Category: The Beguiling

And now, to the dulcet tones and beeps of Underworld’s Rez/Cowgirl, we shall commence liveblogging the second half of the Previews Catalogue. What does this mean, by the by? Well as I flip through the pages of the May 2009 Previews catalogue (for items scheduled to start shipping in July), I’m reading descriptions of the books, checking our order history and our sell-through of previous issues, and then figuring out how many copies I’m going to order. What you’re seeing are my honest, off-the-cuff reactions to the books (and attitudes…) found in your average issue of Previews. Ready, let’s read!

12:44pm: Page 178 features this month’s WIZARD solicit, which, again, looks like it’s being designed by the Previews staff rather than at Wizard. I really do think they’ve finally fired everyone at that magazine that they could…? Anyway. This page is notable because one of the features of this issue of WIZARD is: HOW TO GET YOUR GIRL TO READ COMICS, which is delightful in a late-90s internet article sort of way. The best, BEST part? The afformentioned “girl” in the little photo accompanying the article is carrying copies of: 6 Superhero books, Sin City, Y The Last Man, and… can’t quite make out the top one. Against a wall of high-priced back issues. So, yeah, this photo is not doing the article any favours. I’ve long-since grown past the need to read Wizard just to be offended or upset at bad content, but I’m really kind of anxious to read this one, just to see if it “lives up” to the photo.

Of course, I’m actually cutting orders on this issue as sales are sliding badly on the magazine…

12:52pm: We are continuing to sell out of Dave Sim’s Glamourpuss, which is kind of surprising… We’re also continuing to do the same with Terry Moore’s ECHO, which is less surprising, but I’m going to be honest, I really thought the first trade paperback would’ve killed the issue sales. Nope! It seems people want to read Terry Moore as soon as they can get him. Good for him.

12:59pm: PROCESS RECESS 3. The 3rd in AdHouse’s release of James Jean art-books. The first two have sold right-the-fuck-out and are going for ludicrous prices online. This third one apparently collects sketchbook work, new paintings and illustrations, all kinds of cool stuff by M. Jean. We’ll be ordering a bunch.

Cover Image to the right, click for (much) larger.

EDIT: Oh yeah, check out James Jean’s blog for more info on this, it’s nifty: http://www.processrecess.com/?uid=FA8BCD 

1:20pm: So, Page 188 shows us that Antarctic is now designing their own section of the Previews catalogue… With, I think, utterly disastrous results. I appreciate that it’s good to be able to control the size and presentation of your books–good for you, seriously. But? This is a jumbled mess. No center-of-interest, doesn’t lead the eye, and the blue hackground makes it basically-impossible for me to write my little numbers for what I want to order next to the solicit. :-/

As you can see, the only thing that really stands-out is the PRESIDENT EVIL title treatment, and even then, it’s a little difficult to make-out as Barack Obama (although really what else could it be…).

Yeah, guys, seriously this is not doing you any favours whatsoever. Look at like… catalogue layout sometime or something. Or figure out some way to layout your info better, because this is terrible.

1:36pm: I’m kind of having guilt pangs about not ordering this terrible fucking Obama/Resident Evil ‘parody’, because I know it will sell off the rack, but it’s just conceptually awful, like the terrible Barbarian comics probably will too. But no one has preordered them so I just don’t want them on the rack, I’d like to stand for something, you know? 

Anyway, I am conflicted. But I am not ordering them. If someone really wants one they can do a special order. 

1:39pm: So APE Entertainment’s The Trouble With Katie Rogers (p190) looks kind of neat. A contemporary romantic comedy in graphic novel format. We have a healthy balance of men and women shopping at the store, I’m curious if something like this will do well for us, or if it really is a bookstore thing. I’ll give it a go. (Nice MySpace page too, actually). 

Oh, also on this page is Zeke Deadwood: Zombie Lawman from SLG. I’m actually not “sick” of the Zombie thing yet, and this looks pretty good, played for laughs. Looks like a sort of Westerns versions of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. We’ll give this a solid order, hopefully it works out.

1:45pm: So all of my questioning is for naught, it looks very much like the Mouse Guard series has finished, and at Archaia to boot. Now here comes the second graphic novel collection, Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152.  I imagine it will do well for us.

I think I saw someone, maybe Mike Sterling, wondering aloud on his blog as to why the sales on the single-issues of the MOUSE GUARD series had dropped through the floor at his store. I think one reason why might be that the solicit for this collection promises “a new epilogue”, which, considering the series just ended this past week, is kind of unfortunate. I don’t subscribe to the idea that putting new content is “screwing” people who bought the singles–I did when I was a little younger but now I realize that you get what you pay for. You paid four bucks and issue for 6 issues of a comic, and you didn’t mind doing so at the time, you probably got $4 of enjoyment out of that book, epilogue or no. But seeing stuff like this happen? It does make customers less likely to support serialization, it does erode customers faith and interest in a series, and when you make it a selling feature that the pretty new hardcover contains a bunch of stuff not in the smelly-old issues, it makes me as a retailer reconsider my approach to ordering your single issue comics. Not just from this creator, but from this whole publisher.

So, you know, as a publisher you can do whatever the hell you want, it’s your business. Just know that there are reprecussions.

1:56pm: The ASPEN MLT INC. publisher pages look an awful lot like advertisements, but it turns out those are the solicitations, and the only ones at that. Meanwhile, flipping along, the AVATAR solicits look a lot more like solicits than advertisements (although the Anna Mercury 2 #2 spread was a little confusing at first). Still, one looks like it is imparting information, the other is drowning in graphic elements, headlines, logos, and tiny tiny text. It’s pretty easy to figure out which is more successful.

2:17pm: I know they’re “just” licensed books, but I’m kind of shocked to see that the first wave of trade paperback collections of Boom’s THE MUPPET SHOW, THE INCREDIBLES, and THE WORLD OF CARS got almost no play at all in the catalogue. We’ve done very well with the single issues of all of these books, Very Well, and the treade paperback collections (at a friendly $10 price point) are going to do gangbusters for us, I think? Maybe I’m wrong on this, but we’re definitely investing in them at the store… We’re doing progressively better with kids material and this is really solid looking stuff.

