It’s not easy being green: Graeme crosses over from 6/27

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 30, 2007

Categories: Reviews

WORLD WAR HULK: FRONTLINE #1 and WORLD WAR HULK: X-MEN #1: Yeah, and see, this is where the event starts to fall apart. You see, I can buy (and, for that matter, can enjoy) the whole “Hulk comes back to Earth and tears shit up” idea from what I’ve seen in the core book and the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk crossover issues, because it all ties together relatively well – the Hulk lands back on Earth with his alien buddies, and they’re all pretty pissed. They give the world 24 hours of warning, and then it’s on, including Iron Man getting beaten to crap. Fine. That makes sense. But the idea that the Hulk has time for a side…  Read More…

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?: Graeme gets Silent, 6/27

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 29, 2007

Categories: Reviews

SILENT WAR #6: I admit, I picked this up in the store the other day by mistake. I’d managed to almost entirely forget that this series existed, having been relatively underwhelmed by the first issue’s story – That Frazer Irving art sure was nice, though – so the fact that this final issue was a relatively taut status-quo changer for the characters (while, in a weird way, protecting the overall status quo for the series; the plot ends as it began, with the Inhumans poised to declare war on humanity, albeit a different kind of war) that made me want to check out the earlier issues to see what I’d missed came as a surprise. Part of what worked for…  Read More…

POS Follies part 3

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Posted by: admin on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Well! I *finally* got the pre-populated database for MOBY (took nearly a month because I had some fussy requests for them, and I wanted a go at the data without having to use MOBY itself to access it — MOBY is nice as a POS program, but kinda of mediocre as a let-me-edit-100k+ items; I’m using Excel to manage the data), so this is now my life for the next 2-4 weeks. The MOBY database goes back something like 5 years, and has something on the order of 140k items in it. Now, of course, AT LEAST 70k of those items aren’t things I’d EVER stock in my store of my own volition (like, say, games, or cards, or XENA…  Read More…

Just couldn’t cut it no more, you were the law: Graeme goes down memory lane.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 28, 2007

Categories: Reviews

After reading the Endangered Species one-shot last week and then this week’s X-MEN #200, I’ve come to the following obvious conclusions: Mike Carey writes really good mid-80s Chris Claremont stories. It’s up to you whether you feel that that’s an insult or a complement, however. (The interesting thing was reading this after reading Carey’s Re-Gifters, and also starting his “The Devil You Know” novel – Carey’s clearly a very gifted writer, and looking at the different voices in each project makes it clear that the Claremontisms in his X-Men work are intentional choices, as opposed to just the way he writes in general. The question may be whether it’s intentional for them to be so similar to Chris Claremont’s work,…  Read More…

Thing ring do your thing!: Graeme looks at a blackest night.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 27, 2007

Categories: Reviews

GREEN LANTERN: SINESTRO CORPS #1: Wow. Between this and last week’s exit for Bart Allen, it’s looking as if the stereotypical “Dan Didio must hate characters from [enter fan-favorite era here]” meme is going to be able to add Zero Hour-era DC to its quiver. Poor Kyle, never before has a turn for the worse seemed so random or so much a set-up for being undone at a later date. For all of the similarities (Double-size oneshot opener for a crossover event set in outer space and all), this book is in many ways the opposite of last week’s Annihilation: Conquest Prologue… Where that one was all about starting something from relative scratch and quickly ramping up the tension by…  Read More…

Comics Prose

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Posted by: admin on June 26, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Because comics are “hot”, I guess it isn’t any real surprise that there’s more and more “proper” books about comics, or by comics people. Not like I even have enough time to read comics, dang it! But, I plowed through two books in this spectrum this last week, and here’s my report for you: SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE: is kind of an odd duck — it’s straight prose doing Marvel-style superheroes. Its not that there hasn’t been superhero-prose before — I’m a pretty big fan of the WILD CARDS series of books for instance — but, usually, those try to set their superheroes in the “real” world. This novel is pretty unapologetically a story set in a “superhero” world,…  Read More…

So damn easy to cave in: Graeme rounds out the week faster.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on

Categories: Reviews

Lightning round! Unlike Bart Allen, I’m still alive, and the fastest reviewer from the 31st Century there is! 3X2(9YZ)4A and awaaaaaayyyyyy! THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #4: For some reason, I’d become convinced that this book had dropped off the face of the earth recently – Maybe this issue is late, or maybe my sense of time has just become horribly distorted, but either way, this is worth a wait either real or imaginary. Mark Waid’s sense of pacing and characterization, mixed with his ability to juggle tones, continues to make this book a fun and exciting joy each time ’round. Very Good. CAPTAIN AMERICA #27: Now deeply entrenched in the moral ambiguity that made his Catwoman and Sleeper books…  Read More…

