Better late than never: Hibbs on 8/23

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Posted by: admin on August 30, 2006

Categories: Reviews

Little late here, sorry –don’t really have that much time as it is, so here’s a small handful of reviews for the week. BATMAN #656: Y’know, if someone more cartoony was doing the art, say an Ed McGuiness or something, I’d probably really really be enjoying this. But I think Kubert’s art is… oh, I don’t know, too mannered maybe? for me. This is supposed to be manic and pop and fun, and, to me, it is stiff, and overly rendered, and way too formal. Besides that, how’d you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln? GOOD. BATMAN & THE MAD MONK #1: I thought this was super-terrific, but I’m a Matt Wagner fanboy, I am. Since “super terrific” isn’t a Savage…  Read More…

Arriving 8/30: woot, Lost Girls

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Posted by: admin on August 28, 2006

Categories: Shipping Lists

Did you know that LOST GIRLS represents 21% of the dollars of this week’s invoice (the largest invoice I’ve had in a decade, by the way)? Or that EVERY Marvel title this week, combined, including reorders, is less than 85% of my LOST GIRLS dollars? And, I beleive that I’ve ordered less than a three week supply? (36% of those copies are pre-sold; we must be getting 2-3 requests a day for it… though I suspect that will melt to, say, a *purchase* a day, when they see the seventy-five bones price tag.) And that I got an email from Diamond asking me if I was sure of my order (they also did this for THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN…  Read More…

More than usually Superhero-centric: Graeme’s reviews of the 8/23 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on August 27, 2006

Categories: Reviews

Awww, Major Victory! How could they get rid of you?!? I mean, yeah, Feedback’s really into the whole thing and Fat Momma has not only the inspirational thing but the theme song, but still… You were the best of all of the contestants on Who Wants To Be A Superhero?. You were the only one who deserved your own Sci-Fi Channel movie. And now you’re… gone… (Blame Hibbs. He’s the one who got me watching the show in the first place, the bastard.) ASTONISHING X-MEN #16: Hibbs has a one-line review of this that’s so perfect that, if he doesn’t have time to write his own reviews this week, I’m going to come back on here on Wednesday just to…  Read More…

Circus daze and 8/16 by Hibbs

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Posted by: admin on August 23, 2006

Categories: Reviews

So, we took Ben to the Circus on Saturday afternoon. 2 is the perfect age for the Circus, really — old enough to appreciate the spectacle, young enough not to see the strings. I sorta think the Circus is a scam — the $13 programs, the $18 toys (which I firmly said no to), the $5 bag of stale-ish popcorn. In fact, when Grandmother Michele bought the tickets, I had asked for good seats, but not the top-line ones. Somehow, she was told the $60 seats were sold out, so being a very VERY cool Grandmother, she opted for the super-expensive seats. But when we got to the Oakland Coliseum, it was clear there were plenty of $60 unsold. I…  Read More…

Arriving 8/23

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Posted by: admin on August 21, 2006

Categories: Shipping Lists

I’m getting pretty sick of this feast or famine shit — 3 weeks of very few comics, followed by the insane deluge. 52 WEEK #16 ACTION PHILOSOPHERS THE PEOPLES CHOICE ARCHIE & FRIENDS #103 ARCHIE DIGEST #228 ASTONISHING X-MEN #16 BART SIMPSON COMICS #31 BATMAN #656 BATMAN AND THE MAD MONK #1 (OF 6) BATTLE POPE COLOR #10 BIRDS OF PREY #97 BLUE BEETLE #6 CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #24 CLAW THE UNCONQUERED #3 DAREDEVIL #88 DARKNESS WOLVERINE DEADWORLD #5 DMZ #10 ELEPHANTMEN #2 EMO BOY #8 ETERNALS #3 (OF 6) EXILES #85 EZRA EVOKED EMOTIONS #1 (OF 3) FEAR AGENT #7 FELL #6 FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #3 GRENUORD #3 (OF 6) GRUNTS #1 (OF 3) HAWKGIRL #55…  Read More…

Sunday Night Fever: Graeme’s Review of the 8/16 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on

Categories: Reviews

Have you ever had a weekend where nothing goes to plan? All I’m saying is this: I didn’t get to Jeff’s garage sale yesterday, but I did manage to spend a number of hours in Ikea waiting for our current houseguest to choose between two mattresses that seemed completely identical to me. Is it any wonder that a grown man will turn to comics in such a world as unfriendly to my plans as this? 52 WEEK FIFTEEN: So, there’s a theory I’ve seen floating around the internets about the way that Booster proves the existence of predestination in the DC Universe just before his “death” (Because, come on, there’s no way that he’s really dead – Ignoring the unsubtle…  Read More…

