…I say hello

I have returned from my trip to the San Fransisco area and I have to say it was a good time. The girlfriend, family, and I were able to check out Oakland, Berkeley, the Napa/Sonoma Wine Country, and San Fransisco itself. We even made it as far south as Monterrey.

I learned several things during my time out there. First things first, there is no place for a vegan to eat in Sonoma. Napa wasn’t much better but it did have a very, very excellent vegetarian/vegan restaurant, Ubuntu. In Monterrey we a very good vegetarian friend place, called Tillie Gorts. Easily though the best dinning was in Berkeley and San Fransisco. We went to the local chain Herbivore, in both Berkeley and San Fransisco. And, easily, the best place to eat in the whole trip was Millennium. Expensive but extremely tasty.

I was amazed by the sheer number of book stores, especially used bookstores at fair prices. I was able to find a couple of older books that I’ve been looking for (Chants Democratic & The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution) along with a new book that had flown under my radar at home (A History of Histories).

When I was in San Fransisco I was able to hit up two very excellent comic shops, Isotope and Comix Experience. Both are utterly great stores; open, accessible, and very well-stocked. The staffs of both were very friendly (I was able to meet Brian Hibbs of Savage Critics but was too sheepish to really talk to him). Both stores set a great example for other comics stores to follow. I would really wish for a store with the sort of atmosphere of Isotope to open in the DC/VA/MD area. It would be a dream.

With the trip recap out of the way, in the next few days expect to see more from me here. With graduation out of the way and a lot more free time on my hands I hope to really get back to business with this whole blogging thing.

But, of course, we’ll see.

Freedom isn’t free…

In case you hadn’t heard today is Free Comic Book Day. What that means, for the uninformed, is that you can go to your local comic shop and get free “sampler” comics. Plus they usually have sweet sales and the like.

This year I’m going to try and hit two comic book shops. My excellent home store (and former employer) Beyond Comics. And the store I grew up with, Phoenix Comics and Toys.

You readers should check out your local store.

What’s especially weird about this year (for me, of course), is that this is the first year since 2005 I’m not working on Free Comic Book Day at a comic book store.

UPDATE: Greg Land’s art on the FCBD X-Men book ruined it.

Checking in…

On Friday I bought comics for the first time since December (!).

Here was what in my much neglected sub-box:

• 4 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man
• 4 issues of Daredevil
• 1 issue of Astonishing X-Men
• 1 issue of Runaways
• 1 issue of All-Star Superman
• 4 issues of Buffy: Season Eight
• 1 copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

I think this says a few things. First, certain creators (I’m looking at you Grant & Joss) can’t keep a deadline. Second, I’m amazed out how much my tastes have evolved over the last few years. I’m down to reading just a couple of mainstream superhero books. The big event books (ie. Skrulls) were missing. Two years ago I was reading 80% of what Marvel/DC were putting out. Today, I’m reading just a drop of that bucket.

I’m just not the fan-boy I used to be.

The real question is though, has the superhero comics left me or have I superhero comics?

(Oh and pretty much all of the books I bought were good. Except for Runaways, which was terrible. And poor, poor Mia. Way to throw her under a bus, Ed.)

Sadly…

Re: Mike Sterling’s latest end of the civilization post.

Yes, people really do buy the hentai action figures. I know because I’ve sold them with my very hands.

And I still feel gross.

To the future!…?

Marvel to move towards digital distribution of back issues.

The important points (italics mine, of course):

Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited will offer the archive in a high-resolution format on computer screens for $59.88 a year, or at a monthly rate of $9.99, at Marvel’s website.

and

To help market the initiative, To Marvel will reportedly offer a free sampler of 250 titles, and to protect current sales of comic books, new issues won’t be on the Marvel site until six months after they are published.

and

It’s a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print.

Essentially, my friends, until comics are cheap, downloadable and portable ‘online’ mainstream comics distribution is fucked.

Who wants to pay 60 bucks a year to view comics on a web-browser?

Project Girl Wonder!

Ok guys…It’s on!

Dean Trippe of Butterfly and Project: Rooftop is challenging folks to create some great designs of Spolier aka Stephanie Brown aka Robin.

For those of you unaware let’s bring our readers up to speed…

Good-bye Countdown…

This past week was the first time in over a year and some change that I haven’t read a weekly comic series from DC. It also was the first week in over two years that I haven’t worked in a comic book store.

Yeah, on July 7th I left Beyond Comics, the second comic book-store I’ve had a pleasure to work at (the first was the excellent Phoenix Comics & Toys). The whole Beyond ‘crew’ are an amazing group of people and it was difficult to choice to leave there.

Of course, now that I no longer work at a comic book store, I no longer feel obligated (nor could I afford) to read most every week’s new releases.  Which is a good thing.

Never has there been a period of time in my memory where I have cared less about the week to week events in the two great fictional superhero universes of Marvel and DC. Two years ago my feelings were reversed. Then I was enthusiastic about each new announcement on Newsarama, as each little puzzle piece of the “great big plan for the Marvel/DC universe” clicked into place. Today, I am burnt out on all that shit.

It is difficult to explain exactly why that is. It is a combination of neither House of M, Infinite Crisis, or Civil War pay off in any of the ways I expected them to, along with evolving tastes and cultural awareness (re: the causal misogyny of modern superhero storytelling), and the 100 calls I fielded from speculators about Captain America #25.

This, in a roundabout sort of way brings, me back to Countdown. Countdown represents, to me, everything that is wrong with superhero comics today. First and foremost the series is a cash in, designed to play to the 52 audience without actually having any of the (limited) creative depth of 52. Countdown feels rudderless and forced, as if the writers are just editing together a series of unrelated scenes in a vain attempt to get at something that is just outside of their reach.

But my biggest problem with Countdown is Mary Marvel, or rather the treatment of her character. Neither this book nor Trials of Shazam has provided a truly satisfactory release why Billy/Captain Marvel did not restore Mary’s powers like he did  Freddie’s. What makes Freddie so special that he gets to earn his powers back but Billy just leaves his own sister in a hospital and then treats her like shit when they finally met again? Is the Marvel family an all boys club these days?

I also fear that Holly, an excellent (and complicated) supporting character if there ever was one, may suffer from the dread “superhero-lesbian syndrome” where her sexuality is treated as another excuse to make certain fanboys’ tongues wag (see: Batwoman).

I could go on… but enough is enough. Good-bye Countdown…. from this point on I’m only going buy books to read and enjoy.

(Ok, well, I might buy Spider-Man: One More Day because I can not just go cold-turkey…)

So, yeah, the only book I bought last week was Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane.

For science!

To help Ragnell with her research, I have worked in a comic book shop for two or so years at this point and a vast majority of the people we sell Tarot to are women. The only subscriber at our store to Tarot is a woman.

We get a lot of men who will ask to look at the latest issue, flip through it for a little while, then have me put it back. Very few of them actually buy the issue.

Of course, that could be because of the vaguely uncomfortable look I am giving them.

In brief…

I mentioned earlier that we would sell out immediately of the sexist Adam Hughes Mary Jane statue.

Well, that statue isn’t out yet but as of around 6:30 we sold out of this:

Which, of course, just came out today. Ah, the state of the comics merchanizing business these days, eh?

Because I am on a roll…

(Via Living Between Wednesdays)

This, again, is well traveled ground but Adam Hughes, my friends. Adam Hughes!

Horrid, no?

By the way, we will sell out of this statue within two weeks of its release. This I promise.