I suck (part 956874), shipping this week

I really and truly wanted to do the reviews this week, but on MOnday I had the Dreaded Jury Duty. I even thought I would be OK, then -- Just take the AlphaSmart with me, write in the waiting room they inevitibly keep you in for an hour or two, bang, I'd even be ahead of schedule for once.

But, no -- within 10 minutes of arriving I got shuttled off to a courtroom, and none of my excuses stuck (and the judge was soooo nice.... felt I'd be a, well, weasel if I tried to weasel out of it), and, huh, I'm potential juror #18 on a DUI.

Drag my ass out there today ('bout an hour in each direction, what with how busses move and connect), find out that the thing has been settled (plea bargin?), and thanks, that's it for this year.

Still, that's 6.5 hours of my life I won't get back... and some portion of that was the pencilled-in time for reviews. Sorry, but deal.

Tell you what, I'd LOVE to serve on a Jury. If I can set the time. 8-midnight for a month? Not a problem. Daylight hours on Wed-Fri? I can make that work. Hell, I'll even volunteer my weekends, if that's what it takes to serve my civic duty, and I'd be PROUD to do so. But the typical "We expect this to last 3-4 weeks"? Oh, yes, I'm going to plead financial hardship, yes -- my business will collapse if I'm not there to guide it, man.

I wrote up a really glowing review of SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN #1 in the 15 minutes the Court let me, but, meh, don't feel like hooking up the cables to get it off the AlphaSMart, so: EXCELLENT, and PICK OF THE WEEK. In fact, if I had a PICK OF THE MONTH category, it would win that too (maybe P.o/t QUARTER, too, but that would involve research and I'm too stressed/lazy)

PICK OF THE WEAK would probably go to BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #71 which couldn't even fufill the premise of it's own cover.

TP/GN OF THE WEEK... well, y'know what? going with I CAN'T BELEIVE ITS NOT THE JUSTICE LEAGUE TP because it's not only the last hurrah of the bwah-ha-ha (Damn, that shoulda been it's tag line!), but it has several actually affecting moments of human reaction.

Here's what we got on tap this week, and I'm not making any promises this time, see?

13TH SON WORSE THING WAITING #2 (OF 4) ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #646 AMAZING FANTASY #15 ANT #3 BATMAN #647 BLACK PANTHER #10 BPRD THE BLACK FLAME #4 (OF 6) BRIAN PULIDOS MEDIEVAL LADY DEATH #8 (OF 8) CANNON HAWKE #3 CAPTAIN UNIVERSE SILVER SURFER CHICANOS #1 CITY OF HEROES #8 DOOM PATROL #18 DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES KURTH CVR A #4 (OF 8) EXILES #73 EXPATRIATE #4 (RES) FEAR AGENT #2 FELL #3 FERRO CITY #4 GENERATION M #1 (OF 5) GEORGE ROMEROS LAND OF THE DEAD #3 (OF 5) GIANT SIZE INVADERS #2 HACK SLASH LAND OF LOST TOYS #1 (OF 3) INCREDIBLE HULK #89 INDUSTRY OF WAR ONE SHOT JLA CLASSIFIED #14 KEEP #2 (OF 5) KEIF LLAMA XENOTECH #2 (OF 6) LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #12 LIVING IN INFAMY #1 (OF 4) LOSERS #30 MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2005 MIDDLEMAN #4 (OF 4) NEIL GAIMANS NEVERWHERE #5 (OF 9) NEW AVENGERS #13 NIGHTCRAWLER #12 OFFICIAL HANDBOOK MARVEL UNIVERSE X-MEN 2005 OPTIC NERVE 10TH ANNIVERSARY PACK PLASTIC MAN #19 REVELATIONS #4 (OF 6) SEASON OF THE WITCH #2 (OF 4) SECRET VOICE #1 SENTRY #3 (OF 8) SILENT DRAGON #5 (OF 6) SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #156 STRANGE GIRL #5 TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #7 TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #35 TEEN TITANS GO #25 ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #25 USAGI YOJIMBO #89 VAMPIRELLA WITCHBLADE FEAST #1 VERONICA #166 WOLVERINE #36 WONDER WOMAN #223 X-MEN #178 X-MEN AND POWER PACK #2 (OF 4) X-MEN KITTY PRYDE SHADOW & FLAME #5 (OF 5)

Books / Mags / Stuff ADVENTURES OF RED SONJA VOL 1SHE DEVIL WITH SWORD MASS TP AEON FLUX HERODOTUS FILE GN NEW PTG ALTERNATIVE COMICS AN EMERGING LITERATURE TP AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL 10 NEWAVENGERS TP AMERICAN TP CINEFANTASTIQUE 2005 YEARBOOK COLONIA VOL 2 ON INTO GREAT LANDS TP CONQUERING SWORD OF CONAN TP CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS ABSOLUTE EDITION HC DAMPYR #7 FROM THE DARKNESS DOES THOU KNOW VOL 1 GN EDU MANGA HELLEN ADAMS KELLERGN ESSENTIAL SILVER SURFER VOL 1TP NEW PRINTING ESSENTIAL X-MEN VOL 2 TP NEW PRINTING FASHION KITTY VOL 1 GN IMAGE COMICS HC KRISTINA QUEEN OF VAMPIRES VOL 1 GN (A) LEGEND OF GRIMJACK VOL 4 TP NEGATIVE BURN SUMMER SPECIAL 2005 OCEAN TP PROTOPRIZE TP PUNISHER RIVER OF BLOOD TP PVP VOL 3 PVP RIDES AGAIN TP SHADOW KINGDOMS WEIRD WORKS OF HOWARD VOL 1 TP SIZZLE #28 (A) STAR WARS CLONE WARS VOL 7 WHEN THEY WERE BROTHERS TP TEEN TITANS THE FUTURE IS NOWTP TOWER OF THE FUTURE VOL 1 TREASURY VICTORIAN MURDER VOL7 MURDER ABRAHAM LINCOLN SC (M VALERIAN VOL 1 THE NEW FUTURETRILOGY TP (RES) WALKING DEAD VOL 4 HEARTS DESIRE TP WILL EISNERS SPIRIT ARCHIVES VOL 17 HC WITCH VOL 3 THE REVEALING GN

The ASSHAT OF THE WEEK award for late shipping product goes to Dynamic Entertainment's ADVENTURES OF RED SONJA VOL 1SHE DEVIL WITH SWORD MASS TP which was only supposed to ship back in freaking JULY. And it's a reprint, people -- if you can't hit a ship date with a REPRINT, of what use are you? Much like the poor asshat.

(The IMAGE COMICS HC is *not* the AoW because they properly cancelled outstanding orders and resolicited, and shipped within the month they were supposed to. In fact, if it didn't reward the original bad behavior, I'd probably name that HERO OF THE WEEK. But it does reward, so I shan't)

The OPTIC NERVE 10TH ANNIVERSARY PACK, incidentally, is the first 7 issues brought back into print, hurray! I actually split the packs up to sell them individually though....

Sight/Un-read, I think I am most excited by FELL #3 this week.

What about you?

-B