Oh, Did You Just Figure Out That Maybe Disney Buying Star Wars Means Everything You Liked About Star Wars is Going to Getting Demolished?

Shoemaker sent me this article from i09.  It's basically about how, the afterglow of Disney's purchase of Star Wars and the sudden lay-offs, etc... start to settle in, someone realized that Disney probably doesn't give two Jawa farts about the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

As I said in my email response to Shoemaker: no kidding

once again, your avatar for what will happen to everything you once loved

Even when the first Expanded Universe stuff hit the shelf when I was in high school, I didn't read it.  I guess by the time those books arrived, I was pretty well aware that studio executives weren't going to care that some sci-fi authors wanted to write Star Wars books when it came time to make new movies, and those studio execs were going to include George Lucas and his associates.  When movies that moved past the conclusion of Return of the Jedi did happen, they'd be so much bigger than a series of fantasy books, that the books would just sort of disappear into the ether as non-canonical, leaving a herd of nerds wondering how to reconcile the irreconcilable, narratively speaking, in their minds.

Of course, for two decades we had Uncle George backing up the books - which I doubted he ever read, but he knew that without his stamp, those books wouldn't be taken seriously nor purchased by Star Wars fans.  And that meant less dough, so best to just approve them and worry on it later.

Put some clothes on: The complications of female superhero costumes

One of our own posted a link to Twitter to a page showing redesigns of popular female characters in comics (in particular, DC Comics characters) in outfits that are not the white one-piece peek-a-book of Power Girl or the familiar star spangled corset and shorts of the Wonder Woman costume.

I'll take a poke at the Power Girl costume because the original is one of the most discussed costumes in comics and, short of Vampira, the one most likely to raise questions and hackles.

example of redesign

and original formula

In comparison to Power Girl's traditional costume, he redesign certainly seems less aimed at appealing to the male gaze and creating a look that still honors the original.  It appears functional and...  well, I think this design is actually pretty bad, but we can talk about that later.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Superman: The Musical!

Holy cow.

I've known about It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman! for around 10-12 years, but I had never seen it in any form.  Originally produced as a campy Broadway spectacular  in 1966 (it debuted the same year as the Adam West TV show), the show ran for about four months before closing.  I think that, these days, the show has mostly been forgotten.

In 1975, because nobody was paying attention, ABC broadcast a version of the musical.  Reportedly the program aired a single time, fairly late at night and in a dead zone where networks were often trying to figure out how to fill the airwaves*.  To the best of my knowledge, there is no legally obtainable copy of the broadcast available.  For Superman fans, the musical is about as close to an intentionally obscure artifact as I can think of to that king of pop cultural ephemera, the Star Wars Holiday Special.  Superman fans have all seen clips or stills, but we haven't seen the actual full program.

Can you read my mind?

This week, I did obtain a copy.  We'll keep it a little shrouded in mystery, but my source knows who he is, and knows how awesome he or she is.  As the existence of this video may not be entirely on the up and up (and so offended am I that I have immediately burned the DVD so that NONE may find yourself tainted by the sheer audacity of it's illegality), I'm keeping the gifter's name out of it.

But, thanks, man.  That was SUPER of you!**

The video itself is a transfer from tape.  Tape from 1975.  So, it's got some rough edges and the sound is occasionally wobbly because: aging analog media.  It's not the drug-fueled nightmare that the Star Wars Holiday Special devolves into within minutes of the opening, and, frankly, the Star Wars Special had about 20 times the budget of this show.  It's also an oddball bit of nerd media, and would fit nicely on your shelf next to the shelved low-budget, very 90's Justice League pilot, the Legends of the Superheroes, the Captain America TV movies, etc... etc...   But the musical is pure hammy schmaltz, but intentionally so, and it's oddly charming, even if it's not much of a musical.

Everything About Superhero Comics is Wrong - Part 1

As I've transitioned from weekly comic shop junkie who picked up way over his allotted budget in comics every month, who read every article on five comics websites every day, to: guy who stops by the comic shop once a month and is mostly picking up Superman, Daredevil and the occasional other book...  I've been thinking a lot about the American Comic Industry.

The summer movie The Avengers made more money than the GDP of many nations last year*, comic conventions fill 100,000 attendee halls in single cities, and, of all things, Pepper Potts is now a popular character in the zeitgeist.

Most comics sell a few thousand copies per month.  So I'm going to say a few things that are patently obvious, but need to be said.

