Colbert * Quesada '08!!!

As many of you may well know, Joe Q was on the infamous and amazing Colbert Report last night. Did you miss it? maybe you want to see it again? you can thank me later.



First off, before you run off to check your Amazing Spider-man #546 covers in disbelief, the Colbert '08 ad is sadly not on there. I wish it was and would buy the issue over again with this variance, yet it doesn't seem such a cover exists...yet!

Now as for the idea of Colbert being a viable canidate for the '08 presidential election within the Marvel universe? I'd find this a beautifully well thought out advertising scheme that would benefit both groups and amuse countless fans. It could honestly be done quite simply through a subtle viral campaign. Think about it, now and then seeing billboards, bumper stickers, and newspapers mentioning Colbert for president throughout the pages of Marvel comics. It would detract from the story anymore than the fake ads do now and would certainly beat the hell out of the Army and Lost ads currently leaking into our comic pages. I can also guarantee that people would pick up the comics for this factor and retailers would sell a few extra copies. I mean...I sold all the issues of Tek Jansen #1 we got in my store with the greatest of ease. The only question is...who is Stephen going to choose for his running mate? I'd honestly put a Colbert * Quesada '08 sticker on...well, just about everything I own. So listen up Marvel, its time to get this campaign running and put Colbert in something as close to the Marvel's Oval Office as possible!


Now, an image to remember, lets look at Quesada's cover to the never released (or even written) Rampaging Colbert #1

PICK OF THE WEEK

Every Wednesday new comic books arrive at my store and I choose my favourite as my personal ‘Pick of the Week’. This decision is made before I read the issue and is based upon several variables. Contributing factors include the creators, cover, story summary, previous events in the comic, and personal interest in the comic. The options I choose from our only limited by what Diamond has listed to release this week according to their shipping list (and in some rare cases the issue won’t even arrive at my shop). So without further adieu, this week’s pick is:

Wormwood: Calamari Rising Part #1



Ben Templesmith
Just when Wormwood thought he could finally have that quiet drink without worrying about the world coming to an end, or a friend with a parasitic infection trying to kill him, The Brotherhood of the Calamari decide to crash the party. Since their last meeting, they've tracked him across the thousand million dimensional possibilities of existence—and this time the entire Squideeverse is with them. Wormwood is going to learn the hard way he can't keep running from his problems as his oldest foe now threatens his favorite watering hole, Earth, with absorption into the Calamari group mind.
FC • $3.99 • 32 pages



It was a hard choice this week, especially when Jamie Delano FINALLY has a new book coming out (Narcopolis) and you're competing with Black Adam, 2 Star Wars titles, and 3 Avengers books. Hell, even the new Captain America was revealed this week (which I'll talk about this weekend)!!! Still, credit given where credit is due and this is where it belongs. Templesmith has never written a wormwood story that hasn't made me smile.

Guaranteed Sales

There are certain comic creators whose work I enjoy so much I will buy anything they put out, regardless of what it is. Its not necessarily because they are my favourite creators (though in some cases they are), but these people have put out enough consistantly good work that I trust future projects will be equally enjoyable. Here is a list:

Writers:
Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, Geoff Johns, Warren Ellis, Greg Rucka, Brad Meltzer, Judd Winick, & Ed Brubaker

Pencilers:
Michael Turner, Jim Lee, Frank Cho, Ben Templesmith, & Josh Howard

Colourists: (yes, there are some colourists I find so amazing I am guaranteed to buy their works)
Peter Stiegerwald & Christina Strain

One More Day/Brand New Day

I think just about the whole internet has expressed their views on Marvel's recent [bad] move known as Spider-man: One More Day. My turn to throw two cents at Joe Q's face well also bringing up their follow up, Brand New Day.

SPOILERS AHEAD (but you honestly should know them by now)

Let me start by saying that Sensational Spider-Man (vol. 2) #41 was one of my spider-man comics of 2007. Straczynski pulled a good move with that story in not only showing the beauty and significance of the Peter Parker-Mary Jane relationship, but in getting our hopes up. How did he get our hopes up? Well we should all know that the concept to One More Day was that Peter Parker and Mary Jane were offered a deal with the devil (Mephisto), wherein Aunt May (who was recently put into brink of death state, thanks to a poorly aimed bullet) would be allowed to live and return to her healthy old life if they chose to end their marriage with no memory of it. Sensational Spider-man #41 made me think for just a moment that they wouldn't go through with the deal.
Now let me take an aside and give you my view on the marriage. It's well known that Joe Q and many others opposed Peters holy union with Mary for sometime and that they feared it aged the character too much. That being said, I see people married in their early twenties every day (in fairness, I live right by a military base). So my opinion is the marriage was great because it fit, these characters seemed made for eachother (and Mary Jane quite litterally was made for Peter, in a very eve sorta way). Sure, you can't write other female interests for Peter with him married or he'd look like a dog. Well...no, I take that back, look what Kevin Smith did in Spider-man/Black Cat. In fact, that only plays to Peters character better when you have temptation you can't take (I can honestly say its hard not being single, so many beautiful women out there!). Thusly I believe that the only problem with the marriage is coming up with ideas to keep the stories involving MJ and Pete interesting. Well, any writer worth his salt should be able to do that or should tackle a different subject. Just because you're hitting the writers block on this relationship, doesn't mean you should ruin it for fan and future creators. If anyone needs proof that the relationship could be done right, or even broken up in a far better way, then just check out what Erik Larsen had to say over at CBR.
Despite the outcry of thousands of fans, Marvel went along with disolving the marriage and confusingly putting some 2+ decades of comics continuity in to question. You'd think they'd have learned a lesson from the whole clone saga. It was a bad call, a poor to end to the story line, a sad ending point for Straczynski Spider-man run, and just plain contradictory to the last several big Spider-Man Events.
To elaborate on the last bit, lets just look at the last 3 events that recently had changed Spider-Man:
-Organic Webshooters*
Gone
-Reincarnation/Crazy Wrist Spikes**
Gone
-Publically Known Identity***
Gone

