Monthly Archive for March, 2011

Published on March 28, 2011 in Events and Matt's stupid ramblings. 0 Comments

I say things are going to be short in this column often and then write a damn book anyway.  Not the case this week.  Still not caught up from being in Chicago, a pile of work still left to be taken care of and my favorite holiday later this week (It’s Baseball’s opening day on Thursday, boys and girls.)

Last week I said we were going to have a special donation day for Earthquake victims at the shop.  We thought it would be today (the 28th,) but we are going to delay it slightly so we can promote it a little.  Here are the details:

Monday, April 4

Special Japanese Earthquake Relief Day

For every dollar in sales 50 cents will be donated.

You do not have to do anything special.  You donate by simply stopping in and buying something.  We take care of the rest.

Stop in, buy a mocha next Monday, you just donated to disaster relief in Japan.

Donations will be made to:

Doctors without Borders

and

The American Red Cross

Digital Comics, Week 2…

If you remember my comments from last week, I explained a new Diamond movement to release digital comics in comic shops.  I asked what you think of this.  I got a few comments in store, nearly all negative towards digital comics in general and almost all thinking the idea wouldn’t affect them at all.

Is there anyone out there who is interested in digital comics?  If so, please let me know.

For the rest of you who I did talk to, thank you for your comments.  I will be communicating with Diamond in the next week or so about their program.  I think this is only geared towards people who don’t read regular paper comics now.  We would have a shop that would potentially appeal to that new non-reader.

So, I will probably get into the realm of this new form of my old medium.  It will NOT infringe on the old, preferred form.

So, yeah, but what does the crazy old school comic shop owner think?…

All that being said… I, personally, hate the digital comic idea.  They are one more impersonal electronic invasion I can do without and not to sound like the old curmudgeon so many think I am anyway, you CAN NOT replace paper.  I prefer to print out long essays and articles that are online and read them without that (this) horrible screen glaring back at me.  The Kindle, The Nook, The Iphone, the whatthef*ckever can be polished up real nice, turned sideways and… well, the Rock says it better.

I don’t want it.  I won’t purchase it and luckily, it will NEVER replace any comics in my collection.  As long as us defenders of this medium put our foots down and vow to never buy it, it will be as it is now, just another gateway for the flighty and young (insert your own insulting words you want) to come find out why a REAL comic book beats digital every time.

Art, the foundation of our industry, is fundamentally at the core of this argument.  Art, though it can be created digitally and can look just fine digitally, is still a physical medium.  Don’t believe me, go to a comic convention, find Phil Hester and go through his oversized pages he uses to draw the actual books you buy.  Nothing beats being able to go through those pages.  No computer can reproduce the size.

So.. will this horrible invasion from the future come, yes, but we don’t have to love it and WE don’t have to change.  I’m just going to whore myself out just a little more in the hopes that I can turn one young person on to the joy that we all experience each week.

I’ll have more next week, but please send me your comments.  I probably won’t respond (I’m just to busy), but talk to all of us in the shop, we want to hear your thoughts on this.

The Week of March 21st

Published on March 21, 2011 in Comics, Matt's stupid ramblings, Reviews-comics and Ronnie's Reviews. 0 Comments

Special Note:

Next week we are going to do a special sales donation for Japanese Emergency Relief.  Monday, March 28th, we will donate fifty cents of every dollar made to a Japanese Earthquake Relief.  We aren’t sure if it will be the Red Cross or something else yet, but will let you know.

This is one of the worst natural disasters in recent history, so, please stop in and buy something next Monday, it will be like making a donation yourself.  It is the very least we can do to help.

Chicago’s C2E2…

I was in Chicago this last weekend at the C2E2 convention and Diamond retailers summit.  A busy, but mostly enjoyable time.

One of the things I like about these summits is the chance to meet and speak with industry representatives face to face.  The phone is fine, but when you can ask a direct question to someone and see their response, well, you know if the answer is genuine.

There were a lot of questions I had for various companies, as no one is doing everything perfect (except maybe Terry Moore’s self publishing of Echo) and for the most part things went really well in getting answers.

