Market Spotlight: Batman 2000!

As mentioned on the latest issue of Chronic Insomnia, I went digging into John Jackson Miller's website to see if I couldn't find some hope in the macro sales data.  Which I did.  Find hope, I mean.

The truth is we have some very real, very pressing issues currently with reader retention and the remarkable collapse of the top of the chart.  But we're nowhere near as far in the gutter as we were in 2000.  That was a bad time to be publishing or retailing comics.  If you're interested in retailer war stories from that era, I highly recommend Brian Hibb's book Tilting At Windmills.

Batman # 582

Anywho.  I dug into the data and discovered that yes, things were quite woeful in 2000.  Sales were way down, probably at historical lows. I got to thinking: "How can I make some money off that"?  That's because I'm a giant, giant whore.

It sounds counter intuitive, which is why I'm extra sure the play will work. Imagine life in the year 2000 as a comic book fan or retailer.  Everything is in the tank, and you might blame Marvel's bizarre Heroe's World distribution catastrophe on that.  But mostly you're still nursing the wounds attributed to a glut of chromium enhanced die-cut overprinted monstrosities.

Speculation?  Blasphemy.  The idea of comics as collectibles is anathema.  If you're seen with a bag and board, I imagine ruffians would instantly appear to punch you in the face.  You take great pride using your comics as toilet paper so that everyone knows you're a purist.  The poop stained pages are a badge of honor.

So not only are print runs as tiny as they have ever been in the history of comics, but nobody thinks of them as collectibles.  They're too new, and the whole concept is just out of vogue.  There aren't many comics from the year 2000 to begin with, and what's there isn't protected.

Batman # 588

Don't take my word for it, go visit your comic shop and try to dig some up.  Assuming that your LCS sells back issues at all.  Most don't, and for good reason - it's not a good value, pound for pound.  They take up a lot of space, and not enough people are interested.  There's just a couple, at least for now.  People like me, looking at Batman books.

In 2000, "No Man's Land" is just finishing up.  DC then changes the cover dress on both Batman and Detective.  I don't know if it's good or not, but it sure is distinctive.

Larry Hama gets first crack at Batman post-No-Man, and then they hand over the book to a couple mooks you may have heard of.  Ed Brubaker.  Brian Vaughan.  Greg Rucka, who also gets Detective.  It's like a murderer's row of the up-and-coming, on the the premier figure in the secondary market.

Listen, you may have noticed, but people like Batman.  He's going to be around for awhile, probably long after we have print comics being published.  That means there will be collector's, completists.  The myth right now is that the material is too new, too protected, and too plentiful to be worth bothering.

I think that myth is wrong on all counts.  Those books are eleven years old now, nobody would have been treating them as though they might be valuable, (which is exactly how things get valuable) and nobody really has them in any great quantity.  When the collectors come to reap these Batman issues, there won't be much wheat for them to harvest.

So I'm advocating a little speculating on Batman # 575-600.  You've got Batman, you've got premier writers, and you've got the entire collecting public thinking backwards on value.  I think it pays to be very picky on condition if you decide to get in on this.  VF is going to be all too common, which is why you're going to want to cherry pick better than that.  But the VF/NM and above?  I'd pay $3 an issue for sure, and maybe go up to $5.  I'd still load up on that run in the VF range if I could get them for $1.  I don't think it's out of the question to find some of this material in "buck bins" at your local convention at all, and I think they're a really nice long term investment.


- Ryan

More History Lessons!

Jim Shooter:  Writer.  Creator.  Large Mammal.

If yesterday's review of Back Issue whet your appetite for comics history, Jim Shooter's blog is a nice supplement to that.  It seems to be updated daily, and currently focused on non currents events like memories of Jack Kirby's missing art, the birth of Secret Wars, and right this moment he's covering writing tips from the Old Masters.

According to Shooter, (as passed down from the sages of old) storytelling is composed of three parts:

• What it was
• What happened
• How it came out

It seems overly reductive at first blush, but honestly, I have a hard time poking holes in it.  The old Campbellian Hero's Journey still has some cache I believe, and it follows that basic path.  It gets more complex in that the hero will initially resist moving to the "what happened" part, and there are very specific archetypes that assist and resist the main character along the way.  But yeah, that pretty much boils down storytelling about as far as it can go.