2:41pm: Similarly surprising? No special-attention paid to Cartoon Books’ solicitation of the limited-edition RASL HC (P222).  Limited edition oversized HC of Jeff Smith material… you’d think that Diamond would be all over that. I mean, I know it’s not going to sell BONE HC numbers, but we’ve been doing really well with RASL. Again, I’m all over this collection, particularly for the long-haul collectors that are going to want this (very) limited collection, but might not have the pocket-money on hand to do so now.

2:46pm: Also on page 222 is Jack Moriarty’s THE COMPLETE JACK SURVIVES from Buenaventura Press. Originally published in the venerable RAW magazine, this collects every Jack Survives strip in a lovely 11×14 package, in full colour. I’m only very casually familiar with the material, but it’s spoken-of very reverently amongst my artcomix friends, and anything out of RAW is obviously work at least a look.

3:20pm: I know this is going a little slower than usual today, but man, things are a little intense at work here today. Lots of stuff in the air. Sorry.

DMP BOOKS is changing the size of some of their manga? I think I missed this announcement, but going through their solicitations today (starting on P237) it looks like they’re doing some of their books at B6 (a format more-or-less unknown in North America), which measure 5 1/8″ x 7 3/16″, or thereabouts… which is a little smaller than the current “TOKYOPOP SIZE” favoured by the majority of the comics industry. They’re doing the rest of their books in the A5 size, which measure 5.875″ x 8.25″, or slightly smaller than their current size of manga. Basically their entire line is changing size over the next few months. I… assume this is to cut costs? But I’ve got no idea.

I hope that the effect of this is minimized when it comes to changes in size between volumes of the same series, because comics fans of all ages, genders, and sexual proviclivities, FUCKING HATE IT when the spines don’t match up on their manga.

Just saying.

3:29pm: I had kind of thought that Big Questions #12 by Anders Nilsen (P243) was the last issue of the series, but the solicit makes no mention either way. I am greatly, greatly looking forward to a collection of this series… though these individual issues are just gorgeous too. Hopefully any collection will include all of the colour paintings and things. But of course, it’s D&Q, so that’s probably very likely…

Speaking of D&Q, THE JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY: NANCY VOL 1 is also solicited this week. I have to say I kinda dug the old-school repro on their recent Melvin The Monster collection… The feel of reading old comics is a much nicer one, to me, than the feel of reading badly-computer-recoloured comics with digitally altered linework. I hope I’m not in the minority? I’d much rather see this kind of reprint, when good-quality copies exist to shoot from (or be fixed with minor tweaks).

6:15pm: Okay, let’s try and power through to the end of the Previews, shall we?

Page 245: I’m always pretty excited about new work from Fanfare/Ponent-Mon. Their new graphic novel YEARS OF THE ELEPHANT is something of a departure for them, a European work with no Japanese connection. I got to see a preview of this one at the New York Comicon this past winter, and it’s a really unique work. It’s nicely drawn, in pencils mostly, though a bit sketchy sloppy at times. The solicit calls it “rudimentary” but it has a classical cartooning kind of feel. And the nature of the story, about a many who’s sort of slowly and humourously losing his mind after his son committs suicide, it takes a while but it definitely grows on you as you flip the pages. I have no idea how something like this will be received in North America, quite honestly. As far as I can tell it’s at least partly autobiographical, and personal tragedy memoirs tend to find their audiences more often than not. But it really is a strange book… One that I’m personally looking forward to, particularly considering that Editor Stephen Robson has the foresight to pick up strange-tale-of-personal-tragedy Hideo Azuma’s DISAPPEARANCE DIARY and it was fantastic. I figure this one is at least worth a shot.

Page 246-247: Fantagraphics’ acid-trip orange-and-purple spread is certainly eye-catching, and the info is laid out in a professional, easy-to-read way. It’s just that the overall effect is sort of hideous. But anyway, good books in here. The one I’m most immediately interested in is the TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE hardcover collection, collecting the first four issues of the series, and now in full colour. THRIZZLE has been an easy single-issue sale for us since its debut, I imagine this handsome new hardcover will do similarly well.

For the classic strips guys, there’s another volume of POPEYE. For the art guys, there’s a third JIM FLORA art book. For nerds, there’s THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS CRITICISM OF THE 21ST CENTURY. Pretty solid month for Fanta.

Page 252: It’s not often that authors tend to really get behind the graphic novel adaptations of their work, but Tim Hamilton’s graphic adaptation of FARENHEIT 451 features an introduction by Bradbury himself, quite a coup. The $30 price tag is surprisingly high, but then so are the expectations on this one if the advance press I’ve seen is anything to go by.

Also on this page, Kevin Eastman releases his (competing? complimentary?) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Anniversary collection. the TMNT 25TH ANNIVERSARY BY KEVIN EASTMAN (kind of a fuck-you-title, isn’t that?) features Eastman’s fav Turtles stories, some of them in colour for the first time. That’s kind of interesting? But the big turtles release is a few pages away still.

Page 253: RICHARD STARK’S PARKER: THE HUNTER adapted by Darwyn Cooke. What can I say? This looks pretty darned amazing. IDW let me know that they sent me a preview of this one a few days ago, but it hasn’t shown up yet unfortunately. I was hoping to have read it before I could just unequivocally recommend it, but since I can’t I’ll have to just say that it’s PROBABLY the best new book in the Previews this month and you should pick it up. If you’re not sure, there’s tons of great preview/interview stuff online, and if just reading the first 20 pages doesn’t convince you I dunno what will. 

Hey IDW guys: Maybe I’m blind here, but why isn’t that PARKER preview linked off of your frontpage? I actually couldn’t find it on your site, had to google it.

Page 270: Alright, here you go. It’s the first 540 pages of Eastman and Laird’s TMNT from the 80s, in black and white (11 issues plus the four ‘micro-series’ issues) for $30. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE COLLECTED BOOK VOLUME 1 SC. I am definitely going to take one of these home with me. I’ve read a bunch of these through random reprints and stuff, but I think I’d really dig reading these all at once. Hell, SOMEBODY did… And it’s been one of our most-demanded trade paperback collections for years…!

Page 278: The long-anticipated Jeff Smith TOON BOOKS entry drops in July. LITTLE MOUSE GETS READY seems to be in the format of their youngest-reader stuff, like the Silly Lily books, and it looks great. I kind of felt like the Silly Lily books had a lower vocabulary for the 4-6 year old set, and this one seems like a book that you read-to a child, rather than one they can read on their own? I’m not an expert or anything, but I’d be curious to know who the age group is for this one. Either way, it’s lovely looking.

