Executive Decision: We're Moving from Floppies to Trades

So, this last week, I made a decision.

By the end of 2010, I'm making a massive shift to the practice of "waiting for the trade". This means that of the DC and Boom! comics I buy, I'm now going to shift the vast majority of my purchases to buying the books collecting 4-6 issues (or more) at a time.

I'll be continuing to buy Superman and Flash comics as single issues at DC, and I'll pick up some issues of other series, such as Oni's "The Sixth Gun" as single issues. I'll also be picking up some other series I want to check out as they roll out from non-Big Two publishers, but I'm going to be reducing the number of floppies I'd normally pick up, while cutting out other series altogether.

And, no doubt, some of the series I picked up that I suspect I was just picking up out of habit... I have no doubt I'll drop.

Perhaps ironically, I'm making the decision at a time when DC is making efforts to keep me heading to the store every week. Interlocking series I'm supposed to read in the chronological order in which they're released (Ex: Blackest Night), and a focus on weekly release of series with a heavy social media push to make sure you're paying attention should have kept me heading to the store.

Certainly the cost if a factor. Trades are usually cheaper. But I can actually pull them off the shelf and re-read them, which is not something I can say for comics after I've bagged and boarded them. Also, it keeps me slightly separated from the crazy cycle of having to follow Previews and trying to guess if I'll like something, and reading reviews after I've already read the comic (we all got the comic on Wednesday, after all).

I can only suspect it will be a bit odd for me as this decision will mean I'm ending several collections, including a fairly impressive Batman collection( which i plan to do once Morrison leaves the character). I've got an unbroken collection of both Batman and Detective that's got to be 10 years long, but arcs back to around 1985 and earlier. Green Lantern and Wonder Woman seem like smart choices for converting to trade as my collections are fairly modest.

Probably the part I'll like least is that I do pick up single issues of comics just to check them out, and to see if I want to jump into or out of a series (this was how I got into "Birds of Prey" very late and "Wonder Woman" around 1999 or so). But at $3.00 - $4.00 a pop, my willingness to check out a title from an unknown writer has greatly diminished, anyway. Sorry, publishers, its true.

I'm hoping that this means my budget loosens up and I can look at more stuff outside of DC Comics, and do a bit of expansion on my Superman collection. We'll see what happens, I suppose. All I know is, its going to mean fewer long boxes and more shelf space, which doesn't help Jamie out at all.

Batman Musical Tribute

This was found at the superlative Pop Culture Safari.

For some reason its a musical tribute to the Batman TV show. If you weren't there, for some reason TV in the 1970's was full of lots of elaborate song and dance numbers. I blame Donny & Marie.



Its worth it to make it to the end to hear:

"up next: John Denver salutes Jacque Cousteau!"

there was something brilliantly weird about late 70's TV.

In Brightest Knight! - Adam West/ Batman/ Paramount Theater

edit: You can read Steanso's post on this same outing with pics of the stage w/ West and Troubles and myself in the balcony


So this afternoon I attended a screening of "Batman", the film made with the same cast, props, effects, etc... as the famous Adam West starring TV series. If you ever remember seeing Batman's BatBoat, or Bat Shark Repellent or Batman running around with a lit bomb, desperately looking for a place to rid himself of the bomb (my favorite scene in the movie)... that's "Batman", or as some in the know call it "Batman 1966".

I grew up on Batman. I talked a bit about my history with the character way, way back in 2005 at the release of "Batman Begins".

Family lore has it that Mr. West's version of Batman aired in syndication each evening around dinner time, and as I was a restless baby, The Karebear figured out that this was the only thing I'd sit for while she tried to cook up some dinner. Further, the family lore states, my first word was "Batman". And, hell, it may be my last. And it's no less likely I'll be running around in a cape and diaper singing the theme song to Batman then.

Our Signal Corps Cinema Event was attended by myself, Troubles, Steanso, Julia P. and her beau, Bill B.

