Flying Thompson’s Gazelle of The Yard

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 26, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

A final word on my 2008 report on BookScan. Under the jump for everyone who is tired of this topic (which is probably most sane and rational people) As a prominent retailer in a prominent market, who has a long-running soapbox on the retailing of comics, I do a fairly large number (3-6-ish) of interviews any given year, whether it be for various podcasts or newspaper features or whatever about the comics industry. Pretty uniformly, “what’s the size of the market?” is one of the primary questions that rises. We have a paucity of real, viable data in this business. Other industries appear to have whole sub-industries designed just to analyze sales data. I guess the need to categorize, to…  Read More…

If you’re going to WonderCon on Friday…

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 25, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

2:00-3:00 Everything You Wanted to Know About Comics Retailing—But Weren’t Afraid to Ask!— Join ComicsPRO board members Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics, Concord) and Brian Hibbs (Comix Experience, San Francisco) for a free-wheeling exploration of the world of comics specialty retailing. Field and Hibbs are two of the industry’s most vocal leaders dedicated to improving the profession of comics retailing. Get the inside scoop on ComicsPRO, Free Comic Book Day, the new edition of Tilting at Windmills and the proverbial more! Room 232/234 Hope to see you there! -B

Your QuickLink for the Day: Trailer to Spiegelman’s Be A Nose.

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Speaking of symbolists, I got an email just this morning from the McSweeney’s people talking about their next book, Art Spiegelman’s Be A Nose, “a triple dose of unexpurgated Spiegelman sketchbooks from years past—you get 1979, 1983, and 2007, all in actual-size hardbound editions and wrapped in a really neat ski-gogglelike strap.” They include a link to the trailer they’ve created to the book which you can see here. (I’d embed the sonuvabitch, but I’m afraid I’d break the formatting since we’ve got a width limit here on the blog). I thought you might like to check it out… Working on a review or two, although they’re staggering a bit much more than I’d like. They’ll be up here sooner…  Read More…

Best of the 00s: Black Hole

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Posted by: Dick Hyacinth on February 24, 2009

Categories: Reviews

In case you missed my first post, I’m going to devote most of my writing at The Savage Critics to an ongoing project of making a list of the decade’s best comics and graphic novels (at least that’s the plan for the first year). I had planned on starting with Black Hole and announced my intention to do so at my blog; little did I know that Sean was also planning to look at Black Hole for his inaugural review at this very site! But Sean caught my comment and we convened, deciding that we would both review Black Hole, and then compare notes in a subsequent post. Why did we both want to start with Black Hole? I can’t…  Read More…

Arriving 2/25/2009

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 23, 2009

Categories: Shipping Lists

At least the reorders are starting to flow again. Adding that to a larger-than-the-last-few-weeks shipment, and, like I thought, it is a big ass invoice this week. Busy trying to get ONOMATOPOEIA out by tomorrow’s deadline. More posting “soon” A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #99ANGEL #18ARCHIE #594ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #13AVENGERS INITIATIVE #22 DKRBART SIMPSON COMICS #46BATMAN GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT #10 (OF 12)BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #2BLANK COMIC BOOKBLUE BEETLE #36CAPTAIN AMERICA #47CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #54CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #8CRIMINAL MACABRE CELL BLOCK 666 #3 (OF 4)CTHULHU TALES #12DARK REIGN FILES DKRDARK TOWER TREACHERY #6 (OF 6)DOCTOR WHO WHISPERING GALLERY (ONE SHOT)DR DOOM MASTERS OF EVIL #2 (OF 4)DYNAMO 5 #20ELEPHANTMEN #16ENDERS SHADOW BATTLE SCHOOL #3 (OF 5)EUREKA #2 (OF…  Read More…

Favorites: Black Hole

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Posted by: Sean T. Collins on

Categories: Reviews

Hi folks! I’ve decided I’ll use my slot as a Savage Critic to talk about my favorite comics of all time. I’m kicking things off with Charles Burns’s Black Hole–which, coincidentally, Dick Hyacinth had also chosen to use as the inaugural book for his series on the best comics of the decade. So Dick and I will be tag-teaming on this one: I’m going first, then he’ll post his thoughts without reading mine, then we’ll check out what the other guy has to say and post responses. Should be a pip. Meanwhile, I’ve also dug a review of the book I wrote for the geek-culture iteration of Giant magazine out of the archives and posted it on my blog–check it…  Read More…

The New Tilting is up: BookScan 2008

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 20, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

You can find my look at BookScan 2008 right here. I’d strongly suggest grabbing the chart and saving it off before Jonah gets a C&D. Tomorrow will likely be too late! Interested in your thoughts, as always! Edit: Tom Spurgeon has some good comments here. For the record, Tom is 100% right: look at these with a grain of salt, then a chunk of salt, then an entire salt mine, because, at best, these numbers are just the visible tip of the iceberg. I really really tried to make this clear throughout the piece: go and count how many times I say something like “to the stores that report to BookScan” or words to that effect. I keep being afraid…  Read More…

