Also, “Captain Sweatpants” wears the insignia of the signature character from CoH, Statesman.

[...] In a review of Donald Duck; The Old Castle’s Secret, K.C. Carlson explains a bit about why the work of Carl Barks is such staying [...]

The diversity of my comic reading has been cut back for similar reasons — if I have to preorder to get the price I’m willing to pay, I’m only willing to commit to things I’m sure I’m going to like. The end result is sticking with the same old favorites.

Last month it was DC: they’ve decided to extend their crossover plague to Vertigo, with a forced coupling of The Unwritten and Fables. So I decided to vote with my wallet and drop Vertigo entirely (Unwritten, Fables, Fairest, Sweet Tooth, etc.). Though I reserve the right to finish reading them in torrents (in order to preserve my investment in the dozens of TPBs I already bought). From now on, neither Marvel (dropped aeons ago) nor DC (only Vertigo survived) won’t get any from me, I’m tired of their marketing insults to intelligence.

This month it’s Dynamite: they’ve decided to raise their TPB price 30%, wiping preorder discounts. I’m not a fan of Garth Ennis or Dynamite (both have a mostly-potboiler output), but I really liked Ennis’s War Stories at Vertigo (especially the one drawn by David Lloyd) and I followed them to their Battlefields reincarnation at Dynamite. From 2008 to 2012, the first six stories have been released as three $3.50 issues, promptly collected in $13 TPBs. An 80-page TPB for $13 was 50% steeper than usual collections, but acceptable from a minor publisher. I bought.

However, the 7th volume is now solicited at 80 pages for $17. I thought, Shirley that’s a typo? Maybe they decided to collect both the 7th (Green Fields) and 8th (Anna Kharkova) stories into a 160-page softcover? Or maybe it’s a hardcover? Nope, no typo: I was told I just had to preorder from Amazon or such sites to get a 30% discount and pay only $12. (Indeed, Amazon.com is currently taking preorders at “$12.01 & Free Shipping on orders over $25″; they even solicit volume 8 already at 31% discount for October.) I quit.

Maybe they’re following the marketing saying, “Never give a sucker an even break”: if people are ready to pay $13 for this in the bookstore market, why not make them fork a comparable sum in the discounted direct market too? Just raise that Diamond cover price from $13 to $17 so that discounted preorders will end up around $13 too (depending on store discount). Now, a retailer preordering one for the shelves may balk at trying to move an 80-page booklet cover-priced $17, so I suppose Dynamite must reckon their Diamond preorders were mostly from readers anyway?

I do wish the corporations were more willing to think long-term, but their decision-makers clearly aren’t. I mean, Minx was DC’s big girl-focused line, and there, long-term was like a year, which wasn’t enough time, and the effort was damaged from the beginning. You can’t have the same people who think there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing now try to run the outreach, because they don’t understand the problems to begin with.

Also, isn’t it about time the comics industry take the time to create female heroes who both act and look like actual heroes and role models? the “biz” might think they’ll lose money (and perhaps they will) in the short term, but won’t they increase their readership a thousandfold if they get girls onboard?

[...] the other Donald Duck volumes in the series, this collects three full-length Donald stories (usually from Dell’s Four Color [...]

[...] Fantagraphics’ latest Carl Barks Disney Library volume stars Donald Duck and collects most of Barks’ Donald stories from 1948. For those keeping track, this is Volume 6 of the Library, which Fantagraphics is issuing in random order — so far, alternating with volumes starring Uncle Scrooge. [...]

[...] how everyone is welcome. Then she reads comics to us, but since it’s R. Sikoryak’s Masterpiece Comics, I don’t [...]

I’m doubtful that they will be able to balance the “fun” and the “dark” the way the Iron Man movies have. For me Superman doesn’t need to be dark at all, but I know that I’m in the minority on this one. So it needs to be balanced well. In addition to the three points you’ve got above, the fact that Christopher Nolan was pulled in to help because of the direction he took with his Batman trilogy is not helping me feel good about this movie.

[...] reading the manga, I was curious about the movie adaptation, mainly because Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, and Jeremy [...]

[...] is Clancy Brown, “the definitive voice of Lex Luthor”, who also played the character in Superman: The Animated Series. Here, Superman is played by Travis Willingham; Christopher Corey Smith is a dynamite Joker; and [...]