Friday Night Fights: Chimpanzee Bar Fight!

From Creepy Magazine #95 (1978). Story by Bob Toomey. Art by José Ortiz. (click pic for larger)

A classic? No monkeying around!

Five to Read for Friday, May 2

* Detroit Free Press: POW! Comics still pack a punch

* Topless Robot: The 5 Best and Worst Comics Blatantly Designed to Sell Toys (via Kevin Melrose)

* Rome News-Tribune: A comic-book hero (also via Kevin Melrose)

* Newsarama: Faith Erin Hicks on Zombies Calling

* Salon: Comic relief

FCBM4 Day 2

It's day two of the fourth annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our next selected entry is from Asif Badar. The five comics that Asif listed are:

1. Hellboy
2. X-Men
3. Legion of Super-Heroes
4. Batman
5. Perhapanauts

For this Legion of Super-Heroes fan we go way back into the 1980s for:

The first issue of the Cosmic Boy mini-series, in which writer Paul Levitz and artists Keith Giffen, Ernie Colon & Bob Smith bring the titular Legionnaire back to the 20th Century.

For Asif's bonus comic, I'm sending him the Iron Man ashcan.

Asif's comics should be in the mail within a week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
27 entries
4 free comics sent so far
29 days remaining

Four to Read for Thursday, May 1

* Sara Ryan: Stumptown 2008

* The Comics Reporter: CR Newsmaker Interview: Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF

* SpaceWesterns.com: The Battlestar Galactica Code: The Last Cylon

* Rivkah: When to Start. When to Quit. (via Chris Mautner)

FCBM4 Day 1

It's day one of the fourth annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our first selected entry is from Dexter Roberts. The five comics that Dexter listed are:

1. 100 Bullets
2. Scalped
3. Criminal
4. Jack Staff
5. Locke & Key

Dexter seems to be a fan of crime comics, so for Dexter's free comic I'm choosing:

The first issue of Steven Grant & Mat Santolouco's 2 Guns, a cops & robbers comic with a twist.

For Dexter's bonus comic, I'm sending him the Iron Man ashcan.

Dexter's comics should be in the mail within a week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
8 entries
2 free comics sent so far
30 days remaining

May is Free Comic Book Month 4 at YACB!

May is rapidly approaching, so you know what that means: Free Comic Book Month!

May 3 is Free Comic Book Day, but here at YACB one day isn't good enough. For the fourth straight year, we'll be giving away free comics every day of May!

That's right, free comics! Each day of May I'll pick someone to receive a free comic, taken from my personal collection: duplicates, things I have in trades, and other stuff. My goal is to match up people with a comic that they haven't read but that they may like. My tastes are wide and varied, so chances are I've got a comic for you.

And by free I mean free. Really. No cost, no shipping & handling, all free.

Here's what you need to do to enter:

By email (superman@umich.edu), send me the following:

* Your name
* Your postal address
* Titles of five comics that you like
* Please include 'FCBM' in the subject line

That's it! For every day of May I'll choose at least one entry and try to match up that person with a comic, then I'll mail the comic to him or her. It's easy, and it's free!

Last year I gave away 111 comics to 49 different people!

Of course, there are a few restrictions:

* You must be 18 or older
* You must live in the United States
* You may enter at any point during May, but only one entry per person.

And a little bit of fine print:

* Persons receiving comics are chosen by me, based on whether I feel I can provide a comic to you
* Even if you've entered in previous years, you're welcome to enter again
* I'll try my best, but there's no guarantee you'll actually like the comic I send
* All winners will be announced here on Yet Another Comics Blog (please let me know if you don't want your real name used)
* At least one winner will be selected each day, but it may take me a few days to get to the post office, so please be patient
* I will not use your address to spam you, nor sell or give your information to others

But wait, there's more!

Each person who has a free comic chosen for him/her will also receive a copy of the 2007 Halloween ashcan edition of either Marvel Adventure Iron Man #1 or Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge (featuring a classic story by the legendary Carl Barks). (Let me know if you have a preference, though no guarantees; and if I go overboard again his year and run out I may substitute something else.)

That's right, two free comics! How could you ask for anything more?

So what are you waiting for? Send in your entry today!

Three to Read for Monday, April 28

* Steve Duin: The Beanworld, Resurrected (via Dirk)

* All the Comics in the World: The Boys of Shojo Manga (also via Dirk)

* Mindless Ones: Candyfloss Horizons Forever! (via Brian Cronin)

Monday Morning Music

My favorite new album is Through These Walls by Hilary McRae. She's the first developing artist signed to Starbucks' Hear Music label (but don't hold that against her!) Imagine that Joss Stone found a bunch of previously unknown early-Chicago charts in a drawer somewhere and decided to record them, and you'll have a sense of what McRae's music is like.

Here's her first video, for the album's opening track "Every Day (When Will You Be Mine)":



You can listen to the entire album by streaming it from Last.fm

If you like what you hear, you can purchase the album from iTunes and Amazon.

Five to Read (or hear) for Saturday, April 26

* Every Day Is Like Wednesday: Meet the super-apes of Grant Morrison's Gorilla Galaxy (via Johanna)

* On the Media: Comics on the Stand (audio)

* Friends of Lulu: 2008 Lulu Award Nominations (via Heidi)

* Peter David.net: "They Think He's Seth Green"

* The Comics Reporter: One Last Essay About NYCC 2008

Friday Night Fights: Conan vs. Guys with Swords

From The Savage Sword of Conan #13. Story by Roy Thomas. Art by Gil Kane, Ralph Reese & Dan Adkins. (click pic for larger)


A classic? By Crom!

