Read the real life stories and experiences of freelance writer Mike Gagnon.

TODAYS COMIC INDUSTRY

Part 2 - The Publishers

Today the industry basically has two classifications of publishers. Mainstream and Indie. The most notable mainstream publishers are Marvel, DC, CrossGen, Image and Dark Horse. The most prominent indie publishers are Image (funny how that works), Antarctic Press, Open Mind Comics, Landwaster Books, Sirius, and although they aren't really large enough to rank, my own SMASH! Comics. The indie comics scene has many, many more publishers, numbering the thousands and ranging from companies managing a full line with a stable of talent to one lone guy working out of his basement putting out a semi-regular comic.

In today's atmosphere the only way for a mainstrean large publisher to survive is to license the rights to a recognizable propery, or already own one which has existed since early in the companies history. The later fact is true of the oldest of the two of the big publishers, Marvel and DC.

Marvel itself existed as Timely Comics up untill the name change in the 60's and the hiring of future stars such as Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and many others. This talented group helped usher in the Marvel age of comics. Today Marvel now still retains the right to all of the characters these people created. Marvel holds many very lucrative properties such as Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, The X-Men, Captain America, and more. DC has the similar fortune of having such pioneers like Mart Nodell, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Bob Kane and others who created the very recognizable characters which they still own today. DC's pantheon of merchandisable figures include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and many more as well.

Things are not so easy for newer companies who don't have the privelige of having so much history to exploit. We'll look at the newer big pubers from oldest to newest. In the case of Dark Horse the company has managed to capitalize on consistently being the first to offer a licensing deal on many popular sci-fi and action movies. Although Dark Horse publishes many good books a large portion of their income comes from licensing deals for profitable comics featuring characters from Start Wars, Aliens, Predator, Tarzan, Robocop, Terminator, and others. In the case of Image the company was originally carried by the popularity of the creators who were all formely big creative names at Marvel. With the exception of Todd McFarlane's smash hit, Spawn, readers quickly began to tune out when story quality dropped and deadlines were not met. Image quickly learned to follow Dark Horse's example and make arrangements with studios who own the rights to such recognizable properties as G.I. Joe, The Micronauts, and He-Man. What makes Image unique is that the majority of their books are now only published working with other studios, and Image itself owns no character rights. Image has also begun to capitalise on changing it's image from a super-hero comic publisher, to a publisher of comics which would normally be considered "indie". The Crossgen company is the youngest of the group and has used the tools of originality to capitalize on the market. Instead of your traditional fare CrossGen has made a name for itself as a company that publishes comics that you wouldn't find anywhere else. Crossgen released a line of high quality sci-fi comics all created by well known artists and writers which stand alone but which also tie together. CrossGen has also embraced the European style of publishing and releases many comics in trade format on a regular basis. Not to turn down an obvious form of revenue CrossGen didn't settle for just licensing recognizable characters, but actually purchased 50% of  the rights to Chaos! Comics' most profitable characters when Chaos! went out of business.

As for the indies, there are companies, such as Moonstone Books, who are lucky enough to have gotten the rights to popular role playing game themed comics. Since Image exists basically as a name and an office, with no intellectual property, some consider them to be indie. Image has now begun to target indie creators and more off-beat concepts in an effort to profit from the trend of people considering comics as literature. Most indie publishers own no rights to the comics they publish, which is why many creators prefer them. With the lack of budget to acquire licensing of characters indie comics are generally more off-beat and shocking in order to keep sales at a level for the company to maintain operations. Many indie publishers publish at least one project created by the owner, if not exculively publishing the owners work. Such examples are the "How to Draw Manga" series by Antarctic Press, Open Mind's "Poverty", Phychotix & Jay's Day's from Landwaster, and Powerwus published by SMASH! Comics. Some publishers, such as Landwaster for example, may find it more lucrative to publish books in a trade format on a regular basis as opposed to the regular comic book format.

For more details or info on how to find work with all of the aforementioned publishers it is best to check the submission guidelines on each their respective websites: www.marvel.com, www.dccomics.com, www.darkhorse.com, www.imagecomics.com, www.crossgen.com, www.antarctic-press.com, www.landwaster.com, www.lightningstrike.ca/smashcomics, and Open Mind Comics can be e-mailed at openmindcomics@on.aibn.com

What's Wrong with this system...

With mainstream comics the focus has shifted from making quality stories to only being interested in what can make big money on popularity alone. This often makes the big guys gaze fall upon things that are already established and unwilling to try new things. As well a big publisher is much less likely to give a newcomer a chance, as they would preffer to use creators that they know are already popular with their fans. Even Image with it's "indie" friendly environment still prefers to publish traditionally "indie themed" comics created by established names as opposed to publishing a great story by an unknown talent.

In the indie end of the spectrum the problem is finding appropriate funding or sponsorship in order to keep operations going long enough to see profitable returns. Even an indie company with the best of intentions can end up in a position where they are unable to pay their talent, printer, or even their day-to-day expenses. This leaves a literal wealth of talent and superb stories inaccesible to the average reader. What the indie scene needs is a publisher to become a giant with the power of someone like Marvel Comics,but with the interests of the indie comics community and its creators in mind. This was the original idea behind SMASH! Comics. However when SMASH! started we were soon able to arrange for a private business bank to fund the operations, however only months after securing this financial backing the bank in question declared bankruptcy and left us at SMASH! with a defecit which we are still recovering from to this day.

What's Right with this system...

With the policies at the big companies being what they are it means that anyone who genuinely wants to work in mainstream comics must strive to be the absolutely best they can be to make the big guys take notice. Would-be mainstream creators usually do some indie work for almost next to nothing in order to show the big guys that their work is worthy of print. (Note: there is nothing it seems though, that keeps people making quality work once they get into the big publishers)

Because the big companies have put such an emphasis on popularity and dropped the ball so frequently on quality, many readers are taking notice and making the switch to following indie comics in order to fulfill the intellectual needs in their comic reading. This means that the public to really slowly start to take notice of the indie comics industry. Slowly but surely, if we indies don't drop the ball at least one of the smaller publishers may be able to attain such prominence in the future, and make it possible for other unknowns to follow suit.

And tommorow I'll be examining "The Talent" involved in comics..

Bang!...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 21:01 | link | comments

Well, I nearly put this off for another day, but I decided that no one needs to hear any further ramblings untill I get this promised topic (my comic industry epic) finished. So here goes.

I just want to make a note that I am aware of the anthology books What's Wrong and What's Right published by Arsenal Pulp Press and edited by Robin Fischer. Those two books are against censorship in the comic industry and all profits go to fight unfair legal treatment of an adult comic dealer in B.C. Since I haven't had a chance to read them yet, I can't say if anything in those is similar to anything that will be in any of the segments of this blog. I just want to make it clear that if there are similarities I'm not intentionally ripping anybody off. Also, these entries are meant to inform, analyze, and educate everyone, whether they are familiar with the comic industry or not.

