SHIPPING JANUARY 2010: are you kidding me, go out in THIS weather every week?

http://www.diamondcomics.com/shipping/newreleases.txt

Will Cap Reborn #6 come out this month? WAIT AND SEE!

NOV090848 JENNIFER LOVE HEWITTS MUSIC BOX #2 $3.99

No, seriously:

NOV090848 JENNIFER LOVE HEWITTS MUSIC BOX #2 $3.99

That's something that is apparently happening...

Am buying Doom Patrol until they drop the Metal Men backup - will pick it up in a few weeks tho

Never saw a copy of that Cooke Jonah Hex #50 :(

but YESTERDAY there was a 20% sale at the bookshop so I got
SUBLIFE #2
Fingerman's little kids zombies thingo (RECESS PIECES?)
the second Animal Man TPB (have had the issues for 19 years so no rush to get this earlier)
and the enormo hardcover ALEC: THE YEARS HAVE PANTS, as incomplete as ever

What did you think of Recess Pieces? Am in sporadic email contact with Fingerman, and reading his forst prose novel at the moment, but haven't read this yet.

dunno, will probably be a few weeks before I get around to reading it

the prose novel was a quite well-written short story wrapped around an excuse for 150pp of patented Fingerman ranting at society

I haven't even looked at a comic, let alone a comic shop, since November.

THE TROUBLEMAKERS: Soon...

Batman & Robin, Incredible Herc, X-Factor this week

Really enjoyed Batman & Robin, although DC cocked up yet again by having speech ballons transposed in one panel. Especially liked the parody of the Batman/Joker in Arkham scene from The Killing Joke.

although DC cocked up yet again by having speech ballons transposed in one panel.

hahaha, it speaks to the metatextual level that Morrison works on that I just assumed those two characters switched brains for a second. (or I read it too fast)

I did wonder about that at first, and tried to make it make sense that way, but then I remembered it was DC I was dealing with.

Was anyone else completely underwhelmed by the whole Cap Reborn thing? And why couldn't have been integrated into the ongoing Cap? There wasn't enough of a plot for six issues, even in this age of decompression to infinity.

I guess by not being part of the ongoing I can come up with a better, less obvious, and maybe even interesting storyline for Roger's reappearance when I revisit it in a few years.

Underwhelmed is a good word. Also infuriated that they blew the schedule to hell by using Hitch. You'd think if he was going to recycle a bunch of Washington DC exteriors from his own work (Ultimate Avengers 2), he could stay on schedule.

I don't get the cult of Hitch in general - he's good, not great, and certainly doesn't deserve the leeway he gets when it comes to deadlines. This last issue looked hella rushed despite being late as shit.

Did you notice that the first four issues' covers say "#x of 5," and then suddenly with the last two it's a six issue series? I guess the last issue was supposed to be double-size, Hitch got behind early, and they split the last issue so they could get something out. (I don't keep up with the comics press, so if this was confirmed, I never read it.)

I didn't notice, but that reminds me of that Punisher mini from the 80s which renumbered as it went along.

This would have been great as an Annual.

Just Batman & Robin and the Afrodisiac book (if I can find it) for me this week.

That Batman & Robin issue really did rock--roaring non-stop action, loaded with interesting other stuff going on...

Batman & Robin 7 was really good. The first issue of Batwoman/Detective by Jock was also sharp. I like that both Rucka and Morrison have continued to develop out the whole Crime Bible ideas and I wonder how one of them is going to tie it back into the Ra's al Ghul/League of Assassins back story. I'm kind of hoping that Rucka will return and use Ra's daughter Nyssa in a Batman story at some point. The Batman titles and Secret Six are about the only things from DC that I'm reading now.

"I don't get the cult of Hitch in general - he's good, not great, and certainly doesn't deserve the leeway he gets when it comes to deadlines."

This guy is an OK artist, but you can tell he gets sloppy when pushed, as there are some pages in both those Cap Am & Fantastic Four that really show the rush. Odd thing is that Hitch's style is really aping John Buscema and Big John could like crank out like 40 or more pages a month. It's the same thing with the Kubert brothers who put out in a year what old Dad would have done in about six weeks.

I dig the really elaborate background details and all, but that stuff doesn't really tell a story, but then again I think these guys are drawing fro the trade and to sell the artwork. Those 'big name' artists really get the leeway in throwing in pinup pages into comic stories.

yarbs, when did B&R 7 come out?

last week.

Batman & Robin #7 was fine, but I kinda wish the plot would move on at a quicker pace... There's still not any sort of hint who/what is behind all the things that have happened, and why, except that the dominoes seem to connect everyone. Also, I haven't really been following other Batman titles that closely, but why is that pool they found supposed to be the last Lazarus Pit? Shouldn't Talia have access to other Pits?

