I’m sure that several of you folks are familiar with a little program on the comedy channel by the name of South Park which is notorious for their crude but sharp humor and satire. The show recently reached it’s 200th episode which resulted in a cliffhanger involving the TRUE revelation of who Eric Cartman’s father really is. See, for over 10 years (yes, the show has been on the air that long.) we’ve been led to believe that Cartman’s father was, well, his mother who was once a hermaphrodite. Episode 201 revealed that this was false.
Now, South Park is the kind of show that really pokes fun at pop culture, but seldom do they delve into the world of comics quite like they did with episode 201. If you saw the episode, you would also have been delighted to see their direct homage to the classic Alan Moore story, Batman: the Killing Joke starring Scott Tenorman as the Joker. I gaped in wonderment once I saw Tenorman sitting atop a pile of baby dolls in a way remenicsent of the Joker as he began his torment of Commissioner Gordan in the abandoned amusement park. There was even a scene in which Cartman was taken on a roller coaster car ride while Tenormans face appeared on multiple view screens throughout the ride, but with ginger kids replacing the creepy little people from the book. This nod to the Killing Joke was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the censorship of saying the name of, or showing the image of the prophet (censored) who is a member of the Super Best Friends and had been shown and named in previous episodes. That was all well and good, but I was too busy geeking out on a Killing Joke scene in a South Park episode. Oh yeah, as it turns out, Cartmans dad was actually Scott Tenormans dad, who Cartman had killed and fed to Scott in a chili in the episode, “Scott Tenorman Must Die.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Trey and Matt have given a nod to fans of comics. One of my favorite characters, Butters, happens to dress up in a Doctor Doom costume and call himself Professor Chaos. Oh, hamburgers! And who can forget the episode that made Batman: The Dark Knight seem silly? Despite all the accusations of crudeness and controversy surrounding South Park, you can’t deny that it relentlessly prods pop-culture and society with utter glee. Comic books included.
After my experiences at the Diamond retailer summit, I want to re-focus my blogs on comics from some of the smaller comic publishers. Marvel and DC get enough attention, dammit! I know Dark Horse is a Diamond premiere publisher, but with how gracious and personable they were at the summit I think they’re deserving to have some more promotion for some of their smaller new titles. One that caught my attention recently was the cyber-activist series “Hellcyon.”
Written and illustrated by Lucas Marangon (Star Wars – Tag & Bink), “Hellcyon” follows an emerging civil war on an off-world colony, shortly after the new settlement has its first democratic election and the Earth army retaliates. A guerrilla group known as the Suicide Division, formed out of Halycon’s student union, obtains stolen military hardware and the motley crew must unite to help prevent the military from massacring the burgeoning population.
The first issue is sporadic, but nevertheless shows promise, mainly from the strength of Marangon’s strong art. The man can draw a fast-paced action sequence that literally races off the page with transforming motorcycle mech-robots. At its best, you get a mixture of the rebel activists in “AKIRA,” the hyper-cool robots in “Robotech,” and a hint of the dystopian outlook of “Transmetropolitan.”
At first Marangon’s artistic strength doesn’t crossover to the basic character designs, and it does take a while to get accustomed to his seemingly derivative style. However, by the end of the issue, it’s refreshing to have an non-Japanese comic artist celebrate mechs so blatantly. It’s biggest achievement is that it leaves the reader thinking “Hellcyon” is cool, which is always a plus for any sci-fi series. The story might need a little fine tuning, but it still has three issues to do that. It nice to see a Dark Horse mini series that deserves your attention, so don’t let “Hellcyon” pass you up.
Finally. A sequel to one of the most beloved/hated fighting games of all time is on its way to bring us yet another “New Age of Heroes”. That of course, was the subtitle to Marvel Vs Capcom 2. A week or two ago, depending on when you read this, Capcom held their annual “secret” announcement event, Capcom Captivate. This year, the meeting was held in Hawaii and featured a few major announcements for games that had yet to have been spoken about. Among the titles, “Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds” came as the biggest announcement of the event, igniting loads of conversations across the Internet from subjects ranging from the character roster to storyline to the mechanics of the game. For the uninitiated, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 is the 7th fighting game designed by Capcom that features characters from the Marvel universe. Here’s a not so quick rundown.
