Neil Gaiman appreciating Wednesday

As you can see by the title Today I´m taking a page out of sadly defunct blog COMICS MAKE NO SENSE. Okay, it´s still online but there are no new entries.


Which means that if I start right now and read all the posts I still have to read I´d be like finished in two or three years. I really tried to stay current but it was like I didn´t go to the blog for a week or two and there were already 20 new posts. But enough about that. Wednesday is sometimes called Mittloch in Germany ( Wednesday = Mittwoch in german, Loch = hole ) because it´s this hole in the middle of the week where your performance curve reaches it´s lowest point. Especially if you have such shitty weather like in Germany where it has been raining the last two days.

So, I just watched the DR. WHO episode from the sixth season THE DOCTOR´S WIFE written by none other than Neil Gaiman and I have to say it´s bloody brilliant. As always they got Neil to write the episode because he´s a huge Dr. Who fan. This really seems to be part of the british DNA. You´re born, you´re british, you love Dr. Who. That´s how they get such big stars like Timothy Dalton on the show. And by writing some of the best stuff on television - period.

Now my readers from the United Kingdom have of course already seen it and some of my readers in America may have. To my readers in Germany I say : don´t wait till they show it on tv. They are already 3 seasons behind and seem to have no intention of following up on it.


If you can understand english movies - get it somewhere. Even if it´s only the episode written by Neil Gaiman. I´m not putting any download links for this on the blog - because that can be tricky - but I found them and I´m like a monkey trying to get a Motherbox working by peeing on it when it comes to computer stuff. So you should have no problem with that.

What I want to put on the blog are some other links I have collected Today and I guess at this point I should mention that I´m sure I don´t have to explain who Neil Gaiman is - to most people. If you read comics you know him of course from his groundbreaking SANDMAN series that cemented DC´s Vertigo line as one of THE foremost addresses for intelligent comics for adults or ( if you have only recently begun reading comics ) from his WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER ? story.

If you are more of a book reader you might know one of his bestsellers like AMERICAN GODS, ANANSI BOYS, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK or GOOD OMENS. And if you more of a moviegoer you might know the adaptions of his works like MIRRORMASK, STARDUST, CORALINE or his work on such films like the CGI BEOWOLF where he wrote the screenplay or PRINCESS MONONOKE which he adapted to the english language.


His complete list of work is really much to large to put into this post but whatever he does, he has thousands of fans around the world. Because he´s one of the coolest people on the planet. Period.

I had the distinctive honor of meeting him in person during one of the first International Comic Salons of Erlangen where I first decided to get original sketches from artists. Two years before I had done the rounds for a friend who worked at the Sammlerecke in Nürtingen ( and I think who now is the manager at the Sammlerecke in Koblenz ) and I wanted to get some for myself. To that extend I had bought a little red book with really good paper and I had already gotten a number of sketches.

In hindsight I might have gone for a bigger sketchbook because some artists just don´t put so much effort into small sketches but at that time I didn´t care. I have to say I didn´t know what to expect when I got in line for Neil Gaiman because I didn´t have anything to sign. I guess I halfway expected to just get his autograph but I didn´t care. This was Neil Gaiman we were talking about.

I think I have already told the story of my first visit to a REAL comicstore when ( during my military service with the Deutsche Bundeswehr ) I was stationed in Munich right before Christmas.


We were supposed to get to our new homebase, say hello, put our uniforms in the closet and get back home to celebrate the holidays. Well, I also had a second mission. Back then U - COMIX was still published by the Alpha Verlag and in each issue they had ads from comicshops all over Germany.

So as soon as I knew I was heading to Munich I digged for some old issues of U - COMIX and looked for the direction of comicshops in Munich. I found the address to JÜRGEN´S COMIC SHOP and while most young recruits headed home as fast as possible I went in the exact opposite direction - the city of Munich, through the Victualienmarkt, changing subways at the Münchener Freiheit and asking people on the street till I had finally found the comicshop.

There I bought an entire bag of comics which cost me about 100 Deutsche Mark which was real money. And I don´t only mean a lot but also real money not like the EUROS we have now. So, in the shop I grabbed everything I didn´t know that looked interesting like DOOM PATROL, HELLBLAZER, JUSTICE LEAGUE, ANIMAL MAN, SANDMAN or DR. FATE.


There were actually two SANDMAN issues I considered buying, one was part two or three of THE DOLL HOUSE and the other seemed to be a standalone issue.

Since I didn´t know what THE DOLL HOUSE was and I didn´t want to start in the middle of a storyarc I bought the other issue, which incidentially was issue 8, THE SOUND OF HER WINGS which may be one of the best SANDMAN stories ( or comic stories ) ever written. It´s one of the top stories for comic fans and it was number 2 on Wizard Magazine's " 100 Best Single Issue Comics Since You Were Born " list. In the story Dream´s little sister Death is introduced to the series - as I was to the land of the Dreaming. To say it blew my mind would be an understatement. You can sample some of the pages right here

I had never read something like that and let´s just say that when I got back to Munich after the holidays I spent many hours ( sometimes a bit longer than the official opening hours ) at JÜRGEN´S COMIC SHOP, the comic shop at the subway station or the international press section at the train station at Munich Central scavenging for all issues of SANDMAN I could find.