Arriving 6/27

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Posted by: admin on

Categories: Shipping Lists

Another big week: AMAZONS ATTACK #3 (OF 6) ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #180 BART SIMPSON COMICS #36 BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #11 BETTY #166 BLACK GHOST APPLE FACTORY BLACK PANTHER #28 CWI BLUE BEETLE #16 (CD) BOYS #8 (RES) CABLE DEADPOOL #42 CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #34 CASTLE WAITING VOL II #7 COUNTDOWN 44 CRIMINAL #7 CROSSING MIDNIGHT #8 DAREDEVIL #98 DEAD AT 17 VOL 2 #4 DEADMAN #11 FALLEN ANGEL IDW #17 FANTASTIC FOUR #547 CWI FRANK FRAZETTAS DEATH DEALER #3 (OF 6) GREEN LANTERN SINESTRO CORPS SPECIAL #1 GRIMM FAIRY TALES #15 (RES) GRIMM FAIRY TALES RETURN TO WONDERLAND #1 (OF 7) HAUNTED MANSION #6 HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS #3 (OF 6) IMMORTAL IRON FIST #6 INVINCIBLE #43 JACK OF FABLES #12…  Read More…

Certainly I know I’m not about to: Graeme goes to space.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 25, 2007

Categories: Reviews

There are times that I just have to say that I’m wrong. Like, for example, when I said that I didn’t really see what that whole Annihilation thing had to offer after reading the Annihilation Saga oneshot. I mean, sure, I wasn’t really wrong about that – There was nothing special about that recap that would make you want to read any further into Marvel’s particular brand of new space operatics. What I was wrong about was assuming that the whole Annihilation thing in general wasn’t worth my time or attention. Thanks, then, to ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST PROLOGUE for showing me the error of my ways. (And, no, I’m not being sarcastic.) Interestingly enough, the thrills and spills in the issue…  Read More…

They say, Spider, come back soon again: Graeme reads the arachnids from 6/20.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 24, 2007

Categories: Reviews

You have to wonder where Marvel’s traffic co-ordinators are these days. This week saw the release of five books starring Spider-Man. Now, I know he’s got that whole movie thing going on and everything, but that’s just ridiculous. I completely ignored Sensational Spider-Man because, well, it’s about to be cancelled very soon anyway, but of the remaining four books, one thing became very clear very quickly – the only regular book of the bunch was the one that bore least relation to the Spider-Man I know and love. There are multiple problems with AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #541, and the whole “Back In Black” storyline in general. One of them is that we already know the ending to one of the main…  Read More…

Mean Green Mother From Outer Space: Graeme watches the skies for 6/20

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 23, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Wow, we’re in the second week proper (After the odd “one month early” branding of the two prologue books) of World War Hulk, and it really does seem to be shaping up to be the little crossover that could, judging by the two crossovers that I read. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Heroes For Hire issue and Ghost Rider issues aren’t crap but, I mean, come on. Ghost Rider’s never been that good in the first place. (And now I wait for the angry comments from Dan Way, even though I’m joking…) INCREDIBLE HULK #107: Here’s something I am slowly coming around to in this crossover – and it’s almost entirely down to Greg Pak’s writing in both…  Read More…

Excuses excuses.

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Posted by: admin on June 22, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry

In lieu of a review today – Writing Onomatopea and another dental visit (I can eat again!) this week has kind of killed any chance for me to write about the various Spider-Man books today like I wanted to – I’m going to point out that Hibbs has a new Tilting At Windmills up at Newsarama today, about this very store: “I opened Comix Experience in 1989, when I was 21 years old, and I’ve seen the market change a whole lot in the meantime. I still have a copy of my first Diamond order form, all of 32 pages long in 14-point type, while now the order form (not Previews, but the order form) is usually over 130 pages…  Read More…

The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose: Graeme gets endangered.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 21, 2007

Categories: Reviews

X-MEN: ENDANGERED SPECIES is a very, very strange event book, if only because nothing really happens in it, and yet it still feels long overdue. Partially, it’s because it feels as if this is really the first time that we’ve seen the X-Men books actually deal with the “No More Mutants” thing and what that means in a real sense. I mean, yeah, we got “Decimation” for a couple of months after House of M finished, but even that was, it seemed, quickly forgotten, and the X-Books quickly returned to the same old same old that we’d read hundreds of times before; it was as if the loss of so many mutants was less a brand new status quo than…  Read More…

Man, they should stay there!