TODAY'S COMIC INDUSTRY

PART 1 - The Distribution System

Breifly, the bulk of the distribution system in the comic industry works this way. A studio creates a comic, they send samples to distributors. It can take up to 3 months for a distributor to accept the book. When they do accept it they begin promoting it to their retail store customers, usually using an ordering catalog. From that point it is up to the store or one of their customers to order your book. Then the distributor collects all of their orders and tallys up however many copies are ordered and places their order with you. If you're doing a brand new comic you use these numbers to determine how many books to print and then ship them to the distributor. The distributor then ships them to the stores. And then they send you payment for your sales. Another 3 months elapse between a distributor accepting your book, and when you actually get your payment. That makes the total time from first sending in your solicitation to reciving payment if accepted 6 months. Not to mention how ever long it took you to complete the comic.

This system has only existed since shortly after the advent of the modern comic shop in the early 1980's. Prior to that nearly all comic book dealers were newsstands and magazine stores. Their system of distribution is similar, but has a few important differences.

In the case of getting a comic in the newsstands a publisher must send samples to a newsstand distributor. If the newsstand distributor decides to carry it, it is they themeselves that decide where your book ends up. They analyze all of the newsstands which they stock. Then decide which locations would be best to locate your book, and how many copies they could potentially sell at each of those locations. The newstand distributor then comes back to you with a number. On average a newstand distributor will order 5 times as many comics as a comic distributor will. The publisher then uses that number to determine the print run and ships the books to the newsstand distributor. When the newstand distributor recieves your books they pay you a very, very small amount per book, often much lower than your break even point. By this time approximately 3 months has elapsed since you first sent them samples. Then after all the books are shipped out the distributor will determine how long they will allow the books to remain on the shelf to be sold. In this case, although you'd like to see more money, the longer they give a book the better. Then the distributor will go out at the specified time and pull whatever copies are left of the book off the shelf. The publisher is paid a bonus for each copy of each book sold, which is basically to help offset the costs, and hopefully bring in some profit. All unsold copies of the book are retained by the newstand distributor and promptly destroyed.

If you are trying to get a distributor for a comic that you have already had printed there are a couple choices.

The first, assuming your comic isn't more than a year old, with the exception of a graphic novel/trade, is a back issue distributor. A back issue distributor works the same way as a comic distributor with the exception that it MAY be a little faster because you don't have to wait untill the books are printed. Anyway, the back issue distributor will also promote your book to it's retail customers using a catalog. The stores place an order with the distributor, the distributor places their order with you. At this point we'll assume that you have enough copies left to fill their order. Then you ship the comics to the distributor. The distributor ships them to the stores, the stores pay, then the distributor pays you. A back issue distributor rarely ever orders as many copies as a comic distributor would.

You're other option for a book already printed is a Bulk distributor. A bulk distributor should only be used when you are over stocked with books you'd like to liquidate. The bulk distributor, if they accept your book, will often take as many as you want to get rid of, but only pay you a very small anount of what they are worth. Then the Bulk Distributor adds your books to their inventory. From there they package the comics together in groups of 3 in celophane bags which are sealed. Each bag would have 3different and unrelated comics in it, so it's unlikely 2 of your comics would ever end up in the same bag. The bags of three comics are sold to retail customers including comic shops, corner stores, hobby shops, and even grocery stores. These comic bags usually retail for somewhere around $3.99 Canadian, much lower than cover price, and can contain books anywhere from 30 years to 1 year old.

What's Wrong with this system...

To start off with the juiciest topic we'll tackle the Comic Distributor first. At one time there was a wide variety of comic distributors for retailers to choose from. The industry flourished and many publishers and retailers alike enjoyed good relationships with their respective distributors. However, it didn't take long for certain distributors to figure out they they could build themeselves up into multi-million dollar powerhouses by buying up their competition, thereby effectively taking over that distributors territory and leaving the retailer with the choice of buying from this established distributor ready to deal, or having to go out and find a whole new distributor. Finding a whole new distributor means thatthe retailer is willingly taking a temporary hit in their sales. With this kind of policy in place the smaller distributors began to dissapear and the larger ones continued to grow each time the industry lost one of it's smaller distributors. By the end of the 1980's there were only a few distributors left, most notably Heroes World, Capital City, Fm International and of course Diamond Comics Distribution.

In the early 90's mainstream comic publishing giant Marvel Comics bought Heroes World distribution. Shortly after it was decided that Heroes World would become Marvel's exclusive distributor and cease carrying all other product. This hit the indie comics scene very hard as Heroes World had previously enjoyed a very friendly and succesful relationship with many indie comics publishers. Other distributors lost nearly 30% of their income from this move and quickly decided they would only carry high demand items that were certain to sell. Soon indies and other risky items were choked out of a large portion of their share of the industry.

Innevitably Diamond bought it's competitor Capital City, and emerged as the largest of the big distributers. In a bold move Diamond decided to take hold of the industry one step further and refuse to carry any large publisher who would not sign an exclusive distribution deal with them. Soon DC, Image, Dark Horse and others were only available to retailers through Diamond. This caused the other large distributors, such as FM International, to take another large hit in their pocket books and watch more of their market and customer share shrink. Many of the surviving large distributors had to shrink and become "mid-size" distributors. Only months after Marvel took over operations of Heroes World, the biggest publisher in North American comics decided to sell their distribution operation, and all rights regarding Heroes World to, you guessed it, Diamond. In months Diamond had convinced Marvel to sign the same exclusive contract with them that the other big publishers had.

Diamond was now effectively the only distributor where a retailer could purchase comics that would be nearly guaranteed to sell, due to their popularity. By this point even the few retailers still holding out had to give in. This is when one thing became a fact. Every comic store in North America has to deal with Diamond Comics Distribution, and every comic shop does. This has effectively established Diamond as not only multi-million dollar conglomerate, but also a powerful monopoly with a strangle hold on the entire industry. With no competetion that Diamond would consider threatening they soon began to throw their weight around, become cocky, and steer the industry as they see fit. Since the main sales tool used by Diamond is their ordering catalog, called "PREVIEWS", they soon began to appreciate the income derived from the ad space made available in the catalog, and how to exploit it to their advantage. The big publishers found no change in their treatment with Diamond, but it was the smaller ones who were now feeling the pinch of Diamond taking advantage of their positions. Smaller publishers soon began to discover that they were being dumped by Diamond, but could soon remedy that by spending the money to buy ad space in the "PREVIEWS" catalog. In fact many publishers who advertise and then stop suddenly have a hard time getting Diamond to carry their books, or begin to recieve significantly smaller and smaller orders untill they are phased out.

