Lessons Not Learned from Watchmen

One of the reasons I believe that the Watchmen collection has been a perennial best-seller for over twenty years is the fact that it is complete in one volume. An interested reader can pick up the entire story at once and not have to worry about finding Watchmen Book 2.

But for some reason, DC has been releasing their collections of their limited series in multi-volume chunks. This week sees the release of Rann/Thanagar Holy War, vol. 1, which collects just issues #1-4 (of 8) and the attendant Hawkman Special. The War That Time Forgot, a twelve-issue series, is being released as two separate volumes. And possibly the worst offender of all, Justice, the twelve-issue series from Alex Ross & co., has been released as three separate hardcover volumes (later as paperbacks), each collecting just four issues of the series! If you want the entire series in one volume, your only choice is the $100 Absolute edition.

While there may be some short-term gain for DC in releasing their collections this way, in the long term I think they'd be much better served by releasing an entire limited series together in one volume. Much easier for stores to stock, and much more attractive for readers to get the complete story in one purchase.

The Sound of One Hand Inking

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Singing Monks.

Okay, I admit I don't know anything about Zen Buddhism, but the whole "nothingness" thing is a common conception and cartoons are often built on these, whether correct or not.

Like the Moses cartoon from a couple of days ago; several readers left comments on the inaccuracies of my drawing – from the error of having the burning bush and the ten commandments in the same picture to the fact that Moses is wearing shoes on "hallowed ground." I also got a few emails of this sort.

Being neither a Zen Buddhist nor a believer in the historical accuracy of the Bible, I admit that I don't get very nitpicky about these things. I just draw the cartoon in a way that everyone can understand and move on to the next crushing deadline. I don't mind the corrections, by the way. I'm kind of a trivia buff anyway, so I always enjoy a few more tidbits of knowledge.

In spite of this flippant attitude toward history, I actually do try to be more accurate in my cartoons than do most cartoonists. I research historical costumes and such, to get things mostly right, and often look up what certain objects look like to add that extra bit of convincing detail, even though I'm perfectly capable of an approximation out of my own head. But if the accuracy conflicts with the joke, as it would have in the Moses cartoon, I toss it out and use the common misconception instead. Moses talking to a burning bush is immediately understood; Moses talking to a blinding beam of light would have been widely misconstrued to be a scene from Star Trek.

Of the handful of "Zen" cartoons I've done over the years, here is one of my favorites:

FCBM5 Day 20

It's day twenty of the Fifth Annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our next selected entry is from Edgardo Ortiz. The five comics that Edgardo listed are:

1. Barry Ween
2. Scott Pilgrim
3. Persepolis
4. Alan's War
5. Green Lantern

And his other thing of interest is The Lord of the Rings.

For Edgardo I have the first issue of Aaron Williams' humorous fantasy series Nodwick.

For Edgardo's bonus comic, I'm sending him the Donald Duck Halloween comic.

Edgardo's comics should be in the mail within a week. Enjoy!

There's still time to send in your entry for the YACB Free Comic Book Month; details are here.

Current FCBM Statistics:
27 entries
48 free comics sent so far
11 days remaining