So, coming back to Erlangen, I was standing in line to get an autograph or just exchange a few words with this brilliant guy who had written this comic I absolutely loved and I probably should mention that this was long before the internet. At that time information about comic creators were very rare and mostly you had no idea how they looked like. So suddenly it was my turn and I stood before a guy who was wearing black leather and looked like a freaking rockstar.

Before I could react he took my little book and asked me who my favorite character from the book was. Of course it was Death and before I realized he began to draw her. Which wouldn´t surprise me Today but at that time I thought artists would only draw and writers would only write. I´m not the only one who was surprised because suddenly the person from the german publisher said : " Oh, Mr. Gaiman, you are not allowed to do drawings, just sign the books we sell here. "

Which is completely in their rights since they have to pay for the artists but it seemed to be news to Neil. He just calmly replied : " Well, I´ve already started so I´m going to finish it. "

Since I hadn´t bought a comic at the table I had to buy something which wasn´t a problem since they were a big publisher and they always have at least one book that´s missing in your collection ( which is one of the perks if you stop buying german comics 3 months before going to Erlangen so you can get all the newest releases there ) but when I got my book back I could just say Thanks and tell Neil how much I liked his comic.


I was so flabbergasted by his coolness and so overwhelmed by the Death picture he did for me that I totally forgot the question I had about the series. There´s one question I have had about the series and it possibly has been answered in the book itself and I just didn´t realize but I still don´t know.

Maybe he would have just told me in which issue this was told or maybe that´s one of the big unanswered questions and I totally blew my chanche to ever find out. And his chance to correct a mistake in SANDMAN lore. In any case from that moment on Neil Gaiman was one of the coolest people on the planet in my book. I fanatically got each issue of SANDMAN, suffering immensly each time an issue was delayed living in constant fear of the series end. If you were reading the series as it came out you might recall that Neil Gaiman first wanted to end it after the storyline that followed THE DOLL HOUSE ( or the one after that ) but then he always came up with another story he had to tell first. This happened a few times till the inevitable wrap - up finally happened in issue 75 and after that I tried to keep up with the further exploits of Mr. Gaiman in tv, movies, comics or novels.

Apart from getting both the graphic novel and the DVD of Coraline for my sister last Christmas I have to say I have been a bit lax in that departement in the last years but thanks to the Doctor Who episode my flame has been re - ignited.


I already ordered two of his novels I have been missing and I´m thinking about doing a post on the various adaptions of his original novel Coraline. I hope I can get my readers also excited ( if they are not already big fans ) and maybe one of the following links help.

First up is episode 106 of the Nerdist podcast in which Neil talks about " American Gods, describes scenes that were cut from his Doctor Who episode and doles out PHENOMENAL advice for aspiring writers. Also, an intense spiritual discussion reveals that we are all Hodgman. " Do not, I repeat - DO NOT !!! - listen to this before you´ve watched the Dr. Who episode unless you like to be spoilered.

The episode is also the topic of episode 4 of the Doctor Who Cast as well as GEEKS OF DOOM´s TARDISblend episode 21 that features an interview with Neil Gaiman and sadly has no download links. Listening only here, folks.


Neil Gaiman also made a rare tv appearance on the Craig Ferguson Show and if you don´t live in Germany you have probably seen it. I had a link for downloading but since it was deleted here is the clip from YouTube.



To make up for the missing links ( at least you didn´t have to suffer through the part with Paris Hilton who was on the show before Neil ) here´s Neil´s encore visit on the show :



AUTHORS ON TOUR has a 57 minutes podcast with Neil Gaiman from January the 23rd 2006 where he does a reading from Anansi Boys and does a quick questions and answers. There are also some excerpts from his audiobook Fragile Things in this short review by Susan Dunman from SF Site. And if you still have a craving for hearing the master himself reading his own work here is a link to videos of him reading the COMPLETE Graveyard Book !

i´m ready for my podcast has another interview with Neil Gaiman from October 27th 2007 about adapting his works to film - I think. I´m not sure, because you almost can´t hear it. Sorry.

THE SCOTTISH BOOK TRUST has an interview with Neil Gaiman about The Graveyard Book from 2008 and the differences between writing for adults and children, how he first came up with the idea of The Graveyard Book and which type of undead he would most like to be.


JUST ONE MORE BOOK has a 12 minute podcast interview with Neil Gaiman fresh of winning the Newbery award for The Graveyard Book from January 27th 2009 in which he talks about about blogging, giving his books away for free on the internet and twittering.

He also talks about The Graveyard Book and the Coraline movie on this interview on SFFaudio.

national public radio´s TALK OF THE NATION has various shows with Mr. Gaiman : one about his SANDMAN series , one about his recent BATMAN story " Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader ? " and one about Children´s Fantasy Literature in the modern world where he´s joined by Christopher Paolini ( 22 year old author of the Eragon series, who got his first book published at the age of 15 ) and Tamora Pierce ( author of a series of fantasy books for teenagers, including the Circle of Magic Quartet - her latest book is Trickster's Queen ). I may have already posted his interview about The Best American Comics 2010 a book he edited, but I´m pretty sure I haven´t posted the show where he asks : heard any good books lately ? which is all about the future of audiobooks that comes with a full transcript. There´s also a show about Neil Gaiman winning the Newberry Award for The Graveyard Book that has excerpts from the book and one about the movie adaption of STARDUST that has no download link and is audio only.


