There were two things I did not like, and one thing I did, but shouldn’t.  Have a look below the cut.

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Because it definitely does for me.  I can’t help but wonder if the fact that something like five Batman: The Road Home books are coming out on Wednesday has something to do with the timing.  Batman’s a draw, sure, but dropping a twenty on tie-ins that are coming out before the end of the series that they’re supposedly sequels of doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that even die hard fans would do.

I buy that DC and Marvel are both scaling back because readers have done the same.  Hell, when I started buying comics they were $2.50 each, and I haven’t been collecting long.  Raising prices by sixty percent over less than half a decade is asking a lot of consumers, especially since all those ‘extras’ and ‘second features’ dried up pretty fast.  I wonder, though, if the damage has been done.  Once people get in the habit of dropping things, once they realize they can and it doesn’t make that much of a difference, it could be hard to get them out of it.

Especially since books may be getting scaled back by two pages an issue.  Paper costs money, of course, and I don’t think that anyone is planning a get-rich-quick scheme by milking the oh-so-lucrative comic book market, but I can’t help but remember paying five dollars for a comic book that had a First Wave preview.  A few months later, almost every book being published that week had that same preview added on for free. 

Still, I think that scaling back the price will do what Marvel and DC hope it will do; encourage people who are on the fence about an issue to throw it on their stack with a, “What the hell.  It’s only three dollars.”  That will give more marginal books a chance to thrive, and I think it would be a real boon to everyone. 

Are there any issues that you’re planning on picking up due to the price rollback?

. . . on whether David bought a signed and numbered compy of The Outfit in New York.

I’m betting he did.  If the New York book had a special cover or a chance to get an inner-cover sketch by Mr Cooke, no bets will be honored.  It’s a sure thing.

So Commissioner Gordon is getting a back-up in Detective Comics.  I think the art, by Francesco Francovilla, looks great.  And I’m excited to see the finished book.

One minor quibble with the picture, I really doubt that Gordon would have anything that reminds him of the Joker on the wall of his bedroom.  We’re talking about the guy who tortured his daughter and killed his wife.

Commissioner Gordon is one of the characters I’ve always wanted to see more of.  The trouble is, I don’t really know what that ‘more’ should consist of.  Jim’s position involves management of a lot of intersecting cases, but at the same time he shouldn’t get involved in any of them.  And it would be hard for his character to do stuff that didn’t involve getting sucked into some past traumatic memory.  I think this would have been cooler if he were still a retiree and went around solving cases like Matlock.

Still, this is something that I think will really set Detective Comics apart from the . . . eleventy hundred (?) other Batman books out there.  (Not that I’m opposed to that.  I’m a Batperson.  If anything there should be more books.)  Any ideas for what kind of stories would work for Jim?

So once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was a book called Green Lantern: Secret Origin, which retold Hal Jordan’s origin story.  Since Hal Jordan’s origin story is not long or complicated (test pilot.  got ring from alien.  might as well say ‘a wizard did it’.) and is probably the best known of any Green Lantern origin, it recounted this story for reasons known only to itself, but it was a pleasant enough book, with good art and clear story-telling.

Towards the end of the first issue, it threw in the following scene:

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I’m imprecise when it comes to my comics habit.  I’ve grown out of buying one series all the time to be completist.  At this point I have neither the money nor the patience to do that.  Because of the twists and turns of the comics world, deaths and crossovers, I might have to drop any issue at any time.

I’m also imprecise about keeping up with comics news.  Occasionally, when I’m low on material, bored, or hear about an awesome e-fight, I might stop looking at pictures of cute animals online (or videos – I swear, watching a baby sea otter get bottle fed, a fawn coming in through a cat door, or a boxer puppy getting fed medicine and coughing at the taste will never, ever get old) and sluggishly navigate over to see it.  So it’s usually not until David prompts me that I lumber over to the DC website and figure out what I’m reading for the week.  This week, though, I got bored early and checked out the page. 

