From the people who brought you the Batman: Dead End fan film/trailer, comes World's Finest...yes, featuring Superman and Batman:



It's goofy as all get-out, but darn if I wouldn't love to see this as a real movie. Especially since it features this version of Luthor:



Anyway, go download it now before Warner Brothers finds out.

posted by Mikester  @ 20:27 |

Pal Andy has posted a link to Superhero Supplies. Not running yet, but maybe I can finally get that cape I've always wanted!

Someone posted in pal Dorian's comments section who really doesn't get the point. Part of the reason of having a weblog is getting to vent a little...that doesn't mean we "hate the comics, hate the customers, hate (pretentious phrasing coming in) 'the scene'" - we like comics and our customers just fine. Relax there, Sparky.

Extensive discussion of Seaguy's pals here. (Well, it made me laugh.)

By Crom! Mark Evanier reveals that a couple forthcoming Groo the Wanderer series will be (titles tentative) Groo Meets Conan and Groo Meets Tarzan. Quoth Mark: "No, I am not kidding."

Via Metafilter - Fleep, a comic strip solely about a person trapped inside a phone booth covered in concrete. And it's good!

posted by Mikester  @ 09:58 |

I'm still a little sick and a bit tired, so I'll keep this relatively short.

• I did read the normalman 20th Anniversary comic...and yes, it's full of cheap jokes and heavy-handed criticism of the comics market (not to mention a caricature of a comic shop owner that we've seen only about a million times before)...but it's all still likable, and it's hard to resist the cheerful obtuseness of the greatest superhero of them all, Captain Everything. A nice touch is a cover gallery of normalman's comic book appearances...and it appears I have them all. Yes, even Epic Lite. I'm apparently a normalman completist. (Though I didn't see Max the Magnificent...wasn't Captain Everything in that comic?)
  
• Nice surprise for Swamp Thing fans in the new issue of Batman Adventures (#16).
  
• I see pal Dorian has got himself linked by Fanboy Rampage. Lucky bastard.
  
• Speaking of pal Dorian, he's mentioned to me a couple times at work that somewhere on the John Byrne Forum, some industrious individual "rewrote" events in Identity Crisis so that You-Know-Who wasn't sexually assaulted and killed. I can't bring myself to look...it's too sad.
  
• Catwoman opens tomorrow...get your tickets yet? This review broke my Sarcast-o-meter.
  
• Dear customer - please don't get testy with me when I don't immediately comprehend your arcane comic-collection cataloging system. When you ask me for a certain back issue using the specific code you use to log your comics, that doesn't tell me anything. Just say, "I need issue 3 of the new She-Hulk series, please." Is that so hard?
  
• Dear another customer - you don't need to run out to your car to get the two more cents you need to pay for your item. I have a penny jar by the register for a reason. However, dear yet another customer - that jar isn't there so you can dig out $1.55 in pennies and nickels to help cover the cost of your $2.25 comic.
  

And that's pretty much it. Oh, and congrats to pal Tom and pal Corey for finally getting on the Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000.

posted by Mikester  @ 20:44 |

Well, I don't know how many of you are winging your way to the San Diego Comic Con as I type this, but alas, yet again I am not able to make it down there despite only being about a four hour drive north of the event. It's probably just as well, as 1) I don't really have the money for it right now, 2) that many comics in one location may drive my love for comics right out of me, and 3) I hate people.

I know pal Ian is on his way down, so hopefully he'll come back with some nice war stories. I do get to live San Diego vicariously through some of my customers...a year or two back, I had a longtime customer of mine come in to show off his latest original art acquisitions from the Con. It was a piece he had bought from Jill Thompson, featuring the image from the cover of Death: At Death's Door. I said, "hey, cool, you got Thompson to duplicate the cover art!"

Customer: "Noooo...not exactly."

Me: "Really? It looks just like the cov...." (suddenly, it dawns on me) "This is the actual original cover art?"

Customer: "Yup."

He paid a good chunk of change, too, but by golly it was worth it. It's a very nice piece.

