So every month a new edition of Previews is sent out to comic book stores. Contained in the pages
within are products that might be currently available or could be released
anytime in the next year; but typically about two months away. Or sometimes
never. I’ve ordered lots of things
that have just never come in. Without getting into the specific politics of
Diamond, let me just say that they aren’t quite
a monopoly and also aren’t quite the
worst distributor anybody has ever dealt with in the history of the universe.
But I’m not here to discuss that. I’m here to discuss a
few of the weird and/or wonderful items offered in this month’s edition.
This month DC decided it would be fun to do
their own little book like Marvel does. This is primarily because of the “Rebirth”
event and is not currently scheduled to be a regular thing. As far as we know. Naturally,
DC’s little book shipped late and won’t be here until next week. That means
they get their own post two weeks from now, I guess.
Of course, they still got something on the
main Previews back cover, which I’ll
discuss below.
No, I don’t buy a ton of stuff that Dark Horse publishes,
but I recognize them for producing the most consistently high-quality books out
of any of the publishers. The very best original and licensed titles come from
Dark Horse, which is why they’re celebrating their 30th anniversary
on June 4th.
Comic shops that stock up on Dark Horse trade
collections will have the opportunity to
receive all kinds of different promotional tchotchkes to use to promote sales
and host Dark Horse Day parties. I think this is a cool idea. If you agree, hit
up your Local Comic Book Shop to participate. The best way to do this would be
by ordering some of the books on page 47:
There’s some great stuff here – Aliens and Predator, Buffy and Angel, Conan, Hellboy, Serenity, and more. I personally vouch for all of that stuff from
Dark Horse. Check it out and encourage your LCBS to throw a party. It’ll be
good for business and good for comic books in general.
I reviewed a couple of the DC Super Hero Girls figures
from Mattel here.
I liked them quite a bit and am impressed with DC and Mattel for the way they’re
going about marketing these. We watched the cartoon on Boomerang and it was
fun. Not as good as Teen Titans Go!,
but still worth checking out, particularly if you’ve got a little girl in the
house. I have no idea what’s aimed at kids and tweens and adolescents or
whatever, but they did a good job with the characters and the stories reflected
the DCU well enough.
DC is publishing graphic novels about the Super Hero
Girls. It seems to me that in this instance “Graphic Novels” means “Not Comic Books”,
but whatever. Anything that gets DC’s wonderful characters out to a larger
audience is good.
Free Comic Book Day is NEXT MONTH! Familiarize yourself
with what’s being offered and what your Local Comic Book Shops are going to be
doing. If they don’t have big plans, maybe work with them to come up with
something yourself!
This is something of a spiritual successor to last year’s
Fire and Stone saga that ran across
Dark Horse’s Aliens, Predator, and Prometheus books. It introduces and exciting
new element into the mix – Colonial Marines! I read the first Predator comic of this new
multi-maxi-series just the other day and thoroughly enjoyed it. Outside of
video games, I’m not sure we’ve ever seen the Marines come into contact with Predators,
and certainly not with the Engineers of Prometheus.
I love this universe and enjoy it every time Dark Horse
visits. With Dan Abnett in charge of this run, I’m more excited than ever.
Dark Horse’s prior releases about Masters of the Universe
– the guide to the toy line and the minicomics collection – were perfect. If
you don’t have them, buy them now!:
Between those and the Lou Scheimer book I just finished,
my thirst for MOTU trivia is at an all-time high. It appears that this only
covers the Filmation years, and since that’s where most of our nostalgia sits,
this book is a must-have. When we talk about He-Man and She-Ra, this is what we’re talking about.
I can only assume (hope) that a separate volume will be
published for New Adventures and the
2002 cartoon.
Wow! There’s some great stuff here!
Not only is 2016 Dark Horse’s thirtieth anniversary, it
also marks three decades since the release of Aliens! As such, we’re getting a great volume collecting all of the
Dark Horse/DC Superman crossovers. The Alien ones are fun, but I never read the
Tarzan story and I don’t even remember the Madman book. For twenty-five bucks,
the creators involved in these make this compilation well worth your while.
Oh, man. I
picked up Image’s oversized Artist Edition of The Walking Dead #1and really liked the format and novelty of the
concept. But this is GI Joe: A Real
American Hero, which is one of my favorite things of all time.
This is a different sort of release, as rather than just
reprinting one issue in the oversized 12” x 17” format it is collecting some of
the most notable stories from the entire Marvel run.
There’s more bang for your
buck, though the buck is the problem, as this has the dreaded “PLEASE INQUIRE”
instead of a price. Usually that means a release will be too rich for my blood.
We’ll see.