Last Time ‘Round the Corner: My Final Garage Sale Update

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 19, 2006

Categories: Uncategorized

Okay. Last update. I’m kinda tired and brain-dead–running a comic book store on a slow day is infinitely more tiring than running one on a busy day. Not sure what law of thermodynamics is covered by that, but it’s true. Tomorrow from 9 to 4 is the garage sale and this is my very last chance to hector you about it. It’s on Cortland Avenue in Bernal Heights. For those travelling by Bart/Muni, get your butts to 24th Ave. and then take any Mission bus down to Cortland Avenue (the delightful Zante Pizza is on one corner of Cortland and Mission and the even-more-delightful Spicy Bite is on the opposite corner). From there, you can either walk up the hill…  Read More…

Third Time’s The Charm: Jeff’s Garage Sale Update.

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 18, 2006

Categories: Uncategorized

Stupid Picasa. I wrote two different versions of this post and both of ‘em disappeared into the ether. So now you get the super-short version. Dammit. I was a huge Hong Kong movie junkie back in the ’90s and I’d be loathe to tell you what I spent on all of these movies back in the day. But I’m not watching them and they’re slowly fading (and have faded) and do nobody any good sitting in a storage space. So they’re going to be at the garage sale too–a quarter a piece. I can’t exactly guarantee that they’ll play or be watchable or anything but I think a lot of ‘em will be, and a quarter isn’t exactly a lot…  Read More…

Not exactly the Hat Trick: Hibbs on late comics

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Posted by: admin on August 16, 2006

Categories: Reviews

Victim of no time today — the truck actually showed up at 11:45 today (about 2 hours earlier than usual), and I hadn’t even finished my morning paperwork routine by then. There’s also the little problem of not being very excited about much of anything last week — ANNIHILATION #1 was OK, 52 WEEK 14 was OK SHE HULK #10 was OK … all in all even the high spots were pretty much just “OK” (Damn you five week shipping months, damn you!!). Even the stuff that kinda sucked didn’t, I didn’t think, suck that bad — MARTIAN MANHUNTER #1 was just kind of generically EH, rather than Graeme’s completely CRAP attack on it. Really the only book that I…  Read More…

Garage Sale THIS Coming Saturday!! (Plus, Comic Book Reviews.)

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 15, 2006

Categories: Reviews

First, the big news: the garage sale is this upcoming Saturday, the 19th, and I’m not even remotely prepared. I’ve got eight longboxes of comics still to sort through so you’ll probably get an update on Thursday (and, God help you, Friday). But I can tell you this: it’s not going to be in a garage. Or near a garage. It’s being held on Cortland Avenue, the main strip of lovely Bernal Heights, on the block between Andover and Moultrie. (See here for a handy Google map.) Last year, nobody would’ve showed for my sale if it hadn’t been for the awesome people who heard about it through this blog or visiting CE. This year, average passerby will have no…  Read More…

Arriving 8/16

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Posted by: admin on August 14, 2006

Categories: Shipping Lists

100 BULLETS #75 2000 AD #1496 2000 AD #1497 52 WEEK #15 AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 #5 ANGEL SPOTLIGHT CONNOR ONE SHOT ANT #8 BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #168 BOYS #1 CASANOVA #3 CASEFILES SAM & TWITCH #25 CATWOMAN #58 CHECKMATE #5 CIVIL WAR X-MEN #2 (OF 4) CLAWS #1 (OF 3) CLIVE BARKERS GREAT & SECRET SHOW #5 (OF 12) CONAN #31 DEADMAN #1 DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #343 GHOST RIDER #2 GIRLS #16 GREEN LANTERN CORPS #3 HELLBLAZER #223 HUNTER KILLER #6 ION #5 (OF 12) IRON MAN #11 JOE LANSDALES DRIVE IN VOL 2 #2 (OF 4) JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #124 MAD MAGAZINE #469 MANHUNTER #25 MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #4 MARVEL WESTERNS STRANGE WESTERNS STARRING BLACK…  Read More…

Punchy Punchy: Graeme’s brief take on the 8/9 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on

