Nothing really.

There aren't any series I regularly follow anymore, nor any high profile graphic novels on the horizon to get excited about.

On the other hand, I'm sorely tempted to take advantage of the weak dollar (puny dollar can't hurt Hulk!) to pick up some suddenly not so expensive anymore trade paperbacks from Amazon, like some of those Krazy Kat collections.
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 09.28.07 - 4:03 am | #

if anything as Xmas draws ever nearer and Dr WHo DVDs come out more frequently I am looking to cut down on my regular funny books.
Richard | 09.28.07 - 4:31 am | #

Much like Mr. Wisse, I find myself less and less interested in actually reading comics than in reading about comics. With the exception of catching up on some strip collections (Peanuts, Krazy Kat) and a lingering intention to buy the Fourth World omnibuses, I don't really have any "must buys" on my radar. My enthusiasm for the Big Two superhero comics has waned considerably, which is disappointing. DC's endless crossover plodding seems to be largely resulting in a certain haziness of identity for any character that isn't the top-tier A-list (Kyle Rayner is, what? A Corpsman? Ion? Going on a multiverse jaunt with two characters that don't matter?), and a dogged faith to a highly specific vision for the rest. I find that I enjoyed it more when there was more a sense that characters could drift gently around their identity, instead of either not having an anchor, or being tied so closely to it.

For Marvel, I'm almost ashamed to admit that the Spidey-spoilers from LitG have just utterly dissipated my enthusiasm for the company. I don't even follow the Spider-books, but the sense of arbitrary editorial fiat involved is just so overwhelming that I can't help it. While I realised intellectually that the creative direction of any given character or line of books came significantly from editorial and corporate interests, seeing it so obviously and--if I read my spoilers correctly--clumsily done kills my suspension of disbelief--my sense that there is some significant creative voice from those actually receiving writer and various art-related credits. It stops feeling like pop super-trash and more like what, I suppose, it is in the companies' eyes: marketing and development for other products.

I still have my JLU DVDs, I suppose, and I'm sure that something will draw me back to the stands in the next few years. In the meantime, I'm just sort of hanging around comics out of a combination of inertia and love of the people more than of comics themselves.
Derek B. Haas | 09.28.07 - 6:32 am | #

I'm with Derek about most new stuff. On the other hand, I do get excited about some older stuff being conveniently reprinted, e.g. Grendel, Nexus, the early Madman stuff, Byrne's Superman work.
Chaz Ervin | 09.28.07 - 6:41 am | #

Marvel published "Essential Defenders" volumes two and three, covering the Steve Gerber years. At last I have in my own nerdly hands the story where Nighthawk's brain is in a bowl, a villain's brain has been transplanted in his body, and the villain's mind has been transferred into the body of a baby deer by a peeved Dr. Strange. The villain, trapped in the body of a fawn, spent several issues wandering around, pissed off and trying to bite people. Meanwhile, Valkyrie's body's husband had his mind transposed into the villain's brain in Nighthawk's body, and flew back to infiltrate the bad guys, who included a guy who had a human head on a gorilla body.

It's so freakin' sweet I could cry.
Harvey Jerkwater | Email | 09.28.07 - 7:32 am | #

Wonky publishing schedules plus the troubling rise in books with a $3.99 cover price finally did me in last week. I obsessively make a list every Sunday from the larger "shipping this week" list my comic shop so kindly sends out (Zanadu, downtown Seattle -- can I plug?). I finished my list and if I were to get everything on it I would have had to spend $80. I "postponed" purchasing nine books which I suspect are going to become "dropped" before I get around to buying them. And I'm not a "wait for the trade" type of person. If I was able to skip it monthly, why should I be interested when it's collected?
philip | Homepage | 09.28.07 - 11:52 am | #

Holy crap, I'm so excited for a new Wild Cards book! Thanks for the heads up.
zack soto | Email | Homepage | 09.28.07 - 12:18 pm | #

If you're tired of the Zombie variants, you'll get a kick out of this week's Teen Titans #51. Supergirl and Wonder Girl take a jab at the overly used zombies lately with a little jest about the Starro's making people zombie-like. It's a cute scene and made me think of Marvel instantly.

As to what's on my mind with comics? Sinestro Corps War in Green Lantern and the silent delay of GLC this week probably was my biggest let down.

Excited about Brand New Day in Spider-man. Terrified of One More Day. Willing to put up with it just to get to Slott / McNiven though.

Finally, Conquest is looming with the mini-series all wrapping up in the next month. Annihilation was one of my favourite events and I hated cosmic stories before it came out. Really anticipating the actual series.

Kirk Warren
The Weekly Crisis
www.weeklycrisis.com
Kirk Warren | Email | Homepage | 09.28.07 - 2:49 pm | #

For those who are interested, there is a new Wild Cards RPG in the works as well ...

http://johnjosmiller.livejournal...l.com/ 2745.html

Personally I don't do the roleplaying thing, but as part and parcel of this project John Jos. Miller is writing a comprehensive guidebook of the WC universe, which he says will be something to be enjoyed by any Wild Card fan, not just the roleplaying type.

It sounds pretty cool!
Jason Powell | Homepage | 09.28.07 - 3:04 pm | #

What's with a dozen people randomly coming into the store lately to tell me that they/their uncle/cousin/best pal has a copy of Action Comics #1 and they'd like to know how much it's worth? Is this a new meme?
Verbatim | Email | 09.28.07 - 7:57 pm | #

THANK YOU!

