Not Liveblogging the May 2010 Previews for July

Okay, I’m officially not liveblogging the previews this month,  haven’t got nearly enough time. But. BUT. I reserve the right to bitch about stupid things:

First up, why is this killing trees?:

Time Masters: Vanishing Point #1
On Sale July 21 – 1 of 6 – 32pg, FC, $2.99
Written by Dan Jurgens. Art and Cover by Dan Jurgens and Karl Story

TIME MASTERS: VANISHING POINT #1 launches “The Search for Batman,” as Rip Hunter puts together a high-powered band of Time Masters to travel through time in search of the World’s Greatest Detective. But can even the combined might and skill of Superman, Green Lantern and Booster Gold help the Time Master pinpoint where Batman went at the conclusion of FINAL CRISIS? Information that could keep Vanishing Point from tearing itself apart?

This six-issue mini-series, a companion piece to BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE and a story chock full of clues that point toward the next major DCU event, hits in July from writer artist Dan Jurgens with a variant cover by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story (the artists on BATMAN: RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1). How can you say no?

(VIA)

A companion series to back-up players from Grant Morrison’s Batman? Set to end 3 months after the story it compliments? Uggggggh. I don’t even want to order this. I’ve got nothing against Jurgens, but this ill-advised, poorly timed, and entirely superfluous little mini-series is just gonna clutter up my racks. Forget this.


Edit: Okay, one more.

Marvel is reprinting the 1960s MARVELMAN stuff in hardcover, black and white, 160 pages at a time, and charging 35 American Dollars for the privilege.  Is anyone going to buy this? Anyone at all? It’s so very, very expensive.

AND, in case that’s not good enough, they’re doing a 6 issue ‘best of’ reprinting in black and white for four bucks an issue as well.

Is it just me or is the pricing on this totally out to lunch? More than 20 cents a page for black and white reprints?

I think I’ll be counting on reorders for this one.

And not needing them.

– Chris

2 Replies to “Not Liveblogging the May 2010 Previews for July”

  1. My congratulations. It isn’t hard to think of bigger things wrong with the world, but at the same time it’s good to see someone calling shenanigans on this crap, and then backing it up.

    The phrase “making-the-Lorax-weep-at-the-waste-of-trees” has seemed almost constantly applicable when reading about big American comics publishers’ products, ever since I first read said phrase on this blog. (Which wasn’t that long ago, but it also seems retroactively applicable for years into the past. heh.)

  2. the Marvelman reprints bring up several responses – first – that the rights to the actual Marvelman material that people want to read clearly is not as cleared up as was implied originally. or maybe Marvel really is trying to avoid pissing off Alan Moore again (I know that he’s signed off on his rights to this, but do you really think he’ll be silent if Marvel screws something up?).

    Second – this is Marvel’s way of “proving” that while people claimed that they wanted the Marvelman material, “the marketplace” will show that they really didn’t. I don’t have a problem with reprinting the B&W material, but it should be an Essential volume, not a horribly, grossly overpriced hardcover. Anybody who read the reprints that Eclipse put out back in the day will attest that a little bit of the original Marvelman material goes a LOOOOOONG way.

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