Categories: Reviews

So, after my commenting last week that I didn’t know anything about these new-fangled video games that you kids were all “up in my grill” about, Kate went out and bought a Gamecube just to teach me a thing or two. Admittedly, that thing or two seems to center around (a) how much Kate adores Lego Star Wars, and (b) how much fun the two of use have beating each other up playing Marvel Nemesis: Rise Of The Imperfects. Or, as we’ve chosen to call it, “Punchy Punchy Super-Hero”. But, wait, you’d rather hear about the comics, right…? ANNIHILATION #1: I’ve seen this book explained around these comic internets as “Rann-Thanagar War done right,” which may be the very definition…  Read More…

The Hat Trick: Hibbs & 8/2

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Posted by: admin on August 9, 2006

Categories: Reviews

52 WEEK #13: The one-quarter-mark hits with a mighty and depressing thud. Clearly, part of this is me: I don’t want to see Ralph Dibney under a burned out bridge crying and insane — though I’m sort of hard-pressed to see how ANYone is interested in seeing that either. But the real sin here is the relentless and wretched plot-hammering. Some of this, I expect, is the nature of this project — I can’t picture anyway of making this work without a rigid chart of what HAS to happen and when, in order to get to all of the beats, and everything they want/need to do. This isn’t a normal comic, where they can decide suddenly that they need an…  Read More…

Thwarted by X: Jeff’s Reviews of 08/02 Books.

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on August 8, 2006

Categories: Reviews

First, an apology and some thanks. I intended to reply to a lot of the super-interesting responses to last week’s review, but got thrown off working on Secret Potential Writing Gig X (which, sadly, looks at this point like it’ll probably end up being Lost Opportunity X, but we’ll see) and so didn’t reply to anybody but Fred. But I really appreciated the quality and level of discourse and thank everyone who dropped in with their two cents. Speaking of two cents, you should both mark your calendars and adjust your Crazed Shilling Resistance Shields–I’m having another garage sale, Saturday, August 19th, and plan to begin inundating you with information and details because I have a ton of really cool…  Read More…

Arriving 8/9

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Posted by: admin on August 7, 2006

Categories: Shipping Lists

52 WEEK #14 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #39 (A) ANGEL SCRIPTBOOK #6 ANNIHILATION #1 (OF 6) ANNIHILATION THE NOVA CORP FILES BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #209 BATMAN STRIKES #24 BEDLAM ONE SHOT BETTY & VERONICA #220 BEYOND #2 (OF 6) BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #116 BUCKAROO BANZAI #2 (OF 3) CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #4 CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #5 (OF 10) CONAN & THE SONGS OF THE DEAD #2 (OF 5) DEVI #2 ELRIC MAKING OF A SORCERER #4(OF 4) EMISSARY #3 ESCAPISTS #2 (OF 6) FABLES #52 FANTASTIC FOUR FIRST FAMILY #6 (OF 6) FATHOM #10 FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #28 GREEN ARROW #65 INCREDIBLE HULK #97 JSA CLASSIFIED #15 JUGHEAD AND FRIENDS DIGEST #13…  Read More…

I’m too fanboyish about 52, I know: Graeme’s review of books from 7/26, 8/2, and 8/9 too.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on August 6, 2006

Categories: Reviews

When Lester and Hibbs are in full flow, it’s more than a little intimidating to follow them. Factor in the fact that Jeff was completely and utterly right in why Black Panther was kind of uncomfortable last week and the fact that my work managed to keep me very busy until late most of the evenings, and you’ve got all the reasons you’re going to get out of me for why I didn’t post anything last week. But now, it’s Sunday, it’s sunny, and Kate’s working away on her own job things – So let’s review, shall we? 52 WEEK 13: Well, finally I’ve read the most depressing comic of the year. I don’t know why I was so surprised…  Read More…

WTF?!?!? Hibbs reviews for 7/26?!?!

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Posted by: admin on August 2, 2006

Categories: Reviews

The sucky part is I find myself almost completely incapable of any kind of “creative” writing right now. A lot of it is having the 2 year old in the house, of course — while I had foolishly thought that a post-verbal child would need less maintenance (name your need, deal with the need — that’s much clearer than a pre-verbal “he’s crying, dear god, WHY is he crying?”), it turns out that that’s about as insane of a thought as I’ve ever had. Benjamin and his mother share a common trait — they both speak their mind, all of it. Don’t get me wrong — this is exactly the number one trait I love about Tzipora, but it’s proven…  Read More…