Chronic Call to Arms: Vengeance of the Moon Knight # 10!

Marvel have been making moves toward getting Moon Knight in the spotlight lately. I suspect it's being pushed by Gregg Hurwitz, who writes the title. Maybe it's the editor.

Whoever is responsible, the last three months have seen Vengeance of the Moon Knight pulling out all the stops. He got recruited into the Secret Avengers, so instantly about 100,000 people got exposed to the character. Issue # 8 featured the obligatory Deadpool appearance. (bleh!) Issue # 9 featured the obligatory Spider-Man appearance...and they stole the extremely fantastic Juan Jose Ryp away from Avatar to pencil the book. Now we're talking!

So what do you suppose the bell/whistle is for issue # 10 on the stands tomorrow? If you guessed Wolverine appearance, you're pretty bright, but also wrong. Marvel moved the price point down from $3.99 to $2.99.

Yeah. Let me repeat that, because I know some of you are unconscious from falling over backwards in your seats: Marvel comics moved a price point DOWN.

I don't want to overstate the case too much, but this is a wonderful and maybe unique opportunity to show Marvel comics that PRICE MATTERS. See the prevailing wisdom is that we're all just whiners who will pay anything they slap on a Bendis book or a mini. They recognize that a scattered few will refuse to buy a book, and a few will drop a book over price. But if that number is 4%, and the price hike is 25%....well, you can see why we're all wearing a rolling pin in our ass. We've told them that we like it in the only language they understand. Sales. Money.

You want to stop the $3.99 plague and end this madness? You want your voice heard? Go to your comic shop tomorrow and buy a copy of Vengeance of the Moon Knight # 10. Tell a friend to do the same. The guy standing next to you at the rack? Use your sly silver tongue to get him to buy a copy.

This next step is very important - if you get to the store and the book is sold out, do NOT give up and think the job is done. It's not. If the book simply sells out, sales look flat. We need a spike, not a plateau in order to send the proper message. If the book is sold out, ask your retailer to order you a copy. Believe me, they will be more than happy to do so!

And listen, I'm not suggesting you support a dog. If the book were crap, I wouldn't be suggesting this tactic. Gregg Hurwitz is writing the character well, and is obviously passionate about the book. Juan Jose Ryp is an absolute bad ass. It comes out on time. This is a comic worthy of your attention, and this is a critical cause.

Marvel didn't advertise this price dip, folks. They're looking to see if you're paying attention. They're looking to see if price matters. If Vengeance of the Moon Knight goes to three printings, we will definitely have made our case! This is the era of attrition. We don't need to double sales in order to get the proper attention. (although it certainly wouldn't hurt!) Really a 5-10% increase would speak volumes. If you want cheaper comics, let's make a statement with an impact instead of simply whinging about it. Buy this comic!

- Ryan

Chronic Review: The Week That Was!

It was a big week for cats, folks. I think we all know how I feel about Dex-Starr, the red lantern kitty what pukes up rage enhanced blood on folks. He's awesome. He got a back-up origin story in the latest edition of Green Lantern.













Green Lantern # 55
DC Comics
Script: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Doug Mahnke

We get the big brouhaha with Lobo that was teased last issue, of course. Now, I know on a rational level that I should really despise Lobo. He's a low rent, low brow, previously oversaturated leftover from the 1990s. What Deadpool is now? That was this bastich in the 1990s.

I know I should despise him, but I just don't. Maybe it's the Chronic Insomnia in me that wants to forgive his lowered brow. He's fun, that's it. He's a ridiculously powerful wrecking machine with no moral compass who says a lot of naughty things, and I think there's a place for that in my heart in moderation. And I don't think we're witnessing the beginning of another deluge of the "Main Man" here. It's just a fun little guest spot.

And yes, it's fun to see Lobo cop a bigger attitude and out-Sinestro Sinestro. And you know what? It's fun to watch the jerkwad whisper obscene nothings into Carol's ear. As it turns out, there's a method behind the madness, and from a source we don't expect complex machinations from. As usual, Geoff Johns does good work.

But it's the Dex-Starr origin story that really steals the show, in my opinion. The concept of a blood-puking cat as an intergalactic threat is so absurd that I just can't help but endorse it. You spend half your time thinking to yourself; "How in the world can I take any of this seriously?" You spend the other half thinking; "There's a cat wreaking havoc with it's bloody vomit. Where has this been all my life?"
Turns out that my favorite red lantern started out as baby Dexter, just a regular old kitten. Lived in a house with some folks, everything was all right....for a bit. Horrible things happen to his housemates, and then he gets kicked out into the street, kicked in the bum, and then thrown off a bridge by some guys who just want to hear him go splat. The ring finds him just before impact.

