HOME SHIPPING NETWORK October 3, 2007

Lobster Johnson
Infinity Inc
Metal Men
Black Diamond (is this the Eddie Campbell thing? If not, forget it.)

Maybe the Question trade.

Omega the Unknown!

Buffy, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane digest, and Uncanny X-Men.

Oh, and Infinity Inc.

BUFFY #7 - wherein Spike proposes to Buffy, Xander becomes a monster magnet and Giles goes blind. I think.
LOBSTER JOHNSON #dos - pulp shenanigans
METAL MEN #3 - indie melodrama about the travails of a group of aging hard rock roadies.
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #1 - by the author of "Five Fucks" and AS SHE CLIMBED ACROSS THE TABLE.

and I'm probably overlooking something...

I guess that's not the Eddie Campbell thing, if no one else is scampering towards it.

Or maybe I'm wrong! What is the ILComix hivemind massive consensus on Eddie Campbell? I think he's a goddamn genius and I don't like to miss anything he writes or draws.

It's not Campbell - his BLACK WHATEVER THINGY was First Second thingy.

I'm inclined to agree with your assessment, though I claim to be representative of nobody.

Also Jack of Fables, and Criminal from last week.

For me:
JLA/HITMAN #2--still haven't read the first part, but c'mon, it's Hitman...
QUESTION ZEN & VIOLENCE VOL. 1 TP--thank you, Greg Rucka, for making people care about this series again
VINYL UNDERGROUND #1--blah blah Phonomancer blah blah
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #1--okay, I'm curious
MOME VOL. 9--actually I have this already

QUESTION ZEN & VIOLENCE VOL. 1 TP--thank you, Greg Rucka, for making people care about this series again

It's Denny O'Neill's 80s take on Vic Sage, mostly drawn by Denys Cowan. Our hero has a near death experience (or a real honest to goodness death experience) right off the bat, the recovery from which is more or less the transition from the Objectivist Ditko Question to the Spiritual Seeker Question. Honestly, I consider it more Taoist than Zen Buddhist, but lines get blurred. Anyway, it is freaking fantastic, especially the early issues.

But Rucka it ain't - I think Greg was still a fanboi when it was being published.

I see sez the blind man. Much obliged.

The back issues for The Question are mostly under two bucks at "mycomicshop.com". Those were printed on some nice white paper, so the printing in a trade would not be a huge upgrade.

I was looking them up myself, as The Question was one of my favorite titles back when those were coming out new.

Another title that I really liked that seems to be completely under the radar from that time is DC's reboot of The Shadow. They did The Shadow really three different ways, it started with a cool Chaykin mini series, then they had Sienkiewicz doing the art, then later it got really weird with Kyle Baker and finally they did some good issues taking it back to the 30s pulp roots. Either way, all of those issues were pretty good and I remember it being a title I really liked.

Black Diamond (is this the Eddie Campbell thing? If not, forget it.)

This is the ever-admirable Larry Young with an in-no-way confusingly similar title on some floppy crime series. The Campbell came out about five months ago (hardcover less recently), but is possibly the least essential addition to a collector's library since Catalyst: Agents Of Change. Or maybe only X-Men #400.

JLA/HITMAN #2--still haven't read the first part, but c'mon, it's Hitman...

First part was soooo good, it's just straight Hitman - age has not wearied them.

> Larry Young

Don't you mean Khalid Yasin? Or am I getting my nerd obsessions cross-wired again?

Anyway, it's pretty ok, huh? First time I heard of this LY dude.

ALL NEW ATOM #16
DEADMAN #13
DETECTIVE COMICS #837
JACK OF FABLES #15
JLA HITMAN #2
JONAH HEX #24
METAL MEN #3
METAMORPHO YEAR ONE #1
MIDNIGHTER #12
QUESTION ZEN AND VIOLENCE VOL 1 TP
VINYL UNDERGROUND #1
HOWARD THE DUCK #1
OMEGA UNKNOWN #1

A couple of those I have no idea about, but you guys are interested so I might as well throw another couple of bucks away.

xpost:
No idea who Khalid Yasin is, so, er, possibly?

Also no idea if it's any good: there was possibly some slight sarcasm in my description of Mr Young. He's mainly a publisher, and very few of his authors stick with him long-term. It's not impossible that it's a perfectly entertaining piece of genre flummery, people spoke well of his Astronauts In Trouble ten years ago.

Oilyrags is making a joke abt the late great jazz organist Larry Young who also took the name Khalid Yasin

Conde Nast, the owners of the Shadow, were not amused by the Helfer and Baker issues where the Shadow's decapitated head is trundled around on a trolley, and pulled the plug on the title - it's v. v. unlikely those comics will ever be reprinted

O'Neil and Cowan's Question = travesty of Ditko's character w/ exceptionally horrible artwork

It's always good to have a diversity of opinion.