Adam West, Himself, was in attendance. The first thing you need to know about Adam West is that he is COOL. Like, Joe Cool-cool. He had on what looked to be a linen suit, he's still got that voice, and he seems to genuinely love that he gets to meet his fans. He's very witty, and he appreciates that folks appreciate his work.

I have no idea how many seats are at Austin's Paramount Theater, but its hundreds and hundreds, and the place seemed to be 95% sold out. Not bad for a movie that debuted in 1966, at that very same theater with all of the stars in attendance (Mr. West told a story that Burgess Meredith had his wife fly him in in her own plane so he upstaged their airport press conference).

The theater was full of all ages, from four years old to the elderly and everywhere in between. Austin Books made an appearance and showed up with a table full of Batman memorabilia and merchandise. Further, as the screening was part of Austin's bat-celebrating "Night of the Bat", Bat Conservation International was there with our local friends, the Mexican Freetailed Bat (it's a tiny, adorable bat that eats our local bugs) and an African fruit bat of some sort (that was inverted, very large and very, very cute).

Seriously, Austin loves bats.

Mr. West is philosophical about his role in the weird, wacky pop culture world around the character and icon of Batman. He seems to understand that Batman is bigger than anyone, or even any one concept of Batman and talked about how he thought the new movies were cool, but that was the Dark Knight. He was very happy being recognized as The Bright Knight, and I think that was a very popular sentiment with the crowd.

My preferred seats at the Paramount are in the balcony, so I did not get anywhere close to Mr. West, which is too bad. But the film print they had was awesome, the sound was better than I remember from the last time I was there, and the crowd was very, very into the movie (including the kids!).

Outside of the theater, I stumbled upon an amazing sight:


In my collection, I have roughly 35 Batmobile toys. 3 of them are this car.


I was, needless to say, delighted.

As a quick note: I am a Batman fan. I am crazy for Superman, but there's no doubting my Bat-fandom. But I honestly think I'm as much a fan of the Batmobile and its many crazy different incarnations as I am of, say, Robin. Or Alfred. Anyway, its weird to be a fan of a fictional car, but it all started with the TV show Batmobile, so seeing the car up close (yes, it was a reproduction, but a stellar reproduction) was sort of a thing for me.


I got off my posed shot. Pretty sharp.


But then I noticed that Batman had wandered off...


I only drove it around the block, like, three times (not really)



I must be a good 5 inches taller than anyone they ever expected to drive that car.



My buddy Batman poses for a shot with yours truly (that guy's costume was awesome)



Why, yes, Catwoman. I will swing by and take you out for a lovely dinner of Fancy Feast and dead mice.

The car was a reproduction created and charactered by Cy Productions. It was AMAZING.

Anyway, a terrifically fun day.

Iron Man buying back issues

On the list of things that would make me flip my lid, running into Robert Downey Jr. buying Avengers back issues is pretty high up on the list.

That's probably right behind "ScarJo buying back issues" and "Gene Hackman buying back issues of Superman", but for very different reasons.

Also behind this link to Bleeding Cool? Whatever happened to The Star Wars Kid? All I'm saying is: it explains a lot about Ransom.

Make Yourself a "Toy Story" Toy

With Toy Story 3 en route (which I will totally see twice. I think Woody and Buzz are a hoot.), the marketing company has created a "make yourself a toy" page.



It was hard to capture my natural, panda-like shape.

Here.

Weekly Watch Wind: 06/04/2010

For nigh-daily linking goodness, bookmark and RSS feed:
Thisissoyou.tumblr.com - Randy leaves a trail of his internet wanderings
zee... zee... zee... - dispatches of the fascinating from me, Ryan S.


Music/ Dames: Randy posted this one for me under the title "Oh, So Ryan S.". Christina Hendricks in a Broken Bells video playing an android in space.

Well done, Randy. Well done.



Comics/ I am Not Buying This: great googledy-moogledy, do people ever have it in for this "Rise of Arsenal" comic. It's a sequel of sorts to the abysmal "Justice League: Cry Justice", but by a different writer, and seems to embody pretty much everything that drives me nuts about the post-Watchmen/ DKR world of comics as writers and editors mistake adult elements in their stories for "edgy" writing.