So he's pissed. Which is understandable. His main objective is to find the people who killed his people and then choke death blood on them. He keeps getting roped into side projects by Atrocitus, of course. I don't know if this is legendary as origin stories go, but the more weight they give this character, the more I like it.













Wonder Woman # 600
DC Comics
Scripts: Gail Simone, Amanda Connor, JM Straczynski, etc.
Pencils: George Perez, Amanda Connor, Eduardo Pansica, etc.

Once again we have a major revamp story for one of the DC Trinity by JMS completely trumped by a cute little story that precedes it. Last week we had the Superman overhaul overshadowed by a Dan Jurgens story about Robin.

This week the best element of Wonder Woman's much ballyhooed kick-start is an Amanda Connor story about Power Girl's cat.

Yes, I'm being completely sincere. Nothing wrong with the Gail Simone bit, to be sure. But Amanda Connor's little piece was completely charming, and the story that I'll remember when I think of this book in the future.

After knocking around some tentacled robots, Power Girl asks Wonder Woman for a favor she can't punch her way out of...her cat is unhappy. And leaving messes all over her apartment. So Diana stops by the house, gets a read off the kitty and sets her straight.

You don't own the cat, the cat owns you. Lucky for you, Power Girl, you are his favorite thing. So if you get him in a spot with a few more natural smells and spend a little more time with him, he'll stop freshening up your furniture with his urine.

If this is what Power Girl was like for the first twelve issues, I should have been picking those up.

As for the Straczynski bit that takes a bunch of dynamite to everything we know about Wonder Woman's origin....I don't know what to think about that.

On the one hand, I guess I should expect nothing less. Perhaps even more irritating is the fact the news sites are already littered with interviews that seem to suggest that none of this is likely to stick by design. Maybe I should be impressed that we're at a stage when they're being up front about the illusion of change?

But it still feels like a waste of time to me. And this whole business about an "Odyssey" to find out "who she is" again? Tell me that we didn't just go through this with Heinberg's ill-fated arc when they last re-booted with a new # 1 issue. (entitled "Who is Wonder Woman?", for God's sake) There's just nothing about this that feels like anybody has their hands on the wheel. What it looks like to me is Straczynski doing something thematically similar to what Heinberg just did three years ago, and advertising ahead of time that none of it is going to stick. How shall I get excited about that? Because she's wearing pants now?













Astonishing X-Men # 24
Marvel Comics
Script: Warren Ellis
Pencils: Phil Jimenez

I pretty much dropped this title when Whedon left. Oh, and by the way, Whedon's big swan song with the death of Kitty Pryde? Yeah, they've already erased that "impactful" nugget.

When Ellis first took over, my podcast partner diagnosed his debut as the X-Men sitting around drinking coffee for 22 pages. That was probably a little unfair, but there wasn't anything going on there that compelled me to continue with the title.

What got my attention was the cover. The first comic I ever purchased was Uncanny X-Men # 163, a brood story. So I guess I've got a soft spot in my heart for the alien bastards.

I can't say I have a full grasp on what's going on, because I'm jumping into it at the middle. What I can tell you is that there is wonderful bout of bitching between Hank and Scott that pretty much goes in the "you got served" hall of fame. Hank just verbally takes Scott over his knee and pounds that ass until it's pink. That was more than worth the price of admission right there.

I don't generally think of Phil Jimenez as a top tier artist, but everything in Astonishing # 34 sure looks purdy. The book is still at the $2.99 price point. I'm thinking about adding it back into my mix, because I'm about character interaction, and what Ellis did here was phenomenal.

- Ryan

Chronic Review: Dream Haven!

Dream Haven
2301 E 38th St
Minneapolis, MN 55406

Last episode Mike suggested that I needed to go visit Dream Haven again, because it had been a long time. (We're talking a decade or more) I was actually under the impression that it had folded.

I'm here to tell you that Dream Haven has not only avoided folding, but is in fact the coolest comic book shop in Minnesota.

You walk in there, and instantly it just feels right. I don't know what a non comics reader feels when he or she walks in the door. But I know that as a card carrying genre nerd, this store knows their clientele and have built an absolute shrine for them.