Page 280: The kids comic series THE STUFF OF LEGEND got a bit of buzz following Free Comic Book Day, so I’ll give the first issue a decent order, see if it will pick up a following in our store. It seems to be in Mouse Guard format, so I guess they know who they’re going-after audience-wise.

Page 282: Long awaited D.N. ANGEL VOLUME 12 from Tokyopop, and no a whole hell of a lot else. BISENGHAST VOLUME 6, possible the last “OEL” title that TP is physically publishing, actually, that’s kind of news too. 

Page 284: For those of you who read my earlier bitching, the LENORE: NOOGIES color edition is here. 128 pages for $24.95.  Also this page is the second collection of Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s SURROGATES, FLESH AND BONE, a prequel to the first trade and, conveniently enough, the upcoming movie. Also from Top Shelf on the following page is a new printing of SURROGATES VOLUME ONE, and an omnibus HC collecting one and 2, for people that need to own things in HC.

Page 286: Speaking of Darwyn Cooke, Twomorrows solicits MODERN MASTERS VOLUME 23: DARWYN COOKE to coincide with THE HUNTER. A 120 page collection of sketches, rare art, and illustration. Generally the Modern Masters series of books are snapped-up by the fans of the creators they cover, this one will be no different. Actually, that’s not true; thanks to his huge fanbase and a hometown crowd, we’ll probably just add a zero to the end of whatever number we ordered on volume 22 for this one.

Page 292: So this year Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A DRIFTING LIFE shared the top prize for the Tezuka Cultural Prize for manga. It shared it with Fumi Yoshinaga’s series OOKU: THE INNER CHAMBERS, and the first volume of that series drops this month from Viz. If it’s half as interesting or well-done as A DRIFTING LIFE, it’ll be a must-buy for sure. Yoshinaga is the author of ANTIQUE BAKERY and FLOWER OF LIFE amongst many other fan-fav almost-yaoi titles, and more of her work will certainly be appreciated.

Okay then, I think we’re done for this month. Thanks for reading, hopefully next month will go a little more smoothly.

– Chris

Oh look, we’re liveblogging the Previews again this month! It’s actually not due for 5 whole days, so expect a slightly less-manic, but hopefully no-less enjoyable look at all of the comics and graphic novels being solicited by Diamond Comics Distributors, scheduled to begin arriving in stores in July 2009. I’ll be updating this every few minutes as I get to the next thing I wanna talk about… and I really will try and mention page numbers this month, if you wanna play along at home…!

4:09pm: FWIW, these aren’t awful covers this month, just sort of meh. But we have more unsold copies of Previews this month than in the last 12, both actual copies and percentage ordered. Apparently Spider-Man versus Doctor Octopus and a random skull just aren’t that interesting?

4:18pm: Page FS-1 has an article with the title EXTREME MOMS. Italics in the original title. What? Ah, I see, I have opened this to the wrong side. That is my fault.

4:19pm: FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! IS OVER! I guess this is the final month of Diamond advertising their big event. I guess there’s no way anyone in comic industry could say they didn’t KNOW about it, anyway…

On to page 2…  Wow, those Final Fantasy IX figures are hideous. Like, I know they’re in the sort of “Chibi” style that the game was in, and this is all about accuracy, but I even like the character designs and I would definitely not buy these. Awful… The Chibi versions of the FF VII, X, and XII figures on the opposite page look much cooler.

4:36pm: Whoa, rush of customers. Sorry about the delay there. So this month’s Editor’s Note (p7) from Marty Grosser is all about… Mom. Geez, what a bunch of momma’s boys. I love my mom (but not as much as I love your mom), but it is weird to see the editor of Previews telling my to make sure to call my mom on Mother’s Day.

Anyway, the editor breaks down every mother in the world to one of two types, either “The Terminatrix”, who is “the stereotypical mother” who threw out all of your comics, or “The Source”, who got you started on comic books. VIRGIN OR WHORE! CHOOSE, READERS OF PREVIEWS! VIRGIN OR WHORE!?

Actually, I got one better for you Marty. “There is only one woman in the world. One woman, with many faces.” There’s your reductionist argument, courtesy of The Last Temptation of Christ. They’re both Virgins AND Whores. Or Source Terminatrixes. Terminatricies? Either way, lame editorial Marty.

4:55pm: Shit we’re not even to any of the actual books yet. Anyway, Page 9 is an interview with ROMAN DIRGE, the “Featured Creator” of the month. For all of you industry watchers wondering about the Lenore creator leaving SLG for, of all places, Titan Publishing (in the U.K.), here’s a fun quote from the interview with Mr. Dirge.

“I’m excited to be working with Titan. It tugged on the heart-strings to leave SLG Publishing after having such a long relationship with them. I have nothing but love for them, especially their founder, Dan Vado. He gave me my start in the industry and it was like family. I regret how we parted ways. Without SLG, I’d rpobably be asking you what kind of cheese you want on your sandwich and if you want the combo meal. Titan has a lot of things planned for me.” – Roman Dirge

Huh, so apparently the parting was not pleasant. Kudos to Dan Vado for keeping it under his hat, if that’s the case. I haven’t heard a bad word about Mr. Dirge. I’m in support of creators going for the best deal, and if Titan offered Dirge a good one, then sure, what the hell. But it seems like the first part of Dirge’s statement, and the second part, they’re a little incongruous? Like “These guys at SLG are family and I owe them everything! Can’t wait to start working with my new pub!” Is that a platitude? Is that the dictionary definition of a platitude? Hmm.

It’s not an either/or proposition, I’m aware, and I know these guys are friends and I’ll likely take some heat for this, but: I was a huge Jhonen Vasquez fan a few years ago, and I still appreciate his work a great deal, but I have never… ever… understood the appeal of any of Dirge’s work. It seems fantastically lazy. It seems like you start with Vasquez’s JTHM or SQUEE, which are literally bursting at the seams with creativity and ideas, tons and tons of them, and then you take an issue of that and stretch it out into 13 issues of Lenore. But to be fair, you take a single panel of a children’s book and put it on 10,000 stickers and you end up with the utterly-vacant Emily the Strange, so. It’s sort of like the Matterhorn of talent, with Vasquez perched on top and everything else sliding rapidly into the abyss.

