drupal stats

The games people play

Games-cover_cmyk2-front


While I wonder what it will be like to read an 80/90s era Teen Titans story again, I really, really like this cover for Teen Titan: Games.  It's a nice design from George Perez that reminds me a lot of this other classic cover for some reason:

Nttannual2

Both covers are more than simple images that depict what's going on in the story.  The annual cover is still striking I think.  It really encapsulates the tone and mood of the story without giving anything away.

Now I really want to dig out all of my New Teen Titans and read them.  That Wolfman/Perez stuff was classic.

So what comics did you buy? A brief look at Diamond's Top 500 of 2009

I don't usually get into the sales numbers but Diamond Comics have released their Top 500 Comic Books of 2009.  Here's a couple of quick and dirty looks at what was bought by the direct market last year:

By Publisher:
Archie-- 1 book (0.20%)
Dark Horse-- 12 books (2.40%)
DC-- 170 books (34.00%)
Image-- 2 books (0.40%)
Marvel-- 315 books (63.00%)

So Marvel and DC make up 97.00% of the top 500 of 2009.  The caveat here is that 500 comic books is probably only a fraction (albeit a large fraction) of the total number of individual issues that moved through Diamond warehouses last year.  But even if we were talking the top 100 books, Marvel would still command 31% and DC only 17% of the hypothetical top 1000.  Just eyeballing that list, it's obvious that comic shops love Bendis, Johns, Brubaker and Morrison.

By Price Point:
$2.50-- 1 book (0.20%)
$2.99-- 295 books (59.00%)
$3.50-- 1 book (0.20%)
$3.99-- 190 books (38.00%)
$4.50-- 1 book (0.20%)
$4.99-- 12 books (2.40%)

So, anyone still want to argue that comics need to be cheaper?  I don't think the publishers or the distributor will agree with that.  This was the year of the $3.99 book with 9 of the top 10 books being $3.99 or more.  Even two of the $4.99 books are in the top 20. 

I'll leave it to others to analyze the total numbers, trying to figure out how many copies of each issue sold but the domination of Marvel, DC and the rise of the $3.99 price point show a top heavy direct market that's not incredibly diverse or even friendly unless you've got the backing of Warners or Disney behind you.  And is that really any surprise? 

Expect to pay more for your weekly fixes. 

Here's your top 20 books of 2009:


QUANTITY RANK    DOLLAR RANK    ITEM CODE    DESCRIPTION    PRICE    PUBLISHER
1 1 DEC088074-M  AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #583  $3.99 MAR
2 2 AUG098076-M  BLACKEST NIGHT #1  $3.99 DC
3 4 MAY098145-M  CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN #1  $3.99 MAR
4 7 APR090147-M  BATMAN AND ROBIN #1  $2.99 DC
5 3 JUN090122-M  BLACKEST NIGHT #2  $3.99 DC
6 5 SEP090092-M  BLACKEST NIGHT #5  $3.99 DC
7 6 JUL090144-M  BLACKEST NIGHT #3  $3.99 DC
8 8 AUG090086-M  BLACKEST NIGHT #4  $3.99 DC
9 9 APR098394-M  CAPTAIN AMERICA #600  $4.99 MAR
10 13 FEB098190-M  DARK AVENGERS #1  $3.99 MAR
11 28 OCT098007-M  BATMAN AND ROBIN #2  $2.99 DC
12 12 APR098072-M  BATMAN #686  $3.99 DC
13 27 JUN090439-M  CAPTAIN AMERICA REBORN #2  $3.99 MAR
14 14 NOV088149-M  FINAL CRISIS #6  $3.99 DC
15 10 JUN098464-M  AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600  $4.99 MAR
16 16 FEB090172-M  FLASH REBIRTH #1  $3.99 DC
17 48 JUL098230-M  GREEN LANTERN #43  $2.99 DC
18 56 JUN090146-M  BATMAN AND ROBIN #3  $2.99 DC
19 60 MAY090112-M  GREEN LANTERN #44  $2.99 DC
20 11 DEC082317-M  NEW AVENGERS #50  $4.99 MAR