*Spider-Man: Disassembled
**Spider-man: The Other
***Civil War

It was truly truly a bad call to erase so much with such a horrible deus ex machina. However, should they undo it? NO!
Sure, I wish it never happened, I honestly think it was just stupidity to do this, but you can't undo it. It's done, it be truly foolish to try and fix it now and would just show stupidity on Marvels behalf. It's one of those points where you have to be stubborn and not admit to the problem. This leads us into a Brand New Day, quite literally as the story holds that name.

Brand New Day starts with Amazing Spider-man being released 3 times a month at the expense of all other main universe Spider-man titles. This already irks me a bit considering I only picked up Ultimate Spidey and Amazing Spidey, to avoid picking up several books on the same character every month (I already do this with Batman, Superman, and Wolverine!). Heres the trick they used, they have revolving 3 issue storylines where each month a new creative team tells their tale. To the creators its just like normal, 3 issues over a few months, nothing new. However to the fans the whole story comes out in one month. Thats cool on one end, that we get a complete story every month, but my wallet hates me for it. Furthermore, were just not given the time to say "I don't like this storyline, I'm not picking up next month's issue". It's not as easily done as it is when there is several titles coming out with one part of the story every month. Still, I've bought into it.

Now on to the important part, how is Brand New Day? Annoyingly, I must answer that it truly is good. It's plain and simple spider-man stories that anyone can hop onto and enjoy. Marvel was right, their plan worked...It pisses me off to no end!...but they were right. On the retail end I can honestly hand a new reader an issue of Amazing Spider-Man each month and they can hop on without the stress of continuity pounding on their backs. Haven't read spider-man in 20 years? never truly read it? doesn't matter, all you need is the basic concept (which you can get in the first 30 minutes of the movie or a 5 minute explanation) and you're set to read spider-man. I hate that this is the follow up to One More Day, that Marvel thinks it was a good choice because the sales will see high figures, but I truly do enjoy the current stories being written in Amazing Spider-man. If only they could have thrown Dan Slott and the others on this title before Straczynski big reveal, maybe we'd have good stories with MJ and Peter still wed...

My Comic Facts

Now before I truly get into posting, let me tell you a bit about my fandom so you can see where I'm coming from, my biases, and catch some of my inside jokes.

-First of all, I'm a primarily DC fan. I love DC comics and its many heroes, even prefer its comic universe to any other. Oddly enough though, it's the Marvel comics that normally find there way to the top of my read pile each week.

-I can't recall my first comic, but I remember the first title I started regularly buying. Amazing Spider-man, Volume 1, around the end of 1993.

-I discovered Image, specifically Top Cow and Wildstorm, in '95 and have complete runs of the majority of their amazing titles (even when they're not all that amazing)

-I BUY an average of 130 new comics a month, check diamond's website every monday, and generally pick up my books on a saturday. Because of this, many comics that don't jump to the top of my read pile slip far down the list and wont get read for several months!

-I've been annually attending Comic Con International every year since 1999 and started attending many other comic and anime conventions annually since 2005. I average around 12 conventions a year.

-I'm an absolute sucker for variant covers (but truly hate paying extra for more limited released ones)

-Rob Liefeld and John Byrne have made their names into curse words within my comic shop because of the ways they carry themsevles online and in person.

-My comic collection is so large I honestly have no clue how many thousands of issues I own...though they are suprisingly well organized.

A New Idea

Hello all you prospective new readers! I am Mathias Lewis, a comic fan, creator, and retailer whose been absorbed into the industry for several years now. I've been a comic fan for well over a decade, first truly reading American Comics on a regular basis back in 1994. Since then it has been a long and bumpy road where my fandom shifted all over the place. I recall a few years in the late ninties where I was only reading "indy" titles (which I considered anything not from the big two). However around 2001 I was drawn back into the mainstream of comics and started picking up everything that interested me well building a huge backlisting of titles dating back to the 60's. In 2003 I wrote my first comic script and saw it published in 2004. During 2004 I was also hired on a different end of the industry, selling comics. I still hold that job nearly 4 years later, working weekends at a Southern California comic shop (that for the time will remain nameless). Since that point I've expanded my career path in more directions that I can name. I attend countless comics and anime conventions every year and feel I have a fairly good grasp of the industry and its fans.
Thats where this brand new blog comes into creation. Like everyone on the internet, I have a million things I want to say. This actually accounts for why I have roughly half a dozen blogs from livejournal to myspace, however there were things I wanted to talk about that just wouldn't have fit in those places. My solution is what you are currently reading, a blog just to talk comics. Here I will discuss everything from the crazy comic customers, the woes and benefits of being a comic store clerk, commentaries on comic news and stories, and perhaps much much more dealing with the American Comic Industry and its many related forms (from manga to movies). So I honestly do hope you will all enjoy this blog and you're all welcome to comment. Honestly, if you like what I say, if you hate what I say, if you just want scream you're personal distate for Rob Liefeld, please feel free!