For those of you who are dying to hear about the process, my way of picking things out is simple.  I scan down the week’s releases on the comics page, making a note of what I want to read immediately.  Then I re-scan the page, opening up new tabs for so I can read the blurbs for the comics that I’m on the fence about.

Most of the time there are only one or two that I know I’ll buy, and three or four that I might buy but probably won’t.  This week there’s nothing.  Supergirl has been so all over the place, especially with the exasperating New Krypton storyline, that I don’t buy it.  Powergirl has not been a draw for me since it turned to gloom and putting a dead woman’s body on the cover doesn’t increase my interest.  Wally’s my Flash.  Arsenal is usually a good character for me, but that’s because he was a good-natured happy guy who was also a father.  Now he’s none of those things, so he holds no interest for me.  The only thing I might get is Superman/Batman, and unfortunately it’s undergoing baffling timing.  It’s a story about Dick taking on the role of Batman and Superman possibly blocking his way – a year after it happened.  And I’m pretty sure they’ve already had a DickBatman, ClarkSuperman team up in that very book before.  Why would they have a conflict storyline now?  That’s just bizarre.

Maybe I’ll get a trade or something.

I don’t think that 4thletter is a unique site.  (Apologies to David.)  Sure, it has a bunch of writers who mix excellent taste with class and intelligence, but there are other sites which do that.  (Particularly the ones which hire me.)  At the same time, there are a lot of places more dedicated to comics news and comics commentary, than this site is.  Everyone who reads this post will be reading other sites, and will be commenting on message boards, and if they live in a big enough town, will have people they get together with to discuss comics.  What I’m saying is, add up everyone on this board and you cast a wide net, with a wide variety of tastes and preferences.

For all that comics tend to veer towards sex and violence these days, there is enough variety within them to cater to all these tastes and preferences.  Some comics are darker, some lighter, some for adults, some for kids, and so on.  What I’ve noticed, though, is that some comics will get an overwhelming bad reaction on every single site on which they’re mentioned.  Don’t get me wrong, there are individual defenders of the comics on each site.  But still, there are some which get a collective groan on every site and in every venue.  It’s almost common knowledge that these books suck.

And yet they’re still published.  More than that, they’re often so popular that they’re expanded on.  I don’t know how much of the comics community is represented online, but I can’t help but wonder, “Who buys this stuff?”  If every single forum I go to responds with contempt at the very mention of a certain character, book, or storyline, if the very idea of it is ridiculed in internet memes, if no one likes it; why is it so very, very popular?

Because often this stuff is flying off the shelves even as everyone on the internet denounces it.  I know it’s a cliche that the rage of net nerds is impotent and inflated.  I also know it’s a cliche that people often profess to hate something as soon as it has turned popular.  But I have to wonder how things get to be and continue to be so overwhelmingly popular even as everyone talks about how terrible they are. 

Have you noticed things that fly off the shelves even when those who are most passionate about comics hate them?

Have you seen who buys the stuff that most people don’t like?

Have you ever lied and said that you would never, ever buy that crap – and then gone somewhere incognito and bought that crap?

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The solicit for this:

Comics superstar David Finch takes full creative control (both writing and illustrating!) on this brand-new Batman monthly series! Joined by the best of the best – Scott Williams – on inks, this new series is sure to be on everyone’s must-read pile! Delving into the more supernatural and esoteric areas of Gotham City, the 6-part storyline explores the horrific murder of one of Bruce Wayne’s childhood friends…and the terrible ramifications the brutal crime has on Batman’s life!

I have only three reactions to this.

1.  How do they keep finding new iterations of ‘Batman,’ ‘Dark,’ and ‘Knight,’ to use for comic book titles?

2.  PleasenoHush.  Please, oh please, no Hush.  Let this childhood friend stay dead.

3.  Great art, though.

Cut for spoilers.

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