Another great post on the topic here.


Real Life/ Superheroes: You're likely aware that visitors to Hollywood can stop by Mann's Chinese Theater to have their picture taken with actors dressed as movie stars and superheroes. Well, they could do that, but now its against the law to panhandle dressed as Batman. All those folks from "Confessions of a Superhero" are now out of a place to work. No word yet from the LAPD in response to questions about how a superhero is supposed to get a break in this economy.


Green Lantern/ Scooby Doo: As a rule, I kind of hate Scooby Doo unless he's teaming with Batman, the Harlem Globe Trotters, Don Knotts or Cher. But a recent issue of the comic (produced at DC Comics) is a sly nod to DC's "Blackest Night" Green Lantern titles, and will likely become the most sought after back-issue of the event as nobody got the joke... until now.


Political Cartoons/ History: I always think America's history and how we dealt with the Irish to be fascinating, especially in light of our ongoing immigration debate. Here's a look at some political cartoons around the Irish from "the good old days" people are always referring to.


Comics/ Television: Robert Kirkman's now long-running comic series "The Walking Dead" is coming to television! Very soon!

Batman/ Video Games: I hope this comes to the Wii. A Batman video game based on Cartoon Network's totally awesome series Batman: The Brave and the Bold.


DC Comics/ Fashion: A quick look at me on any given day will tell you that I've less than a keen grip on the world of fashion. And I think its true that my comic-reading brethren are vibrating at a different fashion frequency than (insert designer's name here. I don't know any.), but we look spectacular together in our sea of superhero wear (I'm wearing a Superman t-shirt as I type this). I can tell you that the standard geek wardrobe is fairly inexpensive and functional. So I find it curious someone licensed DC Comics characters for extremely pricey couture. Also, here.

Adam West at the Paramount: 2pm on Sunday!

hey Signal Watchers!

Adam West will be in Austin at the Paramount Theater hosting a screening of the classic "Batman" movie starring he, Burt Ward, a rubber shark, a bomb, and more villains than you can shake a stick at.

If you want to join us, pick up your tickets now!

We'll announce pre-show meals, etc... before end of the week!

War of the Supermen and the End of New Krypton

So, I finally sat down last night and read all four issues of the concluding chapter to the epic New Krypton storyline in the Superman titles, "War of the Supermen". In many ways, these four issues were the conclusion to roughly four years of Superman comics, beginning with the "Up, Up and Away" storyline which was released in the summer of 2006 (coinciding with the release of Superman Returns).

I give editor Matt Idleson credit for trying to manage such a monumental task. Tying together four years worth of comics into one massive plotline (and having to already ret-con much of the Kurt Busiek material as the books found their way post-Infinite Crisis), can't have been easy. Furthermore, having to manage one of those years without Clark Kent/ Superman in his two flagship titles must have been near-misery. But the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, you could practically hear the grinding of DC's editorial gears over every other line of dialog, character moment, story beat, and even the action sequences.

I am not disappointed with the past four years worth of Superman comics, so let's make that clear. But "War of the Supermen", a capstone I'd been looking forward to for five or six months, wound up a rushed mess that didn't service what I had enjoyed in the build up. My concern is that because sales slid (considerably), the interesting bits that were established will be completely forgotten in a few years, aside from reintroducing General Zod to the DCU (without flailing about as the Superman books did with the character post-Crisis on Infinite Earths).

SPOILER ALERTS rest of article

Frankly, I cannot believe that DC is reverting to the shock and body count factor that was creeping in to the DCU comics in the years prior to 9/11. And I can't believe that DC introduced new characters and a form of Kandor fans found fascinating, and then proceeded to kill everyone involved. At least in the way that the story spun out.

In the mid-90's, I identified as a James Robinson fan. I read Starman and thought his comic The Golden Age was peachy-keen. But whatever spark marked those series (which, honestly, don't hold up terribly well even now), has gone out of his writing. I'm less likely to blame co-writer and Geoff Johns mentee, Sterling Gates, as I'm inclined to believe Robinson is Didio's golden boy at the moment and the senior writer in the room.

