Manic Monday Bonus--Oops!

Well...

My "no big deal" surgery has run into the dreaded "complications." So my hospital stay has been extended a few days, and I don't have enough advanced posts planned. So there will be some days without posts in the near future. Sorry.

Please don't worry, it's not all that serious. I'll be back in action soon enough. Keep reading comics!!

Mental Health Day

Look, it has been one trying week...

So we'll just punt today.

Normal idiocy returns tomorrow...

The Neverending Story

In for some procedures today...I'll be taking the weekend off here. Sorry...

Perhaps This Guy Was A Bad Example...?

Wow, what a crappy three days...

OK, perhaps I exaggerate.

Still, I did survive my hospitalization. But I've got a ton of diet/lifestyle adjustments to make if I don't want to prematurely join Mar-Vell. So my attention won't be fully on the blog for a few days. I imagine a thing or two will go up, with more-or-less full(ish) service next week.

Thank you to everyone for their kind words. And remember, take care of your bodies now, because someday they're going to turn on you, and you might not be as lucky as I was.

My Life Is An Episode Of House

Well...

I'm stuck in the hospital for a few days. Nothing too life-treatening (probably), but there won't be many posts here for the next few days.

Normal service will reurn to this cow-town puppet-show of a blog soon...

In Case Of Emergency, Please Use This Post!

Well, it looks as if we're not doing Friday Night Fights today, and I'm at work with not a lot of time or access to my stuff, so, well, here's this:

I've told the story before, but this was the very first comic I ever purchased for myself with my very own money. Yes, it was "STILL ONLY 25¢"! I had fifty cents, so it was a choice between 1 issue of MAD or two comics. (FYI, the other comic was Incredible Hulk #199).

It was the World's Greatest Comic Magazine! Power Man vs. the Thing! In an exo-skeleton!! Puppet Master!! Radioactive mind control clay!! Roy Thomas!! George Perez!!

Is it any wonder I was hooked?

Substantive posts return tomorrow...

From Fantastic Four #170 (1976)

So What? Big Deal!

Well, today is the 10th anniversary of this cow-town puppet show of a blog.


I can't say that I disagree, big guy.

I mean, we humans love our round numbers and arbitrarily important dates. But really, this is pretty much the same blog it was yesterday, and pretty much the same blog as it will be tomorrow. Love me or hate me, an anniversary shouldn't change that.

Still, it is a good opportunity to thank my 10 or 12 regular readers, or perhaps suggest that they have their sanity checked.

There will be a few more posts today, a couple of original things, a couple of reposts of pieces I think are important, and the single greatest Friday Night Fight ever.

Otherwise, just the same old same old. I've still got about a trillion comics to read, and I'm sure I'll keep finding things that I want to share.

So stick around, foolish fish.

Goddamn, I love comic books!

Illin'

I'm too sick to do a post today...

...must...sleep....back tomorrow (probably...)

If It's A Good Enough Excuse For Spider-Man. It's Good Enough For Me...

So sorry...

No post today. Go elsewhere for your daily dose of snark & wit...

From Amazing Spider-Man #87 (1970)

Ibis And The Alligator Ouroboros

Do you know why I love comics?

A swamp creature has taken Ibis' girlfriend, Taia...

He pursues...

But...

Brilliant!!! Ewwwww, but brilliant!!

Today is the 8th anniversary of the day I started this blog.I've done some 3700 posts, covering many thousands of comic books.

Yet I can still be surprised and stunned. I can still (figuratively) thrust my hand down into my collection and pull out an Egyptian prince who had been in suspended animation for 4000 years and woke up with a magic stick that do can anything fighting telepathic swamp beasts and making alligators eat themselves.

Goddamn I love comics.

From Ibis The Invincible #5 (1946)

Perhaps It's The Zombie Apocalypse!

We're having a bit of a storm-caused blackout in my neck of the woods...

No, not that Blackout!!

Regular service will resume tomorrow (hopefully).

Apparently I Have Too Much Time On My Hands

The debut of my new Sherlock Holmes blog. Try not to be too disappointed.

Manic Moinday--I'm Back--Kinda, Sorta

Well...

Sorry, everyone. I've been frightfully ill the past few days.

That, plus some networking problems (that would have would been easy to solve had I been able to sit upright for more than 30 seconds at a time) basically kept me off the computer and the interents for the past few days.

I am on the mend. We will doubtless be on lower-than-normal content mode for the next few days as I regain my strength, catch up on life, and actually find time to finish last week's comics.

Best piece of advice--don't catch what I had. Bleccch.

SMotD3K

Well, this is my 3000th post.



Fair point, Black Lectroid Leader. Fair point.

It's just an arbitrary number, albeit a big and round one.

But it's as good as any other milestone to remember how much I love comic books.

How much? Comics do this to me:

Or wait, do they do this to me:

Of course, comics are a harsh mistress, and they occasionally do this to your eyes:

Ouch!