At any rate, this month Titan is offering a full-colour edition of Dirge’s Lenore: Noogies. I’m certainly not complaining about the money we’ve made off of Dirge’s work; it sells. But I wonder if exactly the same stuff will sell, to the same audience, again (his work just isn’t that colourful even with ‘full colour’). And hearing that the ‘breakup’ was full of regret and it’s only been… what, a year? That doesn’t make me say “I CAN’T WAIT TO SUPPORT THIS DUDE’S WORK!”

Perhaps I am in the minority.

5:20pm: Alright! Comics! P.24 has STAR WARS: INVASION, which features a bunch of characters that look exactly like a cross between Aliens and Predators attacking the post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars Universe! Luke Skywalker using crazy Force-Powers to take on hybrid Aliens/Predators (but not really)? I can see some nerds definitely being into that.

Jo Chen cover too. Nice.

5:24pm: The new BPRD series featuring art by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba drops this month. Lovely. Not sure if I’ve entirely forgiven them for their Casanova April Fool’s Day prank. Also “The Witchfinder #1”, a new Hellboy spinoff series.

5:29pm: So I guess I understand why the solicitation for Guy Davis’ The Marquis: Inferno trade paperback doesn’t mention anywhere that it’s a collection of all of the perviously-published material, i.e.: The trade paperbacks “Danse Macabre” and “Intermezzo,” but it’s still pretty crappy of them not to mention that. It’s a great deal, a 336 page trade of very strong comics material by Davis, who’s really found an audience for his work thanks to BPRD. And it’s got a new sketchbook and Mignola intro. It’s a great, worthwhile book. But hiding the solicit info is amateur hour, seriously. I had to track down an interview with Davis at CBR to figure that out. It should be in the solicit, period.

5:34pm: THE GOON versus DETHKLOK from Metalpocalypse. Alright, 37 pages into the Previews, I’m calling it: This will be the most under-ordered comic book of the month. Oh and they’re relaunching Creepy too, which is weird. I have no idea if there’s an audience for a black and white horror anthology, but hey, new Bernie Wrightson art.

5:45pm: DH has got a brand new black and white crime-fiction anthology called NOIR (p41), dropping… September 30th. Well, at least they’ll have plenty of time to hype it up. I think it’ll need some hype too, It’s not the kind of thing that generally sells gangbusters (I think FLIGHT is probably the exception), but look at the list of creators on this thing… Azzarello, Brubaker, Grist, Lapham, Moon & Ba, Phillips, maybe a dozen or two more. Everyone doing any critically acclaimed crime/noir fiction stuff, except maybe Darwyn Cooke, in one book. It should sell itself, but I feel like it’ll be an uphill battle… I hope they promote the hell out of this.

5:52pm: New Gilbert and Mario Hernandez series! Citizen Rex #1 coming monthly, starting the first week of July. Nice.

5:55pm: Conan drops “The Cimmerian” as the subtitle this issue. Or at least the solicit does, hopefully that’s just for the solicit.

5:56pm: Here on page 47 we’ve got a solicitation for “3 STORY: SECRET HISTORY OF THE GIANT MAN” by Pistolwhip and Super Spy creator Matt Kindt. I totally had not heard that Kindt was doing a graphic novel for DH. I guess it makes sense, it’s a full-colour book and Top Shelf’s full colour stuff is pretty rare in general. Hmm. Anyway, this one will be out September 23rd. If Matt (or anyone really) is reading, send me a preview, I’d love to see what this is all about.

6:00pm: Awwwwwwwwwwwesome. Dark Horse is reprinting the fairly-hard-to-find PICTURES THAT TICK, a collection of Dave McKean’s short comics stories. I suppose this comes alongside their reprinting of pretty-much every other comic he’s done save Mr. Punch, including the resolicit of CAGES a month or two back. V. Cool. I never owned this one–a friend had it and I read it 2 or 3 times–and am looking at adding it to my collection this September. I can only imagine a few dozen of my customers feel the same way. And it’s only $20 too, what a steal. We’re going to order a ton.

6:23pm: DC Comics! Alright. Geez, that took kinda forever, didn’t it? Sorry, it’s a busy comic day. I just spent 25 minutes helping the cutest guy ever. Like Seth Rogan but cuter (and taller). Good day at the comic store. Yessss.

So what do we have? Another 1 in 250 copy variant on Blackest Night #1. I appreciate that DC is getting behind this one in a big way… Free Comic Book Day, two years of build-up, all of that. But again, this is a program that rewards large retailers and encourages small retailers to take potentially very unhealthy positions on books. Man, if I’ve heard the rumours about Diamond being in a cash-crunch because of the number of comic stores closing (and not paying their bills…) then SURELY DC has heard the same thing… and yet they’re encouraging stores to drop an extra 500-600 bucks to nab an “incentive” cover. Or they’re just shutting those customers out entirely. This is the worst thing in the comics industry right now. The Worst.

6:34pm: … and it’s weird because WEDNESDAY COMICS might just be one of the neatest things in the industry right now. Get top talent to do the stories they’ve always wanted with their favourite characters. Pope, Allred, Azzarello & Risso, Gaiman, Dave Bullock, Kyle Baker, Gibbons and Sook. Tons and tons more. That’s just cool, you know? I feel like this one will be a little underordered as well, but I appreciate them taking a risk on format, and on great creators and off-beat stories. We’re going to be supporting this one, at least for the first month or two of issues (it’s a weekly), and hopefully it lives up to all of its promise.

7:02pm: So I’m actually at page 81 and haven’t had anything else to say. Still busy (I swear it’s attractive-man day here at the store…) but also the DC solicits are pretty boring! Actually!

7:05pm: I heard from a customer, I think? I think it was a customer. Anyway, I heard from someone today that McDuffie was finally let go from Justice League. No disrespect intended to McDuffie, he seems like a nice guy, but it was pretty clear he fucking hated that job. I mean, whatever, people don’t like their jobs, but you can only complain about how fucking broken the book is and how your hands are tied, in public, for so long, before Dan DiDio reads his e-mail. You know what I’m saying? That dude seems like a biiiiiiiiiiiit of a control freak, I can’t imagine he’s reading McDuffie complaining about a scene needing to be re-written at the last minute and the scene being clumsy because of it, and DiDio steps back and goes “Yeah, shit, good point man. We really gotta get our act together here at DC!” 

