jason1749

July 16, 2012 12:21 pm ASM was a fine movie, but sadly it was only the fourth-best Spider-Man movie to come out in the last ten years. It was pretty obvious that huge parts of the movie were chopped out in post-production with characters that disappeared for huge swaths of the film (Gwen) and ones that just disappeared all-together (Osborn's henchman). It just lacked a lot of the fun that Raimi's first film had and more than anything, Webb's direction lacked any amount of style. While I realize that Marvel has made serious bank off of using directors who fit into their house style, Raimi's Spider-Man movies were the best-looking Marvel movies we've gotten and there's just nothing special looking about this new one. The one good thing about DC's movies has that they've largely, for good or ill, been auteur-based. Allowing Burton, Schumacher, Donner and Nolan to adopt their own style and create their own worlds was what made a lot of those movies truly special.

March 14, 2012 1:45 pm This is incredibly sad. How many times a month do we hear of comics creators getting screwed out of credit or money? How many times do we hear of creators in dire predicaments because companies forced bad contracts on them or even worse, refuse to honor the contracts they have signed in good faith? If you think not reporting these things is bad, or could lose you friends, well get out. Just go away because you are a sad selfish individual who should think about what has gone wrong in your life that seeing some comics pages early is better than doing what is right. Who wins a fight in a comic is not "news", if that's what you think "news" is you're not very good at your job. Real, true comics journalism needs to exist because it is one of the few things that can force this sorry industry into being better than it is. If you can't get that, or understand that and think it is somehow a bad thing, you need to get bent.

January 23, 2012 3:05 pm DC has kids comics that directly tie-in to the series. My boys love the Brave and the Bold comic and it's a shame it's almost over but hopefully there will be a new Batman series to tie into the cartoon coming this Summer. It is too bad there hasn't been a Marvel comic to tie into the Avengers cartoon other than a four issue mini.

January 23, 2012 3:03 pm Definitely recommend you give Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade a try. It's an excellent comic that my 8 year-old son loved and I thought was great. The Wonder Woman Showcase volumes would be good and there's going to be a collection of the 12 Labors of Wonder Woman from the 1970's that would probably be a hoot for kids.

December 5, 2011 2:46 pm Unfortunately, except for the magazine-format reprint that Marvel put out, all of the Boom! Studios Muppets comics are out of print. Would've been nice for Marvel or Disney to think about maybe having them ready for the increased interest from the movie.

October 4, 2011 2:20 pm "The genre books, which looked like the most able to convince people that comic books don’t necessarily have to mean superheroes. Yet they all tied back into the shared universe, making sure to appease the existing comic book reader." But here's the thing DC's reboot was about pulling all of their comics into a shared universe. If you want comics that are from a wide range of genres and not tied into that Universe, DC publishes and entire imprint just waiting for those readers. Vertigo comics does everything you say you want DC to do. DC Comics right now is about building their universe, tied together, over multiple genres (minus a romance book, mind you). But when talking DC, you cannot discount what vertigo is doing on the other side of the office. I realize your article is about DC not doing what you specifically want DC to do for you, but the problem is that they're doing it. You just are ignoring it.

August 29, 2011 3:41 pm I don't know that this is a new thing from Marvel's side of the aisle. Their editors, specifically Brevoort, CB Cebulski and Steven Wacker, have long been using twitter to take potshots at their competition and other petty bulls---. DC has generally tried to rise above that stuff, probably because they are more corporately controlled than Marvel has been (who knows if Disney is going to step in eventually). However, I did find this recent letter from DC's SVP of Sales, John Rood interesting for specifically targeting Marvel, their "point one" initiative and the see-sawing price of their X-titles: http://bit.ly/qX48gy Mostly ,it's ugly when this stuff is aired out in public and no matter who's right, I generally think less of all involved. There's a reason I don't follow anyone from Marvel editorial on twitter, they often come off as shrill, petty people who would rather say crappy things about the other guy that talk up their own work. The only editors whose feeds I really enjoyed (Jim McCann & Nate Cosby) ended up leaving the company, so that says something to me.

July 26, 2011 4:35 pm "There’s been some criticism of their soundbites from the panel cropping up on a few blogs that I think is unfounded, given the nature of internet reporting." It'd be interesting if  you'd address some of those sound bites that did get a lot of criticism from other parts of the web. From your write-up and the write-up of others, it sounds like you all attended different panels. While I can understand that people see and hear different things, I'd like to see those other opions challenged rather than just written off out of hand. 
 
Is there a pocast of this panel out there? I'd like to hear it. 

February 15, 2011 4:43 pm Finder is a pretty fantastic series. I've read a few of the old trade collections and am glad Dark Horse is re-releasing them.  Check out Dark Horse's web site to see some exerpts from the new book: http://www.findercomics.com/story/

November 19, 2010 2:59 pm Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes.  It tells fun adventure stories that revolve around the characters.  Each issue is self-contained yet there is a larger plot at work in the background.  It includes disaparate characters that are not normally given a chance to shine on their own (Invisible Woman for one) and it's just an incredibly enjoyable read.