Don’t Worry, This Zombie Comic Had a Head Start on the Trend: Jog and a 2/18 comic from half a decade ago

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Posted by: Joe McCulloch on February 18, 2009

Categories: Reviews

The Zombies That Ate the World #1 (of 8) All right! Early aughts nostalgia, coming in fierce! Some of us do still pine for those bygone days of Les Humanoïdes Associés publishing in English, even if our (by which I mean ‘my’) reading wasn’t nearly as extensive as it should have been, and even after that ill-fated partnership with DC. These days it’s Devil’s Due releasing the stuff, and they’re keeping things pretty conservative – not only are they breaking albums up (and shrinking them down) into $3.50 pamphlets, but they’re focusing keenly on material front-loaded with noteworthy North American talent. Indeed, for now (with this and the John Cassaday-drawn I Am Legion), they’re devoting their energy to stuff DC…  Read More…

Late to the Welcoming Party: Chris Reviews some Final Issues

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Posted by: Chris Eckert on February 17, 2009

Categories: Reviews

Hey everybody, why are you packing up the soundsystem? Why are they stacking the chairs? There’s still some helium left in these balloons, and it’s still a holiday weekend in Hawaii — c’mon guys, I just got here! Anyway, hello to all. I’m Chris, and alongside fellow newcomer David I work with the Funnybook Babylon gang. I don’t do a lot of straight reviews for FBB, so bear with me as I try to remember how those work. When I was a youth and had no Internet or collected editions to fall back on, I used to love getting last issues out of quarter bins. Last issues were always jam-packed with Things Happening, as creators scrambled to finish their stories,…  Read More…

Two from a bestseller: Jog on some new hit manga

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Posted by: Joe McCulloch on

Categories: Reviews

Oh Naoki Urasawa, how many thousands of comics did you move while I was out for coffee? You all know what I’m getting at, right? I think we’re at the point now where most readers of this site have at least a passing familiarity with the Urasawa name, a font of manga megahits since the mid-’80s – no less than 100 million copies have been sold, which Japan’s Daily Yomiuri helpfully notes is terribly close to one book for everyone in the country. But just four years ago, Urasawa was nearly unknown in the US; the first I’d heard of him was through an essay by our own Abhay Khosla, who surveyed the artist’s works through the still-growing ‘scanlation’ scene…  Read More…

With all respect to Chris Butcher…

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 16, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

This is about retailing and distribution and all that stuff, so I’m hiding it under the jump… Right, so Chris Butcher has written a widely linked panic attack about Diamond “de-listing” over 1000 Viz backlist items. As near as I can tell, however, he’s concerned about a bunch of material that, well, doesn’t sell. YES, some of the titles on the list are REALLY FUCKING GOOD COMICS, no doubt about it… but do they SELL is the question? I also use Baker & Taylor as a source for books, an unlike Diamond’s site, B&T has some neat tools on their pages, including real time inventory for not only what is in stock, and what is expected to show, but also…  Read More…

The RSS feed thing

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Site News

I’ll be completely honest with you: I know just about nothing about some of the backstagey bits of this site. I’ve never used a RSS feed in my life and don’t really “get” it, because I’m a bitter old curmudgeon. I only kind of understand how “hits” work, or advertising costs on the web, or any of that stuff — I don’t think I’ve looked a refer log in something like 5 years, and, while I have permissions to go get our metric information, I never really bother, because I’m more interested in the content than all of that stuff, y’know? Anyway, long and short, yeah, Kate changed the way the RSS feeds work with the Savage Critic site, and…  Read More…

Arriving 2/18/2009

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Shipping Lists

As you’re probably not even slightly not aware of whatsoever, Diamond is in the process of moving their main warehouse from Memphis to Olive Branch. What this has meant is that there have basically been no reorders available for the last couple of weeks, as they make the move. Reorders aren’t expected to start flowing in earnest until next week’s shipment (and maybe not really until the week after) Of course, as with this kind of thing, mistakes have been made. In my case, for instance, I placed an order for roughly 3 weeks worth of “critical” backstock before the cut-off date for the move. The IDEA was I’d stock up up front to tide me over while Diamond made…  Read More…

Oh, And My Entire Lower Jaw Is Held In Place By A Flimsy Metal Wire

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Posted by: Tucker Stone on

Categories: Reviews

I’m not sure how I got here either, so hey: we’re in agreement, probably for the last time. Tucker Stone’s the name, writing about random stuff at The Factual Opinion is the hobby, it turns into a profession at comiXology, and if you like to hold it in your grubby paws, grab a copy of Comic Foundry. If comics aren’t your bag, and you want to brush up on your Italian, keep an eye out for upcoming issues of MUSE magazine. (I know!) Otherwise sister, the game plan is simple: I plan to write purely about sexism in comics, or maybe sex in comics, or maybe just some sex I had on top of a pile of comics–whatever the Hibbster…  Read More…