And speaking about ( once again ) audio only that´s also true for his 12 minute interview with Earl Merkel on RED ROOM and his 3 part interview together with Amanda Palmer on Kevin Smith´s SMODCAST.

And of course I couldn´t finish this post without adding the direction for Neil Gaiman´s blog just in case I might have forgotten it. I´m putting it in the permanent blog roll as well as the link for Comic Zone Radio , a link I have been looking for a while but I somehow always forgot. There are no download links and I´m not sure if there are new episodes but it´s worth it for the archive alone that features such big names like Adam Hughes, Bryan Singer, Carmine Infantino, David Carradine, Denny O´Neil, Dwayne McDuffie, Frank Miller, Gene Colan, Harlan Ellison, Jim Shooter, both John Romitas, Mike Grell, Mike Mignola, Neal Adams, Norm Breyfogle, Paul Levitz, Sal Buscema, Stan Lee, Walt Simonson and Will Eisner .

And it was really hard to narrow it down to those 20 names because there are just so many I wanted to mention, like a Who´s Who of comics with writers, editors, artists, inker, collectors, shopowners etc., etc., etc. Back when I started with the whole comic blogging thing and reading about comics on the internet I was often frustrated about all the hating going on but whenever I listened to one or two episodes from COMIC ZONE RADIO I instantly remembered why I fell in love with comics in the first place. And I bet you will do too.


As for Today´s video it can´t be any other as the trailer for Neil Gaiman´s Dr. Who episode THE DOCTOR´S WIFE.



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


Fear me. I´ve killed hundreds of timelords.

Fear ME. I killed all of them.

Now that you´re naked why don´t you jump into this field of cactuses ?

Okay, I totally expected this to be a fully blown post about how THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN is just three kinds of Airwolf but instead here is part two of what was originally going to be the introduction for my posts on GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011.


I would have posted sooner but as I never learn from past experience on Saturday I ate a sandwich just before going to sleep which gave me a really bad case of indigestion. After a few hours of unsuccessful toilet runs I finally managed to throw up and sleep a few hours after that but for the rest of Saturday I was completely useless and I slept through most of Sunday. I was totally appetiteless and only ate some peanuts. Maybe this time I will finally learn something from the experience.

And speaking of painful experiences, there is still a lot to cover about how my GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 went and the overall resume before I can - hopefully - come to the comics themselves. Who knows ? I might even finish this series until the end of this month so I could give other people comic presents on my birthday. That would so rock ! Although I probably should be a bit careful with that, otherwise my brother may take it as another attempt to make myself appear cooler than I am.

Yeah, because a caveman like me is the epitome of coolness.


No really, like we saw in my last post, being " cool " nowadays must mean having no sense of direction, less brains than a piece of dried bread and less stamina than a newborn kitten. Because it´s not very clever not to have a map if you always get lost whenever you leave the house ( my tip : don´t leave the house - period ). And if you don´t have a map you should at least ask for directions or write down the address where you want to be. Or you could use my method which is just go in any direction and the rest will work itself out somehow. Which leads to the usual result : me being completely lost and having to get back of an area that has even remote signs of civilization like public transportaion. Preferably before blacking out from fatigue, starvation, dehydration or - my favorite - the combination of all three.

Yep, I´ve just got coolness written all over me.

So, when last we tuned into SUBZERO´s exciting high octane travel adventures he had just decided to make another trip, this time to the WORLD OF COMICS shop in Stuttgart. Which is kind of " on the way " since you always go through Stuttgart when you return from Esslingen to Neckarweihingen. I´m saying kind of because you have to disembark the subway on Stuttgart central station and walk a good while down the Königsstrasse to get there. Although to tell the truth, in reality you´re going more " up " then " down " so you´re really going Up the Königsstrasse. Which sounds kind of an insult now that I read it. " Hey, up the Königsstrasse, you maggot ! " Or something like that.


Back when the Heinzelmännchen comicshop in Stuttgart was still open I always made sure to stop there on my way back from the comicshop where I picked up my american comic subscriptions. They had a special table where all the newest books were laid out and I could always peruse the newest releases. I also often had a chat with some of the employees or even the owner - if he had time for that.

I think that shop was one of the reasons why I read more comics outside of my pull list back then. I´m not sure if I read more comics outside of my comfort zone back then or if I just had a wider comfort zone but there was always some french BD or german publication that caught my eye and was added to my reading stack. Some new album of JOHN DIFOOL, THE TECHNO FATHERS, CEREBUS or any other new stuff by Moebius, Harm Bengen, Milo Manara, Oscar Gimenez or Enki Bilal.


I remember that back then the so called " manga boom " had just hit Germany - as usual ten years later then in Spain - and I started adding a few manga titles to my regular comic diet like CASE CLOSED, KENSHIN, OH MY GODDESS and LONE WOLF AND CUB. Although I was getting LONE WOLF AND CUB through amazon to boycott the distributor for american comics in Germany.

The thing was that there had been an american edition from Viz comics in the 80s right around the time I was doing my military service in Munich of LONE WOLF AND CUB that was in the usual pamphlet format. It´s one of the more lengthy titles so I don´t know if they published it in it´s entirety. In Germany CARLSEN COMICS has also started publishing the series but they did it in big mote phonebook - like volumes. And they also gave up after a dozen or so issues. I even got a few of them at half - price from the Sammlerecke a few years back.


