Sunday, July 22, 2012

Comic-Con

I know I'm a bit late with this but here's some thoughts I had on this year's Comic-Con. First up, watching the news from it and seeing all the pictures really gets me eager for Fan Expo to get started, even if Fan Expo really can't compare. There were a few comic tidbits from the show that I was interested in, I don't really remember being interested in the comic announcements of previous years. Most of the Marvel/DC stuff just went in one ear and other the other ("Oh, more Avengers vs X-Men stuff/fallout? Yippee!", "More sneak peeks at Before Watchmen stuff? Yay!") though I am curious what Dale Keown will be doing with Marvel, I figure it has to be just covers. I will be picking up the A-Babies vs X-Babies because I'm funny that way. And I'm probably going to pick up the Red She-Hulk series (once she takes over for the Red Hulk in his book), Matt Fraction really made her more interesting to me in the Defenders book. Image announced a fair amount of books though. It's interesting to see some new creators going their way.

I think that if Image plays their cards right, and with a bunch of creators talking more and more about doing creator owned stuff, they might start giving Marvel and/or DC a real run for their money in terms of unit sales and money. The "Big Two" may not be Marvel and DC in a couple years. Though Marvel or DC could try to counter this with their own creator owned stuff (DC could make Vertigo more creator owner friendly), but who knows.

But the big news for me was Neil Gaiman returning to Sandman next year. I was going to start a Sandman re-read in the fall (once the final book gets reprinted), maybe I'll hold off so I can finish the re-read right when this volume 0 comes out in 2013.


All in all, it looked like a pretty decent Comic-Con for comic news.


Now I have to get back to reading Locke and Key volume 5.

Monday, July 02, 2012

No excuses... Okay, some excuses

I knew it had been a while since I last posted here but I didn't realize just how long it's been. I guess I use Twitter so much to post my random thoughts that I haven't bothered to collect them in a longer blog post. And with other stuff going on in my life, I guess this blog just got brushed aside. But here's a few tidbits of what's going on.

I went to the Ottawa Comic Con (it's first year) and it was a fun time. Really well organized for its first year. Sure, it had some issues but they usually got resolved pretty quickly. I saw some people complaining about the large crowds and long lines but what's a con to do? I was able to meet Richard Starkings, Neal Adams, Adam Baldwin, and Brent Spiner. All were really great and friendly. Richard Starkings even remembered this humble blog and he let me know that Hip Flask: Ouroboros is still in the works and hopefully we can expect an announcement soon.

My "to read" pile of comics has grown pretty huge. Some of the books I've read recently (or am reading):
Wonder Woman Volume 1 - I didn't really feel it was a novel story (it was okay, it just didn't knock me over) but the writing and art was strong enough to make this book interesting. I had thought I was only going to buy the first volume but it's hooked me enough to buy the second.

Comic Book Comics Volume 1 - I started reading this when it was coming out in individual issues and then somewhere along the way I just stopped getting them. I'm not sure what happened. So I picked up the trade. It's a great visual telling of the history of comics.

DMZ Volume 12 - A solid conclusion to this series. I wasn't sure about where this book was going in earlier volumes but this wraps it all up very well.

Astro City Volume 1 - I don't know why it took me this long to check out this series. It's superheroes done really Really well.

Incredible Hulk Volume 1 - I'm trying to give this book the benefit of the doubt. I actually sort of liked the Banner/Hulk dynamic here, it was different. The art was all over the place though and really bad at times. And how Hulk and Banner were separated wasn't the strongest part of the story, I thought that was pretty lame.

And now I'm off to read Jim Henson's Tale of Sand. Archaia really is knocking it out of the park recently. Their Jim Henson books are amazing.

That's it for now, hopefully it won't be so long until my next update. I have all these comic rants built up as well as Bluenoser updates yet I never get around to posting about them. Anyways, take care.