Spider-Donald and Daisy-Jane

Never before have two of my fandoms collided as massively as they did today. In case this is the first website you have seen today (ha, I wish) or you've been playing copious amounts of Batman:Arkham Asylum as I have, you haven't heard that the Walt Disney Company has bought Marvel Comics. I will give you a second to let that sink in...

Now before you run around like a chicken with its head cut off, yelling that Ragnarok has come and that we are all doomed, take a deep breath and let's think about this. Practically every message board, comics news site, and newspaper has been abuzz with this story and as of right now, there are a whole lot more questions than answers. How will this affect Marvel movies in teh pipeline? What about Marvel Island at Universal Studios? Are the MAX and Icon comics lines going to disappear? I have even more questions just off the top of my head, but no one knows when all of them will be answered. Since that is the case, I think it is a smart idea to relax and think of the positives that will come from this. First, I think it will definitely help Marvel in terms of making new relationships with retailers. Disney's could definitely throw some of the shelf space they have in stores to Marvel. Second (as I mentioned on the 11 O'Clock Comics boards where A LOT of people are discussing this topic), Disney is all about self-promotion and they do everything they can to make sure people know about their properties and products. Due to this, I would not be surprised if Marvel's presence at conventions and the like were to increase as well as ads and commercials for their products. Lastly, the biggest gain from Disney's purchase is the possibility of a Marvel/Pixar collaboration. Comic Book Resources reported that "When asked if there was potential for cross-polination between Marvel and Pixar, Disney said that Pixar’s John Lasseter has met with key Marvel creative executives recently and the group got 'pretty excited, very fast.' Disney will look at all opportunities and thinks there are some exciting product that could come from this sort of partnership." That is pretty awesome if you ask me.

All in all, I think us fanboys need to keep our heads on straight and wait to see how this will all play out, but personally, I think this is the beginning of a mutually beneficial partnership.

Oh and one last thing. As for the title of this post, if they ever make a statue or something of Spider-Donald and Daisy-Jane, I will be the first person in line to buy one.

I told you before I was going to start breaking my own rules.

Everybody loves getting surprises. It's just human nature. But ya know what's better than getting one surprise? Getting TWO surprises in the same week like I did in the form of two comic books that I picked up this Wednesday. It was like Marvel and DC both said "let's put out an issue just for Mike." These books made my so giddy that I had to blog about them as soon as I could (and I bet I'll be the only person really talking about them). In a week with Blackest Night & War of Kings tie-ins, multiple Avengers titles, and of course, Wednesday Comics, my favorite books this week will probably be missed by a lot of people. Hell, I almost missed them too, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first of these awesome books was Wolverine: First Class #18. Like any good comic fan, I print out and bring my shopping list with me every Wednesday when I go to the comic shop. Since I've only read an issue here and there from the "First Class" books, I did not have Wolverine: First Class #18 on my list. Then, sitting on the new release shelf, was that hilarious Skottie Young cover with none other than my favorite character in all of comics: Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. Not only that, but the issue was written by one of my favorite writers, Peter David, who currently writes X-Factor which also features Madrox. Someone was not doing their job because I should have known about this month's issue of Wolverine: First Class! Really, they could have put an ad in X-Factor for this issue. I'll bet you it would have helped sales. Of course, as soon as I realized what this issue was, I bought it, and as you can probably can tell, it did not disappoint. Basically, the story is Multiple Man (whose power is that he can make copies of himself called "dupes" in case you didn't know) is looking for a runaway dupe and comes to Xavier's school looking for help. A chase ensues with Wolverine and Kitty Pryde in tow with a couple existential crises happening in the meantime as they debate what makes someone a person. So you get action, comedy, philosophy, and some great art from Francis Portela with Madrox in his awesome classic costume. What more could you want? It was a great issue, and with all of the rumors floating around that Peter David's X-Factor might be canceled soon, I want to get as much Madrox as I can. (By the way, please go out and buy X-Factor. Try it out. You'll like it. It needs all the help it can get if the rumors are true.)