So I always had heard what a great manga LONE WOLF AND CUB was but I never got to read it since the german version as well as the american version had been discontinued. A few years went by then suddenly there was news that DARK HORSE was going to publish the entire manga in a 28 volume pocketsized edition with covers by famous comic artists and fans of the series like Frank Miller. Which got me really excited so I immediatelly put it on my pull list. And on every visit to my comicstore I asked if the first volume of LONE WOLF AND CUB had finally arrived. And on every visit there was no new volume of LONE WOLF AND CUB. Or an old one.

Until my comicdealer told me - I think this was around one year and a half that I had put it on my pull list - that there would be no volumes of DARK HORSE´s new edition of LONE WOLF AND CUB in german comicshop. Not now or in the near future.

The thing was that PANINI COMICS was going to do a new edition of the series ( or was in the preparations to do so in a few years ).


And since the distributor of american comics in Germany was somehow connected to that they didn´t want to compete with a possibly superior edition. Especially if it reaches german readers first. You can´t sell your comic if everybody has already bought and read it.

So they just cancelled any customers orders for DARK HORSE´s LONE WOLF AND CUB and apparently some of the comic dealers knew this at some point. Just another example of a german comic publisher trying to force his books on german readers. And I think it´s not so much that I was suspecting the german translation could be inferior to the american translation - which I did. I think what really ticked me off that all those years I was waiting to read this manga that got so much praise from everybody and then finding out that somebody cancelled my orders just to sell me his version.

Which would have succeeded IF Panini had also thought about eliminating the other source for american comics into Germany : amazon. When the german editions began to see print I had gotten a few books from amazon but I think I became a regular customer through the LONE WOLF AND CUB series.


Because whenever I start a new manga I never start with the first issue because I hate to have to wait between volumes for the next installments. Which is what I have to do now with CASE CLOSED and it´s killing me since a new volume comes out every two months. Two months !

Anyway, not only did I get the LONE WOLF AND CUB mangas from amazon because I sure as hell wasn´t going to give the bastards, who had prevented me from reading them in the first place for so long, my hard earned money. I also did it because they were already up to volume 25 of 28 which meant that I could get three, four or five volumes with each order and read them continuously. They were only half the size of the later published german edition for the same price but you can better appreciate the brilliant page layout that way. And they don´t take up as much space which is a big plus if you have a lot of comics to store.

But that was why I was boycotting the german distributor for comics and getting them via amazon. But let´s get back to what I was reading before the Heinzelmännchen went out of business.

The other reason that I read a more diverse range of comics in that period was that I didn´t have such a tight budget to spend on comics and comics weren´t as expensive as nowadays.


Now my main avenues to keep up to date with german comics are my comicshop - when I have a few bucks left, which isn´t very often - or comic conventions and events like GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011. So, to come back to my particular case of hubris ( I always wanted to use that word in one of my posts and it really sounds much better than " exaggerated opinion of myself " ) I had decided to seek out WORLD OF COMICS but it´s been a while since my last visit so I was in for a surprise. Well, in fact two surprises. Because when I got to the last location that was known to me the shop had vanished.

Well, not really vanished since the shop was still there but it was empty. There were no comics there. I was really devastated. Had I just made the long trek out here for nothing ? After a few minutes of walking around the shop a few times I found a small pictogram with an encoded message that showed an arrow that turned to the right twice. Thanks to years of reading crime fiction like the aforementioned CASE CLOSED, CrossGen´s RUSE and a steady diet of crime tv series and movies thanks to my mother I suddenly had the intuition that this could be in reality the direction to the new location of the shop.


At first WORLD OF COMICS was directly located at the bottom level of KARSTADT SPORT in Stuttgart, then it had moved to a shop on the backside and then it moved to a somewhat hidden location at an underpass. So I followed the general direction of the arrow from the pictogramm and really, after turning left twice there was the shop which apparently was making them so much money they didn´t need new clients. Because it really would have been easier to put a sign up that says " turn left twice for the new location of comicshop ". And they wonder why they don´t sell more comics.

How about making it possible for customers to actually find you ? That´s just crazy. As if it wasn´t hard enough to sell comics to civilians they expect people to go to the backside of KARSTADT, down to the underpass and the turn left twice. Why not just close the shop down and throw away the key ? That´s faster and more effective.


Earlier I had said that there were two surprises waiting for me ( which you may have already forgotten with all the deviations I have taken so far so I´m reminding you ) and the second one was that now that I had found the new secret location of WORLD OF COMICS I had to realize that they were not participating in GRATIS COMIC TAG this year. So there were no additional copies of the free comics for me there. Sometimes I wonder how I always manage to outdo my personal catastrophes. If I hadn´t found some german issues of ULTIMATE X - MEN I was still missing the trip would have been a compltet waste of time, energy and nerves.

But that´s how it is. You win some, you loose some. It´s all a matter of perspective in the end.


On one side I had just exceeded the limits of my physical capabilities which meant that I was flat out lying on my bed the rest of the day and slept through most of Sunday. On the other hand I now knew that there was a Burger King at the subways station in Esslingen and that I could find the issues of ULTIMATE X - MEN I needed to complete my collection in a hidden shop in Stuttgart.

And that I would stay in bed on GRATIS COMIC TAG 2012 except in the unlikely case I couldn´t sleep or had to go to my comicshop on that day at all costs.