Diamond has now instituted a rule that states that they cannot carry any book that will not sell 7,000 copies per month. As well Diamond targets many new publishers trying to break in with tons of "Cost Effective" promotion tools, all provided through the catalog which the publisher is trying to solicit to. It is a fact now that a publisher cannot even obtain the information from Diamond about which stores are carrying their books unless they are willing to pay a $50 per hour research fee.

All in all this environment has led to the alienating of the indie comic industry within the mainstream comic culture. As well it has left Diamond in a position where it no longer just decides if something will be carried or not, but acts as a critic and editor. Diamond often issues letters to small publishers and indie creators detailing that if changes were made in theme, art, character, plot structure, and many other creative areas, that Diamond may consider carrying the revised version. As a symptom of their uncontolled power Diamond doesn't seam to realize that this may offend some publishers, who see it as their profession to determine if the quality of their books meets production standards.

Now for newsstand distribution. Because of the nature of this system a newsstand distributor is only interested in carrying comics which could sell 5 times as much as a Comic Distributor could sell. This is becuase of the large clientele they represent all over the continent, so they need product in large volume. However, if you have been picked up and sales decrease then they'll likely drop you just as quickly. Even though you've been paid a very small amount for each book, you only get paid an extra amount for those that sell, and despite what you might think the newsstand distributor wants you to have a bigger bonus check because a big bonus check for you means they've sold lots of copies ans put more money in their pockets.

Since they pay such a small amount per copy you should never use a newsstand distributor unless you expect to be able to sell colossal amounts of copies. Otherwise, if the book flops on the newsstands, you've just spent a good chucnk of cash to print thousands of comics, and with the base amount you've been paid you'd be lucky to break even. Remember, you won't get unsold copies back, they are considered the newsstand distributors property to do with as they see fit. In most cases they will incinerate them, but sometimes they will sell some of the leftover copies to a bulk distributor to cover the loses they put out on the base amount of the books. If this happens that means that the only person who lost money on your comic flopping was you.

As for back issue distributors, the're all pretty good. The only draw back is that they can sometimes take just as long as a comic distributor. That means that if they do carry your back issue, by the time they make it available to stores it's already 3 months older than when you first sent it to them and 4 to 5 months older when it reaches the reader, which means it may be that much farther out of their mind or range of interest. Also even if your book is really succesful and you get a huge order you run the risk of not having enough copies to fill the order because the book has already gone to print.

As for Bulk Distributors, the real big problem with them is that you have to go into it wanting to lose money. A bulk distributor is selling books to retailers at a value of no more than a dollar a piece. If you are an indie publisher you'd be lucky if your books don't cost more than that to make. You're more likely to get less than a dollar per book. It's simple laws of profit that govern this. If a company will turn around and sell your book for a dollar, would they pay you a dollar for it? You're more likely to get something around 40 cents per book. So, the only reason to ever go to a bulk distributor is to get some extra cash if you have a stock of your old unsold comics that you couldn't unload on a back issue distributor.

What's right with this system...

Traditionally, the only good thing about the comic distributor system is you have a fairly easy ride if you are a large mainstream publisher. If you don't fit into that category there may be some factors that works in your favor with Diamond. If your project is so popularily themed or mainsteam that Diamond thinks it can sell lots of copies and make lots of money than you should have no problem. If this fits you you are in a rare segment of indie comics.

However, thanks to Diamonds blatant disregard for retailers, fans, and publishers the environment that the distribution giant created has spawned a new breed of small comic distributors. Since Diamond has lain claim to exclusivity with the heavy hitters like Marvel and DC, among others, why can't someone go exclusively indie? That's exactly what's happening right now. Small comic distributors carrying only indie comics are poping up all over the place. They are often run by industrious folks who have experience in comics and know how to use their small company status to their advantage by being more flexible than the behemoth that Diamond has become. Any small press/indie publisher should research the many small distributors and solicit to as many as they feel they can work with. It's all about taking away Diamond's market share one little brick at a time. It's really the only way to save the industry. Some good new distributors are Dimestore Productions, Praetorian Comic Distributors, and my own Independent Glimpse debuting in December. You can find links for all of those and more on the top left hand side of this page in the links section.

As for newsstand, again if your book has so much mainstream appeal that you could sell 5 times what Diamond would order from you than you could enjoy a very good relationship with a newsstand distributor. This is very hard for an indie, but has worked in very rare cases, but unfortunately rarely for the long term. If your book is a newsstand success though you're looking at making 5 times as much money as you would dealing with The Great Devil..uh..I mean Diamond.

If you manage to get your indie comic that has already been printed in with a back issue distributor, allowing that their order isn't too large you could find yourself happily selling your comic to interested fans and developing a cult following, which may translate into later success in dealing with Diamond.

As for a bulk distributor, the only positive way to look at it is that hey, at least you got some cash and got rid of those old comics that you couldn't get rid of anywhere else.

Well that's it for today's chapter, I think tommorow I'll look at publishers.

See you tommorow

Zap!...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 18:34 | link | comments

Well, I'm not starting my multi-part comic industry opus untill tommorow because I have more things I want to talk about. BYW Jay, I read your response. Thanks again, and you can find my response in the usual place. I must say you are a challenging sparing partner.

YAY! THE DVD HAS RETURNED...

Awhile back we had to throw our a couple remotes because they were buggered. So, we got a new universal remote and had to reprogram everything in my home entertainment centre. Problem is since we did that I can't get the DVD player to come up on screen. And the new universal doesn't work with it. So I finally gave up. But today I buggered around with it and finally got it to work. It doesn't work on the same input channel as it used to which I don't understand, but whatever. It was so nice to have the DVD working in conjunction with the home entertainment centre again. I played some of the Daredevil movie on it and the sound quality with my surround/stereo system was amazing. I had forgotten what I was missing. It was pure extasy.

Then to my delight I discovered that the original DVD remote was working fine now. YAY! After we moved here the remotes were all fucked and not working properly for some reason when we unpacked them. My original theory was that they somehow got magnetized. So I tossed the TV and VCR remotes but hung onto the DVD remote just un case. Glad I did. Maybe just one was magnetized and making the others screwed because we always kept them together. oh, well, happy now anayway. Note: Don't ever let anyone tell you the old necessarily equals crappy. My surround system is almost 20 years old and it's still amazing! And I could play records on it if I wanted too! :)

Scooter's Day...

Well it was pretty shitty out today, but that didn't stop me from taking Scooter out for a couple walks today. He's so tired he's sleeping on me right now. Hope he doesn't piss. Anyway, the reason he's tired is that he's finally big enough to play with the frisbee. Well, just barely. He drags it on the ground when he brings it back unless he lifts his head way up. Good lord there is nothing funnier then seeing a little wee-dog running with a full size frisbee. It was hilarious. So I tired him out pretty good with that, and I also surprised him by bringing along one of his toys. It's a Mr. Potatohead Jr. which used to be my toy when I was little. It's probably as old as my afformentioned stereo system. Anyway, the little man inherited it when it fell out of a box and he ran off with it. He loves that damn thing. So that's Scooters day, he's all tuckeered out.