The second book was on my shopping list but the story was not at all what I was expecting. That book was Gotham City Sirens #3. Now this series has not been getting much buzz really, and I don't understand why. The story so far has been tight and full of great action and Guillem March's art can only be described as "crazy fantastic." Over the last couple years, I have grown to love Batman's lady rogues. Will Pfeifer's run on Catwoman has made me a devout fan of Selina Kyle, and who can't enjoy the team of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn? Put all three in one title and I will definitely be purchasing it. Plus, look at that cover. How can you say no to that? It's like a movie poster for one of the good Bond movies. Now remember how I said this book was not what I was expecting. Well, I expected a book called Gotham City Sirens to have the Gotham City sirens in the book, but this issue concentrated on someone else entirely: my favorite of Batman's rouges, the Riddler! Just like my love of Jaime Madrox, I will buy any book with the Riddler, especially now that he has turned over a new leaf as a private investigator. Seeing Riddler solving crimes just like he would solve a riddle brings a new dynamic to the character, and writer Scott Lobdell shows us the genius that is going on in Riddler's mind as he mumbles the parts of each puzzle to himself, even the puzzle of a possible new Batman. Here's hoping that Riddler continues to be a major part of Gotham City Sirens as the series continues.

The Most Disgusting Thing Ever

There is a new post coming this weekend, I assure you. Something happened thought that I have to talk about real quick.

I buy a lot of back issues at my local Half Price Books. It is a phenomenal store and I love searching through all the crazy stuff they have there, especially the comics of course. There is a very major downside though which made itself apparent to me again today while reading some of the comics I bought there yesterday evening. I wanted to get out of the house yesterday so I decided to drive over to HPB to see if they had anything interesting. To my delight, the comic boxes had a veritable smorgasbord of new comics from the last couple months. I found a great assortment of books that I wanted to read (but didn't want to pay cover for when they came out). I brought some of them to work with me today to read during my lunch. That is when I noticed something; the issues are filled with crumbs and oil stains from those crumbs! Really!? You are so gross that you don't brush off the food that doesn't make it into your maw while you're stuffing your face and reading your comics, and then you go an sell these books still full of crumbs to a used book store. Ugh. The sad thing is that this has happened to me before and I totally forgot about it. So, whoever it is that sells bunchs of new comics to the Half Price Books in Niles, IL., you are disgusting.

(Oh and I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not a slight on Half Price Books. I love that place, but I will not buy newer issues of comics there anymore.)

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Yes, I am back after moving, getting married, losing a $1,100 security deposit because my old landlord is a f'ing deadbeat, and having to change internet providers since Comcast wouldn't get up off there asses and fix all the problems we had with their service. It has been a really crazy time in my life and I haven't had a lot of time to read comics. This past weekend was the Chicago Comic-Con though so what better time to get back into the swing of this here blog, but it is going to be a little different than before. Let me explain.

I have come to the conclusion that I have kinda handcuffed myself with the theme of reading old comics. While I will continue to read and blog about all of the comics that fill my longboxes, I've made the decision that having a different kind of post every once in a while might spice things up. This is going to be one of those posts. I have a bunch of little thoughts that have been running through my mind as of late that I think are worth sharing.

You may know that Big Lots is a chain of stores that sells closeouts items. What you may not know is that Big Lots carries a very interesting assortment of DVD's for dirt cheap. I recently found Batman: The Animated Series Vol. 4 there for $3.00! Of course as soon as I got it, I started watching the whole volume from beginning to end. Watching the series this way made something very strange stand out to me: smoke bombs. Gotham City must have a store called "Smoke Bombs R Us" because everybody and their mother have smoke bombs of every size and shape and they're throwing those suckers all over the place. If I watched the episodes every week in the manner they were intended, then this plot device might not have seemed so overused, but when you watch all the episodes back to back, it is a smoke bomb party and everyone's invited. The best example of this is in the episode "Mean Seasons" where Batman fights a crazy past-her-prime model who goes around terrorizing people as the Calendar Girl. (The episode is a more kid-friendly version of Loeb and Sale's Long Halloween in case you were wondering.) Now this model dresses up for a Halloween themed attack and uses smoke bombs disguised as candy corn earrings in order to facilitate a quick getaway. How in the world does a washed up model get her hands on candy corn smoke bombs!? I need to know!