If you've followed this blog for any amount of time, you've heard these sentiments before, but I figured one last, grand parting shot couldn't hurt.


Appealing to adults was woefully misunderstood

When Time Magazine and other arbiters of the zeitgeist were saying things like Watchmen read as, finally, a comic for adults, they weren't talking about boobs and blood.  They were talking about a rich, layered story with characters that had motivations, flaws that couldn't be sorted out with a magic crystal, and who behaved in ways that felt true to experience outside of a comic-book universe.

somehow Dan Didio thought this should lead to his version of "Suicide Squad"

DC Comics Leadership - Still Finding it's Way 18 Months into DCNu

These days I'm only reading a few DC Comics, so it's a bit harder to see what's going on in the halls at the company.  Certainly looking at the release of the monthly solicits is an excellent indicator.

The Beat already did a nice breakdown of some things that really stand out.  Todd Allen points out:

• The $2.99 line seems to be getting crossed
• We may not be looking at 52 titles anymore

Batman: One More Time, With Feeling (by Scott Snyder)

This news came on the same day DC announced a storyline called "Batman: Year Zero" to fill in all those gaps you had (right?) about what happened after Batman: Year One.   The story shall be about The Bat-Man, who he is and how he came to be!  Snyder's promise that the series will tell us all the things we've never seen before, like Batman's first run in with a super-villain, is true if you're 20 and just got into comics, abut less true if you dropped all the Batman books but Morrison's because you realized that maybe, in his current comics form, the Bat-fellow is getting pretty repetitive (for first super-villain meetings, we recommend the superlative Batman: Snow by Dan Curtis, JH WIlliams III and the late, terrific Seth Fisher).

I don't know what's more surprising: that Snyder's modus operandi with Batman has been to largely keep digging up the bones of well-loved, well-worn storylines done by some of the name-iest names in comics, or that this seems to be a real draw for the Bat-audience.  I'm old, so I was good with Batman: Year One, A Death in the Family, and every story that wanted to goof on Thomas and Martha Wayne from Hush to Death and the Maidens and was thinking maybe we were ready to move on.  But, short of another gang-war or serial killer story, it seems that all DC has to offer re: Batman these days is another whack at the same worn out Batman origin stuff and tilling about in the same soil of Batman's family history and early years.

Your Questions Answered: What if I Had Creative Control of Superman?

Jake asks:

Since this is Superman heavy blog, if you were the publisher or editor in chief over at DC, or even just a writer on a Superman title, what would you do, creatively, with Superman? Assuming you could flush the whole reboot, what would you do (or not do) with the character? Just focus on good, solid storytelling? Make Superman more socially/politically conscious? Introduce him to a wider audience, i.e. kids, women, etc.?

Believe it or not, this isn't something I think about all that much, and maybe that's wrong-headed, but I'm never comfortable with reviews of something that start with "what they should have done was..." or "what they should really do".  It seems like an endgame with little satisfaction.

Usually the question I find myself asking is: why didn't that work?

But rather than dodge the question, let me give it a whirl.

1. Re-Establish a Supporting Cast of Humans

If you've been picking up Superman comics for a while, or, in fact, most superhero comics of the last decade, one of the primary problems I detect is that there is no status quo.  There's no "home base" for the characters to point to and have in mind as they go about their adventures.  Spider-Man lost his with the dissolution of the Mary Jane marriage, Batman is almost never seen as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne with his youthful ward, and the only writer who seemed to want to put Clark Kent in the Daily Planet for more than two panels every six issues was Geoff Johns, who left the book before his creative imprint could really take hold.

Corporate Synergy Fail - CN and IDW

The point of owning a comics company, one would assume, is to publish comics.  But that's not how it works.

Since the 1970's, DC Comics has been owner by Time-Warner.  After buying itself back in the 90's (it was owned by New World Entertainment, I believe, in the 1980's) and going public on the stock exchange when I was in college, Marvel is now part of the expanding Disney empire.

I would assume the reason Disney wanted Marvel had far more to do with the opportunity provided by The Avengers franchise as cash-generating IP for movies, toys, t-shirts, etc... than it was actually interested in the comics themselves.  And, of course, by owning Marvel, they have the opportunity to grab back lucrative properties like Spider-Man when the contract runs out with Fox.

DC's purchase by WB was almost more of a happy accident.  They were part of a mass of companies purchased by Time-Warner, but, certainly the opportunity to exploit Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman had to be seen as a welcome opportunity.  And, of course, their own Warner Bros. studios would have first-look deals on all movies.