I think the magic of Dream Haven is that none of it feels corporate or plastic, but it largely avoids that sense of "froofy" pretension that I abhor. Items are loosely grouped in ways that make intuitive sense, but there is no sense that somebody got out a sterile chart and bricked out the store with it. Everything is....comfortably chaotic.

There is SO much to explore in that space. It isn't huge in terms of square footage, but there is a reasonably large selection of new comics, back issues, trades, novels, and paraphernalia. Dream Haven scratches a few niche itches that most comic shops do not. If you're interested in the pulp heroes, boy did you find your honey hole! If you like the old Universal monsters, the back corner is for you. (Remy would blow a gasket if he walked in there)

They carry a wide selection of fantasy and science fiction novels, and most of what they have is out of print. George RR Martin, HP Lovecraft, Dr. Who, Star Trek, it's all there in flavors that aren't available at a Barnes & Noble or even a shop like The Source. Dream Haven has a relationship with Neil Gaiman, and they have a ton of signed items available. That's pretty cool.

I have a kind of sixth sense, a heightened sense of anticipation whenever I walk into a previously unexplored bookstore. Dream Haven about popped my pineal gland, because you get the feeling that anything could be there. I don't care if you're a newbie or a seasoned book scout, when you visit that store you will see something that you didn't know existed, and it will set off your wonderment synapses.

It's all reasonably priced, and there are specials everywhere. That Spider-Woman HC with the motion comic DVD? I don't know if they ordered too many or if they just run deals, but that brand new $29.99 book was sitting on the shelf for less than ten dollars. Mine! They have a few long boxes of 1970s comics in ridiculously nice condition marked at way less than Overstreet. (Batman, Supergirl, Sgt. Fury, Defenders, World's Finest, you name it) I found a collection of "Tilting at Windmills" columns in a box marked down to $2, and snapped it up immediately.

The store has a pitch perfect attitude. When I walked in there, I was left to my own devices, but the help was very kind to me when I approached. I was privy to a pretty hilarious conversation in the back regarding polls demonstrating how stupid Americans are. Absolutely precious. When you get to the cash register, there is a small note posted that reads "We promise we will not interrupt your cell phone conversation. That would be rude." This is the comic shop I was born to patronize.

Dream Haven does offer a discount program. For $3 you get a 10% discount on anything in the store for three months. Needless to say I brought a stack of treasures up to the counter that made the discount card an easy decision.

I'm not sure that I have much to say about the downsides here. They don't have the trade selection that Big Brain does, they don't carry as many new books as The Source, they don't have the toys that Hot Comics carries. No comic shop is or should attempt to be comprehensive, though. Dream Haven gets all the important notes so very right. If you're in the metro and haven't checked in lately, do it yesterday.

- Ryan

10,007 Listens in 10 months.

Chronic Insomnia has reached a huge milestone. We've just surpassed 10,000 channel listens on our podcast website. That's huge for us. That means in 10 months with Podbean we've gotten 1,000 listens a month. On top of that our downloads have reached a new average high. We see around 125 downloads a week now. As far as Comic Book podcasts go, this is square in the middle of the range, but as far as what we think, IT'S INCREDIBLE! Lots of podcasts are more popular than us, but we'd take our loyal followers over their mass strangers any day of the week. We've always felt as though we were a cult type show and that's the way we like it.

We want to thank you from the bottom of our filthy little hearts. The story of Chronic Insomnia is long and boring so I will spare you the details, but since June 2007, we've had a great time bringing you filth and vulgarity each and every week.

We have to tip our hat to our good friends in Canada for getting us at least 30 of those downloads a week. I know in some way we've helped them get a few listeners also. It's a great relationship and we might give each other a hard time each week, but in the end we're all good friends and it's just good natured ribbing.

So for those of you out there listening to our show, please know that we appreciate ALL of you and wish you the best. Thanks for giving us a platform to express ourselves and don't worry, we won't change. We're too old to do something that drastic. We love the all of you.

Michael

The New Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman # 600 hits stands tomorrow, and while I was correct in mentioning that this is Gail Simone's farewell performance, I was incorrect in stating that it's a hello for Grant Morrison. Chalk it up to sleep deprivation, I guess, since we've already reported the news that Morrison is still slated for a Wonder Woman story, but that it appears so bizarre that DC is unwilling to let it stand in continuity.

So who is taking over the mighty Diana? Why, none other than JM Straczynski, of course! Why not just give him Batman, too, he can have the whole DC trinity and they can start calling him Geoff Johns?