One I wanted direct from the source, that also effects you the customer, was about lateness and holding to a publishing schedule.  I asked Marvel’s VP of Sales, David Gabriel, about what I see as a practice of dumping at the end of the month.  You know what I’m talking about, twelve X-men books in one week, three Avengers books, both Hulk books, so on and so on.  He said with the change of the Editor in Chief position and a restructuring of the editors as a whole at Marvel, they are instituting “editorial consequences” if books continue to not meet deadline.  I was shocked by this answer.  I did not expect the frankness and, frankly, it was great.

There was more of this about other issues facing retailers from Marvel.  I took away a sense that you will start to see changes that we all kind of expected after Disney bought them.  What is fine when you are run, by and large by a small group of people pretty much on their own, is not okay when one of the world’s largest entertainment conglomerates owns you.  I think this is just the beginning of the streamlining and it will be good for everyone.

But it isn’t just Marvel that has had problems of late with lateness.  DC has been atrocious about this.  Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool asked Dan Diddio, one of the five people who run DC, about it and got this response, “It used to be a joke, as long as you keep buying late books, we’ll keep making them. What happened is, you stopped buying them. It’s not a joke anymore. We need to get our schedule under control.”

If Diddio knew anything about the direction Marvel is going, I don’t know, but as goes Marvel goes DC.  If Marvel is moving to get their schedule under control, DC will too.

And that is good for everyone.

Digital Comics…

Another subject that was talked about heavily was digital comics.  Diamond is creating a program that will allow us to sell digital comics direct to the customer.  We would be the only place to get this content for 30 days and there would be two price structures to get it.

First, if you wanted the physical copy AND the digital copy, you would be able to purchase a 99 cent digital add on to that comic.  The possibility of additional content exists much more heavily in this format.

Second, there is the standard digital copy, which would be $1.99.

The process would work where we would come into the shop, we would have the codes, you would buy a code from us and then you would download the comic from online at your leisure.

The industry is moving towards some kind of digital sales format and though I will NEVER, personally, EVER buy digital comics and feel they are a blasphemous horror birthed from the bowels of a Terminator-like hellish future, I do understand some people want them… and I would be willing to sell them.  They are, sort-of, still comic books.

The thing is, I and Diamond, want customer feedback.  Please, let me know what you think about this, positive and negative.  What would you spend, would you pay for it, would you ever get a digital comic?  Would you buy an “add on” if you got an audio commentary track or a bunch of additional art, sketches or script?

Please let me know and I will pass on your thought to my distributor.

Review Time…

Godzilla #1 written by Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh, Pencils by PHIL HESTER, Inks by Bruce McCorkindale

Had a chance to read Godzilla #1 from IDW early this weekend and I really liked it.  Now, I have to admit a bit of a bias as I do have a bit of a long love of Godzilla.  I read the Marvel comic when I was a young kid, probably because, well, it was a giant lizard destroying things, obviously not for story (have you ever re-read those old Marvel issues, they are terrible.)  I had a large Godzilla toy as a kid too and it was the bane of my Star Wars action figures existence.  So, like I said, I might be slightly biased here.

The first issue’s story is a little on the light side.  It is written by Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh.  It does not have poop potato jokes or Goon like craziness, but as you would expect, there is a ton of destruction.  Surprisingly though, there is little set up.  Bam, Godzilla is here and yes, he is destroying things.  There is your comic.  If that is what you want, you will be happy as a clam.  I will also say that minus the bleeped out swear words, it is kid appropriate too.  What kid doesn’t want to read about a big lizard destroying stuff?

There is one very, very bright spot, Phil Hester’s art.  One of the truly nice guys in this industry, Phil delivers some of his best work on one of the biggest books he’s worked on since he resurrected Green Arrow.  Seriously good work and the biggest reason to get it.

I know the project has been a trial, as it is a licensed juggernaut through Toho, but IDW has done well at getting top flight creators on this book and should be able to keep it out on schedule too.

Godzilla #1 is scheduled to arrive next week.

Ruse #1 by Mark Waid and Mirco Pierfederici

This was one of the best books released last week.

This revival Crossgen book is a detective comic in the vein of Sherlock Homes and is exactly like it’s original incarnation, but that is to be expected as Mark Waid created the original.  The story starts up quickly and never really pauses, however, for new readers to the character you needn’t worry, Waid tells you everything you need to know about our Simon Archard, world’s greatest detective, along the way.  He also uses a fantastic bridge to give you more info and insight on the time period you are visiting.

