Ill-Gotten Gain

Well, not particularly ill-gotten; I did pay for the things. But anyway, here's the list of comics wot I got this week:

Dark Reign Hood #3 (of 5)
Detective Comics #855
Fantastic Four #569
Ignition City #4
New Avengers #55
Secret Warriors #6
Superman #690
Terror Inc Apocalypse Soon #4 (of 5)
Ultimatum #5 (of 5)

It strikes me that my posting of this information every week will be of little or no interest to anyone, even if anyone is reading this blog, but I guess it'll be something I can read back over and see what I was buying on a given week. Then again, it also strikes me even I might not be interested in doing that.

Aw fuck it. I'll carry on doing it. What the hell else am I gonna write about?

Not sure what I'm looking forward to most out of these. New Avengers maybe? Ultimatum I'm only buying 'cos I wanna see how it ends; it's been pretty appalling all the way through. Fantastic Four I'm quitting after this issue. Just wanna see how Mark Millar's run finishes (although he's only co-writing at this point). And on the danger list (as in, in danger of being dropped) we have Secret Warriors and Superman. I want to see socks being pulled up pretty sharpish with those two, or else they're gone. So there.

Late Lamented Letters Pages

Letters pages in comic books finally fizzled out a few years ago. The last one I remember seeing was in an issue of Captain America some way into Ed Brubaker's run. DC had already dropped them across their line a few years before that. Now neither Marvel nor DC run letters pages (as far as I'm aware). Which is a shame, because that's a window on the readership that's going to be lost for anyone looking back. Sure, there's the various internet message boards, but those threads don't necessarily stay around forever. Whereas a letters page in a physical comic book acts as a near-as-dammit permanent time capsule, shedding light on what the most fervent fans were thinking at the time.

Why is that important? Honestly, I don't know if it is. But I've been re-reading old Alan Moore Swamp Things, and the letters pages are often fascinating: the shock in the missives at Moore's first few issues (where Swampy's origin was stood on its head); the arrival as editor of Karen Berger, future Vertigo supremo. If you check the names of letter-writers in old comics, you'll often recognize a future comics writer or artist, firing off adolescent fanmail to their favourite book. In years to come, will we be able to look back at archived message board threads and spot the stars of tomorrow? Or have we lost something unique, something maybe even worthwhile?

Am I right in thinking

that the one truly noteworthy news story from San Diego – Marvel picking up the rights to publish Marvelman/Miracleman/Marvelman/whatever the fuck he's called now – leaves anyone who's been following the Marvelman rights clusterfuck since Eclipse went down the pan in exactly the same position as before, i.e., not knowing if or when or even if ever Neil Gaiman's run will be finished or if there'll be new material or, or, or anything really?

OK, well I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Back

from the comic shop, where I almost, almost bought the Darwyn Cooke adaptation of the Parker novel The Hunter (a.k.a. Point Blank). I've been thinking of trying some of the Parker books for a while, hunting round for old US editions whenever I'm in secondhand book shops, so I was kinda looking forward to Cooke's interpretation. And today there it was on the display table in the middle of the shop, waiting for me. So of course I head straight for it and reach out for it and even before I pick it up I realise it's... kind of small. Dimension-wise, I mean. More like a hardback novel than a graphic novel. Did I know that already and just forgot? Possibly. But it still stopped me in my tracks a little. Anyway, no biggie, I take a look inside, nice art, all good, maybe I'll buy it (even though it'll be cheaper on Amazon), hmm, uh, oh, hang on, what's this?

The captions.

The captions are in the past tense.

Arrgh!

Now, I haven't read it yet, so I can't really criticize, and it's possible past tense captions work really well in this particular instance, but, DID WE NOT DISCUSS THIS BEFORE? HMM?! ANYONE??!! The Stand adaptation? Past tense captions? Ringing any bells?

Sort it out.

Covered

I love this blog with a vengeance, but sometimes the artists come up with an approach that's so clever and witty, it becomes more than just tribute, actually saying something about the comic that's covered, the context, the history, the audience... just like art should.

Lots of Covered contributors have had a stab at Avengers #221, but this is really rather brilliant.

The List The List The List for This Week!

Whoo! Yeah! Alright! Here it is!

Aliens #2 (of 4)
Amazing Spider-Man #600
Captain Britain And MI 13 #15
Final Crisis Legion Of Three Worlds #5 (of 5)
Green Lantern #44
Incredible Hulk #600
Invincible #64

Hmm. That's a pretty poor showing actually. Not a great week for new comics. Not even sure about getting Aliens (first issue was OK; I'll flick through this one first I think) or Amazing Spider-Man (haven't really touched it since the Brand New Day debacle). To be honest, I could quite easily skip all of these and not have any real regrets (apart from Final Crisis Legion, which rules).

But that would mean not going to the comic shop this week.

AND THAT WAY LIES MADNESS!