The picture above is Wonder Woman's new 21st century digs as redesigned by one Jim Lee. Call me a pig, but the pants gotta go. Actually, it isn't even so much the pants, but the fact that I can't tell where the pants stop and booties begin. Lee isn't going to be pencilling the book, so maybe that will end up being clear in the actual comic. Much appreciated is the new rings that will stencil a "W" in your face if she punches you. Now that I'm on board with!

So JMS talked about his re-boot with comic book resources and had some of the most brutally kind words about past caretakers I've ever heard:

"In terms of character, I decided to circle in to try and figure out what needed to be addressed and what didn't. Diana is one of the DC Trinity, and should be selling as many copies a month as those other guys. But the book hovers in the low 70s/high 80s, and for the last year or two has been hemorrhaging 500-1000 readers per month. That means that those who are reading are dialing out, and nobody new is checking it out. What this suggests is that the stories are becoming too insular, they're not accessible, and there's nothing going on that will get somebody who hasn't picked up an issue to do so.

This coincided with my sense that, as happens from time to time with characters, Diana had gotten buried beneath years of mythos, backstory, supporting characters and an environment that required a lot of familiarity from the reader that made it a bit inaccessible to casual readers. There's nothing inherently right or wrong with any of that, in sum or in pieces...Gail in particular was and is a terrific writer and did some great stories during her tenure...it's just a matter of one kind of storytelling that is designed to bring in new readers, vs one that is aimed at retaining the current readers. You need both of those at various points.

What I finally came away with was a sense of a character who had kind of ossified within the pages of her own book not through any fault of her own, but because the world she occupied had constricted around her. As I've noted elsewhere, she became this Ferrari that everybody kept in the garage rather than taking it out on the open road. A Ferrari in the garage is safe...but that's not what a Ferrari is for."

Couple of interesting items in there for me. I don't know how exact or how literally JMS is quoting his sales figures, but they seem mighty off to me. He seems to suggest that Wonder Woman sells between 75,000-80,000 copies, and that these numbers pale in comparison to Superman and Batman.

In point of fact, Wonder Woman sells less than 30,000 copies a month, at least according to what Diamond reports, which admittedly is an estimate, and admittedly isn't everything. But if you think Wonder Woman is selling more than double what Diamond is reporting, well, you're just fooling yourself. Over the past year, Wonder Woman has been "hemorrhaging" an average of 500 copies per month, so he's correct on that count.

Incidentally, JMS seems to believe that 80K is peanuts in comparison to Superman and Batman numbers....they wish! Batman & Robin is the top ongoing Batman seller, and that does hover around 100,000. But the regular Batman book hovers around 60,000.

And Superman? Forget about it! Superman can't get a sniff of 80,000, even as an event mini-series. You're looking at 40k tops for the Man of Steel. One of two things is happening here. Either the Diamond numbers aren't an accurate measure of comics sales at all, or Straczynski doesn't have a good grasp on the reality of today's market.

I think it's funny that in the middle of him quietly ripping the previous regimes to shreds, he throws in the fact that Gail Simone is a wonderful writer. You read between the lines, though, and he's pretty clear about the fact that Gail is wonderful writer who:

writes insular, inaccessible stories

write stories that don't attract new readers

"ossified" the character (made it rigid, translation: "dull")

created a world that restricted the character

turned Wonder Woman into a garaged Ferrari

Now...does that sound like a wonderful writer to you? Granted, he wasn't singling out Gail there, I guess you could say he took a giant crap on Greg Rucka and George Perez, too! But he sure didn't exclude her from any of that analysis, either.

Incidentally, I don't have a problem with JMS saying any of that. Those are his opinions, and there may be validity to some or all of them. The golden heyday of comics was the 1950s, when continuity wasn't even on the menu. You could pretty much pick up anything of the rack and dive right in.

By today's standards of sophistication, those stories were absolute childish rubbish. But they had the potential for mass appeal that most of today's comics do not. Hand an issue of Uncanny X-Men to a comics newbie. I dare you.

And that's largely what Straczynski is talking about, and it's not really Gail's fault. We are sort of stuck in this horrible place where if you avoid continuity, your inbred audience of 50,000 virgins shakes the pillars of the internet with rage. But what happens if you feed your base what they want, which is a deepening of the established traditions?( some of which now carry sixty or more YEARS of baggage) Now you've pretty much ostracized any new readership, because they have no interest in doing masters degree level continuity research so that they can pay $4 for 22 pages of funny book fantasy.

