Okay, so I downloaded and set up the new iPhone app, downloaded a few of my comics to it and gave it a try. Not bad, not bad. I think it's as good a reading experience as you could expect on an iPhone with its relatively tiny screen. Comixology seems to have addressed my main complaint-- the difficulty of getting out of a comic once you're in one so you can read another. This was driving me crazy. Where the heck do you press the screen? I found it a lot easier in the new app.
One feature that's gone is the ability to buy comics within the app itself. I found that out via IDW's website. There's all this new Amazon.com-related info there, none of which I understand. I have a ton of IDW comics on Comixology and I was a little concerned when I couldn't find their listings on the actual website. The ones I've already paid for are still there, so that was a relief. I'll say it again-- buying a license to read comics on your various devices is not the same as buying the actual comics and you're subject to losing access to a lot of books you've paid the same price for as you would a physical copy no one can come confiscate from you.
This is why I haven't invested heavily in old school Star Wars comics on Dark Horse's website, as much as I crave Archie Goodwin-Al Williamson-Carlos Garzon magic. And also those Carmine Infantino-drawn oddities like talking rabbits, Sergio Aragones as a space pirate and whatnot. With the license reverting to Marvel, I have this worrisome feeling the Dark Horse issues will vanish from computers around the world.
So not being able to find single issues of IDW's Powerpuff Girls (one of the best comics to come along in quite some time, but I don't cover it here because it's not archaeological) had me thinking along those lines. Did something happen with the Amazon purchase? I'm at work and can't research this further or look into whether the various parties are working through legal agreements or if I'm just an idiot who can't search Comixology properly. I lean towards the latter. The point is, my stuff is still there. And I don't really care about buying comics within the iPhone app. I can never remember my Apple password anyway!
One plus of the changeover to the new app is the $5 gift card Comixology gave me. And lo and behold, Marvel Monday just happened to have Amazing Spider-Man for .99. This was exactly what I was hoping for. Well, not quite. What I really wanted was Fantastic Four #50 and some more Nick Cardy Teen Titans, but I'm not going to complain because I picked up five classic Spidey issues, four by Steve Ditko and one by John Romita. I love me some Ditko-Romita-John Buscema-Gil Kane Amazing Spider-Man.
Well, the next step is re-downloading everything. You can find all your books in something called the "cloud," which makes me think of magical nonsense spaces and floating castles of pink gingerbread and blue sugar-cream where knights in gleaming armor and ladies in flowing damask fly around on winged dragons, but apparently is just a computer server somewhere.
Showing posts with label IDW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IDW. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
IDW's got this crazy New Gods Artist's Edition coming out...
Have you seen this monster? I'll bet it weighs twenty or thirty pounds! If you're as big a Jack Kirby nut as I am (and some of you are bigger Kirby nuts because I've talked to you or read your online postings), you're going to want this. Not only does it have Kirby's New Gods stories from issues 1-8 printed from the originals as if they are the originals (notes and paste-ups and corrections and all that secret stuff revealed), it's got fold-outs in full color. Fold-outs of concept paintings and maps
I never imagined the Jack Kirby New Gods Artist's Edition was going to be cheap by any means. It's not. It's $125.00. But it has to be worth it, because from what I've seen so far, the book isn't just full of treasures; it has the potential of being a treasure itself!
I never imagined the Jack Kirby New Gods Artist's Edition was going to be cheap by any means. It's not. It's $125.00. But it has to be worth it, because from what I've seen so far, the book isn't just full of treasures; it has the potential of being a treasure itself!
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
October is Spookey Month: Haunted Horror, in which you can find 1950s pre-Code horror that's sometimes disgusting
A comic book Halloween wouldn't be complete without a few 1950s fear-fests. Man, those Fifties cats really knew how to horror things up, how to jive and jazz and wail! Then the Comics Code came and the music stopped. For a while. The jam moved over to the Warren black and white mags but full-color monthly comics ended up stunted. By time I was a comic book-reading kid, we had a few cool DC anthology series, but the granddaddy of them all was simply a legend. I'm talking EC. You could order expensive hardcover, slip-cased reprints, but those were for the old guys with their disposable income, brandy snifters and smoking jackets. It wasn't until Russ Cochran and Gladstone Publishing started reprinting Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear and selling them through newsstands that I was finally able to read those fabled classics in color.