This was a short lived, but probably best, series Crossgen published back nearly a decade ago.  I am very happy to see it return even if it might only be for four issues.

Fear Itself, Book of the Skull One Shot by Ed Brubaker, with art by Scot Eaton and Mark Morales

The first chapter of Fear Itself is here and I’m still not sure what this crossover is going to be about.  However, that isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this comic a lot.

Everyone knows I love Brubaker’s run on Captain America.  Still one of my favorite reads, this is merely a side bar to what the last two major villains have been up to since causing Bucky Cap trouble.

The storytelling is very similar to what Brubaker did many years ago in the sixty five year anniversary one shot.  Though it is set up for the Fear Itself story, much of this issue takes place during World War II.  You actually don’t need to make an investment in Fear Itself by getting this, as it is more of a Captain America story than anything else.  I really liked this issue.

Marvel has been very tightlipped as to WHAT will be going on in Fear Itself.  I don’t know if more was revealed in panels this weekend, but I do know it will be, shockingly, Captain America and Thor centric.  There are quality creators on it and it is my guess this will be much better than Siege/Dark Reign/Secret Invasion was.  This might be a little more editorially controlled and less Brian Bendis controlled.

Either way, I am a sucker and will read it.  If it is as good as this prologue, then we will all be happy.

Ronnie’s Reviews…

Xombi #1 John Rozum & Frazier Irving

This new series is a reboot or re-imaging of John Rozum’s Milestone series.  I didn’t read it in 90’s, but can say it won’t get in the way of enjoying this series.

It starts off with a bang with Irving’s art immediately letting you know you are in for some weirdness, and the text of the first page confirms it with blurbs of extremely weird happenings around the world.  The issue spends much of the time painting the background story to set the scene of a man who was experimentally infected with nanobots.  He now uses the consequential new powers to investigate all manner of surreal events in the world.

This series reeks of quirkiness and original ideas.  It may be the perfect home for Irving’s flat, over colored and completely awesome pages. As long as the next issue is less of an atlas to this world and more of a story, I am onboard for all of it.  One wonderful thing about the writing is how seriously it takes the humor.  You almost miss that it is full of jokes with how dire the tone is.  A bit like Alan Moore back when he was trying to entertain you, rather than prove his superiority.

4.5 Stars.

Batman #708 David Hine & Guillem March

This issue is part 2 to a story began in Azrael #15 and to be continued next month in Red Robin and Gotham City Sirens.  Azrael was cancelled as of that issue, because only 4 people in the state were buying it.  Everyone really missed out!

This issue takes a (much needed) break from Tony Daniels’ Sensei, Reaper, Catgirl mess and throws us into a globetrotting religious conspiracy war of Dan Brown or Preacher proportions.  Since you didn’t read Azrael #15, the opening will be confusing, but order yourself a copy to get the background.

I am really in to March’s art of late, here he shows himself of equal ability in drawing a great and terrifying scar-faced super-powered religious nut passing judgment on Gotham with fire and brimstone.  Hine’s writing here has as many elements as Daniels’ does in his story, but is able to keep you engaged enough to not only understand what is going on, but actually want to remember it… hopefully bringing you back for the next issue. (What is it with all these artist’s now getting writing duties on Batman books? It just ain’t working.)

This story ties tightly into what has been happening in the other Bat-books recently, and may show a judgment error in Bruce’s new Bat Inc. game plan.  Bruce making a bad call? Never!

In the end, the writing is tight and the art is great.  I am excited to see where this ends up.

4.5 Stars.

Week of March 14th

Published on March 14, 2011 in Comics and Ronnie's Reviews. 0 Comments

Fear Itself/Flash Point…

It may still be March, but the madness of Summer comic event crossovers starts this week with The Fear Itself Prelude, Book of the Skull one shot.  It is being written by Ed Brubaker and I know almost nothing about it.  That is how I feel about both of the summer events.  I just don’t know what to expect and as a fan and as a retailer, I’m a little nervous.

Let’s start with Flashpoint.

