Arriving 12/29/11

The final ship week of the year, and it's not a bad one! We do, however, have two ASSHATS OF THE WEEK, in this final shipping week -- first is the loverly *four* different issues of 2000 AD that are shipping to America this week; seriously, I'd rather have a single SKU to have to process if you're going to do that anyway, guys.

The second goes to Marvel comics, and the *two* issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA (#5 & 6) shipping this week, AS WELL AS an issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA & BUCKY.

Please please please please please stop making it harder to sell your comics, publishers!

2000 AD #1759 2000 AD #1760 2000 AD #1761 2000 AD #1762 30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #3 ALL STAR WESTERN #4 ALPHA FLIGHT #7 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #22 ANGEL & FAITH #5 STEVE MORRIS CVR ANNE RICE SERVANT OF THE BONES #5 (OF 6) ANNIHILATORS EARTHFALL #4 (OF 4) AQUAMAN #4 ARCHIE #628 (ARCHIE MEETS KISS PT 2 ) ARTIFACTS #12 (OF 13) CVR A HORN ASTONISHING X-MEN #45 AVENGERS CHILDRENS CRUSADE #8 (OF 9) AVENGERS SOLO #3 (OF 5) BART SIMPSON COMICS #66 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #4 BLACK PANTHER MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE #527 BLACKHAWKS #4 CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 CAPTAIN AMERICA #6 CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BUCKY #625 CROSSED BADLANDS OPENING SALVO CYCLOPS #7 DC COMICS PRESENTS BATMAN BLAZE OF GLORY #1 DC COMICS PRESENTS BATMAN URBAN LEGENDS #1 DC COMICS PRESENTS ELSEWORLDS 80 PAGE GIANT #1 DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS #20 DEADPOOL #48 DMZ #72 DOROTHY AND WIZARD IN OZ #4 (OF 8) DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS #14 FF #13 FLASH #4 FRENEMY OF THE STATE #5 (OF 5) (RES) FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #4 GAME OF THRONES #4 GEARS OF WAR #21 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #4 HACK SLASH #11 CVR A SEELEY & BADILLA HAUNT #20 I VAMPIRE #4 INCORRUPTIBLE #25 IRON MAN 2.0 #12 JOE HILL THE CAPE #3 (OF 4) JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #4 KICK-ASS 2 #6  (OF 7) KIRBY GENESIS CAPTAIN VICTORY #2 LEGION SECRET ORIGIN #3 (OF 6) LENORE VOLUME II #4 MICE TEMPLAR VOL 3 #6 MICHAEL AVON OEMING CVR MIGHTY THOR #9 MONOCYTE #2 (OF 4) RED SONJA #61 ROBERT JORDAN WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #18 SAVAGE HAWKMAN #4 SECRET AVENGERS #20 SIMPSONS SUPER SPECTACULAR #14 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #232 SPACE WARPED #6 (OF 6) SPACEMAN #3 (OF 9) SPIDER-MAN #21 STAR TREK ONGOING #4 STAR WARS CRIMSON EMPIRE III EMPIRE LOST #3 (OF 6) SUPERMAN #4 TEEN TITANS #4 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES MICRO SERIES #2 MICHELANGELO THE GUILD ZABOO #1 DORKIN CVR TOO MUCH COFFEE MAN #1 FACSIMILE ED ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #5 ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #5 UNCANNY X-MEN #3 XREGB UNWRITTEN #32.5 VENGEANCE #6 (OF 6) VOODOO #4 WARLORD OF MARS #14 WITCH DOCTOR RESUSCITATION ONE SHOT WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #13

Books / Mags / Stuff BETTY & VERONICA BATTLE OF THE BFFS BLACKHAWK GN (REBELLION ED) BROADCAST TV DOODLES OF HENRY FLINT SC CHASE TP DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HC VOL 02 FIRST ENCOUNTERS ESSENTIAL SPIDER-MAN TP VOL 07 NEW ED GENERATION HOPE SCHISM TP HELLBLAZER TP VOL 02 THE DEVIL YOU KNOW NEW ED HOUSE OF MYSTERY TP VOL 07 CONCEPTION JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #317 LOBO UNBOUND TP LOUIS - RED LETTER DAY HC NEW ED PREVIEWS #280 JANUARY 2012 (NET) ROOTS OF THE SWAMP THING TP SECRET AVENGERS TP VOL 02 EYES OF DRAGON SHAKY KANES MONSTER TRUCK GN TERRY MOORE SKETCHBOOK VOL 01 HOT GIRLS & COLD FEET TRUE BLOOD LOGO BEER MUG TRUE BLOOD LOGO PINT GLASS X-MEN AGE OF X TP X-MEN LEGACY #260 XREGG X-MEN SCHISM HC

What looks good to YOU?