Why Kurt Cobain is the Elvis of Alternative Rock...

No, really. I do have a point here. If you compare. The passing of both deeply effected the world and the industry around them. Both died tragically. I'd almost say both died too soon, but Elvis was on enough in years that I hesitate to say that. There have been wild thoeries and such about both of them having faked their deaths, or that their deaths were arranged by their wives. But here's where I really see the similarity. Back in 1950 whatever when Elvis first came out he shook up crowds by bringing in a new energy and style of rock that no-one had done before. It blew the lid off the industry, and soon eveyone was a little edgier, and "ludely" shaking their hips. And of course those older acts started to impersonate the newcomer and claim that they had always planned on doing this type of music long before Elvis came around. Now let's look at Kurt Cobain. When he came into the industry things were stagnant. Efeminine coked-out "hair bands" saturated the rock scene, and most bands were worn out and had no message anymore, if they ever did have one. Now Kurt and Nirvana came onto the scene and shook up the nations youth with a new energy and style of rock that few audiences had ever heard before. And again older more established acts started to mimic this new "grunge" scene, claiming that they had always intended to do a project like this.

If any of this sounds too much like some of the stuff Henry Rollins has said, I apologise, I'm not trying to rip anything off. Just like many acts that followed Elvis owe their existence to his break through career, many of today's modern and alt. rock bands owe their existence to Cobain and Nirvana for creating the music scene that can still be seen today. The reason Kurt Cobain has been on my mind is that I'm slowly starting to notice his image being used to market more and more things. The same thing that heppened to Elvis. Most notably in my mind right now is the website of my favorite Toronto Radio Station, Edge 102, using an old image of Kurt (along with Dave Grohl and another Nirvana bandmate) as a part of their logo on their website at www.edge.ca. And who owns the right to market the image of Kurt Cobain? You guessed it. His widow, Courtney Love...

Why Courtney Love is the Succubus of the modern rock industry...

Now, before I go off, I do have to give Courtney credit. She has done a couple good acting projects, and had a couple good songs with her band Hole. Other than that I don't see that many of her contributions to the world have been positive. Besides instigating many lawsuits against the other members of Nirvana after Kurt's passing (none of which made it to court), the only reason that it has taken so long for Kurt's image to be used in marketing is because there were too many other people fighting her to stop from her cashing in. Even some of her own family members wanted an injunction against her using Kurt's image for profit. Dave Grohl claimed that Kurt had confided in him that he planned on divorcing Courtney and that he wanted her to have nothing to do with him in any way. Unfotunately all those people did was delay the innevitable. Now I say fine. Elvis's wife did it, so okay. That's not my real problem.

Here's my problem. A couple years back Courtney had to be rushed to the hospital for a heroin overdose while having her young daughter in the home. This is the daughter made by her and Kurt Cobain. Now at that time all she got was a warning. "If you keep this up we'll take your kid". And that was it. Just a little slap on the wrist. If it had been a regualr person they'd have never seen their child again. Now just a couple months ago what happened? Courtney Love had another heroin overdose with her daughter (now in her mid-teens) being in the house. This time it was actually her daughter who saved her by calling 911. When asked about the situation of having her daughter there for another O.D. she was quoted as saying to the press "It was OK. I thought quick, using my mothering instincts. I made it fun. We played cards and board games and other games, like eye spy, while we waited for the ambulance". (plese excuse if I didn't get the quote word for word) And she's trying to come off as a great mother out of this? What's worse is that it appears that she will still be allowed custody of her daughter. That seems to me to be really sad and sick. If there was anyone with any brains still in charge out there this woman would be spayed.

BTW a Succubus is an ancient demon from folklore. It's supposed to enter mens beds in their sleep and make love with them so it can become pregnant and spawn more demons.

Anywho.. still lots of stuff to do today and not a lot of time left to do it in.

See you tommorow...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 17:23 | link | comments (1)

Alright, so now that I'm finally in writing mode I'll just cover a few things I've been meaning to mention. I don't know if it will start tommorow, but I am working on a series of short "essays" if you will, that will be all tied together by the fact that they deal with a different aspect of the comic industry.

Anyway here goes, and oh yeah

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAM!!!

Ashton Kutcher is an idiot...

Words can't describe my distate for this "man". I'm a fan of "That 70's Show", but I'd have to say his character "Kelso" is my least favorite part of it. I think the show could do quite fine without him there. He's got to be the most talentless person involved. He can't act for shit and his movies suck too. As well, moron has a new show called Punk'd , which is a rip off of a few other reality shows mixed together. The whole point of the show is to pull absurd pranks on celebrities to show how stupid they are. Hello? Does this guy have enough brain cells to realize that he's a hypocrite? HE'S a celebrity. And all he does is bash other celebrities for being stupid and famous and having money. Hello? Retard, why don't you just turn the camera around and point it at yourself.

Pamela Anderson is singin' in the choir...

They announced on the radio this week that Pamela Anderson has become a Sunday school teacher in her local Church. She says she was inspired to do this because the love of her children and her faith which has helped her through the hard times. A couple days before I heard this I saw Pam in a commercial for this new car stereo you hook up to your computer and it actually downloads a signal which gets digital radio beamed directly into your car. The reason that she's in the commercial is because when this kid comes out into his driveway to leave in his car she is all soaped up and washing his car with her body. Why? Because this is the prize that you can win by buying one of these digital radio dealys. You can have Pam Anderson wash your car with her body. Okay, yeah, this seems like something who's such a devout Christian and Sunday school teacher would want to do. And then this lady preaches the virtues of Jesus to little kids on Sunday? It seems a whole lot hypocrital to me. Which means that she'll fit right in with every other churchgoer.

Dalton McGuintey...    

I'm still not convinced that this guy is as bad as everyone has pegged him out to be since winning the Ontario election. Jean Chretian had 10 years in federal office and never followed through on his promises. Dalton's been in for maybe a month and he's being crucified as a liar for not completing election promises. If you go against typical judgement with politicians and give him the benefit of the doubt, he has already come out and said that it would take longer than expected because the former government left a much huger debt than anybody expected. So I don't see why everyone is already turning on him. Especially when 62% of the public voted for him. I'll give him a year. Then if I haven't seen any results form his election promises I'll start skewering him with everyone else.

Rage..

Well it's official, Rage Against the Machine's new CD is out, and guess what? A new live DVD too! This is why the band reformed to go on one final tour. Nice way to cash in for Zach DeLarocha. HYPOCRITES!

Other...

