The birthday haul, 2016

Well, it's that time of year once again where I show off some of the stuff I have. I guess I do that more than once a year. I'm okay with this. Anyway, my birthday has come and gone as it seems to do, and I got some neat things. So you get to see them! But first, check out this sketch of The Tick and Arthur from Rob Croonenborghs! I thought that this was pretty cool.

First up on the docket is the Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot hardcover collection from Dark Horse Comics. I'm excited to break into this as I've actually never read the story before and it's, if you can believe it, one of Frank Miller's stranger co-creations. I wonder if the '90s cartoon is out on DVD? Hmm...four seconds of Amazon research tells me that it isn't. I wonder why?

It was recently announced that "Weird Al" Yankovic would be the new co-host and band leader of IFC's "Comedy Bang! Bang!" beginning in season five. This means, of course, that it's time for me to catch up on the series so far, and I got the first two seasons that I'm pouring through. It really is a fantastic program. It's weird and irreverent and it suits my sense of humor just fine.

Also in the stack is a book all about old comic book ads, "Mail-Order Mysteries"! It shows the actual products behind many of the more ubiquitous ads that showed up in comics. It does not disappoint and seems oddly tailor-made to me specifically.

Lastly you'll see "Save the Cat", a book on screenwriting for jerks like me who will one day probably sell out and write a screenplay. If I haven't already.

Next up, we've got some more DVDs, including the second volume of the Conan the Adventurer series, the complete Planet of the Apes tv series, and the first season of very Clone High alumni heavy "The Last Man on Earth".

Just as I predicted, I'm getting sucked into the amiibo fad and now I own two. I keep telling myself that I'm stopping with Pac Man. Who knows if this is true? I also picked up a new audiobook set in the "Ender's Game" universe. "Ender's Game" was such an incredible book and everything afterwards just slowly and unfortunately went downhill. I guess I'm still trying to recapture that initial wonder.

Oh, and I spent all of last month stalking Larry with a fake Twitter profile before revealing it to him with a birthday cake from (of course) Dairy Queen. Revenge isn't the only thing that's best served cold. Ice cream cake is. Because it's made of ice cream. You get it.

Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 2: Wednesday (Art of Comic-Con exhibit, the Walking Dead and more!)

We're back with more pictures from Comic-Con!  It's September!  Whatever.  Here we go!

Wednesday night in San Diego is Preview Night.  Lots of people arrive in the city on this day, but in doing so I think they miss getting a chance - a few hours, anyway - to see some of the other things going on in conjunction with the convention.  There's never enough time to see everything at Comic-Con, but arriving a little bit early gives you some time during the buildup to the big storm.  Before getting in to the convention center, I stopped by the new San Diego public library, located on the other side of Petco Park.

The library is barely a year old, but they're already coordinating events with Comic-Con, and I can see the location becoming more ingrained in years to come.  There were a few panels and exhibits there this year, but I'd imagine that will increase greatly in the near future.

One exhibit that coincided with the convention was "The Art of Comic-Con", the library's rooftop display of original art and items related to the last 45 years of Comic-Con in San Diego.  The gallery is small, but it still held a number of great, rare and what I imagine to be very expensive pieces, such as this giant original drawing from Sergio Aragones.

Original cover art from the different programs took up the better part of one wall.  This was one of my favorites.

Here's a shot of one side of the gallery.  On the far left are some light pole banners from years past.

I saw this weeks after the UHF screening in Pittsburgh.  Nice.

The new library is such a beautiful place.  I can't wait until there are more events held there.

After leaving the library, it was time to head back to the convention center.  I was able to get into the hall a few minutes early, thanks to some friends with exhibitor badges.  As you walked in to the lobby, you could see one of these photo opportunities right along the wall by the Hall D entrance.  It was a popular spot and I'm sure there are about 100 other pictures similar to this one.  I'll accept it.

The convention center surprisingly - and without much warning - opened a half hour early this year.  This caught me off guard and I was scrambling to get to where I needed to be as attendees flooded the area.  My wife and brother-in-law, incredibly enough, made it into the elusive Hasbro line on Preview Night for the first time in four years, despite having early entrance to the hall in three of those.  I made my way to the Mattel booth, where I was able to pick up the coin you see above, a "Skeletoken", which served as an entrance fee to the He-Man-themed "Skeletor's Lair" offsite store.  It's one of the coolest things I brought back with me from the show.

It wasn't long before the convention hall was packed.