Upcoming Interview with Paul Hornschemeier

On Saturday, March 17, as part of the 2008 Ann Arbor Book Festival, I'll be conducting a live on-stage interview with cartoonist & graphic novelist Paul Hornschemeier, creator of such works as Mother, Come Home & The Three Paradoxes. I've read some of Hornschemeier's work and liked what I've read, so I'm looking forward to spending the next couple of weeks boning-up on the rest of his oeuvre in anticipation of what should be an interesting interview. The interview will be at 3:30pm in the Kalamazoo Room in the Michigan League (on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan).

Four to Read for Thursday, April 24

* Kerry Callen: The Truth about Superman (via JK Parkin)

* Blog@Newsarama: Another look at the manga-style Wolverine, X-Men

* Progressive Ruin presents...the End of Civilization.

* deviantART: Hank Ketcham's Fantastic Four by ~DocShaner (via Kevin Melrose)

The Late Shipping Hall of Shame, Part 2: The Readers Strike Back!

There was overwhelming response to my first Late Shipping Hall of Shame post, not only here on this blog but elsewhere as well. As promised, I'm compiling some of your suggestions here, selecting several more comics to be added to the Late Shipping Hall of Shame.

Okay, here we go:


Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do - Kevin Smith is always high in demand as one of the first big-name movie writers to dabble in comics, with his work on Daredevil & Green Arrow breathing new life into second-string characters that many had thought past their prime. So teaming him with fan-favorite artists Terry & Rachel Dodson on a Spider-Man project seemed like a great idea. Sure, the project might run a little late; while both the writer and artists didn't have a sterling track record, up to that point they hadn't seen some of the obscene delays that had plagued others. But putting them on a mini-series meant that Marvel could be a bit more tolerant of delays. Heck, Smith even went on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to plug the book! But did anyone foresee a delay of over three years between issues three and four? I wonder if Smith wishes he'd kept on comics instead of shooting Jersey Girl? At least Smith came back to finish it, even if he set a record for a gap in a mini-series; a record that is in danger of being broken by:



Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk - A tale as old as time: Hollywood writer with a love of comics gets a chance to write a mini-series featuring his favorite super-heroes. He gets started, then better-paying Hollywood gigs get in the way and the next thing you know your comic is over two years late... and counting. Marvel and Lost impressario Damon Lindelof swear that the series will eventually be completed, and we believe them. Really...



The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Yeah, we forgive Moore for Watchmen, as it wasn't nearly as late as our collective memory thinks it was. But LXG, after three monthly issues, took another another sixteen months to finish up its final three issues. Many people still admire Moore as a writer, but with the delays on this comic and others in the America's Best Comics line, Moore's ability to sell floppies has atrophied, with fans preferring to wait for the trade instead of dealing with long delays in the middle of his intricate plots.



Rising Stars - J. Michael Straczynski's super-powered magnum opus for Top Cow suffered a nearly two-year delay near the end, between issues #21 & 22, but it wasn't the same old Hollywood writer story. Instead, JMS was protesting being cut out of film-rights negotiations for his property and delayed his scripts. Communications broke down between the parties, but once Top Cow issued an apology (along with a transfer of some minor intellectual property) the final three issues of the series were completed.



Astro City - Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson's fan-favorite street-level view of super-heroes never maintained a perfect monthly record, but one of the more unusual episodes in the annals of late shipping books occured when writer Busiek came down with mercury poisoning and book was delayed for nearly a year as he was unable to concentrate enough to write the intricate scripts. Thankfully Busiek recovered, and DC have enough confidence in him to give him the job writing the lead story in their upcoming weekly Trinity series. But Astro City never really recovered, and after transitioning to a series of mini-series and one-shots its sales have never recovered.



Ministry of Space - Artist Chris Weston showed up in the comments of the original Hall of Shame post to nominate his and Warren Ellis's retro-future space series for the long delay between its second and final issues. We forgive you, Chris!



No, this isn't the end of the Late Shipping Hall of Shame; there's still plenty more to come. Look for part three at some point probably next week. In the meantime, please keep your nominations coming!

Four to Read for Tuesday, April 22

* The Comics Reporter: 50 Observations And Notes From The Floor Of The New York Comic-Con, 2008

* Dave's Long Box: Closing Time

* Space Chimps Trailer

* w craghead: petals, a spell (via Dirk)

New Library Comics: Week of April 14, 2008

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Di Gregorio, Giovanni. Brancaccio : storie di mafia quotidiana / Levada di Ponte di Piave, Treviso : BeccoGiallo, 2006.

Kannemeyer, Anton. The big bad bitterkomix handbook / Johannesburg : Jacana, 2006.

Kryttre, Krystine. The [pound squiggle spiral star] coloring book / San Francisco : Last Gasp, c2001.

Marx, Christy. Writing for animation, comics & games / Amsterdam ; Boston : Focal Press, c2007.


This listing is available as an RSS Feed!

Friday Night Fights: Sammi vs. Lendo

From Ninja High School #26 (1991). Story and Art by Benn Dunn. (click pic for larger)

A classic? In black & white!

Three to Read for Thursday, April 17

* BeaucoupKevin: Thumb Sucking Linus: Peanuts In Japan

* Panels & Pictures: Text in Comics (via Dirk)

* Graphic Lit: An interview with Mark Tatulli (also via Dirk)

This just might be the greatest thing ever...