Business stuff is going great, and I'm making a lot of good deals, but none of them are paying me out any dividends anytime soon. I've given one of my distributors untill December 15th to pay me and then I start charging interest. That damn distributor is 6 months behind in what they owe me. So like I said, things are good, just not profitable. It's freaking me out because Christmas is coming, It's Pam's Birthday, and It's the end of the month which means rent and bills are coming out. Crap!

Welp, I gotta get my ass in gear for other things.

Later...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 15:28 | link | comments (5)

Well today I meet with the lady that may become my new accountant. You see I've always reported my business income on my taxes, but never written off my business expenses because I don't know how to properly. Funny how I've taken lots of accounting classes and they never properly cover that. So now I need someone to file adjustments back to 2001 so I can get some money out of the government, then I'll have them do my 2003 return, and now that were taking this as a serious and legitimate business taxes will have to be filed every 3 months instead of annually starting in 2004. Oh Joy. Anyway, as long as this lady seems good she'll likely be doing it if she doesn't over charge, because she just lives down the street from me. I think it'd be nice to have my accountant that close if I'm gonna have one.

The Scooter man...

Anyone remember awhile back when I did a blog about going to visit my parents. It was unusal because just before we got there Scooter peed on Pam's lap, which he's never done before. Remember that one? Well I've solved the mistery. It seems our little man is a bed wetter. Oh yeah, today he was sleeping on my lap while I was checking my e-mail. He was warm as usual. And whenever he sleeps on you it gets so warm that you get a very slight bit of dampness from sweat and condensation caused by body heat, but nothing serious. Today however it kept getting warmer and warmer, and then it felt like there was too much sweat. Like it was uncomfortably wet. That's right. Our little puppy pissed all over me in his sleep. He even peed some more in his sleep when I took him from my lap and put him on my old t-shirt that he sleeps with. SO now I gotta wash that thing too! I hope his little bladder grows soon!

Alright, I know some people enjoy the reviews, and I enjoy writing them, but some people come here for other stuff, and frankly I'm all reviewed out. So today will be the last review I post for a little while. I'm taking a little reviewing break.

Movie Reviews

Frightmare - Oh, my god. This movie was the worst, most purest piece of crap I have ever seen. This movie damages the credit of the entire horror genre. Forget who is in it and all the credit stuff it's just so horrible. REALLY! I know for a fact that if I got together with some of my old college friends that we could make a better horror movie than this. The writing is horrible, the acting is horrible. This movie has the worst lines I've ever heard. I've honestly seen porn movies with all around better production than this. In fact I think EVERY porn movie has beter writing and acting than this. Not to mention that the cast is supposed to be a bunch of high school kids, but is obviously played by people in thier mid-20's, and then the blonde is played by some amateur skank who is obviosly in her mid-30's. Horrible casting. The lead female character may even be able to act, but her lines were so retarded it seemed that a 2nd grade student had to have written this movie. A complete waste of time and piece of crap.

What's worse is that the name is not even original. There are like 10 haunted houses and 3 or 4 movies that have used this name before this one was made. CRAP!

The Jungle Book - In order to recover our brain function Pam and I turned off that crap movie and put on the Jungle Book. I got it a couple years ago for Christmas from my mom. Anyway, this is the classic Disney adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling novels. All the voices are great and the characteration of Baloo, Bhagera, and King Louie are great. Plus this is back from when Disney didn't try to kill you with too many songs in their movies. This one has just the right mix of story and musical interludes. Obviously Disney wasn't able to put in all the plot elements form the novels, just from time limitations alone. Even today I can see why some of the scenes with Sheer-Khan were frightening when I was little. All in all a good animated feature for all ages.

Mowgli and Baloo the Bear lounge in the river.

Well I gotta go shower and change so I don't look and smell like a bum when I go see this accountant.

TTFN...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 13:48 | link | comments

Hey Jay, thanks for commenting on yesterday's Matrix Reloaded review. It's nice to hear from you. Anyway, I posted my response to it in the comments section of that blog. I'll reserve judgement on the entire trilogy untill I see Revolutions.

Anywhore, I got lazy this morning and read some of the comics I haven't read yet while laying in bed, so here are some reviews. I think that I'll take it easy on the indie comic reviews for a couple days after this.

Indie Comic Reviews 

Abraxia's Dream - An anthology published by Dragon Head Studio. Most stories lean toward a fantasy/adventure theme. This book contains comics, but also poetry and prose. I'll try to quickly review just a few of the stories that caught my attention. Tanithia's Dream by Ron Huse is well written and illustrated, it is about a young maiden befrended by faeries. Some have the best of freindly intentions, others are purely interested romantically. Mr. Coffee Man is a series of 1 page shorts by Chiaroscuro creator Troy Little. Each adventure finds our surley yet himsical hero, Mr. Coffee Man battling everyday challenges and bizzare adventures, all the while dependent on his need for java. Very humourous.

Cover of the Current issue of Abraxia's Dream #3.

The Great Floppy Bank Robbery is a great gothic short story written by Matthew Webber. A small coven of vampires is forced out of the squallerous neighborhood in which they live by modern development. Without the drug dealers and pimps to rob and feed on the group is strapped for cash. Their only option? Plan the most not so perfect bank robbery ever!

Free Summer Franks -  Another indie anthology zine, this one consists completely of comics though All work is done by Tim Kelly, with a little help from Jenny Gonzalez and someone who must be named Arnie.  There is quite a range of stories and art contained in here. In fact I didn't realize that there was only one creator for the entire book untill I read the credits. It was hard to believe because of a huge difference in art and writting quality between some of the stories. The Arnie Comix page was funny. The stories' "Drawing Something", "Summer's Coming", and "Over My Head" are all examples of some great writting and fantastic cartoon style artwork. The rest of the book contains art that is just a little lesser in quality, but the big problem is that those stories that feature the lesser artwork are also cursed with stories that sometimes simply make no sense. Some of them are really hard to follow, or even understand what's going on. On the plus side I think you can still find this one for free at conventions, so it's not as if you can be too disapointed. Hey it's a free comic!

