Hibbs on 2/28 (part 1)

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Posted by: admin on February 28, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Oddly (not really), now that I have this week’s comics, I don’t want to talk about last week any longer. On the other hand, I promised. So… I’m going to start writing about this week’s books, at least what I’ve read so far. My intention, this week, will be to write daily posts, each covering 4-5 things, then by the end of the week I’ll have it pretty much all done. One possible road-block: WonderCon is this weekend, so I might slip on Friday, but otherwise, let’s see if I can handle 7 days of blogging this time out. 52 Week 43: The last couple of issues have had a density that I was bemoaning early on — here we…  Read More…

Arriving 2/28

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Posted by: admin on

Categories: Shipping Lists

I know you don’t really believe me (I barely believe myself), but I still plan on more reviews tomorrow (while Ben is at school) — I got shanghaied by the order form for February, which I had totally forgotten was due this week. Heh, whoops! Lots of stuff this week: 100 BULLETS #81 52 WEEK #43 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #52 (A) ACTION COMICS #846 ACTION PHILOSOPHERS #8 SENSELESS VIOLENCE SPECTACULAR AMERICAN VIRGIN #12 ANNIHILATION HERALDS OF GALACTUS ARCHIE #573 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #177 ASHLEY WOODS D AIRAIN AVENTURE #1 BART SIMPSON COMICS #34 BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #3 BLACK PANTHER #25 BLOOD NATION #1 (OF 4) BLUE BEETLE #12 CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #30 CITY OF OTHERS #1 (OF 4)…  Read More…

How I Won The War (And Lost The Universe): Jeff’s Reviews of 2/21 Books

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on February 25, 2007

Categories: Reviews

I’m being so damned slow Graeme’s already posted his other reviews since I started this entry, so lemme just dive in (although if everything works out, you should see Dick Hates Your Blog over there in our blogroll): 52 WEEK #42: For a storyline I didn’t care about, I thought this was a Good issue with some strong art by Darick Robertson–it’s good to see Ralph look like an ectomorph again, if nothing else. I’ll leave it to the rest of you who actually cared about Ralph’s storyline to make the call on whether it actually worked or not, but I thought it was worth picking up on art and readability alone. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #538: Both Hibbs and Graeme thought…  Read More…

It’s not all Civility, you know: Graeme reviews other books from 2/21.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on

Categories: Reviews

So, Kate’s sick. I know this because she keeps telling me, just in case I’d forgotten since the last time she told me. In between updates on her condition, she’s keeping herself entertained by watching all of the television we have on TiVo from this past week, which we hadn’t managed to watch because we had houseguests who – horror of horrors! – weren’t fans of shows like The OC (Arune! Please tell me that you were getting all choked up at the end of it as well), Veronica Mars or Kate’s current favorite, Spike’s reruns of Star Trek: Voyager. Me, I’m getting ’round to reviewing things and fielding Kate’s questions as to when I’m going to make her soup…  Read More…

It’s not that bad: Hibbs on CIVIL WAR #7

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Posted by: admin on February 23, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Unlike Grimmy over there, I’m not going to go all the way to “ASS” on CIVIL WAR #7 — mostly because I think “ASS” needs to be saved for very very special occasions, and probably should only be trotted out once or twice a year, if that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I certainly didn’t like CIVIL WAR #7, but it is far more from execution rather than concept See, and this is the thing you HAVE to give them, here we have a universe-spanning intercompany crossover that does, in fact, “change everything”. Some of it may change back, sure, given enough time, but there wasn’t any reset button being hit, and the status quo of the Marvel universe…  Read More…

Just what I always wanted: Graeme reads Civil War #7 and gets depressed.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on February 22, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Here’s the worrying thing about CIVIL WAR #7: The possibility that this really was the best that they could come up with. The problem with the issue isn’t that it’s bad – in a world where Spider-Man’s loving can give her cancer, “bad” has almost been redefined, after all – but that it’s so amazingly underwhelming. There are no surprises, no shocks, no nothing; it’s as if even the creators lost interest in the book by this point and were just going through the motions to complete their obligations. You get the “big fight” you would expect, the one character realizing that maybe they’ve gone too far, and then the extended close that really pushes the idea that everything has…  Read More…

Not Comics: The Brain of Dr. Ben

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Posted by: admin on

Categories: Uncategorized

There are items that are our Grail markers from when we’re young. Things we saw or did once, then only recall that we liked it — not the why or the how of it. (though, really, this coming generation may not face that problem — if all is digital, then all is “eternal”) For me, the first thing I can ever remember coveting was a comic book. An issue of, of all things, THE JOKER. #4, in fact, which features The Joker standing on top of the “Star City” bridge, holding (Black Canary) over his head, threatening to throw her off while Green Arrow looks on madly. It’s this issue, actually (This wasn’t the first comic I remember READING –…  Read More…

Arriving 2/21

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Posted by: admin on February 21, 2007

Categories: Shipping Lists , Site News

OK, last week, “new blogger” just hung on “publishing” on Opera… but it was published. This week, it says “uploading to ftp server”, and then hangs. But nothing publishes. Which means I now have to open up IE, sign my wife’s gmail account out (she uses IE, I use Opera… it makes a lot of things much much easier for us), open the blogger.com page, edit the post (in order to publish it), sign myself out, then sign my wife back in, and close IE. FUCKSAKE You know how I post pretty rarely anyway? This pretty much slaughters my interest in even posting shipping lists, I have to be honest. (edit #2: Huh, maybe not…. front page still isn’t updating…  Read More…

