Quick Review: Polly and the Pirates

Polly and the Pirates
by Ted Naifeh
Oni Press, $11.95

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day, so when you go to your Friendly Local Comic Store to pick up today's booty, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Ted Naifeh's Polly and the Pirates. Polly is a pre-teen girl who learns that she is the heir to the legendary Pirate Queen. At first she rejects her status, but of course eventually comes to accept her role as a leader of pirates. It's standard hero journey stuff, but Naifeh really makes the story come alive with wit and adventure and interesting characters. It's easily on par with his Courtney Crumrin series.

Rating: 4 (of 5)

Is Countdown Really a Sales Disaster?

Reading various online sales commentaries, one might be led to believe that DC's Countdown is a disaster, or at least a disappointment compared to its previous weekly series 52. But is it really?

Near the end of its run, 52 was selling about 95,000 copies an issue at $2.50 each.

The latest month's worth of Countdown's sales have it selling about 85,000 an issue at $3 each.

Doing the math, we see that at the end 52 was grossing $237,500 an issue; and Countdown is currently grossing $255,000 an issue. So on dollar value, Countdown is currently selling more than 52 did at its end! Countdown's numbers jumped up sizeably from the previous couple of months, when it was selling in the low 70K's. (Not sure why this is...) but even at 72,000 copies Countdown was grossing $216,000 per issue, which is more a reflection of the general downward trend that 52 was experiencing than any seismic shift.

This doesn't even factor in the talent cost; I'm willing to bet that Johns/Morrison/Waid/Rucka rates are more than Dini/Gray/Palmiotti/Bedard/Beechen/McKeever rates.

Did 52 gross more over its entire run than Countdown is likely to? Probably. But a disaster/disappointment? Hardly. (At least from a sales perspective; Your opinion as to the quality of the comics will no doubt vary...)

Colleen Coover Week Day 2

Too busy to blog, so here's a nice Colleen Coover illustration of a pretty girl on the deck of a cruise ship:



(Taken from http://cooverart.livejournal.com/5697.html)

Bonus: here's an audio file of Colleen appearing recently on the cIndyCenter podcast.

Light Blogging = Colleen Coover Week

Folks: Due to real life considerations regular blogging is likely to be very light for the next week or so. To compensate, I'll fill each day this week with a Colleen Coover illustration.

Let's kick things off right with a picture of a monkey!




(This also makes up for skipping Monkey Covers yesterday...)

(Taken from http://cooverart.livejournal.com/12063.html)

Dear DC...

Dear DC: Please sign up Colleen Coover to draw a Mary Marvel comic. Either she or her husband (or both) could write it.




Thanks, 'kay? Bye!

(pic stolen from Periscope Blog)

New This Week: September 12, 2007

So, what looks good on the racks this week?


Sergio Aragonés' Groo returns for the first time in over five years with the Groo 25th Anniversary Special (leading into a new Groo mini-series starting next month). Easily the funniest comic book barbarian ever. Maybe this time there will be some new jokes? :)

Jonathan Hickman's The Nightly News was one of the most graphically innovative comics of the year, and also one of the angriest. It's now available in a trade in case you missed it in floppies.

It's Kevin Church week at Boom! as they have the fifth and final issue of Cover Girl and he has a story in the Cthulhu Tales: Tainted anthology as well. And new EiC Mark Waid makes his Boom! debut with the first issue of Potter's Field.

DC have a new volume of , the manga that (along with Gon) pretty much justifies the existance of the CMX imprint.

A new issue of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting (v. 2 #8) is always a good thing, yes?

As are new issues of Age of Bronze (#26) and Casanova (#9).

Lots of stuff from Tokyopop, including the 3rd and final volume of I Luv Halloween and a new Star Trek Manga. Viz is also shipping a truckload of manga.


Plenty of good stuff this week.

New Library Comics: Week of September 3, 2007

Here's a list of the comics we added to out library collection last week:


Bleda, Sergio. Sleep, little girl / Celje, Slovenia : SAF Comics, 2003.

Holcombe, Walt. Things just get away from you / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics ; London : Turnaround [distributor], 2007.

Itō, Junji, 1922- Uzumaki. vol. 1 / San Francisco, CA : Viz Communications, 2002, c1998.

Mills, Pat Collected hook jaw, v.1. / Egmont, UK : Spitfire Comics, 2007, c2006

Novgorodoff, Danica. A late freeze / [s.l.] : Danica Novgorodoff, c2006.




This listing is now available as an RSS Feed!