You can keep your All Star Batman & Robin. Now we've got what just might be the greatest comic ever:

Armageddon Now: World War 3



Rob Liefeld adapts the Book of Revelation.



What is it?

a new, original 120-page graphic novel planned for release this summer as part one of an eventual 5-part book series.

Sayeth Rob:

I've already heard how violent it is and I'm like, "Have you ever read the Bible before?" You’re not likely to find a more violent, sexual, treacherous book.

Review: Ganges #2

Ganges #2
by Kevin Huizenga
Fantagraphics, $7.95

I loved the first issue of Ganges, Kevin Huizenga's title in Fantagraphics & Coconino's Ignatz line of high quality oversized comics, and honestly didn't know if he would ever be able to meet or exceed the quality in future issues. Oh, how wrong I was (and delightfully so!)

The second issue of Ganges–which like the first centers around Huizenga's everyman character Glann Ganges–consists of two loosely-linked stories. The first is nothing less than a head-trip that somehow combines the aesthetics of Larry Marder's Beanworld with a Japanese fighting video game (a la Mortal Kombat). It's a tour-de-force that on its own would make this a comic worth our attention, but that's only the first third of this comic. It segues into the second story, "Pulverize," which begins by revealing that the game is one that the titular Glenn Ganges has been playing late at night. Glenn then falls into one of his frequent reveries in which he remembers his time spent working at a turn-of-the-century Internet start-up, and the frequent after-hours sessions the employees there spent playing a multi-player first-person shooter, Pulverize. Any further plot summary wouldn't do justice to the story, but suffice to say that Huizenga deftly interweaves his narrative, playing with the interaction between the real and virtual in a way that appears much more effortless than it is.

If there was any question as to Huizenga's role as one of the top cartoonists of the decade, Ganges #2 safely puts those questions to rest. There's no doubt that this comic will appear on my eventual best of 2008 list.

Rating: 4.5 (of 5)

Late Shipping Hall of Shame Update

Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions on the Late Shipping Hall of Shame, and to Mike & Johanna for their helpful linkage and commentary. I've been going over your suggestions both here and elsewhere in anticipation of adding more titles to the Hall of Shame in a post later this week; in the meantime, keep those suggestions coming!

I'm thinking that I will most likely add a couple of sub-categories: Unfinished Business, for series that disappear and are never finished; and Vaporware, for titles which are announced but never materialize.

Five to Read (or Hear) for Monday, April 14

* Marketplace Money: Work Life: Comic store manager (audio)

* Redhead Fangirl: Redhead Fangirl's tips for attending a big comicon

* Comics Should Be Good: Saturday's Literary License (via Tegan)

* TangognaT: Toshokan Sensō - Library War Episode 1 and More Library War

* Panels & Pixels: Graphic Lit: An interview with Françoise Mouly (via JK Parkin)

Four to Read for Friday, April 11

* scans_daily: Only in Japan could such a thing exist..... (via Dirk)

* EW.com: Comic Books: The One That Hooked Me! (via Kevin Melrose)

* Flipped: David Welsh Interviews Michael Perry of Aurora

* ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Illustration: Lawson Wood Monkey Mania (via Dirk)

Review: A People's History of American Empire

A People's History of American Empire
By Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, & Paul Buhle
$17.00/$30.00, Metropolitan Books

This graphic historical narrative is an adaptation of sorts of ideas from Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. Those familiar with Zinn's works will not be surprised to know that American History in this work is viewed through the lenses of class and race conflict domestically and imperialism internationally.

Any historical graphic narrative labors in the shadows of the work of Larry Gonick. Unfortunately, Zinn, Konopacki & Buhle fall short in this comparison. Gonick is an accomplished cartoonist and entertaining storyteller who makes ample use of (often irreverent) humor while presenting his sometimes out-of-the-mainstream histories; A People's History of American Empire (APHoAE) features adequate but by no means exemplary cartooning and is a consitantly serious and humorless affair.

As Gonick does with his comics, Zinn is used as a narrative character within APHoAE--a technique that force comparisons with superior works. However, Zinn also appears in some chapters as a viewpoint character. This serves to muddy the waters as to whether APHoAE is meant to be a historical memoir or an objective view of history.

Another curious decision is to make liberal use of historical photographs within the work, often in place of regular drawn panels. There seems to be little rhyme or reason for what has been chosen to be drawn and what is represented by a photograph. Also, the reproduction of most of the photographs is quite poor and tends to downgrade the visual quality of the book.* Konopacki is a good enough artist that these photograph panels could have been drawn, and doing so would have given the work better visual cohesion.

Whether or not one agrees with Zinn's political and/or historical views, A People's History of American Empire is a less-than-compelling work of graphic narrative.

Rating: 2 (of 5)

* (This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher. As an uncorrected proof, there is a statement that reads 'some illustrations are not final,' which seems like a very odd thing to do for review copies of a comic-format work.)

Quick Review: Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #34

This comics has:

Sue Storm vs. the Bwindi Gorilla cult

Ben Grimm vs. a fake Hulk

Johnny Storm vs. a kissing booth

Reed Richards vs. The Mad Thinker & His Awesome Android

And that's just the tip of the iceberg in this issue by Paul (Banana Sunday) Tobin and David (Private Beach) Hahn. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable Fantastic Four comic this year (at least until their next issue!)

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

The Late Shipping Hall of Shame

These days, comics are late all the time. But some late-shipping titles stand out, due to their extreme lateness, frequncy of lateness, or their impact. For those titles, we are creating the Late Shipping Hall of Shame!