And I think that formula makes it easy to see where and why modern comics fail to find traction.  Continuity issues are murder on "what it was", aren't they?  Tie your X-Men thread into 30+ years of convoluted soap operatic history, and it's tough to get a handle on what exactly it was after all.  There's nothing wrong with having 30+ years of convoluted history, particularly if much of it is good fun, by the way.  There's nothing wrong with it, but the further you go, the more difficult it becomes to engage the reader with the first third of storytelling.

How it came out is completely sterilized by status quo storytelling.  Shadowland, I'm thinking of you, kid.  Daredevil goes ape shit, starts committing murder, takes over a chunk of NY and his friends have to figure out what to do with him?  That could have been a story, folks!

But because we know beforehand that "how it comes out" is pretty much exactly "what it was", the entire storytelling process is subverted.  So because the Big 2 will simply not allow themselves a real How It Came Out, they make Matt Murdock possessed by a lame and disposable evil spirit, Hell's Kitchen looks exactly as it does when the whole thing started, and we all know before the inevitable that Murdock's friends will accept him back after a little bit of moping.

Essentially what Marvel and DC have done is completely demolish 2/3 of what makes a story before you ever crack the cover, and the only thing we're left with is how deftly they execute the What Happened.  Most aren't sure what they were looking at in the first place, the rest know that nothing will ever change whatever that "was" was, and the best you can hope for is that your favorite creators gets a 9 from the judges on their ability to tread water, because nobody is really going anywhere.

Kinda sad.  Why do I love these things again?  Yeesh!

On a happier note, I think that very simple formula shows the way back.  Pare some reliance on backstory and have a little balls and let things change a bit, would you?  Seems doable.  Listen, guys, there's only 14 of us reading these things right now any way.  Whatever you drop into the comics, I can promise you it won't affect your action figure or movie ticket numbers.  Nobody is watching.  Let it rip!

So that's that.  If you're interested in learning about how a 13 year old freelance writer for DC ended up ruling Marvel comics, hey, Jim Shooter's blog.  He's telling those stories, daily.  He was in the middle of a lot of comics history.  Not everybody subscribes to Jim's version of certain events, and that's fine.  His version is pretty damn interesting.

- Ryan

Chronic Review: Back Issue # 47!

Back Issue # 47

TwoMorrows Publishing

Editor:     Michael Eury

$7.95 print/$2.95 digital

As I get older and become more of an artifact than viable modern human, I become more interested in history.  Back Issue is comics history in magazine form, and I think I'm in love.

I don't know how you feel about it, but I think we've been sold a false bill of goods about the information available to us.  The myth is that in the Age of the Interweb, we are inundated with a nearly comprehensive amount of instant information.  So you can go to CBR or Newsarama or Bleeding Cool or Comics Alliance and be up to the second on everything that's happening in the comics world.

And yet, no.  If you look even casually, you'll discover that what "information" is out there really doesn't say anything at all.  It certainly has photos of Adrianne Palicki in the Wonder Woman costume and a bunch of people bitching about it.  It absolutely has a streaming avalanche of creative team shifts and empty shilling for the Big 2 project du jour.  That we have in spades.

But we don't know much about the people creating these comics, or how these projects actually go down.  Who just about got their ass kicked at the last Marvel retreat?  We don't know.  What was it like to work under Dan Didio, and how did DC decide on Bob Harras?  Don't know.  Yeah, every once in awhile you might get a slip of the tweet that provides a little interior access.  Erik Larsen will spin you a story if you ask him, maybe.

Mostly, though, the things I really want to know about, the life things, the real things...those are buried.  And probably for good reason.  If you want to continue to work in a very cloistered, niche clubhouse, you might need to mind your manners.  I get that, but it means that the "information overload" is really just a lot of white noise.

This is why Back Issue is so engaging to me, because it is nothing but the inside stories.  Not just the salacious TMZ stuff, although some of the reveals might open some noses.  Life is funny, and twisty, and interesting if you keep your eyes and ears open.

