Con Season is over now. I’ll post all my sketch haul later. Wanted to share this tidbit, though. I got 2 Secret Invasion sketch covers done this year.



Spider-Woman by Rags Morales:







Skrull Spider-Man Eating a Sandwich by Mike Norton







Guess which one was $10 and which one was $100 . . .



Thank you Mr. Norton for a great con experience, an excellent cover, and a good value. I salute you!

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Chris Neseman’s column Comic Shots over at Ifanboy. A great Saturday afternoon activity for me is gathering up any ingredients I’m missing from my liquor cabinet and trying out Chris’ latest drink on the deck with a comic. Sometimes it’s the one Chris recommends and sometimes it’s not. It usually depends on if I’ve already read the book he pairs or if I have it on the shelf. When things don’t line up, I tend to grab a back issue off the to-read pile and enjoy that.


Thanks Chris for helping me fill out my bar!


This week, it’s the Vesper Martin. Gin, Vodka, and Lillet Blanc. I didn’t have the Lillet in house, so went out and grabbed that.





I thought I had a Q&C trade (the book Chris recommends) sitting around waiting to be read, but turns out I was wrong. So instead I enjoyed:





Phoenix gets a lobotomy instead of dying!! How does that work out? Not too well. How did the drink work out? Awesome.

So we spent the last several days in San Francisco on vacation. Since I’ve read so much about them, I decided to visit the two famous comic book shops in San Francisco — Brian Hibbs’ Comix Experience and and James Sime’s Isotope Comics Lounge

I have to say that I was incredibly disappointed with both shops. They get so much publicity and both seem so committed to Comics Retailing, that I guess I was expecting a much different experience. Comix Experience is your basic, run of the mill shop — all the latest mainstream (DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse,Vertigo) releases, a few independents, a smattering of trades and a meager back issue selection, 80% of which I would term ‘Quarter Bin’ material.

Isotope seems like a shop with a great idea that is poorly executed. It styles itself as a ‘Comics Lounge’ and indeed, has a few chairs and sofas scattered about for reading the stuff they have. The problem here is that they don’t have much, and their shelves are poorly organized and unkempt. The quality of the furniture they are using is just this side of a bean bag chair, and the shop has a stark, cool, modern look. That seems much less conducive to lounging. I would think something with warmer colors, and a little more plush would work better — that might be me. Something like a comic shop crossed with a great coffee house.

As I discussed it with my wife after visiting Isotope, she may have hit the nail on the head when she mentioned that maybe these are really good shops and we have just been spoiled by our shop — Austin Books and Comics. I’ve always thought Austin Books was about eighty percent of the way toward being a really great shop, but I might be wrong. It may outclass almost every other shop in the country — seriously. Especially if these two shops in San Fran are any indication. Over the last few years, I’ve visited three ‘big name’ shops — Lonestar, Isotope, and Comix Experience — none of them even come close to competing with Austin Books as a great shop. It’s not even funny how far away they are. Even the store I consider a second tier shop in Austin — Dragon’s Lair — blows the other non-Austin shops away.

Next post I’ll talk more about what makes ABC a great shop and how these other shops could take a lesson from Austin Books.

. . . Not in the LCS! At least, not in my regular LCS. As I wrote yesterday, I spend maybe 20 minutes, once a week in my main shop. I sometimes have a brief conversation with one of the clerks, but more often lately I just pick up my books, sort through them, put back a few, pick up a few, and then check out and leave. That’s it. That’s the community experience that I’m supposed to pay a 35% premium for? Huh?

That’s one of the things that made it easier for me to switch to buying my books online. Where is the community? The community is online! People don’t hang out in shops very much and talk about books or debate things, they do it online. From podcasts (my favorite) to forums, to blogs, to news sites, the community has moved nearly exclusively online. Every once in a while you’ll have a great conversation at a shop, but I’ll bet more often than not you just pick up your books and head out.

The one exception to that rule is conventions and other special events (sales events, signings, etc). It’s great to meet other people at cons, talk to creators, listen to panels, and buy some books. The other big thing that I see happening at conventions is people who are part of the various online communities getting together for drinks and to talk comics. That, more than anything, may be driving the surge in con attendance over the last few years. People want to get together and hang out in person with the people they interact with online.

Wonder Con in San Fran is coming up this weekend. I’ll bet most of the people attending have posted that they’ll be there on at least one thread someplace.

What does all this mean for the future of the hobby? I’m not sure, but I have some ideas . . . more posts to come.

Last weekend, I decided to make the switch from buying my comics at my local comics shop (LCS) and instead get them from Discount Comic Book Service. This was a long process for me, that I’ve resisted since I got back into comics for a few reasons.

