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Comics

Couple of Quick Notes

I've not been hitting the blog the way I should lately, so I've let a few comics bits pass by. Consider this to be playing catch up.

A couple of days ago, the Pulse reported that DC was cracking down on staff who sold their comp comics to local comic shops. The whole thing is a bit silly actually, but I did have a few thoughts:

If the dude that got fired had all this stuff in his office related to his ebay selling, then he must have been running the operation on company time. Maybe that's the reason he got canned? I certainly wouldn't blame DC for being upset about that.

Doesn't it bother DC that the people who work for them don't want their comics, even when they're free?

I don't know which is more pathetic: staff coming to depend on the income from selling their freebies or a store coming to depend on the freebies as stock.

The saddest part of the whole story: Now DC staff won't be picking up any more alternative/independent titles, since they can't get them for free. Maybe I need to stop grousing about the limited vision of mainstream comics fans and start grousing about the limited vision of mainstream comics staff!

I guess that will put an end to the practice of randomly plucking up alt creators and offering them super-hero slots, huh? Maybe now Dylan Horrocks can get back to working on Atlas!

The Pulse also has a quick press release from NBM about their upcoming release from Christophe Blain. It's full of the typical hype and hyperbole of your averge comics-related press release, but it's still worth reading, as it connects Blain with Trondheim, Sfar, and others in this generation of French cartoonists whose work is slowly but surely trickling into this country, thanks to the efforts of NBM and Fantagraphics.

Plus, this line:

"The art might take a little getting used to. Deceptively simple and possibly even scratchy. Like life."

makes it sound too cool to resist. NBM has samples upon their web page. Looks great!

Newsarama gives me another name to add to my list of comics reviewers to avoid or else read only when I'm in the mood for a good laugh: Mike Sangiacomo. I'd never read his stuff before, but checked this one out because of the What's Michael? review. Apparently Michael is a "chick comic," but that's okay, Mike likes it anyway and is "secure enough" in his masculinity to say so. Seems to me that guys who are really secure in their masculinity (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) don't find it necessary to trumpet the fact.

Augie De Blieck returns to the fray about Marvel's no overprint policy with an explanation and clarification. I can buy part of what he's saying, especially that retailers may be relying on DC a bit much to cover their reorders, but he still can't seem to grasp the situation retailers are in these days. If I had to order comics sight unseen months in advance based on the pitiful amount of info you get in Previews and hope to sell them to a shrinking customer base in a depressed economy knowing the whole time that unsold copies are non-returnable, I think I'd order conservatively too.

Beyond that, he's ignored all the speculation talk ("If the book is hot, you can mark up the back issues you over ordered and make a fortune.") that formed the basis of Jemas' early justification for the policy. Yes, it makes sense for Marvel to make a move that benefits their sales, but not if it destroys the market in the long run. How many more retailers can we stand to lose before the whole thing caves in?

Finally, back at Newsarama, there was a nice interview with Ho Che Anderson about his three-volume biography of Martin Luther King, followed by reader commentary trashing the books because they're "arty." Sigh!

According to the New Comics Release List, the first volume of Tezuka?s Buddha is supposed to come out today. Yay!

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