I’ve worked at Barnes and Noble for a little over two years and we’re getting ready for yet another painful holiday season. More customers = higher potential for people with something completely wrong with them.

I think it was on the Something Awful forums, but I remember someone once complaining about how B&N never discounts graphic novels ever. I had to think it over for a second, but the guy was right. In all the time working there, I don’t remember a single sale for anything graphic novel related, except possibly Alex Ross’ Mythology.

Maybe it says something about the industry’s success, but that’s changed a lot. Back during October, the hardcover trade for Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness went 20% off. That’s an interesting precedent, considering despite the many, many copies sold of Marvel Zombies (at least in my store), even to the point of the warehouses being out of copies, it always remained list price.

As of today, there is a pretty impressive amount of discounted comic titles. I’m pretty certain this counts for every B&N. Off the top of my head:

– Heroes Volume 1
– Black Dossier
– Gunslinger Born
– Jodi Picoult’s Wonder Woman
– 300
– Absolute Sandman Volume 2
– Shooting War
– Marvel Encyclopedia
– DC Encyclopedia

Not a bad batch. Well, the Wonder Woman thing probably sucks, but B&N has a boner for Picoult and I’m interested in seeing how that sells. I think it’s about time the Marvel and DC Encyclopedias get an update, especially the latter. DC Encyclopedia still claims that Dr. Light killed Sue Dibny.

As a forced segue into a future article, Gunslinger Born was done by Peter David. I have one of his greatest comic issues ever coming to my mailbox any day and I can’t wait to review it. It’s a lost gem from my childhood that I had when I was like eight. Oh God, this is going to be sweet!

I honestly hadn’t heard of this comic until I was futzing around with the graphic novel display at work. Glancing at it, I figured it was probably just some crap comic about Tony Montana prior to the movie’s story. Then I saw that John Layman wrote it. I haven’t read much of the man’s work, but House of M: Fantastic Four was the best side-story to the House of M event and Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness is the highlight of the entire Marvel Zombie experiment. That got me interested enough to read the back cover, where I discovered it was a sequel. Hey, why the hell not.

I should get this out of the way first: I’m not the biggest fan of the movie Scarface. It’s been years since I’ve last seen it, but the problem for me that it was too long a movie to be carried by only one likeable character. Tony Montana is an awesome character, but he’s the only thing the movie had going for it. None of the other characters did anything for me. I still respect the movie and wouldn’t mind giving it another go one of these days.

But wait… Isn’t Tony Montana dead? Didn’t the movie end with the crazy gunfight where a coke-filled Tony got riddled with 500 bullets before being shot in the back by that Terminator-looking guy? Now, around the same time, a Scarface videogame called the World is Yours was released and dealt with this by going the What If route. Before he can get killed, Tony finds a passage to escape through, recuperates and plans his comeback. Scarface: Scarred for Life, on the other hand, is a comic book. Like Wilson Fisk and Barracuda, charismatic comic book mobsters have a talent for surviving the most insane maimings.

Read the rest of this entry �

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 