When I sat down to read Back Issue # 47 I learned all kinds of "useless" information about Dick Giordano's tenure at Charlton, and why a diplomatic faux pas while obtaining the Phantom license from King Features may have had more than a little to do with his moving to DC.  I learned about how and why Chaykin's Dominic Fortune ended up in the back of Hulk magazine, in color no less when the main feature was in black-and-white.  I was absolutely fascinated by Dave Stevens recounting his experience with some eccentric ladies who created a kind of comic book shop long before the direct market was a twinkle in Phil Seuling's eyes.  They actually started a little comic club in Portland that included a ton of future comics professionals including Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson. Stevens was also in on San Diego Comic Con when it was a baby born at a junior college rec center, and had Neal Adams request to review his portfolio.  Can you imagine that?

I don't know that I need to know any of that stuff.  But I'm glad for it any way, and find those life nuggets infinitely more entertaining that any "first shot of Captain America's jeep from the movie set" nonsense.  You can keep all of that.  I like hearing about how Phantom creator Lee Falk used to visit the DC offices and complain to Peter David about Phantom's gun usage, when Falk is the one who gave the character a pair .45 pistols!

It may not be up-to-the-second-send-your-blood-pressure-soaring interweb news.  Most of the magazine is devoted to Silver or Bronze age material, but I wouldn't let that scare you away even if you weren't collecting back then.  I just found out the The Phantom is about 300% cooler than I ever imagined, and discovered Don Newton.  The point isn't being ahead of the curve, but bringing out the marrow of history.  Hype is dead before it's read, but stories last forever.  I'll take Back Issue every time.

Incidentally- if you're feeling a little queasy about the $7.95 price tag, they also offer a $2.95 digital version, which seems more than reasonable to me.  I'm a dinosaur sticking with the print magazine.  Yay, dinosaurs!


- Ryan

Previews: It's Your Future!

50 Girls 50 # 1

I just looked through the latest copy of Previews, and you probably should as well if you haven't.  Why?  Because it's fun, of course, and because you can expose yourself to everything instead of what your LCS thinks you want.  (Plus, if you listen to our show, exposing yourself probably sounds like a fine idea in general)

I think the best reason you should peruse and order from Previews is to help out your retailer.  They're doing the best they can, but it's a lot of guesswork, and if they guess wrong they're screwed.  Miss the mark short and you lose money on customers who will simply go somewhere else or forget the comic entirely.  Miss the mark long and you're stuck with non-returnable comic books collecting dust.

When you put in an order with your retailer, everybody is happier.  You get the book you want, and the retailer knows they've got themselves a sale instead of a guess.  It's not a perfect system.  It's kind of a pain in the ass, actually.  But it sure beats missing out on books or watching your LCS close their business.

A few things that caught my eye in this month's catalog of treasures:

50 Girls 50 # 1 (of 4)
Image Comics

 

As I recall, the hook for this space adventure is that mankind finds a way to warp travel, but as it turns out only women are able to do it.  Naturally we're left with a lot of really beautiful women in space suits blasting aliens and one would hope getting into jammied pillow fights.

I'm a little worried about this shipping regularly, but it's been simmering for over a year, so maybe Frank Cho and company were wise enough to get most or all of this in the can before soliciting?  I hope so, because this looks like a giant cheesecake bomb of fun, and I think we could all use that.

50 Girls 50 is co-written by Douglas Murray of The 'Nam fame, which is interesting.  Pencils by Axel Medellin.  Don't know much about him, but if gets the Cho Seal of Approval, I don't think we'll be disappointed.

Obviously it's tough to say if this will pay off or not, but I know this - Image is becoming the go to joint for energy and ideas.  And hot chicks in space suits.

Supergirl # 65
DC Comics


I have called for somebody to give Kelly Sue DeConnick her own high profile book, and DC answered.  Sort of.   Supergirl isn't quite as prestigious as her cousin, but she's no Blue Beetle, either.  DeConnick is slated for a three issue arc before giving way to someone else, Brian Wood if the rumor mill is accurate.  These days three issues is a pretty long stint any way.