Weekly Comic Shopping List 1/11/10

alec_cover_sc_lg.jpgtorpedovolume1_thumb.jpgbhershaw02.gif

  • Daytripper #2-- The first issue was good in a lowered expectations kind of way.  Now that the set up is kind of out of the way, I want to see if there will be any energy or liveliness in this life-flashing-before-your-eyes kind of story.
  • Complete Torpedo Vol 1 HC--  It's got Alex Toth and Jordi Bernet artwork.  That's enough for me. 
  • Grimjack Manx Cat #6-- John Ostrander and Tim Truman's latest Grimjack story is over and it's probably a good thing.  This series (originally done as a webcomic on Comix Mix hasn't been nearly as focused as their original return to the character in Killer Instinct was.  But still, I hope there's more Grimjack from the both of them in the future.
  • Ed Hannigan Covered HERO Initiative Benefit Book-- It's for the Hero Initiative which is always a good thing but hopefully this will make a lot of people interested in Ed Hannigan's artwork.
  • Agents Of Atlas Turf Wars HC-- The last half of Jeff Parker and a host of artists Agents of Atlas series.  I loved the mini and enjoyed the first part of their series which was a bit too tied into Dark Reign for me but I've been anxious to read these stories featuring the Agents and Namor, the Hulk and Suwan, Jimmy Woo's old love. 
  • No Hero TP-- Ah, more Warren Ellis Avatar stuff.  I haven't read really any of this series so I've got no idea what it is but I've liked Juan Jose Ryp's artwork elsewhere, most notably Black Summer. 

And coming from DCBS:
  • The Avenging Mind
  • The Avenging World-- Two Steve Ditko books, that feature more illustrated essays about... something other than comics.  I've heard so much of the myth of Ditko in the last 10-15 years that I'm interested to see his work again.
  • Alec: The Years Have Pants Life Size Omnibus-- Eddie Campbell's big book of collections, bringing all of his Alec and semi-autobiographical work together under one cover.  No one does autobiography like Campbell and I can't wait to dive into this book this weekend and immerse myself in it.

A tale of 2 covers-- 20th Century Boys Volume 1

?ui=2&view=att&th=1260690bd0622daa&attid=0.1&disp=attd&realattid=ii_1260690bd0622daa&zw?ui=2&view=att&th=126069162256052f&attid=0.1&disp=attd&realattid=ii_126069162256052f&zw

At least in my meager experience, when a manga finally gets translated over here in the States, the cover is almost always the same as the Japanese cover.  Looking at Naoki Urasawa's Monster and his Pluto series, the original covers and design are the same things that Viz put out when they finally translated his work.  That's good because both the original cover designs for Monster and Pluto are excellent.  I really like the proper and minimal designs for the Monster covers and the face motif of Pluto only highlights the humanity of the characters in that series.

The original cover designs for the Japanese editions of 20th Century Boys (pictured on the right above) are something completely different.  The American editions (pictured on the left) follow the basic design principals but rearrange them, trying to present something more austere, proper and, ultimately, a bit more lifeless.

The disparate elements of the Japanese cover (continued throughout the series) make it an interesting image, with the boys ready to fight, drawn in Urasawa's classic style, totally separate from the launching rocket that's the main image of the cover, a science fiction element from their childhood fantasies, perhaps.  The American edition follows suit, but makes the rocket image more reminiscent of a black & white television image from some Saturday afternoon B movie.

I've gotten used to Viz's American versions of 20th Century Boys but I miss the pop of the Japanese covers.

Weekly Comic Shopping List 1/6/09

  • Nexus Archives Vol 10 HC-- Man, I'm so far behind on these right now that I'll need a small fortune to catch up.  I'm not completely sold yet on the idea of binding comics but I'm sorely tempted to take all of my Nexus and various tie ins and create a nice library of bound books that I'll read more often than I do the comics.

  • King City #4-- These are piling up on me.  I really need to sit down and enjoy this series, don't I?  After this is done, I hope we get some more of Brandon Graham's Multiple Warheads again pretty soon.  I really dug that first issue.

  • Invincible Iron Man Vol 3 Worlds Most Wanted Book 2 HC-- I've been kind of luke warm towards Fraction and Larocca's whole run on this series and was ready to give up after Most Wanted Book 1.  But I saw the ending of this storyline and I'm curious to see how Fraction gets there. 