I’m lucky enough to live in an Austin neighborhood that has two comics retailers along its borders less than 2 miles from my house, Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy and Austin Books and Comics. Dragon’s Lair is my ‘home’ LCS (where I keep my pull list) and Austin Books is where I go for things I missed, because Dragon’s Lair is sold out, it’s a more obscure indie book, variant cover, back issue, etc. Austin Books is a tremendous shop — by far the best shop I’ve ever visited. The big downside of Austin Books is that they don’t offer a pull service. They send out an email once a week listing all the new items, and you can reply and say what you want so that it will be set aside. That’s too much work to go through every Tuesday.

And neither shop offers discounts on new issues (Austin Books gives 10% on trades), or really much of any incentive to shop with them. Dragon’s Lair will occasionally drop a variant in your box if you ask for one and charge you just cover price, but that’s about it. They are each good shops and are fairly good at what they do — Dragon’s Lair is the Gamer’s shop that also has comics if you want (no back issues, just stuff from the last few months) and Austin Books is the specialty shop that carries pretty much everything all the time and is the big advocate for comics in the community.

I understand the business reasons not to do pull lists if you don’t have to (the overhead to maintain the lists, people not picking up their books, people pissed off because there pull was off by one book, etc.) and I understand the business reasons not to give discounts (your core customer is the gamer who also reads books and wants it all from one location, you carry comics mostly as a courtesy to them), but I’m looking for a retailer both interested in comics and interested in my business. I don’t pick up as many books as some (35-45 books a month), but I pick up enough that a discount would make a big difference. And I’ve always bought in to the idea that the LCS is a place to talk about books with other people, that it’s the ‘heart’ of the comics community wherever you live.

I’m also a ‘local business first’ kind of guy, and interested in keeping my money in the community, but I also want a good deal. In the past I’ve figured that I’m willing to spend 10-20% more to buy my books locally instead of online, but not much more than that without feeling like the retailer is taking advantage.

So, once or twice before, I ran the numbers. I pulled down the excel sheet from DCBS and would put in my regular pull list — no extra books just bec. they were cheap, or anything like that. Once I factored in shipping costs, getting my books delivered every week (paying extra for that), and the delay from Wednesday to Friday (or even Monday) to allow for that shipping time, the discount only ended up being about 17% for me. Not enough for me to switch.

Then I listened to the latest 2 part episode of Comic Timing with John Mayo and Bob Bretall of The Comic Book Page. You might know John from his regular Mayo Report feature on CBR or his regular reports on Around Comics (sadly, taking a hiatus now) doing analysis and commentary on the Diamond sales rankings.

Two important things I took away from that podcast:

1. When you order your books online from somebody out of state (I live in Texas, DCBS is in Indiana), you don’t pay sales tax. Doh! I hadn’t included that in my analysis before!

2. Bob’s comment that he didn’t spend as much time as he thought at his LCS. Mostly he would drop by, pick up his books, and go. Sometimes the guy behind the counter knew his name and sometimes he didn’t.

That second one really stuck with me. How much time did I spend at Dragon’s Lair? Maybe 20 minutes once a week. There were some people there who knew me, but there’s also a lot of employee turnover there — mostly because high school kids and recent graduates are the bulk of the employees — and very often I would have to tell them my name and then have them search for my books and hand them to me. That’s not a big deal when there’s a new employee. I don’t expect every employee to get a primer on all the regulars. But after four or five weeks of me coming in at pretty much the same time and telling them my name, I’d like them to at least remember who I am. But most of the people who work there are gamers (naturally) or into Manga (I’m not), so they are naturally less interested in comics. And I’m not even getting a discount!

I downloaded the latest spreadsheet from DCBS and built a sample order. They had recently changed the shipping rates as well. Once I factored in sales tax (8.25% in Austin) I realized I could save between $50 and $75 a month with DCBS (or 28-35% of my monthly budget). For me, that’s like getting nearly a month of books for free every quarter! That’s not something I can seriously pass up.

So, I’m making the change. My first shipment should arrive around the first week of March. I broke the news to Dragon’s Lair about leaving. They didn’t do anything to try and keep my business, so I guess that’s that. At least for now.

More in the coming weeks about the process and my experience. It’s also seriously made me re-evaluate the long term prospects for our hobby and the viability of the current direct market model. More to come on that as well.

It’s not often that a comic book touches you emotionally. I don’t really know the character Connor Hawke — he came on the scene during the period I didn’t read comics. I didn’t really follow Green Arrow when I did read comics as a kid, although I knew who he was. In this issue, Judd Winick managed both to show me who these characters are and make me care about them.