The first game was entitled, X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), and featured 6 X-Men and 6 Villains and the secret character of Akuma (Hidden boss character of Super Street Fighter II). The X-Men selectable were as follows: Cyclops, Colossus, Iceman, Storm, Psylocke, and Wolverine. The villains were as follows: Omega Red, Spiral, Silver Samurai, and a Miniature Sentinel. The other two unplayable villains were Juggernaut and Magneto. This game set the foundation for the over the top action that is a stable of the Vs Series of games. Following the X-Men game, Marvel Super Heroes (1995) was released, featuring characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Shuma-Gorath (weird choice, right?), and Blackheart. Also among the playable were returning characters from the X-Men game; Wolverine, Psylocke, Magneto, and Juggernaut. And to complete the game, there was also Doctor Doom and Thanos (only playable with the input of a code) and Anita (From Capcom’s Darkstalkers… This was only in the Japanese version). This game loosely followed the events of the Infinity Gauntlet story line and introduced a number of game mechanics that would remain with a few of these characters throughout the rest of these games. Then, along came X-Men Vs Street Fighter (1996) which introduced the tag team system that has remained a feature in every Marvel/Capcom crossover ever since. This game introduced 3 “new” Marvel characters in the form of Gambit, Rogue, and Sabretooh as well as various characters from Street Fighter Alpha 2. The boss of this game was a giant Apocalypse who was so large, that only his upper body could be contained on the screen. That was pretty cool the first time I saw it.
In 1997, we were given the awesome Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter. The majority of the mutant roster were swapped for characters from the earlier Marvel Super Heroes, save for Cyclops and Wolverine. The final bosses for this game were a combination of a round with the giant Apocalypse, then another round featuring Cyber-Akuma (A souped-up cyborg version of Akuma as created by Apocalypse to become the Horseman of Death). What’s cool here, is that there were a number of secret characters to chose from that were “extra” versions of existing characters. For example, one could chose to play as US Agent over Captain America, or as an armored version of Spider-Man that was based off of the grey & black armored suit that Spider-Man once wore for a short period of time. Next up in the line of games was Marvel Vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998), which featured the debut of Venom and War Machine on the Marvel side and the Street Fighter roster was cut in half to introduce a wider variety of Capcom characters. Characters like Megaman (Megaman), Jin Saotome (Cyberbots), Strider Hiryu (Strider), Captain Commando (Captain Commando), and Morrigan (Darkstalkers) rounded out the Capcom side with the leftover Street Fighter characters. What this game introduced to the series was the ability to call out an “Assist Character” to help dish out some damage. The storyline of this game loosely followed the plot of the Onslaught story, featuring a battles between a regular-sized Onslaught as well as a giant-sized Onslaught. And that brings us to Marvel Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000). This game introduced a 3 on 3 tag team system and featured a cast of 56 characters. It included every Marvel character that had been created since X-Men: Children of the Atom, with the exception of Apocalypse, Onslaught, and the “extra” versions of characters that had appeared in previous games. In addition to that roster, a few more Marvel characters were put into the game; Marrow (X-Men/Morlock), Boneclaw Wolverine, and Cable (X-Men). This game was pure madness. But alas, there was no sequel… Until now.
Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Due out in Spring 2011) was just announced for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. At the moment, there are only 6 confirmed characters for the game, with a suggested roster of around 30 characters to be split between the two companies. Now, I’d imagine that part of the reason it’s taken 10 years for another game to come out has to due with licensing. Some time after the home releases of MVC2, the license to produce games featuring X-Men and Marvel characters ended up going to game companies; Activision and EA. As I recall, it may have had something to do with money, but whatever. We got a few good games out of the other companies… We got a few bad ones too… But at the end of the last year (2009) Activision lost the license to Marvel games and EA and Marvel ended their partnership back in 1998. You may remember the mini series, “Marvel Nemesis”… I remember that I didn’t like it at all. I don’t think Marvel liked it either. But that was a part of the EA/Marvel deal. I’m glad that’s done with. But here in the now, the license is back where it belongs. So what do we know about this game?