Here is the solicitation to the seven part series:

Not a dream, not an imaginary story, not an elseworld. This is Flash Fact: When Barry Allen wakes at his desk, he discovers the world has changed. Family is alive, loved ones are strangers, and close friends are different, gone or worse. It’s a world on the brink of a cataclysmic war – but where are Earth’s Greatest Heroes to stop it? It’s a place where America’s last hope is Cyborg, who hopes to gather the forces of The Outsider, The Secret 7, S!H!A!Z!A!M!, Citizen Cold and other new and familiar-yet-altered faces! It’s a world that could be running out of time, if The Flash can’t find the villain who altered the time line!  Welcome to FLASHPOINT!

I gather from that and all the other bits I’ve seen of the 15 three part mini-series and seven one shots (yes, fifteen and seven) is that this will be in addition to the regular monthly titles and NOT an Age of Apocalypse type event.  Alternate universe, yadda, yadda… I’m not so sure, yet, why we should care though.  Why should this be more than just a large event inside the Flash book?  Blackest Night made sense.  It was a large scale cosmic event happening on earth, with everyone involved.  Typical superhero stuff with the hot monster of the moment – Zombies!  It was successful, because you felt like it was important.  In the long run it really hasn’t been all that important, but hey, sales wise, I wish all crossovers were like it.

Now, Flashpoint is using a character with much less momentum (get it, momentum…) The Flash.  This is a character who has been stymied by lateness and a book that just can’t get out of the starting blocks (I am on fire.)  The regular book is not bad, but seems to be just sort-of there, not really going anywhere.  I just don’t understand.

Now, Fear Itself…

Here is the solicit to the first issue of that crossover:

DO YOU FEAR…TOMORROW?

In this time of global anxiety, of economic turmoil and mass hysteria, Sin, the new Red Skull, has made an awesome discovery…a shameful secret that will rock the foundations of the Marvel Universe! A revelation that will divide father and son, turn friend against friend, and herald the rise of Fear personified. HE IS RETURNING…and the world has nothing to fear but FEAR ITSELF. Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen bring fans the biggest Marvel the biggest Marvel event since CIVIL WAR!

Far more vague then the DC book, but for whatever reason, I tend to think this will be a lot more standard than Flashpoint.  Marvel, for all the issues I have with them as a company, can be counted on for being pretty consistent in what they publish on a large scale.  They are the masters of the super-crossover.  They don’t always (usually) get it right, but you know what you are going to get when they do, do it.  That is why, as a retailer, though I expect sales to be down with this one, I know what I’m getting.

As a fan, I am expecting something better.  The last three major crossovers, helmed by Bendis, have not been good.  Siege was terrible.  Dark Reign, just sort of ran out of steam and Secret Invasion, oh, brother, not good either.  Marvel’s executives know this, are not stupid and can see that they need a someone to step up to the plate and hit one out – for you non-sports fans out of there, they need a decent well written event that doesn’t leave the reader wishing they hadn’t bought it.

I don’t know what the hell is going to happen in this crossover, but the prelude should help in giving us a bit of an explanation and that comes out on Wednesday.

As a retailer, I hope both are great fantastic reads and everyone everywhere wants them, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that dream.

Fifty Centers…

Wanted to let you all know we are working on getting ALL of the fifty centers alphabetized.  There are two new long boxes of stuff as well.  We know a lot of you really like the ability to come in and look for cheap old comics.  (I do too.)  We just want to make it easy for you to do and, frankly, apologize that it has taken us so long to get it done.

Ronnie’s Reviews…

Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island #3 by Warren Ellis & Raulo Caceres

We finally get our third issue of this well crafted series, one of the 152 that Warren Ellis is currently writing.  Much like Supergod, this is a four issue mini with big ideas, fancy art, and 9 months between issues.  However, Ellis does tend to deliver… if you can bear with his release schedule.

The first two issues threw us into the middle of an early 19th century Victorian electo-punk (slight variation on classic steampunk) alternate England where we meet Captain Swing and his sky pirates, and the two rival police forces hunting him down.  The captain and his mates, who use a magnificent flying ship, appear to be anti-authoritarians on a mission to dismantle state power.  They are also great (mad?) scientists wanting to make their discoveries accessible to all, not just the rich.

