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Read more about the article Adventures in Philly

Adventures in Philly

aka, The stuff I can't really say in my Buzzscope coverage.First, the absent-minded professor (that'd be me) achieved a new personal high as I locked my keys in the car after arriving in Philly and checking in to my hotel. (A nice little "boutique hotel"-slash-B&B called the Alexander Inn, right in Center City, about 8 blocks from the Convention Center.) If that wasn't bad enough, I didn't realize it until much later Saturday night, confirming it Sunday morning after I'd tossed my room looking for them and heading over to the garage to find them still in the car. Which,…

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Read more about the article loudpoet.com email

loudpoet.com email

If you've written me there in the past three or four weeks - possibly even a bit longer - I haven't received it because I haven't checked the account in at least that long. It gets tons of spam and once I let more than 2-3 days pass without checking it, as I did a while back, it gets out of hand. Like more than 1000 spam emails/week kind of "out of hand." Lord only knows how much is in there right now and whenever I get around to checking it again, I'm just going to delete the whole shebang.If…

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Read more about the article Comment: Living the Dream…Vicariously

Comment: Living the Dream…Vicariously

While much of the ever-expanding Comics Blogiverse is made up of wannabe writers - Grant Morrison sycophants praising his every bowel movement, and frustrated hacks full of shallow anti-Marvel/DC snark being the two largest demographics - there's another, much more interesting subculture to be found: aspiring comics retailers.As much as I'd love to one day see my name credited as writer on a Moon Knight mini-series, I don't actually have any aspirations or intent to pursue that particular fantasy. I do, however, entertain the thought of opening my own store one day. Quite often, really.Recently, I've come across a couple…

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Read more about the article Retro: Orbiter (TPB)

Retro: Orbiter (TPB)

Prior to 9/11, there were many who believed that my generation's defining moment happened on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, instantly killing all 7 crew members aboard, including the first teacher scheduled to fly in space, Sharon Christa McAuliffe. I was in 11th grade at the time and while it was definitely a notable moment, I recall feeling somewhat removed from it all, born a year and a half too late to have any memory of Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon and therefore lacking any real…

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Read more about the article Interview: Fialkov on Elk’s Run

Interview: Fialkov on Elk’s Run

It's a sad fact in the comics industry today that succesfully launching a brand new title is a Herculean feat for the Big Two, requiring a massive marketing and promotion campaign with no guarantees of success. For independent publishers, it's a near impossible task. Even sadder is the fact that the lower half of the Diamond Top 100 - wholly dominated by mainstream super-heroes, historied licenses and/or A-list creators - typically bottoms out around 25,000 copies, making "successful" a somewhat relative term. So what to do when a really good comic book comes along, one not in the front of…

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Read more about the article Review: Comic Book Encyclopedia

Review: Comic Book Encyclopedia

When I was a kid, encyclopedias were often frustrating for their lack of depth or currency. These days, with the pervasiveness of the internet, the notion of a printed encyclopedia is about as practical as a hand-cranked engine. Nevertheless, Ron Goulart decided to go the throwback route anyway, and compiled his ambitious and admirable, if deeply flawed, Comic Book Encyclopedia.A visually appealing piece of work, like Frank Cho's unnecessary Shanna mini-series, there's three immediate signs of trouble before you even open the book. The boast of "nearly 400 big pages" is laughable when you consider the varied history of comics,…

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Read more about the article Comment: Giving the People What They Want

Comment: Giving the People What They Want

Marvel EIC, Joe Quesada, and his main partner in crime, Brian Michael Bendis, caused a minor tempest in a teapot a couple of weeks ago during Newsarama's "Quesadarama" PR stunt that gave Quesada "control" of the site for the week. He posted an entertaining mix of informative and self-indulgent interviews with the likes of Kevin Smith, Allan Heinberg and, in a series of five installments, Bendis. During the third installment, the duo hypocritically riffed on the state of online journalism and the merits of Rich Johnston's rumor column, Lying in the Gutters, as well as the signal-to-noise ratio on various…

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