 

-B

Hibbsing into the first week of November!

I lost last week to GTA: San Andreas. It was on crazy sale on Steam (under $5), and I let myself get tempted and sucked in, and read very very little last week. But I'm back now!

GTA: SA is a fascinating game -- I certainly feel coarser for playing it (still playing it, actually -- I'm not even out of LA proper yet!), but I also think there's something insanely artful about the freedom of the entire experience. The voice acting is stellar, the motion capture is amazingly subtle, then it has those big meaty meshes that just slaughter the illusion. It's insanely hard in places, and some of that might be standard controllers -- like the rail shooting portions would be a lot more fun if you were standing in an arcade, for example -- and I get endlessly frustrated by it's arcade/console roots... I am used to having a LOT finer control of when I get to save, for example, in PC games. Anyway, VERY GOOD game if you're OK with playing dark.  So.... comics!

ACTION COMICS #3: I'm really really really enjoying Morrison's Year One take here. I'm still not convinced this guy has actually appeared in any other comic book, however. This really is a Superman I've wanted to read nearly forever, and I'm sorta kind of crazy sad that we've been told the book is going to switch to "contemporary", because I wish this WAS. Ah well. If there's a problem (and there is) it's the ridiculous $4 for 20 story pages and a bunch of absolutely mis-thought fluff at the back. It's horrific to expect people to PAY to BE ADVERTISED TO. Ugh! If the "backmatter" doesn't get a WHOLE lot better really really fast, I really can see a lot of people deciding to just skip out and wait for the trade.

While I'm on this topic, can I address the crossline fluff pages? I get that in issue #1 you can't have a letter's page (though individualized author intros and "here's what we're thinking" text pieces would have been the right foot to get off on), and, sure in #2 as well, but you're on #3 now, and I can not believe that we are still seeing these softball interview questions at this point. "DC All Access" needs to be rethought as well -- especially when you're overtly trying to sell 52 titles to people, having *dull* repeating content each week is awful. It needs more Stan Lee, more cowbell, and less "laundry list of projects" perfunctorily typed out.

 

Anyway, ACTION #3's comics pages are VERY GOOD, and everything else about the package is AWFUL.

 

ANIMAL MAN #3: Whoa. Artistic tour-de-force, with only-in-comics concepts. This is so different in tone than any of the other 52, and I'm really enjoying it almost as much for that as anything else. An easy VERY GOOD, though I didn't like the hand-waving away of the origin aliens.

 

INFINITE VACATION #3: I really like the ideas on display in this comic (though the "Evil Mark" scene went on two pages too long!), but the art looked rushed out to my eye... which is something given it's been SEVEN MONTHS since the last issue! Christ! This book was solicited as a MONTHLY comic. Hell, the back page ad still has the original shipping date for #4, if you look -- 4/27. That's just of 2011, not 2012. Further, issue #2 was the book that shipped back in April, not the #4 it was *supposed* to be. This kind of behavior is exactly and precisely why so many retailers give up on trying to stock innovative small press titles in general, and IMAGE COMICS in particular -- this kind of crazy irresponsible publishing behavior. That's asshat level shit right there. The comic was GOOD, but who is going to care if you can't release it in a reasonable manner?

 

AVENGERS ACADEMY #21: Or, as the cover puts it: 1st Issue (of a new era). Hmph, cheap. I do like this book, however -- it's got an interesting premise (training future Avengers... who would have otherwise grown to be villains ), and it's style and pacing is kind of "old school Marvel" (in every positive sense of that phrase).  There's a realllllly awkward transition on page 12 (and again on 13) which doesn't work at all on the printed page, making it look like one of the characters is stripping in front of a room full of people, but it has a decent little cliffhanger there on the last page, so that's nice. Overall, I think this is a GOOD issue of a solid comic book.