Smoke bombs aside, there is one other thing I want to talk about that I mentioned earlier. Now that the Chicago Comic-Con (or whatever Wizard is calling it these days) is over, I have very mixed feelings about this year's con. As soon as I walked in on Preview Night, I knew that this was going to be a lot than previous years. The most obvious difference was the lack of Marvel or DC booths and all that space taken up by autograph areas. It was really weird not seeing huge banners and posters from the Big 2 everywhere as I walked in. That is how it has been since I first started going to the con. I am just so torn about it. Frankly I got bored and left early every day. It just wasn't the same for me, and apparently it wasn't the same for a lot of people. They, being a lot of the artists that I talked to, had a great time since more people were interested in Artist Alley this year and spent their money there. That is great to hear and I am really happy that people had a good time. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed myself and found a lot of comics that have been on my wishlist for a long time (including one that was a total wild goose chase that I will recount in a post in the near future.) All in all, it was fun, but I will not be shelling out the money for a weekend pass. I will probably go on Sunday only next year so I can hunt for deals. Now I can get really excited for Windy City Comicon in a little over a month. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, GO NOW AND BUY THEM! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? And when you come, don't forget to come and say hi. I will be volunteering like last year so look for me in my new "Henchman" shirt.

Lastly, real quick, I wanted to mention a blog that I found and added to my links on the right. Go check out the Covered blog. It is amazing!

Riker's eyes are huge!

By all accounts, I should have no energy to walk, let alone finally get back to my blog. I know I have been whining a lot, but between moving to a new apartment, a deadbeat landlord that won't return our security deposit, a wedding looming in less than a month, and craziness at work, I just haven't had the time to read or write about my precious comics. Now you may ask what has sparked my return to this here blog? Well, I'll tell you. I have been reinvigorated by a true work of art: Star Trek. I have been a Trekkie since I was a little kid. (Yes, I have a Starfleet uniform. No, I would not wear it if I were called to be a juror. True Trekkies will get that.) One of my fondest memories of my childhood is spending Thursday nights with my dad watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. That show turned me into the nerd that I am today. Now in 2009, we have the eleventh movie in the Star Trek franchise and it left me speechless. I have seen it twice now and the haters can all keep their opinions to themselves because they have given us a practically perfect film and a clean slate to start creating some new amazing stories.

Of course, Star Trek was so good and had me so energized that I went through my longboxes and started pulling Trek books left and right. I came up with a pretty wide assortment that spanned both the gamut of Trek series and many of the major comic book companies. You may not be aware that the Star Trek franchise jumped from publisher to publisher many times over the years. Here's the quick timeline: Gold Key - DC - Malibu - Marvel - Wildstorm - IDW.
The weird thing about all the Star Trek books I have read recently is that the book that really grabbed my attention the most isn't even from any of these publishers. It is Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Manga Boukenshin. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that this is a new book that was just released. I am bending the rules and talking about it because I did get it on sale and it DEFINITELY fits into the "oddities" category. I have never read manga before, but as soon as I saw this book solicited and saw the crazy preview pages, I knew that I had to get my hands on a copy. The book consisted of four separate stories of the crew of the USS Enterprise. Overall, I enjoyed reading this just based on the fact that I am seeing these characters artistically interpreted in a totally new way.