At least going back to Greg Rucka's storyline with Nyssa, the other daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, there is a part of that story line about her going around and destroying the pits to get back at her father. Either in that mini-series or one of the follow up stories Ra's even has to deal with Batman on having access to one of the few that is left.

re: Siege #2, let me offer an unqualified "OH SHIIIIIIIIIIT"

Thrillpower!

So I pick up Doom Patrol 7, the one with the return of Crazy Jane, and not only has Danny the World been devastated, but Jane's one panel of dialogue is all wrong. I wish I could un-know having read this thing.

Yeah. I flipped through that in the shop and then gently placed it back on the shelf. Just as bad an idea as I'd feared.

It's the same thing with the Kubert brothers who put out in a year what old Dad would have done in about six weeks.

BTW, Marvel still has house artists ghosting for bigger names when people are overtasked or fall behind, and I can (pretty much) vouch for this since I know a guy who did such work.

2/10 - I like to imagine it'll be January all year:

PUNISHERMAX
BPRD: WHATEVER THE HELL THE CURRENT SERIES IS CALLED
BATMAN AND ROBIN - OH WOW DARKEST NIGHT BUT NOT REALLY
DAYTRIPPER
and am very tempted by TAILS OF THE PET AVENGERS DEADPOOL INCENTIVE VARIANT.

Batman & Robin already? That was fast.

Plus, I think there's supposed to be another Batman & Robin before the end of Feb.

Any word if the east coast weather is going to delay stuff this week?

wow, it seems like only last week since the last Batman and Robin. Mainly because I only bought it last week.

East Coast Weather or no, it has made if over here to Ireland.

3/17 - It'll still be January in November, too:

HERCULES: FALL OF AN AVENGER #1 - Re: death of Herc - thass cold, man.
JOE THE BARBARIAN #3 - Enjoy the silence.

Muppet Show, Joe, Mome.

sad note in the window of forbidden planet glasgow this week, saying there will be no new comics cos of the flight ban

so, instead i picked up a cheap copy of spiegelman's revised BREAKDOWNS bk in HMV of all places

Whoo, Morrison, Sprouse, Batman this week.

Plus Siege #4 for us Marvel Zuvembi Zombies.

Some clerical error at my LCS led to Siege & every tie-in issue ending up in my file. I have no idea what it's about.

It's the first sign of the apocalypse is what it is.

Man, remember when we used to do these every week? It's mid-May and we're still posting to the January one.

Hilarious side-effect of the LCS screw-up putting all Siege-labelled books in my file: My stack of floppies is 16:1 Marvel-to-DC. I'm gonna have to change my name to Dr. Spider-Man.

Siege was terrible. At the moment the only books I'm reading are X-Factor, Invincible Iron Man, Batman & Robin (and whatever related Morrison stuff) and Fables. And I check in on the core X-books to know what's going on. Is there anything good atm besides those?

Oh, I did read the new Amadeus Cho issue. Pleasant enough.

I just don't think anyone can do one of these big super-hero crossover series and really make it a satisfactory experience. Final Crisis was at least so over the top nuts it tended to lead to multiple reading, but I think it left DC so confused that no-one could reference it, so it's like it didn't happen. I'd say Siege was a bit better than Secret Invasion, but like all of these stories, half the actual story isn't even in the main series.

I liked the Marvels Project mini-series, which is just another one of those modern take origin/year one story lines. I like those kind of stories, even though it is kind of hard to screw up something that works. Joe Casey is doing an Avengers one that has been pretty good, although he has done quite a few of these including that one Fantastic Four one which I also liked.

It is probably not cool at all, but I have also gotten into reading some of the Deadpool comics. There is at least a couple of times in an issue I get a pretty good chuckle.

My big reading has been more in getting back issue runs off ebay and then just starting at a point and going forward. I'm up to the new X-Factor #48. That has been a pretty good comic. I'd like to read that Madrox mini-series that led it off.

Is the new Flash reboot worth checking out?

Art's great, nothing overly obnoxious in the Johnsiness of the first issue.
I did quite enjoy the Giffen/Dematteis Booster Gold issue. Battista was one of the workhorses of 52, and does good work here.

Have zero interest in new LOSH series http://bit.ly/b8uVOV despite once owning a cat named Rond Vidar. You can't turn back the clock on the future! Retro/relaunch promises to be as well-received as recent Titans relaunch. I have a Legion spin-off series pitch that would at once satisfy the Johnsian-impulse to weave narratives of out of the plot devices of the past AND be an actually good, character-driven story about the three best-dressed lads of the 30th Century.