But we're talking movies and not comics.  Comics have always been high risk/ low reward for everyone but the company that can spin the character off into a familiar object for licensing.  Frankly, until recent history, I don't know that Time-Warner or Warner Bros. studios knew or cared that they owned a whole comics company.  They cared that they owned Superman and Wonder Woman.

Killing Robin. Again.

I think I'd been reading Batman comics for all of a year when DC had the famous dial-in vote where readers got to choose whether or not Jason Todd, the second Robin, would die.  I was a Jason Todd fan, and I was also a kid just getting into comics, so I didn't want to see the character get it, but I was buying comics at the grocery store and book store back then, so any comics were catch-as-catch can.  Finding issues of A Death in the Family, the storyline where all this took place, were incredibly scarce, and only one of my friends got a copy.

Long story short, I didn't get my hands on the comic with the phone number until months after the event when I sat on my pal's bed and read the comics of the storyline in one, long read while he and my brother listened to Van Halen albums.  I never got to cast my vote.  And as close as the vote was, I always wished I'd gotten my chance to save Jason Todd.*

Then, around 2004/2005, Stephanie Brown took Tim Drake's place as Robin just long enough to get fired for reasons and then get killed (only not really) by Black Mask.

And, of course, it never actually happened, but word on the street is that DC head honcho Dan Didio really wanted to kill off Nightwing at one point during Infinite Crisis.

A few years back Grant Morrison took over Batman and introduced Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Thalia al Ghul.  Right out of the box, Damian seemed fully realized as a character, and - unlike most modern new inventions of characters - was in no way an awkward teenager riddled with self-confidence issues nor a Mary Sue.  Pompous, brutal.  Desperately in need of approval from a father figure.  Everything you'd expect out of the grandson of Ra's al Ghul.

Morrison removed Bruce Wayne and put Dick Grayson in the cowl for over a year, during which time Damian put on the domino mask and the "R", and it was actually a great run on the Batbooks.  Bruce returned, as comic characters hurled through space/time/realities are want to do, and we've been able to enjoy Damian and Bruce as Robin and Batman for a while.

Monthly trip to the comic shop and Editorializing Inside the Story in Action Comics

These days I now only visit the comic shop once per month.  My LCS, Austin Books and Comics, doesn't have a pull list, it has a system I actually greatly prefer to other shops at which I was a regular customer.  ABC sends out a webform each Monday evening with that Wednesday's releases.  You fill out the webform, and ABC holds the things you want for that week.  They don't have a pull list you have to set up and try to maintain through the front desk, something I never felt worked terribly well, and they over-order on all titles so it's a very rare instance when I realize I missed something and now I can't find it on the shelf.  Most shops order exactly what people pre-requested, and then maybe a couple of copies for the rack.  How the industry thinks having just a few copies for someone to discover is beyond me.

And, of course, shops that were supposed to order me things routinely did not do so, or if they under ordered, somehow it seemed I was always the one who got shafted.  

This evening I made my monthly run to ABC, and walked out with a fairly serious stack of books.  I picked up: 

• the 3rd Rucka Punisher trade
• the first volume of Ennis's Fury: My War Gone By
• Action Comics #17
• Red Team #1
• Shadow: Year One #1
• Masks #3
• Stumptown #5
• Happy #4
• Fearless Defenders #1
• Joe Kubert Present#4
• Batman, Incorporated #7
• The Answer #1
• Superman Family Adventures #9 
• and the latest issue of Saga 

It's a healthy stack, to be sure.  It's also a greatly decreased stack from my monthly haul two years ago.  You can see I wanted to try some things, you can see I have some loyalties to folks like Rucka and Kubert and Ennis in there, and my interest in some of the pulp stuff Dynamite is doing.  

I'm an Alex Ross fan, and can't understand you people who don't care for his work.  And I love his voers for The Shadow, up to and including this latest.  

That, people, is how you draw Margo Lane

Let's Re-Boot "Turner D. Century"

Marvel.  The more realistic universe.

GRITTY.  REALISM.

Back in the day Marvel was as devoid of ideas for new villains and driven to whatever place of madness that also drove DC to create "Terra-Man".  

You Millenials won't remember this, but there was a time and a place before January 1, 2000 when "turn of the century" meant the change from 1899 to 1900 and was several decades in the past.  Apparently on a bet or because someone had a deadline they'd forgotten about, in the pages of Captain America a new villain was born:  Turner D. Century!

yes, that's Spider-Woman creeping up to give Turner D. the beat down

A ragtime dandy, Turner rode around on a flying tandem bicycle with a dummy (because... sure), and had a flame-throwing umbrella.  LIKE EVERYONE HAD IN 1900.