The Walking Dead once again had a big presence at the show, including this recreation of a particularly gruesome scene from the fifth season.

And like last year, zombies roamed the display area, and followed those brave enough to wait a while in line into the trailer in the background.

Here's a diverse group of sci-fi fans!

Nintendo took up a bunch of space near the end of the hall, with a big display and playable versions of the new Mario Maker game, which looks like a lot of fun and probably means that I'll be getting a WiiU at some point before the year is over.

Adult Swim had a bean bag toss game for prizes on the floor to go along with their outside space.

And, of course, the Tick booth had set up again in its usual spot.

The booth was busy for most of the convention, which was nice to see.  The newest Tick issue debuted at the show and it did well.

The day was over at 9:00, and then it was time to explore the city just a bit before heading back to get ready for Thursday.  The line for Skeletor's Lair was incredibly long (people waited upwards of five hours to get in), so we decided to put that off until later.

This is my brother-in-law.  It kind of looks like he's eating bugs off the grill of this Jurassic Park vehicle.

This was an interesting piece of street art we saw while walking back to our car at night.  As I'll show later, there were these different variations on Bart Simpson painted on a number of different objects on this street corner, with the phrase "Bart Club" on most of them.  I've tried to look up something about them since then, but I haven't had any luck.  It's weird, but neat.  I wonder what it's all about?

That's it for Wednesday.  Thursday is coming up.

Preorder FUBAR: Summer Special!

The June edition of Diamon's Previews catalogue was just released, and if you flip to page 229, you'll see that there's a new FUBAR book being solicited: the FUBAR: Summer Special one shot!  This book was advertised in FUBAR's Free Comic Book Day offering, and I'm happy to finally be able to show the cover and give up a little more information about it.

Rather than a big phone book-style anthology like volumes 1 and 2, the Summer Special is a standard sized, 32-page b&w comic and will feature four stories.  I've written one of them, a short tale that'll be drawn by a familiar artist, none other than Leonardo Pietro, who also provided the cover.  The book also features a story from the upcoming third volume of FUBAR as well as two other brand new stories, one written by Batman and GI Joe alum Chuck Dixon and another by Conan and Hawken's Tim Truman!

The book retails for $2.99, which is a dollar less than what I expected.  It really is a great price for what's being offered, and I'm not just saying that because I desperately want people to buy it (though that is also true.  It is!).

If you've got a favorite comic shop that you go to, ask 'em to order a few copies of the Summer Special for the shelves!  It'd really help out and I think that there's an audience for it.  The all important Diamond order code is JUN12 0760.

The book will arrive in August and it'll serve as a lead in to the third volume.  Check it out!

Digital Marketing for the Print Medium

Comics have always been a visual medium, but much to the dismay of many within the industry, they are also a print medium and that presents challenges that many similar forms of entertainment are facing: how to stay relevant and profitable in an age of increasing digital competition.

Even though comic book companies have seen and acknowledged an oncoming digital presence for their characters for more than a decade now, most are still struggling to define just how they want to represent themselves in an electronic field, and some attempts to branch out are better than others.

Both Marvel and DC, for example, are experimenting with selling digital copies of their comics in the very comics themselves - that is, if you buy a copy of the book, you can download an electronic version as well.  Marvel is, so far, including a download code for free, while DC is charging an extra dollar for the privilege.

This practice irks me at least a little, because behind this good deal (at least on Marvel's part) is a bit of sneaky marketing.  Both companies polybag their combo books, sealing them in until after they're purchased.  On the surface, this is so someone can't walk into a comic shop, scan the code, walk out without buying anything, have the comic on his or her e-reader, and render the one-time code invalid for someone who might actually purchase the book.

It's also, though, a way for companies to boost sales by having some of the more rabid consumers purchase two copies of the same book.  Due to their (perceived) collectibility, some buyers won't want to tear open the bag these comics come in, leaving them with a choice - either seemingly deface their collectible item, or spend twice as much to keep one copy in tact.

Companies obviously are aware of this, and while I won't say it's malicious on their part that they do this, it does seem to me like taking advantage of the psychosis that is collecting (that's consumerism for ya).  In a matter of weeks, Marvel's entire Ultimate Comics line will ship exclusively in polybags with download codes, which will put this practice to the test.

Other practices, however, are more in line with what I think comic book companies should be doing, taking advantage of the new capabilities that technology offers while still remaining true to the spirit of comics.

