Darwyn Cooke Adapts Parker

From San Diego Comic Con: Darwyn Cooke is going to adapt the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) for IDW Comics. The four novels he is adapting are The Hunter (aka Point Blank), The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit, and The Mourner. The first issue will come out in late 2009.

Martha Washington Omnibus

From the San Diego Comic Con it was reported by the artist Dave Gibbons that the entire Martha Washington storyline plus extras will be collected in a one volume omnibus. Martha was a character created by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons for Dark Horse Comics in 1990. The first mini series was Give Me Liberty, followed by Martha Washington Goes To War, than a one shot called Happy Birthday Martha Washington, followed by another one shot Martha Washington Stranded In Space and than a final mini series Martha Washington Saves the World and ending with a one shot Martha Washington Dies. All this plus extra art and notes from Dave Gibbons will be included in this new edition.

News From San Diego

San Diego is where the big news is announced from the Comic world. Over the next however many posts I will talk about what I find exciting from the world of San Diego and what I find interesting that they've talked about. Don't look for a complete round up of news from the con here, you can go to Newsarama or CBR for that. I just want to point out what I will be looking foward to.

San Diego Comic Con

This is the weekend for the San Diego Comic Con. The last one I went to was 2002. The first one I went to would have been in the late 80's. I remember the year that the Chicago Con (the real Chicago Con, before Wizard bought it) was just a weekend before San Diego. I ended up going to Chicago and than spending the week inbetween with my friend and artist Terry Pavlet and than heading to San Diego. That was the year that I did the Christmas issue of Quantum Leap for Innovation Comics. George Broderick, another friend, was an editor there. In fact I think I was the one that alerted George to the fact that there was a comic book company in his neck of the woods in Wheeling West Virginia.

The first San Diego Con I went to was when I met Sam Kieth. We had talked before, on the phone, but met in person for the first time. We shared a room with Wendi Lee and her boyfriend at the time, another artist that did some work for Eclipse Comics (I'm sorry I can't remember his name now). We were staying at the Hotel San Diego, not exactly in the best area of town. If I remember right across the street was an area where the local winos hung out.

That first con George Lucas came to the con. He had the con people put a different name on his name tag, like that would hide the fact of his identity. Everyone at that Con knew what George Lucas looked like. But at that time the Con wasn't invaded by Hollywood like it is now. You'd see a few Hollywood types, but they were there mainly as fans, not pushing anything. At that time Hollywood, like most of the rest of the world, didn't think appearing at a comic convention would help push anything.

To me the first cons seemed big, but compared to what San Diego is now they were small. The last one I went to six years ago was huge. It's interesting, it can be fun, but it's not a comic book convention anymore. It's a lot more than that.

Zot

Zot was written and drawn by Scott McCloud, better known now as the guy that wrote those books about comics, back in the '80's and published by Eclipse Comics. The first ten issues were in color, than the series went to black and white. I remember buying the comic when it first came out and liking it. Eclipse, Pacific, First, all these were new companies, opening the comic field up to an exciting time.

This book collects all the black and white issues of Zot that were written and drawn by Scott McCloud. The first ten, color issues, are not collected. McCloud refers to them as his learning curve for Zot. And there were two issues of a fill in drawn by Chuck Austen that is not included. But what is included is some great comics.

This is a great month for comic collections. American Flagg is finally supposed to come out. Bill Loebs' Journey is also supposed to be out this month.

Spending Habits

This post was conceived after reading a post by Heidi over at Comics Fairplay, one of my favorite blogs about comics. She was talking about how the economy is making her look at her spending habits and asked about how it changed ours. I was going to write an answer on her blog, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it may end up being kind of long winded so decided perhaps I should post it here instead.