Here are our nominees:



Camelot 3000 - The granddaddy of them all. Back in the days of newsstand distribution, comics just weren't late. If a story wasn't ready to go in time, the editor would pull an inventory story from the drawer and run it instead. Because the newsstand distribution wasn't going to wait for the next issue of X-Men or Batman. But Camelot 3000 was one of DC's first direct-only titles, so the newsstand rules didn't apply. Brian Bolland is a wonderful artist, but these days editors know that to give the man a monthly book would be crazy talk. A number of delays plagued the book, with the result that the final isuse of the twelve-issue series came out more than a year later than originally planned. Not the worst delay ever, but certainly a harbinger of things to come...



Action Comics, Superman & Wonder Woman ca. late 2006/early 2007 - 2006 was to be a big year for Superman & Wonder Woman, with high-profile creative teams coming on board to give these stalwarts a needed boost. But small delays became longer delays, resulting in issues being published out-of-order and causing much embarassment for DC editorial.



All-Star Batman & Robin - Hey, let's get Frank Miller and Jim Lee to do a Batman comic together! Of course, Frank is busy becoming the latest darling of Hollywood, and Jim is also a VP in the company. Sure they'll sell a lot of Batman comics, but what made the powers-that-be think that this would come out monthly? The result was a comic that shipped just one issue during all of 2006, and saw a sixteen-month gap between issues #4 & 5.



Civil War - The delays weren't super terrible during Marvel's Civil War; but with so many other spin-off books tieing in tightly to the plot, delays of a few weeks in the core title saw a ripple effect that devestated a large chunk of Marvel's line-up. Sure Civil War sold like gangbusters, but how much money was lost because issues of Amazing Spider-Man or Captain America didn't ship?



Spider-Man "One More Day" - Remember how the big ending to JMS's Spider-Man was to come out weekly? But rewrites and other delays meant that it came out less-than-monthly, and pushed back the debut of the thrice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man, leaving one of Marvel's best-selling books on the sidelines for several months.



The Ultimates - The first Ultimates series saw many long delays, but they were going to not have that problem with Ultimates 2, as artist Brian Hitch would work far enough ahead that it wouldn't be a problem. Right? But series 2 saw the same type of delays in the back half that plagued series 1. But all would be well with series 3, as the delays on series 2 meant that the new creative team would have plenty of lead time to get issues in the can. Oops...



Powers - It seems like not a week goes by when the Diamond Shipping Updates don't include a shift of one or two weeks on a Powers comic. And yet, they still pretend that this will be a monthly, and even recently decided to increase the page count! It's time for Marvel to get real and admit that Powers will always be a bi-monthly-at-best book.



Astonishing X-Men - Debuting in 2004, this seemed like a match in heaven, with Joss Whedon & John Cassady taking on everyone's favorite mutants. Sure, a decompressed story lasting 24-issues might seem to take a bit long, but that would also mean a new top-selling trade collection every six months for those who prefer to wait for the trade. Alas, Whedon has Hollywood fish to fry, and Cassady, while a superb artist, has never been known for his speed. As a result, this slow-moving story has dragged on and on, and any surprises from the final (double-sized--wait twice as long!) issue are pretty much moot as the rest of the X-Men line has decided to move along without it. Theoretically this means that the new creative team of Ellis & Bianchi have plenty of time to work ahead, but we saw how well that worked with Ultimates...



Planetary - A comic that gets written whenever Warren Ellis gets around to it, and then John Cassady tries to squeeze in drawing it if he's waiting for an X-Men script from Whedon. Fine, we know what we're getting into. But there's just one issue remaining in the series, which means that the final trade collection is being held up as well. One might think that the potential paycheck for finishing just one more issue would spur the creators to finish the darn thing.



American Flagg hardcover collections - Image announced these way back in 2004, but they still haven't seen the light of day. They promise a Summer 2008 release for the first volume at the San Diego Comic Con; Howard Chaykin has reportedly said that he won't believe it until someone actually hands him one to sign.



Those are my choices for the Late Shipping Hall of Shame. Agree? Disagree? What other comics would you add?

Four to Read for Wednesday, April 9

* Doodles & Dailies: From the Desk of Jim Ottaviani: How I Write Non-Fiction Comics (via Dirk)

* The Visual Linguist: New Essay: Navigating Comics

* Every Day Is Like Wednesday: The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #1 (via Tom)

* Blog@Newsarama: Superman of Two Worlds

PHD #1000

Piled Higher & Deeper, Jorge Cham's fantastically fun Webcomic strip about life in grad school, has reached its milestone 1000th strip, featuring a milestone (of sorts) for long-running character Mike Slackenerny.

Congratulations to Jorge, and here's hoping for at least 1000 more!

New Library Comics: Week of March 31, 2008

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Allison, John. Heavy metal hearts and flowers : a Scary go round story / Cresbard, SD : Keenspot, 2004.

"Antico-mix" : Antike in Comics : Skulpturhalle Basel, 31. März - 26. September 1999 / Basel : Skulpturhalle, 1999.

Avery, Fiona. Araña vol. 1 : the heart of the spider / New York : Marvel Comics, 2005-

Benjamin, Paul, 1970- Pantheon High vol. 1 : demigods & debutantes / Hamburg ; Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2006-

Fukui, Harutoshi, 1968- Samurai commando : mission 1549 vol. 1 / La Jolla, Calif. : CMX, 2007-

Hayashi, Fumino. Neon genesis evangelion : Angelic days vol. 5. / Houston, Tex. : ADV Manga, 2006-

Izumi, Kaneyoshi. Doubt!! vols. 1-6 / San Francisco, Calif. : Viz, LLC, 2005-

Kishi, Daimuro. Time Guardian vol. 1 / La Jolla, CA : WildStorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics, c2007-

Mazzotta, Antony. Bombaby the screen goddess / San Jose, CA : SLG Pub., 2004.