Man, that’s your instrument

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Posted by: Dick Hyacinth on

Categories: Reviews

Hi, I’m Dick, and I’m really excited about being here since this is one of the first comics blogs I remember reading obsessively (two of the others were Fanboy Rampage and Jog the Blog, so TRIPLE excitement, actually). It really is a great privilege to write on the same site as those folks you see on the sidebar. And now that I have this forum, I can devote my personal blog to my true passions: reviewing frozen food, complaining about video game stores, and posting pictures of disgusting MMA injuries. What I’ll mostly be doing here, at least over the next year, is continuing my obsession with year’s best lists. Or in this case, decade’s best list. Savage Critics will…  Read More…

All My Senses Dislocating: Diana on 15/2

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Posted by: admin on February 15, 2009

Categories: Reviews

NEW SAVAGE CRITICS #1 Written by Brian Hibbs Art by Kate McMillan Cover by Blogspot A new epic begins here! Witness the rebirth of a super-team as Stonetuck, The Hyacinth, Uzumeri Yojimbo, Shan-Ti and Chris Eckert join the Savage Critics! The revelation of Norman Osborn’s natural hair color in GOTHAM UNBOUND: THE GREAT PIE HEIST has rocked the universe to its core; as other thrilling secrets come to light, the Savage Critics reunite to unmask the true mastermind behind recent events. Who will live? Who will die? Who will receive the dreaded ASS Rating? Nothing will ever be the same again! On sale Feb 14 • infinity pg, FC, $0.00 US Welcome aboard, guys! And now, a review. ANGEL: AFTER…  Read More…

Introduction; a picture of David Bowie by Ross Campbell

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Posted by: Sean T. Collins on

Categories: Reviews

Hi everybody! My name is Sean T. Collins and I am now a Savage Critic. Neat, huh? Whilst I gear up for my actual debut as a Critic here, I figured I’d let you know a bit about myself, and then bribe you with something pretty so that you’ll like me. INTRODUCTION For a very long time I’ve been blogging at Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat, mostly about comics, also about horror, also also about other pop-cultural phenomena I enjoy. I like to consider it the Internet’s premier one-stop shop for links to Anders Nilsen’s sketchbook, quotes from Clive Barker, and news about sea monsters. You may also have seen me writing about similar things for Maxim, The Comics Journal, ToyFare, The…  Read More…

Then we didn’t come to the end: Douglas on GaimanBats, pt. 1

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Posted by: Douglas Wolk on

Categories: Reviews

Goddamn: this site just got even more fun to write for. Welcome, Wave Three! I’d be very surprised if the title of “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”–the story that begins in BATMAN #686–had been created any way other than editorial fiat, as a companion to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” (Whoever came up with this one apparently failed to notice that there was a joke in Alan Moore’s title.) So I agree with Brian and David: points to Neil Gaiman for coming up with a different way to spin it. (More beneath the cut.) As David pointed out, Gaiman’s got a habit, these days, of making sure that we know he’s Telling Stories, For He Is a…  Read More…

Hello! I’m Here to Talk About the Comics. Those Shitty, Amazing Comics.

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Posted by: David Uzumeri on

Categories: Reviews

I’m David Uzumeri, from Funnybook Babylon, and I’m pretty honored to be invited to this pretty elite crew. I’m probably most famous on InterNET for my work annotating Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P., but what you might not know is that I read comics that aren’t by Grant Morrison! Hell, I read comics that aren’t published by DC – or even by the Big Two! So I’m pretty happy to be here at Savage Critics, and I plan on reviewing my weekly titles (along with other items of interest) fairly regularly. If I seem a bit superhero/genre-centric, that’s not because I’m averse to “indie”/mainstream stuff, but more because I’m still reading classics like Love & Rockets and I doubt I’ll…  Read More…

Oh Comics, how we love thee!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 14, 2009

Categories: Site News

I know we fuss and fight some times. Sometimes we fight about money, some times about even sillier things, but, baby, you have to know that we love you with all of our hearts. We’ve been together a really long time, but for us at least, it just gets better with age. We honestly can’t think of anyone else we’d rather wake up in bed next to each morning, and, I know, I know, sometimes we flirt with film or television or prose, but always always you’re the one foremost in our hearts and minds. So, this Valentine’s Day, 2009, we’d like to rededicate our love to you, and offer you this: The Savage Critics: Wave Three! Ladies and Gentlemen,…  Read More…

How to get a link to "Various"

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 11, 2009

Categories: Reviews

First off: be sure to check in this weekend for big Big BIG news. I’m excited, and I think you will be too… Here’s some stuff I really liked this week: THOR #600: now this is how all anniversary issues should be done! A meaty lead story that changes up the status quo (not that that status is all that quo, really, being that this is effectively issue #13), and ending on a pretty reasonable cliffhnager that not only makes me begin to think that “Dark Reign” could be potentially interesting and go some where, but that also seems rational and chilling. I might have even liked the lead story enough to praise this comic, but then it adds a…  Read More…