Needless to say that I'm on board for this.  With any luck it will grab some editor's attention and Kelly Sue will get offered something shiny with an extended lease.  I can't believe that her work on Osborn didn't already accomplish that.  Well, I guess it's everyone else's loss and Supergirl's gain.


Some Thoughts on Flashpoint Minis

I just don't know how to feel about any of these.  Neither does anyone else, I'd wager, which is a big problem.  There's a metric crap ton of bizarre concepts, and they only run three issues long.  Almost none of them feature any name brand talent.  How is one supposed to figure out which to order?  By the time that first issue hits and you have some inkling about content and quality level, you've already ordered or not ordered the other two issues.

It's a really odd and frankly brutal thing for a publisher to do to their retailers.  Look, some of these look like they might be fun.  Palmiotti and Gray on a Deathstroke riff?  Yeah, you're never going to get cheated on that.  I'm interested in the Jeff Lemire monster title, and God Help me, I think the one that intrigues me the most is Lois Lane & The Resistance!

XL WTF

But what to do with something like Canterbury Cricket?  I don't know what the hell that's about, and the solicitation is no road map.  His power is his curse?  Surely you can do better than that.  What power?  Who's curse?  Show me Morrison and Quitely on the marquee and you can afford to play coy with me.  Mike Carlin and Rags Morales?  I'm afraid I'm going to need more info than that before I put in a substantial order on that one, folks.  

Some of these come with little trinket promo pins, like the delightfully tacky plastic rings that came with Blackest Night.  But that's just it, this is "been there, done that" territory.  The storyline smacks of Age of Apocalypse, the swag is old news, and correct me if I'm wrong but a good chunk of these books are written by editors!

I guess there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, and some of these cats might actually have some writing chops.  But this is your mega event?  Assistant editors writing the comics?  It would be like going to the World Series and watching the Yankees start their pitching coach and replacing Alex Rodriguez with the third base coach.

I guess a game like that might have some sideshow appeal, and you wouldn't begrudge these behind-the-scenes guys their inexplicable chance to shine.  But would you really want to pay for a ticket to see that game?  Or would you rather the World Series feature the best players the teams could produce?  It's a bad strategy to glut the racks like that in the first place.  Building your summer tent pole with editors is just plain bizarre.

- Ryan

Resignation Itself

Resignation Itself

So I walked into Source Comics & Games looking for a copy of Nonplayer # 1, but the shelves were bare.  Not that surprising, really.  What had my jaw on the floor was the fact that there wasn't a single copy of Fear Itself # 1 available.  Not one.  And there wasn't much left but crumbs of Fear Itself: Homefront, and Fear Itself: Completely Irrelevant, either.

Just to be clear, The Source may reside in my little patch of Minnesota flyover, but they order with muscle.  They sold out, and therefore blew through hundreds of copies.  It was 1:00pm when I walked in, so they had been open for a grand total of three hours.

I asked The Guy:

"Did you seriously sell out of Fear Itself?"

And The Guy said:

"Yeah, and we sold out of Avengers: Children Crusade, too.  We ran out of Fear Itself a couple of hours ago."

Huh.  Which means they blew through those hundreds of copies in about sixty minutes.  So I guess I'm resigned to lose, and I guess I give up.  However one might feel about "event fatigue", or the wisdom of teaching your consumer to follow an impossible to maintain state of hyper-excitement for products built on empty promises the consumer bloody well knows are empty promises, or the wisdom of teaching your consumer that they can feel free to ignore the regular books...it wins.

Regardless of how brilliant or how poisonous Fear Itself may be, it carried the day.  For April 6, 2011 at least, Fear Itself is a success.  God help us.

A Fine Thing

My last shipment from DCB Service was kind of a monster, at least for me.  I had about 25 comics to chew through, so being the best in that pile is a significant achievement.

Without question the finest comic in that pile was Detective Comics # 875 by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla.

Snyder reaches into the writer's bag of tricks often in this issue with time shifts; sometimes built on plot, sometimes built on theme.  Batman barely appears in this issue at all.  It's partially built on a literary reference.  Often the action is conveyed with a voice over narration.