Dan DiDio doesn’t seem like that kind of guy is all I’m saying.

To The Extreme.

7:10pm: So… JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE #1. The James Robinson Justice League series that is now a mini-series. Well… sure, why not, whatever. Maybe it’ll be good? I like James Robinson, and Batwoman, and the blue-skinned Starman dude. Sounds like a winner to me. Has he given the interview where he says that his creativity was brutally compromised on this series so I shouldn’t bother? Or is he gonna give that interview AFTER the series has come out, so we understand why we were unhappy? I guess I know why people wait for the trade.

7:27pm: Happy to see a new printing of Absolute New Frontier.

7:29pm: Alright, here we are, page 105. NORTH 40 #1 by Aaron Williams and Fiona Staples. Really lovely, understated piece of cover art. Sort of a mysterious premise. Tentacle monster on the cover (tasteful!). Looks good. I’ll check this out.

7:37pm: So it looks like DC is doing a hardcover collecting the first two Tom Strong collections (p111). I actually liked those first 12 issues a lot, some often-lovely art from Chris Sprouse in there, great big pulp concepts, very human stories. I never bought the collections for this (I used to have the issues), but I can see adding this to the shelf, the whole series in 3 hardcover volumes. Cool.

7:42pm: Huh, how about that. A gay lead character on the first page of the preview for GREEK STREET #1, from Peter Milligan. I’m sure there’s an obvious joke there but I ain’t gonna make it, I’m just happy to see any gay character in a comic book, they’re so underrepresented (and poorly represented when they do make an appearance!). GREEK STREET #1 is also one of Vertigo’s $1.00 first issues. I really dug THE UNWRITTEN #1, and the $1 promotion made me more inclined to give it a read, so cool beans. I’ll give this one a heavy order too, hopefully get a whole bunch of people hooked on it.

As for what it’s about? Apparently it’s a gritty-crime-update of Greek Mythology. Done and done.

7:49pm: So my friend Paul was so repulsed by the cover of Hellblazer #257 (p119) that he appeared to be flustered with anger. It’s… it’s not good, he’s totally right. I like Bisley, but. Yeah. At any rate, I think I said at the time “Well maybe they’re going for a lurid pulp-novel thing. It’ll work in context, once you get like, the right cover elements up there. Make it look like an old pulp-novel!” But as the date approaches, I grow more unsure. I guess we’ll know on July 22nd, but until then… Yeah. Not the best Hellblazer cover, that’s for sure.

8:02pm: As I skim quickly, so quickly, over the terrible DC Direct section, I just want to give props to all-around lovely guy Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin, who takes the time to mock the most egregious bits of nerd ephemera solicited in the PREVIEWS catalogue every month. He calls his recaps THE END OF CIVILIZATION, which I think is an incredibly appropriate title, actually. Unfortunately he doesn’t tag or categorize his site, so far as I can tell, so linking to those posts is a little tough. But here’s a few workarounds:

The May ’09 End Of Civilization (The Previews you’re reading about now!)
The June ’09 End Of Civilization 

Mike also has a fairly-regularly updated list of his END OF CIVILIZATION posts on his right-sidebar, you can check those out for hours of hilarity. It’s the sort of hilarity where you cry a little. 

Okay, next…

8:16pm: IMAGE! Okay, new Mice Templar series (p139), Savage Dragon hits 150 issues (p141), and… here we go! ARMAGEDDON NOW: THE BEAST #1 (p142) featuring some dude desparately digitally painting over top of Rob Liefeld’s pencils, to try and make them look better. This is great. You know why? Because when you put A REALISTIC SHEEN on top of CRAP, it brings out EVERY FLAW. Liefeld’s stiffly-posed action characters on a sliding background, leaping in the air? It’s bold and graphic and, whatever, it looks like “comic book” art. It’s got a lot of energy and not much else. But when you render the fuck out of that, and colour it all brown and put it on top of a painted background and make it “realistic”? That’s when you notice OMG THE CHARATERS ARE ALL HOVERING 6-12 INCHES OFF THE GROUND. Like he can’t draw a character running, fine, everyone knows that, but when it’s “superheroey” it doesn’t matter, it’s just a cool pose. But when you try and make it REAL, then we get into distressing Uncanny Valley territory. Oh, snap, I got it. Rob Liefeld’s ARMAGEDDON NOW is the uncanny valley of comic books. AWESOME. Someone put that on the book jacket please. Here’s a shitty photo with my phone camera, so you can understand what EXACTLY I am talking about:

Seriously. That panel.. (actually, shit, that’s a FULL PAGE SPLASH of those two dudes, hahaha). “RARGH! LET’S FLOAT SLOWLY TOWARDS THE ENEMY WHILE SHOOTING DUDES IN THE HEAD!” If the actual dialogue was “RARGH! LET’S FLOAT SLOWLY TOWARDS THE ENEMIES WHILE SHOOTING THEM IN THE HEAD!!!” I’d be way more inclined to be charitable.

As it is, I am ordering zeh-ro of this clunker.

Oh, and, just so you don’t think I’m being totally vicious, we did order the similarly-awful Armageddon Now original hard cover, and have yet to sell it. But I’m still being totally vicious.

8:37pm: So I guess I officially don’t understand Dan Brereton. After pulling his NOCTURNALS books from Oni (…and I think Dark Horse too? No?), then self-publishing a nice omnibus collection of some of his older work, he is now at Image with the second collection of his work, meaning that there’s an orphan self-pub’d vol-1 HC floating around out there… and about 75% of all comics retailers are seeing this omnibus collection NOCTURNALS VOLUME 2 (p150) for the first time, cuz now it’s in the Image section. With no accompanying relist of volume 1. Which means 75% of retailers are just gonna skip this, because they “can’t get the first volume”. It’s tough out there for creator-owned work, I know that. I’ve got ENORMOUS sympathy for Mr. Brereton, and I really like NOCTURNALS too. But I look at something like this and just shake my head. I don’t get these decisions at all. 

(I just checked Diamond and the first HC omnibus is “Out Of Stock, No Back Orders”).

