Marvel June Solicitation Thoughts

Marvel finally released their June 2001 solicitations today. What follows are random thoughts that occur as I read through:


The Fear Itself event continues. The main book is $4 for 32 pages; weren't the first two issues 40 pages?

I have little interest in the multitude of spin-off books. Youth in Revolt is by creators I know and generally like (McKeever & Norton) and is $3, so I'll probably pick that up. Fearsome Four has Man-Thing and art by Michael Kaluta (and also $3), so I'll likely get that as well.

Two issues of Thunderbolts, both Fear Itself tie-ins, with tag team writers and artists. Probably skipable, but this is one of those instances where having a long run on a title will keep me buying though short blips like this.

A new Dark Tower series by Peter David & Michael Lark. I have zero interest in the property, but that's a creative team that might get me to pick it up, except for the $4 price tag.

There are a couple of Cars 2-related comics, but it's confusing as to what is what. There's Cars 2 #1 (of 2) which may or may not be an adaptation of the new movie. Then there's Disney • Pixar Presents Cars 2, which despite the title seems to be an adaptation of the first Cars movie.

Apparently after months of build up this is the month that they're finally killing Ultimate Spider-Man. Because that whole Ultimatum mess did such great things for the Ultimate Line.

There are a couple of instances where Marvel are collecting three recent issues of Avengers titles for just $5. I'm not sure on the publishing strategy here.

The ill-conceived 'point one' initiative hits a title I actually follow (Avengers Academy). I'd be just as happy buying an issue #15 as I would #14.1. Also, this seems like a good way to make sure that customers who don't aggressively follow the comic news sites will not purchase an issue of a title.

Captain America Corps? Really? It's like they're just trying to come up with things to flood the market that just won't sell (no matter how good it may actually be).

(Marvel Adventures) Super Heroes has been a reprint book for the past few months. The latest issue is by the regular writer (the very good Paul Tobin) but no indication as to whether this is a new story or not.

As has been noted elsewhere, Andi Watson's long-completed-but-never-published 15 Love is finally seeing the light of day. I'll be in line, but wouldn't this work better as an OGN targeted at the bookstore market?

There's a new WWII-set All-Winners Squad limited series written by Paul Jenkins, whose super-hero stuff has always been hit-or-miss with me. So I'll like wait and see if it is well-received, and pick it up in trade if it is.

No such worries with Jenkins' other new limited series, Ka-Zar: I'm not a fan of artist Pascal Alixe, and it's $4 for 32 pages to boot.

Even dumber than kicking off a new series with a #0 issue? Kicking it off with a #0.1 issue, as is the case with Ghost Rider. How would starting a new series off with a regular ol' #1 issue not be considered a jumping-on point in and of itself?

Mystery Men #1 & 2: CLASSIFIED! By a writer I'm unfamiliar with? PASS!

Two different Marvel Zombies mini-series running at the same time? Do they think it is still 2006?

Hickman & Weaver's well-received S.H.I.E.L.D. series is back as an ongoing; $4 for 40 pages, so let us hope that future issues are $3 for 32 pages.

I care not one whit for Deadpool, but I'll admit that the Dave Johnson cover for #38 is pretty awesome.

Looks like just abut every X-Men title gets two issues this month. Because what we really need are twice as many X-Men comics.

Supreme Power returns with a four issue mini, just about at the point where most have forgotten about it. And the $4 price tag won't help matters either, and make it just that easy a pass for most I suspect.

We're drowning is Captain America and Thor collections. X-Men too. Think maybe there's a movie or two coming this summer?

Christmas Covers - December 11

Hulk makes like Santa and comes down the chimney into the super-hero Christmas party on the cover to Marvel Super Hero Squad #12 (2010).

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Holiday-related comic book cover. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 14 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2009: P.S. Magazine: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly #157)
(2008: More Fun Comics #39)
(2007: The Tick: Big Red-N-Green Christmas Spectacle #1)
(2006: The Best of DC #58)
(2005: Batman #27)
(2004: The Brave and the Bold #148)

(Polite Dissent's 2010 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(2010 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Bully the Little Stuffed Bull's Riverdale Christmas)
(The Comics Cube's Christmas Countdown)  
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2010)

Sometimes I Hate Being Psychic

Three weeks ago, I wrote a Ten Random Things About Comics post. Number four was:

4. The big two have created an event mentality that hinders their ability to successfully launch new titles. When you send out the message that "these comics 'matter,'" that also sends out the message that "these other comics don't 'matter.'" Take for example Marvel's new all-ages Thor: The Mighty Avenger; just about anyone who has actually read it agrees that it is very good, perhaps even wonderful. But hardly anyone reads it, because it's not the 'real' Thor, and the out-of-continuity stories don't 'matter.' It also doesn't help that there are something like five or six different Thor comics being published every month right now.

