amazon

Setting aside my enmity towards Amazon’s PR department, this is a pretty amazing sale if you’re willing to dig around a bit.

In the $5 and under bin – Not a really, uh, deep selection, but She Wolves Of The Wasteland is $4, so that’s something.

DVD movies for $5-$8 OK, here’s where it starts getting pretty interesting.  Little Shop Of Horrors, one of two or three musicals I like!  Dr Strangelove! The Breakfast Club!  Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On The Move!  Glory!  The Dark Crystal!  And that’s just on the first page!

$8 to $15 Spider-Man 3!  The first season of Barney Miller!  An Affair To Remember!  Jodorowsky’s El Topo! The Steve Reeves Hercules Collection!

$15-$20 The complete Due South!  The first season of Lexx!  A four-film Shaw Brothers box set!  Seasons of Kids In The Hall and Monty Python’s Flying Circus!

$20-$30 Seasons of Rescue Me, Dawson’s Creek, Remington Steele and Profiler!  A six-film Marilyn Monroe box set!  The complete Poirot!  The Criterion edition of The Complete Mr Arkadin!

Over $30 The complete Emma Peel Avengers for $48!  The complete Homicide: Life On The Street for $117!  Nero Wolfe!  The deluxe collector’s edition of La Dolce Vita!

Revisiting #amazonfail.

This blog entry from the Baltimore Sun‘s Nancy Johnston neatly sums up many of my feelings about how Amazon handled its recent problems concerning materials that had gay and lesbian content. At this point, even with most of the work having been relisted and in its proper place in search, I’m still disappointed and a bit baffled by the way that the company has handled the entire mess. Amazon first pinned the blame on a glitch before letting a hacker take credit and then somehow the French somehow got involved, and over week later, there’s still no apology or clear explanation for what happened from the company.

I can’t help but think that if this had happened with books about black culture or Jewish people, the company would be falling over themselves to fix the gaping hole in their PR, but when it comes to the gay people, they’re really not concerned. Or – worse yet – they’re trying to actively avoid having to make any kind of pro-gay statement that might tick off the conservative minority that gets really upset when people are treated equally, and that bugs the shit out of me.

Attention: Local People With Discriminating Taste

Go to HannahAndKevin.org and send an email to the address listed if you are interested.

An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos

Jeff:

I’ve been an avid customer of Amazon.com for quite some time now, purchasing between $100 and $200 worth of books, DVDs, games, electronics, and music each month. I think the Amazon mp3 store is a prime example of how to sell music online, and it’s obvious that a great deal of thought has been placed in editorial pieces such as your annual ten best lists. I’ve always been happy to give Amazon my money, and joined your affiliate program because the company offers the chance for people who don’t have good local book stores and comic shops to pick up material I’ve enjoyed and discussed on my blog. Each month, I send between $1,000 and $3,000 of business your way through the affiliate links on the sites I maintain as well as a Twitter account set up for music, movie, and other geek-friendly deals. I’ve always had a good relationship with your company.

However, that relationship, which currently means between $13,000 and $26,000 per annum for your business, will be over unless you do not immediately take action to reverse your company’s new “Adult Materials Policy,” a blatantly homophobic and hypocritical rule that means that Alan Moore’s sexually explicit Victorian graphic novel Lost Girls is currently available through the sales rank-oriented search and lists, but not Radclyffe Hill’s acclaimed The Well of Loneliness, a lesbian romance set in the same era that features no sex. Some people with more patience than I have crafted a list that includes those two titles and several more egregious examples of this policy.

In an era where more people are becoming more accepting of those who aren’t like them – just look at our last presidential election – it’s a shame that the web’s largest retailer has decided to take a step back to the past and marginalize a vital segment of our society through rules that seem tailored to enforce a damaging, unhealthy status quo that has left so many leading unhappy lives. What’s next, removing black authors and materials about black culture from the sales ranks? If the web as we know it had existed in 1965, people would have been telling you that was the right thing to do, and they would have been as wrong then as your business is right now with this decision.

Yes, Jeff, you’re the CEO of just one online retailer, but it’s the biggest online retailer. Wouldn’t you like to give people one more reason to say that you’re the best? Hell, this decision may have passed you by entirely; and I’m willing to give you and those in your organization a chance to rectify this mess. I’m leaving the Amazon affiliate links on my site for another week, but if your decision has not changed by next Sunday, I’ll cancel my Amazon Prime membership, remove any and all affiliate links, and walk away from your company entirely.

Yours,
Kevin Church

No, I’m not doing anything for April Fool’s day.

Or am I?

(No, I’m not. Too busy.)

Go about your business.

My friends are sick, disgusting, horrible people. I adore them.