Marvel's recent relaunch of Daredevil, written by Mark Waid, has been a highlight of superhero comics in 2011.  Not that I'll ever discount Waid's writing, as he's been involved with some of my favorite comics of all time, but DD is really a treat to read every month.

Daredevil has always, for obvious reasons, had a strong following with visually-impaired comic readers, and Marvel finally took advantage of that by releasing an audio version of the first issue, read by Waid and a few others, free for download.  This is both a nice treat for fans in general as well as the aforementioned visually impaired, and is exactly the type of thing that big companies like this should be doing.

The direct link to the file is here: http://marvel.com/files/podcasts/DAREDEVIL_1_edited.mp3.  A little more info is on Marvel's site, here: http://marvel.com/news/story/16485/daredevil_1_audio_edition.

USA Today, while not being my favorite site for actual news, has had a pretty good relationship with comic companies over the past several years.  I still wonder why the paper doesn't print daily comic strips, but every once in a while they'll print comics and put them in front of a substantially larger audience size than they'd otherwise get.  When DC put out Wednesday Comics a few years back, the paper actually printed some to promote the series, and it had a strong web presence as well.

Dark Horse Comics went a bit further and released an exclusive digital Conan the Barbarian comic by Ron Marz and Bart Sears, who coincidentally (a hem) went on to produce a two-issue miniseries, Conan: The Island, another example of a company taking advantage or digital means to promote the physical product.

The full Conan story, "Kiss of the Undead", can be read here: http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2010-11-22-kissoftheundead22_ST_N.htm



Lastly, Marvel and Toyota have teamed up for an ad campaign that features short Robot Chicken-inspired videos with action figures and the Toyota Yaris.  It's a pretty bizarre combination, and it's beyond tame, but it's just another example of what a comic company can do when management embraces digital marketing.

This video is, of course, just an advertisement when it comes down to it, but it's still fairly interesting.  You can watch more of the Marvel/Toyota videos here: http://www.earnhardttoyota.com/tag/its-a-car/.

The haul, 2011

One of the last things that Christmas should represent is overt commercialization - secular or not, Christmas should be about more than the crass act of consumption.  That being said, for Christmas I got stuff.  Stuff that I was excited to get.  So I'm showing it off, knowing full well that the emperor has no clothes, to extend a metaphor.  Gaze upon these works, you mighty...and despair:

I got a boatload of graphic novels this time around.  That's right, enough graphic novels to load a boat with!  Depending on the size of the boat.  Anyway, here we have the Dylan Dog collection, volume 2 of Joe Casey and Tom Scioli's Godland, and the highly anticipated Habibi by Craig Thompson.

Also among the stash is The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.  It's astounding that someone who has spent his life creating psychedelic, counter-culture underground comics can put something like this together and have it look so incredible.  It's ironic that this just might become his best-known work.

I've now got three of four of the Hellboy Library Edition collections.  It's beautiful stuff.

I got some cool Thing-related merchandise as well, including a Thing shot glass that is just awesome.  And I landed a Thing Squinkie without having to buy the entire damn set.

I got some DVD swag, too!  Season one of Conan: The Adventurer, Volume six of Futurama, Weird Al's Alpocalypse HD collection of videos, and the first collection of Adventure Time, a show I'm loving more and more with every episode.

Rounding off the display of cool stuff is a Magic Mouse for the Mac, some brand new Shrinky Dinks (pre cut?!  What the heck!!), and some Pac Man crafty figures.  Pac Man and his ghosts were made by my friend Vicki, who has a photo blog here.  Vicki did a bunch of video game themed figures that would totally sell for cash money on a site like Etsy.  Seriously, Vicki, open up a store.  And make me some Yetis.  I SAID DO IT!

I hope that everyone out there had a wonderful Christmastime.  Here's to 2012!

Desperate plea to Barry Windsor-Smith: Please finish your Thing graphic novel. I'M BEGGING.

A few years ago I read an article on Newsarama that described Barry Windsor-Smith's progress on an original graphic novel starring the Thing.  Windsor-Smith, who might be best known for his work on the Conan the Barbarian title, had started working on the Thing project once again after a period of stagnation.  As I read the article (which has since been lost to time, apparently), it explained that BWS had been working on this particular project since 1985, and it cautioned that there wasn't any great anticipation that the graphic novel would be out on the shelves any time soon.

This portent appears to have been true, as there isn't any further news on this Thing story in the five years since I read that Newsarama article.  Other than some very enticing preview art and a synopsis from Windsor-Smith himself, this book seems to once again be in limbo.