Prose ain’t easy: Graeme’s review of the 2/14 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on February 18, 2007

Categories: Reviews

As Jeff pointed out, it’s a busy weekend due to Onomatopoeia deadlines and other stuff, so short reviews where I’ll play nice because I’m now kind of embarrassed about the whole spider-spunk thing now, really. BATMAN #663: Well, that was… interesting. And yet, not so good. Grant Morrison, for all his strengths, overwrote the crap out of this (“The Batman feels the kind of chill that comes from stepping into deep, freezing, black water that rises rapidly around the rubs and stops the breath with a hammer blow. Some like it hot.” “She’s cute like a Chihuahua pup with rabies, or a baby swinging an open razor.” That’s just plain bad writing, Grant), managing to bury the actual plot of…  Read More…

Going the Way They’re Going: Jeff’s Reviews of the 2/14 Books.

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on

Categories: Reviews , Site News

I should apologize. We’re really horrible hosts here at the Savage Critic(s). I was well aware that we got a ton of traffic links to Graeme’s review from places like Bookslut, Wired and Time (and of course our pal Dirk at Journalista who started it all) but didn’t think, until just yesterday, to write some sort of post to greet new readers who might stick around but wonder, like, why this blog never gets updated? So if you’re a noob and you’re still here, hello! We update at a rate considered lethargic by the Internet’s terms–usually three times a week on average–with usually two (but sometimes three) reviewers tackling the week’s books, and Hibbs chiming in with a shipping list,…  Read More…

TITLTING AT WINDMILLS v2 #37: BookScan 2006 is up

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Posted by: admin on February 16, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry

http://www.newsarama.com/Tilting2_0/Tilting37.html Its very very long. Go read, tell me what you think! -B

Arriving 2/14/07

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Posted by: admin on February 14, 2007

Categories: Shipping Lists

Gr, new Blogger… I sure hope this shit works with Opera (unlike nearly every other god damn thing that Google does….) I really hate being forced into something new that I didn’t ask for… (edited to say, it’s frozen on “publishing” in Opera, but it published fine when I open up IE… plus I should title the post, huh?) I held off on posting the shipping list because I wanted Graeme’s Spider-Spunk on the top of the page, but the time has come (as it were) In our happy personal news, Ben is a Big Boy now, and HUZZAH, is now pooping in the potty. If you don’t have kids, you don’t get it, but man, have I been waiting…  Read More…

Well, I didn’t see THAT death of Mary Jane coming. No pun intended: Graeme’s review of the 2/7 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on February 10, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Is it wrong of me to be surprised that so many of the midnight openings that comic book stores across the country had for the Dark Tower book were so popular? Not to slight Marvel or Stephen King or anything, but I just can’t get my head around anyone going out at midnight for a comic at all. Does that make me a bad comic fan? ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #10: Man, this could have been so good. It has such potential: A Silver-Age style anthology of short stories – complete with go-go checks on the cover! – illustrated by an all-star lineup (I mean, seriously; Joe Kubert and Art Adams in the same book? How often does that happen?) giving…  Read More…

Finally, Secret Writing Project X… Revealed! (Or, Yesterday’s News Today…)

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on February 9, 2007

Categories: Uncategorized

Okay, so some of you may remember me mentioning Secret Writing Project X (as far back as here) and some of you have been kind of enough to remember and ask, “When the hell are you going to tell us about Secret Writing Project X?” Well, that time has come. Yesterday. Yes, yesterday would have been the perfect time to tell you about it, because yesterday is when Telltale Games released Episode 3 of “Sam & Max: The Mole, The Mob & The Meatball” for which I worked on the dialogues. As you probably know, Telltale moved into the area of episodic gaming a while back, and their plan is to release a “first season” of interconnected Sam & Max…  Read More…

Arriving 2/7/07

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Posted by: admin on February 4, 2007

Categories: Shipping Lists

Aw, I’ve got to work today because Bennett wanted Super Bowl Sunday off, so here, this is a little early while I rejigger my schedual this week…. 52 WEEK #40 ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #10 ALL NEW ATOM #8 ANGEL AULD LANG SYNE #4 ANTHEM #4 ARCHIE DIGEST #232 ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK TWO #2 BETTY & VERONICA #224 BULLET POINTS #4 (OF 5) CALAVERA BEAUTIFUL & BLOODY REG CVR #1 (A) CEMETERIANS #4 CHEMICAL WARFARE #1 (O/A) CHEMICAL WARFARE #2 (O/A) CTHULHU TALES RISING ONE SHOT DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN #1 (OF 7) DESPERADOES BUFFALO DREAMS #2 (OF 4) DETECTIVE COMICS #828 FANTASTIC FOUR THE END #5 (OF 6) FELL #7 FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #17 GHOST RIDER TRAIL…  Read More…

Graeme fights a Dragon!: Reviews of the 1/31 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on February 3, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Apparently, my mother-in-law was the least of my worries last weekend, as I instead ended up sick and sneezing and coughing for more or less the rest of the week, feeling sorry for myself only when I realized that being too sick to work also, occasionally, means that I was too sick to really concentrate enough to do that much else as well. So that long review I’d wanted to do about all of the Essential Fantastic Four books? Covered in mental snot. Attempting to read the crayon-laden pornography that was Lost Girls? Lost to the much-easier task of watching Top Chef reruns (Ilan won? What?). It seemed that my apathy was matched by this week’s releases, though, which is…  Read More…