Winick’s stuff is usually hit and miss for me. I loved the direction he was taking Outsiders post One Year Later, but the ground work that he did on that title quickly disappeared or was muddied up by the line wide events and the cross over with Checkmate. I picked up Green Arrow as part of One Year Later as well, but didn’t last on it more than a couple of issues. I just couldn’t get behind the ‘Ollie as mayor of Star City’ concept. I’m not sure if it was the pacing or what, but I just didn’t dig it.

This book, however, has been amazing since issue number one. I’m not sure if it’s that he found an artist (the splendid Cliff Chiang) that ‘gets’ what he’s trying to do or what, but the pacing, the art, the writing on this book are top notch.

Chiang’s art reminds me a bit of Amanda Conner in the line, layouts, and detail, but where he really excels is in portraying the emotion of the characters. The acting of his characters — the expressions and body language, is very well done.

This book is called ‘Green Arrow and Black Canary’, but it could more properly be called ‘Green Arrow Family’, and is exploring some interesting themes around what it means for these characters to come together as a family.

It was close this week between this book and the first reboot issue of Amazing Spider-Man (which was a really fun), but when a book chokes you up the way this one does, you’ve gotta go with that. It’s truly a rare thing.

I finally got around to buying a scanner during the holidays, and so here are the sketches I got during the con. You can click on the images for bigger versions.

First up is a fully inked (with a brush!) sketch I got from Thom Zahler, the Artist/Writer/Creator behind the marvelous Love and Capes . I had read the FCBD issue he put out this year and was intrigued.After talking with Thom a bit about the marketing ideas behind the book and what he is going for, I decided to pick up the first issue from his table.

I read that issue over lunch at the Steak and Shake near the convention center, and after that picked up the rest of the issues and this sketch of supporting character Amazonia.

If you’re not reading Love and Capes, you might pick it up and give it a try. It’s a great super-hero romantic comedy with some wonderful emotional beats. If you’ve been in a relationship, it will certainly resonate with you. It kind of reminds me of a less goofy American version of the britcom My Hero.

Next up is a color sketch finished in marker of Dark Phoenix by Cal Slayton. I was really attracted to the line work in Cal’s stuff. His style is reminiscent of Darwyn Cooke, which is a style I’m really into right now.

Cal has done a lot of books and works as an illustrator in the Dallas area (the ‘metroplex’ as we call it). He has a new book he is working on called ‘Spookytown’. It looked really interesting by the sketch book he had on display at his booth.

Then there’s a Rogue head sketch I got from Billy Tan, the current artist on Uncanny X-Men.

And a head sketch of X-23 I got from X-23:Target X and upcoming Uncanny X-Men artist Mike Choi. Funny story about Mike — I had thought about standing in his signing line at the Top Cow booth at various points during the show, but the line was always really long. On the last day of the show, I happened to walk up to his table in artist alley just as he was setting up.

People hadn’t realized that he was there yet so I was able to walk right up to his table. I noticed he was wearing a Texas Longhorns t-shirt. I had attended grad school at UT and my wife has multiple degrees from there. I assumed he had gotten it as a gift or souvenir from his time in Texas at the con. I asked him if he had gone to UT and it turns out he has a business degree from there and spent a few years as a consultant with PWC before deciding to become an artist for Top Cow.

Having been in software professional services for a few years myself, we traded war stories about life ‘on the road’ as a services guy. Of all the things I would have thought I’d have in common with an artist I met at a con, I would never have thought it would be working in consulting services. In addition to this sketch, Mike hooked me up with a variant cover edition of X:23 - Target X. He’s a really nice guy if you get a chance to meet him at a con.

Finally, here’s the Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America blank cover edition I had sketched by Humberto Ramos that I raved about getting in my first post on this blog.

This has to be the most interesting title of all the ones bearing the “The Initiative” designation, mostly because the new New Warriors appear to be designed to both redeem the team’s name and image in the wake of the events of Civil War (it was their actions that set off that event) and take down the organization that Tony Stark created as the ultimate outcome of those events. They are the most visible members of the resistance to the super-hero registration act (the New Avengers having gone completely underground and hiding, the New Warriors announce their presence to the world).

This issue is one of those great character pieces that often occur as epilogues to or between story arcs, tying up loose ends from the last arc and laying the groundwork for the next one. In the wrap up to the battle with the Zodiac, the New Warriors must wrestle with the decision by the team’s leader, Night Thrasher, to disband the team and cut off further funding for the organization. Will they continue the fight as the New Warriors or accept Night Thrasher’s offer of $200k in cash to get them started in a new life outside the group?

