my new old comic reads

Last week I was going for a new record with three posts already in the can and a fourth one planned for Sunday. But as usual, I didn´t do the Sunday post and this week I didn´t get to post.


On Monday my brother´s room was getting new windows. And because my room is next to his, and the house is built so cheap that when you take off a part of his wall you also take off a part of my wall I had people going in and out of my room the whole day. On Tuesday my brothers decided to swap room so they had to get all of their stuff out. Which meant that my room also was full of their stuff and I spent most of the day taking my clothes out of the cupboard and into the cupboard again. Which made my carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand come back.

On Wednesday my brothers were still busy with putting their stuff in order and because some of my stuff was in what used to be the work office I had to go to the cellar a few times. I think the main reason why my brother agreed to swap rooms was because he couldn´t get me to take my stuff out of his room. I swear, he´s like Caligula, Garfield and Dr. Doom rolled into one - on acid. He always tries to get what he wants, like it says in THE PRISONER : by hook or by crook.


In any case I don´t want to bitch about my brother, that would take at least a whole series of posts. So on Wednesday I finally got my room back. On Thursday I would have had time to post but I have a business appointment. It seems I´m starting a new company. Yes, I was also surprised. I mean it´s not like I have anything to do like translating comics or writing a blog or all this other stuff. No, that doesn´t take any work. It´s done in 5 minutes. And it´s not important what I want to do anyway.

That´s all a waste of time. So we´ll see how this new company will go.

But let´s talk about comics, which is the focus of this blog now that I finally have time to write.

Lately I have been re - reading a lot of my old comics. Just the other day I read FINAL CRISIS - LEGION OF THREE WORLDS ( must have been the dozenth time ) when I came to that passage where Brainiac 5 mentions the first LEGION OF THREE WORLDS mission. Now I did a bit of research but I´m not sure if that is a part of the existing continuity. The war of Zoom against the Allen family has been documented and XS´ history coincides with the story. But I think the really original LEGION OF THREE WORLDS story hasn´t been told yet.


Someone mentioned that this story was probably what Geoff Johns originally wanted to tell but that he had to change his plans because of FINAL CRISIS. But who knows ? I also read something from a guy who was like analyzing how parallel universes really work ( in comparison to how it works in the story because we all took that course in school ) and explainig why the story doesn´t work.

And all I wanted to do was to say : hey, dude, chill out. It´s only a made up story. It´s not real. It doesn´t matter if the chances are a billion to one or that that´s not supported by scientific facts. There also are no scientific facts that say that it has to be bad weather whenever I leave the house. It just happens. Swear to god, I never understand why some people think too much.

In any case, I hope we get to read the first LEGION OF THREE WORLDS adventure eventually. Right now I´m not reading a lot of Legion stuff. Because of the 3.99 $ price on a lot of comics I missed the first issues of the new LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES book and now I have to wait for the trade.


And of course my brother is reading the Superman series that doesn´t have to Legion co - feature so I´ll also have to wait for that trade.

I think they will come out in April or June next year. So maybe I´ll find some back issues at this month´s Stuttgarter Comicbörse. But I don´t have much faith because the number of dealers who have US comics is growing smaller and smaller each time.

Another comic I re - read was ELQUEST by Wendy and Richard Pini. The thing is that I was cleaning my shelf porn ( there was a lot of dust on the books ) and started to thumb through all my old issues of ELFQUEST. At the same time there was an episode with Wendy and Richard Pini on Fanboy Radio that I listened to and I got the old comicbug again.


Now the comics were not as good as when I read them the first time. But not because the story doesn´t hold up qualitywise - it´s still above a lot of the stuff that´s published Today in that regard - but because I already knew most of the plot twists and surprise. ELFQUEST is still one of the best comics out there.

The funny thing is that I often hear comicfans complain about the fact that comics are translated into other media. Well, I have to say in my case I would never have started reading the comic if I hadn´t read the book adaption first.

Back then my main source for comic books and paperbacks was a small newsstand near the city hall in Ludwigsburg. It wasn´t a big newsstand but I had a good selection of paperbacks, pulps and comics. I bought my first issues of SCHWERMETALL


( HEAVY METAL ) and U - COMIX


( kind of a funny mag with american and franco - belgian underground material ) there and because it was near my busstation I was there at least once a day.