There are so many places that "Lost Boys" could have gone sideways, or off the rails, or gotten bogged down in it's obviously delicate construction.  In the hands of anything less than a master craftsmen, a story built like this fairly screams "I'm a show off!  Look at how gaudy and overwritten I am!"

Apparently Scott Snyder is a master craftsmen, because everything flows without a hiccup, and what you get is a rich, satisfying, subtle character study of Jim Gordon and his very disturbing son James.

I was wondering if anything was going to challenge Fantastic Four # 587 in my private "comic of the year" race.  Detective Comics # 875 - welcome to the ballot.

- Ryan

Chronic "Cut To The Chase" Reviews!

Undying Love # 1

Image Comics

Tomm Coker/Daniel Freedman

Undying Love promised to be a very simple Raymond Chandleresque hard boiler about killing vampires until the tough guy can be with his girl.  And it almost made it.

If you like Maleev, I can't see you not liking the art in this book, and there are a couple of fun twists.  I particularly enjoyed the scene where the unnamed anti-hero feeds Mei with blood like a junkie.

Coker ends up jamming a deeper mystery about "the balance" into the mix, and I don't know why.  Does he not trust his hook enough?  I don't know.  It reminds me of the Pitch Black sequel that made Riddick about 93.7% less interesting by turning him into a universal scale messianic Furion.  I would have preferred to see the story stripped down to bare lust and vengeance. But maybe that's just me.

The balancing stuff was irritating to me, but not a deal-breaker.  My larger issue was the fact that I didn't buy the romance even a little.  In order for this story to really work, that love has to resonate.  This is all territory well trodden - in order for the action feel right and justified, you have to feel that intoxicating obsession that occurs when a woman really "gets" you.  None of that is even attempted in the first issue.  Undying Love is noticeably bereft of love.

 

Caligula # 1

Avatar Comics

David Lapham/German Nobile

It's hard for me to review this objectively, (if such a phenomenon actually exists) because I love Lapham's work on Crossed so much, and my tendency is to internally shriek "enough already"!

Caligula is four color depravity taken about as far as it can go.  Just like Crossed.  And hes so good at it, is Lapham.  On the one hand, I have to rationally give Lapham his due in creating a character that is undeniably disturbing.  That's the guy, historically.  And that's Lapham's job, so mission accomplished.  But when I take Crossed and Caligula together, I just want him to stop for both of us.  Which is my problem, really, and not even a potential issue if your only exposure to Lapham is say, Deadpool Max.  Which is also depraved, but about 7 shades more subtle than this.

Caligula very much considered himself a god.  The twist on history in this book is that he might well be.  And that's extra scary!  Not for the feint of heart, but if your stomach isn't turned enough by Crossed, maybe Caligula will satisfy your need for nausea.  Incidentally, if Avatar had a Dungeons & Dragons alignment, it would be Lawful Evil.  And that's why I love it so.

Scarlet # 5

Icon/Marvel

Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev

Scarlet book one ends with a decompressed whimper, unfortunately.  I'm not giving up on the series, not even close.  But essentially this issue consists of Angela Going getting back in the game, and Scarlet shouts empty platitudes at a crowd, and then begins to wonder if she's bitten off more than she can masticate.  And there's a grenade thrown in there somewhere.  Whatever.

When Scarlet launched it was shooting energy sparks, and I caught fire with it.  Obviously this comic book wasn't going to solve the issue of justice for humanity.  But the attempt seemed interesting, and Scarlet engaging us directly seemed interesting, and the promise of interactivity seemed positively ground breaking.

What we have in issue # 5 is a young girl shouting to the Powers That Be that they can't hide any more.  How she means to suss out this corruption is unknown.  She wisely concludes that not all the police are rotten, and that wide scale violence is probably not the answer. Fine.

So what now?  Is she going to wait to be a victim again and then really start shooting folks?  Is she going to start a network of tipsters and take their word for it?