Well, like I said before, we know of 6 characters. Hulk, Iron Man, and Wolverine are representing the Marvel side, and Ryu (Street Fighter), Morrigan (Darkstalkers), and Chris Redfield (Resident Evil 1, Code Veronica, and 5) are representing the Capcom side. What we also know, is that we shouldn’t expect any of the Fantastic Four to be in this game, however, in one of the promotional pictures above, we can see a silhouette of what looks to be Super Skrull… Which is just as good, seeing as he has all the powers for the F4, so that’s not really a loss. Another thing that we know, is that the majority of the Marvel characters that have yet to be announced are going to be relevant with the times. Characters that are going to be doing big things in the comics by the time the game comes out. Then there’s the story. MVC2 didn’t really have one, at least, not one worth mentioning. This time around, every character is said to have a strong storyline or motivation for this game. MVC3 is designed to bring in both old fans and new fans to this world. And the last thing that I’ve heard about is the rumblings of a possible mini series that would be a companion to this game. I’m excited. Are you?
The X-Men animated series in 90s was awesome. I was already a big X-Men comic book fan and when FOX decided to make a cartoon I was excited, it lived up to all the expectations I had as a kid. Even now as 27 year old adult I still enjoy it and think how much they did the greatest comic book team justice. I mean the first episode you have the Cyclops, Jean Grey and Wolverine love triangle, on top of that Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Beast, Jubilee and Professor Xavier all sound and act they way you would picture it. I mean when I read X-Men comics I picture them as the voices of the animated series. The show made me a even bigger Wolverine fan, they captured his toughness, and mystery of character almost perfectly. It’s probably my favorite portrayal of Wolverine.
All the villains were there, Magneto, Apocalypse, Sentinels, Sabretooth, and even Mojo were done perfectly. You had other X-Men characters introduced Bishop, Colossus, Cable, Dazzler, Iceman, Archangel, etc., but my favorite was the Nightcrawler episode. They didn’t shy away from Nightcrawler’s spirituality and were able to show the how it gave the character his strength despite his demonic appearance. As someone who values his own spirituality and faith I thought it was one of the best episodes of the series.
They had all the great stories; Phoenix and Dark Phoenix saga, Asteroid M, Weapon X project, Days of the Future Past. They captured the essence and history of the X-Men in a 30 minute Saturday morning cartoon. In all honesty the animated series made me cherish the comic even more and were so much better than all 3 X-Men movies. No television or movie comic adaption has done it better, with the exception of Batman the Animated Series.
I simply cannot ignore a great cover if you haven’t noticed by now. This past week the one cover I couldn’t take my eyes off of was Daredevil #506 with its homage to traditional Japanese prints. This looks like a piece by Hokusai, but with ya know, Daredevil.
I backtracked after being lured in by the cover and found a tale of Matt Murdock, now the head of the Hand, contending with infighting from a young upstart within the Hand that takes whatever opportunity he can get to undermine and discredit Matt as he attempts to turn the ninja assassin clan into a force of good. Even when DD pulls the ungrateful whelp out of a jam, he still accuses him of destroying all that is profitable about being a head of the Hand. Daredevil has been pretty good for the past decade while being handled by Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker, So Andy Diggle who has a knack for this kind of stuff, is a good fit.
But back to the cover. Isn’t that awesome?! I know that a great cover isn’t enough to make a great read. We all know the old saying. However, in the world of comics, it’s often a cover that brings someone to check out a title and this particular cover got me to bite.
When I first heard about Marvels new SHIELD series, I ignored it since I thought is was going to be just another rehash of their famous spy agency. When I looked through it, I discovered a new series that I’m already a fan of. out of context, I saw Galactus standing over Renaissance era Venice, a Celestial menacing ancient China and Leonardo Da Vinci making contraptions. That was enough to hook me in.