He was absolutely driven to convince people to go back to living in an era of doilies, barber shop quartets and when Gary, Indiana was something you wrote about for the Music Man, not a depressing, burnt out mid-western hell hole.  And he was out to achieve this with small scale violence and property damage.  And we try very hard not to think about his relationship with that dummy on his bike.  And we really try not to think too hard about his views on race relations.

But, here in the glorious future of 2013, replete with flying skateboards and Mr. Fusion on our Deloreans, the phrase "Turn of the Century" isn't used so much as it refers to 13 years ago.  Now we just say "a few years back".  Or:  "When Britney Spears hadn't overstayed her welcome".

So, I'm curious.

Here's your weekend assignment:  Turner D. Century is introduced in 2013.  He is based not on the old turn of the century, but on our most recent turn of the century, from 1999-2000.

• What does he wear?
• What are his accouterments?
• What is he railing against in modern life that he thinks was way better in 2000 than now?
• Who does he fight?
• Is he still relying on flame throwers?

Please let us know in the comment section all about this all-new version of Turner D. Century!

The Orson Scott Card Conundrum - Social Ideals and The Purchase of a Superman Comic

All right, here we go.

I don't really want to write this post, but it's about Superman, it's in the news, etc..

Famed Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott Card has some social views that are well known within the comics and sci-fi "communities".  Card has written some highly successful work such as the famed Ender's Game (which I haven't read), and started working in comics a bit with Ultimate Iron Man several years ago now (also - haven't read).

Specifically, Card takes issue with homosexuality and gay marriage.  He sits on the board of an organization that is more or less dedicated to opposing gay marriage in the US, the National Organization for Marriage.

Last week, when the new Adventures of Superman was announced, Card was listed among the writers, and (if you're keeping score), specifically, he was one of the creators associated with the project that made me blink a bit while reviewing the roster of talent.

Full disclosure:  I am fully in support of marriage rights for the LGBT community and believe that this is the civil rights issue of our generation.  Fundamentally, I believe in extending the same legal privileges to all consenting adults in a free society, and am against legal loopholes or half-measures that would place legal or social restrictions on someone based upon race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  </ lefty boilerplate>

The questions then arise:

DC's "WTF? Month" pretty much sums it up

As if there were any doubt that DC Comics and I may be at an impasse, thanks to the requirements of the hype machine in the Direct Market, we already know that April is going to be "WTF? Month" at DC Comics.

this is, like, 10 layers of sad

Check out The Beat for more on this so-edgy-it-will-cut-you promotion.

Extensive bad language below the break.  Proceed with caution.

Super Watch: Dark Knight Returns, Part 2

There isn't much to say about the plotting of this second installment of the direct-to-video adaptation of Dark Knight Returns that a generation of comics fans grew up with via the comics page.  The dialog, often the framing, the depiction of characters...  It's likely the closest adaptation I think you'll ever run into that doesn't fall into whatever trap Peter Jackson fell into with his The Hobbit Part 1 that felt like a checklist of scenes with no real narrative push or (dare I say it) heart in its desire to lovingly recreate each beat and scene.  Nor is it the Zack Snyder slavish recreation that misses everything about why Watchmen worked, and figures that showing the same stuff we saw on the panel is good enough, even if all the directorial decisions - like casting, emotional beats, musical selection and cinematography - were completely misunderstood.

In this second installment, as an audience we've had the opportunity to get used to Peter Weller as Batman (and he's actually pretty great), and we get Michael Emerson as a giddy, cerebral Joker (God bless you, Andrea Romano).  And, somewhat like the 3rd chapter in the Dark Knight trilogy from Nolan, Batman actually takes a back seat to some of what else is happening in the story.  World War III is seething to break out, Superman's relationship with the government is filled in, and against that backdrop, Batman is still running around concerned with cleaning up the streets of Gotham.  You can almost understand how it got ignored for all those years until he retired.

I recently saw a quote from comics creator Faith Erin Hicks noting how dated Dark Knight Returns felt on a re-read.  She's not entirely wrong, but I sort of also sort of rolled my eyes.  It's a work of its time with undercurrents that remain relevant and resonant.