I bought an issue of JOHN SINCLAIR,


PROFESSOR ZAMORRA


or DIE SPINNE


every other day. So one day I saw an issue of ABENTEUER IN DER ELFENWELT but they were already at the third or fourth issue. So I wasn´t sure if it was worth it to try it. From Today´s point of view 4 Deutschmarks is nothing ( right now that´s like 2 EUROS ) but back at that time I had a pretty small budget. But there was also a book adaption published from Goldmann Verlag ( I think ) that was translated by Wolgang Hohlbein ( sorry, I couldn´t find a better picture ).


At that time he wasn´t the famous fantasy writer of CHRONICLES OF THE IMMORTALS and mostly known for writing DAMONA KING,


PROFESSOR ZAMORRA and other pulps.

I bought the adaption, I read it and I really liked it. The only problem was that at that time there were no professional comicshops and since the only issues the newsstand had were issues 3 and 5.


So I went to all newsstands, papershops or stationary shops in Ludwigsburg, Eglosheim, Neckarweihigen...wherever till I got the missing back issues. Back then being a comicfan meant a lot of legwork.

So I started reading Elquest which was published by BASTEI till issue 37.


Issue 38 was announced but they never published it. Later on CARLSEN republished some of the issues but at a much higher price. They also published some of the following stories but not all of them were drawn by Wendy Pini. It was also difficult to read them because they were rather expensive and there was a lot of short series instead one long one. The price for the BASTEI issues had gone up from 3.80 Marks to 6.80 Marks and I think the CARLSEN issues were even more expensive. I never quite got the hang of the reading order so I passed on them.

There was a series later on in the pamphlet format but I have no idea where they ended up. I don´t know if they stopped publishing them or if I just stopped buying them but I don´t think I finished them.

I used to go to the HEINZELMÄNNCHEN comicshop in Stuttgart and I always looked through the new publications there and whenever they had a new Elfquest issue out I got that. But since the shop closed I mostly just go to my comicshop in Esslingen and mostly just for picking up the stuff that´s on my pull list. Sometimes I´ll go to the Fantasy Stronghold in Ludwigsburg but that´s mostly just a lot of cardgames, Yu - Gi - Oh and Naruto. It may be that I stopped reading Elfquest when the shop in Stuttgart closed. Weird, how important a good comicshop is for your reading habits. Back when I had more comicshops to go to I read more comics outside of superheroes.


Anyway, one of these days those old issues of Elfquest will pop up and maybe I can complete my collection. I have been doing a bit of research about ELFQUEST because I thought it would be about time to start WORLD´S GREATES COMIC BOOKS. The thing that I found really unbelievable was how many people dissed the series because of some of the adult content in the stories. It´s not like it´s outright porn but obviously showing adults having sex is too much for some people. I mean, what do those people think where all the little elfes come from ?

I have to say that was one of the things I liked about the series. Since it was an independent comic Wendy and Richard Pini didn´t bother with the restrictions mainstream books have. Which wouldn´t have made any sense.


Maybe I´ll find some issues at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse but who knows ? In any case ELFQUEST is one of the comic classics that has my absolute recommendation. If you haven´t read it yet you should definitely give it a try. It´s totally Airwolf !

Speaking of who ( what an elegant segueway ) the post I wanted to do on Sunday was about DR. WHO. While being on the website of Los Comic Geekos I found a link to the 3D animated series DREAMLAND with spanish subtitles on YouTube. The animation is not half - bad and the story is really interesting.


article about DR. WHO - DREAMLAND

review of DR. WHO - DREAMLAND ( with spoilers )



Here you can watch the normal version :



There is also another animated series called The Infinity Quest which looks a bit like fanmade animation. But it´s funny to hear the actors with their original voices and it helps the wait till the next season of Dr. Who airs in Germany. Which will beprobably in 2014 if I know my german tv stations.



And with that our time for Today is once again up. I just hope all this stuff about old german comics wasn´t too boring for my german readers.

As I already have three videos from YouTube on this post I won´t add a third one so there will be no Green Lantern related clip Today. Sorry.

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

new look - part 2

The third post this week, this must be a new record. Here are the other news items that I found noteworthy that I couldn´t fit into the Monday post.

SEE WHO I AM


Since I have now finally managed to get audio on my computer here are some videos vom CBR TV. The first is Felicia Day, who you may know from LIE TO ME, DR. HORRIBLE´S SINGALONG BLOG, the web show THE GUILD about the adventures of a group of online gamers



the comic of THE GUILD or like me : not at all. If you want to find out more about her just google her or go to her official website. Anyway, she´s on CBR TV talking about THE GUILD and other stuff.