 

FEAR ITSELF 7.1: CAPTAIN AMERICA: Ugh. that's even worse than the first time through!I might have been fine with the idea here if it had been an actual decision all of the characters made, but I can not see the Caps going along with the lie, whatsoever. Plus, the stated reasons for Nick and Natasha don't make a lot of sense -- if he's just going to go back to his old identity, won't the Russians know about that almost immediately? This does nothing but engender negative feelings in the superhero community, for no gain.  No wonder so few of us could tell Bucky was dead in the first place.... very disappointed. And only sheer craft prevents me from going below EH.

 

x-23 #16: once, a very very long time ago, I kind of collected "Captain Universe ('The Hero Who Could Be YOU!')" appearances, because the conceit of the idea was fun, if a bit shallow. So, when I saw the cover, I decided to read through this issue. Mistake. I couldn't follow it at all (Probably mostly because it is chapter 4 of a 4 part arc, I would imagine!), and I haven't got the foggiest idea why the FF are involved with x-23, or why it's no longer "Captain Universe", but rather "the enigma force" (wait, tied in with Micronauts, then? Really? Since when? and...Why?), or why... well, really anything. I kind of hated it, but rather than saying "AWFUL", I should be more fair, and liken it to walking into the last 15 minutes of a movie -- good, OR bad, you're probably not going to get it -- INCOMPLETE.

 

NEW MUTANTS #33: Have I said how much it drives me nuts when people get simple enough San Francisco-based stuff completely wrong? I mean would ANY Marvel editor anywhere have a character standing in Harlem look west and see the Statue of Liberty? But the equivalent of that happens ALL THE TIME in SF-based stories. (general Protip? there are exceedingly few places in town where you'll have a cable car in the background) So, when the New Mutants (heh) move into a house that's, I think, meant to invoke memories of THE REAL WORLD, and the text specifically says "1128 Mission", but the house is A VICTORIAN, yikes, no. 1100 block is down near the Civic Center, and that's full-on industrial buildings. Seriously, go Google street view it! You can have them in a Vic on Mission st, but it's pretty much got to be on the other side of Division. "2128 Mission" wouldn't have had me blink even for a second.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, sorry!)

Either way, I really don't understand the premise of this book -- it isn't clear why THESE characters are together, or why, or, even, what they're going to do. Pretty much all of them are cyphers at this point, with any real plot thread that could come from their own backgrounds played out. I can't muster more than an OK.

 

SWAMP THINGG #3: I keep trying to like it, but I think it is missing something in some I-can't-explain-what way. Maybe that it feels like it is trying to live off the Moore run, yet try to contradict it at every turn? Maybe it is that "Swamp Thing" isn't IN the comic, at all? Maybe it is "The Rot" is very very lazy? I dunno. I like the art, I even think the writing is fine, but the entire thing fails for me in some essential way.  EH.

 

UNCANNY X-MEN #1: There is absolutely positive 100% no reason this shouldn't just be #544. they gained NOTHING from a story-telling perspective from the renumber, and even, in marketing, I don't think it's going to work, because that particular well is pretty dry right now at Marvel.

(plus? You can NOT see downtown SF from Ocean Beach. (Just like you wouldn't be able to see Utopia from downtown) It isn't possible, unless you're in a helicopter, but not from a worm's-eye view like the camera there. Also, they BETTER rebuild the damn windmill, Keiron, ON PANEL, I love that thing! And? On that last page? That's not GG Park it's standing in -- that's the Presidio, a mile or so away...)

This is not really how I would have resolved the whole Celestial thing (I find Mr. Sinister to be, perhaps, the worst of Claremont's creations), but, sure, whatever, if you want to make UNCANNY more of a "superhero book", then I guess this is the way to do it. Except that I thought that that was the purpose of (adjectiveless)? This was OK, but, again, I simply don't understand the renumber.

 

 

Well, that's enough from me -- time to help customers!

What did YOU think?