Once I finally read it, I found a story about the worlds brightest people throughout history defending the world from unknown threats. SHIELD is apparently a secret society composed of the wisest and most innovative minds dating back as far as ancient Egypt, and including figures like Da Vinci and Galilaeo. I’m sort of a history fan, so I actually enjoy how the story bounces from time period to time period with the main story anchoring in post WWII America where SHIELD is fielded by agents by the name of Richards and Stark, but lets just say that it isn’t Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic playing secret agent man. I’m very impressed by the creative team of writer Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver who weave such an epic yet intricate story. Hickman is probably best known as the writer on the current Fantastic Four run, which is a consistent sell-out at the shop.
The coolest feature of the first issue was the release of the variant edition which is rendered in the original inks, no color. I picked up this copy since I like to see just how an artist pulled something off and it was nifty seeing how he executed some of the grey tones in the originals. SHIELD is a mind blowing read.
Here we are again! This month, I want to talk to you about one of the greatest comic book adaptations of the 90s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You see, the Ninja Turtles were… Well, I don’t actually think that there is anyone reading this blog who doesn’t know what the Ninja Turtles are. A pretty cool concept from the late 80s, that brought us one of the most marketable franchises of all time. Starting with the comic book, a slew of cartoons, movies, action figures, more comics, pencils, shirts, erasers, pens, shoes, trading cards, bags, coats, hats, costumes, fake weapons, real weapons… The list goes on and on and on. So which adaption am I talking about then? The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, that’s what I’m talking about.
As an adaption, the movie did an excellent job of using the comic as source material and keeping true to the story… At least, as best as it could. You see, an idea that’s usually tossed around is that The Shredder was, is, and will always be the Turtles’ greatest enemy… However, the problem with that lies in the fact that Shredder was killed at the conclusion of the first issue of the comic book. As I recall, there were no plans for an issue 2, so when the creators went back to the drawing board, the Foot Clan and various replacements for Shredder were created to compensate. This, coupled with the success of the 1987 cartoon series that featured Shredder as a recurring villain, gave the filmmakers an issue as to what needed to be done to create a story that stays true to the comic, as well as remain marketable for children who were only familiar with the lighter natured cartoon. So what we received was an amalgamation of the first issue of the comic as well as bits from the Raphael comic, and the story arcs dealing with the turtles being forced to leave New York and their eventual return, as well as a few elements from the cartoon (different colored masks for the turtles, April O’Neil being a reporter).
Outside of nostalgia, what makes this film work for me as one of favorites has to be the technology that went into making this film work. Where the Howard the Duck movie and Star Wars films set the standard for animatronics/body suit puppetry, TMNT took that to the next level. The suits were made by Jim Henson’s creature shop, and Jim Henson himself, claimed that at the time, they were the most advanced things that he’d ever worked on. To this day, they still hold up pretty well, and that’s just the suits from the first movie. And let’s not just forget the voice acting. Of note, the only voice that should be familiar to anyone is that of Cory Feldman’s. Now, a lot of people give me crap for liking Feldman, and there are a lot of valid points that are made to me, but as a child actor, I feel that his work was pretty solid, plus, he’s one of few actors to have played a character that can claim to have killed Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th fame). But that’s for another a blog… Anyway, Cory Feldman does the voice for Donatello, which I think is pretty cool. But what’s even cooler is that the voice of Raphael, Josh Pais, was the only one of the actors to actually be inside one of the turtle suits.
Technology praise aside, the story itself is pretty cool too. Four turtles found in a swear by an orphaned pet rat (Splinter) of a martial arts master, are raised in the art of Ninjitsu. Due to a vial of toxic waste, the turtles (named after various influential Renaissance leaders) and the rat take on humanoid size and features and begin to take on the seedy underbelly of New York City. Meanwhile, the city’s youth are being taken in by an American division of a sect of Japanese assassin/thieves, none as the Foot. Their leader, the Shredder, was responsible for the death of the rat’s master and has a menacing voice. News reporter, April O’Neil, is saved by the turtles one night, and eventually comes to befriend the group. A co-worker of April’s has a problem with his son being romanced by the Foot, and Raphael is a hothead who eventually befriends a hockey-masked vigilante by the name of Casey Jones. Thus, all the seeds of the story are planted, and a great action/comedy is created. Of note, at the time, the TMNT movie was the highest grossing independent movie ever, and went on to be the fifth highest grossing movie of the year (1990).
