Some public announcement stuff

This is now the second time the I´ve gotten a note by the DMCA that my post RECOMMENDATIONS - HORROR AND UNDERGROUND has been deleted due to possible copyright infringement.

The problem is that I don´t know which part of the post - if there really is any - is to blame and so far it has been impossible to get that info. So this goes out to the person who made the claim : there is my e - mail info on the blog and if you want something send ME an e - mail. I´m sure we can fix this. And if this is just a prank - dude, don´t you have anything better to do with your time ? Really ?

STOLEN IDENTITY - FOR REAL

By the way, I just came across this blog called greenz9 who totally copied all my posts until Friday, November the 4th 2011 which was my post about POP CULTURE TV SIREN MARKIE POST . It´s really one of my favorite posts and number six on the favorite posts according to my readers.

I don´t know why the person doing this stopped, maybe because he also included the backlinks to my top ten posts and people found out that this here was the real blog and he was just trying to rip off people. Or maybe it turned into too much work. What I do know is that he still has the first version on the blog while I have redone the post various times. I have update all old links I used and deleted the ones that don´t work anymore but he still has all that on the website. Anyway, the guy may even have been sending more readers my way. So accept no substitutes for the one and only, the true blue, the golden oldy done without the influence of pharmaceutical products ( at least for the most part ) TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN. Like Connor McCloud said : " There can be only one. "

THE NEXT STEP OF COMIC PRICE INCREASE : X MARKS THE SPOT

Some of you out there may have already noticed, but comics have become more expensive again. The only reason I´m mentioning it at all is that it happened kind of through the backdoor so you may not be aware of it.

There is a kind of rhythm to the comic industry and if you have been reading comics as long as I have you know the patterns. This is not the first time prices have increased over the last three decades and it will not be the last. The same things happen over and over again and the steps are always the same. First there will be a price increase that will be accompanied with added content like DC did before going back to the 2.99 mark. Then there will come the time when the increased price - in our case that´s 3.99 which is now the price for most books - will be the standard for the old content which means the usual 21 to 22 pages. And then the page count will go down to 20 or less pages for the 3.99 price because otherwise the companies couldn´t produce the comics we love.

Another step is that ultimately prices for collected editions will go up and collections will contain less issues for the regular price. This has NOW come to pass with my recently acquired hardcovers of ALL NEW X - MEN.

With this series I waited for the hardcovers since I heard so much good about it from various sources on the internet like Comikbookgirl19.

One of the first things I noticed was that while it is still priced at 25 bucks it only contains 5 issues of the regular series instead of the standard 6. Now you may say that there are some collections out there where 5 issues for 25 bucks have always been the standard like - for example - Stephen King´s THE DARK TOWER which I am reading. But you have to keep in mind that when the series started the standard price for issues was 2.99 and to justify the astronomic price of 3.99 - at least at that time - Marvel offered an increased value by producing high end issues with better quality paper, hard, cardbox covers and extra content in the form of illustrated text pieces to give the readers more info about the world of The Dark Tower. So while there were only 5 issues the page count could be compared to the other collections that contained 6 issues.

Now in ALL NEW X - MEN not only are there only 5 issues in the trades, each issue only has 20 pages. Don´t get me wrong, the book is all that it was promised and more.The story really grabs you instantly and putting the original X - Men in it is a stroke of genius by Brian Michael Bendis especially for readers who have been absent from the title for many years. They see the world of the X - Men through the eyes of the mutant teenagers who just want to know what the hell happened to Xavier´s dream. And don´t get me started on Stuart Immomen who is firing on all cylinders here, especially in issue 5 where he does some wonderful collages taking a stroll down memory lane through Jean Grey´s history.

Isn´t his cover for issue 5 just absolutely brilliant ? Very Dark Phoenix.

No, don´t get me wrong. ALL NEW X - MEN is a good book, in fact it´s so good that when I finished with the first volume I read it all over again. I don´t think that will be the case with the second volume because the issues by guest artist David Marquez just don´t look as good.

Here are some previews to check out more of the art : issue 1 / issue 3

issue 4 / issue 5 ( unlettered ) / issue 6 / issue 7 / issue 8 ( unlettered )

issue 8 / issue 9 ( unlettered ) / issue 9 / issue 10

Anyway, with the way things are going at Marvel right now we need some good books bad ( I think the only other Marvel title I read on a regular basis is FF ) and while this series delivers it´s just sad that with the constant AR crap popping up we also have to endure a page cut.

Another change in the hardcovers is that instead of the usual logo imprinted book with a wraparound dust jacket we now get a regular cover that´s printed directly on the cover which looks kind of matt. Which is not that big a deal and may be done to stop prices from going even higher but it still looks odd compared to the rest of my Marvel hardcovers. In any case, I got my copies from amazon when they were at 16 bucks but for all out there who have to pay the full price I wanted to get the information out there so you know what you´re going into. I can totally recommend the title but I´m really not that happy with the way it´s presented. In a struggling economy like we are having Today it´s really unbelievable that while other industries like the car industry lower prices drastically and give huge incentives the comic book industry is the only one that increases prices. And it´s not like comics are vital like water or food.