And now we learn that Thor: The Mighty Avenger has gotten the axe, just as former editor Nate Cosby has written an article about the way that overhyped event mentality solicitations are hurting comics.

Apparently Marvel is now undertaking an effort to cut back on the number of multiple titles for identical characters. Which in general is good (and addresses my Number five...) but the fact that they've chosen this particular title is a sad way to begin.

We can gnash our teeth all we want, but there's just no way that an all-ages, non-continuity super-hero book is going to survive at Marvel, especially when there's little promotion and it is lost in a sea of similar sounding titles.

Never mind that Marvel Adventures Spider-Man is the best Spider-Man comic being published right now; between Amazing Spider-Man being published 3 times a month, ancillary in-continuity titles and minis, and Ultimate Spider-Man, people just aren't willing to give the Marvel Adventures version a try.

The moral of the story is that if you want better comics, you have to buy better comics. (It should go without saying, but downloading off of torrents doesn't help...) Also, you have to seek out better comics; you cannot count on the comic companies properly promoting their own wares (as crazy as that sounds!)

Why Does Marvel Front-Load Its Release Schedule?

Here's something that's bothered me for a while now:

Take a look at Marvel's release schedule for May, in terms of how many new comics are being released each week:

May 5: 46 titles
May 12: 20 titles
May 19: 18 titles
May 26: 14 titles

There are more than twice as may titles being released on the first week as there are any other week. That's 47% of their total monthly output scheduled for the first week. This pattern is not atypical for Marvel.

Mu question is: why? Do they count on many of these titles slipping a week or two? Are they playing games with FOC dates? Do they want reorders to show up on that month's shipping to game the monthly Diamond market share?

Marvel Variant Cover Mania!

Of the twenty-three new comics Marvel is releasing this week, eleven of them have variant covers (Hulk #11 has four different covers!) In addition, four collections have variant editions, and there are six 2nd or 3rd printings with new covers.

Marvel appears to be joining younger publishers like Boom!, IDW, Avatar & Dynamite in having variants be the norm, rather than the exception.

You know it would sell a fortune!

Marvel should put out a Spider-Man & Barack Obama mini-series. At this point it would be like printing money. C'mon, you know it would have at least as much legs as Marvel Zombies.

Wait, hold on... Presidential Zombies!

I'm running off to file a trademark application right now...

Glut?

Here's the Mighty Marvel Checklist for a month in late 1981:



Thirty-four titles for the whole month.

Now in early 2009, Marvel is releasing thirty-one new titles this week (19 comics, 12 collections, not counting multiple cover editions).

Christmas Covers - December 5

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Trim the tree with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four on Stuart Immonen's cover to the 2005 Marvel Holiday Special.

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 20 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2007: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #1)
(2006: Animaniacs: A Christmas Special #1)
(2005: Shanda the Panda #14)
(2004: Famous Funnies #125)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
 

The Comics I'm Most Looking Forward to This Summer

Final Crisis? Secret Invasion? Heck no.

The comic I'm most looking forward to this summer is the King-Size Spider-Man Summer Special, by the Banana Sunday team of Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover. The story will feature May Jane Watson and a host of Marvel Women—including Marvel Girl, Clea, She-Hulk, Enchantress, Scarlet Witch, Patsy Walker, and Millie the Model—all drawn by YACB fave artist Colleen Coover!

Jennifer M. Contino has an interview with Tobin about the comic over at Newsarama The Pulse.

Circle August 6 on your calendars, and let your Friendly Local Comic Shop owner know that you want the bestest comic of the summer!*

(*I should note that All Star Superman #12 is also scheduled to come out on August 6, which would easily make that day one of the Best New Comic Days Ever—but seriously, what's the chance of All Star Superman #12 actually coming out on that day?)

EDIT: The Tobin interview, as you no doubt figured out when clicking the link, is at The Pulse, not Newsarama. Apologies to JenC and the fine folks at Comicon.Com. I got confused because Newsarama has this fine interview with Coover about the same project which I also meant to link to.

CFP: Iron Man and Philosophy

So you want to combine your love of Marvel Super-Heroes with your degree in philosophy? Now you can in the upcoming book in The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series: Iron Man and Philosophy. The call for abstracts is here. "Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader." Hurry; abstracts are due by August 15!