But if I must list some of my complaints:

(a) DC apparently has no idea what a big moment of heroism looks like anymore, and that Superman basically ran around for four issues randomly punching things with absolutely no effect whatsoever, and was somewhat pointless in his own series for what is now over a full calendar year. Robinson and Gates had such an opportunity for such a great showdown between Superman and Zod in public, with so many options for how the war was to end, and instead the characters sort of slapped at each other until they left the stage and resolved nothing. Things occurring is not the same as things happening.

(b) Almost nothing that happened in Action Comics or Superman for the past 12 issues (or possibly 24 issues) is going to matter come July.

(c) Actively working against re-establishing the world of Metropolis that Johns and Busiek had gone to pains to reinstate after years of neglect.

(d) Any message that could have been distilled from the story aside from "look, we're using all kinds of DC properties" was extremely distorted by the pointless, characterless General Lane.

(e) How many pardons, exactly, is Lex Luthor supposed to get after abusing the presidency by framing Superman (etc...), killing thousands with the Everyman Project and then trying to nuke Metropolis with a stolen Krytonian ship? Jesus, give the readers some credit.

I have only an inkling of what sort of top-down mandates the creative teams were forced to deal with. Certainly losing Geoff Johns on Action Comics just as the storyline was gelling couldn't have helped, but at some point, it has to be Idleson's job as an editor to stand back and ask if the story they're telling is working or is, in fact, a good idea. Certainly by winter this year, it didn't seem as if anything that was happening in the Superman line was a good idea.

Realistically, DC (and Idleson) knew that this wasn't working as planned, and so they decided to clear the boards in time for Superman #700, which arrives on June 23rd. DC obviously knew it had a major problem on its hands with the series or I suspect the usual comics online outlets would have been filled with a lot more coverage of an "event".

Oddly, while a few plot points were certainly dropped, they did at least try to tie up most of the storylines, hedging with basic lip service (even, sort of, the Atlas/ Steel conflict). So I give credit where its due. DC also firmly retrenched the Legion of Super-Heroes into the DCU, with the unique solution of telling stories of the teen Legion in Adventure Comics (where they belong) and giving the adult Legion their own title (as well as creating some new and interesting history for the DCU).

Most frustrating is that the prior chapter to "War of the Supermen", "Last Stand of New Krypton", was surprisingly more fulfilling, even it was also mostly characters racing from battle to battle (which is, by the way DC, getting really old). For the scale of the story, I have to think that even with a four issue finale, better writer/s (I'm still looking at Robinson here) would have delivered an ending that didn't just tie up plot points, but that respected the readers a bit more. And if they couldn't do it, then they should have found a way to end it with "Last Stand of New Krypton".

We'll see what June brings for the Superman titles. Certainly the last four years were full of highs and lows, and I certainly enjoyed many aspects of the storytelling, from the re-establishment of continuity to a point where it makes an inkling of sense, to the establishment of a roster of villains worthy of Superman with Luthor at the center.

In June the Superman titles are changing direction somewhat as new creative teams are taking over Action Comics and Superman. Established sci-fi writer Paul Cornell and artist Pete Woods are coming to Action (who is actually focusing on Lex Luthor for his first arc), and at Superman, we'll see J. Michael Staczynski with artist Eddy Barrows (I've no idea what they plan to do, I've been avoiding spoilers).

DC Online Set for November

Well, we've only been hearing about it for five or more years, but the DC Comics Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game should be hitting in time for Christmas. Which means, I can start figuring out what platform I'm going to play this thing on. I don't really want a PS3, but its cheaper than buying a new computer, I guess.

The game promises to let players design their own characters and take to the streets alongside their favorite DCU heroes. The game has had plenty of other predecessors to blaze a path, and they have to have heard fan questions and reactions long enough to understand expectations. Setting the game in the DCU certainly raises the ante, as so many will have sky-high hopes of team-ups with Superman, Batman, etc... And this writer will be very sad if he never sees Jimmy Olsen in action.

