Tuesday, March 27, 2007

EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT

Both Phil and Chris have pushed their eBay auctions before, so I figure, "hey, why not mention my CafePress Store?"

Right now, at www.cafepress.com/1stprize , this beautiful 100% cotton Danger Ace logo t-shirt can be yours for only $13.99 (plus shipping).

And if yellow's not your thing (or $13.99's not your price), it also comes in sparkling white for only $8.99.BONUS: For anyone who sends me a photo of themselves (or someone else) wearing one of these shirts, I'll send 'em signed copies of Doctor Impossible # 1, 803 #1 (ol' Doc's first appearance) and 803 # 3 (featuring my story Exit: The Hero House).

If you've been following Small Press Idol, you may have noticed that the site crashed on Sunday from visitor overload. I guess that's good and bad... good, in that it's great exposure for me and Jer', but bad since our stuff can't be seen right now.

Yesterday, Dimestore's head-honcho, Ian Shires (whose name makes it seem like he should be in an 80's Brit-Pop band) sent out an email looking emergency donations to help Dimestore upgrade to a new server. I sent in my $20, but haven't heard a reply yet... which makes me a little nervous, though I guess he's probably got more to do than just talk to me, especially since his site's down and he's receiving multiple donations.

Monday, March 26, 2007

JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER - TOP THAT GEOFF JOHNS

Y'know, honestly, I know VERY little about Brit-comics as a whole, but I can say this:

Don't be fooled...

...Joe Dredd won't think twice about
throwing your ass in an Iso-cube.

Like many American comics fan, I was raised on a healthy dose of Marvel and DC superheroes, and never paid much attention to the comics being done in other countries until I was well into my teen years. But, as some of you may know, I've been dissatisfied with the state of DC and Marvel for a while, and have recently cut back my weekly comics load significantly.

With a big gap in my personal reading time, I decided to tour the world of comics, and my first stop was the UK... which basically means I've been reading the hell out of some Judge Dredd comics.

More to come tomorrow night.

Additional reading:

Dredd's profile from 2000ADonline.com...

Monday, March 19, 2007


IDW announced this past weekend at WizardWorld LA that they'd be publishing a deluxe Terry and the Pirates collection in honor of Milton Caniff's 100th anniversary, and while I didn't pick up their Dick Tracy collection, they looked pretty awesome, and since this is going to be in the same format, I'll probably be taking one home.
In researching Danger Ace, I've been reading reprints of Caniff's Steve Canyon strip and those have been fantastic. I've read some of ...Pirates before, but never enough to get a good feel for it, so I'm really looking forward to sitting down with this one.
Not to go into "dear diary" mood, but I've been thinking lately about the number of comics I read each month and the way I read them.
Since last year, I've cut back on monthly comics quite a bit. Post-Infinite Crisis, and now Post-Civil War, I'm just not enjoying them like I probably should be to spend what I do. And it's not because things have changed at Marvel and DC, or that "new" comics don't feel like books I grew up with. I'm not opposed to change as long as it's well done and makes sense.
I think the general Marvel and DC audience has really lowered their standards, and seem to be willing to accept pretty much whatever gets sat in front of them, and I'm just kind of tired of watching it happen month after month... I don't think it's going to get better; I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I thought about spending a few paragraphs laying out exactly what I mean, but if you don't kind of get what I'm saying, I'm not sure I'm articulate enough to clear things up.
So I've cut my in-store pulllist down to roughly 10/15 titles, and I'll be reading a lot more indie comics and buying more stuff in trades, like Fables, Walking Dead, Runaways, Ex Machina, etc... I think the answer for me is to just take a break from the big two for a little while and see what else I'm missing.
Wish me luck!

Sunday, March 18, 2007

WE LOVE YOU GRANT MORRISON

Messing around on YouTube yesterday and found this Disinformation panel that Grant Morrison did a few years back.

There's four more parts that can find over there if you look hard enough, but I'm only posting part one, since I just needed something to post.

Enjoy.

Friday, March 16, 2007

SILVER BULLET COMICS INTERVIEW


By now, I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about this contest, and I promise to get some semi-relevant content up in the coming week.

But, for the three of you that ARE interested, Jerry and I did an interview with Silver Bullet Comics this week which you can read here!

Weirdness aside, this contest has been good for us, and it's opened some doors I would never have expected it to. Some stuff's brewing on the comics front that I'm not quite ready to talk about, but even if we don't win SPI (and there's a good chance we won't), 2007 could be a very cool year.

Thanks for the support.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

3 OUT OF 3

I know you guys are probably sick of hearing about this by now, but Danger Ace garnered 3 "Yes" votes from all three judges. Read what they had to say.