Now, it's important to understand that BWS will certainly work on this at his own pace, and I don't by any means feel that he owes us this book.  If he finishes it, then he will.  If he doesn't, then either someone else will or the book will never see print.

That being said, I WANT TO READ THIS BOOK SO BADLY!

Ah-hem.

On the off chance that Mr. Windsor-Smith comes across this post and takes the time to read my thoughts, let me say just this: this is a project that I very much want to pay large amounts of money to own a copy of, and I'm certain that there are others who feel the same way.  I'm sure that BWS has his own personal reasons for completing or not completing this story, and those reasons will win out over all others, but I continue to hold out hope, 26 years since its inception, that eventually this will see the light of day.

Here's Windsor-Smith's description of the story:

There is hardly any comic-book type action in my story. Ben Grimm is showing signs of what the psychiatric field terms dissociation (opposite of association: in the hip meaning of having things -- one's self -- together. Dissociation is the opposite: of losing one's sense of self). While Ben Grimm has come to terms with his man/monster public image, his inner self is deeply disturbed. Due to this, and over time, Ben has become susceptible to intense neurosis. Ben's shattered self-regard is depicted in the two-page nightmare montages that open each story. In these scenes we see Ben literally falling apart as he pleads with the members of the FF (and his lady friend Alicia Masters) to show compassion for him. 

In the first story, as Reed and Sue and Johnny are about to take summer vacations, Ben receives a letter from a Madison Avenue talent agency offering to represent him in the lucrative field of celebrity commercial endorsement. This otherwise anomalous solicitation is the springboard for the entire story. After his fellow Fantastics depart on their vacations, Ben is left alone in the city, dealing with his discontent and his loneliness. After a calamitous water-borne emergency and much misguided rumination, he decides to quit the superhero game and the FF in particular to turn his "inimitable charisma" to show business. Despite the gravity of a plot describing Ben Grimm's psychological unravelling, this story is told as a comedy.

My concept for publication is to present the work in a single volume (HC and TPB) with editorial material explaining the history of the story and including the many visual out-takes culled from over the years. This will not only be rewarding in an historical way but will allow a smoother transition from the look and sound of my 1980s work to my somewhat-different style of 2005.

Ooh, I so much want this to become a reality.  Maybe one day.

Justice League #8 letters page

To prove that everything old is new again, DC Comics recently announced that they were bringing back letters pages to their books.  Letters pages were removed several years ago in lieu of a more standard "DC Nation" page, which ended up being exactly what it was destined to become - a full-page in-house ad for other crap the company wanted you to buy.  It followed a pretty predictable formula: at first Dan DiDio wrote the DC Nation page and it was fairly informative; after a while DiDio still wrote it but would mention things like "well, I'm running really late with this, so...who likes Plastic Man?!"; later, Didio passed the torch onto other editors and assistants; even later you'd see full pages of art with "HAPPY THANKSGIVING!" (and similar messages) plastered on them; finally, it settled down to its current form, the Jay Sherman-esque "buy my book!" ads.

The prevailing sentiment from DC a few years ago was that message boards effectively took the place of letters pages, and nostalgia aside they probably did, though comics do run on quite a bit of nostalgia, to be fair.  I imagine that the DC Nation page might stick around even though letters pages are returning, as most DC books are cutting the page count of their books from 22 to 20 in an effort to save costs and keep cover prices at (or roll them back to) $2.99.

In any case, letters pages seem intrinsically tied to comics in many ways, as they have a long publication history together.  For example, last week I mentioned that I had bought a copy of Justice League of America #8 from Greensburg's Pop Culture Connection.  Within its pages is a 50-year-old letter column that was probably as stupid-fun as any could be today.

The first letter in this column is from none other than Roy Thomas, who later went on to become a mainstay creator himself, writing titles like Fantastic Four and Conan (he just took over as the main writer for Dark Horse's Conan: Road of Kings series, as it turns out, after lengthy runs on several of Marvel's series).  This isn't a great surprise, as Thomas is known to have letters published in quite a few series before he began working for comics in a professional capacity, but it still is funny.  He mentions what had to be the first issue of his well-known and long-lived fanzine, Alter Ego.

Writers of most of the other letters do what fans do best - they complain.  Oh, do they complain!  Most of them complain about the overuse of certain characters like Superman and Batman.  It's funny to read how much disdain some fans had for different characters, especially when fans today spend so much time making the same kinds of arguments.