In the first story, "Changeling" written by David Gerrold (writer of the Original Series episode "Trouble With Tribbles") and drawn by E. J. Su, the crew investigate the "Labyrinth of Wisdom" and Wesley keeps transforming into different people. Honestly, this was the kind of story I expected to read. It seems stereotypically manga to me with magic and a crazy premise. The ending is mildly predictable, but it was still fun to read. This story also had the first of two majorly awkward moments of the book. Wesley transforms into a female Betazoid much like Counselor Troi. That alone is awkward, but when Riker comes onto Wesley, I was particularly skeeved out. Ah manga, you don't disappoint with strange sexual moments.

The second story, "Sensation," was very reminiscent of a few episodes of the TV show. Something is affecting the crew and only Troi can sense it. We've all seen it before, so the story really didn't bring anything new to the table. The art on the other hand; drawn by Chrissy Delk, was very interesting and kept my attention. Delk really knows how to draw a close-up that invokes a lot of emotion out of the character's faces. Obviously, this talent comes in handy when your story revolves around a character that reads people emotions. I would really like to see some more of Chrissy Delk's work. (Here is a link to her sketch blog. She definitely knows how to draw!)

And now the book took a bit of a dive in my opinion. In the third story, "The Picardian Knot" by Christine Boylan and Don Hudson, we see the after effects of Picard's mindmeld with Sarek from the episode "Sarek." Both the story and the art style fell flat for me. The story revolves around Picard and his inability to access his emotions as the crew tries to help him. I had never really seen art like this before either. Every page seems to be inked with a very fine tip which seems to deprieve the art from having definition. Also, the second extremely awkward moment came in this story when Picard, Data, and Troi talk to Guinan (the ship's wise bartender played on the show by Whoopi Goldberg). Guinan is in eleven panels and not one of them show her completely. It is so absurd and the only reasoning I can think of is that the artist did not know how to draw Whoopi Goldberg so he put her in shadow, faced her in the other direction with her back to the audience, and even cut her face off by the top or bottom of the panel. How weird!

Lastly, "Loyalty" by F. J. DeSanto and Bettina Kurkowski was another story that tied directly into a TNG episode, namely the perrenial favorite "Best of Both Worlds." We see Riker called by the Starfleet admiralty to defend Picard's ability to command after his assimilation by the Borg. This was no doubt the best story in the book. The story was an interesting wrinkle added to the established Trek canon and character development was spot on. The art was gorgeous as well. (Comixology has some preview pages from this story if you are interested.) Though the panels do have a manga feel to them, I would want to see more Next Gen stories drawn by Kurkowski. "Loyalty" by itself made this book worth the cover price.

All in all, I think I had a fairly painless jaunt into the world of manga. I don't think I will be picking up much more any time soon, but as a Trekkie, I am glad I picked up Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Manga Boukenshin.

Just a note: I recently found that all of the Star Trek comics from 1967 - 2002 have been collected on DVD-ROM. The best part is that Amazon is selling it here for only $27.99! Every Trekkie out there should jump on this.

Moving is not fun.

Just so everyone knows, I have in no way given up on this little blogging endeavor. I just moved into a new apartment last weekend and all of the moving stuff has thrown practically everything out of whack. My internet in the new place should be up and running tomorrow so hopefully, I will be back soon.

"Well, it's only a quarter..."

The beauty of the quarter boxes is that I find and buy books that I would normally not even take a second glance at. If the cover looks even mildly appealing or the subject matter might be something I like, in the pile it goes. Everybody always says you should "broaden your horizons," right? It's true, and it's even better when you can do so on the cheap. I may not like everything that I grab out of the cheap bins, but when they are less than a dollar, how can I really complain?