What isn’t there to like about the TMNT? If for some reason, you’ve never seen the first movie, do yourself a favor and see it. It’s available in just about every format ever, as well as available at just about every venue that sells or rents DVDs. It’s worth a viewing, no matter how silly the concept may or may not seem to you. Also, Roger Ebert gave the movie crap… I don’t actually feel like quoting him again, but it was similar to what he said about the Josie and the Pussycats movie that I spoke about in the last edition of this fun feature blog. Anyway, give it a chance if you’ve never seen it, and if you have? Go see it again. There’s no harm in it.
Alright… I love the idea of Jubilee getting some time in a Mutant-centric book and all, but come on, not if she’s a vampire. I mean, seriously? I know and understand that there are vampires in the Marvel continuity:characters like Blade, Morbius, and whatever public domain vampire that’s around… But I find this to be absurd. This is the direction that Marvel is taking the mutants in a post-Osbourn run world? I don’t like that one bit. The X-Men have been really exciting for me lately. Ever since the decimation of their numbers, they’ve grown more and more on me. Every mutant life is precious… So that’s why I’m just astounded that some of these characters are going to become vampires. What. The. Hell?!? But despite this idea (that i think is awful), if things continue as they are, we’re going to see it happen twice in the same year. First in the main continuity, then again in the Ultimate continuity.
Now… I don’t know what’s worse about this. Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Civil War) is pissed because he’s been trying to have some kind of vampire war happen in the Ultimate universe for about 5 years now. Apparently, he’s talked about it quite often, and he can’t seem to make any sense as to why Marvel would rip his idea and openly compete with their own properties with the same story line. I’d be pissed if that happened to me, but then… I wouldn’t be trying to write some kind of vampire epic with superheroes either. Maybe I have a bias here, seeing as vamps are one of my least liked supernatural entities. Werewolves and ghosts are my top 2, and vampires rank somewhere just above mummies (which happen to be near or at the bottom of my list). But like I said, I don’t know what’s worse; the idea that Marvel is going to run two stories about vampires and mutants, the idea that Mark Millar came up with that idea first, or that Jubilee is gonna be a vampire. It’s probably the Jubilee thing. But one of the few pluses that I see here is that Blade is going to be at the center at both of the stories as well as Jubilee. That’s cool.
But you know what? I could be completely wrong. One or both of these series could end up blowing me away. I suppose that’s why we aren’t supposed to judge books by their covers… But still, vampire mutants? As if they didn’t have enough problems.
Last time I talked about my experience at the Diamond Retailer Summit. Now, I’ll liven it up with a recap of C2E2. I should preface this with the fact that I’ve never been to any sort of comic convention before. Consequently, this was quite an experience for me!
My first day at C2E2 was on Friday. I had early admittance because they let all the retailers from the summit in at the “professionals-only” hours. The first thing I did was redeem a number of coupons I received earlier that week. This allowed me to get some pretty sweet swag, like autographed copies of “Groom Lake” from Ben Templesmith who was there signing, and the complete first volume of “Biomega” from Viz Media. After that, I started wandering around the convention looking for deals.
My two goals for the weekend were to find the long out-of-print “AKIRA” volume 6, and volumes 3 and 4 of Image’s “Godland.” When I was done aimlessly walking through artist alley, I made my way to the retail section. At this point, you are completely inundated with choices. You have three options. First, you have you’re local Chicago retailers who sell their books at normal retail price. Been there, done that. Second, you have the collector market, which is a number of booths of ridiculously expensive golden and silver age comic issues. That was a little out of my price range. Finally, you have super discount booths that have an “everything must go” mentality. I don’t know where they find their merchandise, but with they way they had things priced it felt like it had to have been illegal.
While rummaging through the discount books my fist goal was achieved. Sitting on an endcap display was the complete set of “AKIRA,” including volume 6. The best part was it was only $6.00! I ended up leaving that booth with two hard cover volumes of “Walking Dead” and a soft cover copy of “Civil War” as well. It was only a few hours into the convention and my bag was already twice as heavy with books.