She was also on episode seven of season 5 of A ComicBook Orange but you´ve probably seen that episode already.

Also on CBR TV is Brian Michael Bendis writer of......well, it´s probably faster to tell what he isn´t writing at Marvel. As he has his fingers in so many titles he needs two videos, one from the New York ComicCon and one from ComicCon International in San Diego.

Ron Marz was the guy who turned Hal Jordan into a mass murderer and started the dark age in GREEN LANTERN history known as the " Kyle Rayner debacle " as well as one of the main writers for CrossGen. Here he talks about his upcoming column on ComicBookResources and his collaboration with Whilce Portaccio on TOPCOW´s series ARTIFACTS.

SYMBOL OF ETERNITY

To close the video parts and start with the Batman - centric part of the news David Finch, artist and writer on BATMAN : THE DARK KNIGHT does an interview on CBR TV. Best news of all : after decades of a ruined Batman costume David Finch has finally brought back the yellow Batsymbol. YESSSS !!!!!


Excuse me, while I do a little victory dance over here.

Finally all the indignation is over and Batman is back to his former glory. I don´t know what else Mr. Finch will be doing but he´s already my hero. Yay ! Long live the yellow Batsymbol !

BAT COUNTRY

Now onto more Batnews. I have missed Grant Morrison´s BATMAN R.I.P. and BATTLE FOR THE COWL which may be a blessing. I´m also - for the moment - not reading THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE since it´s almost over. At least to my knowledge. The trade has already been announced so it doesn´t make any sense to jump on the book right now. I´m reading the BATMAN series published by PANINI Germany ( yay, german comis ! ) that has the regular Batman series, starting with the Batman Reborn story where you - know - who takes up the mantle of Batman and BATMAN & ROBIN of which I only read the first three issues that were drawn by Frank Quitely.


So for all readers like me here are some infos on all the things going on in the Batverse. Bob Harras, former Editor in Chief of Marvel and now Editor in Chief at DC talks about Bruce Wayne´s new status quo ( warning : contains spoilers for Batman & Robin 16 ), Paul Cornell talks about his storyarc in Batman & Robin 17 - 19 which will be drawn by Scott Mc Daniel, Grant Morrison talks about his new series BATMAN INC and Brian Azzarello writes the new series BATMAN EUROPE.

Drawing the first issue of BATMAN EUROPE will be Jim Lee who has an interview on Mtv about the release of his artbook ICONS - THE DC COMICS AND WILDSTORM ART OF JIM LEE and one on Publisher´s Weekly that takes a look back at his twenty year career in comics.

And to close up this round of Batlinks here´s an interview Chris Mautner did for The Comics Journal with Jerry Robinson, the creator of the Joker.

COME BACK BABY COME BACK

Yes, it seems 2011 will be a great year in comics - at least for me. This really is the year of the comeback. JOHN BYRNE´S NEXT MEN is coming back, the 2.99 $ comics are back, the yellow Batsymbol is coming back and now over at Marvel THUNDERSTRIKE is also making a triumphant return.


Back in 1991 Eric Masterson took up the mantle of Thor after Thor had been banished at the end of a really great storyline. Not as used to the role of a hero Eric had to learn the ropes of the superhero business ( the idea was later copied by DC with Kyle Rayner ) and I really liked him as a character. When the real Thor eventually returned Eric got a mystic mace and continued the good fight in his own series THUNDERSTRIKE that started in May 1993.


The series didn´t last long ( at least for the standards of that time ) and after 24 issues the writers decided to kill him. I don´t know why but it seems writers are rather willing to kill a character when they end a series than to have him quit. I means James Robinson´s STARMAN did it and the comic universe didn´t break in half.


In any case, now the time has come for all diehard THUNDERSTRIKE fans to celebrate as he´s making a glorious return at the hands of Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz the original series creator. You can read all about it here

TELL IT LIKE IT IS

More interviews : Christos Gage on AVENGERS ACADEMY ( with a preview of issue 7 ), an interview with Jaime Hernandez at The Daily Cross Hatch ( part 2 and 3 of 4 ), 50 questions in 50 minutes with Mark Waid, and finally Sergio Aragones, artist on MAD, GROO and other great comics like FANBOY or SERGIO ARAGONERS DESTROYS THE DC UNIVERSE celebrates five decades of work as well as doing an interview for the AC Club.