  • Stumptown #2--  Between this and Detective, Rucka's on a roll right now.  The first issue of Stumptown hit the sweet spot for a PI story.  I don't see any reason why this issue shouldn't.

  • Wasteland (Oni Press) #27-- So over the holidays, I finally caught up on Antony Johnson and Chris Mitten's Wasteland and I have to say that it was excellent.  Reading it in one huge chunk (the first 4 trades,) I was able to see how everything and everyone connected, something I've kind of lost in the single issues. 

  • Sicko-- According to DCBS, Andy Jewett's Sicko is shipping with this week's books (which I won't get until next week.)  I've been looking forward to getting this.

10 Years furnished with comics

There's a thread over at a forum I like asking "what comic books do you reread?"  It almost sounds like once people have a comic or a book, they read it once and then file it away somewhere on a bookshelf or in a nice longbox and never take another look at the book.  Myself, I'm always digging through boxes or searching through my shelves to find something.  Sometimes I'll reread the whole thing and other times, I'll just want to page through certain pages or scenes, loosing myself in the way a certain bit of dialogue is delivered or how a line is set perfectly on the page.

Here is a visual look at the books that I've gone back to again and again over the past 10 years.  These are the books that even now, revisiting the covers, I want to dig out and relive the stories again in them.

And, yes, I'm ripping off Johnny Bacardi and his original image-based Best Of list.

berlin.jpgt45813_20060621164849_large.jpg
a46dd71cb9305b.gifMatt%20Fraction%20Gabriel%20Ba%20Casanova%20Image%20Comics.jpg
2735_400x600.jpgacme_novelty.jpg
palomar_cover.jpgsolo12100_thumb.jpg
00069.jpg9780224071093.jpg
Gotham%20Central%20Book%20One.jpgmilligan.jpg
ellis3.jpgmonster1_500.jpg
scott-pilgrim-v5.jpgC111326.jpg
1790_400x600.jpgSpider-Man_Loves_Mary_Jane_no1.jpg
akira1.jpga443580561dd85.jpg

Welcome to 2010 and the newish Wednesday's Haul

It's a day late but it can't be too late to say "Happy New Year!"  For a while now, I've been wanting to play around a bit with Wednesday's Haul.  It's mostly cosmetic changes but I've now got a more minimal theme up and running.  Looking through it, it's handling images way better than the old one ever did.

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to be cleaning up the tags and categories a bit, hoping to get some more functionality out of both.  I'll also be attempting at launching a new weekly column here at Wednesday's Haul-- "The Multiplex Will Eat Itself."  A couple of years ago, I failed in an attempt to watch and write about 52 movies in 52 weeks but I'm back for more in 2010.  "The Multiplex Will Eat Itself" won't be quite as focused as "52 Movies" was but it'll be more of an attempt at re-educating me about movies, how they're put together and how to watch them.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you continue to check out the site all year long.

Thanks,
Scott

Random Quote-- AV Club's Scott Tobias' New Year's Resolution

UP on GreenCine Daily, they have a New Year's resolutions by film makers and critics.  For some reason, the AV Club's Scott Tobias' really jumped out at me:

"My biggest resolution is to get back in touch with the young man who voraciously devoured cinema of every stripe back in college—working through that dog-eared copy of Danny Peary's Guide For the Film Fanatic—but has since been preoccupied by reviewing contemporary fare for a living. Basically, I feel like I'm drawing from a mental database that's about 15 to 20 years old, and need a refresher course—both to get new perspective and insight, and to remind myself why I care about movies in the first place."

Strangely, I'm feeling that way both about movies and comics right now.  I need some kind of purge to go on in regards to both.

Here's looking forward to an interesting 2010.

The Wednesday's Haul Least Objectionable Comics of 2009 (aka: The best of 2009)

If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, I may have said that 2009 was a good year but not a great year.  After living with this list, honing it down a bit (originally it was over 18 books, not it sits at 13,) I'm a bit more impressed with the comics of 2009.  For some reason, I'm generally not one to preach the gospel of comics to non-readers (I tried it with my wife and failed many years ago) but I don't think there's a single book on this list that I would hesitate to give out to anyone, comic fan or not.  I think 2009 was a year where I probably read less books (a trend that will continue in 2010) but I found I enjoyed the stuff I read a lot more. 