Before we come to the video section of this post I wanted to mention a gallery on Deviantart I came across while doing some research for a post, it´s from YayahCosplay and as the name implies she´s very much into the whole cosplay thing. Me I´m probably a bit too old for that or I can only play Harvey Bullock or the Kingpin.

Yaya ( I´m hope I don´t get in trouble for using the short form ) on the other side looks gorgeous, her costumes are meticulously elaborated wonders with the most minutia details, she does great make up and her results are stunning. She has some great costumes and her Catwoman puts Adam Hughes to shame. You should really check it out ! click me


Since most of Today´s post has been about LONE WOLF AND CUB the video is the first episode from the 1985 series KOZURE OKAMI which was shown on german tv station vox. Of course they had to show it after midnight and under the dreadful title DER EINSAME WOLF UND SEIN KIND but the series is pretty good for an 80s series.


It gives you a good introduction into how things were in 17th century Japan and the fights can be pretty bloody and realistic. It´s also available on DVDs where it has been cut into 5 films but I can really recommend them - as well as the original manga. While I especially like the title song ( I even tried to memorize it ), for my brother the favorite parts were when people were complaining to contract killer Lone Wolf about dragging his son into the fights and he just said it´s better for him to learn at a young age how the world is.


For my brother the contract killer represented the ordinary citizen while the complaining people represented the many youth protection organisations in Germany that censor comics, games and movies. Which isn´t that far from the truth. Here´s the first episode of KOZURE OKAMI.



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


So, who do we know who´s desperate enough and / or stupid enough to be our former mutant guinea pig ?

10 things not to do on GRATIS COMIC TAG

Somebody told me recently that my posts are way too long and that I cover too many topics in one post. It´s something that I have given some thought lately and I even had the idea - if only for a moment - to give Gene Colan his own post.


On the other side I want to keep the blog as authentic as possible so I´m probably not going to change past postings. If there is something I feel I have to add to the legend Gene Colan - something substantial that´s also of interest for other people - I´ll do a new post on it. Maybe a WORLD´S GREATEST COMIC ARTISTS post or a WORLD´S GREATEST COMICS post. For the time being I´m concentrating on the new stuff.

Okay, what does this mean for this post ? I just finished reading THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN and despite the fact that I can´t wait to cover one of the best comics I´ve read this year ( to tell the truth one of the best comics I´ve read in the last 5 years ) it´s about time to start covering the GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011. I knew right from the start that I wouldn´t be able to cover it all in one posting so it´s not that much of a tretch to turn it into a series, covering 2 or 3 titles in one post. On the other side I don´t like to start series that I can´t finish as the CLASSICOS DC - THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD posts.


For this post though I´m not writing about any individual titles in particular but rather I´m going to report how my free comic day went. This might be boring to a few but I have already hinted at it in a few posts so I have to do it. I can´t leave my readers hanging.

So even if this post won´t go into any details about the comics I´m trying to get all the negative things out of the way so that I can concentrate on the comics in the next posts. And there are a few negative things about GRATIS COMIC TAG that have nothing to do with the bad experience I had.

So the first thing I need to mention is that of the 14 or 15 free comics I have seen and read so far none of them have the dealer´s stamp with the shop´s address. I know Germany is almost entirely a collectors market when comics are concerned - but really, people. Can´t you at least forget the " mint condition " thing with comics you are giving away for FREE to promote your shop and comics in general ? Please ? It´s still unbelievable enough that german comicshops really went along with the idea of giving away free comics but can´t we be a bit professional about it ?

Okay, end of first rant since I should really start telling you about the experience I had with GRATIS COMIC TAG and where it all went to hell.


Now I have to add that I´m not entirely sure WHY I had such a bad GRATIS COMIC TAG this time around. Was it the sleep deprivation because I couldn´t get much sleep the night before ? Was it the high expectations I had from reading last year´s reports about GRATIS COMIC TAG ? Was it the physical exhaustion from trying to find the new location of the Sammlerecke and failing miserably ? Or a combination of all of the above ? Fact is it was not a good thing. But let´s start at the beginning.

Last year I didn´t go to GRATIS COMIC TAG even if you consider that, being an event rather than a location you really can´t go TO the GRATIS COMIC TAG even if you tried. It´s a wonder that german comic dealers were willing to participate in something that centers around the idea of giving away comics for free in the first place although I think the fact that such an idea proved to be successful in Amerika might have helped.

The FANTASY STRONGHOLD in Ludwigsburg did not participate as the costs for ordering the whole package was too much for them. I had given my regular comicshop the list of titles I was interested in and when I went there a few weeks later all the titles were waiting in my bag for me. I even managed to get a few more comics on subsequent visits. Which was a good thing since I managed to give a handful of them to some comic muggels I knew.

So the first year I took the whole thing real easy, no stress, no sweat. Although reading some of the reports about other people´s adventures on GRATIS COMIC TAG I wondered if it wouldn´t have been exciting to join the party.


You know, hanging around different comic stores, meeting other comic readers ( maybe even some of the manga babes that were rumored to frequent comicshops nowadays ) and chewing the fat about all things comics.

I think a lot of people enjoy that, which is one of the reasons why people love to go to conventions. So this year I read a few of the articles on last year´s big event about all the signings and sketchings and parties in general and I decided to participate. Some people went to different comicshops on the same day and although I knew for a fact that FANTASY STRONGHOLD in Ludwigsburg wasn´t going to take part I knew that my comicshop was and that last year WORLD OF COMICS participated.