COUNT TO TEN

To close things the usual top ten lists and other comic trivia :

10 lessons for better colouring

10 comic or pop art themed hotels

top 10 Invincible moments

10 insane facts comics taught us about american history

Douglas Wolk takes a look at the history of vampires and Frankenstein

First appearance in comics of :

Batman´s giant penny, half face Spider - Man, Avengers Assemble

LMDs, Jimmy Olsen´s signal watch, It´s clobberin´ time

the year of cool comics archive

comic strip characters as superheroes

Once again time to close the post for Today. As I have already posted two GREEN LANTERN related videos at the end of my last two posts here´s a third one. It´s a fanmade trailer and I wish the new movie is just half as Airwolf as this trailer.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

top ten posts

more posts of interest

Always count your steps, you never know when you have to escape in a box.

One bat, two bats, the Bat triumphant !

Well, I had planned to do this post for quite some time but as usual reality collided with my plans. The idea was to first do a post on JACK STAFF and use that post as a segueway for other posts about British comics.


As usual I got sidetracked, first by the TORCHWOOD comic by Paul Grist and then I wanted to write about KANE which was the first Paul Grist comic I read. Still haven´t gotten around to do that. So, in our last post we had a lot comic news and since I try to mix the topics a bit it´s time for a comic review.

So I want to talk a bit about THE BAT TRIUMPHANT published by Terry Hooper at Black Tower Comics. It´s weird but the black tower thing keeps coming up in pop culture. Stephen King used it for his bestseller series, there is a German comic publisher called DER SCHWARZE TURM ( which is the black tower in german ) to which I have ties and Terry Hooper´s comic company is also called Black Tower Comics.

One of the reasons why it took me so long to write about THE BAT TRIUMPHANT is that it was difficult to do the research. Since it has its roots in the British comic scene I´m not so familiar with it and it´s not like I can go to my comicshop and do some research there. There are really a lot of confusing informations on the internet. You see, the character THE BAT in this comic was not created by Terry Hooper. As far as I can tell it was created by William A Ward, a British artist who created a lot of famous comic characters but seems to have faded into the murky British comic limbo.


There is more information about the publisher of the original THE BAT comics Gerald G. Swan. He was one of the most enterprising of wartime publishers in Britain. Although he established his publishing company in 1938, he stockpiled his books rather than distributing them and thus had a supply of paper when it was rationed during the war. As a result he virtually cornered the magazine market and released hundreds of publications in all fields of fiction. Most of his inventory was compiled in the 1940's from a mixture of home - grown talent and reprints from Columbia magazines, even though some of them were not printed until the 1960's.

Here is a small checklist with some of the titles he published :

Gerald G Swan checklist

Having a comic character named the Bat the first question you have is - of course - who was first ?


The Bat or his more famous American colleague the Batman ? And who influenced who ? Since I couldn´t find any facts to prove otherwise I´m going with the story that Batman, who first appeared in Detective Comics 27 in May 1939, was the inspiration for the Bat whose first appearance was in Thrill Comics 1 published in April 1940.

Another thing that made the research a bit difficult is that there were also two other comic characters called THE BAT. One, a British hero who has come back from Hell


the other a superburglar who battled the Phantom ( a British hero, not the famous creation of Lee Falk ).


And of course there are a lot of other bats in comics, first and foremost, the most famous Batman. Then there are all forms of other characters which are derived from him like Man - Bat a.k.a. Kirk Langstrom one of Batman´s rogues.


There is Die Fledermaus, a clear Batman parody on the indie comic THE TICK.


And here in Germany there is FLATTERMANN, written by Kurt Kofron and drawn by Wenzel Kofron for the German Polischansky Verlag.


I´m not sure how successful the comic was but it managed to get three albums printed and probably anybody who reads comics in Germany knows of this comic.


And that´s not counting other derivates like WATCHMEN´s Owl Man or the Owl Man of the Squadron Supreme, the Justice League´s evil counterparts. Also there was a character called Owl Man in some issues of THE OUTSIDERS, but since I left the title before that I don´t know much about it.

But back to THE BAT TRIUMPHANT ! It´s a new original story of William A Ward´s THE BAT, written and drawn by Terry Hooper under the name Terry Hooper - Scharf. The size is european album size ( about DIN A 4 ), 66 pages black and white. Originally a back up strip in Black Tower Adventure in 1994,The Bat proved very popular as an anti - hero. The story was never completed. It is now. And there was another Bat.