Add to that getting two very cool emails from guys that bought Doctor Impossible # 1 and loved it, and you're looking (what, can't see me?) at a pretty happy boy!

Additional Reading:

Captain America's dead...

Monday, March 12, 2007

ARNOLD DRAKE 1924-2007


Arnold Drake died today.

He was one of the greatest and most inventive creators of not only the Silver Age, but any age of comics, and he will certainly be missed.

Sadly, Drake's work went uncredited throughout most of his career, and it wasn't until creator's like Grant Morrison and Mark Waid started citing him as an influence that his talent and genius finally garnered the praise and recognition it deserved.

Not to turn this into diagram week, but as a small tribute to Drake's life and tremendous body of work, here's one of my favorite bits of his Doom Patrol...

INSIDE ROBOTMAN
(with built-in grid!)




DANGER ACE GOES TO ROUND TWO

Just got the second "Yes" vote, which gives us at least 2 out of 3, so it's on to Round Two for the Danger Ace.

Additional Reading:

300 sets March box office record...

Alan Moore on Jack Kirby...

The forever growing guestlist for HeroesCon Charlotte...

Why we love Phil Noto...

Sunday, March 11, 2007

DANGER ACE IS NOW

I know I promised a breakdown to the Dalek grid, but I'm holding off on posting that for one more night and dropping a link to Dimestore Publications' Small Press Idol contest, and more specifically, our entry, The Danger Ace.

Judge # 1 gave us the thumbs up, and a pretty stellar critique, so here's hoping that #2 and #3 feel the same way.

If so, it's on to Round 2 for Jerry and me.

Keep those fingers crossed, folks!

Saturday, March 10, 2007

INSIDE A DALEK, PART ONE


Image courtesy of Terry Nation's Dalek Special, a paperback Doctor Who special I recently picked up at a toy show for $.25 cents.
Tomorrow night I'll post the corresponding grid... but here's a little preview:
"Q - Auto-Destruct: If capture cannot be avoided, or the computers assess
the situation as hopeless, the auto-destruct circuits cut in. The Dalek
remains dangerous even at this stage as it becomes a gigantic bomb."
YOU WILL RETURN OR FACE THE FULL POWER OF THE DALEK ARMADA!

Thursday, March 8, 2007

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK!

Well, I'm still not 100%, but I went to work today, so that's something...


After yesterday's movie watching sick day, I'd planned a post about Cary Grant, and how he reminds me of Alan Moore's Miracleman (really!), but after reading this week's new comics, I've decided to hold off on Grant-Fest '07, and talk about the same thing everybody else is...

CAPTAIN AMERICA # 25

(Oops,wrong one... sorry.)

(Hmmm... still not it.)

(Dammit! One more time...)


(Okay, there we go.)

Normally I'd work in a *SPOILER* header, or something, but since Marvel let the cat out of the bag Tuesday night, I'm not going to worry about it.

The short version: Cap's on his way to being arraigned for his "crimes" during Civil War, when an assassin working Dr. Faustus and the Red Skull/Lukin takes a shot at him.

The assassin turns out to be Crossbones, who's quickly dealt with by the Winter Soldier and Falcon (nice moment, BTW... two of Cap's boys teaming up).

Meanwhile, down at the hospital, Cap dies off panel. Shortly after that, Sharon Carter is cleaning herself up in the hospital washroom, when she's confronted by Sin (the Skull's daughter) and told to "Remember."

So she does... seems that during the assassination attempt on Cap's life, somehow Faustus took control of Sharon and had her plug three bullets into Cap's gut, making Sharon his true killer.

All in all, I thought the issue worked well - the retrospective at the beginning was nice, and Steve Epting's art has never looked better. I like Brubaker's work (with the exception of his Uncanny X-men work... can't get into it, sorry) and think he's got a pretty good grasp on the Marvel heroes. And for that reason, I just assumed he didn't come up wiith this story on his own, and that it was editorially mandated, but not so much, it seems... here you'll find Bru taking credit for the idea.

I think it's safe to say that the death of Captain America is to Civil War, what 52 is to Infinite Crisis... albiet, in a single issue, but you get my point. It's what I'm coining right here and now as the "second wind trend", the "just when you thought it was over" moment, and maybe it's just cause I'm such a Marvel junkie lately, but I kind of happy to get it.

What didn't thrill me about this weeks books was Civil War: The Initiative. Interesting little experiment, but that's about all I've got in it's favor. My biggest complaint with it being, if you read it before Cap #25 (which I did), it spoils the ending... and not exactly in the way you're thinking.

And surely I couldn't have been the only one to catch this, but who introduces the new Omega Flight? Context would lead me to believe that it's Sasquatch showing the Collective the new team, but Sasquatch is in the picture, and so's the new Guardian... who's supposed to be the Collective.

