ASTERIOS POLYP GNIt wasn't until very recently that I even knew this was coming out. Outside of the obvious (DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, BATMAN: YEAR ONE, CITY OF GLASS) I have always really liked Mazzucchelli, and imagined he was just done with comics, or very slow. A very pleasant surprise indeed. Looked at the first ten or so pages and...well, we'll see how it goes.
GREEN LANTERN #43When Doug Mahnke was announced as the fill-in artist on the last issue of FINAL CRISIS, I was kind of happy. After SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN, I knew Mahnke was yet another one of those artists who seemed to be able to take Morrison scripts and make them readable as comics. After the fairly terrible art on the last few issues of GREEN LANTERN (Philip Tan, who I get to look forward to being the follow up artist to Frank fucking Quitely on BATMAN & fucking ROBIN), I was glad to see him pop up here next.
HARLAN ELLISONS DREAM CORRIDOR TP VOL 02A really random purchase (Vol. 1 is coming next week I guess). I didn't realize there was as much Harlan Ellison stories adapted into comics, nor did I know that there was an entire series with some artists of reputation drawing them (Richard Corben!).
NOBODY HCA combination of Jeff Lemiere's previous work on TALES FROM ESSEX COUNTY, the forthcoming SWEET TOOTH, and my fetish for bandaged characters in visual mediums, sold this sight unseen/unreviewed.
PRINCE VALIANT HC VOL 01 1937-1938I have never read any Hal Foster comics before, and I've been looking forward to doing so after having read about him in Dave Sim's GLAMOURPUSS (which, for my money, is one of the most important comics coming out right now...well, at least half of it anyway). This might be another of those prestige archival collections that go unread for quite a while (if ever? hi FLASH GORDON/BUCK ROGERS), but essential for the sake of my personal comics art history.
WEDNESDAY COMICS #1 (OF 12)I imagine and hope that the inevitable collection of this material is something along the lines of PRINCE VALIANT/previous ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY. I really like this project myself, ordered it without question. Amazing line up of creators, something a bit exciting and daring from a mainstream publisher format wise, a definite change of pace from the dreary to mundane string of weekly comic projects from DC since 52.
So from a retailing perspective; Bob ordered 8 copies total. Of these 8, 3 were pre-ordered (me, a friend, and a hardcore Joe Kubert and Neil Gaiman fan). Talking to Bob, no one asked him about it in the last few months. From the two weeks I worked the store solo, not a single request or question. I have read many comments that suggest that retailers are leery about this comic and were ordering via pull lists/pre-orders, and conservatively for the shelf. I have read ensuing comments from reader-customers that this is 'idiotic' and the retailer should know to support this fully, without reservation, to reach out beyond the 'Wednesday' crowd (ha!).
Considering this is full colour printed on newsprint for $3.99US an issue...that's $2 or so retailer cost for a format which was created in the mindset of existing temporarily, in a slight unconvential, flimsy state that promises only to yellow, tear, tatter. It doesn't look entirely unlike the freebie Marvel (a 1930s issue of the DAILY BUGLE) did a few weeks ago promoting their Golden Age MARVEL PROJECT. Newsprints, some colour...and free. Obviously you cannot compare the contents (dig that creator line up), but asking $3.99US, for twelve issues, for something this close to a recycling bin?
Day one sales: We have all but one copy unsold at the store now. Two file customers tried it out, gave it to the guy who buys literally everything from Marvel and DC, and one guy bought it who Bob had never seen before. One for the shelf. Checking Diamond, it appears to still be in stock. If I do sell that last copy tomorrow, and I have some more requests reorders are still possible. If I have a sudden rush of 5 or more people wanting to at least check it out, I've got a copy on hand to show off, and will happily reorder and sell it in another week (and play catch up with subsequent issues until we find our sales bottom).
Oh, just remembered I was thinking of doing this. These are our initial orders for the first and last issues of the DC weekly series.
| 52 WEEK #1 | 60 | 60 |
| 52 WEEK #52 | 37 | 37 |
| COUNTDOWN 51 | 45 | 45 |
| COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 1 | 29 | 29 |
| TRINITY #1 | 50 | 50 |
| TRINITY #52 | 11 | 11 |
And DC didn't even do the same returnable offer that it did with 52 or COUNTDOWN, did it? Maybe tomorrow I should gather up a stack of all the remainder issues of 52 and COUNTDOWN and TRINITY the store still has and take a photo. And these comics were $2.99US each, on the whole. TRINITY, at the very end, was straight to file.
And now...WEDNESDAY COMICS #1........8. An untested physical format, in a fairly tainted release format, with a one week USA TODAY article (not so widely read in Lethbridge, Alberta), appealing to...well, either hardcore DC types (a really dying breed), experimenters who will likely try the first one, and you & me.
-Jarrett
2 comments:
I'll be interested to see a review for The Nobody. Been hearing a lot about it and Mr. Lemiere and am definitely intrigued.
Read THE NOBODY today and it was fairly disappointing. Really nice cover, some good cartooning from Lemire, but not much of a story worth telling. A fairly unimaginative retelling of Wells' THE INVISIBLE MAN (Invisible Man vs Smalltown! That guy has a mullet!), cliche ridden narrative, (example: "If I knew then what I know now, I wonder if I'd do anything differently? I don't know...all I know for sure is that after he came here, everything changed forever" appears on the 4th-5th page, and was almost enough for me to put it down if I hadn't already spent $20US on it), and no moments that I could discern that would have made everything else too worth it.
I feel I might be a tad too dismissive of this work, but will probably only remember the complete indifference while reading. Actually, in some ways, what bothers me is that Lemire, a fellow Canadian and from looking at the photo on the back of the dust cover dresses very similar to me and around my age, is doing the sorts of stories I have thought about, and always decided against because outside of myself...they are pretty inconsequential. Just because you think of it and can draw it doesn't mean it should be done, or that anyone wants to read it.
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