1952 saw George McQueen’s Bat appear to fight any and all supernatural menaces. This book contains an original strip plus a new one drawn in 2007. This is the complete book of The Bat!

Now what´s the story all about ? Since his beginnings are in 1940 it´s a bit difficult to have him walking around in our modern era. But Terry found a clever solution for this dilemma without resorting to the old " son takes up the mantle of the father " trick. Although that possibility still exists for a possible sequel.


In 1941,The Bat sets about modernising the backward Duchy of Stahl, over which his dynasty has ruled since 1410 A.D.. The Bat is soon involved in experiments with the infamous Count Cogliostro. One of these experiments involves suspended animation; The Bat deciding he will be the test subject. When he wakes, The Bat finds that not days have gone by but 51 years !

Worse, his kingdom is in ruins and an enclave of Kamora. The Bat tries politics to win back his homeland and when that fails he decides to fight for it! However, he is unaware that some old - and new - enemies ( who have such great names as Schwarzadler, Blaurabe and Stanislaus the Werewolf ) are lying in wait to stop him and all of them want one thing : The Bat dead !

Which is not as easy as they think. The Bat is really a badass hero if he´s really a hero. Mostly he´s described as an anti - hero which is probably more fitting since he has no qualms about using swords or even guns and ( unlike Batman ) has no problems with killing. I mean he liquidates one of his opponents for pulling a knife on him. You so don´t want to mess with the Bat, dude !

Ten lives for a life ! Twenty groans for a groan ! Such is the Bat´s vengeance !


Even as a reader who was not familiar with the previous adventures of the Bat I have to say that this is one fun, action - packed read. Terry Hooper manages to evoke the feeling of Silver Age heroes whose roots lie more in the pulp genre like the great classics without resorting to silly stereotypes or parody. The story is a faithful ( at least as far as I can tell ) addition to the lore of the Bat that doesn´t negate what has come before.

Too often writers think that they have to update characters to modern audiences by deconstructing everything that has come before - so that everything you thought you knew turns out to be wrong ! Like Grant Morrison in ALL STAR SUPERMAN Terry builds upon the existing foundation, filling the gaps in continuity and adding another layer. As well as evil villains, werewolves, the always mysterious Count Cogliostro ( who has appeared in uncountable works of fiction from SPAWN to the latest film about french masterburglar Arsène Lupin ) and a touch of the supernatural.


Artwise it reminds me a bit of the comics around 1940 which sometimes were drawn a bit crude ( you have to remember that a lot of the professional artists were drafted ) but still had a lot of energy and excitement. I mean on the Gerald G Swan checklist ( link above ) it says that all his publications were of irredeemably poor quality. So I don´t know how much of that is intentional. What I can say is that it has solid storytelling and that I especially like his use of blacks.

One of my favorite pages is this full page spread where the Bat confronts three soldiers at the Jugo - Hungarian border. It´s such a great composition. You can find more pages here


Besides the main story THE BAT TRIUMPHANT ! the comic also includes an introduction that explains the genesis of the story, a very brief history of the Bat & Stahl, an article about Bat creator William A Ward and one about the history of Cagliostro as well as other goodies.

interview with Terry Hooper - Scharf about THE BAT TRIUMPHANT

order from lulu ( with preview ) german page

the Terry Hooper - Scharf lulu storefront

order links on ComicBitsOnline ( for England )

order from pothi ( with preview )

So next time we will get to the second part of the comic news with all the creator interviews and the ever popular top 10 lists and other fun stuff I promised.


In my last post I put up the clip for Gary Mitchell´s song IN BRIGHTEST DAY which could become the anthem for the new Green Lantern movie. Here´s another one that could be included : Ring capacity by the band Kirby Crackle.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

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new look

As you may have noticed this blog has now a new look. Like I already suspected when I changed the look for Halloween I didn´t manage to get the old look back.


I forgot to save a copy of the old template and there is no other that looks like the old one I used. Additionally it seems that bloggers number of templates to use has changed from....I don´t know......how many where there ? Hundred ? Now it seems like they only offer....uh....ten. Okay. That´s not good.

Well, I was prepared that this would be the case so I hope the new look is not too distracting. As I had to recalibrate the monitor for various reasons I can just assume it doesn´t look too different. I probably won´t go over the old posts as I still try to find a way to get the old look back. In the meantime I´ll just keep tinkering with the layout till it looks right.