Luckily, I ran into quite a few people I knew. A lot of Star Clipper regulars were at C2E2, including Brian Spath, Mike Jones, and Steve Higgins. Serendipitously, Jason Green was also there and he was hanging out with two other retailers, Mike Byrd and Steve Unverferth, from an Illinois comic chain called Fantasy Books. I hug around with the guys at Fantasy Books and even scored some C2E2 exclusive White Lantern Sinestro and Black Lantern Hal Jordan action figures with them. By this point, with all the freebies, my purchases, and all the promotional items from the summit, I clearly had too much stuff to carry on my flight back home. Thankfully, the guys at Fantasy Books offered to drive my stuff back for me so I wouldn’t have to spend money on having it shipped back.
We went back to the Sheraton hotel to drop off stuff and allow me to organize what I needed them to drive back for me. After scrabbling to find an empty box at a local liquor store, I packed up my promo items and made my way to drop off the box at Mike’s room. This took a lot longer than I expected however, because the elevator in the luxury hotel broke and the stairs were not nearly as convenient for a 30-story building. When I finally got all the packages settled with the guys, I then made arrangements to stay with ex-Star Clipper manager Nick Kuntz who now lives in Chicago.
I made my way to meet up with Nick by taking the L train (much, much cheaper than a taxi) and this allowed me to really take in the massiveness of the city of Chicago. Two other Star Clipper regulars, Jared Rourke and David Peery, were also staying with Nick. We all met up at Quimby’s comics, had dinner, and went back to Nick’s apartment where I instantly went to bed. It had been a long day, and despite the other three talking in the other room I had no problem falling asleep.
The next morning we made our way back to C2E2. Jared and David were originally only going to go to the Neil Gaiman reading at the end of the night, but tempted by dropping us off at the convention decided to tag along.
During the second day I ran into a lot of comic creators. When I stopped at the Top Shelf table I talked to Jeffrey Brown who instantly remembered me from when we had him at Star Clipper. I was flattered. I chatted with a few other Top Shelf creators like St. Louis’ Matt Kindt. I also saw some of the other St. Louis comic creators like Brian Hurtt and Cullen Bunn at the Oni Press booth and Bryan Edward Hill at the Top Cow booth. I picked up a T-Shirt for my girlfriend Chrissy from her favorite web-comic illustrator Jeff Jacque of “Questionable Content” fame. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, but did think the new convention was slower than expected. Surprisingly enough, both Jim Lee and Carrie Fisher walked right by me before their signings. I didn’t get to talk to them, but it was cool to see them up close.
As expected, there was also quite a bit of people dressed in costumes. My favorite costume was a girl dressed up as a Na’vi from “Avatar.” She actually had her eyelids painted. When she poised for pictures she would close her eyes revealing bright yellow Na’vi eyes. My second favorites were a tie between a really lazy looking Super Mario and a befuddled Captain America. I only got one picture (courtesy of Brian Spath) with Mojo, villain of the Uncanny X-men, who I think ranks among most elaborate costumes ever.
Later, Nick and I went to the retail section again and rummaged through long box after long box. I eventually found “Godland” volume 3, but no luck on volume four. After a few overpriced junk food stops, Nick left with some signed D&D art and me with more stuff than I could handle. Jared and David offered to drive some more of the books I bought back for me, and Nick and I saw them off to the Neil Gaiman reading before making the half hour trek to the train station. Parting ways there, the train delivered me to the Airport early, where I sat and reflected about the weekend (and all the cool stuff I bought).
It was fun, but I was ready to get home. Next time, a one-day pass will be more than enough for me.
As many of our Facebook or blog readers may know, I attended the Diamond Retailer Summit and C2E2 from April 14 – 16 in Chicago. Unfortunately, I had to miss the Brightest Day cupcake party we hosted (no one even saved me one bite-size cupcake), but I did learn quite a bit about the comic industry while I was gone.
I arrived at Chicago’s Midway Airport around 2 pm, and almost immediately my trip began in a daze with the fast-paced hustle of the big city. After a overpriced taxi ride (big mistake) to the Sheraton Hotel & Tower in the heart of downtown, also the site of the summit, I settled in my room with a fellow comic retailer and roommate named Craig, and then went down to the lobby to socialize with the other attendees.
