LIVEBLOGGING THE PREVIEWS! PART TWO!!!

So that was ridiculous eh? Well we’re only 178 pages through the catalogue, 200+ to go. Let’s just take a second to slam a Red Bull, shall we?

There we go.

8:49pm: Page 178: bahahaha. Now you can own an action figure of sad little Wolverine Teen, trying to figure out what the hell those are coming out of his hands. WOLVERTEEN’S ANGSTY AWAKENING. Is it slash? Is it an action figure? No, it’s a mini-mate, the Go-Bots of miniature figures. Comes in a set with Wolverine in Cowboy Hat, Wolverine from Mark Millar’s dark future, and BWS Wolverine-all-hairy-in-a-metal-diaper. At least it is only $16?

8:50pm: Is making fun of Wizard still funny at this point, or is it cruel? Because I’m up for either. You know, I’m Game. But I just want to make sure I’m being P.C. about all of this.

8:54pm: Oo… Anime Insider. Wait, if I order 10,000 copies of a magazine that I know isn’t coming out, does that still count as maxing out my Diamond Discount?

8:56pm: Dave Sim is mocking superheroes in glamourpuss now. And doing an examination of the arrival of Stan Drake on the photorealism in the early 50s. Is “incongruous” a word he just doesn’t know? Is it a feminine word, and therefore he refused to learn it?

8:59pm: Terry Moore’s ECHO — the sales on that kind of bottomed out on that for us around issue 7, but since then it’s been climbing every month. We’re almost back up to first-issue numbers, which is pretty good.

Also digging this REMAKE book from Adhouse… Sort of like Astro Boy by Rodney Greenblat as a mini-comic. Looking forward to it.

Holy shit, only 2 listings for Slave Labor this month, and they’re reoffers of Nightmares & Fairy Tales.  Luckily there’s a full page ad here with more order codes, but a good reminder that I need to put together an order for those guys.

Oh, the Public Enemy Graphic Novel. You are awesome.

9:04pm: My brother loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic from Archie when he was a kid. I think it’s actually kind of cool that they’re releasing them as a trade. He wasn’t a big comics guy, but he did like 3 or 4 of them if they were around and TMNT was second only to Defiant’s GOOD GUYS. Make of that what you will?

9:06pm: Second FREAKANGELS collection. That one is the best-selling (for us) Ellis collection in years… I wonder what that says about alternate distribution methods eh?

9:09pm: There’s seriously another LEPRECHAUN comic? That’s fucked up.

9:11pm: Holy shit there’s a WARLOCK comic too? My eyes usually just glaze over when I get to Bluewater, I must not have been paying attention for the last few months… It looks like I didn’t order it, which is good. Heh. WARLOCK is the film from my youth that I bring up most often, because I point out to my married, kid-having friends, that if they don’t baptize their child the Warlock will boil the fat off of it and use the fat to make a flying potion. 

If you haven’t seen Warlock, that’s a pretty fucked-up thing to say to someone about their newborn child.

9:19pm: Those Disney Comics from Boom did much, much better than we were expecting. We did a reasonable order on it, and we sold more than half of our Incredibles and all of our Muppet Shows. Cool stuff. I’m going to go bump the orders for the rest of it. That said, I’ve got no idea if any of it is going to kids or not.

9:21pm: Page 226 is the full-page XERIC ad, which includes some neat looking books again. I wanna give props to Box Brown’s Love is a Peculiar Type of Thing which I read and enjoyed, and Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly, which I also read and enjoyed. Box Brown’s book is in the Previews coming out tomorrow, make sure to order one!

9:24pm: Maybe I’m going to hell for this, maybe not, but Alex Ross’ Buck Rogers design actually looks pretty cool. For 25 cents I’ll give BUCK ROGERS #0 a shot.

9:27pm: Also trending upwards? Garth Ennis’ BATTLEFIELDS. Although “The Tankies” sounds a bit ridiculous as a title. I’m sure it’s Very British though.

9:33pm: New Seth book! GEORGE SPROT 1894-1975, all of the stuff that ran in the Times, and much more. Cool.

9:34pm: I am super-into this manga biographyof the Dalai Lama on page 252. I am there, this looks just utterly wonderful. It is published by “Emotional Content”. NICE.

9:35pm: Congratulations! You get your first image of the Previews:

 

Buy it!

9:42pm: The Fantagraphics section is like a little Oasis in the middle of the Previews. It’s lovely. New graphic novel from Jason (LOW MOON from The Times), new comics from Linda Medley and Jordan Crane, a new MOME. Good stuff.