 

-B

Arriving 6/16/2010

Here's some comical books shipping this week... 2000 AD PACK MAY 2010 AGE OF BRONZE #30 AGE OF HEROES #2 (OF 4) HA AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #633 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #634 GRIM AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS BLACK CAT #1 (OF 4) ANGEL BARBARY COAST #3 ANITA BLAKE CIRCUS OF DAMNED CHARMER #2 OF (5) ATLAS #2 AZRAEL #9 BETTY & VERONICA #248 BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #205 BLACK WIDOW #3 HA BOX 13 GN BOYS #43 BRIGHTEST DAY #4 CLASSIC RED SONJA REMASTERED #1 CROSSED FAMILY VALUES #2 (OF 6) DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER JOURNEY BEGINS #2 (OF 5) DARK WOLVERINE #87 DARKWING DUCK #1 DUCK KNIGHT RETURNS DC UNIVERSE LEGACIES #2 (OF 10) DEADPOOL #24 DEADPOOL MERC WITH A MOUTH #12 (OF 13) DMZ #54 DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP #11 (OF 24) DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #355 DV8 GODS AND MONSTERS #3 (OF 8) FABLES #96 FADE TO BLACK #4 (OF 5) FARSCAPE ONGOING #8 FEVRE DREAM #2 (OF 10) FORGETLESS #5 (OF 5) GI JOE #19 GRIMM FAIRY TALES #48 A CVR DEBALFO HELLBLAZER #268 HERALDS #3 (OF 5) HER-OES #3 INCREDIBLE HULK #610 WWHS JOKERS ASYLUM HARLEY QUINN #1 JOKERS ASYLUM MAD HATTER #1 JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #161 KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #163 LOCKJAW AND PET AVENGERS UNLEASHED #4 (OF 4) LONE RANGER #22 MAGDALENA (ONGOING) #2 MAGOG #10 MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ #7 (OF 8) NEW AVENGERS #1 HA NEW MUTANTS #14 XSC NOT QUITE DEAD #6 OFF HANDBOOK MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z UPDATE #2 PHANTOM DOUBLE SHOT #4 (OF 6) KGB NOIR PHANTOM GHOST WHO WALKS #10 PHANTOM UNMASKED #1 (OF 2) POLITICAL POWER #11 AL FRANKEN REBELS #17 ROBERT JORDAN WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #3 (RES) SAVAGE DRAGON #161 SCOOBY DOO #157 SHIELD #10 SHUDDERTOWN #3 SIMPSONS COMICS #167 SONIC UNIVERSE #17 SPIKE THE DEVIL YOU KNOW #1 SPIRIT #3 TINY TITANS #29 ULTIMATE COMICS X #3 WALKING DEAD #73 WALL-E #7 WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #9 X-FACTOR FOREVER #4

Books / Mags / Stuff AFTERSCHOOL CHARISMA TP VOL 01 ARTICHOKE TALES HC BACK ISSUE #41 BATMAN RIP TP BILLY HAZELNUTS & CRAZY BIRD (RES) BLACKSAD HC VOL 01 BOOK OF MR NATURAL HC CHEW TP VOL 02 INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR CINEFEX #122 JUL 2010 CLASSICS ILLUS HC VOL 09 THE JUNGLE COMPLETE DR & QUINCH GN S&S ED CONAN SPEAR & OTHER STORIES TP CREEPY ARCHIVES HC VOL 06 HELLBLAZER HOOKED TP I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE FUNNIER SC JUDGE DREDD COMP CASE FILES GN S&S ED JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #298 LITTLE ADVENTURES IN OZ BOOK 02 MAD MAGAZINE #504 MEATCAKE GN MIGHTY AVENGERS TP UNSPOKEN NAOKI URASAWA 20TH CENTURY BOYS GN VOL 09 PETER PORKER TP VOL 01 SPECTACULAR SPIDER-HAM GN PRESIDENT EVIL I HAVE A SCREAM TP SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY HC VOL 01 STAR WARS CLONE WARS YR TP VOL 05 IN SERVICE OF REPUBLIC STAR WARS KNIGHTS O/T OLD REPUBLIC TP VOL 09 DEMON TEMPERANCE HC THOR BY J MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI TP VOL 03

Hey! Do you remember I used to have a feature called "Asshat of the Week", for Fucking Stupid Publishing Decisions?

I *could* grant it to Marvel comics for publishing TWO issues of "Amazing Spider-Man" (and a spin-off mini) this week. Yeah, that's pretty fucking dumb.

I *could* also give it to DC for publishing two installments of the "weekly" 5 issue semi-mini-series "Joker's Asylum" this week. Yeah, that's also pretty fucking dumb.

