Impending Doom:
December ’08 Previews (part 2)
Welcome to Part 2 of the review of the December 2008 Previews, continued from yesterday. This is what happens when comics don’t come out until Thursday.
The first few pages of Previews are loaded with crap. It’s just clutter. Note to publishers: The design of the first few pages of Previews is so bad I can’t easily distinguish between advertising and content promotion. Your message has been lost.
Page 8: Previews editor Mamt (I can’t read his signature) talks about Heroes. He informs us he’s not talking about the TV show, but instead actual heroes. Well then why did you capitalize Heroes? You call yourself an editor?
Page 9: Fan art! I don’t know how long Previews has been doing this, but it reminds me of the Wizard envelope art. Do they still do that? Do people still send letters in envelopes? I remember doing some awesome Archangel envelope art to send to Wizard, only then realizing I didn’t really have anything to write about.
Page 11: This is now the second tease in 11 pages for the cover story on Batman #686. They must really think I’m going to get lost on my way to page 66.
Page 19: If you are ordering the Tomb Raider Lara Croft exclusive Previews collector doll (complete with erect nipples) would you be willing to send us a picture of yourself? I’m really curious who you are. Don’t be embarrassed.
Page 21: Here’s an ad for the February 2009 Previews, retailing at $4.50. Just wondering — do those of you who read Previews pay for your copy, or does your shop give them away for free?
Page 30: Dylan Dog is back! I picked up a bunch of super cheap clearance comics a few years ago, and Dylan Dog was one of them. It seems like they were all translated European comics. This is a 680 page collection, so I wonder if it’s the same stuff. A lot of Dark Horse’s output these days seems to be reprints. Conan, Creepy, Turok. It’s kind of weird how they seem to be deliberate about listing the Star Wars comics together, but then their original stuff like the Goon and Hellboy is scattered throughout their reprints.
Page 66: Thank goodness, I found page 66. So Neil Gaiman has a two-part story in “Batman #686” and “Detective #853” called “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader,” presumably a reference to “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” the Alan Moore tale of Superman’s demise. The next two issues of Batman stories are Grant Morrison retrospectives on Batman. If we’re still doing this in February, I think I might get sick of it, no matter how talented the creative teams.
Page 68: Speaking of dragging things out, “Superman #685” has Clark dealing with the death of Pa Kent.
Page 69: I wonder if titles like “Batman: Gotham After Midnight” and “Batman Confidential” will keep on featuring the Bruce Wayne Batman or if they’ll switch over whenever present-day DC titles do.
Page 70: The solicitation for “Nightwing #153” asks if this is the last the world will see of Nightwing, and “Robin #183” asks if Tim Drake is ready for something more. Is it likely that Tim will become a new Nightwing? If he’s going to stop being Robin but not become Batman, I think I’d rather he develop his own Robin persona.
Page 71: There’s a lot of talk about these “Origins and Omens” backup stories. Are we expected to buy every DC comic that has one in order to be able to follow along?
Page 85: I’ve never read L.E.G.I.O.N., so I have no idea if it was good or not, but I have to say I’m not intrigued by R.E.B.E.L.S., Vril Dox’s new gang. I realize he’s a Brainiac, so coming up with acronyms probably isn’t that difficult for him, but it sure is gimmicky.
Page 87: Looking at this cover to “Teen Titans #68,” after glancing at “Secret Six,” “JLA,” “JSA,” “Green Lantern Corps,” “Green Arrow and Black Canary,” “Booster Gold,” “Brave and the Bold” “The Spirit” and “Blue Beetle” is kind of an uncomfortable reminder of how many DC titles I’ve stopped reading in the past year or so.
Page 114: I’ve always heard great things about “100 Bullets.” Issue #100 is probably a bad place to start.
Page 131: The unmasked Rorschach toy apparently has a top secret face that will not be revealed until the movie opens.
Page 136: The “Catwoman vs. Batgirl” catfight statue is on sale in February! If you’re one of the people buying this, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?
I wonder if people would come over to Andy Bergholtz’s house while he was working on this sculpture and be like “Hey Andy, what are you working on down there?” and he’d nervously shuffle some things around and say “Oh … nothing!”
Page 142: The constantly new and changing output from Image amazes me, though I rarely find myself interested in any of it. Take “Bad Dog,” the new series from Joe Kelly. The tagline reads “Bourbon. Broads. Bounty Hunters. A werewolf suffering an existential crisis. F@%K YEAH!” My body says yes but my heart says no. “Jersey Gods” is about a domesticated God of war with art by another one of these Jack Kirby knockoffs. It’s probably a safe bet that somewhere, some of this Image stuff is good, but I’d have no idea where to start.
Page 156: I got a kick out of the Kirkman titles featuring the “ON TIME IN 2009! Ship date guaranteed!” starburst. The inadvertent implication here is either that the Kirkman books are chronically late, but the problem is solved, or else all the other Image titles are unreliable.
Page 187: The promo for Wizard #209 asks “Has Zack Snyder crafted the ‘Citizen Kane’ of comic flicks?” What chance is there that the group “People who think Zack Snyder is going to create a legendary film for the ages” overlaps with “People who know anything about Citizen Kane”? Someone got paid to think of that, folks.
Page 196: I love how many publishers are competing in the battle to come up with a company name that ensures an early spot in the independents section of previews. “Aardvark Vanaheim” probably thought they had the opening slot secured until “AAM Markosia” came along. I think there’s an “AAA Comics” … how long until a publisher name beginning with “AAAA” shows up?
Page 222: We’re now at the publishers beginning with the letter B. Wow, there’s a Sarah Palin comic book. I wonder if it will talk about how she told Congress “Thanks but no thanks” on the Bridge to Nowhere, and how she sold the private jet on eBay for a profit, and how she saved Wasilla money by giving herself a pay cut…
Page something … the IDW pages don’t have page numbers on them: “The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots #3” includes an example of the need to coordinate between artists and promotional people. The solicitation concludes with “Also, enter: SUNSTREAKER!” Exciting, right? Especially if you’re a Sunstreaker fan! Well the cover art is a close-up of Grimlock holding Sunstreaker’s battered and severed head.
I just turned the page and saw that there is a Ghost Whisperer comic book. I’ve finally received an answer to my internal question of “When are you going to end this?”