It wan't that long ago that I didn't really think about the price of gas. Ok, maybe a little longer ago than it seems, but when gas was around two dollars a gallon or less, it didn't seem that big a thing. I wouldn't really think about gas prices when I was thinking about my expenses for the week. Stopping at a gas station to fill up was likely twenty dollars if that much. The last time I filled up my gas tank it was over $50.00. And I drive a Camary. It gets great gas mileage, I can drive from New Orleans to Memphis on one tank of gas and still have almost a quarter of a tank of gas left. Nowdays just thinking about driving anywhere makes me think about how bad I want to go or do I really need to go, I don't want to have to fill up the tank anymore than I have to.

My Local Comic Shop is about twenty five miles from where I live. Now I work in retail and I hate when people come in the store where I work and talk about how far they had to drive, all the way from Covington to Slidell. Well the reverse trip is what I drive to my LCS. Now I can sympathize with them when they say something like that. For me to drive to my LCS it's a fifty mile trip.

I can give one example of raising gas prices cutting back on my spending. This last week I didn't go to my LCS. There were none of the comics that I really want coming out this week, there were a few that I might have been interested in, but I didn't want to spend the money on gas. And I knew if I drove all the way out (ha) I would feel compelled to buy a few comics just so I didn't feel like the trip was a complete waste of time. Used to be I wouldn't have minded just picking up half a dozen comics to give them a try. But half a dozen comics could wind up costing twenty dollars.

That's another thing. I never worried too much about my comic spending before. It's been a long time since I tried to buy everything that was published. (Back in the days of the beginning of the direct market I did try that. At one time I had just about every comic First, Eclipse, Pacific and a bunch of other new companies put out. All those comics are long gone now.) But now I can go buy five comics and the price is over fifteen dollars.

I'm going to show my age here and recall back when I was a kid I could buy a couple comics, a coke and candy bar for a dollar. Yes, I know everything has went up in price and that was a long time ago, but I wonder how kids buy comics nowdays. Are their allowances that much more now?

Nowdays a comic has to be good to keep me reading. Once I used to buy to complete collections. Once I got rid of most of my collection I cured that habit. Now I'll buy a comic while it keeps me interested, but as soon as it stops I drop the comic. Lots of times that might mean when the writer leaves the comic, depending on what the incoming writer does to keep the comic interesting. I no longer have to buy every issue of a certain character just became I want to keep my collection complete. Except for a few comics I'm not even that big on keeping the past issues. If I think the comic is good enough to go back and read I'll buy the trades.

So when I'm at the LCS shop looking at the new issues I find it hard to pick up something new unless I've heard good things about it. I used to experiment with buying trades more too. Twenty dollars or so for a nice size trade wasn't that bad a deal. And it still isn't, but I have to think what else I could use that twenty for.

The price of everything is going up. As gas prices either continue to go up or even stablize at the prices they are now, more things will go up. The majority of goods and food are transported by trucks, which use gas, which cost the trucking companies to spend more money, which in the end gets pushed back to the rest of us. My last trip to the grocery store I ended up spending over fifty dollars and I was able to carry all the groceries in on one trip. And that was without buying any expensive meats or anything. Used to be I'd have to make at least two trips if I spend that much money.

Besides comics I spend a good bit of money on music. So I have to think if I want the new CD by My Morning Jacket or a couple of comics. I have to think about how much use I'll get out of which, the cd I might listen to and put on my Ipod to continue to listen to. The comics I will probably read and end up throwing to the side and perhaps not ever picking them up again, until it's time to get rid of them.

It's also made me look at how I buy my comics. In a previous post I talk about buying hardbacks through Amazon instead of my LCS. It just makes sense if I can save anywhere from ten to twenty dollars on the purchase. I hate to do it, I want to support my LCS, but I can't support it to my determinate.

It also means sometimes I don't buy the floppy and wait for the trade to come out. I know that's a sure way to cause the regular monthly to die if enough people do that, but if a single issue costs $3.00 and the trade costs $15.00, it's usually a better deal since more trades collect at least six issues of a series.