WORLD OF COMICS was located in the back of one of the KARSTADT branch stores and although they had to close a few shops after almost going bankrupt the stores in Stuttgart were still open. And on my way to the Sammlerecke in Esslingen I had to pass Stuttgart anyway so it was no detour to visit WORLD OF COMICS on the way back. It´s not a shop I frequent very often because they only have german comics but in this case that was exactly what I was looking for.


So like I said, I didn´t get much sleep because lately I couldn´t go to bed early and I had to get up early if I wanted to go to both stores at the same day. In Germany opening hours have been extended in the last year´s but on Saturday some shops still closed pretty early. So I set my alarm clock, got up feeling half dead, grabbed my bag ( which I had prepared the day before in prescience that I would neither have the time nor the necessary wits to do it right before leaving ) and was on my way to hardship and disappointment.

I think the subway ride to my first stop - the Sammlerecke in Esslingen - was uneventful and if not I´m surpressing it. When I arrived there were some people in the shop but not more than usual. A bit busy but within regular customer numbers. I had expected some special event or something but no such luck. The clerks were a bit busy so there was no opportunity to have my usual chat with the guys I normally met on my visits. As anticipated all the books I had put on my list were waiting for me but apart from that there was not much stuff from my pull list that was new.

My last visit wasn´t that long ago so I had cleared out most of the interesting new stuff. But with my tight budget for comics there are always some comics left I can pick up and I think more than 7 back issues of TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE. Since I´m more a fan of the bigbreasted Raven Hex character ( I know, all women in the book are bigbreasted but Raven just got a few extra inches ) than the main character Tarot I tend to get the issues with her first and all the others later.


I also pick the issues that have more of Tarot before the ones centering about the other boys and girls so I don´t read them in chronological order.

Which might be a problem for some of Today´s readers who panic if they miss one issue. As I have grown up reading comics out of sequential order where in some cases I got to read the end of a story before the beginning or having to wait years until finding out how a praticular story continued that´s no problem at all. It also might have something to do with the fact that in the first reading I pay more attention to the pictures.

Anyway, I picked up my free comics, some leftovers from my comicbag ( which I´m pretty sure included more than one issue of TAROT ) and was just about to leave when one of the clerks told me that they were doing a pre - opening of the new shop. The building in which the Sammlerecke had been was going to be torn down so they had to move to a new location and they decided to integrate it with GRATIS COMIC TAG. And I would get another set of free comics if I went there.

Now before putting the blame on anyone I have to say that I have a really awful sense of direction even worse than Lorenor Zorro in One Piece.


Really, really bad. Which is one of the reasons why I shouldn´t have a drivers license at all. So it´s probably my own fault that my day went downhill from there when I thought : Hey, let´s pay the new shop a visit, how difficult can it be when I know what street it´s on ?

Bad idea. Because no matter how confident I was when I left the comicshop five minutes later I wasn´t even sure if I remembered the name of the street. Knowing my bad sense of direction and my bad memory you might think I would write it down and get directions - at least. Well, isn´t it strange how the people who are most prone to get lost have unwaivering faith in their capability to find the right way ? I´m not sure how long I searched for the shop ( wasn´t the name of the street something that had to do with cars or machines ? ) but it felt like hours. Finally I a bus staion so I could at least get to the subway station in Esslingen.

There I caught my first break when I discovered that there is a BURGER KING right at the train station. I´m probably going to gain a few pounds now that I have a chance to go there on my way to the new comicshop and on the way back. But on that day I was just glad I could get something to eat and drink. Now I could have cut my losses then and there. I got to get the free comics I had reserved, I didn´t find the new comicshop but all in all I was still in pretty good shape. I could have just gone home and leave it at that. But sometimes I´m my own worst enemy.


That´s the only explanation I have that I decided to make another trek to WORLD OF COMICS to get one or two more free comics. And maybe there was some kind of comic event taking place. Little did I know that things were not going to improve. But more on that in my next post.

So what do you think about my new short posts ? Although, to tell the truth, this post has become longer than I expected. And to think that this and the next post were supposed to be the introduction the my post on GRATIS COMIC TAG that was going to cover all. Now, I wanted to include the link to my first post on GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 includes all the information as well as some of the feedback from last year.

Today´s video is from the Terminal Entertainment comicshop in Frankfurt and has some impressions from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011.



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

I´m drowning in comics to read

As you can see this blog is still up and running so everything´s okay with my last post. Although I have to say I got more comments on that post than on most others - spam not included.


Since we´re on the subject of my last post I wanted to thank Geier from the most excellent Geierheim blog for providing me with the link to § 86 Strafgesetzbuch about the graphic depiction of swastikas or variations thereof. I also have to thank him for reminding me that the german version of Danger Girls was put on the Index of youthendangering publications because of the hammer symbols the Nazis had in the comic instead of swastikas. I changed that in the text.


Oh, and sorry, I have to apologize to all readers who followed the link for § 86 Strafgesetzbuch and ended up with the episode of ComicGeek Speak that had the conversation with the late Gene Colan . I already fixed that.


And last but not least I wanted to thank Terry Hooper from Comic BitsOnline to let me publish his mail which was the origin of the post.