Nog - This one is a collection of autobio short stories with the exception of "Sir Foetus and the Robot" which is purely future/fantasy. The gentleman who these autobio stories are based on is a little known indie creator by the name of Greg Erskine. Gregs illustration work can be seen improving pregressively just in the first issue alone. Although the first story "The Golden Cubicle" is quite funny, the art is rather borderline in quality, however, by the time we get to the third story, "Aliens", we see that Greg has developed a pretty damn good animated style indeed. What's more, every single tale from his life is as hilarious as the others. I particularily liked "Aliens", "Adventure on the High Seas" where Greg nearly drowns, and "Nerd Merit Badges". I can definately also relate to the "Floaty Shoes" story. As well his forray into the fantasy/humor genre with "Sir Foetus and the Robot" is equally hilarious. Sir Foetus is actually an abnormally large human fetus who fights crime with the aid of his trusty and melancholy sidekick, the Robot! Good one if you can find it. It's only $1 and you still may be able to contact Mr. Erskine at: zeketone7@aol.com

Busted! -    Alright so Busted! isn't really a comic. It's actually the news magazine published by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I think it's a great mag and I love it, but I can't afford to donate and become a member right now, thereby getting me a subscription. So if anyone else likes the idea of supporting a group that helps defend comic creators and retailers in court against unconstitutional charges than go check out their site at www.cbldf.org

Don't forget about the folks at A.C.T.O.R. (A Commitment To Our Roots) either, they are the folks who provide pensions and work to senior aged comic artists who got screwed over by the industry when they were young and have no benefits. Many of the people involed are the pioneers of the North American comic industry. You can find the link for them at the top left of the page.

 Well it's pretty crappy out, I know Scooter needs his regular walk, but neihter one of us wants to go out in this crappy wet snow. So I may try to wait it out awhile longer.

Now I've gotta go get in touch with a distributor that owes me money.

Sionara...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 13:31 | link | comments

So did everyone hear that Rage Against the Machine is getting back together to do 2 final tours and release a new album. Know what my initial reaction was? Piss off! That's what it was. Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge Rage fan, but I moved on. I mean this was a band who did big protest music, songs about activism, about changing the world, not beliving in what the world tells you you have to do and everything else. They were all about fighing the norm and brainwashing portrayed by the media.  They did benefits for third world countries.

And then they started to sell out. Suddenly they were on awards shows and doing other self serving crap. People started to notice so then lead singer Zach DeLarocha, or however you spell it, became the biggest sell out in history. He broke up the band to pursue a solo hip-hop career. Then his career flopped horribly, while his former band mates moved on to form the successful kick ass band Audioslave with Chris Cornell.

Like I said, I've moved on from Rage, I am a fan of Audioslave now. Now that Zach is a forgotten celebrity with no cash he's gotta get the band back together just to bilk his fans out of money and cash in. Which is completely against the bands original premise. I hope this doesn't effect future Audioslave albums, but I'm sure it will. It's things like this that make me lose faith in the world. What's worse is to see so many people not even notice such a high profile sell-out.

Indie Comics Reviews   

Tangled - Well, this is the story of a young lawyer who has a terrible secret. The secret is that he has a beast living inside him that tears up criminals and shreds them to pieces when it is released. Now there are a lot of angry bad men looking for him.

Collin Wiancko's writing is intriguing, but I wish he could have fit more story into this first issue, it seems we've just gotten a taste of what's going on and I don't know if it's quite enough to hook a reader into future issues. Adam Domville does some nice work. It's very dark and disturbed. There's a lot of detail and exageration at the same time. It makes me think that's what very, very early Todd McFarlane work would have looked like.

Baron - 

Cover of Baron #1

An excellent example of the artform. One of the greatest mini-comics ever made I thin..okay wait. Maybe I shouldn't be reviewing this book. After all it is one of my own. Long story short Baron is a 4 page mini-comic about my cat. So far only issue #1 has been published, but I should get some more issues out when I can, as there's a lot of potential here. Very funny stories have been written.

That's it for now. I hit a stack of indie's which I haven't read yet.

Doot doodle ott doot..

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 12:17 | link | comments

Penance Blog

Well yeah, I missed last nights blog. We visited Pam's parents and ended up not getting home untill well after 12. Danny has a new suped uo computer there now, but everyone spent most of the night playing video games on it. I reccomend Polar Bowler. Anyway, I came home and went to sleep, so this is my blog for Saturday.

Before we went to Pam's parents we went shopping in Owen Sound. Oh joy. So now Michael has some new mini-blinds to install today. I picked up some pre-printed duplicate bill forms, so any distributors who still owe me money can expect to get some mail from me soon. On the way there I realized how many horrible fuckin' drivers there are. Just one example; I'm going 100 on a highway with a speed limit of 80. I still got passed by everyone behind me! And every person on the passenger side gave me this look like. "Why aren't you going faster asshole?" Why does the percentage of retarded people who pass as normal increase so drastically every year. God I hate you other ignorant drivers. If it were up to me you'd be removed from the gene-pool.

Movie Reviews

The Matrix Reloaded - Well what do I say. You know traditionally the sequels are never as good as the original, but I guess maybe it's my fault for thinking this may be different. I got used to a lot of good sequels in the last few years that surpassed the original, and I guess I started to expect it. Or at least get my hopes up. The Matrix Reloaded was not one of those movies that surpassed the original.

The entire movie gave a feeling of a lower budget than the original, which is fine if done properly. Pam said she actually liked this one better because it had more action and less story to follow than the first. I agree there was ample action, and even some good action scenes, just not enough REAL action. In the first movie a whole new type of filming was developed for the special effects in the action scenes, using movie cameras as well as a series of digital and photographic cameras. As I stated in the review of the original this was done very well. In Reloaded I can only think of 2 or 3 instances where this was used, and I don't believe to it's full potential. Instead they've opted to use copious amounts of CGI for many of the action scenes. Maybe it's cheaper, I don't know. CGI has got to be one of the most misused tools in movies today. The battle scenes looked so unreal they're almost pointless. At times I felt like I was watching scenes from "The House of the Dead" or any of the many fighting games out now. They should have given a controller for the movie with your rental. That would have been interesting. Anyway, it was super fake.

Some of the battle scenes shot on real film weren't any better. It's sad when the shooting and editing is done so poorly that you know when it's the real actor and you know when it's the stunt double. And the stunt doubles in Reloaded looked nothing like their counter parts. For example the scene where Trinity is weaving through traffic on her motorcycle. That is so obviously not her. Also, the scene where Neo first fights the multiple Agent Smith's. When we start to see bodies hitting brick wall I actually thought at first that there was an Agent Smith in a different jacket than the rest. Then I realized that that was supposed to be Neo. That's how much the stunt double doesn't look like Keeanu Reeves.

As for story things went down hill in that department too. First of all there was way, way too much mush between Neo and Trinity in this one. I'm really hoping they'll kill her at the beginning of "The Matrix Revolutions" so that there will be an end to that. As well the whole idea of computer programs living as regular people inside the Matrix (some even petty, jealous, or unfaithful) really didn't do much for me, and didn't really seem to serve a purpose. "The Ghost Twins", and those around them didn't really seem to serve any purpose in the way of moving the story forward. They were just kind of there for some action.

Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) battles the Silver Men, AKA "The Ghost Twins" in The Matrix Reloaded.