The first night began with a Dark Horse meet & greet hosted by, as one speaker called it, an “over-dressed” Jim Shooter. He was signing copies of a reprint collection of “Solar – Man of the Atom,” a book he actually didn’t have anything to do with but was promotion for his upcoming “Solar” relaunch. He seemed less than enthused. The night picked up momentum when all the retailers got to go to a free advance screening of “Kick Ass.” Check out the picture below of the line I was in. The overall audience reaction was highly positive, and I felt like I might have been the only one there who liked the graphic novel better than the film. Either way, the film seems to have underperformed at the box-office this weekend, so if you liked it tell your friends!
The next day was a real work out. It was an intensive non-stop 13 plus hour day, mixed with presentations and focus groups with the different comic publishers. The most “eye-opening” aspect of the whole day was how gracious the smaller publishers were, especial the newly anointed premiere publisher IDW. Other companies that made memorable presentations were Dark Horse, Boom Studios, Dynamite, Archaia, and Viz Media. If you’re a comic reader that has been debating picking up a book for any of these publishers I highly suggest you do. They’ve gained a lot of good will from my perspective and deserve the attention.
Without a doubt, Marvel had the most disappointing focus group. Marvel’s manager of sales David Gabriel didn’t even show up, and the rest of the focus group was a sales pitch for the Marvel Retailer Resource Center, a site Star Clipper is already using thus making it a complete waste of my time. Later at the DC panel, VP of sales Bob Wayne shot down my suggestion that DC/Warner make their Direct-to-DVD films more affordable for the direct market, so we could compete with big box retailers like Wal-mart and Best Buy. My thoughts on the subject are, as the front line of comic information, comic shops are the perfect place to cross promote source material like graphic novels that correspond with their direct-to-DVD films. Yet, if Best Buy is selling DVDs at our cost it doesn’t leave much incentive for our customers to buy with our higher prices. Before I finished my thought that DC/Diamond could maybe offer an incentive where comic shops could buy a certain volume of books to get the DVDs in at a competitive price, I was interrupted with how I was suggesting price gouging. Hhmm… not really, but I guess don’t expect to see DVDs at comic shops anytime soon. In all fairness, I would have likely asked Marvel the same question but no one was there to ask it.
The biggest news was announced at the Saturday night dinner, where Diamond suggested moving new comic day from Wednesday to Tuesday. This makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons. First, tons of other media, like DVDs, CDs, video games, and books hit the street on Tuesday. We would simply be following suit. Also, the earlier release would allow more time for comic shops to reorder and be properly stocked for high-sale weekends. Not all the retailers were for it, or even having all the books ship a day earlier so we could set up product sooner, but Diamond certainly had a number of concerns as to why it would be extraordinarily hard to make this adjustment. Their whole system would have to change with the way things ship to UPS and earlier arrivals might also mean shops would put new product out before ship dates. Diamond even suggested paying a weekly fee of $5.00 to have a third party police comic shops that might be putting product out early. Ultimately, I think if the release date ever happens it could really change the industry for the better.
The other big subject was the push for digital comics. The case study was with IDW publishing, who’s digital sales only currently make up 1% of their profits. Yet, they didn’t release any information on what their project growth rate was on that profit margin. Honestly, by the end of the first presentation, I emailed Ben and AJ and suggest Star Clipper start carrying iPhones and iPads to stay competitive in the future.
One final subject that I think a lot of our readers might be happy to hear about is the retailers push to have comics released more evenly throughout the months, i.e. not having every X-Men title come out the same week but spaced throughout the month. Most of the publishers heard what we had to say, but responded that not all creators follow such rigid schedules. Would we be able do expect the same level of work if creators always met their deadlines? Fair enough response…
The rest of the time was spent interacting with other retailers and diamond reps, and discussing the industry inexhaustible. It ended up being very educational, but does drain the fun out of funny books. Next time will be my recap on the wacky happening that is C2E2.
One of my favorite bookstores in St. Louis. Star Clipper offers not only the best selection of comic books and graphic novels in the city, but also a cornucopia of art, design and pop-culture related books and magazines. 