I wanted to post earlier Today but it´s been really hot and I had to walk all the way to ALDI for some art supplies and afterwards I was really exhausted. I don´t know what´s wrong with me lately but whenever the heat outside is really intense I turn weak as a kitten. Or maybe I got a dose of red kryptonite because I felt like somebody had materialized his foot into my head and just stomped on my brain a few times. I couldn´t keep one train of thought so please bear with me when I´m shooting into a few tangents Today. And I´m going to correct any spelling mistakes - I promise. Now I have already finished another post since the post on german censorship but because I posted all the links for the DC comic news before my last post it´s now directly below it so you might have missed it.


Since it has been over a week since my last post you might ask yourself what I have been doing in the meantime. Well, from time to time there are moments when I´m kind of neglecting my comic collection and just buying the usual stuff from my pull list. And other times I want to close the gaps and try out some new stuff.

Usually I order a few things from different dealers at different times and they all arrive at the same time so I´m either waiting for new comics or swamped with them. And I have to say : having too much to read is better than not having anything to read. Because when I don´t have anything to read I get cranky and lazy ( Yes, more cranky and lazy than usual ) and on the other side when I have lots of stuff to read I´m energized and funny and daring.


This time around I´m trying to spread things a bit over the next few weeks. And since my budget is rather small I have to use different venues like amazon where you can get some books at bargain prices or the Paninicomicforum where people sell their used comics. Used meaning - in this case - read once or twice at the most.

I ordered two hardcovers at blackdog because they had them at a lower price than amazon but it looks like they have to order them first so it will take at least 2 weeks until I can read them. Last week I got the hardcover of ASTRO CITY - THE TARNISHED ANGEL at a bargain price from a guy at the Panini Comic Forum who didn´t like the resolution of the story. Well, it´s one of my favorite stories ( second only to the CONFESSIONS storyline ) and it will get a special place on my porn shelf rack.


Yes, so far I only have one shelf that´s visible the rest of my porn shelf is hidden. Okay, I also have a second porn shelf furniture but I have moved so often from room to room that it´s now three rooms from my new room. And I think if I try to move it one more time it´s going to fall apart.

Anyway, since the 2 hardcovers from blackdog still hadn´t arrived last Sunday I ordered three hardcovers from amazon and they arrived Today. That´s what I call fast keeping in mind that they didn´t receive my order on a working day. The three comics I ordered were ULTIMATE COMICS NEW ULTIMATES - THOR REBORN by Jeph Loeb and Frank Cho, WEATHERCRAFT by Jim Woodring and BULLETPROOF COFFIN by David Hine and Shaky Kane. Now the THOR REBORN HC I got because I was thinking about getting the trade but the hardcover was just cheaper through amazon. Okay, it was just by 1 EURO but if you think about the additional free shipping it´s really a good deal. I mean why would anyone pay more to get the softcover version or - even worse - the german softcover which might have a really bad translation ? I know I already have all the single issues but it´s Frank Cho and I just love his art. Although the doublepage spreads are better in the floppy version.


Okay, we´re probably never going to see an uncensored version of SHANNA even though Joe Quesada keeps announcing it every year. But aside from that I´m always excited to see new pages from him and I can´t wait to get my hands on his X - MEN SCHISM issue.

One thing I have to mention - before rereading the comic and doing a proper post on it - is that I always found it kind of weird that the only difference between the regular Black Panther and the " ultimate " Black Panther is that the ultimate version is mute. I´m not sure what the message is here. The only way to make the black dude on the team better was to shut him up ?

The second comic book I ordered, WEATHERCRAFT is a comic I wanted to get since January when I found out - through one of the various " best of 2010 " lists I posted in my yearend post of 2010 - that there is a new comic from Jim Woodring. I´m not sure if I got all the FRANK comics he did but I have all the issues that were published in Germany and some US issues ( which don´t include the comics where I have the german version ). Somebody once said that if there is an artist out there who can draw dreams it must be Jim Woodring. I hope I can do a post on the new comic from him - which is a graphic novel to boot - although it´s probably a bit difficult to explain that I buy a comic without words for the story.

I haven´t read it yet but so far all FRANK comics by Jim Woodring have been nothing less than brilliant and I don´t think this one is an exception.


And last but not least BULLETPROOF COFFIN is a comic where I´m taking a chance and it´s all Terry Hooper´s fault. I have never heard of this and wouldn´t have paid any attention if it hadn´t been for a post on Comic BitsOnline about the book. To quote the author of the review Paul Brown :

Hine’s script is clever and knowingly wry and self - mocking, while Shaky Kane is having enormous fun drawing everything any fanboy would want to draw, from Kirbyesque psychotic Vigilantes to Neon Tyrannosaurs, all coloured in an eyeball - shredding dayglo colourscheme Warhol would’ve been proud of.

If you love old comics, and you could do with a fun read, I urge you to go and nab Bulletproof Coffin where and while you can.

The art is obviously not the first selling point but how can you go wrong with a story about comic geeks, superheroes, dinosaurs, mad professors, scantily clad cavewomen with large breasts and the obligatory comic book within a comic book ?


I´m also thinking about doing a real post on one of my favorite series that ended to soon : LEAVE IT TO CHANCE by James Robinson and Paul Smith.