Mikimoto, Haruhiko, 1952- Marionette generation vols. 1-2 / San Francisco, Calif. : Viz Communications, 2001-

Prime cuts no. 4. / Agoura, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1987-

Shanower, Eric. Age of bronze vol. 3A : betrayal, part one / Orange, CA : Image, c2001-

Sorachi, Hideaki. Gin Tama vol. 1 / San Francisco : VIZ Media, [2007]-

Yoshiki, Hidaka. The first president of Japan = Nihonkoku shodai daitōryō, Sakuragi Ken'ichirō vols. 1-4 / Torrance, CA : Gutsoon! Entertainment, 2003-


This listing is available as an RSS Feed!

Four to Read for Sunday, April 6

* Life in Comics: Finding Comics in the “Real” World (via Heidi)

* Flipped!: David Welsh on Kaoru Mori's Emma

* David Lafuente Blog (via Johnny Bacardi)

* Anime News Network: Library War Promo Movie, Commercial Posted Online (via TangognaT)

Borders Educators' Sale

Through April 8, your local Borders store is offering all educators—including librarians—25% off all books, CDs & DVDs. This of course includes graphic novels and manga, so if you're looking to pick something up and you're an educator, this would be a good weekend to do so!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr. Todd Snider

BTW, if you ever get a chance to see Todd Snider live, do so: he does a great show.

Light Children Preview

Kyle T. Webster, artist and co-creator of the upcoming self-published graphic novel Light Children, dropped me an email and asked me to stop by their Website to give a look at the sample chapters they've made available. I don't as a rule review incomplete samples, but I will say that the art is very attractive and the story looks interesting. I'll be keeping an eye out for it when it comes out.

Variant Covers

I don't normally mind the fact that there are variant covers on comics; as long as I get one issue to read, that's fine. I order most of my comics from DCBS, and sometimes they'll throw in a variant cover edition—which is usually good except when it's a photo cover; I'd rather have a nice piece of comic art than a re-used stock photograph.

Recently I loaned some of my Buffy season 8 & Angel season 6 comics to some friends who are only occasional comic readers but are fans of the shows. They had previously borrowed some of the Buffy comics from another friend. In looking through mine to see which issues they needed they got a bit confused due to the fact that some of mine had different covers from the ones they had seen. I explained about the multiple covers which they then grokked easily enough but thought was kind of strange.

I wonder what sort of general effect multiple covers have for those not used to the hobby aspect of comics? Do Buffy fans coming into comic stores looking for the latest issue try to buy a variant cover of a comic they already have?

Webcomic Product Placement

One of my favorite Webcomics, the library-themed Unshelved, is doing something that I don't particularly like. This week's entire run of strips is basically a running ad for a sponsor, with the characters extolling the virtues of the sponsor's service.

Unshelved has long had weekly sponsors, with ads running in the feed above the strips, but until now the editorial content of the strips has seemed to be independent.

I understand that it's a tough world out there, and that when creators are trying to make a living at producing a free Webcomic it must be tempting to grab at any source of revenue that comes along. Advertising, merchandise, and personal appearances are all accepted ways of keeping the cash-flow coming; but selling out the actual content of the strip seems like, well, selling out.

Worse, it calls into question the integrity of the rest of the strip. One of Unshelved's most popular features is the Sunday "Book Club" strips, wherein one of the characters of the strip will "book talk" a recommended book. How long until these "Book Club" strips become paid-for by publishers?

Hopefully the Unshelved creators will see that the long-term negatives for doing such a deal outweigh any short-term financial gain.

Five to Read for Wednesday, April 2

* The Comics Reporter: Jim Mooney, 1919-2008

* Uncharted Territory: Gender and Reading Habits Part Two: Let's Hear it for the Girls

* First Second Weblog: On the Passage of Time (via Dirk)

* Blog THIS, Pal!: 5 Top Television Shows in the DC Universe

* Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!: Marshall to the Rescue

Four to Read for Tuesday, April 1

* radeeo: Welcome Back, Battleship Galaxy-1!

* Progressive Ruin: All Star Batman and Robin? "All Star Batman!"

* Dave's Long Box: Welcome to Dave's Shrine of Remar

* Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!: Ten of a Kind: Evil Twins

Four to Read for Monday, March 31

* uncivilsociety.org: The Siegel Superman decision

* The Beat: Superman decision fall out

* The Savage Critics: Papa Don't Preach: The Toughest Review Diana Ever Wrote

* Whitechapel: Warren's Pub Table: On Leaving THUNDERBOLTS (via Graeme)

Friday Night Fights: Matter-Eater Lad vs. Pulsar Stargrave

From the Legion of Substitute Heroes Special (1985). Story by Keith Giffen & Paul Levitz. Art by Keith Giffen & Karl Kesel. (click pic for larger)

Round Twelve? Duck!