The price of gas continues to climb, the price of everything continues to climb, except for one thing. My salary. I don't think what people make is keeping up with how much everything is going up. And that means things have to get cut. I used to eat out at work almost everyday. Now I try to bring my lunch as much as possible. Just eating out once a week was anywhere from thirty dollars to fifty dollars a week. A lot of these expenses used to not seem that bad, but now it all adds up too quickly.

Unfortunately I don't foresee gas prices going down or even stop from going up anytime soon, so it will just mean more cutting back on comics and other things.

Hulk Movie

I saw the new Hulk movie this morning. Let me state first that I'm one of the few that enjoyed the first Hulk movie. There were problems with it, but I thought it was nice that it tried to be different from the typical superhero movie. Still saying that I have to also say that I enjoyed the new Hulk movie.

It's not an Iron Man but for an action/super hero movie it was good. The movie kept things moving so the pace didn't slow down. I thought the scene in the bottle factory when Bruce Banner was trying to explain to a bully why he didn't want to upset him and with his poor grasp of the language actually ended up telling the guy "You don't want to make me...hungry."

I like the way that they are trying to tie all their movies together, with sly references to the super solider formula and of course at the end with the Tony Stark cameo. I'm one of those old fogeys from back when Marvel was introducing all their characters and I remember as a kid loving it when Spiderman popped up for a few panels in the newest Daredevil. They created a world where all their heroes lived in together. Seeing it in the movies is pretty cool too.

The movies not perfect, but overall I enjoyed it and think it's a good addition to the Marvel universe of movies.

Whether to Buy?

I'm a strong supporter of my Local Comic Shop. Always have been and always will be. Back in the day if I happened to pick up a comic someplace that I had in my folder back at the comic shop I made it a point to still pay for the comic in the folder, I had it on hold, I just felt like I should pay for it.

But I have a problem. Books like the above, the new Starman hardcover collection. It sells for $49.99 at my LCS. On Amazon I can buy it for $36.49. (And actually it was advertised for $31.99 up until recently.) Even if my LCS offers me a discount, which might be 10%, I'm still saving ten dollars or more if I buy it from Amazon. That's a good bit of money as far as I'm concerned.

I want to buy my purchases from my LCS, but I can't justify paying that much extra money for a book when I get it for a much less expensive price.

I buy all my comics from the LCS but I admit that I've bought other hardback collections from Amazon. The two Love and Rockets collection, Invincible, Runaways and others. I still buy my trade paperbacks from the LCS, so the Daredevil, Walking Dead, Fables collection all come from my LCS. The difference in price with the hardbacks is just too big to pass up.

So what do you do?

William Messener-Loebs

Journey is one of the best comic books every published. This comic was published years ago, it tells the story of a different Wolverine, Wolverine MacAllister, a frontiersman during the 1800s in the Middle American Wilderness. Mr. Loebs both wrote and drew the comic.

Lately Bill and his wife Nadine (it's hard to talk about Bill without Nadine, the two come as a unit) have fallen on hard times. Bill lost his right arm while an infant. After producing comics for Marvel and DC Bill found his talents no longer sought after. Changes in management meant changes on the talent. Bill found himself without work. Through some bad times Bill and Nadine ended up living in a Salvation Army shelter. Recently there have been some efforts made to help them out and from what I've read things have improved some.

But where are the new Bill Loebs stories? Where is new issues of Journey? Why have the past issues of Journey not been collected into trades? I've read recently that Fantagraphics was thinking of publishing a phone book edition of the series and more recently I've read that IDW is supposed to be doing a collection of the first twelve issues this summer. I'm not sure which is true, but I hope that there is a collection coming out from someone of this landmark comic series.

Bill or Nadine won't remember me, but some of my past comic book history is intertwined with them. My first published work was in the back of an issue of Journey. It was titled "The Duel" and was drawn by Sam Kieth. I would call and talk with Nadine about the story and she would offer advice before the story was done.

