Won't Be Around For A While

My wonderful mother-in-law passed away due to cancer a few days ago. Obviously comics are kinda taking a back seat right now.

Be good to each other and see you soon.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #257

The same could be said for many things.

Kryptonian Super Power #523

Comicosity has a preview of Suicide Squad #27 which features Power Girl; as I don't get the monthly title but am a fan of PG, I thought I'd head over there and see what was happening without worrying about spoiling any surprises - like I said, I don't get the title so no worries.

Here's page 2 of the preview:

Dear Lord, the poor woman has no spine! I'm not an artist or a biology student but even I can clearly tell that people do not bend like that! And her legs - surely her right leg (the one closest to us) should be bent at the knee to help support that weight?!

Definitely one of the boobs and butt tag of EscherGirls, I think.

It's Not Who's Who...

...but there's a new Secret Origins series on the horizon:

And just when I'd started to move away from DC.

Bugger.

Moore vs Morrison

You've probably seen what's being billed as the last interview with Alan Moore doing the rounds lately; much of the commentary has focused on the section where he talks about Grant Morrison.

Quite a lot:

(That's a Wordle of the interview I threw together)

In an attempt to be balanced, there's a good article here where Morrison gives his side of the story.

It's a long read and not just about Moore's feelings towards Morrison but, perhaps predictably, that's what the online comic fans have found the juiciest - after all these years, they get Moore's unrestrained thoughts about the man he thinks of "as a Scottish tribute band."

There's no deep insights from me here - I like the writing of both of them, though I'm definitely more of an Alan Moore fan - but this served as a nice intro for me to post the following by Ty Templeton whose blog and cartoons I enjoy every week and who offers his own take on the Moore vs Morrison palaver:

Click the pic to get the rest of it.

Many New Image Series

Been out of the news loop for a week or so (real life - don't ask) but just been doing some catching up, mostly with the announcements from the recent Image Expo, several of which caught my eye:

Scott Snyder announced a new series with artist Jock entitled Wytches

I enjoyed his run on Swamp Thing and like Jock's art so will probably give that a go.

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips have signed a five-year deal with Image. That deal will see Fatale end with #24, and lead to their next series, The Fade Out, a story based on Hollywood in the 1940s.

Fatale's ending at #24? Just five more issues to go? That's a shame as it's consistently one of my favourite titles.

Joshua Williamson’s Nailbiter, drawn by Mike Henderson, comes in May, and features a small town in Oregon where sixteen of the worst serial killers were born, with an investigation why.

All I've read by Williamson was the short lived Voodoo series which, despite some negative feedback, I thought showed promise. Again, I might look at this.

Kelly Sue DeConnick has a series based on the girl gangs and women in prison movies of the 1960s and 1970s coming called Bitch Planet. It’s not due to debut until Fall 2014.

Well I'm liking her run on Ghost and Pretty Deadly's shaping up nicely so this will almost certainly be on my list.

Bill Willingham and Barry Kitson announced a Fall 2014 debuting series called Restoration. The book sees a world like ours where magic, gods, and the like are suddenly restored on “one very bad day.” The gods decide to unite as one massive pantheon to take over the world and be worshipped once more.

Willingham, Kitson and gods? What's not to like?

Looks like I'm not going to have a problem sticking to my New Year's resolution, eh?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #256

Batman's a chamomile tea fan. Who knew?

Perusing Previews - January 2014

A bumper issue to start the year which is just as well as I'm stupidly busy with real world stuff like applying for a new job and things so apologies if it goes a little quiet round here.

Still: onward!

Why do you need to show something clearly labelled as a "12 Inch" figure with a ruler next to it? Especially one which is clearly longer than 12 inches?!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #255

Yeah, you tell . . . hey, hang on, that's what I do . . .

New Year's Resolution: Must Diversify More

Would it surprise anyone that someone who collects, blogs about and annotates comics also has a slight interest in numbers, statistics and graphs? No, didn't think so.

As part of my year's end round-up I found myself wondering about what I'd bought this year in terms of ongoing monthly comics or one-shots. Five minutes later, thanks to the export facility of my comics database and the joys of Excel, I was able to produce this:

That's a break down of how many comics I bought each month by publisher. You can click on it to enlarge it but those tall red columns? That's DC Comics, folks - 90% of the comics I bought in 2013 came from one publisher with Image Comics in second place getting a mere 5%.

I've always been a DC fan - I started reading them as a kid and their characters and series (Green Lantern and the various Justice Leagues in particular) called to me more than Marvel ever did. But that graph shows me that I need to branch out a little more . . . hell, a lot more.

Am I going to go towards Marvel? No, I don't think so. There's only so much convoluted superhero history and continuity I can keep in my brain at any one time and it's still full of pre- and post- Crisis, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and the New 52 at the moment.

What I will be looking for, though, is more from other publishers, Image in particular.

Wonder what that graph will look like next year?

The Rock In A DC Movie?

Read this last night: The Rock has met with Warner Bros about something connected with DC Comics and the article contained this paragraph:

The Rock was previously connected to the role of DC Comics villain Black Adam in a proposed "Shazam" film, dating back to 2007. In July 2012, he tweeted that he was "possibly playing" another DC character, Lobo. And of course, there's the 2015 "Man of Steel" sequel, which still hasn't announced any villain role -- and could possibly add another hero alongside Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman Gal Gadot).

That last line made me instantly think - the Rock would be perfect (physically at least) as J'onn J'onnz, Martian Manhunter who appears at the end of Superman vs Batman as a lead in to a Justice League film.

Meet back here in a couple of years to see if I'm right.