An Interview with Donald Glut, by Abhay

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Posted by: Abhay Khosla on March 31, 2010

Categories: Interviews

I noticed a promotional campaign for a vampire novel the other day:  PULP 2.0 Press, a pulp-fiction company, was promoting the re-release of BROTHER BLOOD, a “Blaxploitation” vampire novel written in 1969, set on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip.  The author’s name– Donald Glut– rang a bell; sounded familiar.  Much later, I realized that I had seen his name any number of times in the last couple years, looking through the great old Warren magazines like EERIE for which he wrote extensively.  Some of you may also recognize his name from the novelization of the EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Mr. Glut was gracious enough to agree to an interview.  I had intended this interview to concern his career in the comics, seeing…  Read More…

Claremont’s X-Men 5: The Last Huzzah

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 29, 2010

Categories: Reviews

Hey, remember when I promised I’d have the next installment of this up before February? Funny story… Or, you know, not really. That’s the last time I promise a post by a specific date on here. Anyway: The John Romita Jr. years! It’s when Uncanny X-Men got really good!

Arriving 3/31/10

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Shipping Lists

Sure, and of course the one time I’ve ever, EVER prayed for a gigantic week (With the party, at all) at the end-of-month/end-of-quarter, and we get a microscopic shipping week. Go Figure. 2000 AD PACK FEB 2010 ADVENTURE COMICS #9 ALADDIN LEGACY OF THE LOST #2 (OF 3) A CVR SUYDAM AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #627 ANCHOR #6 ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK FOUR #3 (OF 4) A-TEAM WAR STORIES BA #1 BETTY #185 BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #14 BLACKEST NIGHT #8 (OF 8) CLOAK AND DAGGER #1 DARK WOLVERINE #84 SIEGE DETECTIVE COMICS #863 DISNEYS HERO SQUAD #3 DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP #10 (OF 24) ESCAPE FROM WONDERLAND #6 (OF 6) A CVR BONK FANTASTIC…  Read More…

CE21: Awesome Goodie Bags!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Sorry for the radio silence last week — I was in Memphis for the annual ComicsPRO meeting (Which was ASTONISHING, but more on that later), and from Tuesday to Saturday I had, maybe, a total of 8 hours sleep. I don’t like to broadcast being out of town before I go, security and all that… I’m sort of caught up on sleep (kinda), but next comes my crazy week while I get everything done for THIS SATURDAY’S 21st anniversary party for the store, so don’t really expect any reviews from me this week, either. I hope to see as many of you as possible this Saturday, starting at 8 PM, there’s no doubt in my mind that this will be…  Read More…

Extra-Length Finale! Because Someone Demanded It!

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 27, 2010

Categories: Reviews

The good thing about not posting here for… uh… months, is that there’s no limit of things to write about. The bad thing is that you all might have forgotten what I’m talking about. But please! Put on your memory-jogging devices and think back to the days of CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN and THE FLASH: REBIRTH. I feel like it’s time to explain to you why they’re the same series. Okay, that might be a bit unfair to both books. Flash had more of a story than Cap, for one thing, although it wasn’t necessarily a story that made the most amount of sense (In a Wait, What? that we have, I swear, recorded but haven’t got around to posting yet,…  Read More…

Look! Up In The Sky! It’s… Wasted Potential!

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 25, 2010

Categories: Reviews

My secret shame: I have been buying all of the Superman books since Superman left Earth for Krypton. No, wait, that’s not actually shameful in and of itself. The shame part is this: I’m not sure I’ve actually been enjoying them for awhile.

Choose Your Own Review Adventure, Or Something

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 24, 2010

Categories: Reviews

Here’s an idea that may seem like a ridiculously bad one in, oh, two seconds or so. But when has that stopped me before? I’m a big fan of the Multnomah County Library, here in Portland. It’s a great library set-up, with an amazing selection of books, zines and comics to choose from (Something that I like to make Jeff Lester jealous of whenever possible) and, through the library, I’ve managed to catch up on all manner of comics I’d never quite gotten around to reading first time out. So, there I was this morning, looking to order some new books, and I thought: What would Savage Critic readers want me to review? Hence, this potentially bad idea: Go look…  Read More…

Bad Cover Version

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Posted by: Graeme McMillan on March 23, 2010