Five to Read (or Hear) for Friday, March 28

* Comics Worth Reading: Indy Comics News Interview With Wesley Green

* Comics Should Be Good: Manga Before Flowers - Top Five Shojo Manga (via David)

* TangognaT: Fun Home Protest in Utah

* NPR: Persepolis Strikes a Chord with Young Iranians

* NPR: Three Writers are Drawn by the Allure of Comics

Five to Read for Thursday, March 27

Items of interest from around the Blogosphere:

* Progressive Ruin presents...the End of Civilization

* Precocious Curmudgeon: Mergers and acquisitions

* all kinds of stuff: Don Martin - department store 2, The Genius of "Ignorant Humor" (via Heidi)

* Uncharted Territory: Gender and Reading Habits Part One: Let's Hear it for the Boys (via Chris)

* Polite Dissent: Colorful Diseases of the Golden Age: The Purple Plague

New This Week: March 26, 2008

I haven't done these for a while, but while this may not quite be the Best New Comics Week Ever, it's definitely up there so a few things bear mentioning:

For all you formalists out there, the top of the list is sure to be the second issue of Kevin Huizenga's Ganges. If there's anything even approaching last issue's "Time Traveling" story, it'll be worth your $8 right there.

Also this week is the tenth issue of All-Star Superman, which we forgive for being constantly late because Morrison & Quitely are always so darn good.

Completing the once-in-a-blue-moon trilogy is a new issue of Jason Lutes' Berlin (#15).

Oh, and also a new issue of Amelia Rules (#20), which must make it a quadrology.

Also showing up this week are Blue Beetle #25, which not only features an end to the major overarching Reach storyling but also means that Jamie Reyes' comic has officially lasted longer than Ted Kord's; and Dan Dare #5.

There's plenty of other good stuff too, which I'm sure you've already seen if you went to your FLCS yesterday.

Four to Read for Tuesday, March 25

Items of interest from around the Blogosphere:

* Comics Worth Reading: FCBD Questions Unanswered

* The Comics Reporter: ComicsPro '08 Vegas Meeting Round-Up

* Shuffleboil: Jessica Abel interview (via Dirk)

* WeinWords: It's an Honor Just to be Nominated (via Heidi)

Five to Read

Today's five posts of interest from the blogosphere:

* Occasional Superheroine: The "Bad" Comic Shop (via Dirk)

* Jog - The Blog: This post is your internet Easter bonnet. Put it on your head.

* The Comics Reporter: Best of 2007

* Comics212: CAT-EYED BOY: Bringing the Umezu classic to North America

* Dave's Long Box: EL CAZADOR Crossgen Comics

Friday Night Fights: Angel vs. Ape

(From Angel and the Ape #1 (1991). Story by Phil Foglio. Art by Phil Foglio & Keith Wilson.)

Round Eleven? Yes Ma'am!

When Will Amazing Spider-Man Catch Up with Action Comics?

Now that Amazing Spider-Man is being published three times a month, when will it catch up in its numbering to Action Comics?

Assuming that ASM keeps its thrice-monthly publication, and that Action continues to come out once a month (not a guarantee, especially lately...), we can do a little quick back-of-the-napkin algebra:

Issue #554 of ASM is the last one published in March; Action didn't publish an issue in March (see what I mean!) though #862 came out in February. So, let x = the number of months until the two titles reach numbering parity, and we get:

554 + 3x = 862 + X
2x = 308
x = 154

So in 154 months; or 12 years, 10 months from now; i.e. January 2020, with issue #1016.

This has been your useless comics math calculation of the day :)

Comics in Google Books

Now that Google has finished scanning our library, some of the comics & graphic novels scanned have started to make their way into Google Books (and its local equivalent, MBooks). A quick search of Mirlyn (our local catalog) shows at least 375 so far, with more sure to come.

Of course, with most of these scanned items still in copyright, they are only available in search mode; which means that you can search the text of the books (and see 'snippets' where the search terms appear) but not actually view the pages of the books themselves; for that you'll still need to go to your friendly local comic store (or public library!)

As might be expected, the quality of the OCR when dealing with hand lettering can be rather poor. Take for example the Google scan of Avengers: Emperor Doom, with 'key words and phrases' that include 'THROUÖH', 'RI&HT', 'THINÖ', and 'AVENÖERS'--we can infer that Google's OCR had difficulties with letterer Bill Oakley's 'G'.

So I'm not exactly sure what the utility will be of having these scans available, but it does make for an interesting curiosity.

Review: Suppli, vol. 1

Suppli, vol. 1
by Mari Okazaki
Tokyopop, $9.99

Twenty-seven-year-old Minami is unhappy in life. Her relationship with her boyfriend of seven years is stagnating and she barely sees him due to her job. But her job at an advertising agency is unsatisfying; Minami wants to create exciting, unconventional ads, while the clients just want the same, safe advertising. By the end of the first chapter (and I don't think I'm giving away anything here) Minami's boyfriend dumps her and her life starts spinning out of control. Luckily for Minami she's a plucky manga heroine, so despite numerous setbacks she starts to live life again.

Suppli is another josei manga, intended for an audience of young professional women. I can't say that the story grabbed me, though that may differ for you if you're part of the target audience. Certainly it's refreshing to see a manga targeted at women where the protagonist has interests other than finding a man; one feels that Minami's professional challenges are as important to her as her romantic ones, perhaps even moreso.

The best part of Suppli is Okazaki's art, which features inky lines that never overwhelm, excellent character design, and a strong sense of graphics and storytelling. While the story may not have held my complete interest throughout, I continued to go through the volume to enjoy the artwork. I pre-ordered this book based solely on the cover, figuring if the art inside was half as good then it would be worth it; happily the interior lives up.

So a mild recommendation to at least pick the book up and look through it; give it a chance to see if the story appeals to you.

