On The Shelves: 7/19/06
Read GOOD Comics, not just the ones you're used to! Try something new EVERY month. My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 7/19/06. The full shipping is list available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure to take advantage of it. If not, find another one; or try Khepri.com or MidtownComics.com] PICK OF THE WEEK The HungerAK ENTERTAINMENT INC Aya #2, $2.95 Jalila #2, $2.95 Rakan #2, $2.95 Zein #2, $2.95 The first issues of these weren't bad, but they weren't…
Review: Iron West
Iron West By Doug TenNapel (Image Comics, 2006; $14.99) Going for wacky is a dangerous gambit, particularly in comics where it can easily drift over into unintentional camp or, even worse, come completely unhinged and end up convoluted and unfunny, so when I realized Doug TenNapel's Iron West included both Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster in the mix, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Fortunately, TenNapel walks a net-free tightrope like a pro, delivering a rollicking good time filled with moments of "He's going to fa--Wow!" that begs for adaptation to the big, or small, screen.…
LINK: Raising the Bar for Comics Journalism
Heidi MacDonald -- of the recently relocated The Beat, and defender of all that is righteous in the comics world -- proves that, with great power comes great responsibility, using the high-profile visibility of her new Publisher's Weekly platform to...well, to dish dirt. Dept. of Scandal I A while ago we told you about budding filmmaker Matt Busch reporting on his LiveJournal about a nasty breakup with his girlfriend, actress Sarah Wilkinson, with writer Steve Niles as the third party. We're not going to rehash all the story because it's just ugly stuff that should have been kept private, but…
CBC Quickees: On Pirates and Expatriates
The Left Bank GangBy Jason (Fantagraphics, 2006; $12.95)Why Are You Doing This?, an enthralling Hitchkockian mystery with a big heart, was my first exposure to the Norwegian cartoonist Jason, and it firmly put him on my list of creators from whom I'll check out anything they do. Unfortunately, for me, his English translations are published by Fantagraphics and I rarely find myself in their corner of the comics shop, so I hadn't gotten around to checking out any of his other work before The Left Bank Gang came out a couple of weeks ago. Originally published in France as Hemingway,…
Superman Returns, Disappoints, May Disappear Again and Take His Friends With Him
The initial weekend estimates are in and, like Lex Luthor with Kryponite, it’s bad news for the Man of Steel as Superman Returns pulled in a mere $11.6 million in its third week, bringing its total domestic box office to $163,648,000 and pretty much guaranteeing that it will fall short of the $200m mark that’s been rumored as the minimum benchmark to greenlight a sequel. (Or, at least, one with Brian Singer at the helm.) While its 46.7% dropoff wasn’t nearly as bad as last weekend’s 58.5%, its miserable $3,086/theater average when there was no new direct competition would seem to suggest that lukewarm word of mouth countered its mostly positive reviews and strong, if not overwhelming, opening week at the box office.
Domestically, it’s now dead in the water as four major new releases will take over the theaters this coming weekend — Clerks II, Lady in the Water, Monster House and My Super Ex-Girlfriend — and Pirates of the Caribbean could drop 70% next weekend and would still easily land in the Top 5. With Devil Wears Prada having a better per-theather average this weekend, it’s not impossible to think that Superman Returns could actually fall completely out of the Top 10. The foreign box office numbers for this weekend will be of particular importance then, as it finally opened in several European and Latin American markets, delayed thanks to the World Cup. If it underperforms as some have expected it will, the chances of a sequel become that much more unlikely.
COMMENT: Under the Covers
Pop quiz: What's the difference between these three magazine covers? If you said "everything", you get a no-prize! I purposefully made the images small so the copy would be hard to read and you'd first have to focus on the pictures. On the Teen People cover, Ms. Simpson (good thing she kept her maiden name, yes?) has a big smile on her face, with "Sister Power" clearly visible, suggesting the story inside is a positive one, probably a fluff celebrity piece. The Maxim cover knows its target audience, commanding their attention to Ms. Simpson's two best features and printing her…