Oh and look! It’s the two graphic novels by Toronto Comic Arts Festival Guests Of Honour Emmanuel Guibert and Derek Kirk Kim! Innnnteresting. Guibert’s THE PHOTOGRAPHER and Kim’s THE ETERNAL SMILE are both excellent works, worth putting on your shelf. Don’t miss’em.

9:46pm: Sherrilyn Kenyon’s softcore vamporn for ladies, now in convenient manga format! DARK HUNTERS was all over NYCC this year, kind of making everyone glance askew at the busty belly-shirt wearing cardboard cutouts that dotted the show. Heh.

9:48pm: Oh look, PEDRO & ME got a much-needed new cover! And just in time for the film biography of Pedro Zamora’s life. Good stuff, Henry Holt.

9:50pm: I love Optimus Prime as much as the next 30-something year old, but why is IDW doing a children’s picture book featuring a deptiction of the character that is from my childhood, and not the kids who are watching Transformers today? Makes no sense to me.

Speaking of which, a double page spread of Transformers products followed by a double page spread of GI Joe products is very weird to me. I can’t explain it, it’s just like… yeah. This is my childhood, and it’s weird to see it on the page again.

Actually, ignore everything I just said. The ASTRO BOY Movie Prequel cover is just bizarre looking and a much stranger interpretation of someone’s childhood hero than Transformers or Gi Joe…

 

Dude.

Also, what’s with the colouring? Did someone just find the airbrush tool?

Man, I know I sound like I’m being a huge asshole to IDW here, and I don’t mean to be–I think they’re actually a really good company. But… Yowza. That is an awful image. I haven’t coloured anything in years and I know I could do better.

9:59pm: Okay, wait, here we go. Same page (266) as AmerAstro Boy up there, is SWORD OF MY MOUTH #1 by Toronto creators Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerard. A great looking book, from two great creators, both of whom live within 10 blocks of the store (I think)… Thanks IDW for putting out cool books like this! And it got a Staff Pick and a Certified Cool too, which is good on Diamond. FROM THE ASHES #1 by Fingerman also looks kinda neat. His kids vs. zombies story, Recess Pieces, was awesome. Hopefully this is as good.

10:04pm: Holy shit there’s a DOCTOR WHO one-shot (THE TIME MACHINATIONS) by Paul Grist? I wish I cared about Doctor Who in the slightest! But man, do we have a lot of Paul Grist fans at the store!

OH MY GOD IT’S 10:04 AND THIS SHIT IS DUE IN 2 HOURS.

10:07pm: I’m pretty happy to see a second volume of WONTON SOUP come out. Oni Launched a bunch of really awesome series-oriented graphic novels 2 years ago this summer, and this is the first one that’s managed a second volume. It was a tasty read, and I’m looking forward to another serving…

(pun, edited)

10:10pm: Huh, new Mazzuccelli graphic novel. I honestly thought we’d never see one. If anyone from Pantheon/Random House Canada is reading, I wouldn’t turn down an advance copy. JUST SAYING.

10:12pm: Two pages for Tokyopop eh? How the might have fallen. Still, this is probably their strongest solicit month in a long time… TAKERU OPERAN SUSANOH SWORD OF THE DEVIL has a pretty cool looking cover, I’d read that. And they’re finally bringing GRAVITATION back into print in omnibus volumes, so that’s kinda cool. Still: Sigh.\

10:14pm: Every one of Top Shelf’s books looks awesome in its own way. I invite you to check them all out.

10:15pm: I am seriously running out of time here, shit, but this is the month that UDON launches their line of kids manga. I’ve gotten to read all of this stuff too, it’s actually really solid and fun, and totally appropriate for kids 6-12. I know there’ve been some reviews that have popped up already, check them out if you’re in the market for comics for kids.

OH MAN, the first two books in the Viz section are CHILDREN OF THE SEA VOL 1 by Daisuke Igarashi, whose work I’ve been wanting to read in English forever, and NAOKI URASAWA’S 20TH CENTURY BOYS VOL 3, and the first volume of that kicked ass. Yes! Good comics! To get me through the end of the section…!

10:19pm: DETROIT METAL CITY

Come on, how can you NOT want to read that, it’s ridiculous.

Okay, that’s where I’m going to stop because if I don’t I’m not going to get this done before 11:59pm, and me ordering the books from the Previews is far more important than talking about ordering the books from the Previews.

Anyway, thanks for everyone who read along and enjoyed this! Maybe I’ll do it next month OH WAIT THAT WILL BE 10 DAYS BEFORE TCAF AND I WILL BE INSANE, PERHAPS NOT.

Love,

– Christopher