Usually some friends and coworkers bring back freebies from the convention for me...I accumulate pin-back buttons, and there's no shortage of those at San Diego. I have an autographed Milk 'n' Cheese fridge magnet from there, as well as a couple Hellboy autograph cards with original Mignola sketches on the back. And pal Sean (AKA "Fleshhead" - you may have seen his handle pop up in my comments sections) usually gets me something neat...the Harvey Birdman wall clock he found for me was brilliant. So, basically, I stay home from San Diego and get a load of unnecessary stuff from the convention anyway. Ah, it's good to have minions!

Anyway, if you're going (or if you're there already) have a good time!

Meanwhile, back at the comics ranch, I was dealing with a super-late UPS shipment: instead of having our comics in our hands 1 1/2 to 2 hours before opening, we got them 10 minutes before opening...and since this is San Diego Con Week, of course a lot of stuff came out. I've never seen so many manga books come in at once. Oy. And about a third of our Daredevil shipment had heavily damaged corners, which is frustrating. And then there's the whole box of toys that never seemed to show up...though they're supposedly on their way to the shop tomorrow. And I was fighting the beginning of a cold all day...there's nothing like breaking down and counting new comics then pulling for the comic savers while having to break off every six minutes or so to blow a pint or two out of the mucous spigot that has somehow replaced your nose during the night. Yeah, I know, lovely image, but you're better off reading it than I was dealing with it. (Back off, let me whine.) I'm on a combination of medications now, so I'm feeling a little better.

Usually on Wednesday nights, I like to do a little run-down of some of the week's new titles, but I'm not sure really if that does anyone any good, really. Maybe I'd be better off waiting a couple of days and seeing if I have anything of real value to say about any of the new arrivals, rather than just spouting off a quick line or two.

Ah, heck, let me say a couple things, anyway:

Plastic Man #8 - those of you who didn't care for the initial storyline in this series may find this one more to your liking, as PM finds himself suddenly confronted by vast shifts in comic book continuity! The opening gag (parodying a certain artist known for his painted-comics work) is a hoot...I'm sure the artist in question would be offended terribly.

Flash #212 - if super-characters in adult situations aren't to your liking (and some of you really don't like that, given the reaction to Identity Crisis), this issue of Flash will probably not be your cup of tea either. This issue focuses on Rogues Gallery member the Mirror Master, and has quite the disturbing mirror-image cover. It is nice to see at least a minor reference to the Mirror Master's Animal Man appearances within.

Demo #8 - I would get thrown out of the He-Man AiT/Planetlar Club if I didn't at least mention that this came out this week.

Spaghetti Western - this is the new book from Scott Morse, and boy it looks good. Alas, I left it behind at the store, but now I think I need to own it. pal Dorian bought a copy, so I'm sure we'll see a review or something from him soon.

normalman Twentieth Anniversary Special - I hate being able to measure parts of my life in 20-year spans, and yet it really has been 20 years since I first bought normalman off that new arrivals rack. Still my favorite Valentino work (I really haven't been able to get into anything else he's done...nothing against the guy), my attachment to the normalman character is enough to pick up this comic, even though it seems to go to the "let's make fun of comic conventions" well that has been gone to a few too many times already.

Actually, it would be nice to see the original normalman series in a trade again...Slave Labor did a black and white trade back in '87, which is nice, but I think this book really needs to be see in color. And I was researching that bit of business (about whether anyone was doing a new trade, not about old trades...I have the old trade), I found out that the previous normalman comic, normalman/Megaton Man, came out 10 years ago! Oh, I grow old, I grow old.

Okay, that's enough. I'm hauling my heavily-medicated carcass to bed. See you tomorrow.

posted by Mikester  @ 20:02 |

Okay, here's a post where I don't mention, you know, that thing. Or that other thing.

Here's a page devoted to Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics, though there's also a gallery of bubble gum comic also-rans.

Did you know Howard Cruse drew some Bazooka Joe strips? If you look at the illustration for "Mid 1980s Box Comic" on the Bubble Gum Comics Collection page, that's one of his.

