Shots are up from Mike Carey’s signing party at the Isotope. Check the Isotope blog here, or click here to check out the photos directly. Yours truly may be in a picture or three.

It was a great bash! Kirsten was working the bar, as usual, and James, Josh, and Ash were playing enforcer/host. Mike Carey was pretty cool, and stayed until after midnight. Mindy Owens, writer of the Runaways Saga and an upcoming issue Spider-Man Fairy Tales (how lucky do you have to be to have your first two comics drawn by Humberto Ramos and Mike Allred…) was there, Matt Silady popped in, and a gang of other people. Apparently Mike Choi was there, which kind of blows my mind. Met some cool new people. SF is full of great cats, Saturday night kind of proved that. I think I dipped at around 1, 130 or so.

Can’t wait for the next signing. Go see how much fun we had.

One Person’s Legitimizing:

If the slaves in these books were black, would they be republished? If they were Asian, Native American, Latino? But they’re women, and we’re not supposed to raise a stink about these piddling little books that others wiser that we have judged unimportant. We’re supposed to put up and shut up–because we still haven’t had that liberation, and apparently people still think they can tell us what issues are supposed to be important, and what aren’t, and what “unimportant” things we’re legitimizing by daring to point out they are vile.

This is a really, really good point, because black people are at the point where there are no offen-

-sive material being put out that denigrates the whole ra-

ce or anything like that. I mean, we aren’t really portrayed as stereotypical pi-

mps and hustlers and oversexed and whorish and only good for entertainment by the media at large or any-

more, you kn-

ow? Everything is gravy. Everything is positive. None of us grow up looking up to drug dealers or pimps or hustlers.

With a hat-tip to Cheryl Lynn, I just want to say that playing prole-ier than thou?

That’s a sucker’s game. It’s ugly and stupid and, if you’re serious about what you’re talking about, beneath you. It’s like trying to play upon, or even create, guilt and therefore curry favor.

Sorry. Pet peeves, right? We’ve all got issues. We even share some! Mine are important and yours are important, but that doesn’t mean that you get to use mine to bolster yours, because I don’t want to do that to you.

I’m trying not to make this post sound jerky, but I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s maybe the all-seeing starry eyes of Archbishop Don Magic Juan looking down on me.

Part, fellas.

Church.

You know how you can read something, enjoy it, and then read it again and enjoy it on an all new level?

Check this sequence from New X-Men #145.

Here’s Wolverine’s monologue at the end there:

Nah. see, I just found out WHO I am and WHAT I am… and… well, let’s just say some of us were BORN to kill and RAISED to kill and that’s the only damn thing we’re any GOOD for.

Everything else is just LIES we tell ourselves.

You’re asking me about the purpose of LIFE, you fucking genocide machine? It’s like this…”

He presses a button and basically attempts suicide.

At first, this was just a cool scene. Wolverine talks about his life and the pointlessness of it and then takes out the bad guy.

I was talking with some friends online after the (dope) Isotope party tonight and we somehow got onto the subject of New X-Men and how it tried to push the X-franchise in a new direction. Then we went from talking about all the off-panel fights and then onto metacommentary when it hit me. This scene is a direct commentary on the X-Franchise in specific.

You’re created for one thing. Bred for one thing. You will never, ever be anything more than that, and trying otherwise is just lying to yourself.

True? False?

Food for thought.

Wuxtry, wuxtry, read all aboot it–

Tonight, from 8pm to midnight, Mike Carey is going to be at Isotope Comics in SF doing a signing/meet’n’greet. Knowing the Isotope, there’ll be drinks and cool people to chill with, so come one come all.

I’ll be there, so that makes the cool people count at greater than or equal to “one.” I just gotta decide if I want him to sign a Hellblazer trade or Lucifer or Ultimate Fantastic Four.

I’d get X-Men 200 signed, but it isn’t in trades!

Who: Mike Carey
What: An Evening With
When: 8pm-Midnight
Where: Isotope Comics
Why: And sometimes, yes.

A couple weeks ago, Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness finished off. Marvel Zombies 2 has just been solicited for October. With that in mind, it’s about time I laid out my thoughts on the whole Zombieverse.

It all started back in 2005. Mark Millar was in the midst of his Ultimate Fantastic Four run and he started making some hints at a certain special story arc. From the looks of things, the Ultimate Marvel Universe was about to make a crossover with the mainstream universe Marvel 616. I wasn’t paying attention at the time, since I wasn’t reading Ultimate Fantastic Four, but I can only imagine people were annoyed as hell. Not only did this defeat the purpose of the Ultimate continuity, but Millar probably didn’t garner all that much faith going into what would be such an important story.

But the evidence was there. The story was titled “Crossover”. One of the variant covers for the first issue showed Ultimate Reed exchanging a shocked glance at an older Reed with snazzy white hair tufts. The second issue of the arc showed a more mainstream version of Magneto manhandling the Ultimate Fantastic Four. The first issue builds up to this meeting, including a scene where the two Reeds discuss the differences between their worlds. Older Reed — shown via hologram — mentions the Avengers and his children Franklin and Valeria.

Truly, this had to be the Ultimates/616 crossover we’d been dreading.

Or not.

Read the rest of this entry �

David Mack, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, and Brian Azzarello are basically my five favorite comics creators.

Newsarama’s got previews up featuring three out of the five, and that ain’t half-bad.

Batman 666 and All-Star Batman 6 with a handful of pages a piece. Looking good. When’s the last time Barbara Gordon was this adorable? I think it’s the freckles, maybe. She actually looks like a gangly teenager.

I’m feeling really tired and haven’t quite had the energy to blog the past few days! Never fear. Instead of an actual post, I’ll give you that most pernicious of blog posts– a random image!

