FCBM6 Day 21

It's day twenty-one of the Sixth Annual YACB Free Comic Book Month!

Our next selected entry is from Jason Metcalfe. The five comics that Jason likes are:

1. Hellboy/BPRD
2. anything by Paul Pope
3. From Hell
4. Planetary
5. Batman: The Long Halloween

And his other thing of interest is the tv show Breaking Bad.

For Jason I have the first issue of Jonathan Lethem & Farel Dalrymple's trippy re-imagining of Omega the Unknown.

For Jason's bonus comic, I'm sending him the Popeye Halloween comic.

Jason'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:
32 entries
60 free comics sent so far
10 days remaining

Can't Miss This

ENTERTAINMENT ALERT!

If you're in the northeast, come to Woodstock Sanctuary next Saturday, May 29th for a concert on the farm with Chrissie Hynde (of The Pretenders) and Welsh songwriter, JP Jones.

It will be fun and cool and awesome and all the money goes to the sanctuary. I'll be there along with CHNW and my whole posse of closest pals. We can chat and pretend to be friends and in such an intimate setting, you might also get to meet Chrissie, because, let's face it, you always wanted to!

If you do drop by, be sure to introduce yourself and say you read my blog. I'll fawn over you real good!

Tickets and info.

Gay Cowboys

Bizarro is brought to you today by Flamenco Segway.

Here's a fun little ditty about a topic I've discussed here before. Among groups known for being homophobic are "cowboy types," whatever that means exactly. I was raised in Oklahoma and Texas and can vouch for the accuracy of this stereotype. In fact, when I was a teenager in Tulsa, I was often accused by strangers of being gay simply because I did not dress like a local hick. (I leaned more toward the British punk rockers at the time.)

But viewed objectively, one can't argue that cowboy clothing is unusually feminine: pearl buttons, embroidered shirts (frequently of flowers), fringe, scarves, pants with the butt and crotch cut out (chaps), high heel boots with pointy toes (often with embossed flowers and swirls), big shiny belt buckles with more flowers and swirls on belts with yet more embossed flowers and swirls and dangling handguns (the ultimate phallic symbol), flamboyant hats that make Truman Capote's seem macho by comparison.

Perhaps getting in touch with my own feminine side, I wear a lot of western shirts, though not the rest of the garb. I'm a fan of fancy, vintage cowboy shirts and have a collection of about two dozen. As a matter of fact, I'd really love to get hold of one of those outlandish suits that country western performers used to wear at the Grand Ole Opry, but I'm not holding my breath. I can't afford a new one and finding an old one that fits and is in good shape is a long shot at best. It's not the sort of thing you come across on Craigslist.

It is a common belief that those who complain most about gays are most likely to be closeted gays themselves, just as those who champion family values are the most likely to be caught with an underage prostitute. Maybe Brokeback Mountain is more common than we know.

Amazon Top 50

Here are the Top 50 Graphic Novels on Amazon this morning. All the previous caveats apply.


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
2 (+3). Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5 *
3 (N). Troublemaker Book 1: Alex Barnaby Series 3 *
4 (-2). Kick-Ass
5 (+24). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
6 (+3). Instructions
7 (-). Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1
8 (-5). Wilson
9 (+16). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
10 (+4). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
11 (-7). The Walking Dead Book 5
12 (-6). Bloom County: The Complete Library, Vol. 2: 1982-1984
13 (-5). Invincible: The Ultimate Collection Volume 5
14 (+25). Batman: The Killing Joke
15 (+7). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
16 (+10). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
17 (+3). Watchmen
18 (-6). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour *
19 (-3). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
20 (+7). V for Vendetta
21 (-2). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
22 (-11). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
23 (-13). The Flash: Rebirth
24 (N). Ex Machina, Vol. 9: Ring out the Old
25 (R). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
26 (R). Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
27 (+15). Walking Dead Volume 12 *
28 (N). The Last Airbender: Prequel: Zuko's Story
29 (N). Kill Shakespeare Volume 1 *
30 (-13). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
31 (-3). The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel *
32 (+5). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
33 (+8). Batman: Year One
34 (-). Y: The Last Man, Vol. 3 (Deluxe Edition)
35 (R). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
36 (R). Batman and Robin, Vol. 1: Batman Reborn
37 (+7). The Boys Volume 6 SC
38 (R). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5)
39 (-3). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
40 (R). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
41 (R). American Born Chinese
42 (R). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
43 (+2). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
44 (+4). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
45 (+1). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
46 (N). Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 3 *
47 (-15). Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume
48 (-33). Scott Pilgrim, Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
49 (R). The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 (Vol. 13)
50 (N). Wednesday Comics *



Items with asterisks (*) are pre-order items.

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* Highest debut this week is Troublemaker Book 1, a new graphic novel based on Janet Evanovich's Alex Barnaby mystery novels. It should probably have been on the list earlier, but it wasn't clear to me before that this was a graphic novel and not prose. Mea culpa, and a good reminder to take these list compilations with the appropriate levels of Skepticism and Salt.

* It's a big week for perennials, leading me to believe that overall GN sales on Amazon were down this week; Assuming that demand for these backlist items stays fairly steady, they will rise and fall on the Top 50 list based on how other items are performing.

* Although there's probably a good reason why Persepolis surged up so high this week. Anyone have any clues?

* I bet we could show a strong correlation between sales of The Walking Dead volumes on Amazon and casting calls for the upcoming AMC series.

* Scott Pilgrim demand continues to show no rational pattern. Some volumes are up, others are down, with often big swings from week-to-week.