8:47pm: New printing of Matt Fraction and Steven Sanders’ FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE this month. That’s nice. (p152). Oh, also a new volume of INVINCIBLE, which was solicited BEFORE the previous volume had come out. And! AND! All of the issues contained in this trade? Totally already printed. Will actually ship on time! Thanks for living up to your promise Mr. Kirkman, we’re selling a shitload of your books.

9:00pm: I’ll give Kevin Smith this: I can’t see the word BERSERKER (p168) without singing Would You Like Some Making Fuck BERSERKER quietly to myself. So, score one for him?

9:12pm: Hey, Marvel’s got a new HALO series! (p.4) I actually laughed at that. Good for them! Keep running up that hill, Marvel.

(That was for you, Naudi.)

9:15pm: Looks like The Previews Pages in the Marvel Previews are a little out of order this month… At any rate, nice cover on Wonderful Wizard of Oz #8 (p.17).

Actually, I did want to say that I think that Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of their most thoroughly-conceived, well-executed stories in a very long time. Eric Shanower and Skottie Young have done a great job at adapting the story for new audiences, and it’s sold very well here at the store. Good job all-around.

9:21pm: I’m gonna be honest, I’m still pretty out-of-the-loop on the superhero front because of TCAF and Anime North and all that. So Dark X-Men: The Beginning (p.21) has this header that says UTOPIA TIE-IN! and I have no idea what the hell that’s about. Cloak and Dagger are in this and Dagger has an X-Men logo over top her va-jay-jay. 

Okay, flipping the page, it seems UTOPIA is running through Uncanny X-Men and Dark Avengers, both of which are written by Matt Fraction. That makes me feel a little better I guess. So that Dark X-Men: The Beginning is one of those interminable side-stories that don’t affect the plot in any way that Marvel likes to pump out? Okay, good, I know how to order those at least. And I just assume I order the Fraction stuff as normal, maybe with a little bit of a bump because there isn’t, generally, a 100% overlap between Uncanny X-Men and Avengers readers. See! This is how I figure out how to order everything! This column isn’t just pointless snark, you’re learning how retailers think!

9:26pm: You know it’s 9:30pm on a Friday, we should all be out drinking. Just saying. 

9:30pm: So am I reading this right? Spider-Man is getting married in Amazing Spider-Man #600? (p.42) Like I said, I’m out of the loop, but didn’t they undo all that shit like… a year ago? Or is this like how Archie is about to get married, as in, not real?

Also, is it just me or is the anatomy on Spidey’s shoulder in this Quesada cover totally fucked up? It looks like he’s got a shoulder wedged between his bicep and chin, and another on his back where his back and arm meet. Any thoughts on this from any artists reading? Cuz… cuz it looks pretty wonky.

9:45pm: So Incredible Hulk #600 threatens to unleash the secret of who The Red Hulk actually is. That’s pretty cool. We’ve been doing well with that series, and the recent switchover from Thor’s reboot numbering to the new-numbering went alright. Although a big part of that is keeping a strong creative team. Let’s peak ahead and see who’s on Incredible Hulk #601… Van Lente and Pak? Huh, apparently they’re launching this as a new ongoing, not as a replacement for the HULK series (which has issues 13 and 14 next month). That’s… weird. It’s probably difficult to be a Marvel fan and keep your collection in order? I am glad that is not my problem.

9:48pm: Haha… That’s great. Immortal Iron Fist has a spin-off: IMMORTAL WEAPONS (p.53). Sort of like team-Iron Fist. Featuring FAT COBRA in the first issue. Big-ups on Fraction for introducing that character, and for everything he represents.

9:50pm: So this month we see the debut of IRON MAN: IRON ADVENTURES based on the new 3d animated cartoon. I actually caught an episode of that and thought it was alright… Decent animation, engaging-enough story. Good character designs. Unfortunately the writer and artist on this are “To Be Announced”, so I can’t tell if this is comics or just frames from the show blown up and printed. As such, I’ll order low and try to reorder, I guess. The cinemanga-type comics just don’t do well for us. 

9:51pm: I’ve got no comment on Marvel Divas #1. I don’t really know who it’s for, and I don’t think IT knows who it’s for either. Low order.

9:53pm: Okay, wait. So they’ve got the HULK series with the Red Hulk, and they’re launching an Incredible Hulk ongoing featuring Skaar, Son of Hulk, but they’re… also going to keep the Son of Hulk series going? Really? Are there really enough fans for this, for 3 ongoing Hulk series’? Cuz I don’t think they shop at my store.

9:57pm: So it looks like it’s the end for INCOGNITO (p.79) with issue #6… and I couldn’t be happier! I’m always happy when stories have endings, that this is going to be a great book for the bookshelf and a strong seller for us. Hopefully it gooses the sales on CRIMINAL as well, which should start up again soon. I kind of wonder if, on some level (not the only level obv.), INCOGNITO was a six-issue advertisement for CRIMINAL… You know, all these guys reading Marvel comics, hanging out on message boards, they probably hear how great CRIMINAL is but, let’s face it, they only ever read the superhero books. So even though it’s published by Marvel, even though it got relaunched with a new #1 issue, they’re probably going to pass. But you take all the bits that make up a great CRIMINAL story-arc, and you put superhero-masks on all of the characters, and maybe that’s enough for them, to meet them half way so they realize “Hey this is pretty good!” I mean, the Marvel: Noir stuff sort of dilutes the brand, but really, our INCOGNITO sales are great, higher even than CRIMINAL, and I’m hoping… not just hoping but banking actually… that when CRIMINAL comes back in a month or two, we’ll see higher sales across the board. And we’ve got 4 trade paperbacks to sell them too.

Here’s hoping, eh?

10:06pm: And we’re done. For tonight. 

Not that I’m not enjoying myself, but it really IS 10:00 on a Friday night, so at the very least I’m gonna go and grab a drink. We’ll continue the dissection of the May 2009 Previews catalogue with… THE BACK OF THE CATALOGUE… on Monday morning. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment in the comment section!

– Chris

10:16pm: …and we’re back. In case you’re just joining us, I am a comic book retailer who has to have his Diamond Previews order done and uploaded by tomorrow at midnight. I didn’t even look at The Previews until earlier today, and I really need to get back to my job right now, which is running a comic book festival next week. All of this has made me irritable, and I’m sharing this with you. Enjoy!