My buddy Scott has always been at the forefront of
independent comics. He was always the guy reading what I secretly thought but
would never admit was the coolest stuff. One of the names I most relate to
Scott and his love of outside-the-box comic books is Eddie Campbell.
I’ve read some of Campbell’s work and love his art style,
but I never could get too deep into Bacchus.
I’d like to give it another shot now that I’m older and (a very little bit)
wiser. If you’re a fan of Campbell, this is already on your wish list. If you’re
not, I recommend you track down some of his work and find out if you like him, because
this collection is a great deal for the greatest stories of one of the modern
masters.
I’m not all cynical about Marvel cashing in on the
upcoming Captain America: Civil War
movie by doing a massive crossover in the comics. Why wouldn’t they? The whole
point here is to make money, people. Yes, it’s nice when creative integrity and
capitalism line up, but if the comic book companies don’t make bank, we don’t get
comics.
This story seems pretty good to me. I’m not going to get
into it because if you care you already know, but I think it’s a fine idea.
Most interesting is the fact that the big face-off is Iron Man versus Captain
Marvel rather than any of the Captains America.
With that, given my lack of interest in actually reading
the story, that skips me ahead through the first twenty-five pages of Marvel’s
needlessly separate Previews catalog.
I haven’t been keeping up with Spider-Gwen (despite the
fact that I bought the nifty Marvel Legends figure), but I can tell you that I
love this art. I know I’ve seen the name Robbie Rodriguez before, but these
covers are really standing out to me.
I found the first issue of this presumably limited series
to be very interesting. It’s a little different from your average superhero
comic. And while “a little different” isn’t all that unusual in this day and
age, I felt like there was something special. The art was great and the story
hooked me, even though I have no idea what, exactly, is going on. But I liked
Bobbi Morse and the weirdness that is her life. I’m not saying this rivals
Fraction’s epic Hawkeye, but there’s
equally interesting stuff going on. Give it a try.
Side Note: Oh, yeah – I finished Fraction’s
Hawkeye omnibus. It was as good as
everyone says. If you haven’t read it, you should. Also, I’ll stop being so
hard on Fraction for that Iron Man
run.
Marvel has been absolutely killing it with their Star
Wars titles, so I’m all-in until we hit a real stinker. I don’t believe I’ve
read anything by Marjorie Liu, but Mark Brooks is fantastic. I’m excited about
him doing interiors, especially on a Star Wars Han Solo book.
I’m not sure if I’m interested in this. Adaptations
usually add little bits and pieces to the story, but this thing is five bucks
an issue for five issues. Since there’s not going to be anything significantly
new here, I think I’ll wait and see what the trade looks like. Plus, I don’t know
where the art on the splash page (above) came from or who created it, but I’m
not digging it. If that’s from the interior artist, I think this is a pass for
me.
Just buy it. This is Bendis at his most interesting and
Alex Maleev is one of the best artists working today. There’s a lot of
political stuff here, but it’s presented in such a way that it doesn’t feel
preachy. If I had top picks for this column, this would be one of them.
I love Sons Of
Anarchy. This new comic from its creator, Kurt Sutter, sounds great. It’s
about a vet that makes a deal with Hell to erase some unspecified sin. He has
to hunt down escaped demons all across time. I’m definitely checking it out.
Matt Wagner is one of my favorite storytellers. I’ll buy
pretty much anything with his name on it. Back when the Alec Baldwin The Shadow movie came out (and
underrated superhero flick, in my opinion), my dad bought all of these audio
cassettes of the old The Shadow radio
dramas. I listened to a bunch of them and dug them. I haven’t exactly followed
the character since then, but with Wagner at the helm I’m as excited for this
as I am anything else this month.
Dammit, I don’t need any more t-shirts! My closet is stuffed. I love Starman and I want this shirt, but I’m going to try to resist.
Y’know, if you put Margot Robbie on one of these instead
of one of those lame designs, I’d probably have to order one.
What. The. Fuck.
Look, I know so-called geek culture is more socially
acceptable than it has ever been in my lifetime, but you are going to get your
ass kicked wearing this thing. It’s a cape
with a hood with freaking Star Wars spaceships on it. If you are
not a van you cannot get away with this.
It boggles my mind how long it takes companies to produce
licensed versions of obvious huge selling items like this.
Damned fantastic. I would love to own these. Ten bucks
apiece seems a bit steep, but this is a brilliant idea that DST should adapt to
every license they have. Fast food premium-style glasses are a nostalgia sweet
spot, especially when it’s a property like Ghostbusters that “should” have had
them. I’d love to see Battle Beasts, Nightmare Before Christmas, Aliens,
Predator, and Batman: The Animated Series. I don’t know how the licensing works
or if they could do all of those, but they totally should.