Much like the Oscars, I'm kind of amazed by how much of this list is from the latter half of 2009.  Maybe my memory is better about more recent works but looking through my notebook and through the stuff that I wrote during the year, these are the books that make me smile when I think about them.  Of course, I may look back in a year or two and wonder just what was I thinking putting Jonah Hex #50 or even Asterios Polyp on this list.

And here's the disclaimer part-- these are all personal choices out of the stuff I read during the year.  As I said above, I didn't read as much stuff this year as I had before and I still read books based more off of personal preference so I know there's stuff that's appearing on other lists that's not on here. 

With that, here's my personal list of the best books of 2009 in no particular order...


  • Footnotes In Gaza-- A late entry but it was snuck out just in time to make the list this year.  Joe Sacco gives names, faces and stories to people that we only see in 30 second clips on the evening news.  This book is about 1956 in the Gaza Strip, 2003 in the Gaza Strip and even his own struggles to make the book.  I think the biggest praise I can give Sacco's book is that since reading it over the Christmas holiday, I've been trying to find out more about what's happening in Gaza and Israel today. 

  • Jonah Hex #50-- I only pick up sporadic issues of Jonah Hex, more dependent on who's drawing it than anything else.  But I've got to say, with a good artist, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti really raise the level of their writing.  In issue #50, they created a fantastic mini-epic western that gave the Hex character a heart that I don't think he often has.  Too much, the character is a vehicle for telling stories that I don't know if he's an actual character at all; Hex is maybe more like the Crypt Keeper, a host and center for a type of story and the character is not allowed to have any kind of development or growth at all.  Maybe people aren't looking for that from the character but Gray and Palmiotti have a nice balance of giving the character room to change while maintaining the status quo.  And the Darwyn Cooke artwork doesn't hurt at all either. (reviewed here.)

  • Pluto v1-6-- For me, you could toss a coin to figure out which is better, Naoki Urasawa's Pluto or his 20th Century Boys.  I really relate to Kenji and the story in 20th Century Boys and I think it will be on a "Best Of" list for the next couple of years but I probably enjoy how Urasawa is telling the story in Pluto better.  I've gone on before about the quiet and reflective storytelling in Pluto and I think that's what makes Pluto stand out a bit more than 20th Century Boys.  Maybe similar to the way that Gray and Palmiotti humanized Jonah Hex, Urasawa makes the robots in Pluto so much more personable and human than the actual people in that book, who are all cold and a bit shell-shocked by a world that they've allowed to run away from them.  (reviewed here and here.)

  • Umbrella Academy: Dallas-- In the span of two miniseries, Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba have reminded me of what I want from my superhero comics.  Blending Morrison's Doom Patrol with equal parts of Marv Wolfman and Chris Claremont, Way is writing stories about characters who happen to be super heroes, not superheroes who happen to be superheroes.  Sure the writing is a little crazy and the art doesn't look like Jim Lee but the heart of The Umbrella Academy is about a screwed up family in a way that the Teen Titans or the X-Men only wish they could be.  (reviewed here, here, here and here.)

  • Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe-- I don't know if it's fair to count this book among the lesser Scott Pilgrim but after a year, I don't know if this volume has stuck with me the same way that previous volumes have but I still like how it feels that Bryan O'Malley has grown since starting this series years ago.  He manages to pull out emotion and heartbreak from these characters that I don't think he could have done before.  Maybe after the last volume is out or next year's movie is out, I'll finally write my piece on how I think Scott Pilgrim may be the Love & Rockets of the 2000s. (reviewed here.)

  • Phonogram: The Singles Club-- Most of the time, I have no idea what music Kieron Gillen is writing about but it doesn't matter.  Once I learned to not pay attention to the specifics but to try and take in the love of music, Phonogram made a lot of sense to me.  The Singles Club has been a great series, showing an ensemble cast enjoying one night at a club.  What Gillen and McKelvie are doing here for some reason reminds me a lot of how a director like Robert Altman used his large and sprawling casts.  Gillen and McKelvie are separating out out the stories a bit more, with each character getting his or her own issue but all of the stories are weaving in and out of the same larger narrative.  There's a lot of magic that can happen in just one night and Phonogram: The Singles Club is doing a nice job at showing us just what can happen. (reviewed here, here and here.)