Quick Review: Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #34

This comics has:

Sue Storm vs. the Bwindi Gorilla cult

Ben Grimm vs. a fake Hulk

Johnny Storm vs. a kissing booth

Reed Richards vs. The Mad Thinker & His Awesome Android

And that's just the tip of the iceberg in this issue by Paul (Banana Sunday) Tobin and David (Private Beach) Hahn. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable Fantastic Four comic this year (at least until their next issue!)

Rating: 3.5 (of 5)

This Just Might Be the Greatest Marvel Comic Ever

Newsarama has the story that Paul Tobin will be writing a new comic in the Marvel Adventures line, Marvel Adventures Super-Heroes. One of the issues will feature art by his wife and Banana Sunday collaborator Colleen Coover (her again!), and it will feature Spider-Man, and Hellcat, and Mary Jane, and She-Hulk, and Clea, and the Enchantress, and Marvel Girl, and the Scarlet Witch. Also: Millie the Model.

BTW, Tobin is also starting a four-issue run on Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four with YACB fave and ex-Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane artist David Hahn on three of those issues. It starts this week with MAFF #34, so be sure to look for it tomorrow at your friendly local comic shop!

Colleen Coover's Power Focus

Another Colleen Coover Alert!

According to her LiveJournal, Colleen will be illustrating a series of 2-page back-ups for the upcoming Power Pack: Day One mini under the umbrella title "Power Focus." In these pieces written by Fred Van Lente (of Action Philosophers fame) the Power Pack kids take turns explaining the laws of physics. Fun!

Colleen Coover Alert!

Since Marvel never sees fit to include Colleen Coover's back-ups in the solicits, you may not know that Colleen Coover illustrates a one-page story, written by Margot Blankier, in this week's Iron Man and Power Pack #4.

She's also drawing the back-up in next month's X-Men: First Class #9, written by Jeff Parker (A fact that Marvel also left out of their solicits...)

Update: Jeff Parker tells us why!

Colleen Coover (Again)

Writing for The Oregonian, Steve Duin reminds us that there are other women working in comics besides than Gail Simone; in this case YACB fave Colleen Coover. It's a rather nice profile of her career so far.

In regards to our previous post about women creators at the big four, I am reminded that, while Coover has been doing semi-frequent back-ups for X-Men: First Class, they are rarely if ever mentioned in the solicits. On the one hand that makes it always a nice surprise when her work shows up; on the other, maybe it would behoove Marvel to mention her participation as a selling point?

Women Creators at Marvel & DC (and Image & Dark Horse)

David Welsh's recent post about tips for media writers when writing about female comic creators got me to thinking: just how many women are writing or drawing comics at the major pop comics publishers?

Let's go counting through the April solicits!

(Note: I'm not counting manga or OGNs.)

Marvel:

Writers: 2: Robin Furth on Dark Tower & Lords of Avalon; Jessica Ruffner on Anita Blake.

Artists: 1: Adriana Melo on Ms. Marvel.


DC:

Writers: 2: Amy Wolfram on Teen Titans Year One; Gail Simone on Wonder Woman & Welcome to Tranquility

Artists: 2: Nicola Scott on Birds of Prey; Sandra Hope on World of Warcraft


Image:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Laura Allred on Madman Atomic Comics


Dark Horse:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Jan Duursema on Star Wars: Legacy



So as far as creator gender representation in mainstream comics goes, things are no better than they were ten, twenty or thirty years ago--the days of Louise Simonson, Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, June Brigman, Marie Severin, Ramona Fradon, etc.

One might think that, with more titles being pushed out these days, there would be opportunities for more creators, and that some of those slots would be filled by women creators.

It's hard to address the why of the gender imbalance without speaking in supposition and generalities. I think that there are a combination of factors at work, some of which boil down to a lack of desire on the part of female creators to work on corporate super-hero comics when there are plenty of other avenues available for their creative expression.

(1/28: Edited, 'cause I totally spaced and left off Jan Duursema.)

Favorites of 2007 - Comic Books

Last Tuesday I presented my picks for my favorite graphic novels and manga of the past year. Today I complete my wrap-up with my favorite "pop" comics from 2007:

Superhero Comics


All Star Superman by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely

If the twelve-year-old Dave from 1982 to come forward in time twenty-five years, this is the sort of comic that he would be delighted to see. As such, All Star Superman tickles not just my inner twelve-year-old super-hero itch, it also appeals to thirty-seven-year-old Dave's desire for intelligent, well-crafted stories with gorgeous artwork. It is also the work of a maturing Grant Morrison, trading the surface flash of his JLA and the showy weirdness of Doom Patrol for something with more subtlety.




Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane by Sean McKeever, Takeshi Miyazawa & David Hahn

Where A-S Superman strikes at my inner-twelve-year-old boy, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane appeals to my inner twelve-year-old girl. I don't think there was a single issue of this that when I finished I didn't say to myself: "That was a darn fine comic." These out-of-continuity tales of MJ & Peter in high school had just the right amount of angst, sentimentality and humor. The title was canceled with McKeever's departure for a DC exclusive (where so far his talents are being wasted on drudge like Countdown). Although Terry Moore has been tapped to restart the title sometime in 2008, it remains to be seen if this will come to pass since apparently Spider-Man no longer loves Mary Jane in the Marvel Universe.




Marvel Adventures The Avengers by Jeff Parker, Juan Santacruz, Raul Fernandez, & Leonard Kirk

Issue #12, featuring "Ego, the Loving Planet," was quite simply the most fun super-hero comic of the past five years (at least). Add in issue #9's story featuring the Avengers transformed into M.O.D.O.C.s with one of the most brilliant covers of the year, the Giant Size Special featuring Parker & Kirk's Agents of Atlas, and several other enjoyable done-in-one stories. Would that all of Marvel's super-hero comics be this enjoyable to read!




Love & Capes by Thomas F. Zahler

Super-heroes as romantic comedy have been done before, but Zahler's take in Love & Capes is so spot-on that it rises to the top of the pack. All the main characters are intelligent and nice with a sense of humor about themselves that they're easy to like and root for. Zahler's art is done in an attractive animated style in an eight-panel grid, and he packs in a lot of story and characterization into each issue.




The Spirit by Darwyn Cooke

Cooke successfully updates Eisner's The Spirit for the modern age while still remaining a classic feel as The Spirit. Plus, his art is very pretty to look at.




Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil by Jeff Smith

Smith's Shazam! miniseries was a comic not without its faults, but it makes it onto this list on the pure power of Smith's version of Mary Marvel. Every time Mary appeared on panel, the comic raised its normal entertaining level up to pure delight.



Other Comics


The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman

The most graphically-innovative comic of the year, and also the angriest. Hickman's The Nightly News requires a shift in the way that one normally perceives and reads comics, requiring that the reader enter a level of engagement with the material that reject a surface experience. The comic also frequently lies to its readership in its tale of secret societies, violence and corporate media, which again forces a closer reading of the material. It remains to be seen if Hickman's approach will work with other material, but for this subject matter it's near perfect.




Glister by Andi Watson

An all-ages title that works on multiple levels, Watson's Glister is an engaging story of a precocious girl who deals matter-of-factly with the strange happenings in her life, including literal ghost writers, wandering houses, and missions to faerie. It reminds one of cherished novels of childhood without seeming derivative.




Honorary mention: not at the top of the list, but still greatly enjoyed this past year were Fables and Jack of Fables; DMZ; Y, the Last Man; Captain America; Green Lantern's "Sinestro Wars"; Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: After the Fall.

Brighter Minds Media 40% off Discount

Our friends over at Brighter Minds Media are offering readers of this blog a 40% discount when ordering directly from their website. BMM publishes educational games, toys and software. Among the licenses they hold is one for Marvel Heroes; I previously reviewed their Marvel Heroes Breakout DVD Game.

To get the discount, enter the code BLOG at checkout.

The offer is good through March 1, 2008.

I swear Marvel, if you keep doing this crap I'm going to stop buying your floppies

Notice anything about many of your Marvel comics this week. They're thicker! No, Marvel didn't give you extra pages of story, they gave you extra pages of ads.

For example, Astonishing X-Men increased from 32 to 48 pages (not counting covers). Those 48 pages are:

1 'previously on' page
23 pages of story
18 pages of ads
6 pages of dubious editorial material

Basically the thing is half advertising.

Why do I care? After all, they didn't raise the price, so I'm still getting the same story value for my $2.99.

One, the plethora of ads really breaks up the flow of the story. It's often a page of story, then a page of ads, then a page of story, then three pages of ads. (Unlike when DC ads an extra insert of advertising, you cannot 'debone' the Marvel comics of their extra bulk.) So why not just wait for the trade, where I can read the story uninterrupted by advertising?

Two, the extra-thick comics add up to extra bulk. 50% more. That 50% more weight that your retailer has to pay in shipping, which eats into his/her profits. Retailers raised holy heck before when Marvel did this, and Marvel promised to knock it off. Guess they forgot.

X-Halloween

Parker + Coover + X-Men + Halloween = Fun!

(via TCR)