What better way to try new things then to pick up a "Special Introductory One-shot." After hearing all of the praise for Jay Faerber's Noble Causes series on multiple podcasts, I decided that I would be looking for some issues, and just my luck, I found Noble Causes: First Impressions #1 in one of the cheap boxes. A lot like DC's Secret Files books, Noble Causes: First Impressions #1 uses a couple small stories to introduce the reader to the Noble family, a family of superheroes that save the world while being followed around by the paparazzi and talked about in the tabloids. Both stories were written by Faerber with pencils from Billy Dallas Patton on the first story and Patrick Gleason (of Green Lantern Corps fame) on the second. Now I am going to be perfectly honest here. The book didn't really do anything for me. I knew going in that the series was a "soap opera with superheroes" but I guess I didn't know how much soap opera there would be. I don't know if I can explain it real well though since there are a lot of superhero books on the shelves that seem like soap operas too. Look at Spider-Man. Geez, how many hearts has he broken? I guess the difference is in the characters. Spider-Man and Mary Jane are multifaceted characters while it felt like every character in Noble Causes were just basic soap opera type characters. Maybe I need to try more than just this introductory issue.

Next up, we have a Top Cow two-fer: The Darkness #3 by Phil Hester and Michael Broussard and Witchblade #118 by Ron Marz & Stjepan Sejic. I came into both of these books totally blind. Top Cow has kinda flown under my comics radar and the only things I know about these books is what I have gleaned from ads and podcasts. Thankfully, both books had well written recap pages so I had enough info to know what is going on and enjoy both issues. (There has been some debate lately about recap pages. I find myself firmly on the pro side. I love a recap page and I think they can be pretty important. Every book is someone's first, right?) Admittedly, based on these two issues, I think I have been missing out on some goodness from Top Cow. I really enjoyed both issues. I can't think of one serious villian-based book from Marvel or DC right now, and The Darkness seemed to have a very cool premise of Grand Theft Auto meets Venom. In one scene, the Darkness summons all of these "darklings" just to make a giant pile to fling himself onto a helicopter. One word: epic. Phil Hester, I applaud you sir. I see the purchase of some Darkness trades in my future. As for Witchblade, I will admit I had some preconceptions. Like I said before, all I knew of Witchblade was what I had gleaned from ads and magazines, so I assumed that Witchblade was just a simple cheesecake book. Most of the ads for the book have the title character wearing little more that strategically placed armor, and honestly, I like the ladies just as much as the next guy but cheesecake books don't really do anything for me. That is why I never picked up any Witchblade books. Sadly, I wish I had known that I was wrong. I might have picked up a Witchblade book a long time ago. The story in this issue was very cool with the son of one of Witchblade's enemies taking up his father's quest to steal the Witchblade. Artistically, the issue shined. I was amazed by Stjepan Sejic's painted art. Sejic's art alone would be enough to make me buy this book on a regular basis. Top Cow is batting a thousand with me right now and I will be looking for more of their books in the near future.

Now I saved the best for last. I present to you Boris the Bear Slaughters the Teenage Radioactive Black Belt Mutant Ninja Critters. This was one of those books that I saw laying in the quarter box and I knew I had to make it mine. Produced by Dark Horse Comics and written by Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley, and James Dean Smith with Smith on art as well, Boris The Bear is one of those books that just makes you ask yourself "What in God's name were they thinking!?" Well, luckily for the reader, they ask that very question in the preface to the book on the inside front cover. Apparently, Boris is the answer to the horrible influx of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles clones and ripoffs that flooded the comic book market in the 80's. Just so you know Boris's answer is of course a machine gun and katana which he uses to brutally kill Usagi Yojimbo, Cerebus, the Ninja Turtles, the Hamster Vice, Ambush Bug, Snoopy, the Looney Tunes, Captain Carrot, the Ewoks, the Smurfs, and many more cartoon favorites. (The best part of the book was the one character Boris spares from his carnage: Droopy Dog. Boris just says "You can go. I like you.") Honestly, Boris the Bear really was interesting to read, purely as an artifact of the 80's. I was right in the TMNT demographic at that time so I never realized how much the Turtles took over pop culture. I loved them and the more I had of them the better. I guess they needed a bear to come and clean house a little, and that is how we got Boris. This is the kinda comic I dig in the longboxes for.