Rating: 3 (of 5)

(Other reviews: David Welsh; Katherine Dacey)

New Library Comics: Week of March 10, 2008

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Brunetti, Ivan. Cartooning : philosophy and practice / Oakland, CA : Buenaventura Press, c2007.

Gumby / Walnut Creek, CA : Wildcard Ink, c2006- no. 1

Howarth, Matt, 1954- Particle dreams / Agoura, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1986-1987. nos. 1-2, 4

Lurid tales. / Seattle, WA : Eros Comix, 1991- no. 1

Oh, comics!. Dublin, OH : Corby Visual Productions. nos. 12-14

Terasawa, Buichi, 1955- Cobra / San Francisco, CA : Viz Comics, c1990-1991. nos. 1-12


This listing is now available as an RSS Feed!

Friday Tunes

Sorry for the relative silence this week. Here's a playable playlist of some of the songs I've listened to over the past couple of weeks:

Review: Glacial Period

Glacial Period
by Nicolas De Crécy
NBM ComicsLit, $14.95

This is a strange graphic novella, part future travelogue, part art & cultural critique, part ecological warning tract, and part absurdist narrative.

The book basically breaks down into three acts. In the first, we are introduced to a group of archaeologist-anthropologist-explorers in a far future Earth ravaged by ecological catastrophe into a glacial wasteland. They are accompanied by talking hybrid pig-dogs who are for no discernible reason are named after American super-heroes like Hulk & Spider-Man. (One wonders if this was an unfortunate choice by the translator and that perhaps in the original French they were named after famous European comic characters--Tintin & Asterix perhaps?) We learn that the explorers are looking for artifacts from our earlier civilization, and perhaps a great city; also, that one of the pig-dogs, Hulk, has untoward feelings towards his human mistress.

In the second act, Hulk and the humans separately stumble upon different parts of the Louvre, recently uncovered via a snow-slide from its icy entombment. The humans discover the various paintings hung in the museum and completely misinterpret what they represent.

In the third act, the statures and various pieces of representational art come to life and begin to hound poor Hulk, impressing upon his the history of the Louvre and the downfall of the prior civilization. Hulk then mounts one of the large dog-like statues and rescues two of the humans who had become trapped in a mini-avalanche. They ride off into the sunset.

The plot summary above doesn't even begin to describe the strangeness, so I don't feel that I'm giving much away. The best part is the satirical second act, as the explorers take the representations of their finds far too literally. It serves as a critique of the potential follies of anthropology as well as the times that produced the art in question. The other parts of the narrative don't fare as well; the introductory section establishes relationships that are not successfully followed through on, while the end defies logic and undercuts the earlier parts with its use of the fantastic and absurd that comes out of nowhere. My understanding is that this is De Crécy's style; he just needed to either curtail it here or set us up better for it.

De Crécy, a graduate of the Angoulême comics art school, is a skilled storyteller and is able to work the reproductions of the various art works into his work with ease. This is partially an educational enterprise, done in conjunction with the Louvre to promote appreciation of the arts in general and their collections in particular. I'm not sure this is what they were expecting!

Still, there's enough good stuff here to recommendthat you consider giving it a look.

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

Bad Reading Habits

I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a tremendous back-log of comics that I haven't read yet. There are three whole short-boxes of comics floppies in my to-be-read 'pile,' not to mention the scores of unread graphic novels and manga sitting on my shelves.

This means that in the evening when I'm selecting a comic to read next, I don't necessarily go for what I think will be the best read, but often the quickest, in an attempt to cut down on the sheer volume of comics that need to be read. So anything by Chuck Dixon? An easy read, five minutes tops. But even though an issue of Casanova will most likely be a better comic, the time spent per page count will be higher. So the last several issues of Casanova sit in one of the boxes.

Sometimes if I get a nice long weekend with nothing else to do I'll pull out a long run of something and give it a read. But those chances are few and far between these days.

One peculiar thing that happens, particularly with mini-series, is that I'll read the first issue to see if it's any good. If it is, I'll get the rest of the issues, but many times they go unread until the series is finished. Then I realize that several months have gone by since I read the first issue and I don't know remember what's going on. Going back to read the first issue again seems counterproductive--reading something I've already read when there are so many unread comics to be read. It's like a vicious circle or something.

Of course one solution to all this is to buy less comics. I've managed to cut about $100 off of my monthly DCBS order, so that's a start. I could also move more things to wait-for-the-trade, but that just means that the bookshelves grow more packed instead of the short boxes.

I long ago accepted the fact that I'll never read every prose novel I want to read. I guess I'll have to accept the same thing about comics.

Sigh.

That Sense of Wonder

Remember that sense of wonder you had when you read comics as a youngster. I can remember going to the spinner rack at the newsstand, being presented with so many choices and having to narrow it down to just one or two comics. Then getting home, cracking it open, and reading it cover-to-cover--the story, the letters pages, even the ads--over and over; pouring over it like a Talmudic scholar.

Where is that sense of wonder now? What made it leave? Is it age and experience? Have I just read too many comics?

Were the comics of my youth better in some way? By most objective measures today's comics are overall better--better writing, better art, better production values. And there are certainly many more choices in both types of material and in sheer number of comics being published. But is that 'wow' still there for a new comics reader?

Forgive me, I'm just feeling a bit melancholy today.

Does today's eleven-year-old kid who cracks open a new volume of Naruto have the same feeling of excitement, wonder and possibility that I did when reading an issue of DC Comics Presents?

I certainly hope so.

