Amalgam Comics Redux

Considering the most effective and forward-thinking form of comic book marketing has historically involved white wire, ball bearings and the garish phrase, “Hey Kids! COMICS!”, DC Comics has been going all out hyping their New 52 books. They’ve put commercials for the books on TV (Including reportedly during The Daily Show to catch that wily college potsmoking demographic), trailers in movie theaters, and print ads in straight magazines (I can’t address any idle rumors about ads in gay magazines).

And they haven’t stopped there. Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool reported this morning that DC’s bought themselves a bunch of sponsored search terms on Twitter.

Those search terms being the names of Marvel Comics characters.

This Book Is Now About Martians (And Other Aliens): Stormwatch #1 Review

What’s that old saying? “Roofie me once; shame on you. Roofie me twice and I will pistol grip mace bomb you.”? I think it’s safe to say that I approached the new Stormwatch with exceedingly mixed feelings.

I absolutely adored the book when Warren Ellis wrote it and I followed it over into The Authority, although based on this quote I found on The Authority’s Wikipedia page, that book almost didn’t happen:

one of the reasons I turned their STORMWATCH into THE AUTHORITY is that I found out that, despite the fact that no-one was buying STORMWATCH, they kept it going because they liked reading it in the [Wildstorm] office and wanted to keep me employed. And I felt so bloody awful about that, and at the same time had been so struck by Bryan Hitch’s STORMWATCH issues, that the train of thought that led to THE AUTHORITY began.

The Authority limped through many incarnations of writer and artist after the inital Ellis/Bryan Hitch run that included Mark Millar/Frank Quietly, Robbie Morrison/Dwayne Turner, Ed Brubaker/Dustin Nguyen, Grant Morrison/Keith Giffen/Gene Ha…actually it’s around here that I started to tune out of The Authority. I think I might have picked up “The Authority/Lobo” one shots (‘cuz, you know, it’s friggin’ Lobo), but I was pretty burned out on the book. And, it didn’t help that somewhere in this time period Wildstorm tried to relaunch Stormwatch with the blatantly anemic Stormwatch: Team Achilles and Stormwatch: Post Human Division. It’s dead, Jim. Stop being a necrophiliac.

But, back to the actual book.

Bwa-hah-ha-huh?: Justice League International #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers.

I love the Foo Fighters, but I have trouble listening to more than a song or two in a row. Because whether it’s on purpose or what I bring to the music as a listener, I very quickly become convinced that every song is Dave Grohl singing about Kurt Cobain. In Your Honor. Friend Of A Friend. My Hero. Darling Nikki. Courtney Love Chokes Pole. Rob Shouldn’t Write Reviews While Drinking. You get the point.

I got the same feeling reading Justice League International #1: almost every panel seemed like it was about the DC Comics reboot.

Look: the first line in the book is:

Confidence in every level of authority is at an all-time low.”

A page later, this exchange between a member of the UN Security Council and head of UN intelligence Andre Briggs happens:

Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh, Mneh: Batmanning

I came across this on Geek Out!:

What is “Batmanning,” you ask?

Zachary Levi, bona fide nerd and star of NBC’s “Chuck” seems to have popularized the concept on his Twitter late last month, a response to the “planking” craze.

Levi tweeted a photo he found of a man hanging upside down by his feet in a doorway, not unlike a scene in the 1989 “Batman” where Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is caught doing the same thing.

Levi’s tweets have been more and more influential ever since he launched “The Nerd Machine” website just over a year ago. His supporters helped drive “Chuck” to a fifth season.

Will “Batmanning” succeed as a nerdy twist on “planking?” (“Carbonite” planking by two of the writers of the next “Star Trek” movie, notwithstanding.)

So far, a Youtube video uploaded a few days after Levi’s tweet showing various creative methods of “Batmanning” around the campus of Purdue University has 750,000 page views.

For what it’s worth, here’s that Youtube video:

I like to think of myself as a huge Batman fan, but I’m also a fan who needed Special Gym as a child. Batmanning would only lead me to bruised ankles and a cracked skull and I had quite enough of that in kindergarten. Stupid ball crawl.

DC Comics’ Electric Dreams

This morning on the Source Blog, DC Comics announced that Justice League #1 and Action Comics #1 have each sold through more than 200,000 copies in less than two weeks and one week respectively, and that Justice League #1 is now officially the biggest selling American comic book of 2011 so far… they key word being AMERICAN. The biggest selling JAPANESE comic being, of course, the million copy selling Tentacle Panty Sniff Party by Kuroda Masato, the biggest name in Manga that I just made up.

In all seriousness, them’s big numbers for DC, and not the only ones: every New 52 book DC released last week is going back for a second printing, and other than Action and Justice League, DC’s got eight other books with sellthrough of more than 100,000 copies.