Comics weren't really intended to have a shelf-life when the book hit the direct market, they were commenting on the moment, and Watchmen is no less a piece of the Cold War than DKR.  And we were so ready to forget about the cloud of nuclear annihilation when Gorbachev instituted Glasnost, I'm not surprised that a generation had grown up without the context, and doesn't quite get what it felt like to do duck and cover drills until everyone admits that it's kind of pointless when you're in about 3rd grade.  Nor has the era of street crime that pervaded the big cities been seen in Gen Y's lifetime (although Chicago spent 2012 doing it's damndest to recreate the era that made "Bloods" and "Crips" household names).

DC Comics Cancels "Superman Family Adventures" and we ponder how 30 years of having books you like cancelled might affect your enthusiasm

Man.

Word came down Monday that DC is cancelling Superman Family Adventures with issue 12 in April, just short of the release of Man of Steel to movie theaters.

On a month to month basis, the series - which was aimed at a truly all-ages audience - was some of the best work at DC in the wake of The New 52 and one of the few monthly DC books (and only Superman book) I would have put in the hands of adults or kids alike to get them interested in Superman.  It also was the only book that understood the basic dynamics of Superman, The Daily Planet, Lois, his extended family and the recurring villains of the Super-books.

Cartoony and goofy, yes.  But so were the first fifty years of Superman comics.

I know sales weren't particularly good, but I also don't know what anyone at DC expects years after comics abandoned trying to be available where kids can find and therefore WANT a comic.  The 18-25 year olds who are going to be buying fifteen iterations on Wolverine and Batman are going to want to even think about how Superman Family Adventures falls in with their hobby.

This is the second time DC Entertainment has ended a brilliant product in recent years for reasons I'm guessing boil down to the fact that the product wasn't in line with the 18-25 year old extreme market.  Batman: Brave and the Bold, an absolutely terrific love letter to the DCU and a great intro to all things DC, ended just around the time The new 52 debuted.  We were told we'd get a gritty Batman cartoon at some point with Alfred carrying guns and shooting at people (so, so many things wrong there).

Mostly, there's just been a complete lack of marketing for the book.  DC put it out there with Free Comic Book Day material, but I'm still not sure how FCBD is translating to awareness and sales for new books for anyone.

On a Slow News Day, "Django Unchained" Action Figures are a really big deal

I haven't seen Django Unchained, but I'd like to.  It seems interesting.

Sometimes I weep that the only conversation really happening around comics and the underground subculture of collectors and the like seems to be around "Fake Nerd Girls" - an argument that really reflects any time a sort-of-underground scene starts to get co-opted as the public realizes the scene exists and ham handedly starts playing with it like a spastic two-year old who likes shiny things.  I sort of see "Fake Nerd Girls" as the 2012-era equivalent of when Nirvana, etc... became more sellable than LA hair-metal-bands and "alternative" was launched as a major marketing concept in music.  This, of course, meant that a segment of the population actually suddenly started paying attention to "alternative" charts and somehow this culminated in tribal tattoos on suburban dads in Phoenix in 2003.

With The Big Bang Theory netting 19 million viewers recently (that's, like, 6% of the US population or some crazy nonsense - and people generally don't watch TV that way anymore), I kind of assume that the show, as reviled as its become in nerd world, has at least demonstrated some of the behavior and habits of the comics/ toy collecting/ geek community to the populace at large.  I mean, comic collecting may not be a mainstream activity, but since the early 00's, the stigma has lessened to a degree enough that folks like myself don't hide their shame anymore and will answer questions if asked instead of denying that they collect comics.*  We can thank TBBT for at least semi-humanizing the mutants from the comic shop into characters with taglines.

But, apparently, a lot of people aren't watching The Big Bang Theory, and to a lot of folks the notion that grown-assed adults collect action figures (or "dolls" as the press will derisively insist) is complete news or totally unbelievable.  Even more surprising, that a person would buy a movie action figure and then not role-play with the figures like Dark Helmet in Spaceballs seems mind-bogglingly impossible.

It seems that NECA has released a line of officially licensed Django Unchained action figures (or "dolls", if you want to put a certain spin on the story and, therefore, anyone who would dare buy a doll of Jamie Foxx). After years of far, far more questionable product tie-ins, I would not dare question the judgment of NECA, the Weinstein Company or purchasers of this product.  I don't know why you'd want these, but I doubt many folks know why I have literally hundreds of little Superman eyes peering at me from action figures all over my office.

Movies 2012 - The Final Commentary

As mentioned before, I watched and blogged movies 147 times, sort of.  Anyway, the point is, I watched John Carter 3 times, and never regretted it.  Process everything in the rest of this post* with that in mind.