Categories: Reviews

James Robinson has just blown my mind. I was reading the STARMAN OMNIBUS VOL. 1 (Good, for those who want an old-school SavCritic take on it; I haven’t read the series before, so the material manages to be both fresh and dated in that 1990s comic kind of a way, but more than anything, it reminds me of the first Sandman collection in its uncertain first steps with a writer too eager to impress and art that isn’t bad, but isn’t perfect just yet. I’ve already moved on through the second and into the third volume, and it’s steadily getting better, even if the collections make the book look as if it has ADD, what with all the fill-ins), and…  Read More…

Arriving 3/24/2010

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 22, 2010

Categories: Shipping Lists

Many things to do, very little time to do it… AGON #1 (OF 5) AIR #19 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #626 ANCHOR #6 ANGEL SPECIAL LORNE (ONE SHOT) ARCHIE #607 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #207 A-TEAM SHOTGUN WEDDING #2 AVENGERS INITIATIVE #34 SIEGE BATMAN STREETS OF GOTHAM #10 BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #15 BLACK TERROR #9 BREAKING INTO COMICS THE MARVEL WAY #2 (OF 2) CAPTAIN AMERICA #604 CARS #3 DARKNESS #83 DEADPOOL #21 DEADPOOL CORPS RANK AND FOUL #1 DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #352 FALL OF HULKS RED HULK #3 (OF 4) FOH FEMALE FORCE #12 MICHELLE OBAMA YEAR ONE FUTURAMA COMICS #48 FVZA #3 (OF 3) A CVR LANGLEY GI JOE #16 GLAMOURPUSS #12 GREEN LANTERN #52 (BLACKEST NIGHT)…  Read More…

Tilting at Windmills #190 is up

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 19, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Thesis: Are the publishers trying to kill the periodical comic? Go read it at Comic Book Resources! -B

’tisn’t easy bein’ green, tee tee tee tee tee

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 17, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry , Reviews

I’ve never been a massive fan of St. Patrick’s Day — it is one of those days where I want to get the hell off the streets before the sun goes down to avoid “Amateur Night”, where all of the people who really don’t know how to drink large amounts of alcohol get to, in fact, prove that. I do like how Ben’s school does it though. In Kindergarten and First Grade (at least) they have the kids build and design “leprechaun traps”, which is a fun project that really exercises both the kid’s creativity as well as their engineering skills. Ben built an awesome “bank” for the “Leps” to “rob”, with ladders to climb, and a collapsing rug over…  Read More…

CE:21 The art auction

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 15, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Hey, remember me telling you about our awesome 21st anniversary party, benefiting the CBLDF? Well, as part of the party we’re also having an art auction for the CBLDF. I sent out a bunch of requests (and had friends at IDW, Image and Fantagraphics send them out as well), but I’ve only received one submission so far. But it is a doozy:

Arriving 3/17/2010

5 comments

Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Shipping Lists

Look: Comics! 28 DAYS LATER #8 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #625 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #1 ANGEL #31 ANITA BLAKE LC EXECUTIONER #5 (OF 5) AUTHORITY THE LOST YEAR #7 (OF 12) AVENGERS VS ATLAS #3 (OF 4) AZRAEL #6 BATMAN #697 BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #179 BOOSTER GOLD #30 BRAVE AND THE BOLD #32 CAPTAIN AMERICA MGC #1 CAT NAMED HAIKU CHIP #1 (OF 2) CHOKER #2 DARK AVENGERS #15 DEAD AT 17 WITCH QUEEN #1 Of(4) DEADPOOL MERC WITH A MOUTH #9 DEATHLOK #5 (OF 7) DEVIL #2 (OF 4) DIE HARD YEAR ONE #7 DOCTOR WHO ONGOING #9 DOOMWAR #2 (OF 6) EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT IRIS #4 FABLES #93 FADE TO BLACK #1 (OF 5) FARSCAPE ONGOING #5 GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS…  Read More…

Favorites: All-Star Superman

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Posted by: Sean T. Collins on March 11, 2010