Another thing I lost due to the new look is the counter. I´ll add a new one when I find the time - and figure out a way how to do it. The last time I managed to do it was mostly pure luck.

It´s been a while since my last post because I was - once again - busy with catching up to all the new things on the internet. I think I was at least six months behind on solicitations so I had to sacrifice a few days for that. Right now I have - mostly - caught up on the DC pictures but I still haven´t finished the Marvel stuff.


I also am caught up on previews and man, you are really not up to date if the previews you have to do are from comics you already read last month ! And I also had to burn a lot of stuff on CDs as my computer was once again full with stuff. I just hop I managed to make enough free space to prevent the computer from checking out in the middle of a post.

But since this post is not just to bore you to death with the details of what I have been up to the last days here are some news, links, interviews, top ten lists and the usual collection of stuff for people who visit the important sites as irregualr as me.

COMIC INDUSTRY NEWS

Let´s begin with the most important bit of news which this time comes from the comic industry section.

Paypal unveils micropayments for digital goods

Yes, that´s right. Scott McCloud predicted it and now finally the micropayments are here. This is great news for all comic artists who are doing webcomics because so far the difficult thing was to somehow get money for your webcomic without having to offer a print version or having to charge a lot of money. And what´s also great is that facebook seems to be joining PayPal on this. Now I don´t know how good PayPal is as a payment service but at least this much needed from of payment is finally out there.

4chan piracy causes spike in sales for Underground

Like I already wrote in a post in 2008 there are ways for comic books to profit from scans on the internet. And it seems that Steve Lieber had the right idea when someone on 4chan scanned in all issues of Steve Lieber and Jeff Parker’s comic series Underground and posted it for all to read. Rather than pitching a fit ( which would have been perfectly justified under the circumstances ), Lieber joined the discussion and cheerfully suggested folks kick in a few bucks if they like the book or maybe even, you know, buy it. Then he posted it on his own site for free.

Why did it work out this way ? Perhaps the comic is that good ( I haven’t read it ), perhaps because 4chan helped it find its audience, and perhaps because Lieber took some time to engage the readers and establish himself as a real person — it’s a lot harder to steal from someone you know. I have always said that the music industry wouldn´t have lost so much money if they had spent less time criminalizing their customers and instead would have made more efforts to give them what they wanted : an easy and cheap way to download music.

I mean why is it that it´s easier for a person to get music clip from the internet in an illegal way than go to a music company website or a music store website and say, buy a DVD or Blue Ray disc that has my favorite 10 or 12 music clips ?


Back to Underground : it´s much easier to sell a product if the people already know the product and like it. If you read my post in 2008 you already know that a lot of the arguments in the whole discussion about scanlations and webcomics are totally bogus. People WILL pay money for comics they have already read. IF they like them. Hell, people pay money for comics they already have. There are comics in my collection that I have bought several times and some of them I will probably buy again when there is a new printing available.

So, kudos to Steve Lieber for having the cojones to do the smart thing. You can read more about it here :

Interview with Steve Lieber and Jeff Parker on comicbookresources

Interview with Steve Lieber on techdirt

comments about the case on the Warren Ellis forum

DC and Marvel lowering prices next year

It seems, 2011 will not be as expensive as 2010 as both - DC and Marvel are going to lower prices. As usual DC comics was first to announce that they are going to drop their co - features and lower the prices back to 2.99 $. They also will cut the story page count to 20 pages but before the bitching starts I want to remind people that back when I started reading comics the story page count was 17 pages.

Those were some really great comics and you have three pages more for whatever.


Now Marvel had to react to DC which they did by announcing that some of the new books in January will carry a 2.99 $ price tag. Say what ? Okay according to David Gabriel, senior vice president of sales & circulation the pricing structure is that " for limited series in the Marvel Universe they will price as many of those as they can for $2.99 for a 32-page book. " Oh, and Incredible Hulk will loose it´s co - feature ( did anyone really read that ) and go to 2.99.

So, is it just me or is it another case of DC acting and Marvel reacting ? When this whole thing started DC put co - features on all books they changed from 2.99 to 3.99. Marvel´s answer was to keep the page count as it was and only slowly put in extra content in SOME cases. While DC on made a part of their books more expensive Marvel put the 3.99 price tag on all new titles and most of their old books.