I’ve been putting DST’s vinyl banks over big time for a
couple of years now, and with good reason. Whether they’re character busts or
props like this, they’re fun and inexpensive ways to have fancy-looking pop
culture goodness on your shelf.
Personally, I
liked more about Dawn of Justice than
I disliked. I know that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. But
whatever you thought about the movie, I think you have to admit that the
costume design was fantastic, especially for Batman.
I am absolutely in love with Mezco’s One:12 Collective
figures. It’s to the point where when I am buying something, I think to myself,
“Would I rather have this or put the money towards a One:12 Collective figure?”
and most times it’s coming up in favor of Mezco’s premium toys.
I don’t know for sure that I’m going to order these,
though. As much as I love the line, it is very expensive and I think that in
the long run I’d rather stick to their comic book styled interpretations of the
characters.
But then there’s that One:12 Dawn of Justice Batmobile
that’s coming out. I need that. And I’ll
need a Batman to go in it. Man.
I loved Shazam when I was a kid, probably because of the
live action Filmation TV show. I haven’t really kept up with him over the years
aside from his appearances in things that I am already reading or watching, but
this is an outstanding action figure.
These are great! They’re basically just like Funko’s POP
figures, but with a different aesthetic. At 5” tall, they’re stylized versions
of DC’s heroines that look very collectible and present a cool style together.
Mrs. Troublemaker is all over these.
YES. We’ve been controlling ourselves quite well as far
as buying POP figures goes, but this is a must-have. There’s no denying
glow-in-the-dark Godzilla.
I… did not love this show. The Evil Dead franchise is one
of my favorite things ever. I have several Evil Dead tattoos. But this show had
a great beginning, a strong end, and a weak, slow middle. I’m not too impressed
with NECA’s figure line, either. Sure, I need an old Ash. One. One old Ash. I
get why NECA produced that Resident Evil ripoff Deadite, because it’s
recognizable and a monster that’s more than just a wrinkly, pus-ridden person.
But I didn’t like it in the show and I don’t want a figure of it. I’d much
rather have Pablo, Kelly, or Ruby. Especially
Ruby.
NECA is a smart, great company, but they don’t always do
things the way I would. Sometimes it’s licensing restrictions, sometimes it’s
just different decisions. Hopefully this line will get another wave or two and
we’ll see those characters. But I can’t say I’ll support it by buying all three
of these.
This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It
resembles Skottie Young’s artwork, but he’s not credited in the description, so
I don’t know what the deal is. It would be nice to have some dimensions for
this thing. For all I know I’d be paying sixty-five bucks for a 5” statue.
Less of an action figure and more of a statue, this 7”
collectible will be the most badass thing on your shelves. That is, if you can
get past the daunting “Please Inquire” price. Yeesh. I’ll wait for the One:12
Collective version (I’m kidding – as far as I know that’s not happening).
(that he doesn’t know about)
One:12
Collective Captain Kirk Action Figure - Mezco (487)
As much as I love Star Trek and as much as I love these
Mezco figures, I don’t think I’m going to dive into this side of the line. But
I know Gary will want them. Look at that smug face.
(that he doesn’t know about)
Cthulu
7-Inch Action Figure – SD Toys (528)
Gaze into the diminutive face of madness as this tiny Old
One sits upon your desk, daring you to skin your co-workers and bathe in their
infidel blood.
Or something. This figure looks great, but I am not
familiar with this SD Toys. I hope this isn’t one of those things that is
solicited but never materializes. Gary hopes so, too.
Unaffiliated
Thoughts
I thought that Batman
V Superman: Dawn of Justice was an epic movie with tons of flaws. Overall I
enjoyed it, though, and appreciate the setup for this new DC film-verse. I’ll
be going to see it again on the day that this posts and this Friday’s episode
of the
Needless Things Podcast will feature a conversation about it. Check it
out.
Once again Marvel’s little book is full of beautiful and
compelling art. It will be interesting to see if DC ups their game with the
added spotlight of having their own book. Find out in two weeks!
The Supergirl/Flash
crossover episode was really clunky, but so much fun it didn’t matter. Melissa
Benoist and Grant Gustin are too much adorable for one show. I think we’ll
discuss that on this Friday’s podcast, too.
*****
That’s all I’ve got for this month. Start putting your
pennies in your Diamond Select figural bank and remember to drop your order
form off at your Local Comic Book Shop!
Be sure to join the Needless Things Podcast Facebook Group and get in on the conversation for this week’s episode! Let us know what you think!
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