But I think I *actually* have to give it to Moonstone for publishing THREE different "Phantom" comics in a single week! I mean, at least people *like* Batman and Spider-Man. Almost no one (in America) likes The Phantom any more, and no one is going to change their mind at all when you dump that number of comics on to the rack in a single week.

What the fuck is wrong with these people, anyway? Do they WANT their comics to not sell?

What looks good you YOU, anyway?

-B

Asshattery, and so forth: Hibbs burbles some

Like Jeff said, you being active in some way really DOES matter -- whether it is giving us a buck, or even just posting to the comments threads, it keeps us going knowing that people ARE interested.

So, since like 25% of the people posting in the shipping list thread asked, let's talk about Asshats.

I like that word, because it's really only sort of a swear -- it sounds dirtier than it really is, I think, because for me it really is more about idiocy than anything else. After all, who needs a hat for one's ass? It would quickly fall off!

(Mechanical) things are the way that they are in the DM for what are usually actually very very sound reasons. That's not to suggest or imply that the DM is perfect, or that there aren't 47 different things that go wrong in the execution, but when you look at the underlying principles behind, say, the solicitation process, they evolved into what they are because they work for the participants of the DM.

There's a reason, for example, that books generally ship monthly -- much slower than that, and the audience is much more prone to drift; much less than that, and the audience gets confused whether they've bought an issue or not.

Honestly! *one* of the (many) reasons we put in a POS system was that we get asked "did I buy this already?" quite a bit. MOST comics readers don't come in weekly. MOST don't have a pull list. MOST don't read the news sites. MOST aren't totally-organized in their collecting, making themselves lists or whatever.

So, for me, screwing with how-the-customer-buys is just an idiotic thing to do. And that makes you an Asshat.

There's no way I'm going to do this every week -- because there's weeks where no one was especially egregious, or there's nothing meaningful to say, or there's some really valid other reason. But sometimes you get some pretty obvious boners, and it's worth handing out the Award for Auspicious Asshattery.

There's even TWO this week!

AAA #1 goes to LOCAL #10. Holy, frickin' cow, this book was supposed to ship in NOVEMBER 2006. Nine months late? Are you insane? And you have the AUDACITY to not resolicit? I deeply deeply love much of what Oni puts out, but they have some of the sloppiest shipping schedules in the business. Listen: freakin' AVATAR is a more-likely-to-hit-their-shipdates publisher these days (Avatar has, to their credit, seemed to have mostly solved their shipping problems)

AAA #2 goes to an old friend of Asshattery: Robert Kirkman and WALKING DEAD #41. Dude, #40 came out LAST FUCKING WEEK. Double-you-tee-eff? Man, am I going to be swimming in "did I buy this?" questions for the next few weeks! I repeat: MOST comics customers don't come in weekly. Don't undercut your own sales. What's funny is that I believe that if WALKING DEAD shipped on an old-school schedule, like how I know that some of you could remember the days when you could set your clocks by comics -- BATMAN came out the second week of the month without fail, or whatever -- anyway, if I could tell people, "yeah, WD comes out the last week of the month, guaranteed", we'd be selling 30% more copies just like that. WD would be a top *50* comic, y'know? And the ironic thing is that I tend to suspect that with the freakish exception of MARVEL ZOMBIES, as a creator-owned book under the Image deal, Kirkman pretty much has to be making more money off of WD than any of his page-rate Marvel work.

What really makes this harder for me is that I GENUINELY like WALKING DEAD. There may be sequences I hate (like the rape stuff), but over all this is pretty much certainly Image's strongest and most consistent book. If I had written reviews last week (ah, sorry, sorry, it was order form week with a new computer system, and new hybrid method of taking orders!), I would have given #40 an "Excellent", full of wonderful and vivid characterization.

Which brings me to a special Award for Auspicious Asshattery: Diamond comics for shorting me 2/3rds of my order of WALKING DEAD #41, so I can't even fill subs, let alone have copies for the rack. Though, actually, this sorta works in my favor, because now it will look to most of my customers as though there were two weeks between issues. Hmmmmm.....

(Robert Kirkman is now allowed to make the "...and such small portions!" joke in the comment section, if he feels like it; and I will be obligated to say something self-deprecating in return)

-B