10:19pm: I know Wizard has been firing a lot of people lately, but seriously, did they let go of all of their designers? These Previews pages look like the intern threw them together, and the intern only knows how to use MS Word. Meanwhile, ANOTHER Obama cover on this issue. That poor dead horse that these guys keep beating.

10:21pm: I’m just saying, “Obama Cover, by Artist To Be Announced.” Come on…

10:22pm: Another month, another solicited issue of Anime Insider that is never going to come out. Actually, I just realized that these pages look like they’ve been designed by the PREVIEWS team, which is why I don’t like them. They look seriously weak. Oh how the mighty… etc.

10:23pm: Ah, and thanks to Super-Con in San Jose, we get a little Comic Sans. How Avant Garde.

10:25pm: Speaking of which, Cerebus Archive #2 has a Zombie/Obama Variant for $15.00. At least I’m not as cynical as Dave Sim.

10:27pm: I feel kinda bad, I never actually checked out Scott Morse’s first “Ancient Book of” book for Adhouse. Although this one is about Sex, so that will probably entice me more than Myth/War. Oh, and Johnny Hiro gets a lovely collection that I shall be ordering. Good series, that one. Nice price-point too, 200 pages for $15.00. That’s a steal.

10:29pm: SLG Publishing have thrown a lot of marketting muscle behind their new CAPTAIN BLOOD comic book, and it does look quite nice. Beautiful colours on the cover too. We had some success with The Black Coat, a pirate adventure series published intermitently over the past few years. Hopefully this one will do well for us too.

10:32pm: So I actually read the description for Bad Kids Go To Hell #1, from Antarctic. It’s a high-concept comedy/thriller, described as “The Breakfast Club” meets “The Grudge”. And, yeah, alright, it sounds like a sort of cheesy movie, I’d watch it if it came on the TV and it wasn’t censored on TBS or something. But it’s a movie on paper; a book about sexy teens intended for a sexy teen audience. Where in the hell are they going to find that audience at Antarctic Press? Why is this a comic at all, other than just as an intermediate step to getting it optioned soemwhere? It’s described as a movie, and the cover art just looks awkward (the proportions are all off). Why turn a movie pitch into a mediocre comic book? Or a comic at all?

10:36pm: Archaia Studios Returns! At least The Killer will end now, and Alex Sheikman who creates Robotika is a nice guy. But I don’t really feel good about the company, I’ve heard too much from creators unhappy how they were treated during the fallow period… and I’m not crazy about what I heard about their new parent company either. Anyway, whatever. I’ll order what I think will sell, but I’m certainly not going to ‘invest’ in the company until they get back on track and make amends with the people they’ve wronged.

10:41pm: Hey, a second collection of Julia Wertz’ Fart Party. Cool stuff. The first one was pretty great actually, recommended.

10:44pm: I have to bump the numbers on Gravel again. Nice to see a series picking up readers as it goes. Oh and Ignition City did alright too… And contrary to Ellis’ assertions that “we wouldn’t do variant covers if people didn’t buy them”, our order for the single-cover FRANKENSTEIN’S WOMB (there’s a HC too, but we’ll ignore that) just ended up being higher than our orders for all of the covers on Ignition or Gravel combined. We order the variants because they’re available, not because people are buying more than one. At least not in my experience. Or in an apples-to-apples comparisson, We’re ordering exactly as many copies of all Anna Mercury #1 with 4 different covers  as we did of Ignition City #1 with 3 covers, we just divided them differently. Anyway, not that this has anything to do with anything, it’s just been sticking in my craw, so to speak, seeing Ellis send that message out into the world.

10:55pm: Am i really supposed to order the Tek War comic? Really? Someone weigh in in the comments. I just don’t know.

10:57pm: I have to say, an extended, faithful adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a surprisingly ambitious project for BOOM to take on… i think that’s kind of amazing actually. I hope they do a good job, and I’m excited to see it.

I have to say, their section on the whole looks kind of put-together and organized this month, which is nice. I feel like the past few months have been a little haphazzard, particularly with the volume of books they solicit in a given month. A set-up in the Previews more like IDW would benefit them for sure.

11:06pm: Alright! I wanted to take a second to mention Box Brown’s Love is A Peculiar Type Of Thing! It’s a Xeric Grant winning book, a collection of webcomics and short strips, and it’s about this dude growing up and being fucked up and trying to get over it. It’s navel-gazing indy autobio comics, the exact sort of terrible filth that superhero fans like to step up and deride! Loudly! In an us versus them argument, this is THEM with a capital EVERY LETTER. It’s got Drug Use in it, for pete’s sake! Drugs! How could he!?

It’s great, I loved it. Totally worth your $10. Order two: one for you, and give the other one to a feckless 20-something that can’t figure a way out of their current situation.

More at:  http://www.topshelfcomix.com/ts2.0/artist/318  and  http://boxbrown.com/book/.

11:13pm: On the other end of the spectrum, Devil’s Due Productions has declared June OBAMA MONTH! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. Comics you ruin fucking everything. I refuse to engage your awful offerings.

Actually, fuck it. I’m not ordering any of this for the shelf. We’re The Beguiling. We have principles. If you want any of this nonsense, I hope you pre-ordered.

11:26pm: So, First Second’s THE COLOR OF WATER by Dong Hwa Kim. I really liked this actually, it’s probably the only thing like it in English. It’s very strange though. It’s very much a book for women, about the life of a woman from being a girl to being grown. It’s a book club book; a Lifetime movie in the making. But it’s neat. And Kim is an outstanding artist, several of the sequences and illustrations featuring the countryside are just amazing. The first book, COLOR OF EARTH, is available from stores now, check it out. 

Oh, and to my friends at First Second? You mis-spelled COLOUR. I didn’t want to say anything to embarass you, but since the books are already printed and in circulation it’s probably alright now.

11:31pm: Taniguchi! Yay! Fucking Whoo! Hoo! Jiro Taniguchi, for those of you thus far uninitiated, is the wonderful creator behind The Walking Man, which I love. A new work is solicited here, SUMMIT OF THE GODS. Taniguchi is one of those creators on my automatic-buy list, just… he brings such incredible professionalism and skill to everything he attempts. It’s lovely.