The Thunderbolts bit was completely useless. As much as I like Ellis, he's completely getting these characters wrong, and neither he or anybody else seems to care. Thunderbolts reeks of a paycheck book, and that's a shame - if only Ellis would try and write it like it was something real, but no... instead he's giving us a bunch of sadist nymphos beating people up.

Then we come to Ms. Marvel running into Spider-woman, and giving her a lecture about not registering, but ultimately letting her go, because, well... they're pals?

Also read Fantastic Four, which I was happy with - really liked the Sue and Reed scene. I trust McDuffie to do a bang up job, and can't wait to see what he's cooking up.

Read Mighty Avengers, too... and I think my boy Tug put it best tonight when he called it "agonizingly difficult, but slightly enjoyable", or something like that. I said it was pretty to look at, but nobody acted like they had any good sense.

Until we get a little deeper into the "new" status quo, I'm going to try and hold off on talking about Marvel books so much, and see what happens. I'll admit to not having high hopes.

Starting sometime this weekend, I plan to kick off a series of posts that focus on the increasing level of violence seen in DC comics post Infinite Crisis.

This week's issue of Justice League of America alone has enough to fill up a whole week...

"Watch those arms, boys and girls - Grundy's hungry!"

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

HULK NOT FEEL SO GOOD...


Sorry for the lack of posts, folks... I've been fighting a ridiculously determined head cold since the weekend, and last night, it won.

So I'm taking the day off from work, comics, and pretty much everything else, and keeping my ass in bed.

Oh, and just in case my buddy Matt reads this, don't worry... I don't think you can catch anything through a blog.

Additional Reading:


The reason I'm still breathing...

Movies I'll be watching while I'm sick...

Friday, March 2, 2007

OKAY, SERIOUSLY... WHO'S BETTER AT...?

ROUND ONE: ...Throwing A Car?

























Goes To: Superman

Why: He threw it first.

ROUND TWO: ...Stopping Masked Criminals?













Goes To: Superman

Why: Look at the reaction on their faces!

ROUND THREE: ...Abusing Animals?
























Goes To: Superman

Why: Check out his right hand... he's gonna give that lion "the cobra"!

ROUND FOUR: ...Giving A Pilot A Hear Attack?





















GoesTo: Tie

Why: None of these dudes will ever fly a plane again.

ROUND FIVE: ...Helping Out Santa?
























Goes To: Captain Marvel

Why: Cap's way doesn't give jolly ol' Saint Nick a weight complex.

ROUND SIX: ...Paying Attention To Detail?

























Goes To: Superman

Why: He's not a petrophile.

ROUND SEVEN: ...Effin' Up Enemy Tanks?
























Goes To: Captain Marvel

Why: This is a tough one, but Cap takes it since he's not only flippin' the tank with a single punch, but he's also being fired on by another in the background.

ROUND EIGHT: ...Being An Indian Chief?

























Goes To: um, Captain Marvel?

Why: I guess because he looks like he's having more success with it... whatever it is.

ROUND NINE: ...Working With Kids?

























Goes To: Disqualification

Why: Cause Supes is a wimp, and Cap's a petrophile.

ROUND TEN: ...Showing Off?

























Goes To: Superman

Why: Not only does he mess the cat's teeth up, he gives it "the cobra" just one panel later.

Hey, it's his thing now...

ROUND ELEVEN: ...Rockin' Out?

























Goes To: Captain Marvel

Why: Accordian between the knees.

ROUND TWELVE: ...Inspiring The Troops?
























Goes To: Who do you think?

Why: >giggle<
ROUND THIRTEEN: ...Posing?

























Goes To: Captian Marvel

Why: Even though he didn't stike a pose first, he manages to avoid giving away his secret identity on the cover. Way to go, Kent...geez.

AND THE WINNAH IS...
Additional Reading:

In the early 50s, National Comics Periodicals (now we call 'em DC) brought a lawsuit against fellow publisher Fawcett Publications citing copyright infringement against their flagship character Superman by Fawcett's mightiest mortal, Captain Marvel.

The case lasted more than a decade, and resulted in Fawcett's ceasing publication on not just Captain Marvel, but their entire comics line.

Some twenty years later, DC purchased the publishing rights to the Fawcett characters and "proudly" reintroduced Captain Marvel and his gang to the world in the pages of a new comics magazine called SHAZAM, and shortly afterwards, in a moderatly successful television show of the same name.

Honestly, I always chalked the whole Superman/Captain Marvel thing up to just weird comics coincidences, like the Doom Patrol coming out right before the X-men, or Man-Thing beating Swamp Thing to the racks by weeks, but looking through the cover indexes over at the

Grand Comics Database, one has to wonder...

Read all the gory legal details here...