The Revolution is Outside My Building.
*There’s a delightful display of civil protest taking place outside my window right now (at about 1:45 AM eastern time). A fine gaggle of youths, doubtlessly in town on their first weekend of college, are very excited about our local garbage regulations! You see, around here you have to put all of your garbage in special bags or the trash men won’t pick them up (at about 6:00 today). The bags cost three dollars each. Or as the lad and lass outside my building are saying:
“THREE FUCKING DOLLARS!!?? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SHIT IS THIS? I’LL JUST FUCKING STEAL ONE OF THESE THINGS…”
“Heeeheeeee no Billy, stop!”
“GREEDY FUCKING PIGS!”
[something is kicked]
“Ohmygod Billy stop it you're so loud! Ha ha!”
“FUCK!”
And so on, for several enlightening minutes. I’m heartened to discover that young people are so enthusiastic about their local municipality’s trash policies! And thank goodness the Internet is here so I can dispatch this important news to all of the world.
I haven’t put my trash out yet. I’m saving that until after the Reform Party moves on to another street. This will also allow me to ingratiate myself further to the neighbors as I walk through the hall with garbage late at night; the legend of my popularity will soon be spread to written tradition among the people of my building!
*Brian Hibbs is playing with fire. If he keeps writing such funny reviews of books like Chuck Austen’s “Worldwatch”, I’m going to be tempted to flip through it on the stands and who knows what trouble may arise.
*Not a lot to discuss right now. The hottest news of the day is that an X-Men character who was once believed dead is now in fact alive. You’ll have to excuse me for not commenting on the momentous impact this gut-churning twist will no doubt have on fandom’s ability to trust Marvel; if sales on the core X-Men titles start dropping below the 20,000 level I’ll have to turn in my gun and badge to the Blog Chief, but I‘m willing to take that risk.
*Speaking of sales, I like to do the occasional perusal of Comicon’s sales estimates, with commentary by Paul O’Brien for Marvel and Marc-Oliver Frisch for DC and Others. The DC charts proved especially interesting this month, since I found out that “Metal Hurlant” had been moving less than 3000 copies in the Direct Market until their move to DC (does Humanoids have much of a magazine-rack presence for this title?) But now there’s nothing to fear: they’re at a studly 5000+ copies! Not every story is gold, mind you, but you’d think that a decent 64-page anthology retailing for $3.95 would attract a few more people.
Also, “Seaguy” dropped about 25% of its readership from issue 1 to 3. I’ll confess that I’m utterly baffled with people in the comments section dismissing it as ’incomprehensible’ since I personally thought Morrison bent over backwards to explain everything that was necessary to understand what was going on. Of course, a lot of that happened in issue #3 after close to 5000 readers had already left. And I’ve met plenty of people who thought “Memento” was impossible to follow, which also blows my mind. I guess I can’t totally blame the early “Seaguy“ jumpers; I’m also prone to dumping a title early if it isn’t showing signs of keeping my interest, but I thought the first issue of “Seaguy” was excellent in building up an interesting premise and teasing the reader with what was to come. A bunch of people didn’t agree. Of course, a large number more didn’t try in the first place.
*Stuff I’m thinking about picking up tomorrow if I can find it:
Popbot #6 (totally forgot about it)
Following Cerebus (some people seem to have gotten it, but I don’t see it on Diamond’s list)
Deep Sleeper (there’s an omnibus collection of issues #1-2 and a new #3 out now… I’ve heard good stuff)
“THREE FUCKING DOLLARS!!?? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SHIT IS THIS? I’LL JUST FUCKING STEAL ONE OF THESE THINGS…”
“Heeeheeeee no Billy, stop!”
“GREEDY FUCKING PIGS!”
[something is kicked]
“Ohmygod Billy stop it you're so loud! Ha ha!”
“FUCK!”
And so on, for several enlightening minutes. I’m heartened to discover that young people are so enthusiastic about their local municipality’s trash policies! And thank goodness the Internet is here so I can dispatch this important news to all of the world.
I haven’t put my trash out yet. I’m saving that until after the Reform Party moves on to another street. This will also allow me to ingratiate myself further to the neighbors as I walk through the hall with garbage late at night; the legend of my popularity will soon be spread to written tradition among the people of my building!
*Brian Hibbs is playing with fire. If he keeps writing such funny reviews of books like Chuck Austen’s “Worldwatch”, I’m going to be tempted to flip through it on the stands and who knows what trouble may arise.
*Not a lot to discuss right now. The hottest news of the day is that an X-Men character who was once believed dead is now in fact alive. You’ll have to excuse me for not commenting on the momentous impact this gut-churning twist will no doubt have on fandom’s ability to trust Marvel; if sales on the core X-Men titles start dropping below the 20,000 level I’ll have to turn in my gun and badge to the Blog Chief, but I‘m willing to take that risk.
*Speaking of sales, I like to do the occasional perusal of Comicon’s sales estimates, with commentary by Paul O’Brien for Marvel and Marc-Oliver Frisch for DC and Others. The DC charts proved especially interesting this month, since I found out that “Metal Hurlant” had been moving less than 3000 copies in the Direct Market until their move to DC (does Humanoids have much of a magazine-rack presence for this title?) But now there’s nothing to fear: they’re at a studly 5000+ copies! Not every story is gold, mind you, but you’d think that a decent 64-page anthology retailing for $3.95 would attract a few more people.
Also, “Seaguy” dropped about 25% of its readership from issue 1 to 3. I’ll confess that I’m utterly baffled with people in the comments section dismissing it as ’incomprehensible’ since I personally thought Morrison bent over backwards to explain everything that was necessary to understand what was going on. Of course, a lot of that happened in issue #3 after close to 5000 readers had already left. And I’ve met plenty of people who thought “Memento” was impossible to follow, which also blows my mind. I guess I can’t totally blame the early “Seaguy“ jumpers; I’m also prone to dumping a title early if it isn’t showing signs of keeping my interest, but I thought the first issue of “Seaguy” was excellent in building up an interesting premise and teasing the reader with what was to come. A bunch of people didn’t agree. Of course, a large number more didn’t try in the first place.
*Stuff I’m thinking about picking up tomorrow if I can find it:
Popbot #6 (totally forgot about it)
Following Cerebus (some people seem to have gotten it, but I don’t see it on Diamond’s list)
Deep Sleeper (there’s an omnibus collection of issues #1-2 and a new #3 out now… I’ve heard good stuff)
posted by Jog at 2:12 AM
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