Return

Been away for a week, hence the lack of updates. Managed to squeeze in some reading while I was on my hols - the latest Walking Dead trade + the first two volumes of 52.

All good baby!

I'm hitting the mart tomorrow - report will follow. Yeah!

In the meantime here are some pics that have been clogging up my phone...

A sad sight/site to begin with...

The empty premises of what up until recently was the excellent Playing Games, a board and roleplaying game specialist just round the corner from Gosh in Museum Street. No idea what has happened to them, I just decided to pop in for a shufty on my last visit up west and they were gone. A real loss. I bought a couple of boardgames from this shop. The downstairs section was a real treasure trove of obscure stuff.

A happier sight...

Spidey Skates! Spotted at a car boot. I didn't buy them, but they are things of beauty and as such I felt it was my duty to take a photo.

Also, from a junk shop in Green Lanes, a fab old box of VHS cassettes. Don't have a video, so no point buying anything but, as with the skates, I felt bound to take a pic of the fantastic Caine cover...

Err, that's it.

Advance Notice

I'll be at the mart on August 1st. If any of you are going and fancy a drink in the shithole of a boozer adjacent to the foyer of the Royal National let me know. We can compare our comic finds before lapsing into an uncomfortable silence and leaving.

A wonderful treat to the eyes!

Yes, while the great and the good of the comics world whack themselves off over Scott Pilgrim, I'm still thumbing through ancient superhero comics and drooling over crappy ads.

I am old.

Scan from Amazing Spider-Man #46 March, 1967

VIDEO!

Scans from 2000AD Annual 1980

Walking Back to Crappiness

I'm not the biggest comic news reader. Don't have the time. It's read the comics or read the news about comics. What you gonna do? As a result, I was largely unaware of the big Superman news until Mr Kirkham alerted me to it. To summarise, after a year or two when Superman hasn't even appeared in his own book, he's back, but instead of smashing up meteors and burning stuff with his eyes, he's walking across America.

Yes, walking.

The man who flies faster than a speeding bullet and leaps tall buildings in a single bound is going for a gentle cross-country stroll. Ridiculous. It wouldn't be so bad if during that stroll, Braniac landed on earth and smashed Supes over the head with a red kryptonite hammer, but apparently there aren't going to be any super-villains in this story.

None.

Instead, Superman is going to chat to people. That's right chat. Chat and, (these are actual plot points from the first installment, by the way), fix cars, burn drugs and comfort suicidal women. OH MY GOD!

Now, I understand that I'm sounding like some precious, entitled fanboy by slating this nonsense without even reading it, but come on! This is Superman! Why on earth would anyone want to read twelve issues of a Superman comic in which he strolls across America having mundane conversations with a bunch of nobodies? It's a stupid idea!

Not that it should surprise us given that the whole concept comes from the mind of J Michael Straczynski, the man whose most recent stories include an arc on Thor where he put Asgard in Oklahoma and had Thor eat pancakes with pensioners - or something like that, I don't know how it turned out, because after two issues without Thor hitting anyone with his fucking hammer, I gave up.

I don't have a total downer on Straczynski. He's done some good stuff (be nice if he'd finish The Twelve). Who knows, this might even be good. I've heard a few people say that Thor got better, so maybe I'm doing it a disservice. But honestly, Oklahoma? Walks? Chatting? This is the kind of bollocks my two-year-old-son comes up with. He's always pitching me this one Spider-Man story where Spidey goes to Sainsburys to buy some pasta and cake for a party at Rhino's house. Straczynski would probably nick that idea if he could. It sounds more exciting than Superman's walk, at least it's got a villain in it.

So yeah, I'm less than enthused about this thing. Part of me wants to read it to see how bad it is. But it probably won't even be "funny bad", more likely it's going to be a bunch of earnest claptrap - Superman discovering the soul of America. Christ. I know there's a place for this sort of thing, but Superman's been shit for a while now and the last thing the character needs is to slow down. What's wrong with Lex Luthor blowing up The Fortress of Solitude or Bizarro kidnapping Lois Lane? Why do we need introspection in a Superman comic? Alright, a little bit perhaps. But a whole year's worth? I say thee nay!

IT'S A SUPERHERO COMIC, PUT SOME FIGHTING IN IT!

Shopping List

Been a while since I've bored you about what I'm buying hasn't it? I know you need to know, so matchsticks in eyelids and let's go...

Conan The Cimmerian #22

Few issues behind on Conan. It doesn't matter. Conan's easy stuff, he never changes. Chopping up guards, mercenaries and sorcerers. Nicking off fat merchants. Shagging ladies who wear no bras and floaty tissue paper instead of knickers. Yeah, minimum brainpower required, I'll catch up over a flagon of mead some night.

Batman #701

What happened to Batman when he was dead, or something. I like all the Morrison Batman shit. Well, most of it - Batman 700 was a bit wank. Rubbish pin-ups, average story. Hope this will be better. Don't mind Tony Daniels' art at all. So there.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #18

All the Starro shenanigans are done and we're into this new arc about interplanetary racism and planet sharing. It's still pretty good, not stunning in the way it was during the early Starro issues, but funny and left enough of centre to keep me buying.

Strange Science Fantasy #1

I know nothing about this, but it's clearly some sort of homage to EC and that's enough for me to buy it. Hopefully it'll have lots of saucers, ugly aliens and ray-guns inside.

Bulletproof Coffin #2

Weird, exquisite mish-mash. Only issue #2, so too early to say it's something special, but it really looks like it could be. Has a sort of a Daniel Clowes vibe about it - that's what I thought anyway. First thing I'll read.

Chew #12

Behind, behind. Not feeling the same need to read this as I did when it first came out.

Invincible Iron Man #28

If it weren't for the art, this would be the best superhero book out there. This new arc is the flipping business! Tony Stark trying to rebuild Stark International from the ground up while Justin Hammer's relations set about moving in on Tony's territory with Tony's own tech. Yeah, it's another spin on Armor Wars. But it's a fucking good one!

Night Business #1 -#3

I heard about this odd little set of comics ages ago and made a mental note to pick it up if ever it should land in Blighty. Hey presto, Gosh got some copies in last week. A tribute to 1980s exploitation flicks, this looks right up my alley. Read about it here if you want.

Shooter's Page

Rain pattering on the window, couple of hours to kill - time to sift through old comics. What a fine evening of solitary nostalgia it's been, chums. Just me and the long boxes, oh yes!

I've read a bit of vintage Teen Titans, some classic entries in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, some old Spidey, a little Strontium Dog and a beat up copy of Marvel Fanfare #9 from June 1983 which includes this beauty...

Click to enlarge

Top stuff. Editor-in-chief Jim Shooter riffing on some of Marvel's most iconic characters, trying to boil them down to their essence and then trawling through the archives to find the moment when that essence was distilled in a single panel. That's dedication!

And don't forget, this is Shooter at the high point of his reign of terror, striding the corridors of Marvel, slamming his collection of "Perfect Personality-illuminating panels" down on desks, hammering home how the icons should be done. I love it.

History there baby, history!