And here, courtesy pal Cully, is my favorite Bazooka Joe strip:



"I'm late because I'm getting rogered roundly by a giant green monster, that's why!"

posted by Mikester  @ 08:07 |

I can get cranky in the mornings, can't I?

Just to prove I still love you, here's a gallery of stills from the best live-action version of Batman. (Well, second best, actually...this is the best live action version of Batman.)

And don't forget this: the Siamese Human Knot web site. (You mean I missed the 36th anniversary?)

posted by Mikester  @ 06:51 |

1. I think it may have been implied on a comic book message board that perhaps I'm complaining about the death of You-Know-Who in Identity Crisis. Nope, not me...I'm willing to accept it as part of this storyline. And besides, if anyone is really bothered by it...just wait a couple years, and I'm sure there'll be some revamped continuity and that character will be back, fit as a fiddle.

I'll save my gnashing of teeth and wailing in despair for when real people die, thank you.

1a. Just noticed pal Dorian weighing in with his reasoned review. He and I have been talking about this at work, and I'm glad all the ideas Dor has been bouncing around popped up in this review (particularly the rebuttal against the "kids are going to read this" argument).

2. Ain't It Cool News reports that the Jack Black Green Lantern movie is a "go" -- okay, it's AICN and not a legitimate news source, so until you see independent confirmation somewhere, it's still just a rumor. However, that's not stopping calm and reasoned discussion.

2a. I don't know where pal Corey dug up this picture, but I'm glad he did.

3. How to stir up the pot: "Andy's behavior in Eightball #23 is indicative of the inherent fascististic tendencies of superheroes and superhero comics. Discuss."

3a. I'm only kidding. Don't even start with me.

posted by Mikester  @ 05:28 |

Terrifying Tales #13 (June 1953) - cover by L.B. Cole

You know the story is off to a good start when the spelling of the title above the splash panel doesn't agree with the spelling of the title in the caption box:



The remainder of the story uses the second spelling, so that's what I'll use here.

So anyway, the evil witch doctor (above, on the right, holding the knife), on the behalf of a tribe of enemies of Rulah the Jungle Girl, has found a way to use the blood of maidens to create big puffy white "plazma" monsters. The maiden's blood is poured into a heated cauldron, and out pops the plazma monster in question:



"WAH!" indeed, my friend, as the witch doctor commands the tribemen to throw another helpless maiden to the creature to demonstrate its destructive ability:



This is probably some kind of fetish for somebody.

Meanwhile, at a nearby village, Rulah (our heroine) is teaching her gang of somewhat less capable jungle girls how to wash their hair:



Suddenly, Rulah's pet black panther Saber arrives on the scene with a bloody wreath in his mouth. "This must have belonged to one of our missing maidens," Rulah exclaims, thus implying that teaching hygiene to the jungle girls takes precendence over looking for multiple missing persons. Rulah states that the bloody wreath might be a clue to the missing girls' whereabouts, and not, oh, say, evidence that Saber's been eating them since the bloody wreath was in his mouth.

But then there's no reason to go searching, as an army of plazma monsters attacks the serene jungle village of girls in fur bikinis*! Thankfully Rulah quickly determines that fire destroys the creatures, and chases them outta Dodge:



That evening, Rulah poses seductively as she ponders the day's events in council:



Unknown to Rulah, one of the council members is a dirty rotten traitor, and sneaks off to tell Tagori (presumably of the enemy tribe) of Rulah's plan:



(But note this character's changed role later in the story.)

Once informed, Tagori relays to the witch doctor that Rulah has discovered the plazma beasts' weakness against fire. The witch doctor then decides she will attack Rulah before Rulah gets a chance to attack her.

In the meantime, Rulah is searching through the forest when she happens upon a tiger. The tiger strikes, as Rulah shouts "this is your last leap, evil one!" (Why the tiger is evil simply for following its natural behavior out in the wild is unexplained.)