Which is exciting news for DC Comics and for comics enthusiasts in general; God knows my Local Comic Store Owner – who knows me by name and asks me if I should maybe be eating better or if instead something crawled up my asshole and died – was positively giddy when he confirmed to me last Wednesday that I was FAR from the only customer who asked him to pull all 52 of the new DC books.

And even MORE exciting is that those numbers only count the actual print run; they don’t include numbers from DC’s other big innovation – making every book they sell available for sale digitally the same day they’re available in print! And when you add THOSE numbers in, well… I’ll let John Rood, DC’s Executive VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development tell you: lay ’em on us, Johnny!

We can’t.

Um… what was that?

Well, That Looks Green. And, Moist.: Swamp Thing #1 Review

Strange things are afoot – and not just at the Circle K. No, all over the world birds fall dead from the sky; bats plummet from cave ceilings; and, fish take a break from fornicating in the ocean to, well, die.

Terminator / Robocop: Kill Human #2 – No Directives Found

Back in 1992, Frank Miller and Walt Simonson did a four-issue miniseries for Dark Horse Comics called Robocop Vs. Terminator, where Robocop singlehandedly takes on Skynet for the future of mankind. It was a story by two legendary creators at the top of their game who were immersed in the mythology of both the Robocop and Terminator universes (Miller wrote the screenplays for the movies Robocop 2 and 3). It has never been reprinted.

In 2011, Rob Williams and P. J. Holden are doing a miniseries for Dynamite Comics called Terminator / Robocop: Kill Human, where Robocop singlehandledly takes on Skynet for the future of mankind. It’s a series by a guy who did a pretty good indie book (Cla$$war) nine years ago and a guy who did some Judge Dredd comics once, who apparently have never seen any Robocop or Terminator movies. It will never be reprinted.

Detective Comics #1: Don’t You Know What The Night Can Do

Tony Daniel draws one hell of a Batman. He’s got some kind of bastardized mixture of 1990’s McFarlane, modern Jim Lee fine line and detail work going that makes things just look exciting and keep the eye on the panel, combined with enough broadly inked, shadowed, Frank Miller-style panels of Batman in silouette that mix together to make an instantly recognizable, iconic style of Batman art. Of all this week’s New 52, Detective Comics #1 is probably my favorite in the art department, which is saying a lot considering this week included work by Rags Morales, George Perez and Yanick Paquette. Then again, considering this week’s art included Rob Liefeld’s Hawk & Dove, Daniel could have drawn Batman as: “>(:|)-<=<” and still not been my least favorite. Seriously, though: I’m liking the look of this book.

Daniel is putting together a pretty solid entry-level Batman plot in this book as well. Make no mistake; for the first 18 pages or so, he’s not exactly reinventing the wheel: Batman feeling tortured by failing to prevent the Joker’s murders, persuing Joker relentlessly only to end chase to save a little girl from danger and evading capture by the police via an attack helicopter chase, all in Batman’s first major story following a reboot, is not exactly groundbreaking storytelling (*cough* *cough* Dark Knight Returns *cough*). But Daniel keeps the story moving along and entertaining, and breaks up what could be considered derivative by introducing the concept that Joker might commit his crimes while naked, which made even this old Batman fan take notice and comment: “AAAAAAAAAAANOOAAAAAWHYYAAAAAAA”.

Woman of Kleenex

DC Women Kicking Ass just released this DC Comics internal promo image by Cliff Chiang for the New 52 reboot of Wonder Woman by Chiang with Brian Azzarello scripts that’ll be released on September 21st:

Does She Walk? Does She Talk? Does She Come Complete?

I will warn you now: as I sit here contemplating Gail Simone’s Batgirl #1, I am full of mediocre Pu Pu Platter and 12 year old Bunnahabhain Scotch whisky. The Pu Pu Platter was to provide grease to medicate myself after reading Batgirl #1 and then trying to solve my disappointment with Jagermeister. The Scotch is, well, I just like Scotch.

I was in San Diego this year at the convention when the decision to give Barbara Gordon her mobility back was formally announced. Now, I liked Oracle and I think that John Ostrander made a masterful use of leftovers by adding a paraplegic Barbara Gordon to Suicide Squad after the events of “The Killing Joke”. However, and perhaps this says something about me, the only incarnation of Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle I actually was ever really attached to was the one embodied by Dina Meyer in 2002’s Birds of Prey. Did I mention I drink? So, I was willing to keep an open mind for the new Batgirl relaunch – if only because I’m fairly certain that Gail Simone’s Batgirl will show up more regularly on my comic book store shelves than J.H. Williams’s Batwoman, which appears every 100 years or so out of the mist like Brigadoon and then fucks off again about as quickly.