Reading Comics: The Damned

The Damned, Volume 1: Three Days Dead
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artists: Brian Hurtt



On Free Comic Book Day this year, I was fortunate enough to interview and then meet the creators of The Sixth Gun from Oni Press. At that time I picked up their previous effort from Oni, The Damned Vol. 1. I do want to acknowledge the generosity of writer Cullen Bunn and artist Brian Hurtt in previously submitting to an interview.

The Damned takes place is a world where the demons of the underworld (horned, bestial, but mostly roughly humanoid) are alive and well and have integrated seamlessly into the criminal underworld of a Prohibition-era America. Crime bosses tend to have ram-like horns and sign deals in blood. The narrative leaves it unclear in this volume exactly how long demons have been up to no good in the mortal world, or exactly how much John Q. Public knows about who, exactly, is running rackets in their city as "mortals" are seamlessly integrated into the mob. It's an open question, but the treatment of the topic is so matter-of-fact, exploring those issues was obviously planned to be left to later stories.

Our protagonist, a more-or-less-mortal named "Eddie" employs a unique talent, acquired when Eddie sold his soul for some favor and became cursed. He can be killed, and die, but the instant someone touches him, they take on his latest wound. Death has become an inconvenience for Eddie, and occasionally a useful tool in his profession. Hired by a mob boss to track down a missing demon in town to negotiate a deal between two gangs, Eddie stumbles onto a bit of a mystery that could result in the eruption of gang war.

Fans of The Coen Brothers film, Miller's Crossing, or readers of the works of Dashiell Hammett, will very quickly begin to recognize the style employed by Bunn, in structure, dialog and the types of characters that dominate the story. It's a risky choice to reflect works as beloved as Continental Op stories, or a film as well known as Miller's Crossing. Fortunately, Bunn's narrative doesn't simply follow the beats of better-known works, especially as the mix of plots includes a supernatural bent, and a distinctly supernatural B-plot you aren't going to find in a Hammett novel.

The tale isn't quite as overly complicated as, say, Red Harvest or The Dain Curse. It would be interesting to see Bunn flex his muscles and see how close he could get, but in comics there's always a page-count per-issue to worry about, as well as how many issues the publisher is willing to support. In the pages he's got, and with all of the balls that Bunn is juggling in the story, with multiple plots, characters and their relationships to detail, I think he does pretty darn well.

The dialog follows the snappy patter of the genre, including homage to the tough guy slang in other works, and I do like most of the characters, given the amount of time most have to establish themselves. Eddie is a bit of an open book, and its clear Bunn intended for his story to unravel in subsequent volumes. Like many crime-novel protagonists, he's an insider, and its hard not to like Eddie's cynical, world-weary (even in a world with horned mob bosses) acceptance of his lot, but, of course, Eddie's got a past and something of a heart, and those things don't usually help characters in stories like these.

As a guy who likes to doodle, I can't really say how much I envy Brain Hurtt's style. While I have no doubt his work is slightly more detailed in The Sixth Gun, I continue to be wowed by his ability to stay on model with characters that skew cartoony (in comparison to, say, an Ivan Reis) while using the looseness of the style to articulate more with his characters than 90% of the heroic posing of DC's B-list hero books. I'm just a big fan of this guy, and need to re-crack my Queen & Country collections as he was responsible for art chores on some rotations through the series.

As a fan of the crime/ gangster genre, and someone known to read a fair amount of fantasy work, I found the book a fun read. While enough of a puzzle to keep it interesting, the story never feels bogged down by what could have been lots of exposition or set-up. The world Bunn and Hurtt create is an enticing one, and one that seems could carry on for a few more tales. The story seems to be arching its way toward a series by the conclusion of the first collection, and with or without Eddie along, its not too hard to imagine how Bunn and Hurtt could expand on the premise.

While they're currently set to work on The Sixth Gun, one must assume that a trade of the second run of The Damned comics is coming, which I look forward to picking up.

In the meantime, I recommend hitting your local comics shop to check out Bunn and Hurtt's comic for yourself.