Rulah delivers the remarkably awkward killing blow:



Spotting the witch doctor, who is carrying a flaming torch and using it to prod a plazma beast forward through the jungle, Rulah leaps into a nearby tree. Rulah then swings by on a conveniently-placed vine and grabs the torch out of the witch doctor's hand. The plazma creature then turns on the witch doctor and devours her:



After its meal, the creature lumbers back to its village of origin, as Rulah follows.

At this point, the writer of the story becomes confused, as the traitorous tribesman that snuck off to inform Tagori earlier is suddenly identified as Tagori himself (same red trunks, same large looped earrings)...Rulah even spots him and thinks to herself "Tagori! Why that traitor!"

The enemy tribemen spot Rulah and capture her, but as they're about to toss her to the plazma monsters, Saber charges to the rescue, torch in mouth!



Yes, all of a sudden, the plazma creatures are loose, presumably freed by Rulah's army of good tribemen who then set the village aflame to destroy everything within - monsters, men, women, children, grandparents, what have you.

However, the traitorous tribesman who is now Tagori tries to make his escape, but he meets an ignoble fate:



And now that Rulah has succeeded in killing everyone who has opposed her, she leaves us with this thought-provoking moral:



Yeah, so take that, parents!

* I can't wait to see the kind of Google searches this post is going to attract.

posted by Mikester  @ 10:21 |

I bought Dan Clowes' Lloyd Llewellyn series off the stands when it was originally released. I've been buying Eightball since the first issue. I have been recommending Eightball to our customers since the beginning, and have helped to create a nice large audience for it locally. (When we had trouble getting the first issue back in stock way back when, I happened to be at a convention where another dealer had a pile of #1s for sale at about a buck each. I bought them all, brought them back to the store, and sold every single one.) I keep all the Clowes book collections in stock, and display them prominently.

When the new issue came in, we put the display poster right in the front window, next to the door, directly beneath the "OPEN/CLOSED" sign.

Our stock of Eightball #23 is currently racked on our "NEW ARRIVALS" graphic novel bookshelf. We continue to recommend it to our customers. In fact, we have mostly sold through our order, and I'll probably have to reorder this week.

The reason I'm stating all this? I'd been feeling a little lax in my comics weblogging duties in that I haven't made with the Eightball #23 review yet. The comic is excellent, is thought-provoking, is very much worth discussing, but I don't have an angle on any kind of review. I have a series of random observations at best. (I realize that's never stopped me before, but I think Eightball #23 deserves a real review more than, say, Spider-Man 2.)

But I look at all the points I made above and I realize -- you know, I've already done my part for the Dan Clowes entertainment juggernaut. I carry it in the store. I hand-sell it to people. I have a large clientele that has come to trust my judgement when I recommend comics and books to them, and the work of Dan Clowes is always very highly recommended.

So I'm posting guilt-free. If I suddenly have a revelation and decide that, yes indeedy, I do have something to say about Eightball #23, I'll post my review, but meanwhile there are plenty of other excellent overviews on other weblogs. (Sean Collins' review is the one that's stuck with me the most...a very interesting take.)

In the meantime...buy a copy for yourself if you haven't already. It's very good. You can trust me.

You've got a friend in old Mike.

posted by Mikester  @ 21:40 |

1. Something puzzling pal Dorian and me - people who are confused by Grant Morrison's story in DC Comics Presents Mystery in Space. Why? Because it has more than one simultaneous narrative thread? Seemed pretty straightforward to us. This is right up there with complaints about not understanding Morrison's "Rock of Ages" story from JLA.

2. Coming issues of Identity Crisis: #3 - we flash back to when You Know Who was beaten up by the Monster Society of Evil. #4 - We remember when You Know Who was audited by the IRS. #6 - You Know Who's body is dug up and kicked around a bit by Abnegazar, Ghast & Rath. #7 - You Know Who's body is eaten by Arkkis Chummuck.

3. Added to the weblogroll: Weezer and Geezer, run (with his pop) by Josh Cottingham, a former coworker of mine. Clearly, he's been up to no good since leaving the funnybook-sellin' field, since apparently he was on the reality TV show Amazing Race 4. Neat! And all this time I thought all he did was wait in lines for Star Wars movies.

posted by Mikester  @ 10:54 |