I don't know.  Maybe that's the point Bendis is trying to make.  That as much as we want justice, even if you worked aggressively outside the broken system it would be too messy.  I guess I would prefer that she had a more focused plan, even if it was a bad one.  I still have faith, and I'm still moving on with the team for book two.  I'm done evangelizing for Scarlet until she proves herself worthy, though.  

- Ryan

Market Spotlight: Jimmy Palmiotti Edition!

We did a weird show for Chronic Insomnia # 187 that featured none of our regular segmentos, including Market Spotlight.  In case my Market Heads were feeling cheated, here's what would have gone on the show if things had gone normally!

Time Bomb TPB

Radical Comics

Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray/Paul Gulacy

ISBN:  1935417401

Suggested retail = $14.95

So I was listening to the "Listen To Jimmy" podcast ( I guess that means I'm capable of taking direction) and heard Mr. Palmiotti himself observe that the Time Bomb trade was sold out at Amazon.  Hmmmm.

I walked over to Amazon and saw that there were only a couple of books available, all in the $100+ price range.  Now before we go crazy, let's take a breath and assess.  It's incredibly unlikely that anybody is getting that par for that book, particularly when it just hit stands about four minutes ago.  Secondly, Amazon has since offered the book for $8.27, but with the kiss of death phrase "usually ships within 6-8 days".

Given the recent release date, it's probably that Amazon does have a line on more copies, which would (at least temporarily) kill the secondary action on the book.  But I've seen many, many examples where Amazon thought it had copies of items and it could not have been more wrong.

Frankly Radical hasn't been around long enough for me to have a read on how good they are at keeping things in print and distributing them properly.  It's possible that they'll instantly recognize the trickle demand and keep up.  It's also possible that Time Bomb isn't readily available again, ever.

Should that happen, I imagine this is an easy flip at $40-$50.  Basically what I'm saying is that I don't think it makes sense to back up the truck on this, (assuming you could ever locate a truckful) but it wouldn't be a bad idea to tuck a copy away if you found one, even at full retail.  Worse case scenario?  You have a really fun story about soldiers travelling in time to shoot Nazis in the face.  You could certainly do worse.

Secret Six:  Six Degrees of Devastation TPB

DC Comics

Gail Simone/Brad Walker/Jimmy Palmiotti

ISBN:  140121231x

Suggested retail = $14.99

Friend of the show Nick pointed out to me that this Secret Six trade just went kaboom.  Which is weird to me, because I just looked at this book on Amazon less than a week ago recommending it to another listener.  There was no such activity then, but now there are only a half dozen copies available, and the minimum it takes right now is about $80.

I've actually been waiting for this for some time, because Secret Six is exceptionally underrated, and once a person is exposed to the title, I can't imagine that they wouldn't backtrack immediately to get everything.  So a Secret Six TPB spike was pretty much inevitable.

In a weird piece of Joycian synchronicity, Six Degrees of Devastation was inked by Jimmy Palmiotti.  Everything he touches is turning to secondary gold, I guess.  Which is fine.  I like buying as many of these as you can for retail or less.  This one should have some legs, because I don't see DC being aware enough to reprint this for some time.

Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker # 1

Image Comics

Script:     Joe Casey

Pencils:   Mike Huddleston

Suggested retail = $2.99

Last week's Chronic Buzz Book was clearly under ordered, because demand is outstripping supply significantly.  Butcher Baker has been commanding $15-$20 on eBay for the past couple of days, usually on "Buy-It-Nows".

Not a bad idea to grab a couple of these if your LCS was prescient enough to order some copies.  Eventually the second print hits, and then the trade, and at that point your profit window is likely killed.  If this becomes some kind of legend, (and it might) selling now is a mistake.  This is just a different kind of book.  What Joe Casey has done here is surgically graft a set of rhinoceros balls on a honey badger, dropped some tabasco in its eyes, and then stapled a clown wig on its head before he released it on your face.

I'd for sure keep one for your collection, because the story is worth it.  Then I'd play the odds and flip whatever else I could as soon as possible. 

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Jimmy Palmiotti, but I bet he had beers with Casey at some point or something like that.  Close enough!

Ryan