Yes, they have.

Crap -- I forgot this was out.

Still haven't read THE PROGRAMME #10 yet, much less the new one. I lost track long ago of who was doing what, so I figure I'll just wait till the next issue & read 'em all in one sitting.

I haven no doubt that the "Pilot Season" (or whatever it's called ... my copy seems to be hiding from me at the moment) tryout issue of Image's TWILIGHT AVENGER is as far as the strip will go, but I found it very nicely done -- sort of what KICKASS would be, maybe, if Millar's ego wasn't out to take over the world one distasteul comic at a time.

Nice to see Terry Moore's ECHO picking up a bit of steam with the 3rd issue. Things are starting to get interesting.

IDW's DEAD, SHE SAID, is off to an intriguing start, though I'm pretty sure it's not $3.99 worth of intriguing (at least not compared to the same imprint's LOCKE & KEY). I guess at this late date it's long past time for me to resign myself to the fact that while he's still a perfectly competent craftsman, we're just not going to get the old Ghastly-Graham-Ingles-esque Berni(e) Wrightson back. The rest of you have had decades to deal with that fact, but as I've mentioned before I was otherwise engaged from '79-'04 or so. (Is the dilution of style a consquence of that allergy he developed to the metal in his pens, or whatever it was, or did he just decide not to be particularly interesting anymore?)

And I continue to like DARK IVORY, but then again I guess I was goth (see earlier note about the timing of Ian Curtis' suicide & my first wedding) before goth was cool.

I'd also like to suggest that anybody who hasn't been reading Wolverine Origins give it a shot. The Deadpool issues have been a ton of fun.

I may pick up The Programme in trade. I definitely need to buy the Casanova trades asap.

This book is just a shitload of fun.

If Marvel doesn't put that on the trade, their marketing dept. should be shot!

Well, yeah, I also got kicked in the head by a stage-diving Jello Biafra during the Dead Kennedys' first-ever Phoenix show back in 8/82 ... (And if one allows for the time difference between England & the U.S. Central Time Zone, I figure I was getting married for the first time about the time Joy Division's Ian Curtis hanged himself.)

Obvioulsy, though, the impact of that Buzzcocks show has lasted lots longer as far as my everyday life is concerned.

Incidentally, that's one band I would gladly go deaf listening to.

Be very careful of your hearing, young man. When the ringing in my ears after the Buzzcocks' 12/93 show in Dallas hadn't subsided within a week, I realized something was up. Some 14 1/2 years later, I think it's safe to say I've got a nice case of tinnitus. "Harmony in My Head," indeed.

(I've met the guys in the band a couple of times since then, & they don't seem sympathetic at all!)

sleeper - I read a few issues of Atomic Robo, but I couldn't find the first one (which apparently sold out relatively quickly), so I decided to wait for the trade. I'm looking forward to it, because the couple issues I did read were very fun. I hope there are more series in the pipeline.

Greg - Nice choice for the lyrics challenge. Now let's see some late 70's and early 80's Brit-punk. I've been heavy into the Buzzcocks and Siousxie and the Banshees lately. Then again, it wouldn't be much of a game if you took requests...

If DYNAMO 5 isn't selling well, then the internet is populated entirely by big, fat liars. Every fan of superhero comics claims to want stories that are action-packed yet down-to-earth and character oriented, interesting yet not as draining as the Big Two's epic crossover blockbusters and a good, fun read while still retaining drama. Well, guess what? DYNAMO 5 fits the bill perfectly. To anyone complaining about SI or FC: go get the good stuff.

Speaking of awesome comics that need more support, please talk about ATOMIC ROBO from Red 5 comics. If you haven't read it, please read it and then talk about it. It is a big stack of awesome that the comic community at large NEEDS as much as it WANTS. I just hope people find out about and latch on in the numbers it deserves.

