PANEL: Blue Beetle #1
Blue Beetle #1Art by Cully Hamner and David SelfWritten by Keith Giffen and John RogersMarch 2006, DC Comics
On the Shelves: 3/29/06
Support GOOD Comics! Try something new EVERY month. Man, I was a little pissy last week, yes? Nothing a strong week of comics couldn't cure, though! American Way, Robin, Supermarket, Scatterbrain, Captain America, Iron Man: The Inevitable, Next Wave, X-Factor...it was like comics' own Best Week Ever! Here's my weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 3/29/06. 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…
QUESTION: If you had $20…
Last week I hit the century mark at Midtown Comics, and have a $20 rebate coming to me. It's a personal tradition that every rebate be used toward the purchase of a trade. So what should be my next purchase? The last one I picked up was Superman: Birthright, and it was a winner. So are there any suggestions from the dedicated readers of CBC? Any Marvel or DC trade is fair game.
REVIEW: V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta, on the other hand—while similarly dated and liberally incorporating elements familiar to any fan of the vengeance seeking, flush with resources anti-hero—holds up remarkably well all these years later. It's a flawed story, mind you, as Moore slips back and forth between compelling melodramatic fiction and hamfisted polemic (similar in some ways to Fahrenheit 911), but the overall result is that of an incredibly engaging tale—part revenge thriller, part political potboiler, part police procedural—that takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride before ending on a somber, if obliquely hopeful, note.
PANEL: Daughters of the Dragon #3
Daughters of the Dragon #3 (of 6)Art by Khari Evans, Jimmy Palmiotti and Christina StrainWritten by Justin Gray and Jimmy PalmiottiMarch 2006, Marvel ComicsZilla and the Comics Junkies has been one of my favorite blogs since I first came across it, as much for its great content as for its excellent visual design. If I ever get around to redesigning CBC, I'll be stealing their template! One of my favorite things Zilla posts is the panel scans, especially the standalone posts, a la this one from Wolverine #32.Last night, while heading to Pathmark for our weekly grocery shopping, my wife…
On The Shelves: 3/22/06
Support GOOD Comics! Try something new EVERY month...or not. Who cares? Between Blogger and Gmail's sporadic outages the past week or so, and some behind-the-scenes dustups that are really testing my patience for this labor of love shit, I'm feeling rather jaded and cynical these days. That's a bad combination, but there's light at the end of the tunnel, so I still have my fingers crossed. Anyway, here's my weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 3/22/06. The full shipping is list available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If…
COMMENT: Buying Habits…and How to Change Them
First, read Ed Cunard’s post criticizing the Independents’ Day campaign (read the comments, too), then read my intro to yesterday’s On the Shelves. Both got me thinking about the comics I currently buy and enjoy, how they compare to what I was buying and enjoying this time last year, and offered a bit of insight into why my to-read pile is growing out of control.
In the comments to Cunard’s post, I mention a conversation I had the other night:
…about the cyclical nature of comics buying, how some of us move from nostalgia/habit to experimentation to comfort, while others get locked into a particular mode, by choice or lack of awareness. Where I think I’ve been shifting into comfort mode recently, only buying comics I enjoy regardless of what genre or publisher, this Independents’ Day is a great idea for those stuck in nostalgia/habit mode.
Ed and others have issues with the Independents’ Day idea, some valid, some overly nitpicky. In the end, though, I’m a believer in taking action, and if there’s a group of fan/creators who see the ID campaign as a rallying point that will inspire them to taking action, more power to them. IMO, it’s similar to The Hive, except the ID campaign focuses on the Direct Market while The Hive is attempting to look beyond it. Both are valid concepts with great intentions, and you could nitpick either of them to death if you have nothing better to do, but they can really only be judged by their end results.
Anyway, the buying habits thing jumped out at me in the midst of all of this as I’m on the verge of drastically overhauling my pull list. Again.
When I started this blog, I was on the fringes of “nostalgia” mode, enjoying some of the stuff I remembered from my youth, but starting to seek out new things to read. Overwhelmed by the variety of comics on the racks every Wednesday, I did what I do in mainstream bookstores when I’m looking for something new: I browse until I find something that strikes my fancy. Sometimes it’s the author; sometimes it’s the back cover copy or a blurb from a writer I like; sometimes it’s the cover image itself (though that’s more often a turnoff than an inspiration, especially with genre fiction). It’s certainly never the publisher. In fact, of my favorite writers — Larwence Block, Matt Ruff, Carl Hiaasen — I have no idea who publishes their work, nor do I care.