But I soon learned EC wasn't the only publisher doing sick horror in the 50s. You know how it went with comics back then-- if something proved a money-maker, everyone in the business flooded the market with their own versions. Heck, I don't even know who published the original horror hit. EC just did it best, and they're the ones who took the blame when Uncle Sam cracked down on too much of a good thing. Those other publishers doing the EC thang back in the day interested me greatly because of my appetite for pre-Code horror, but those remained fleeting phantoms that haunted the periphery of the whole tragic tale. Until now.
IDW's Yoe Comics packages this book they call Haunted Horror where you can find stories from a lot of those non-EC guys. I just bought a bunch of them on Comixology (.99!), and I'm loving them. Some of them feature art by recognizable names-- the Iger Shop, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (Whatever happened to him? He showed real promise!), Jack Cole and a guy by the name of Ditko who later did some kind of bug-related hero the kids seemed to like. Some of them are just crude and weird and even a little off-putting at times. But yeah, I'm loving all of them.
It's just...
Every so often if you read enough horror comics, you will run into an image that just burns through your eyeballs into your brain, charring part of it and pretty much leaving you a shambling wreck. A lumbering zombie, if you will. And so I will now present one of those...
EEK!! It's Jay Disbrow's version of Mel Brooks' Pizza the Hutt, only 33 years early.
The long tongue is an especially nice detail. To add a little context, the guy screaming is the blob's doctor. Or he was, when the blob was a man. If you'll look closely-- dare it-- you'll see a rotary-dial telephone kind of sloughing off the blob's side. The doctor came in response to a call from that very phone, and if you're puzzling out how something like this mass of what appears to be melted flesh could manage to spin that old-fashioned dial, I refer you back to the tongue.
I wonder how many kids saw this story when it was first printed. Thousands? If so, those were some lucky kids, but I doubt their parents appreciated the loss of appetite that no doubt accompanied the reading of this story. Right about dinnertime, across America, little people with coonskin caps and skinned knees turned up their collective noses at Mom's radar-ranged glazed ham and peas and carrots, then got the spankings of a lifetime when they refused to eat. They were incapable. I read this three days ago and I haven't eaten so much as a crumb or speck of food.*
That's what a good horror comic should do for you. Put you off your feed. Junji Ito's Uzumaki is a more recent example of a horror comic that turned my stomach. Another old one is the story "Tight Grip!" illustrated by Jack Davis. In that one, a murderer stupidly hides inside the sentient trunk belonging to his victim and it compresses him. His meaty parts stream out in thin ribbons through bullet holes he shoots in the trunk and investigators find nothing inside the tiny trunk but a cube of powdered bone. Grotesque. Gives me a chill just thinking about it. "Tight Grip!" ran in EC's Tales From the Crypt #38 (October-November 1953) and you can read it today in the Fantagraphics volume devoted to Davis' horror work, 'Taint the Meat... It's the Humanity!
And now we have Disbrow's blob.
Anyway, a big thanks to Craig Yoe, Steve Banes, Clizia Gussoni and all the people at Yoe! Studio and IDW for putting all this effort into putting these stories back into print and broadening my experience of 1950s horror comics. And also making me sick.
*A blatant lie. I've been making a pig of myself.
But I soon learned EC wasn't the only publisher doing sick horror in the 50s. You know how it went with comics back then-- if something proved a money-maker, everyone in the business flooded the market with their own versions. Heck, I don't even know who published the original horror hit. EC just did it best, and they're the ones who took the blame when Uncle Sam cracked down on too much of a good thing. Those other publishers doing the EC thang back in the day interested me greatly because of my appetite for pre-Code horror, but those remained fleeting phantoms that haunted the periphery of the whole tragic tale. Until now.
IDW's Yoe Comics packages this book they call Haunted Horror where you can find stories from a lot of those non-EC guys. I just bought a bunch of them on Comixology (.99!), and I'm loving them. Some of them feature art by recognizable names-- the Iger Shop, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (Whatever happened to him? He showed real promise!), Jack Cole and a guy by the name of Ditko who later did some kind of bug-related hero the kids seemed to like. Some of them are just crude and weird and even a little off-putting at times. But yeah, I'm loving all of them.
It's just...
Every so often if you read enough horror comics, you will run into an image that just burns through your eyeballs into your brain, charring part of it and pretty much leaving you a shambling wreck. A lumbering zombie, if you will. And so I will now present one of those...
EEK!! It's Jay Disbrow's version of Mel Brooks' Pizza the Hutt, only 33 years early.
The long tongue is an especially nice detail. To add a little context, the guy screaming is the blob's doctor. Or he was, when the blob was a man. If you'll look closely-- dare it-- you'll see a rotary-dial telephone kind of sloughing off the blob's side. The doctor came in response to a call from that very phone, and if you're puzzling out how something like this mass of what appears to be melted flesh could manage to spin that old-fashioned dial, I refer you back to the tongue.
I wonder how many kids saw this story when it was first printed. Thousands? If so, those were some lucky kids, but I doubt their parents appreciated the loss of appetite that no doubt accompanied the reading of this story. Right about dinnertime, across America, little people with coonskin caps and skinned knees turned up their collective noses at Mom's radar-ranged glazed ham and peas and carrots, then got the spankings of a lifetime when they refused to eat. They were incapable. I read this three days ago and I haven't eaten so much as a crumb or speck of food.*
That's what a good horror comic should do for you. Put you off your feed. Junji Ito's Uzumaki is a more recent example of a horror comic that turned my stomach. Another old one is the story "Tight Grip!" illustrated by Jack Davis. In that one, a murderer stupidly hides inside the sentient trunk belonging to his victim and it compresses him. His meaty parts stream out in thin ribbons through bullet holes he shoots in the trunk and investigators find nothing inside the tiny trunk but a cube of powdered bone. Grotesque. Gives me a chill just thinking about it. "Tight Grip!" ran in EC's Tales From the Crypt #38 (October-November 1953) and you can read it today in the Fantagraphics volume devoted to Davis' horror work, 'Taint the Meat... It's the Humanity!
And now we have Disbrow's blob.
Anyway, a big thanks to Craig Yoe, Steve Banes, Clizia Gussoni and all the people at Yoe! Studio and IDW for putting all this effort into putting these stories back into print and broadening my experience of 1950s horror comics. And also making me sick.
*A blatant lie. I've been making a pig of myself.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Xenozoic Tales coming back in a big way!
Literally. Next June (2013 for those counting the years), IDW will release Mark Schultz's Xenozoic Tales Artist's Edition, 144 pages printed at a whopping 14" x 20" size. It's their latest in a series that's seen big ol` versions of Walt Simonson's The Mighty Thor, Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer and others. You get to see blue lines and all that jazz, almost as if you were holding the original art in your hands. It should prove as instructive as it is aesthetically pleasing. As both an artist and an art junkie, I'm going to buy this book when it hits the streets, probably leaving a massive crater. Mark Schultz is just amazing. I've already read these stories dozens of times each, but I never get tired of looking at his pages. If you can get the regular comics or one of the many reprint books it's more than worth a lazy afternoon charting the Schultz's growth as a writer and artist. You can actually see him working through various techniques and influences, starting with Wally Wood, then Al Williamson, Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta plus others whose work I'm actually not familiar with until he emerges as a unique synthesis of all these classic elements, his personal style as easily recognized as that of any of those other giants. The plot itself goes from EC-inspired vignettes to something more epic as Schultz gains confidence as a writer, too. It's a super cool progression.
IDW must love huge books because I've got their Genius Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth book and that crazy thing must way thirty or forty tons. We had to hire a special heavy lifting crane to winch it into my apartment and it's left the floor permanently depressed. Not only that, but it's the first of a trilogy of books. I'm going to have to build a special annex with some sort of carefully engineered load-bearing elements and perhaps a shock-absorbing system installed in the floor to handle them. I find these kinds of books worth the expense, though.
You'd have to be some kind of nut not to be excited about this next piece of news. You're not a nut, are you? No? Great! Then, let's celebrate because it's official! At the Flesk Publications panel during this year's San Diego Comic Con, Schultz promised when he finishes his book Storms at Sea, he's going to do another issue of Xenozoic Tales. Finally! It's been something like 16 years since he left us hanging with mechanic-shaman Jack Tenrec ousted from City in the Sea and planning to head back to Fessenden's Station where the story began. The last few issues of Xenozoic Tales raised a lot of questions and its hiatus left them hanging in the air. What are the reptilian grith? What's their relationship with Hannah Dundee and how much do they know about her mysterious origins as a foundling? Can the sometimes bull-headed Tenrec maintain his tenuous new alliances, retake City in the Sea, reinstate the Machinato Vitae and restore the balance between humans and nature before destructive elements in control of his home cause another catastrophe? These questions drive me to distraction at times!
It may take a while for Schultz to get around to it, but in the meantime, here's a cartoon version. You know, for kids...
IDW must love huge books because I've got their Genius Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth book and that crazy thing must way thirty or forty tons. We had to hire a special heavy lifting crane to winch it into my apartment and it's left the floor permanently depressed. Not only that, but it's the first of a trilogy of books. I'm going to have to build a special annex with some sort of carefully engineered load-bearing elements and perhaps a shock-absorbing system installed in the floor to handle them. I find these kinds of books worth the expense, though.
You'd have to be some kind of nut not to be excited about this next piece of news. You're not a nut, are you? No? Great! Then, let's celebrate because it's official! At the Flesk Publications panel during this year's San Diego Comic Con, Schultz promised when he finishes his book Storms at Sea, he's going to do another issue of Xenozoic Tales. Finally! It's been something like 16 years since he left us hanging with mechanic-shaman Jack Tenrec ousted from City in the Sea and planning to head back to Fessenden's Station where the story began. The last few issues of Xenozoic Tales raised a lot of questions and its hiatus left them hanging in the air. What are the reptilian grith? What's their relationship with Hannah Dundee and how much do they know about her mysterious origins as a foundling? Can the sometimes bull-headed Tenrec maintain his tenuous new alliances, retake City in the Sea, reinstate the Machinato Vitae and restore the balance between humans and nature before destructive elements in control of his home cause another catastrophe? These questions drive me to distraction at times!
It may take a while for Schultz to get around to it, but in the meantime, here's a cartoon version. You know, for kids...
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Steve Rude wants to return to comics and work for DC, DC is less than enchanted with this idea
Steve Rude has decided to make his return to comics. That's right. According to his latest "Daily Diatribe," Rude's less than happy with the current state of superhero storytelling and feels he can improve things by making a direct contribution. Plus, there's a certain economic necessity. Whatever the reasons, the Dude thought it over, discussed it with his wife and decided to contact the company that most appealed to him, to see if he could do something "high profile" with certain characters.
That company would be DC Comics. The characters-- in order of preference-- are Supergirl, Superman, Big Barda and her Female Furies and OMAC. Rude contacted an editor, got no response. Talked to some executives and another editor. One response. Rude characterizes it as a "polite turn down." I can't imagine why DC would turn down an artist of Steve Rude's caliber. Maybe his proposals didn't fit with their ongoing plans or business model. Maybe his kind of traditional technique-heavy aesthetic is too far out of fashion with the "edgy" crowd-- if the books I bought this past week are any indication, the fans seem to like scratchy-looking artwork. Markets change. I do know he was hoping to do some work on another Wednesday Comics series, but that hasn't panned out so far either. I just think it's sad the Dude-- of all artists-- didn't get so much as a peep of interest from DC about working on characters he seems born to draw.
Here's what I offered: Just a thought-- this past week, I picked up IDW's new The Rocketeer book with art by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Mike Kaluta. Unfortunately, it's a 4-issue mini so I'm guessing all the art and stories are already in the can. The Dude would've rocked on that. But they must have some upcoming projects where the Dude can make a big splash. Maybe not as big as on Superman or Supergirl-- and a Big Barda story would be too perfect-- but they do seem to be a company that's putting out some intriguing books with some artists Rude's kind of simpatico with as far as aesthetics go.
In another comment I mentioned Dark Horse, but I'm not sure they're in a financial position to do anything with Rude. Plus, he's been there before and the Nexus books he and Mike Baron did for them in the 1990s were more a critical than a sales success. Maybe Dark Horse is more comfortable with the Nexus archives books these days. After all, they've put out a ton of Rude's classic sequential work in that series. Still-- Steve Rude on a Star Wars book? A Hellboy one-shot with Mike Mignola? The new Creepy book (if it's still being published)?
So there you have it. I'm holding out hope some editor at Dark Horse, IDW or even Image-- which seem to be companies that let creators do what they do best without a whole lot of multimedia corporate narrative flak and bother-- will give Rude a call and see what happens. Of course, if he's determined his return to comics is contingent only on his being able to work for DC on these particular characters and no one else, then my suggestions are useless. But if he's just fishing to see what's biting, then someone has to make this happen. The guy is a legend, for the love of Kirby!
That company would be DC Comics. The characters-- in order of preference-- are Supergirl, Superman, Big Barda and her Female Furies and OMAC. Rude contacted an editor, got no response. Talked to some executives and another editor. One response. Rude characterizes it as a "polite turn down." I can't imagine why DC would turn down an artist of Steve Rude's caliber. Maybe his proposals didn't fit with their ongoing plans or business model. Maybe his kind of traditional technique-heavy aesthetic is too far out of fashion with the "edgy" crowd-- if the books I bought this past week are any indication, the fans seem to like scratchy-looking artwork. Markets change. I do know he was hoping to do some work on another Wednesday Comics series, but that hasn't panned out so far either. I just think it's sad the Dude-- of all artists-- didn't get so much as a peep of interest from DC about working on characters he seems born to draw.
Here's what I offered: Just a thought-- this past week, I picked up IDW's new The Rocketeer book with art by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Mike Kaluta. Unfortunately, it's a 4-issue mini so I'm guessing all the art and stories are already in the can. The Dude would've rocked on that. But they must have some upcoming projects where the Dude can make a big splash. Maybe not as big as on Superman or Supergirl-- and a Big Barda story would be too perfect-- but they do seem to be a company that's putting out some intriguing books with some artists Rude's kind of simpatico with as far as aesthetics go.
In another comment I mentioned Dark Horse, but I'm not sure they're in a financial position to do anything with Rude. Plus, he's been there before and the Nexus books he and Mike Baron did for them in the 1990s were more a critical than a sales success. Maybe Dark Horse is more comfortable with the Nexus archives books these days. After all, they've put out a ton of Rude's classic sequential work in that series. Still-- Steve Rude on a Star Wars book? A Hellboy one-shot with Mike Mignola? The new Creepy book (if it's still being published)?
So there you have it. I'm holding out hope some editor at Dark Horse, IDW or even Image-- which seem to be companies that let creators do what they do best without a whole lot of multimedia corporate narrative flak and bother-- will give Rude a call and see what happens. Of course, if he's determined his return to comics is contingent only on his being able to work for DC on these particular characters and no one else, then my suggestions are useless. But if he's just fishing to see what's biting, then someone has to make this happen. The guy is a legend, for the love of Kirby!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Today's lesson: Buying comics is an expensive habit!
Yeah. I'm thinking about giving up comics and taking up cocaine again. Just kidding. I've never used cocaine. As far as you know. But today was payday, so I went to JJ's Comics & Cards, my local comic book store, looking specifically for comics featuring Cassandra Cain in her new costumed identity of Blackbat. Which means-- choke!-- I bought a few DC Bat-books! I even bought some I wasn't sure she was in just to make certain I didn't miss even a fleeting glimpse or hint!
But I spent close to 40 bucks. They had stuff there I didn't even know I wanted until I saw it on the shelves. Here's what I ended up buying:
Batman: Gates of Gotham #1: Cass in civilian clothes, towards the end of the issue, just as promised. The way artist Kyle Higgins draws Cass-- her anatomy, her clothing, her body language-- and the way writer Scott Snyder handles her mode of speech do nothing to define her as anything more than just another generic superhero person, which lead to something of an anti-climax. Here's hoping a closer reading proves me wrong.
Batman Incorporated #5: No discernible traces of Cass in civvies or otherwise, but lots of Batwoman. I like Yanick Paquette's art with these Michel Lacombe inks. Solid figurework, nice facial expressions.
Batman Incorporated #6: Chris Burnham's art combines the thin, scribbly lines of Frank Quitely with the deranged facial expressions of Ito Junji. I'm not sure I like Bruce Wayne looking kind of crazed, but there's Cass as Blackbat more than making up for it with a nearly silent action sequence. Leave it to Grant Morrison to give us Cass doing what she does best-- whomping on people and leaving no room for discussion. Liking the pointy little mask and cape, can't tell much else about her costume.
Conan: Road of Kings #5: I passed on King Conan to pick this up. No Cass whatsoever, just Conan in his warrior prime as written by Roy Thomas. Which reminds me-- I need to turn to the back for "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob," the biographical Robert E. Howard strip by Jim & Ruthe Keegan. It's always excellent. Cass's appearance in this book cancelled due to licensing difficulties between Dark Horse, Time-Warner and Conan Properties International. Too bad. Thomas's take on her would have been interesting, to say the least.
Hellboy: Being Human: Mike Mignola script, Richard Corben art, complete story in one issue. Of course I bought this! No Cass appearance, Cass not referenced in dialogue.
John Byrne's Next Men #6: The return of one of my favorite-- yet somehow frustrating-- titles from years past. Byrne's telling a convoluted time travel mystery but the story feels somehow beefy. I get that same full-belled satisfaction from reading it I used to get from comics, rather than the sense I've eaten a single cookie a lot the flimsy, underwritten books give me these days. Not saying Next Men is gourmet fare so far, but it does hit the spot. Will I be able to keep it down? Cass appears briefly disguised as a Union soldier. Sure, the figure's tiny and consists of just a couple of ink swirls, but I'd recognize her anywhere.
New Mutants #25: "New Direction!" huh? How about A direction? This is a book I've stuck with because I like Dani and Xi'an so much, but it's been nothing but fragments of crossover stories, frequently with the New Mutants team barely appearing on the pages of their own book. And it got off to such a decent start before being consumed by the needs of modern epic storytelling. I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet, but if this book is just going to be a bump on the ass of the greater X-franchise with no stories to tell of its own, then I'll be bailing soon. Very soon. Rumors of Cass taking over as team leader in this issue prove unfounded.
Red Robin #23: Another false alarm. No Cass.
The Rocketeer Adventures #1: The lead story is all about Cass and explains how she came to choose "Blackbat" as her new super-name. Yeah. I didn't make that up. It's... really... I bought "cover 8," the Dave Stevens variant. I also hate multiple covers. But this one is a beauty. And inside there are stories by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Kurt Busiek. Busiek's just happens to be illustrated by Michael Kaluta. Are there really people who have to collect each and every variant cover of a single issue? Do those kinds of stunts really help publishers? Or do readers just choose their favorite one and go with that? If it's the latter, I'm all for it because it's kind of interactive. If it's the former-- YUCK. But what a gorgeous book! John CASSaday, but no Cass Cain.
X23 #10: I've always hated this X23 character. Well, not the character, just the concept. To me, you need one Wolverine, one Batman, one Superman, one Wonder Woman, one Spider-Man. Not clones and extras. Which may sound strange coming from someone who bought a bunch of comics based on the erroneous assumption a former Batgirl would be in each and every one of them. And I've always been indifferent towards Jubilee. Then a funny thing happened. One day the comic store had nothing I particularly wanted so I picked up the first issue of the Wolverine and Jubilee miniseries. Jubilee as a vampire? DOUBLE YUCK. DOUBLE SURPRISE! It turned out to be a pretty compelling story, quite well-written by Kathryn Immonen and nicely drawn by Phil Noto. It made me care about Jubilee for the first time. So when I saw a comic featuring vampire Jubilee fighting X23 with art by Sana Takeda? I felt perfectly willing to climb off my high horse and--
Cassandra Cain is back in action!
I'm happy with all these purchases, and I'd openly shill for JJ's Comics & Cards because of the royal treatment the owners have always given me-- and they're just so nice-- but these books cost me around 36 dollars. Actually, if I want to keep up my comic book reading habit, I'm probably going to have to give up a lot of other little things. Like electricity, clothing and food. Or I may have to resolve once again to stick only to collections, trades and archives, and then only very selectively.
But there's that Cass factor. Yes, there is.
But I spent close to 40 bucks. They had stuff there I didn't even know I wanted until I saw it on the shelves. Here's what I ended up buying:
Batman: Gates of Gotham #1: Cass in civilian clothes, towards the end of the issue, just as promised. The way artist Kyle Higgins draws Cass-- her anatomy, her clothing, her body language-- and the way writer Scott Snyder handles her mode of speech do nothing to define her as anything more than just another generic superhero person, which lead to something of an anti-climax. Here's hoping a closer reading proves me wrong.
Batman Incorporated #5: No discernible traces of Cass in civvies or otherwise, but lots of Batwoman. I like Yanick Paquette's art with these Michel Lacombe inks. Solid figurework, nice facial expressions.
Batman Incorporated #6: Chris Burnham's art combines the thin, scribbly lines of Frank Quitely with the deranged facial expressions of Ito Junji. I'm not sure I like Bruce Wayne looking kind of crazed, but there's Cass as Blackbat more than making up for it with a nearly silent action sequence. Leave it to Grant Morrison to give us Cass doing what she does best-- whomping on people and leaving no room for discussion. Liking the pointy little mask and cape, can't tell much else about her costume.
Conan: Road of Kings #5: I passed on King Conan to pick this up. No Cass whatsoever, just Conan in his warrior prime as written by Roy Thomas. Which reminds me-- I need to turn to the back for "The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob," the biographical Robert E. Howard strip by Jim & Ruthe Keegan. It's always excellent. Cass's appearance in this book cancelled due to licensing difficulties between Dark Horse, Time-Warner and Conan Properties International. Too bad. Thomas's take on her would have been interesting, to say the least.
Hellboy: Being Human: Mike Mignola script, Richard Corben art, complete story in one issue. Of course I bought this! No Cass appearance, Cass not referenced in dialogue.
John Byrne's Next Men #6: The return of one of my favorite-- yet somehow frustrating-- titles from years past. Byrne's telling a convoluted time travel mystery but the story feels somehow beefy. I get that same full-belled satisfaction from reading it I used to get from comics, rather than the sense I've eaten a single cookie a lot the flimsy, underwritten books give me these days. Not saying Next Men is gourmet fare so far, but it does hit the spot. Will I be able to keep it down? Cass appears briefly disguised as a Union soldier. Sure, the figure's tiny and consists of just a couple of ink swirls, but I'd recognize her anywhere.
New Mutants #25: "New Direction!" huh? How about A direction? This is a book I've stuck with because I like Dani and Xi'an so much, but it's been nothing but fragments of crossover stories, frequently with the New Mutants team barely appearing on the pages of their own book. And it got off to such a decent start before being consumed by the needs of modern epic storytelling. I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet, but if this book is just going to be a bump on the ass of the greater X-franchise with no stories to tell of its own, then I'll be bailing soon. Very soon. Rumors of Cass taking over as team leader in this issue prove unfounded.
Red Robin #23: Another false alarm. No Cass.
The Rocketeer Adventures #1: The lead story is all about Cass and explains how she came to choose "Blackbat" as her new super-name. Yeah. I didn't make that up. It's... really... I bought "cover 8," the Dave Stevens variant. I also hate multiple covers. But this one is a beauty. And inside there are stories by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Kurt Busiek. Busiek's just happens to be illustrated by Michael Kaluta. Are there really people who have to collect each and every variant cover of a single issue? Do those kinds of stunts really help publishers? Or do readers just choose their favorite one and go with that? If it's the latter, I'm all for it because it's kind of interactive. If it's the former-- YUCK. But what a gorgeous book! John CASSaday, but no Cass Cain.
X23 #10: I've always hated this X23 character. Well, not the character, just the concept. To me, you need one Wolverine, one Batman, one Superman, one Wonder Woman, one Spider-Man. Not clones and extras. Which may sound strange coming from someone who bought a bunch of comics based on the erroneous assumption a former Batgirl would be in each and every one of them. And I've always been indifferent towards Jubilee. Then a funny thing happened. One day the comic store had nothing I particularly wanted so I picked up the first issue of the Wolverine and Jubilee miniseries. Jubilee as a vampire? DOUBLE YUCK. DOUBLE SURPRISE! It turned out to be a pretty compelling story, quite well-written by Kathryn Immonen and nicely drawn by Phil Noto. It made me care about Jubilee for the first time. So when I saw a comic featuring vampire Jubilee fighting X23 with art by Sana Takeda? I felt perfectly willing to climb off my high horse and--
Cassandra Cain is back in action!
I'm happy with all these purchases, and I'd openly shill for JJ's Comics & Cards because of the royal treatment the owners have always given me-- and they're just so nice-- but these books cost me around 36 dollars. Actually, if I want to keep up my comic book reading habit, I'm probably going to have to give up a lot of other little things. Like electricity, clothing and food. Or I may have to resolve once again to stick only to collections, trades and archives, and then only very selectively.
But there's that Cass factor. Yes, there is.
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