In this dialogue and action rich issue, the police catch up with the Captain, and through their discussions we learn much about the Pirates and motivations of the main characters.  There is a philosophical bent to the narrative that seems to be exploring our world as much as theirs.  The writing is very classic Ellis, creating a new world out of whole cloth that tends to magnify specific parts of ours.  The characters reveal themselves naturally and tend to be unique and have their own voices.  There is equal parts long dialogue and action.  And the action gets pretty intense, while the talking bits have a lot of weight to them.

The art is an odd one.  Very ‘Avatar Press-ish’ in the main panels.  Raulo Caceres has a way with backgrounds.  They are highly detailed and set a very dark tone to the whole story.  There is also and etching or woodcut feel to each page.  Each of the main players seems to have one or two defining feature that gets exaggerated, which makes keeping them straight easy.  Check out the Captain’s hair.  Then, interspersed throughout each issue almost as an intermission, there are beautifully rendered line drawings of various technologies from this world.  Accompanying them is a paragraph or two that sets the stage for the next part of the story with a diary like writing analyzing the last scene’s events.  Although a real hand writing, rather than a script font, would have been a nice touch.  I am not a big fan of really glossy art in comics (I say bring back the newsprint!).  With the very dark color palate used here, the shiny finish feels abrasive and out of place.  A much more muted print would have suited it better.

In the end, I really like this series and really want to see where it ends with the next issue.  With any luck we will see it before next March.  After the first issue, I suspected this series would be more style over substance, but this issue showed there is a lot of depth to the story.

4.5 Stars

Quickie..

Batman Inc. #3 Grant Morrison & Yanick Paquette

Bam! We get thrown right into the action with the first page, and it never really lets up.  I believe this is the first time I have read Batman in Latin America, and I would like to see more of it.  This issue starts to hint that Grant Morrison has a big plan for this series, and like his Batman & Robin run, you will be rewarded if you pay attention to details.  The lateness probably killed some of the momentum, but I suppose that is normal for comics now.  I was kind of hoping Catwoman would remain Bruce’s travel partner, but we do get to see Bruce kill it at the tango.

4 Stars.

I too loved this issue and I was not all that impressed with the first two.  The storytelling was much closer to a more classic Grant Morrison style.  It is also important to note, we may have been given a hint at the reason why Bruce is assembling his international bat group.  This is a good issue that I didn’t think I would like and we should see issue four on March 23rd, why so quick, have no idea, but I’m happy about it.  Now, let’s stay on that schedule.

The Week of March 7th

Published on March 7, 2011 in Comics and Reviews-comics. 0 Comments

It is going to be a short one this week.  I just have to much else to get done with some major events looming on the horizon.  Might be short for a couple weeks to come… oh, man March can suck.

Crossgen is back…

I am very happy about a pair of books shipping over the next two weeks.  This week we see the return of the first of the two “new” Crossgen books, Sigil; next week Ruse.

A bit of history first.  The Crossgen comics were first released in 2000 and had a common theme, a sigil, with mystic powers given to the wearer.  Several of the first books released were of the space opera variety and existed in a shared universe.  I personally never got into these as much, though the art on several were great.  It was the later, non space, non superhero books that caught my eye and the eye of many of my early customers.

Titles like Way of the Rat, a kung fu book by Chuck Dixon, Route 666, a mild horror book by Tony Bedard and Ruse, a fantastic detective book by Mark Waid.  The company also put out a pirate themed book, El Cazador, a barbarian book, Brath and one of the best, a Lord of the Rings-like adventure title called Sojourn.  All great reads and not a single superhero in them.  Some of the better stuff being published in the early 2000 was coming out of Crossgen.  Kind of the more teen friendly, media friendly more easy to sell Vertigo of its time, but like most things in comics, it was too good to last.

Crossgen was also an attempt to publish comics in a “controlled” environment, as in, the artists and writers were salaried employees, lived in Tampa, Florida and were akin to the “Marvel Bullpen” philosophy.  This eventually had to change and free lance writers and artists had to be brought in to help with the expansion of titles.  Then things started to go south.

That working environment might not have been so great either.  One story goes that the founder, Mark Alessi, was so hard to work for many just didn’t or wouldn’t.  Mark Waid describes him as a bully and is quoted as saying he was “the biggest bully I’ve ever met in my life–and, coming from a lifelong comic book geek, that’s one hell of an indictment.”  Finances started to become a problem and unpayment for work started to mount, eventually resulting in bankruptcy.