Dr. Doom appears to have won the day. The Human Torch is blinded and trapped with the Mole Man. Namor has made off (and perhaps even made out) with Sue. Benjamin J Grimm is MIA and of no help. Reed Richards? He’s hiding in his tower, cowering before the might that is Doom.

What does the world’s greatest mind do in this situation? He puts on his thinking cap.

This is one of the best scenes I’ve seen in a Fantastic Four comic, and is actually what got me to finally try the franchise after avoiding it since childhood. Grant Morrison and Jae Lee’s Fantastic Four: 1 2 3 4 is what a movie critic would call a tour de force, with an excellent merging of writing and art. This was my introduction to post-X-Factor Jae Lee, and it was a revelation that prompted me to purchase the Inhumans maxiseries he did with Paul Jenkins.

Jae Lee draws a sick Namor, and Grant Morrison writes a quality Fantastic Four.

I’m thinking some things over in my head, and I think I might try something new with the blog over the next few days, posting-wise. I’ve got some good comics to review, at any rate.

I’ve been thinking about a few things and you cool cats get to reap the benefits.

Damsel in distress/lost family stories. They form the basis of characters like Punisher, and are common in Spider-Man, Batman, and Daredevil stories. They’re part of a “You Touched My Stuff” trend that’s understandably bothersome. They tend to reduce the damsels, or families, to things that are possessed by the hero– my wife, my son, my family.

All that is true, but I’m having trouble letting go of them. It’s an easy story, but one that never fails to get me. It’s a suspense builder. It’s an easy way to get that “Oh, snap!” reaction. It gets that because it’s an easy pop. Of course the hero is going to fight harder when his family is in danger, who wouldn’t?

I’m not all about them, don’t get me wrong. But, if a story comes up featuring a character I know and a writer I enjoy, I’m much more likely to give it a chance than I would if it was some no-name character.

There were two that have gone down in comics relatively recently that come to mind. Punisher: Man of Stone featured something like a damsel in distress, and Daredevil’s most recent arc features a traditional one. I’m going to spoil both of them, mind you, but they’ve been out for a while so I guess that’s okay.

I kind of wish I could put my resolution right here, above the fold, but it kind of flows better if it’s at the end. Read it if you’re interested in seeing where I’m going, hey?
Read the rest of this entry �

From Newsarama:

Marvel recorded 48.42% of the Unit Market Share, nearly 20 percentage points above DC’s 28.57%. Both the size of the “spread” between publishers and DC’s percentage of share are perhaps both historic figures in the Diamond/single distributor era.

From a Dollar standpoint, Marvel’s 43.62% to DC’s 27.07% is comparable to May’s figures.

That’s Marvel up twenty percentage points in market share. This is not even remotely a good thing for DC, obviously. Five books in the top twenty? Countdown shedding a couple grand worth of readers a week? Not cool.

I hate on DC a lot, but it’s out of love, believe me. Or maybe like. Anyway– I want them to do better, because they’ve got a sick cast of characters. I love Charlie Huston, but what is Moon Knight, an eternal B-lister, doing selling more than Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, and Superman? What’s DC doing wrong?

DC can do a lot of right. Here’s one you might not of heard of. Son of Vulcan, a miniseries by Scott Beatty and Keron Grant. It’s a legacy book, or at least pretends to be one, so that’s DC’s niche right there. It’s got a kid hero, an older kid hero (who is in a retirement home), and a very colorful and entertaining cast. It’s the kind of world-building that DC just doesn’t do any more.

Scratch that– Blue Beetle, written by the excellent John Rogers (who also wrote the best movie of the summer featuring Robots in Disguise), does this kind of thing and it’s one of the greatest books DC has. That isn’t damning with faint praise, either– Blue Beetle is excellent. In fact, SoV is kind of a proto-Beetle in a lot of ways.

Son of Vulcan. Balls nasty. Six issues. Great comedy. World building. It’s what DC needs more of. Don’t believe me? Here’s a few pages. I want to talk more about the series later on, but I’m still pretty wiped after E3. I’d love to see more of this series, but I don’t think it fits in with NEW EARTH and COUNTDOWN TO EXILES OF NEW EARTH and KILL CHARACTERS IN LIMBO FOR CHEAP THRILLS, you know?

Me, I’m just waiting for Death of the Z-List DC Characters You’ve Never Heard Of mega-crossover.

Enjoy.

from issue one

from issue five

Let’s be honest here.

I would pay DC money if they let me write an Injustice Gangstas miniseries. Even a one-shot.

So, guess who just got back from a special sneak preview of the Iron Man game coming from SEGA :quagmire:

It was a short preview, and not hands-on, but it looks pretty dope. We saw the 360 rev, which looked really good to be so early. We saw a Siberian stage, with IM versus Russian mercs… Russian mercs run by AIM. Rhodey and Jarvis assist him over a radio.

We saw a couple good scenes. Iron Man can catch missiles and redirect them, turning the enemy against itself. It was an unfinished build, but there was a pretty good sense of speed, and the stage was huge. It’s structured so that you can complete objectives in a mission in the order that feels most comfortable to you, which is kind of cool. Infantry and that kind of thing are really no threat, but heavy armor? Yes, that will rock you but good.

One last thing before I dip– I asked the dev specifically about armors. He said that they’re going to rep the movie first and foremost, but that they’re going to pull on 40 years of Marvel continuity and give us some hot unlockables. War Machine armor is a no-brainer. It’d be kinda cool to see some Hulkbuster armor (renamed, of course) or something from Adam Warren’s Hypervelocity.

One more one last thing– I know one of the dev guys, and he’s local to SF :whatup: