Into the Lion's Den

So I took one of my infrequent Nerd Pilgrimages, with the intent of purchasing the new issue of "Schizo". Thankfully, there was one left, which tells me that either they didn't order many or they underestimated the demand.

But man, after eight fucking years you maybe expect too much. It's a good comic - hell, a great comic - but I was moderately disappointed by how much of the contents I'd read before, even though I had been warned of this beforehand. So let's not make it another eight years, eh buddy?

In other news, when did DC decide to get such a godawful cover stock for their "prestige" books? I picked up a copy of the new All-Star Superman book (yeah, I didn't really "like" the first one but I plunked down for the second one anyway) and I swear this is the same paper stock they use for glossy porn. Which is, I guess, a pretty good analogy...

And they had a bunch of unsold copies of the Frank Miller variant of the last All-Star Batman comic, the Black Canary cover. I can guess why no one bought it, since it is offically the ugliest cover I've seen since that Neal Adams variant for the first All-Star Superman. Let me see if i can find a .jpeg of it...

Ah. Here we go:



Is that not the most hideous thing you've ever seen? I mean, seriously... it's like, whatever artistic ability Miller had at one point has been siphoned off somehow. Do you think it's Starro's doing? I am envisioning Miller sitting around his apartment with a big purple starfish on his face, and the image actually explains a lot. I mean, regardless of whether or not you like the book (and we've all been over that, haven't we?) that is still an incredibly ugly image. I'd come up with some witty slam but honestly, I can't think of anything extreme enough.

And OK, let me see if I understand this: we've got a Haunted Tank Showcase Presents volume in the chute, but still no Legion of Superheroes? If ever there was a series tailor-made for a big honking slab of black and white newsprint, it was that one. But then, I just love the old-school Legion probably more than is healthy... it basically embodied all the worst / best aspects of pre-Crisis Superman continuity, and then somehow morphed into a weird, hyper-concentrated version of Claremont's X-Men (and of course, Legion was doing it long before the "all new, all different" X-Men got into their never-ending soap opera shenanigans). Reading an issue of the Legion is like an advanced post-graduate class in weird comics. Like drinking concentrated Slurpie juice. I love it probably more than I should.

But it also leads to odd moments... like when I'm reading an issue of the new Legion in the store and I see Princess Projectra making goo-eyes at Brin Londo, and I scream out "No! Brin is fated to love Ayla Ranzz! Forever!!!"

Actually, no, I don't yell that out loud. But I think I'd be cooler if I did. I bet Milo never has these kinds of moral dilemmas...

Oh yeah. Picked up the new Planetary. I like that they seem to be publishing new issues of Planetary about as often as I go to the comic book store. Which is convenient.

But, man, you walk into the comic shop and I swear to God, Warren Ellis needs to stop typing so much. Seriously. He's got so many books out, and they're all about the same character. A hard-bitten dude / gal who smokes a lot and uses guns to solve their problems when they're not going into weird political tangents. He needs to just put out one book with this character in it that doesn't have any words in the word balloons, so that people can just fill in their own Ellis dialogue every couple weeks. Voila, new Ellis book. It'd save people a lot of money.

But yeah, Planetary somehow is still readable. Although, admittedly, having read every issue as they came out over the last however many years but not having them all in front of me, I was a little lost at all the revelations in the new one. One day when my comics aren't all 3,000 miles away I'll sit down and read them all. And then it'll all make sense. Or so I hope.