So, how does one of the biggest comic companies ever come to publish an independent upstarts books?  Towards the end of the Crossgen experiment, JM DeMatteis and Mike Ploog created Abadazad and after the bankruptcy, Disney bought the entire “box” of Crossgen assets for one million dollars.  Now that Disney owns Marvel, you get how new Crossgen-eration came about.

So, what are these “new” titles?  So, far only four issue mini-series, but the talent level on the books is high.  Mark Waid will be writing Ruse and the art done by Mirco Pierfederici.  Mike Carey is helming Sigil, with Leonard Kirk providing the art.  With top talent on the books, it is my guess that if these perform even moderately well, there will be future series, probably still limited, of these two and additional “new” ones to come.  Story-wise… that I don’t know, but will certainly be giving them a read come Wednesday.

Facebook is not so bad…

Well, I don’t know about that, but it is popular.  Since ratcheting up our presence in the online social media site a little less than a year ago, we have doubled our number of friends or “followers.”  If you are not yet a member of the Cup Facebook army, go find us today.

Matt’s Quick Reviews… (what I really liked last week)

The Stand, No Man’s Land #2… by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Mike Perkins

This book continues to amaze me.  I am blown away by how good and riveting the adaptation of a thousand plus page book into this comic series is going SO smoothly.  Yes, there have been some delays, but the quality isn’t being rushed.  If anything the writing and art are tighter than in the beginning.

I’m not even going to start by trying to a rundown of the story or the plot.  If you haven’t been reading, you HAVE to start at the beginning.

Sales have not been kind and it is a good thing Marvel is committed to this, or I would guess it might be axe time.  Over the length of the book, we used to see variant cover offerings – those are gone.  It used to be at the top of our sales for the shop, that is not the case anymore, but still better than an average issue of Amazing Spiderman.

For those who have never read the book, this will be a great read when it is finished.

Usagi Yojimbo #135… by one man, Stan Sakai – he does it all.

This is one of the best books being published today, or for that matter over the last twenty years.  The story of a wandering Ronin in feudal Japan, Sakai has painstakingly researched every element.  Most of the stories come from, or at least start with folklore and legend.  All of the stories are acceptable for early teens up through adults.  Not dumbed down, not over the head, these are good clearly written samurai stories… that just happen to have anthropomorphic animals as the main characters.

What is it about?  I quote from the inside of the average issue, “Once a loyal retainer until his lord’s death in battle, Miyamoto Usagi is now an unemployed ronin walking the warrior’s pilgrimage, in search of harmony.”

Yeah, and issue 135… “Years ago, Usagi encountered the Lord of Owls, (like nearly 100 issues ago) a Samurai who can see an adversary’s death in their eyes, fating them to die.  Though they parted peaceably that time, the Lord of Owls told Usagi they would one day meet as enemies.”

Sakai has plots laid out over not years, but decades.  One of the best parts of re-reading old issues is seeing Stan’s reference to storylines that are just now coming to pass.  The stories, for the most part, can be read in most any order and though there is continuity, it is not as rigid as the typical superhero comic.

This is comic books at its best.

X-Factor #216… by Peter David and Emanuela Lupacchino

Rarely does a run, a real run, last in modern day comics and rarely if someone stays on a book can you look back on that run and see development of character instead of a stringing of events together to get from one large event story to the next.  One of the best at the “run” in comics is Peter David.  Master of Hulk, this once and future man of X-Factor is creating one of the best superhero runs on any book today.  His issues are all character driven epics, not big events.  They are how comics USED to be written.

David has taken the leftovers of the mutant potluck creation storm of past decades and compiled them into a fantastic sudo-crime noir detective book, inside the Marvel and mutant universes.

I prefer this Marvel title over almost every single book being published by “the house of ideas.”

I have fears though, the book has been seeing a lot of guest stars and archs with guest star themes (Thor, Spiderman) and I am concerned for its future.  I am also amazed by who collects it.  Not just hard core fans of mutant X books, no there are a good deal of old school, looking for solid writing fans of the medium, not just fans of a type of superhero book.  If you are looking for something new (old), you might give this a try.  I think you will like it.  I know I certainly do.