I really want to read Uncanny, but as a trade guy, I not only have to wait for the trade, I also have to wait for the soft cover trade, so one book every 10 months......
Kairow | Email | 09.28.07 - 9:46 pm | #

Lately I have found that the best series that are coming out are from Dark Horse, Image, Boom and other small publishers. After years of reading never ending stories I prefer characters that change and grow over time and stories with endings.
Jim | Email | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 5:42 am | #

"What are you worried/excited/disgusted/terrified/happy/crazy about in the funnybook world?"

Just finished reading all of the Seven Soldiers of Victory books back to back and for the first time. I thought that they were worth while.

But I wonder why I knew that the Huntsman/Nebula failed to kill the stepdaughter and replaced her bloody organ with a phony but the Wicket Stepmother didn't...

I'll bet if I sent a Huntsman go out to kill my stepdaughter, and then years later heard folktales about a huntsman that got weak-kneed about the bloody task, I would have put two and two together.

But other than that, I enjoyed it although I am still not sure what the hell was going on.

-- SCAM
so-called "Austin Mayor" | Email | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 3:43 pm | #

Mike, even if the customer was confused and didn't have a "Spider-Man" comic from the thirties, any book from the thirties would be very valuable and a good pick-up (especially if it's in good condition.) Maybe you shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss him and figured out which character it actually is.
Roel | 09.29.07 - 6:27 pm | #

I'm failing miserably in my buy less comics regime (financially inspired) as I see more and more just-fun superhero comics come out from both of the big two.

I suspect in the next month I'll be regularly picking up:

- Blue Beetle (been dabbling, but not committing)
- Ms. Marvel (been committing and particularly loving the inclusion of Aaron Stack into the cast - Ellis's legacy is being respected very well)
- Thunderbolts (what can I say? I'm an Ellis fan)
- perhaps The Initiative (it's a Slott thing) as well.

I'm not so interested in the overaching continuity of the respective universes these books play out it (that's what scans_daily is for), so what's good for me about these books is that even when they're tied in they stand alone really well.
adam | Email | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 7:20 pm | #

Roel - It's a good thing, then, that I didn't dismiss him, and encouraged him to bring more of his books in, including the mysterious "1937" "Spider-Man" so that we could see what it actually was (and on the off-chance that he might actually have comics that were in close to sellable condition).
Mikester | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 10:10 pm | #

"Customers"--and I apply the quotes here because they never, ever actually buy anything--never, ever have any comics from the thirties.

The ones they claim to have "from the thirties" are issues of Warlock and the Infinity Watch every single time. It's like clockwork.
Chris Sims | Email | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 10:17 pm | #

Chris - Almost mentioned that..."from the 1930s" means, at least around our parts, "from the 1970s."

I'm still waiting to see one of those "original Superman #1s" that many of our store's visitors over the years have sworn up and down that they have.
Mikester | Homepage | 09.29.07 - 10:30 pm | #

I was recently going through some old books and came across that 1999 Chronicle Superman boxed set by Les Daniels that included a Superman statue, book and...and this is the important bit...a facsimile, comic-book-sized reprint edition of SUPERMAN #1. It's complete with ads and the only sign that it's a reprint is small-print indicia on the inside front cover.

Betcha donuts to dollars some people saying they have SUPERMAN #1 actually have that.
Bully | Email | Homepage | 09.30.07 - 6:53 am | #

Voila.
Bully | Email | Homepage | 09.30.07 - 7:10 am | #

Those facsimile comics rock, Bully!

Why couldn't there be more of them?

DC should re-release them in Previews.

This is what the fans really want....
Elemental Universe | Homepage | 09.30.07 - 9:20 am | #

I'm looking forward to how Tad Williams wraps up Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis. It's so typical that a series gets cancelled as soon as it shifts in high gear and brings back the Human Flying Fish.

I'm also looking forward to Graveslinger, which combines two of my favorite genres, '76, which looks exploit-tastic, and Misericordia, which shares its name with a liberal arts college in upstate New York.
Luke | Email | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 6:08 am | #

I was flipping through JLoA #13 this afternoon, and the "flying blood" thing when people get punched (Dr. Light loses about two pints to Black Canary, and Grodd even gets a tooth knocked out) rather irks me, and it's something you see quite a bit these days.

It's not some kind of "think of the children" reaction per se, but generally speaking, cartoon action violence is fun, "realistic" violence with long-term medical consequences not so much. Give me Batman punching a dude and leaving behind one of those little semi-motivated explosions any day.

On the flipside, I'm looking forward to Brand New Day. That FCBD story was light, fluffy, accessible, and thumping good fun. And on the possible undoing of the marriage, I grew up with it (I'm 23) and have always liked it, but if Marvel creative has some pathological mental block where they refuse to do fun Spider-Man stories if he isn't a swingin' single guy, I say just do whatever you need to do so we can get to the point where he can fight Swarm or the Looter for an issue, okay? We'll compromise.
Justin | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 1:21 pm | #

You know, I can't remember the last time I even visited my comic shop, much less actually ordered anything. Shows how excited I am by things any more. If it weren't for old stuff, I probably wouldn't be into comics at all any more.
eddie mitchell | Email | Homepage | 10.01.07 - 3:24 pm | #

Wait? Ms. Tree novels? Without Beatty delineations? What?
philippos42 | Email | Homepage | 10.06.07 - 12:33 am | #