11:35pm: The Fantagraphics section features what will be the book of the month for many, a the new collection of Peter Bagge’s reportage comic strips for REASON magazine. They’ve generally been good, thought provoking stuff, and I’m sure fans of his self-involved, self-pitying Buddy Bradley character will find a lot to interest them in a collection of comic strips from a Libertarian magazine.

Zing!

11:41pm: Actually, let’s go back a second. I Twittered a question to digital manga publishing but they don’t seem to be online, so I skipped over mentioning the fact that their SWALLOWING THE EARTH, by Osamu Tezuka, is shipping in June. Well, the first volume anyway. I am totally, totally interested in reading this. I own a bunch of Tezuka in French just to studdy the storytelling. But the cover of the book they’ve got here in PREVIEWS is just terrible, hideous stuff. It’s like they took a look at the great strides that Vertical had made in packaging 30 or 40 year old books and making them appeal to a contemporary audience and decided “That’s not really for us.” I love Tezuka, but some of his stuff is kinda goofy looking. I’m not saying every book needs to be abstract and downplay the comics connection, but the difference between the cover they’ve got for solicitation here and even the Buddha volumes? Miles and miles apart, and not in a good way. Granted, it’s got a great big ART NOT FINAL on it, but this is a little disappointing, because it seems like a wonderful work by Tezuka, and I’d really like the chance to sell it.

I don’t think this cover will help me.

11:50pm: Alright, back to Fantagraphics. The Abstract Comics collection soudns neat. The second massive Locas HC is a must buy. Another collection of comics by Fletcher Hanks, by Paul Karasik. A collection of Danish comics! Good month for Fanta.

11:53pm: Oh shit, how did I miss the Rand Holmes retrospective!? They’re gonna take away my Canadian citizenship. Basically:

Rand Holmes was Canadas most revolutionary artist in his heyday, the star cartoonist at the Georgia Straight newspaper in British Columbia during the 1970s. His hippie hero, Harold Hedd, became the spokesman of the emerging counterculture as he avoided work, explored free love, and flouted drug laws. The Adventures of Harold Hedd spread across the globe in the wave of underground comix and newspapers of the era and Holmes became famous – or at least notorious. While his comic character was bold and blatant, the artist was shy and quiet, well on his way to becoming a complete hermit.

This book is an intimate and expansive account of a very private man who expressed his deepest feelings in the then disreputable medium of comix. He didnt talk much but he sure wrote a lot, avowed his widow Martha. This biography/retrospective includes generous selections from his private journals and correspondence, family photo albums, sketchbooks, and personal anecdotes from his friends and colleagues. His artistic history began haltingly on the lonely windswept plateau of Edmonton, flourished in Vancouver and San Francisco, and concluded peacefully on Lasqueti Island, a remote backwater in the Straits of Georgia where he lived out his dreams of pioneering and homesteading.

Holmes life story is richly illustrated with drawings, comic strips, watercolors, and paintings that span his whole career, from the hot rod cartoons he drew as a teenager, dozens of covers for the Georgia Straight, pornographic cartoons for the sex tabloid Vancouver Star, to complete comic stories from Slow Death Funnies, Dope Comix, All Canadian Beaver, Death Rattle, Grateful Dead Comix, and many more. The full-length Harold Hedd comic novels, Wings Over Tijuana and Hitlers Cocaine are reprinted in their entirety together for the first time. 

Essentially, it’s the only book on a Canadian Underground cartooning legend. And a GIANT OF THE NORTH, actually (Google it). Sorry I forgot to mention it on the first pass.

12:03pm: See, here we are, in the IDW section and they’ve got a book called THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE BARACK OBAMA and you know what’s different about this one? It’s not co-opting the man’s image to sell your some other idea. It’s a book about Obama. And sure, that’s as much of a commercial product as the stupid barbarian one the DDP is publishing, but this one is actually about the man, his beliefs, his life. I can get behind that.

12:19pm: So, big-ups to fellow Canadians New Reliable Press, who have got their new books TRUE LOVES 2 and JAN’S ATOMIC HEART in the new Previews. These fine cats are gonna be at TCAF, TCAF’n it up, and TRUE LOVES at least managed to get a lot of press first time around. And hey, retailers and customers? THEY’RE GIVING AWAY BOOKS. For every copy of TRUE LOVES 2 you buy, they’re shipping out a free copy of TRUE LOVES 1. That’s a steal!

12:23pm: Okay, Oni Press has got the first issue of the just-relaunched RESURRECTION comic, now in full colour. Fine, interesting enough, Except they’re shipping out 10s of thousands of copies of the #0 prequel for Free Comic Book Day, AND (AND!) the trade paeprback collecting the first RESURRECTION series? SIX BUCKS. Six dollars for like, 184 pages. And it’s all gonna be out in the next 7 days. So, you know, KUDOS, Oni. You win this month’s award for “working your ass off to support your new ongoing series”. Buuuuuut unfortunately you’re disqualified because the first issue here doesn’t feature a 1 in 250 variant cover. Too bad, so sad. 😛

12:28: Page 282 has an indy anthology from “Poseur Ink” called SIDE B: THE MUSIC LOVER’S COMIC ANTHOLOGY. It’s got a bunch of stories from folks including Jeffrey Brown, Brandon Graham, Ryan Kelly, and Jim Mahfood. That’s some pretty cool shit. 

Oh, and on page 284, as a favour to my friend George I wanna give a shout out to ATOMIC ROBO AND THE SHADOW FROM BEYOND TIME #3. The Atomic Robo stuff has been fun, well drawn, and a consistent seller for us here at the store. I’m happy to recommend it to fans who like Hellboy for more than just Mignola’s art. 🙂

12:39pm: So! The one thing in the Viz section that I didn’t know about before I got to it is STARTING POINT: 1979-1996 By Hayao Miyazaki. It’s “A hefty compilation of essays (both pictorial and prose), notes, concept sketches, and interviews by 9and with) Hayao Miyazaki.” It’s 500 pages of reading for $30. That’s sort of a given, isn’t it? Like, that one is an automatic purchase? Awesome. Thanks Viz!

12:56pm: FLIGHT VOLUME 6 IS COMING SOON. Excellent news! New stories from all of the Flight Creators and friends. Page 301, preorder your copy, etc.

—

Alright, I think that’s it for this month. I gotta go through the last few pages of the catalogue and see what kinda magazines and stuff I’m gonna order. Thanks for reading…!

– Christopher