It is quite the conundrum, and it is solvable with something like Marvel's Ultimate Comics line....for awhile. The funny thing is, those titles have now accrued enough continuity that the cure has become another strain of the disease. Can you hand a newcomer a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man right now and expect them to swim? Really?

And that's the pickle we're in. Write to the last dying dinosaurs and watch yourself go extinct, or piss of your dinosaurs to try and lure in new readers who don't seem to exist and really implode. The solution of course is to introduce comics to folks who don't ordinarily read comics.

If only there were some other medium, like say, a house that showed moving pictures. Perhaps some of these moving pictures, we'll call them movies for short, actually featured some of these comic book characters, and then the movies would point those eyes toward a comic shop at some point. Ah, but that would only have a real impact if a large number of people went to see these "comic book movies".

Oh, wait. You mean Dark Knight did about half a billion at the box office? Oh, shit, guess we should have done something about that. Incidentally, when I went to see Jonah Hex, there was a lobby full of tiny kids in karate uniforms for a local Tae Kwon Do school advertising their services. Not one hint of a comic shop with Jonah Hex trades, though. Or Iron Man. It's absurd. The whole thing is patently absurd. But I digest.

Wonder Woman # 600 hits tomorrow, let's see what JMS does with his little Ferrari in sensible slacks....

- Ryan

Photos from Issue # 147 Hair Watch 2010!

Check out Ryan's sexy hair. Is he the sexiest man alive?
I'm not sure about you but it's hard to look at Ryan and not want to immediately screw the crap out of him.

Chronic Review: I Zombie # 2!

I Zombie # 2
DC Comics/Vertigo Imprint
Script: Chris Roberson
Pencils: Mike Allred
22 pages for $2.99

I'm not sure if I tore into this book on the show when it first hit stands, but I remember being disgusted when I saw the title in Previews. "I Fucking Zombie! Are you shitting me? Does the world really need one more goddamn title about shambling death!"

I vowed then that I would have absolutely nothing to do with the book, even though the first issue was offered at a dollar. That was probably a mistake.

The thing of it is, when you crack open Roberson's I Zombie, you quickly discover that it isn't really a zombie book, at least not in the traditional sense. This is not survival horror, or particularly interested in gore. This is a world-building mystery book.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Gwen, the leader character, is forced to imbibe some brains once a month or she does fall into the old shambling mound of the grotesque variety. One gets the feeling though that she would really just like to paint. The thing of it is, when Gwen does chow down on some brains, she ends up absorbing some of her victim's memories, and hijinx do tend to ensue.

It's a cute little hook, and it's a cute little book. It's not changing the way we look at comics or anything, nor should it have to. The brain eating bit isn't new, it sounds a lot like Tony Chu over at image, and the memory absorption bit is a lot like Rogue, and the nerdy friends act a lot like the guys over at NBCs Chuck, and the paranormal hunters act a lot like....well, you get the picture.

I zombie is a pastiche of stuff you've seen before, with a little bit of a twist, and filtered through the delightfully quirky pencils of Mike Allred, and when you put it all together, many of the pieces seem familiar, but the quilt is it's own entity that feels sort of comfy.

There is a density to this book that I wish more titles would emulate. Most comics you pick up off the rack leave you waiting for the good idea. This one is bursting with oddities. You've got Gwen the zombie and her pal the ghost. (Ghosts can't go anywhere past their living memories geographically) You have the severe looking weirdness hunters, a love interest for Gwen and his two nerd friends. You've got a bizarre looking mummy dude who makes dinner for some kind of leopard creature that he speaks to as if they've been married for some time.

There's a pack of vampire chicks who look like bloodsucking sorority sisters, and they're trying to pragmatically carve out a sustainable feeding system around the tourism industry. You've got the A plot, which is a mystery revolving around the death of the guy who used to own the brain in Gwen's belly. All of this is in one issue, folks. I think Chris Roberson is fit to pop with all the ideas running around his brain, and he can sustain this book joyfully for 100 issues or more, I would wager. That kind of energy is contagious.

So there you have it. If you were avoiding this title because there's only so many zombies you can stomach, I don't think you need to worry. Maybe I should have just trusted Karen Berger? I felt I got more value out of I Zombie than just about anything else I read this month, (Secret Six and Fantastic Four notwithstanding) and really, if Roberson pumps a couple of fresh surprising additions into the mythos he's building, this book could be really special.

- Ryan

PS: Probably a good book to hand somebody with a uterus, too.