Things also got really convoluted. In the whole definition of the Matrix. I think the writers kind of slipped and didn't really think that through. Especially when Neo meets "The Architect". The information that he reveals makes no sense at all. It contradicts the whole concept of the movie. Not sure what I mean? Well let me ask you this. Even if there have been multiple versions of the Matrix program, why would that mean that there have been multiple versions of "The One"/Neo and the city of Zion? Those are things that exist outside of the Matrix are they not?

All in all I was dissapointed with this movie. Fans of the Matrix may still just want to see it to follow the story. I certainly hope they've put a lot more work into "The Matrix Revolutions", cause continuing to go downhill like this will kill the franchise.

Anger Management - We rented this last night at Pam's parents for everyone to watch. Her whole family was busting a gut. I won't talk about his too much because I reviewed this when I saw it in the theatre. I'll just say that Jack Nicholson is a legend, and Adam Sandler is a comic genius. They're both hillarious as hell in this movie. Just when you think everyone is as crazy as can be they get crazier. A good movie to check out for Adam Sandler fans, Jack Nicholson fans, or anyone who wants a good laugh.

Buddy (Jack Nicholson) gets David (Sandler) to confront his childhood bully, who has become a Buddhist monk.

Well, I'll be right back with today's blog.

Budump bump...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 11:38 | link | comments (4)

Today has been fun,fun, fun! No, not really, but I have no complaints..yet..it's only 11 am. Anyway Scooter got his final dose of de-worming medicine this morning. The people at the vets office just love him. Now the cat and dog are chasing each other around the living room.

So I went out and did the resume thing again. I went up and gave a resume to all the factories up near Bruce Power again. There's a new beer brewery opening up soon there too, so they got a resume. The D'Angelo food company is already there, and they do all the brewing and shipping, so they take the resume's and such. The building was renovated so that the company, Steelback Brewing, could have a head office. It isn't opened yet, but you could see through the windows. It's quite a concept. Their head office is actually going to be a beer store with a help counter for business matter, and I think there's an office int he back. I wonder what the employee discount is? :)

I might go to Goderich today and sell some more stuff. And yay! I finally get to watch The Matrix Reloaded tonight. We didn't last night because Pam wanted to watch the new episode of ER. I stopped caring about that show years ago. It's so stupid, and I really don't give a rats ass about anyone on it.

Indie Comics Reviews!

The Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery - An aged multi-millionaire uses his vast wealth to track down a group of very differing people, all with a stange and unusual talent or power. Upon their return to consciousness the group makes introductions and wanders the vast property owned by their benefactor. They are soon attacked by many strange and unusual obsticles which seem to measure the depth of their abilities. The group discovers that they were being tested and is finally forced to be debriefed by the man who brought them together. It seems that he wants to create a team of agents with unusual powers, and what he wants them for you'll have to read the book to find out!

Dr. Jeffery Park, man with the bionic arm, just one member of The Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery.

Evan Munday does a spectacular job of writing. Especially in the sci-fi department. His art is of good quality. It's that edgy art you see in indies that mainsteam books think aren't good enough to publish, but it really is. I enjoyed the art as well as his knack for inking and penmanship with lettering done by hand!

Cerebus - Does Dave Sim really need me to do this review? This is just one of the most acclaimed and longest running indie series ever. I'm a little concerened about the more recent issues though. The world the Cerebus lives in keeps getting weirder and weirder and stories are much harder to understand then they used to be. I'm only a semi-regular reader and I feel alienated when trying to follow the story, so how do they ever pick up any new readers for the series. Plus it seems more of a venue for Dave to write editorials about his extreme views instead of publishing a comic. The last issue I picked up had 20 pages of comic and 29 pages of editorial. That's just crazy. No disrespect to Mr. Sim. I do find his views interesting, but no-one cares about his opinion that much to want to read that whole thing, and to want to see that much page space wasted. People are buying Cerebus to read the comic, not Dave's views on Marxism and modern feminism. Sorry. Maybe there isn't as much care involved with the series anymore because it is going to end early in 2004. I respect Mr. Sim's decision to progressively age the character and end the series with his passing. It's a unique idea and I like it. The only thing I don't like is that in the last year they have aged the character so quickly and altered his appearance so much, that he is no longer recognizable. Nobody who sees this book is going to recognize him as Cerebus anymore. I used to really like this series, but now the direction it has taken leaves me unsure as to whether I still do. It's really hard to rate this series that used to be so good and a creator that you have so much respect for. The story lines are still really thought provoking, but there's is something missing. Gerhard and Dave Sim still do a bang-up job on the art though.

Serenade - This series is published by a company out of Chicago called Kiss-Me Comix. Serenade is the story of a young woman who's had a very hard life. An outcast since birth she is a half-black half-Korean woman who was shunned by those in her home country for being different. When she grew up and her ambition made her into a strong and intelligent woman life didn't get any easier. She also trained herself in Tae-Kwon-do for self-defense purposes. After meeting the love of her life in America and getting married she thought her life had changed and she could settle down. Focusing on a singing career and starting a family. But fate had it's own ideas and her husband was killed by a street gang becuase he looked like someone else. Now the despair in her mind and her martial arts training have transformed Serenade into the perfect killing machine.

Some pin-up art of Serenade

Barbara Jenkins does a very good job on the story and the art. Some of the greatest charm in the artwork comes form the colouring and shading in the work. The story is very deep and provokes a lot of thinking and emotion. Don't expect to get a light read when you come into this. If you're looking for an interesting and intelligent read with a lean towards the introspective then check out this book or the website at: http://pages.prodigy.net/kiss-me-comix/ Barb also does some great covers. I especially like the covers for issue #'s 0, 2, and 4!

Well hey guess what? I forgot to mention somehting. One of the pitches I've sent out isone step away from being excepted. And they've actually gone farther than I ever suggested. There's a radio show on CBC Radio One that wants to do a documentary about my life! The final step is to send them samples of the comics I've published. So that stuff will be going out ASAP!

As well I've got a couple othe rimportant business dealing going on. One of the being with ACTOR. The other is still hush, hush.

Booya!...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 12:59 | link | comments

Well, I'm back. I'm writing this one in the morning again. Oh, well. I got some very good news back from one of my proposals yesterday. It's still hush, hush. It will take at least another month to finalize. Gee that'd be a nice Christmas present.

Anywho, we watched the Matrix last night because Pam has never seen it and I rented the Matrix Reloaded which is due back on Saturday, so we had to get the first one so she would know what the hell is going on.

REVIEWS

The Matrix -  Well there's not a lot of people who need to be told alot about this movie. Althoughg it seems that the cult following has faded somewhat with the second and third movies, this is still a good movie. I actually forgot how good it is because I haven't seen it in so long. The special effects are still breathtaking. That whole trend of doing that effect where everyhting seems to stand still in the air and the camera rotates around it. Well that was created just for this movie, and so far I still think this movie has made the best use of those effects than any other. In this story Keeanu Reeves plays Timothy (or was it Thomas) Andrews, aho is actually an international computer criminal and hacker going by the name of Neo. Neo is drawn into a world of secret agents and mysterious espionage. The people watching him, and who eventually bring him into their circle are a female hacker named Trinity, famous for hacking government databases, and the man she represents, the mysterious Morpheous. Morpheous is the most notorious computer criminal on Earth.

