Browsing: Editorial

With Marvel’s newest mini-series Shadowland underway, writer Andy Diggle has taken New York’s resident extrasensory superhero, Daredevil, and given him leadership of The Hand clan of ninja. Formerly bitter enemies, The Hand approach Matt Murdock’s red-clad alter-ego to take control of an organization that seems to be the very antithesis of heroic. Daredevil has a tough task ahead of him as he tries to change the clan into something a little more upstanding: with Matt’s moral choices shifting between good and evil, Shadowland has been referred to as a fight for Daredevil’s soul. But what of Hell’s Kitchen, the hero’s…

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For almost two decades the Schmuck has been the undisputed king of comedy. There’s just something about a guy (or girl, a Shmuckette, if you will) who doesn’t have it together that just makes people laugh and laugh. Or at least it did. Now it seems the winds of comedy are a-changin’ and it doesn’t look good for the schmuck.

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Or – “Mary Jane Who?” This month marks the two-year anniversary of the “Brand New Day” storyline that changed the life of the Amazing Spider-Man forever (and this time they MEAN it!)  In those 24 months, much vitriol has been thrown at the editorial process that created the new storyline and the HUGE changes for Peter Parker’s status quo, and many people have opined that the whole thing is a terrible sham of a farce.  But as we finally find out the full story of what happened, a thought has occurred to me: Marvel Editorial’s belief that changes were necessary for Spider-Man…

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DC

Lately There has been a resurgence of talk about racial politics in comic books. On one side, certain minority superheroes whose original portrayals were controversial are gaining more prominent roles in their respective universes. On the other, the nostalgia-driven changes, especially at DC, are having the unfortunate (and admittedly unintentional) effect of eliminating certain minority characters in favor of the all-white all-stars of the silver age.

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Last week, the comic-book-o-sphere was abuzz with speculation that the Invincible Iron Man Annual #1 would cost more in its digital format when it goes Day and Date release. Yesterday, Marvel CCO Joe Quesada confirmed that those who decide to buy the annual via the Marvel iPad App would indeed pay an extra buck. “The Iron Man comic is over 60 pages, and in print it’s priced at $4.99, but on average for that kind of page count, we would have priced it at $5.99 or broken it up into three $2.99 issues. Our comics on the Marvel App are…

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In a time when the planet is going through one of the worst man made ecological disasters of all time, Greenpeace is really sticking it to Big Petroleum by having a contest for graphic designers where they can show their hatred for BP. Aquaman isn’t the only one to succumb to the company who wouldn’t know their asshole from a hole in the ocean spewing millions of gallons of raw crude into the ecosystem, another beloved character is dead as well.

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Or – “There’s A Reason Why The Comics Market Never Seems To Expand…” When I started reading comics, the Silver Age was a thing of the past, the Bronze Age was coming to an end, and comics were in as much of a nadir as I’ve ever seen.  DC had just gone through their ‘DC Implosion,’ an event which in retrospect was a lot more serious than we the readers were led to believe.  (It has been intimated that many of DC’s employees were expecting the company to go under entirely, and sales didn’t really recover until New Teen Titans…

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Thirty years ago today, audiences lined up for blocks to watch the second installment of the Star Wars film franchise.  The Empire Strikes Back was ground breaking on several fronts; not only did special effects get cranked up a notch, but is probably the first sci-fi film to have a real downer of an ending, and a surprise twist that wasn’t ruined by the Intardwebz.  It was also one of the few movies my father and I saw together as a team.

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Or – “The Best Way Not To Miss A Key Back Issue.” There are a lot of reasons why anyone might do a particular job for any length of time.  Security, satisfaction, the joy of the work itself…  While the first is seldom an issue for me, the second and third are a big deal, and when you factor in the fringe benefits (first look at any comics that come into the store, as well as just enough discount to make my enormous pull list manageable) Comic Book guy is a mighty  interesting line of work to be in…  Haven’t…

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At first Ultimatum sounded like an awful idea – kill off as many characters in the Ultimate Universe in hopes of shaking things up and bringing readers back to the series that got people interested in Marvel again.  To make matters worse, Marvel opted to go with someone other than Brian Michael Bendis to pen the epic disaster series, which was odd in itself as Bendis has done so much for the Ultimate Universe, it should have been up to him to bring it all crashing down around everyone’s head.  With the final issue of the Ultimatum series, and all…

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On June 10th Wizards of the Coast released the rules changes that will go into effect when Magic’s newest core set Magic 2010 hits the shelves. Here’s my take on them. If you want to see the announcement go to  http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/42a

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I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been a huge fan of electronic books and digital content for years. I bought one of the first e-readers commercially available, and used it until the batteries were unable to hold a charge any longer.  The black- and -white interface of the e-readers of yesterday and today are perfect for reading books, but for comics — not so good. Beyond the color issue, what else do e-reader creators, comic book publishers, and retailers need to do to make the transition to digital comics a success?  I’ve got a few thoughts on that one.

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When Heroic Publishing first began sending me solicitations about its titles availability on WOWIO, I was pretty excited.  A free (or nearly free) digital comics distribution system that paid creators because of internal ads/sponsorships is a pretty great idea.  I was able to access new content, or in the case of some of my favorite Clockwork Storybook folk (Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Mark Finn, Chris Roberson) get stuff that is out of print circulation. When it was announced Platinum Studios was buying WOWIO and “retooling” the entire system, I was a bit hesitant after the debacle with DJ Coffman  (search…

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