NEW INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE PEREZ AND DAVE MCKEAN

I think I might have mentioned it before that George Perez has signed an exclusive with BOOM ! Studios. Maybe not. Anyway, here´s a new video interview courtesy of CBR TV :



I just can´t wait to see his new books.

There´s also a new interview with longtime Sandman collaborator Dave McKean. I´m also really excited about reading the last untold Sandman story Neil Gaiman is doing for VERTIGO.



I don´t know if I already told the story ( judging by my bad memory I probably did and forgot about it or I wanted to, didn´t and thought I already did ) but back in the last century I was standing in line to get an autograph of Neil Gaiman at one of the first comic conventions in Erlangen where I went to get sketches by artists for myself.

Now I didn´t expect Neil to do any drawings, I just wanted to tell him how much i liked his book and I wanted to ask him a question. With the years I have come to learn that you better don´t buy the new books three to four months prior to Erlangen because in some cases you have to buy something to get comics signed or for a sketch. So when it was my turn Neil just asked me who my favorite character from the comic was and then he started to make a drawing into my little sketchbook. Back then I had my little sketchbook which lead me to get a big one because some artists just didn´t put as much effort into it like with the people before me or after me only because my sketchbook was smaller. And it was totally not fair since I was standing in line as long as the guy before me.

Anyway, the woman from the german publisher told Neil that he was not supposed to do sketches and only sign the books that people bought at the booth to which he replied that he had already started and was going to finish it anyway. The woman then told me I had to buy something and since there is always some VERTIGO book you haven´t bought I got the BLACK ORCHID trade where Neil Gaiman revamped the character.

That´s how I got an original death sketch from Neil Gaiman, it´s how I got my BLACK ORCHID trade and that is sadly also the story how I totally forgot to ask Neil Gaiman that all important question.

Where the hell did Morpheus come back from in issue 1 that he was so weak he could be captured ?

I ´m not the most attentive reader and I didn´t read the series in chronological order so I might have just overlooked it or forgotten. I might have made a total fool of myself if I had asked and the answer would have been obvious. The fact was in issue 1 Morpheus is captured because he was very weakened and he´s wearing his traveling gear so either he was going somewhere which left him weakened which made no sense. Or he was returning from somewhere and whatever he experienced there weakened him a lot. Well, it seems that was the ONE dangling question that was never explained and now Neil Gaiman is coming back to Vertigo, coming back to Sandman to unravel that last mystery.

Neil Gaiman announces SANDMAN OVERTURE

Neil on SANDMAN OVERTURE and The Ocean at the End of the Lane

MISFITS OF SCIENCE OR MISFITS OF NATURE ?

Since I´m recommending things I wanted to plug a tv series most of my readers probably already know about since I´m always the last one to arrive the party. It seems the british television guys have done it again.

People from my generation may remember the tv series MISFITS OF SCIENCE but the new tv series about teenage superheroes is nothing like that. Just titled MISFITS the show that could be really bad but is just awesome is about a group of five youths who are on probation and have to do community service. And while they are doing just that they get hit by lightning and acquire super powers. Hey, it worked on SMALLVILLE.

Anyway, like most good tv series it was shown on german tv by one of the new tv stations like RTL Nitro or somesuch and - also like usual - two or three episodes at a time after midnight. And then they say it didn´t find an audience with german viewers like they did with SEINFELD.Back to MISFITS, since I saw an episode from the second season I was interested but the DVDs were just too expensive, especially since the season 1 only consist of six episodes and season 2 of seven. I was a bit hesitant when I saw the first season for ten Euros but when I found the first two seasons for seven bucks at a drugstore in Ludwigsburg I just grabbed them.

Now as I said, the seasons are short compared to other series like BONES or HAWAII FIVE - O with its 20 plus episodes but it´s still worth it. The series reminded me a bit of Doctor Who because in 45 minutes of an episode happens more than in ten episodes of german television. The characters are really original, totally believable and the super powers are used in interesting ways. Also, if you can please do watch it in the original version. As with most episodes of Doctor Who it can be kind of difficult to understand sometimes but it´s so much better in english.

MISFITS is action packed, it´s mysterious, it´s funny, it´s definitely sexy, it´s rude, well, in short it´s a rollercoaster hell of a ride and you´re really missing out if you haven´t seen it. If the label " must see tve " was ever appropiate then here. Check it out because SUBZERO said so !

Last but not least I wanted to mention movie cult siren Raquel Welch who celebrates her 73rd birthday Today. It´s been a while since our last celebrity birthday and one of those days I will get to do a post about her.

But for now that´s all for this post. Maybe next time we will get to the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics of 2013. It´s something I really want to write about but other things come up and I keep on postponing it and I want to get it done so I can select the ones which are going into the next big free comic giveaway which will probably be the Christmas shinding. In any case, as it´s almost one o´clock after midnight so it´s high time to finally bring this baby to a close. I´m going to get me some beer from the fridge ( which should have the right temperature by now and Yes, that means cold ) and watch the next episode of MISFITS before sleep.

Since I already gave a recommendation to ALL NEW X - MEN in this post Today´s inevitable video at the end of the post is the Comicbookgirl19 MARVEL NOW episode which also covers the other new x - books.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest

Magneto threw a bicycle at me.