Jazzlawyer

July 6, 2010 12:46 pm I'm much too excited for this comic (Children's Crusade).  

July 6, 2010 12:41 pm

I wrote about digital comics a few months ago (http://www.straight.com/article-299459/vancouver/comic-publishers-sketchy-digital-future) and the sense that I got was that the reason we're seeing so many herm "classic" books versus recent comics is because the publishers are really trying to ease the retail community into this.  They're looking at digital as a way of reaching new readers, who might not care about current stories.  To these, somewhat mythological, new readers it doesn't matter that Civil War or House of M are years old because they're still all new to the new readers.

 Meanwhile for readers like those on sites like this we've read the books in floppies, maybe already bought the trade and the hardcover.  I downloaded (the original) New Avengers #1 and realized that I've bought the book four times now.  

I'm glad to see DC going day-and-date with at least one comic (JLA: Generation Lost).  I'm afraid that trying to coddle the retails through the digital revolution is going to make it harder to catch up later.  An app like ComicZeal lets users read any comic saved in either .cbr or .cbz format and so it's really easy to get free pirated comics.  If that's what people get used to, it'll be as struggle to get them back to paying $1.99. 

Which, and I don't think you mentioned it, isn't a bad price.  If all comics were out-day-and-date for that price I'd certainly go completely digital.  Which is exactly what the retailers don't want to hear.

August 31, 2009 11:57 pm

@WinTheWonderboy

I think we've seen DC being as adventurous with its icons, or more so, than Marvel ever has been with its.  I mean The Dark Knight was hardly a kid's book.   

 @ThePunisherMAX

Man that ship has sailed, comics are $3.99 now, face it.

 

Also I'm sure this will be exciting for Stan Lee's lawyers, they now have someone new to sue for payment for inventing Spider-Man, the FF and so on. 

August 31, 2009 11:47 pm

@WinTheWonderboy

Then your sadness began years ago.  Sure I'd love for Bendis to be doing dirty filthy comics, but that's why we have Powers.  And I bet you despite being owned by Mickey Mouse, that doesn't go anywhere anytime soon.  Well the fact that it comes out once every 8 months probably will help keep it under their radar. 

August 31, 2009 11:39 pm

@WinTheWonderboy

Jimski is exactly right, Spider-Man appeared in the book only sort of sideways, as Peter Parker in one scene, and Captain America was only in a few scenes.  Also there's a world of difference between The Boys and Alias.  Yeah we can assume that Jessica Jones had rough sex, but it was never shown.  The same rules are going to apply, and assuming otherwise like you are is just fear mongering.  Any public thing we've seen from Disney or Marvel has said that it's business as usual editorially.

Look Disney does a lot of things I don't like, such as fuck up ending the concept of public domain by having the US government keep extending it beyond Walt's death to protect Mickey Mouse, but it's not going to ruin Marvel.  In fact don't forget that this isn't the Disney you might be familiar with.  Steve Jobs is its largest shareholder and John Lasseter from Pixar is in creative control of the animation studio. It's a much more youthful and forward thinking company than it was years ago.  Sure Brian Bendis' "I hate God and all you Christians" comic that Marvel WAS going to publish will have to be an Icon book but other than that... 

August 31, 2009 11:08 pm My belief is that Ellis really doesn't like writing superhero comics and tends to spend too much of his time looking down on it.  Reading any of his mainstream superhero work for me has always made me feel like the sub-text is saying, "Boy you're stupid for liking this, but you want your stupid hero shit, well here it is asshole."  After awhile it gets frustrating and apart from his run on Iron Man I've really disliked all of his Marvel work.  I loved Whedon, but I dropped this two issues in.

August 31, 2009 11:02 pm

@WinTheWonderboy

 

Really?  I doubt that.  Look WB has owned DC for years and they've still done things like allow Batman to be killed off, allowed Frank Miller to turn Batman into an abusive kidnapper in All-Star, do The Dark Knight and other books.  They still have nudity and sex in Y: The Last Man, and that's a DC Comics owned by WB.  So why we all assume that Disney is going to insist that Marvel put Mickey and Minnie in every book and scrub everything shiny clean is beyond me.

In the short term we won't even notice the difference.  In the long term Marvel will have the kind of distrubtion/marketing power that DC has, in terms of a dedicated presence in Disney Stores and being able to produce their own movies without needing outside investment.  If anything this is more power to Marvel Studios to make a great Avengers movie, and more power for in a few years us to see some really good Marvel Animated fare like we had from DC/WB with the Batman/Superman/Justice League cartoons from Timm/Dini.

Marvel's always been careful with their characters, and that'll continue.  Alias never had Spider-Man using a bong or swearing at children and won't in the future.  Nothing is going to change for the worse, seriously.  

Though the thought of Pixar's John Lasseter involved with a Marvel cartoon is sending me into spasms of geek joy.  Also with Steve Jobs now the largest shareholder in Marvel Comics, thanks to his position as the largest shareholder in Disney, perhaps a special edition Shadowcat iPhone (please).

May 13, 2009 7:28 pm

Saw it, loved it.  Saw it again and noticed stuff I missed (the missing beagle that Scotty transported away being Archer's from Enterprise for example).

I saw the GI Joe trailer both times and it just does not look good.  They should have gone realistic, gritty Bourne Identity-like with the GI Joe movie rather than what looks like a bunch of models running around in weird suits of armour.  And putting the title card "From the director of the Mummy" up really isn't selling anyone on anything.

May 13, 2009 7:18 pm

I was thinking about this today as I tried to shuffle last week's books out of the way so I could pick up this week's.  With my fiancee moving in after our wedding, I'm having to find new ways to handle years worth of comic collecting and have gotten to the point where driving to the nearest children's hospital and dropping off a car load of longboxes is becoming an option.

If comics don't go digital, fully digital, then I might not last more than another year or two.  My finacee is already grumblling about the costs of comics at a time when we're trying to save for the wedding and perhaps a year living in the UK, and so... well it's a fight I might lose.

I've actually quiet enjoyed the experiance of reading comics on my iPhone, and have liked the DVD collections of Marvel books that I've bought.  If there was a current issue download service I'd buy my books there.  Make it like iTunes and I'll be reading comics until I'm 99.  But the stacks of boxes in my storage space just is not going to last much longer.

May 13, 2009 7:10 pm

I caught the comment on this week's podcast and it made me laugh.  This was a great article.

 I had pretty much left Star Trek behind, since obviously nothing new was coming out and my nerd centre of my brain was being taken up by the comic books that Trek had initially replaced when the '90s chased me away. 

 How dorky was I?  I wore a Star Trek uniform to high school, and not just on Halloween but during a regular school day.  Granted it was the day that All Good Things was airing and I was "commemorating" the end of TNG, but yeah nobody else knew that.  And of course I took shit for the next year and a half until I graduated, but then again I knew I would.

Seeing Star Trek being popular, in as much as it is, is actually nice in my mind.  If the new film is a gateway drug to either the original series or one of those that followed it (especially TNG and DS9) then that's great.  If it means they'll make another movie, that's great.  If it brings forth another TV show one day, that's even better.  My inner nerd brain needs some new Star Trek, I need a reason to horrify (and sadden) my fiancee by buying a new Trek uniform.  If that means some punk kids like Star Trek along with the Spongebob and President Obama, then I'm willing to accept that.