Now DC is changing the 3.99 books back to 2.99 while Marvel will put out some new titles that will have a 2.99 price tag. Marvel doesn´t take me serious. No, that´s how it is. First they say they will change some books to 3.99 and lo and behold, most of their bestsellers are included in that. As well as all new book. Which means if you put a new book on your pull list or have some of their good titles on it - you have to pay and arm and a leg. And now they say that the 2.99 price will be on INCREDIBLE HULK - which is dragging out it´s storyline forever so that most readers have already jumped ship - and new limited series.

Sorry, but that´s ridiculous. DC had to sell a few of their books for 3.99 and have now gone back to 2.99 with 2 story pages less. Marvel has increased the price to 3.99 on most of their books but now you will get the 2.99 price again - not on the books they are already offering but on some new ones.

That will not change anything. Here´s a quote from Jim Lee from this page :

If you're a lifelong comic book fan or buyer and are all of the sudden being asked to pay $3.99 for a book, it gives you a reason to stop collecting in general.


It breaks your spirit because you're going, "Comics cost way too much. This is weekly entertainment. They're episodic, and this makes it too expensive of a hobby to be in." So then they bail altogether... To me, this is all about keeping the hobby as affordable as possible while obviously keeping the same quality and level in the storylines. I think there is a psychological bond that is broken when you keep raising prices and assume they're going to keep buying it because they love the characters.

And one from Dan Didio :

Jim touched upon the unfortunate reality in the business right now is that if you push people out or get too pricey and too expensive, you're pushing them out completely. They're not just dropping one or two titles – they're dropping the hobby. That's the thing. They might come back for the occasional trade, but for me what makes comic book collecting is that periodical nature of going in month in, month out or week in, week out. That's what I love about it, and I think it's that sense of community, the shared environment and shared experience. With so much going on these days, people love that weekly experience. And we want to match that. We don't want to give them reasons to not be buying anymore. As a matter of fact, we're going the complete opposite way, which is one of the reasons why they continue to buy. The way to do that is pricing in a way that is affordable and makes sense and also make stories that they just can't put down and feel like they haven't seen before.

Just what I said when this all began. Marvel has always argued that people would stop reading one or two titles while they knew that in reality people will not just stop buying one or two titles. They will either stop buying Marvel comics because they feel cheated or they will stop buying comics at all. They will buy the occasional trade but that´s it.


So as usual DC is doing something to help readers while Marvel tries to pull another fast one. Not really a surprise there.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Okay, how are comic books really doing ? Here are a few articles so you can make up your own mind. First, here´s an interesting Interview with Gail Burt, owner of Metropolis Comics, located in Bellflower, California, USA which touches upon a few important topics. Like all those variant covers from Marvel are not really incentives - so please, can we stop with that nonsense already ? And it´s not really that profitable to take a book that has good sales - like Deadpool - and throw eight watered down books on the market thus totally destroying the franchise.

And since wer´re on the subject of comicshops here´s an article on James Sime, owner of Isotope comics who has a shop that´s more a comic lounge where customers read comics in comfortable chairs instead of a shop where people just get their comics and rush out.

Johanna Draper Carlson has an interesting article that analyzes just how low sales are that make a book successful.

Nils Bohr said : " It´s always difficult to male predictions. Especially about the future. " Nevertheless Shaenon K. Garrity wrote a manifesto about 10 things to know about the future of comics . This has lead to comments on THE BEAT on Scott McCloud´s blog and an article by Dresden Codak with 10 things to know about the future of webcomics. There is also an episode of ComicGeekSpeak on the subject.

And if you still want to work for Marvel after all my Marvelbashing here´s your guide for an internship at Marvel

To wrap things up, here´s a clip I wanted to post months ago but since I had no audio I couldn´t listen to it. It´s the video to Gary Mitchell´s original song IN BRIGHTEST DAY written as the anthem for the new GREEN LANTERN movie. With a bit of luck and enough fans on the internet Warner Brothers may pick it up for the soundtrack. I think it has a lot of potential so please, if you like it spread it around and post it on your blogs. If you click on the YouTube page there are links to all the usual communities like facebook and myspace.



As usual my time for today is up and I only got to address a third of the things I wanted to mention.


So sorry for so much stuff about the comic industry but I think all of it was important and interesting. In the next part we will get to things that are more fun like creator interviews and the ever popular top 10 lists.

New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :

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