One fan (Ronald Lehr of Cleveland) wrote to yell about the misuse of Superman, saying "I'd rather see him dropped off the JLA than be abused as he is.  He is the most neglected member.  Never (just about) is he in the action."  The best part about Ron's letter is that he calls DC on using Kryptonite on every possible occasion: "The mineral must be on sale at a local candy-store", he muses, "the way you guys scatter it into the hands of every crook that comes along."  The sarcasm!  The vitriol!  It's nice to know that some things withstand the test of time.

There are other interesting entries; one person writes his letter directly to the Flash (and asks the editors to deliver it to him); one counts - panel by panel - the appearances of each Justice League member (except for Snapper Carr and Green Arrow, for some reason) in each of the first six issues of the book!

My favorite letter of all, though, comes from Mrs. John L. Wright from Terre Haute, Indiana, who wrote to prove that smart people read comics, too.  After listing a string of her and her husband's accomplishments (including IQ numbers), she praises the "clean harmlessness of comic books."

The reply from the editor really knocked me over.  I can't tell if it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.  I dearly hope it is, because after noting that this woman's husband had an IQ four points higher than hers, the editor replies: "We're curious about what effect your husband's higher I.Q. has on your married life.  Does it mean that you allow him to make all the decisions in your household?"

My goodness.  As I said, these letters are 50 years old, so we're talking about a time when gender roles were a bit different than they are now.  Even so, what a flippant response!  Here's a woman praising the value of your comics (when everyone else is writing in to say how much they hate Batman), and your big response is "does your husband tell you what to do all the time?"  You're a bunch of jerks sometimes, DC.

The Most Boring Card Ever Made, Jeff Laffery's art blog, Sticky Comics, and other notes of great importance

Look, here's proof that I am actually working on the main website redesign!  From this screenshot you can see just how drastic the changes will be - that's right, the menu bar will be listed VERTICALLY!  Holy crap, what unbelievable updates will I come up with next?!

In the meantime, though, here are a few websites that I've recently come upon that should hold your interest until teddyandtheyeti.com gets back up and running (you can still read them afterwards, too...it's not a contest):

- I found The Baseball Card Blog while looking for the article "Oh, no! Not another boring interview with Steve Carton!" by Diane K. Shah online (a great read in its own right) - the post "The Most Boring Card Ever Made" came up, and boy, is it a doozy.

I collected baseball cards right alongside comics until about 1995, when the bottoms dropped out of both industries (and, probably not coincidentally, the Pirates were in the beginnings of their tailspin from relevance).  Getting to see these cards again in this format is both nostalgic and engaging, and the writing on this site really draws me in -  it takes a humorous look at another industry (along with comics) that probably takes itself too seriously.

If you check out one thing on the site, make sure it's the "Casey at the Bat" Poster Project, where Ernest Thayer's classic poem is recreated through the creative use of baseball cards (including Billy Ripken's infamous Fleer card). (http://baseballcardblog.blogspot.com/)

- Jeff Lafferty once drew Doom 2099 for Marvel, and that automatically makes him awesome.  He and I semi collaborated on a few things several years ago, but I lost track of him after a while.  I recently discovered his art blog, though, and it seems that he's back and better than ever.

You'll find lots of art on Jeff's site, mostly in the form of sketch cards, but what I find most impressive is the webcomic he's starting to put together, adapting Robert E. Howard's famous story, "Conan and the Frost Giant's Daughter", a favorite Conan tale of mine. (http://jefflaffertyillustration.blogspot.com/)

- I spent the weekend of the New York Comic Con in a booth next to Christiann MacAuley, creator of the website Sicky Comics (http://www.stickycomics.com), and since the show has ended, I've become a fan.  While much of the site is an overload of cute, there's an R-rated undercurrent that makes a lot of the jokes subversively funny.  Below is quite probably my favorite of the bunch:

- Lastly, your friend and mine, Larry, is selling some Dukes of Hazzard 1/144 scale cars on eBay.  It's the entire set of ten cars, apparently!  Help him out and place a bid so he can take the money and use it to buy more Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia.  Seriously, he's almost got it all, and he might as well get to the finish line.  And while you're at it, check out Larry and my Franks and Beans website, which is newly updated with 48 (FORTY EIGHT!) episodes and a new layout...though I still have to figure out how to get the logo back up.

- Oh, and I recently applied for a table to the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International.  The end.