  • Detective Comics #854-860-- After #860, I'm starting to wonder if what J.H. Williams III is doing on Detective is really all that different than what David Mazzucchelli did with Asterios Polyp, using and changing the formal elements of the story to mimic and highlight the narrative elements.  Of course, Williams was already doing something similar on Promethea but his Detective Comics artwork is much more condensed and schizophrenic in a single issue.  That last issue had at least three different art styles, each conveying a different part of Kate Kane's life and you could actually see the art transition as Kate transitioned from one state to another.  (reviewed here and here.)

  • The Muppet Show V1--  Roger Landridge's The Muppet Show was a pure delight, capturing the magic and comedy of the original Muppet show while transitioning it almost perfectly into a comic book.  Landridge recreated the variety show structure of The Muppet Show but never lost track that he was creating cartoons and not a television show.  (reviewed here.)

  • Real-- Takehiko Inoue's manga follows the lives of three basketball players after tragedies in their lives.  While his other basketball manga Slam Dunk is played for laughs, Inoue pulls out the drama in this series.  While I think the last couple of volumes have gotten a bit long, Real still packs each volume with emotion.  Inoue is also great with the action and I love seeing the games he creates.  He captures all of the energy and excitement of basketball whenever he shows people playing the game.

  • Asterios Polyp-- While the plot is relatively simple and conventional, it's the way that David Mazzuchelli tells the story that makes Asterios Polyp great.  There's not a single visual element in this book that isn't carefully thought out and constructed.  From the different levels of perception to even the different fonts used for everyone's dialogue, Asterios Polyp is a carefully constructed piece of art.  It's an accomplishment even if it's a thin story.  (Personally, I finally read Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik's City of Glass this year and found that to be a much better book, playing with both narrative and structure much broader than Asterios Polyp did.)

  • GoGo Monster-- Taiyo Matsumoto creates an alien landscape in the form of a grade school and then slips into a 2001/Stanley Kubrick homage in the end to create a completely haunting book about our childhood fears.  From his sharply defined artwork to the monstrous faces he gives to the other kids and to IQ, the boy who wears a box like some kind of shield from the world, GoGo Monster creates its own world and sucks us into it.

  • The Complete Essex County-- Individually, the three books that make up the Essex County trilogy are fantastic but seeing them in one big book puts them in another light.  In this volume, you can even more clearly see how all three books are actually part of one, generational story.  Reading The Complete Essex County is a different experience than reading the books individually.  This isn't so much a collection of three older works but a reconceptualization of them. (the individual books reviewed here and here.)

  • Children of the Sea V1-- I don't know if I've read any book this year as evocative as Daisuke Igarashi's Children of the Sea.  At first I didn't know what to make of this book.  It didn't look like the manga I was used to and it took me a bit to get into it but once I found myself involved with the book, I felt it was something special.  Perhaps it's because I saw Ponyo around the same time but I felt that there was a connection between Children of the Sea and Hayao Miyazaki's work as both seemed to be exploring our relationship to our environment.  I just got V2 and it's sitting on my desk at home.  I'm looking for the right moment to immerse myself into Igarashi's artwork.


@ Pop Syndicate-- Detective Comics #860

You know, I'm almost glad that we're getting a break from Rucka and Williams III on Detective Comics because I don't know if anyone really has anything new to say about Williams' artwork at this point.

"I’ve heard interviews with Greg Rucka where he talks about how J.H. Williams III is re-writing the vocabulary of comics with their run on Detective Comics.  With the story of the new Batwoman, Williams III is redefining how superhero stories can be told, using the art to its fuller potential to tell a story with images as well as with words.  In this present writer-centric period of superhero comics, where the words of a Bendis, a Johns, a Kirkman or even a Rucka often carry more of the story elements than the art does, Williams III redefines the role of the artist on a mainstream superhero comic book, showing us how stories can be told through the art as well as through the writer’s words."

You can read the full review at Pop Syndicate.