If we look at 'Invincible Iron Man'- because Blaze had already been Ghost Rider again for a fair while before the movie, so it's not really a fair example- we see how matching up with the movie can work out really well. Even over in 'Batman', Morrison seems to be making an effort to match up his Joker with the one from the new movie, and it's made for a pretty great take on the character so far. So, hey, it's not all bad, right?

Yeah, because if they didn’t, the same people would complain that they weren’t making an effort to make the books accessible to new readers. That’s a double sided coin you’re flipping, there.

Pfft. It would be if the books actually WERE accessible. We've been over this before.

I hate giving it away in a comment reply when it should be a column, so I'll keep it brief. But my definition of 'accessible' and yours clearly have never matched up, because you disagree with me every time the subject comes up. But when I say accessible, I mean a book should be:

In a place where new readers can find it. Not COMICS readers -- just people who WANT TO READ SOMETHING. Most comics retailers don't meet this standard, in my experience.
Relatively cheap. The going rate of 2.99 for a single monthly issue is bad enough but a lot of smaller companies charge 3.99 which is even more ludicrous for a new title you want people to sample.
A reasonable jumping-on point. You shouldn't have to have read a dozen other comics to figure out what's going on in the one you just bought. Either provide a recap page or find a way to get the information across quickly enough that your new reader doesn't give up.
There should be an actual story. It astonishes me how many new books launch with a bunch of characters talking about stuff that's ABOUT to happen, for twentry pages or so, then the last two pages are some sort of token it's-starting-to-happen moment. Enough should happen in your book that people won't get bored and walk away. 'Action' is not necessarily a fight, but jeez, give readers the sense that there's some kind of forward motion.

To me this seems reasonable. Meet those standards and it really won't matter if your comic matches the version licensed to the movies or not. My students loved the Titans cartoon, but it bothered them not a whit that the Wolfman/Perez version didn't match when I brought the Terra trade collections to class, they still liked it. It was ACCESSIBLE to them. That's what I'm talking about.

All the stuff about Morrison and the corporate sandbox, though... considering Fraction is the guy who criticised Morrison for writing X-Men and proceeded to discuss his own plans for the title IN THE SAME INTERVIEW, I doubt they're that different in that regard. And as long as they keep making sandcastles like All-Star Superman and Invincible Iron Man, I'm all for that.

Greg Hatcher said...
"The idea of “the movie lures them to the store and then that’s when we get ‘em!” has never worked that well since the direct market took over the industry, and I don’t know that it’s worked at ALL since the 1989 Batman. But Marvel and DC keep thinking that the comics should match up."

Yeah, because if they didn't, the same people would complain that they weren't making an effort to make the books accessible to new readers. That's a double sided coin you're flipping, there.

It just seems weird that a successful character would be shelved just so the “original” can come back and not sell. What’s the answer? Is there an answer????

All the complaints about the Ketch version are artistically valid. But I doubt artistic integrity has anything to do with the editorial policy. I suspect the real answer's a lot simpler -- the Blaze version was the guy in the movie. So the Blaze version is what is currently in print.

Whether or not this strategy is actually selling Marvel any Ghost Rider books? Dunno. But I am assuming that's where the basis for the decision lies. The idea of "the movie lures them to the store and then that's when we get 'em!" has never worked that well since the direct market took over the industry, and I don't know that it's worked at ALL since the 1989 Batman. But Marvel and DC keep thinking that the comics should match up.

Still, if nothing else, this issue was absolutely gorgeous, and I'm definitely going to be buying the collected edition of it as well to accompany the singles, as I'm sure it will flow even better in collected form.

I'm a big fan of the Hawaiian Dick series, but I only buy it in trades, so the wait has been even harder than if I was buying the slowly released individual issues.

I was also sadly underwhelmed with the Arcade finale in X-Factor. Arcade's stunt was cute but you're telling me none of them could have realized it was just a mask under a mask? Not even the telepath? Plus the rescue scenes were nice but something about the overall frantic, manic pace of the "Middle East Side burning" scenes just came across as more confusing to me than dramatic. Oh well, still a damn fine comic overall...