Gary Gygax

As you may have already heard, Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax passed away today at age 69. While this of course is sad news, I had to laugh when a co-worker, upon sharing the news, remarked that "we will now have 1D6 minutes of silence in his honor." :)



I began playing D&D back in 1980 at the ripe young age of 10. Although I haven't played and significant D&D in about twenty years, it began a love of role playing games that continues to this day. I suppose, like a first love, one always fondly remembers one's first RPG rules system.

Silver Age Vertigo

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, this is a work of brilliance.

YAMR: Cover Songs 5

Now playing on Yet Another Music Radio: Cover Songs 5! Another compilation of over 100 songs by the artists who didn't make them famous!


For nearly seven hours you'll be able to listen to:


Adrienne Young covers Joni Mitchell
Alison Krauss & John Waite cover John Waite
Allison Crowe covers Leonard Cohen
Allison Moorer covers Johnny Cash
American Music Club cover The Mamas and the Papas
Angela Kaset covers Suzy Bogguss
The Be Good Tanyas cover Prince
Bebel Gilberto covers The Eurythmics
Beth Nielsen Chapman covers Billy Jonas
The Bird and The Bee cover The Bee Gees
Blue Man Group & Venus Hum cover Donna Summer
Celtic Fayre cover The Waterboys
Celtic Woman cover Bobby Darin
Daphne Rubin-Vega covers Kermit the Frog
Dar Williams covers Pink Floyd
Deana Carter covers Roy Orbison
Deanna Kirk covers Leonard Cohen
The Derailers cover The Crystals
The Detroit Cobras cover The Flirtations
Diana DeGarmo covers Melissa Manchester
Dolly Parton with Judy Collins & Rhonda Vincent covers Joni Mitchell
The Duhks cover Randy Newman
Dwight Yoakam covers Little Eva
Elizabeth Mitchell covers The Velvet Underground
Elizabeth Mitchell & Lisa Loeb cover Bob Dylan
Emm Gryner covers Ozzy Osbourne
Emmy Rossum covers The Carpenters
Emmylou Harris covers The Everly Brothers
Falco covers Steely Dan
Farmer's Daughter cover Bobbie Gentry
George Strait covers Bruce Robison
Gwyneth Paltrow covers Kim Carnes
Hayley Westenra covers Kate Bush
Hem cover Natalie Wood & Richard Beymer
Il Troubadore cover ABBA
Ivy cover The Carpenters
James Mercer covers The Pixies
Jane Monheit covers Bread
Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins cover The Traveling Wilburys
Joan Osborne covers Sara Evans
Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon cover Bob Dylan
John Legend & Stephen Colbert cover Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney
John Paul White covers Electric Light Orchestra
Johnny Cash covers Soundgarden
Jonatha Brooke covers The Beach Boys
Jonathan Coulton covers Sir Mix-a-Lot
Joss Stone covers The Drifters
June Tabor & The Oyster Band cover The Velvet Underground
Karrin Allyson covers Joni Mitchell
Kelly Sweet covers Aerosmith
Kris McKay covers The English Beat
Kyrsten covers Bad Company
Ladysmith Black Mambazo & Des'ree cover Bill Withers
Lori McKenna covers Peter Gabriel
Lorie Line covers Cat Stevens
The Lucksmiths cover The Bee Gees
Lucy Kaplansky covers Roxy Music
Luna covers Paula Abdul
Madeleine Peyroux covers Patsy Cline
Maire Brennan & Michael McDonald cover Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush
Mandy Barnett & The Jordanaires cover Hank Williams
Mary Chapin Carpenter covers Bruce Springsteen
Mates of State cover David Bowie
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs cover The Who
Michael Carpenter covers Jeff Lynne
The Muppets cover Harry Nilsson
Mutual Admiration Society cover Toad the Wet Sprocket
Natacha Atlas covers Matt Monro
Neko Case covers The Shangri-Las
Nichole Nordeman covers Bob Dylan
Nichole Nordeman covers Cyndi Lauper
Nickel Creek covers Pavement
Nicole Kidman & Hugh Jackman cover Prince & Elvis Presley
Norah Jones & Adam Levy cover Elvis Presley
Ookla the Mok cover James Kochalka Superstar
Patty Griffin covers Bruce Springsteen
Paul Anka covers Survivor
Peter Gabriel covers Magnetic Fields
Pink Martini cover Doris Day
The Puppini Sisters cover Blondie
The Puppini Sisters cover Beyoncé Knowles
The Raveonettes cover The Angels
Red Molly cover Elvis Presley
Reel Big Fish cover The J. Geils Band
Richard Shindell covers Bruce Springsteen
Ricky Scaggs & Bruce Hornsby cover Rick James
Rilo Kiley cover The Velvet Underground
Rogue Wave cover Buddy Holly
Ronan Keating covers Keith Whitley
Sammy Kershaw covers James Taylor
Sarah Blasko covers Crowded House
Sarah Brightman covers Kansas
Seal covers Echo & The Bunnymen
The Section Quartet cover Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Seven Nations cover The Church
The Softies cover Rick Astley
Something For Kate cover Christina Aguilera
Student Rick cover Belinda Carlisle
Suzy Bogguss covers Chicago
Thrice cover Real Life
Tok Tok Tok cover Paul Simon
Tori Amos covers Boomtown Rats
Vitamin String Quartet cover Flyleaf
The Wailin' Jennys cover Neil Young
Willis cover Cameo
Wyclef Jean & Eve cover The Outfield
Yellowcard cover Michelle Branch


It's all free, so tune in now!