So, anyway, I love comics, and you're stuck with me for another 3000 posts.

Sorry.

Manic Monday Quadruple Bypass--Sneak Preview!

Coming tomorrow to a Slay Monstrobot near you...

...perhaps the best comic I've ever found in The Quarter Bin...EVER!!

You have been warned...

Sixth Blogiversary Rant--This Isn't Hard: Let Heroes Be Heroes

So, 6 years ago today I began my little cow-town puppet show of a blog.

And one of the reasons I did was to express some...dismay...at some trends of the Big Two, especially DC and their increasingly cavalier attitude about having heroes kill, and having killers become heroes.

Well, I can finally declare victory. After six-tenths of a decade of profound silliness, overlong rants, and laser-like focus, my goal is accomplished. Sanity has been restored to the comics world, especially DC.

Why, just check out this response to a fan question during the Trinity Wars panel at SDCC:

What crossovers do you look to for inspiration? Johns and Lemire agree Identity Crisis is their number one inspiration - a big world-shattering event but with a mystery at the heart of it.

Wait a moment...that can't be right.

DC's Chief Creative Officer and one of the more popular writers amongst fans both have, as their #1 inspiration, the series that had a hero's wife raped by a villain, and later murdered by the ex-wife of another hero because she thought that was a good way to reconcile? The one that had heroes and villains forcibly brainwashed, their memories erased, by a "hero"? That's their number one inspiration for crossovers?

All right, that's just a couple of guys on one panel, and I guess people are allowed to like Identity Crisis, somehow, for some reason.

But things elsewhere at DC are just fine. Why, let's check out the DC Comics 101: Essentials panel, with John Cunningham (VP of Marketing), Bob Harras (Editor-In-Chief) and Bobbie Chase (Editorial Director). C'mon, "Comics101"! "Essentials"! Surely these bigwigs know what a universe of heroic fiction should be, right?

When asked about Villain’s Month and the longevity of the New 52, the overarching response from the panel was that the goal was for the reader to gain a greater understanding of what the villains actually do, what it is that makes them the way they are, and that ultimately our heroes are defined by the villains.

What?"[U]ltimately our heroes are defined by the villains."?!?

Dammit, I guess I'm not done here after all. This looks like it might take another 6 years...

Look, I could go into an extended rant here. I could decry the nu52 as merely a Elseworlds for "What If The DC Heroes Had Lost Legends."

I could kvetch that the constant treatment of heroes as enemies and outcasts has dampened, if not extinguished, the inspirational (and aspirational) aspects of your intellectual properties, alienating both long-time fans and casual readers, a fact that is only hidden by the constant churn of seemingly continuous #1 issues and "event" months with cover gimmicks to artificially prop up sales.

I could ask DC to analyze why, in his 75th anniversary year, their big budget Superman movie will be lucky to earn 70% of what the second Iron Man sequel did, and ask them to consider whether the unrelenting grimness (and gratuitous neck snappage) might be killing their golden goose, both in comics and other media.

But hey, I'm not in a ranty mood. Let's just let these panels from Invasion: Book 2 (1988) (plot & pencils by Keith Giffen, script by Bill Mantlo) speak for me:

See? Is that so hard?

For your edification, DC bigwigs, here are a few dictionary definitions of "hero" (please forgive the gender bias shown by some):

Dictionary.com: a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal

Merriam-Webster: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities 

Oxford Dictionary Of American English: a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities

Cambridge Dictionary: a person who is admired for having done something very brave or having achieved something great

 Admired. Regarded as a model. Idealized.

Enough, DC. Every character doesn't have to be 1970s Spider-Man, hunted and feared. Enough having heroes kill, or being made to look like they killed. Enough secret government agencies dedicated to controlling/fighting/eliminating heroes. Enough fear and distrust by the press and public when these guys have saved the world seven times over. Enough.

Let. Heroes. Be. Heroes. 

Manic Life--2500th Post Non-Spectacular!

So...

This is Post # 2500. Eat your heart out, Detective Comics!!

I find that I have nothing terribly profound to say to mark the occasion.

Over the 5 3/4 years that I've been putting out this low-tech cowtown blog, somehow my productivity has actually increased, as the number of posts I crank out seems to go up annually.

Why? Because I freakin' love comic books. New, old, paper, digital, hardbound, newspaper strip, mental chip download (just you wait...)--I love 'em all. And I still have as my life goal to read every comic book ever....which explains my inability to leave the Quarter Bin alone.

What comes next? More inane hijinx, more mockery, more attempts to revive ridiculous Golden Age heroes, more bemoaning stupid crossover events and stupid companies and stupid poopy trends like $4 comics, more obsessing over ridiculously miniscule points...and more celebrating the joy that is comic books.

So stick around...I ain't going anywhere, until I dig out the last comic from the last longbox. I speculate that should keep me going at least until Post #16,000 or so...

Mental Health Day

Sorry...

I'm way behind, plate's too full, yada yada.

Things will return to normal tomorrow....