So, the actual experience of deciding to blog every movie for a year was sort of in line with other "for a year I shall..." plans I've had.  Like the year I went vegetarian, just to be difficult. Yes, I did this.

Honestly, I think I was probably way down on number of movies viewed this past year.  I don't know how many movies people normally watch, but I know that for the first time in 5 years, my attendance at the Alamo and Paramount this summer was significantly lower than usual.

All that also took a financial toll in past years, and I've been cutting back on Alamo visits to try to better maintain our finances.  I'm guessing I still hit the movies more than the average bear, but it did feel like a down year for being at the theater, but maybe I made up for that in Cable viewership and watching home video.

The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown

author's note:  2012 is a year I have been looking to put behind me for quite a while for any number of reasons.  Obviously the events in my personal life marked a very sad end to the year for us at our house.  Perhaps we should declare 2012 Annus Horribilis and move on.

With recent events weighing so heavily on me right now (and with this post started a long, long time ago), I'm going to stick to pop culture and the original, intended tone of the post - and this blog - and take a look back instead at...  yeah, I guess comics and whatnot.

here we go.

The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown

My Totem for Everything About my Pop Culture Hobbies in 2012

My relationship fundamentally changed with my hobbies and past-times, and superhero comics have begun to dip below the horizon to the same place Star Wars went circa 2002.  Because of travelling and the fact I was sick a lot this year, I also didn't really make it out to the movies very often.

Saturday Round-Up

Yesterday I realized this week is going to be exceedingly nutty. We're finally seeing Lincoln on Tuesday, Thursday we've got tickets to see Louis CK, and Friday we head to San Antonio where, on Saturday, I'll be officiating a wedding.

Friday night we stayed in and didn't do much. I was tired, man. I wound up sleeping til very late in the morning. I did walk the dogs and then we headed down to where Northcross Mall used to be (I had no idea that place had just sort of disappeared).

We went down to go see Superman collector and purveyor of finer super-objects, Tim Gardner, at the Chemical Toy Fare.  I picked up a really cool Superman clock and a handful of nice prints from Tim.

There, I also met Batwoman:

and Jamie spied a pretty fancy Batmobile.

It was a small fare, but reminded me a LOT of the "comic conventions" that we used to see in town back in the mid-80's when I was getting into comics.  Two mid-sized rooms, tables set up and lots of people who know each other.  Friendly, but not particularly crazy.

Also, we inadvertently and briefly met the actor who played the voice of John Redcorn on TV's King of the Hill.  He's a very nice guy.

Last night we headed out for Violet Crown Social Club here in town for Mikey's birthday.  Part of the East 6th Street scene that I'm a little too old for, but is still pretty welcome.  If you're familiar with Austin's "6th Street", it's not really what it was 10-15 years ago.  It's worth seeing, but it's different from what it was and not as much of a destination for music fans or even for just going to get a drink.  East 6th doesn't really have a music scene, but it does have decent bars where you can get a seat and a cocktail.

On "Marvel NOW!"

I've had a few people write me and ask if I had thoughts on Marvel Now!, which I take as a good sign for Marvel since I don't remember anyone asking me any Marvel questions in, literally, years.  But a bad sign, because nobody seems to know what this thing is.

For those of you not in the know, Marvel Comics - home of The Avengers - is starting a lot of their series over with a new #1 without feeling the need to reboot their entire universe the way DC did with the New 52, about 16 months ago.

DC immediately took a dollar share lead with the New 52, and all of Marvel's attempts to stop the bleeding with events like "Avengers versus X-Men" didn't really help.  I still think a lot of DC's success had to do with slapping #1 on the covers more than any reboot, and their willingness to embrace digital delivery.

Finally getting around to comics again

This is how I know the schedule for the past two months was a little wacky.

I haven't been to the gym for at least four weeks, and I was sorting my unread comics, and I have three months' worth of some titles backed up.  No working out - which is it's own funny story - and no time made for comics in the evenings.  At least not those floppies, as I have read some collections.

The nice thing is:  Looking at this pile on my coffee table, I actually want to read all of these comics.

In the past when I'd hit a point where I was too busy to read comics, it was always instructive to look at what I didn't want to read in multiple issues at a time.  That usually meant I was dropping the title.  But with the limited number of titles I'm buying as floppies these days, (a) I know I can catch up, and (b) the spark still seems to be there as I'm sorting through my comics to start cutting down the pile.