Categories: Reviews

All-Star Superman Vols. 1 & 2 Grant Morrison, writer Frank Quitely, artist DC, 2008-2010, believe it or not 160 pages each $12.99 each The cheeky thing to say about the brand-new out-of-continuity world Grant Morrison constructed to house his idea of the ideal Superman story is that it’s very much like the DC Universe we already know, but without backgrounds. Like John Cassaday, another all-time great superhero artist currently working, Frank Quitely isn’t one for filling in what’s going on behind the action. One wonders what he’d do with a manga-style studio set-up, with a team of young, hungry Glaswegians diligently constructing a photo-ref Metropolis for his brawny, beady-eyed men and leggy, lippy women to inhabit. But, y’know, whatever. So…  Read More…

OK, I think we’re back this time!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 10, 2010

Categories: Site News

I *think* all of the backstage drama is now over, and we should be good to go from here out. Because of the @#$@%@ at the old hosting service, we seem to have lost the last week’s worth of posts… but I’m going to see what I can do to get them back up here via Google Cache, as I have time throughout the day. UPDATE: Sadly, we lost any COMMENTS to the blog in the last 9-10 days, and all of the pictures/video got broke — but all of the text content is back up at least. I also suspect that everyone needs to update your RSS feeds AGAIN, but, honestly that should be it.  Wish us luck!! -B

Brian catches up on 2/24 and 3/3

8 comments

Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 9, 2010

Categories: Reviews , Site News

One more bit of housekeeping: when we switch, sometime later this week, to our new hosting provider, the site will go black again. Kate says “about 3 hours”, but I’m going to say “up to 24 hours”, just to be safe. Once that passes, however, we should be good to go for the long run (he said, his fingers crossed) Plinking out things I’ve missed over the last two weeks… FALL OF HULKS RED HULK #2: Maybe it is me (it often is!), but if I were buying a book called “Red Hulk”, I’d expect to read a story about, oh, dunno, the Red Hulk maybe? I might even hope that it would tell me something (anything!) about the character….  Read More…

Arriving 3/10/2010

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 8, 2010

Categories: Shipping Lists , Site News

Some housekeeping: If you were signed up on the RSS feed from the old (blogger) version of the site, you need to sign up for the new RSS feed from this iteration (WordPress) — thanks to Jeff for noticing this. I don’t use RSS, so it’s all mysterious to me. Question: How current do you want my reviews to be? If I post on Wednesdays, I can include some/all of that week’s books, but I’m worried that a significant chunk of you haven’t read those books yet? Here’s this week’s shipping list, below the cut

…and we’re back!

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on March 7, 2010

Categories: Site News

Our current hosting provider decided, for some reason, that basic WordPress scripts were “using too much memory” and took us down. Without warning, naturally. Said company has a phone line featuring 20 minute waits in line to talk to someone who merely reads you back the email exchanges. Said company has reps who, when they call you, don’t leave the toll free number to call back on. Said company suggested we upgrade to a hosting plan that would be roughly 14x what we currently pay. Said company took more than 3 days to restore this blog after we complied with thier instructions. Said company? Not going to be our provider by this time next week. So, no, it wasn’t you….  Read More…

Attention RSS Feeders: We’ve Moved! And Stuff!

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on March 5, 2010

Categories: Site News

Hey, Jeff here. I realize there may be some people who follow us almost exclusively through RSS who don’t know that we’ve updated the site. You will still be able to find us at http://www.savagecritic.com. Our service provider turned dickish on us and wanted a ton more money to continue to host us, so we’ve moved house. As for the RSS feed, its new location is http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheSavageCritics See you there! Uh, when we’re back up anyway…

Tucker Can’t Get Enough Of Waxing Babies

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Posted by: Tucker Stone on March 4, 2010

Categories: Reviews

Mommy got me an exclusive.

Douglas’s note on the domino effect

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Posted by: Douglas Wolk on March 3, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

[This is a reconstructed post from Google Cache; originally posted by Douglas] I love the tightly knit week-to-week continuity of the Big Two’s superhero serials, but its potential downside is that a single stumble can do strange things to the direct market. According to Diamond’s new shipping updates, the final issue of Siege has been bumped three weeks, from April 21 to May 12. (Siege: Embedded #4 has moved also moved to May 12, but from April 7.) Which means that the final issues of Dark Avengers and Avengers: The Initiative, which were supposed to come out that week, have also been bumped to 5/12. And New Avengers Finale, which was meant to follow Siege #4 by a week on…  Read More…