By far the most interesting part of this book is the third storyline involving the investigation by a couple of police detectives into the source of the funding for the New Warriors. They come into possession of some video (we don’t see it) that has some pretty damning implications for Tony Stark himself. When they take that information to reporter Ben Urich, who they expect to blow the story wide open, they learn that the press knew all about the story, but sat on it.

Some great parallels are drawn here between the events of Civil War in the Marvel Universe and those in ours in the last few years. What if the wealthy head of a military industrial corporation who is also a former defense secretary engineered events that allowed him to both consolidate power in himself and make a ton of money for his corporation? What if he even went so far as to back the attackers that caused the events? How would the country react? What if the press knew about some key events but sat on the information or planted stories in the interest of “national security” or to further their own ideological goals? If the press knows about this, how much more do they know that they haven’t revealed? What if the pawns in these events seemingly returned from the grave with the goal of exposing the lies to the world?

It’s in stories like these that the Marvel Universe shines. Drawing metaphorical parallels to our own world and using those as a jumping off point to explore the human condition. Especially in how that world would be different if the protagonists had amazing powers. I’m really looking forward to see where these questions take The New Warriors in the story arcs to come.

What an odd week for books. After looking at the shipping list and seeing new issues of: Uncanny X-Men, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Invincible, Ultimates 3 (first issue!), and Buffy Season 8 I really thought it was going to be a huge week story-wise.

Turns out I was wrong. All of those books were just so-so. But the work that Brian Reed is doing over in Ms. Marvel deserves some mention. If you can get past the cheesecake factor in the Greg Horn covers and actually give the book a read, I thing you’ll be pleasantly surprised. In this issue, Carol Danvers is still stuck on Monster Island and still attached to the alien Brood hunter, Cru while her supporting cast — Agent Sum, Machine Man(/Woman — see last issue), some creature named Sleepwalker and Araña (skipping school) — races to her aid. The final page reveal will thrill you if you are a Brood fan and might have implications in the Skrull event this summer (Brood/Skrull War, anybody?).

Reed is doing some good character work here, building this into a book with an identity, and working to establish Ms. Marvel as one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe. Not an easy task for a character whose main claim to fame prior to this book (and House of M) was as the character Rogue left as a husk after taking on too much of Ms. Marvel’s powers (in the now classic Avengers Annual #10) .

Aaron Lopresti’s art is very well done, especially his rendering of facial expressions in the character scenes with Rick Sheridan/Sleepwalker, Ms. Marvel, and Araña.

Ms. Marvel has seen a 49% drop in sales over the last year as of August according to ICv2 numbers cited over at The Beat. Let’s hope this book stays around long enough to see where Brian Reed ultimately wants to go with this character.

Ah, the reluctant hero. One of the most compelling characters in fiction. Starman #0 brings us the first part of the origin of a new Starman, inheriting the mantle from his brother via his father (Starman numbers two and one, respectively). Jack Knight’s brother - the ‘current’ Starman - is killed by the third page, with much of the rest of the book spent in flashback laying out the relationships between them and Jack.

Jack owns what can best be described as a Nostalgia Shop, dealing in antique toys, collectibles, and has stocked a good portion of his shop by preying on his brother David by ’stealing’ his past, whatever was “cool and old” that David managed to keep. Everything except the cosmic rod that gives David his powers, for some reason Jack finds ‘real’ heroes to be lame and ridicules his brother’s costume with typical mid nineties sarcasm. By the end of this first issue Jack has been forced by circumstances to use the cosmic rod himself and, judging by the cover, will quickly become the new Starman — taking what David might have said was the ultimate cool and old thing he possessed.

The entire run of this series occurred during the period when I wasn’t reading comics, and as a kid I had little to no interest in most of what DC was publishing, so I’m coming into this issue carrying no baggage about the prior incarnations of the character and there is nothing so far that would tie this series to the current Stargirl in Justice Society of America.

I picked up this issue in a dollar bin at Wizard World Texas after hearing at a DC panel that they were going to collect this run in a hardcover next year. That, combined with really strong praise for this run on the Around Comics forums led me to seek it out, just to try out the storyline. I’m not a huge Tony Harris fan, having read a bit of his run on Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina, but I’ll admit to digging Tony Harris circa 1994. The art and layout of the book, with an art deco feel, is really compelling and sets a great mood.

Starman will definitely make it onto my wanted trades list, and maybe I’ll even pick up the hardcovers when they come out next year.