Left to Right: Carrie-Ann Moss (Trinity), Keeanu Reeves (Neo), Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheous).

Neo ends up in the hands of government agents, led by Agent Smith. Smith tries to get Neo to turn on his friends, bully, and intimidate him. And weird things happen. It seems Smith can manipulate other people's bodies at will. Neo soon discovers that Smith is not what he appears to be and neither is the world which he lives in. I can't ruin anymore of this for you because if you haven't seen it you have to go see it as soon as possible!

Besides Keeanu Reeves the guy who plays Agent Smith plays his role very well, along with Lawrence Fishburne who plays Morpheus.

Comics

Corduroy High - A very interesting and well done series. This series focus's on a central cast of 10 young people.They all atend the same school and have names such as Pasa, Pieces, Mocha, Mino, Plum, Shepard, Serif, Trieu, Kiya, & Henna. The series is made up of little short stories featuring a small group of the characters in each. it's like we're invited to watch the personal lives of what is going on with this group of young eople. This stuff has a really good slice of life feel, especially when you read the segements where the girls sit and gosip over coffee. In the second issue we are treated to a bigger dose of fantasy when the girls decide to jump someone in an allet, and we also get to see the sexual kinks that some characters have.

Tyrone McCarthy does an excellent job of writing and illustrating. this series and you can also see his art getting better and better with each issue as well as the productiuon quality of the book.

Undercover - In a world where a large portion of the population is superhuman, the human race only has one choice, save human kind! It started out innocently enough, with the advent of superheroes, then villains, and then it seemed that the super humans were everywhere. In the sky, on the ground, and in the subways. Eventually the premier heroes decided that they would decide what is best for the world, essentially removing all human agencies of their power. Now the heroes absolute power has begun to corrupt absolutely, with some of the Earth's own defenders commiting heinous crimes ion secret. And that's why the FBI has started a superhuman taskforce, actually employing super humans. BUt the real reason is part of the human resistance. They use the taskforce to farm out potential superhumans to work for their side. In this case they've sent our superhuman protagonist undercover intothe world of the super heroes.

Collin Wiancko writes a coppelling story. Chad Solomon's art is very rough at times, giving a stiff feeling instead of the fluid that it should be. I'm sure this will improve in the future though.

Sorry that's all for today, gotta go!

Zoom...

Mike  

 

Posted by: lightning at 09:56 | link | comments

Well, what can I do today? Hmmm.. I'd rather save indie reviews for tommorow.

I've been e-mailing back and forth with the cartoonist/illustrator I met at Wal-Mart on Sunday. He sent me some of his art samples. They are amazing. I 'm really excited to do some work with him in the future.

I'm eagerly awaiting responses to all of the business mail I sent out last week. The mail can be horribly slow around here sometimes. So I'm sure some of it hasn't even arrived to the people it was sent to yet. Just curious. Lot of important business dealings. Also waiting to hear back from some reviewers who I sent copies of books to.

Hmm.. Maybe I should start writting these blogs at the end of the day, as I don't have much to talk about. Plus a ton of work to do.

Scooter tore up his dog pillow. Little bastard. I handed out resume's. I've decided that finding a job at least for the winter could be to my benefit instead of waiting to hear back from business folk.

Get braced for some indie comics reviews tommorow...

blah...

Mike

Posted by: lightning at 12:00 | link | comments

Holy Sweet Crap! 1450 hits! Thanks to all those who come here. Let me just remind everyone that you can always subscribe to this weblog so that you never miss it by clicking on the little red button on the lower left side, right under the links section. Comments are always welcome on these articles and the link for that is at the bottom of each entry. E-mails are also always welcome and you can find my e-mail link in the upper left side in the links section.

REVIEWS

The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman - This one was published in 1999 and it takes place back and forth between present day and years ago just shortly after Bruce Banner became the Incredible Hulk. The short story line taking place in the present involves Lois and Superman sitting in their living room watching a TV special on the the tragic life and times of Bruce Banner, known to the world as the Hulk. Supes and Lois watch the docu-drama and recall the story of when they first met the Hulk. The central story line takes place in the past, although no year is given. When Clark goes down to New Mexico to cover the fantastic military weaponry being invented by a young genius named Bruce Banner. Unbeknownst to anybody else at the time Banner is also the monster that has been frequently sighted in the area called the Hulk. Soon the Hulk sightings have drawn Lex Luthor to New Mexico who hopes to use the Hulk in a plot to destroy Superman.

The story is good, but there are a few inconsistencies. The only reason that Hulk and Superman even fight the first time is because the Hulk was just hungry and Supes had to be an arrogant jerk. The present day storyline take place in present day, but the central storyline is dated by clothing and backdrops to be sometime in the late 60's-early 70's. But nobody has aged in the present day, especially Lois who should have been well into her 50's by now. Although the year never is mentioned. That and in the central storyline Clark dresses like it's the 40's. So that's a little weird. I'm usually not into updating things too much, but in this case I think they should have. Even if they at least brought it into the 80's.

The Cover of The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman

Besides those minor flaws Roger Stern has written a pretty good story and I guess what I can consider a believable interaction. Steve Rude did a very good job in making the artwork in the central story line look Kirby-esque as a tribute to the early work of the Hulk's co-creator.

All in all a book to check out for Superman and Hulk fans alike.

Pulpspotting -  A great little indy trade. It collects issues from The Obliviositer, an autobio mini-comic by Tim Brown. In this story Tim and his friend Joe decide to go drop in on some friends whom they haven't seen in awhile. After visiting one friend who is burnt out and overworked they head to their friend Andrea's. Tim and Joe haven't seen any of these people more than twice in a year for sometime now. When they get to the party they realise that maybe they and their friends don't have as mouch in common as they used to. After witnessing idiocy, pop culture brainwashing, people begging Tim for free copies of his comic, and then they have money when Tim discovers an old friend is now a drug dealer, he and Joe are left in an awkward position. I can't really say anything else as I probably have said too much already.

Cover of Pulpspotting, by Tim Brown

If you can find it Pulpspotting is a good trade for fans of indie comics to pick up.  Tim's stories are taken directly from his life, and we've all had a phase in our lives that we can relate to this tory. His work is a very rough and crazy animated style which makes you feel like you're watching an edgy cartoon. All in all it's pretty good, as long as you like autobio comics. Which I do.

Untill tommorow

Phpplllts........

Mike

 

Posted by: lightning at 11:58 | link | comments