Lately I tend to get the paperback of a series rather than hunt for the single issues and in some cases I even prefer the hardcovers especially if it´s a comic where I just love the art. I have to confess most of the hardcovers I have were bargains or in a few instances I already knew I had to get the hardcover like with FINAL CRISIS - LEGION OF THREE WORLDS. But there are some comics I read more than once and in that case it´s easier to just pick up the hardcover. And they often are more durable than the trades. I don´t know if my JUSTICE SOCIETY - THY KINGDOM COME books would look so good in the trade version if I had re - read them as often as my hardcovers.

Now with LEAVE IT TO CHANCE the second and third volumes were offered on amazon in the hardcover version for 11 bucks ( there is still one copy of each in stock ) and just a few days earlier I had finished re - reading all the issues so the notion what a great series it had been was fresh in my mind.


I don´t know why I re - read them to begin with but I guess I was probably bagging my comics and decided to read them once again right after MIDNIGHT NATION. If you have a comic collection as extensive and widespread ( and with that I mean all over the house and parts in the basement ) as mine you often forget which comics you have and bagging comics can turn into a treasure hunt. You always end up finding things you had almost forgotten.

I don´t have all of my comics bagged but whenever I get comics through the mail or when I´m at the comicshop I collect the comic bags and when I have a big bundle I bag another box of comics. I even get the bags my brother receives by mail because he doesn´t believe in bagging comics. I tried to tell him more than once that it would increase the lifespan of his comics but so far he doesn´t believe me.

In any case whenever I´m bagging my comics - or looking for a particular comic - I re - discover some comics where it would be a shame to read them only once. With MIDNIGHT NATION I think it was mostly because I had forgotten most of the story and it´s one of J. M. Straczynsky´s best work. Not too mention Gary Frank´s gorgeous art. I think he really found his definite style in that one.

With LEAVE IT TO CHANCE I just wanted to read the story once more since it´s one of my favorite series and it ended far too soon.


So I had just read the whole run and when I saw the two hardcovers I just thought it would be nice to have them on the shelf. Back in the days when the series was still in full swing I missed the beginning so I had to get the first trade to read the start of Chance Falconer´s adventures in Devil´s Echo. And wouldn´t the three books look perfect together ?

No they don´t. Because the hardcovers don´t fit ! Yes, I got a huge surprise when they arrived because they are the hardcovers but they are in the oversized album format that rivals the european comic album format. I couldn´t believe it. Those things are huge. Now I only have to find volume one in that format. Man, for 11 bucks that´s a steal. I´m so glad I ordered them.


At the moment I have to muster all my strength not to order the CAPTAIN AMERICA OMNIBUS by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting. I have all the issues, I bought the second Winter Soldier hardcover at the last comic fair in Stuttgart but less than 50 bucks ..... for an oversized hardcover that will cost me 75 bucks if I get it from my comicshop ..... let´s just say I´m tempted. But for the moment I´m still resisting.

My brother´s birthday is at the end of this month and I´m still don´t know what to get him. The last years I always got him one trade of NOVA and one trade of IMMORTAL IRON FIST but maybe I´ll go for something different this time. Something that´s not so predictable.


I thought about getting the third TRINITY trade for him since I gave him volume two for Christmas this year. But he still hasn´t found ( and read ) the first trade so I´m the only one who could really enjoy it. Oh, and don´t worry that he might find out what I´m giving him as a birthday present. My brothers never read my blog and one of them doesn´t even know the name of my blog.

So I´ll try to get something he wouldn´t expect, maybe the PENACE trade. Speedball kicked ass in that one, he just opens a can of whup - ass on the Marvel universe but it´s just one giant ..... oh no, that would be telling. There may be people out there who haven´t read it yet and I´m not going to spoil the mother of all punchlines.

Oh, I just realized that I have talked and talked about comics and I haven´t written anything about the GRATIS COMIC TAG which was supposed to be the topic of this post. I don´t know why, but I always get sidetracked when I´m starting with this topic. And I really want to do the reviews because then I can finally start to give the comics away. Which - by the way - is your clue to send me an e - mail if you interested in getting one of them.


I really should get to it as I already gave away the MUPPET SHOW comic.

Right now I´m still thinking about how best to give them away ( yes, I also didn´t think it would be so difficult to get rid of comics ) and I´m probably going to put a post on the blog and a thread on the Panini Comic Forum. I´m also undecided if it wouldn´t be best to write the reviews in german since the comics in question are german and only available to readers in Germany. And are my foreign readers really that interested in reading about german comics ( and BDs ) ? Maybe it´s just boring for them.

So, I have enough comics to read at the moment and also enough comics to write about. There are the comics I ordered, LEAVE IT TO CHANCE or the new LOVE AND CAPES miniseries I just finished I can write about. But first I have to do the post about the issues from the GRATIS COMIC TAG, dammit. Whew, this was supposed to be just a short post to let people know that the blog is still up and running but as always I got a bit carried away. The whole post reads a bit like a sales pitch. Although I would never recommend a comic that I haven´t bought and enjoyed myself. And if I have discovered such a rare gem I want to share it with others even if I might be biased or opinionated. But that´s why you read the blog in the first place, right ?


So as usual, time to wrap things up and if you have any comments or special requests ( like you´re dying to know more about LEAVE IT TO CHANCE ) just drop me a comment.

Since this post is about nothing in particular it´s a bit difficuklt to find a video that fits. So - since I have just watched the first two episodes of season 6 of Dr Who - here´s the official trailer for it. I swear, just when you think it can´t get any better they add another level of brilliance. How do they do it ?



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


Let the punishment fit the crime !