COMMENT: $25 Pop Quiz

Shane (Near-Mint Heroes) Bailey threw out an interesting challenge this week: a $25 budget, this week's release list, and the question, "What would you buy?"Winnowing my already light-for-me list this week was harder than I thought it would be thanks to Essential Moon Knight's $16.99 cover price, and really drove home the stark reality of a marketplace whose average consumer is estimated to have a $20/week budget, $16 of which is allocated to Marvel/DC titles. Even factoring in the handy discount I get, I'd still be spending more than $25 on this week's intended pulls, never mind the sampling I…

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On The Shelves: 2/15/06

Support GOOD Comics! Try something new EVERY month!My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 2/15/06. 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 WEEKEssential Moon Knight: Vol. 1ANTARCTIC PRESS Alice In Wonderland #1 (Of 4), $3.50Is Alice in Wonderland in the public domain? Because she seems to pop up in an awful lot of comic books. Certainly makes attracting attention…

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LINK: Speculation Returns

From the Business section of today's NY Daily News:Marvel-ous investmentsA "Marvel Comics" No. 1 dating back to 1939 just went for $201,250. A "Captain America" from 1941 featuring the stars-and-stripes clad superhero knocking out Hitler and his thugs, roped in $96,686.While there's one voice of reason quoted -- "I would not suggest putting significant amounts of money in comic books," said New York-based accountant Alan Straus. He said no more than 5% to 10% of your investment should go into any type of collectibles. -- he appears 14 paragraphs into the article, surrounded by fluffy commentary from collectors; an overly…

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CBC Quickees: DMZ, G0DLAND, X-Factor and more

Snatching a handful of comics from the top of my most-recently read stack, in no particular order…

Teen Titans #32: Why do I torture myself? I picked up the Captain Carrot/Kid Eternity arc and was sorely disappointed, and this alternate angles/extended scenes edition of Infinite Crisis #4 was like a self-inflicted kick in the nuts. Here’s hoping One Year Later returns this series back to the strong character-driven stories of its first 18 issues, as Johns has claimed he’ll be doing.

DMZ #3: What do you do with a series that you really want to like, but find yourself continually disappointed with after each issue? You drop it. Period. Part of the problem, as with Local, is that I simply don’t like the lead character, Matty Roth. If I were a character in DMZ, I’d shoot him.

New Thunderbolts #18: A consistently entertaining read, Fabian Nicieza has such a handle on his characters that it allows me to ignore the fact that I’m unfaimilar with a lot of the series’ backstory. Lines like Nighthawk’s, “Y’know, even the weirdest day I spent with the Defenders was sane compared to you people…” make my inner fanboy smile. In a just world, New Thunderbolts would be outselling New Avengers.

G.I. Joe: America’s Elite! #8: Hate on 80s licenses all you want, but Joe Casey’s spin on the toys I used to shoplift from Caldor as a pre-teen is like cotton candy on the tongue. And I really like Stefano Caselli’s exaggerated faces.

X-Factor #3: You really have to wonder if Bendis had any clue what would become of his House of M deus ex machina, Layla Miller, if in fact he had any plans for her at all. Call me a hater, but I have trouble believing David isn’t simply making lemonade out of lemons here, as opposed to following some grand plan that was hashed out at one of those infamous retreats of theirs that begat Disassembled and Civil War. In one sequence at the end of this issue, David makes Layla the second most interesting character in this series, behind only Madrox. Good stuff!

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COMMENT: Moon Knight Hype; WonderCon News

Joe Quesada's hyping the new Moon Knight series, and while he's been on point lately - at least with the examples he gives here - I have to admit to cringing a little bit whenever he goes in to spin mode in connection to anything I'm looking forward to.NRAMA: "Scribe" - If you had to pick ONE new ongoing title coming out sometime this year as your own "One to Watch", which would it be and why?JQ: That book is simply called, Moon Knight! It is everyone's favorite new title up here at Marvel. Charlie [Huston] and David [Finch] are…

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COMMENT: Code Black

Damn you, ABC!From America's Funniest Home Videos to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to Desperate Housewives, ABC slowly but surely took possession of my Sunday nights last season, to the point where our entire night is now structured around watching as much of those shows as we can. We eat during AHV, bathe the kids during EM, iron clothes during DW...and always turn the TV off before we can be tempted into Grey's Anatomy.Then the Super Bowl came, and two little words kept me in front of the TV when the game was finished: Code Black.The commercials for the Super Bowl…

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On The Shelves: 2/8/06

Support GOOD Comics! Try something new EVERY month!My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 2/8/06. 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]ARCANA STUDIO 100 Girls #7 $2.95The final issue of the first story arc of one the best indie comics going. Can't wait!BOOM! STUDIOS Jeremiah Harm #1 $3.99No idea what this is, but I like the name, and in combination with…

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