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Posted by: admin on June 20, 2007

Categories: Reviews

I’ve just read the worst comic I’ve read so far this year — which is kind of saying a lot. Well, maybe its not as bad as all of that, maybe my reaction is amplified because the book is trading on a glorious reputation, but I really really hated the new Papercutz version of TALES FROM THE CRYPT #1. EC has a pretty amazing reputation, the kind of line of comics that was loved fairly universally by almost everyone who has read them, but there’s certainly a lot about them that can’t be replicated today — in particular the narrative style of incredibly text-heavy captions that (mostly) just describe the action going on in the panels is probably not something…  Read More…

Ah-aaaaaah! Saviors of the universe!: Graeme spoils two DC books from 6/20

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on

Categories: Reviews

So, am I the only one who feels that DC has truly fucked up The Flash? Not the character necessarily – although I’ll get to that later – but I’m really referring to what was revealed this past weekend, that they’re actually cancelling the current book with today’s issue, and that the solicitations that they’ve released for the subsequent two issues (that fans and retailers have, you know, placed orders for and everything) were fake in order to throw fans off the scent, and will instead be replaced by a one-off special and then a relaunch of the previous series for the character complete with numbering that continues from 2006? I’m really rather surprised that there hasn’t been more uproar…  Read More…

Little Black Books: Graeme’s Marvel Self-Importance Round-Up for 6/13 books.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 19, 2007

Categories: Reviews

It’s become a common – and arguably meaningless – sight along the top of Marvel’s superhero books lately: that black “The Initiative” stripe. And, while I’ve already covered one of the Initiative books this week, it’s time I caught up with everything else that Marvel’s telling me is important, don’t you? NOVA #3: Unlike Hibbs, this book seemed especially Eh to me, reading as if it was something that the writers felt as if they had to deal with and get out of the way before writing something that they actually cared about. Every conflict and resolution felt underwhelming and unconvincing, and pretty much a cheap way to explain why Nova stays out in space playing Kyle Rayner instead of…  Read More…

Arriving 6/20

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Posted by: admin on

Categories: Shipping Lists

The only problem with taking a weekend off to play video games and stuff is I invariably get completely slammed trying to catch up the next few days. Which is why this list is late. Still, I had a great birthday, thanks! BIG week this week: 2000 AD #1539 2000 AD #1540 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #60 (A) ALIEN PIG FARM #3 (OF 4) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #541 ANNIHILATION CONQUEST PROLOGUE AQUAMAN SWORD OF ATLANTIS #53 ARCHIE #576 ARMY @ LOVE #4 BONEYARD #25 BOOKS WITH PICTURES #5 BRAVE AND THE BOLD #4 BREATHE CVR A #3 (OF 4) CAPTAIN AMERICA #27 CATWOMAN #68 CHECKMATE #15 CONAN #41 COUNTDOWN 45 EX MACHINA #29 FALLEN SON DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA SPIDER-MAN…  Read More…

You can knock us all down, try to mute the sound: Graeme speeds through the big event.

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 18, 2007

Categories: Reviews

A surprisingly quick one from me today, as I try to get caught up on everything that’s been happening while I’ve been in the land of “time off after surgery”. Hint to everyone: Taking two days off work – Fun at the time, even with the medication, but really shitty when you get back to the office. And talking of fun… WORLD WAR HULK #1: As much fun as this issue is – Although, isn’t this the third opening for the event, following the World War Hulk Prologue oneshot and Incredible Hulk #106? – it feels as if it’s yet more proof that we’re heading for some kind of cosmic Marvel reboot down the line somehow. I mean, I can’t…  Read More…

Find the treasure within: Graeme recovers and returns…

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on June 17, 2007

Categories: Reviews

Oh, irony of ironies (Alanis Morrisette-style, that is); less than a month after Jeff (newly and surprisingly returned below!) told me about his fasting/cleansing ritual and I responded that I couldn’t imagine going a week without eating real food, dental surgery lands me in a state where I can’t eat real food for a week. Or solid food, at least. Never mind the pain pills – although they’re enough to make me wobble when I try to stand up – or the fact that I literally can’t remember much about Thursday after they put the eyemask on me and told me to relax, pre-op, this is the legacy of my dental surgery, I think. All the better to talk about…  Read More…

The Secret History: Jeff Returns to Blab About Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on June 16, 2007

Categories: Uncategorized

The mind is a strange machine. After three (very busy) weeks where my thinking about comics consisted of litte more than “I bet Bill Finger wrote this story” (my reading before bed has been that very enjoyable third volume of Superman Showcase), the brain kicked right in this morning as I ran my quasi-ecstatic hands over JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL 1 HC. And since Brian just had his birthday, and Graeme is (I hope) whacked out on pain pills and watching Gilmore Girls, I figured it might be worth sharing those thoughts with you oh-so-briefly. (I’d like to post the few remaining items on my to-do list too, but that probably won’t be happening anytime soon, alas.) So,…  Read More…

Young at Heart

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Posted by: admin on June 15, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry , Reviews

So, I’m 40 today. Jinkies. (perversely, I was really hoping to make Spurge’s birthday list — but all props to my shared date mates Don McGregor, Brent Anderson… and, uh, PAD’s 1000th comic) I don’t really feel any different than I did when I was 20, though I never really thought I’d make my 30th birthday, let alone my 40th. I promised I wouldn’t do anything comics related today (I’m going to play video games all afternoon, damn it — because I never get to screw around during the afternoon), but I did want to mention the best OGN I’ve read this year: Minx’s second release, RE-GIFTERS There’s a perverse number of perceived barriers in creating fiction and art —…  Read More…