Years later when Sam Kieth was asked to contribute to the newly created Image Comics he came up with his character The Maxx and asked Bill Loebs to script it for him. At that time Bill said no. Sam came to me (and he might have asked a few others inbetween Bill and me) and asked if I wanted to help him with the scripts. It didn't take me long to say yes. At the time I think a lot of writers were seeing Image as an artist's company, most of the original founders were using friends and people that no one knew to write the series they were creating. I wasn't worried. This was the big time for me. I was doing a lot of short stories for a lot of small publishers, but nothing that was bringing in any real money.

Well, anyone that has read The Maxx knows my name was nowhere to be found on it. Sam was able to convince Bill to give it a go and decided to use Bill as the writer. I'm sure Bill has no idea that I was ever involved with the series, however briefly.

The first San Diego Con I ever went to I met Bill Loebs. It was the year that Sam Kieth, Wendi Lee and her boyfriend (I can't remember his name but he drew a few things for Eclipse) and I shared a room at the convention. Bill has always been a great guy.

Someone get JOURNEY in print. Let's collect those old issues and even better yet let's get some new issues of a JOURNEY comic out there.

New Creator Blog Added to Side Bar

I just added David Lapham's blog Fantastic Life! to my sidebar. David Lapham is the writer/artist/creator of Stray Bullets, one of my all time favorite comic series. He is currently writing and drawing Young Liars for Vertigo. I'm still on the fence on this series. I wasn't that thrilled with the first issue, but the second one was much better. Since it's David Lapham I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and stick around for awhile.

And does anyone know where I can get the rest of the Stray Bullets paperbacks? I have the first three but missed the remaining ones. Or I should say get them for something less than outrageous money, I've seen them listed on Amazon.com for a lot more than I really want to pay for them.

But everyone should check out his blog, I've been enjoying it. And give Young Liars a chance.

Gene Colan in Poor Health

It's being reported that Gene Colan is in poor health at the moment. According to a release from his wife:

My darling, sweet, handsome and brilliantly gifted husband’s liver is failing. The complications are very nasty. This week it’s fluid retention and encephalitis. He’s on powerful meds now to diminish the symptoms. He sleeps a lot and has very little energy.

When I first started collecting comic books my favorite character was Daredevil. The first comics I can remember collecting were the Barry Smith drawn ones with Starr Saxon, but shortly it was Gene drawing the hero.

Gene's art was like nothing else out there. I loved his art. His characters always looked more real to me. His panel design was not always the standard. Gene was not afraid to try something different.

I grew up with Gene's artwork. To me he was probably the first artist that I followed. And for most of Howard the Duck's run he was the artist. How much better can that be: Howard the Duck, Steve Gerber and Gene Colan?

I hope I won't have to be writing about Gene's passing soon. We just lost Steve Gerber, I don't want to lose Gene too. For more about this and for something to do go check out this page.

Iron Man Movie

I went and saw the new Iron Man movie last night. In comic book movies there are two levels, the first being the Spiderman movies that are the top of the list, the best ones. The last Batman movie would fall in here. Than there is the bottom of the list, where others movies fall, like the last Superman movie. Iron Man belongs in with Spiderman. For the longest time Marvel used to have problems with their movies based on their comic characters. It seemed like they could do nothing right, while DC had the first run of Superman movies and than the Tim Burton Batman movies. While Marvel had movies like the Punisher. Now the situation seems to be reversed. Except for the recent Batman movies DC seems to be having trouble getting their characters on the big screen.

This movie keeps all the best from the comic and updates it so it plays in today's world. But what makes this movie work is Robert Downey, Jr. This man takes the role of Tony Stark and makes it his own. Actually all the actors in this movie do an exceptional job. Iron Man is a fun movie from the beginning to the end. What was suprising were the humor bits in the movie. There were a few times I laughed really hard at what was going on. But the humor wasn't forced or a tongue in cheek bit done to let the viewers know that they really know how silly superheroes are. The humor came from the characters and the situations.