ROLLING SADFACE 2009

Marvel at Dese Commix!

Good news: JLI reprints in PAPERBACK, Showcase Prez Ambush Bug, Marvel Noir might be good?

Bad news: take yr pick

A noted rumor mongerer claims that DiDio is making Grant Morrison change the ending of Final Crisis! In addition to pissing off James Robinson to the point that he's bailing on DC! And TONY DANIEL is going to start writing Batman!!!! What the FUCK!

Also:

THE MIGHTY #1
Written by Peter J. Tomasi & Keith Champagne
Art by Peter Snejbjerg

R.E.B.E.L.S. #1
Written by Tony Bedard
Art and cover by Andy Clarke

If this is what's being greenlit at DC nowadays, then I'm definitely looking forward to...

ANIMA / DAMAGE #1
Written by Adam Beechen
Art by Chris Batista

also that LA Times Didio interview spells S-H-I-T-O-N-A-S-T-I-C-K with Superman leaving Action (going to space forever is ok, tho) and possibly doing a B'Wayne-less Batman WITHOUT Grant Morrison

Alienating James Robinson - dumb
TV Writers are way to go on comics - pretty dumb (Lets be honest, if they were any good at writing TV, they would be writing TV. Meanwhile, hey comics are not TV.)
Re-writing Grant Morrison - stupid
Taking Superman out of Action Comics - really stupid
Completely changing your two main characters into some unrecognizable form, while alienating two of those titles writers - very stupid

Batman and Superman are pretty much what sells for DC. Letting Grant Morrison write a crazy Batman story that changes the 'status quo' is one thing, but doing it and then possibly alienating him half way through is insane.

Superbatshit crazy!

JLI reprints in PAPERBACK

I think it’s a whole 2 years since the last printing of this book, which was previously in print from about 1988-1998 – ease off on the caps there

this a newer reprint series--I think the third volume just came out in HC.

John Rogers on cancellation of Blue Beetle: "But it seems damn silly to bend storytelling to a format sold almost exclusively in low-attendance, often creepy specialty shops scattered across the nation."

Dear DC, my comic shop friend assures me that Grant Morrison comics sell FUCKING SHITLOADS so leave him alone, k?

come on now, show me one example of anything DC's done in the last two years to show they're at all interested in selling FUCKING SHITLOADS of comics...

How odd it would be if I only bought Geoff Johns DC comics. But I can kind of see that happening next year. It doesn't even seem that interesting in a Countdown-clusterfuck kind of way.

this a newer reprint series

it's really not, the exact same issues are in it as in 1988 and 2002.

Anyone got any links to those DiDio stupidity rumours beyond the above?

it's really not, the exact same issues are in it as in 1988 and 2002.

Yes, but I think the gist is that DC is going to continue issuing trades of the new hardcovers, which is unprecedented. And before you point it out: yes, I know there was also a second (currently out of print) trade. But there will probably be a third and a fourth and a fifth trade, as well, which will probably include JLE and JLQ stuff. So I support this particular retread.

I'm not believing anything until they get to vol 15 or whatever!

I could go for a new printing of 'The Great Darkness Saga' as I never see it in stores and it's like $30+ online.

I hope Vol 15 is the G.Jones JLE

Speaking of Giffen: proof that J.M. DeMatteis may have been the comic genius behind JLI? or just, y'know, as the "brainfarts" tag suggest, he's just not trying/edtiing here.

more Didiocy

"I could go for a new printing of 'The Great Darkness Saga' as I never see it in stores and it's like $30+ online."

I picked up a bunch of 80s Legion and found a big chunk of them at a buck or less. I was kind of happy that most of those were not worth that much money, but there are some that are kind of expensive once it gets into the baxter series (which to me is more than like $2 or $3 bucks an issue). The same is true of the DeMatteis/Giffen/Maguire Justice League issues, as they are pretty cheap as back issues and hold up pretty good.

I'm kind of liking that a bunch of the 80s back issues are not worth that much, as that is the stuff I really want to read again.

Freaking Amazing Spider-man is an exception, criminy some of that stuff is crazy expensive and Marvel is too dense to reprint the Roger Stern/JR JR stuff, which is of course is the run I want to re-read.

gd stuff abt why DC sucked in the 90s here:

http://whenwillthehurtingstop.blogspot.com/2008/11/qed-yes-that-is-perhaps-most-obscure.html

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/120801-Rucka-Action.html

After reading this interview with Greg Rucka, who is going to be writing the Superman-less Action title, I'm beginning to think the story lines for both Batman and Superman are kind of being setup with a benefit to maybe get them out of the way for The Darkest Night story being the big series for next summer.

This way the center DC Universe story for 2009 will be based around Green Lantern and bringing back The Flash, who I bet will both be center to whatever Johns has cooked up for his DC zombie and kaleidoscope ring krew epic. It's DC, if Batman and Superman were around, Batman would be telling people what to do and Superman would just fly the bad guy into the sun. With both of them gone, it's all about Snapper Carr.

Oh well, maybe there'll be something good happening in Marvel?

Hahaha Andrew, let's ponder that thought for a second (and I say that as a total Marvel/X-Men whore)

BMB: Absolutely. From page one of Dark Reign Special. Because we know what Doom wants, we know what Namor wants, we know what Loki wants, we know what everybody else wants. But Emma has wants as well. And is she willing to go this far to make them happen, in this climate?

And I'd like to publicly speak to Joss Whedon, whom I haven't spoken to about this. I'd like to tell Joss, I'm not going to undo all the work you did to make her awesome.

:(

I believe there was a certain writer before Whedon who made her fabulous...

Daredevil: Noir, really?

lol I Love Redundancy

also, Superman, now starring Mon-El???

way to boost sales!

I think DC is smoking some strong stuff by publishing pretty much Superman and Batman all year pretty much without Superman or Batman, only in comics that would be thought about as some kind of a good idea.

Copped from the Brubaker's Captain America-less Captain America. Which I love, btw.

Tony Daniel /= Ed Brubaker, not even as an artist

Plus, (sticking with Batman) Cap Am's supporting cast didn't all already have their own low-selling solo mags before usurping Our Hero's starring role.

That said, Rucka's Action might be good. Wasn't he supposed to have done a similar (Nightwing & Flamebird) story in Supergirl a couple of years back but then didn't?

Yah, those are both good points.

I dunno nuttin' bout no nightwing and flamebird (I don't even know who flamebird is.)

what happened to superman?

he died

Tony Daniel /= Ed Brubaker, not even as an artist

o man I would have bought Morrison's Batman if Brubaker was drawing it!

Captain America has never been as big a seller as Batman, so it is a bit different. My theory is that Ed Brubaker had to kill Cap to cover up for his worse sin of bringing back Bucky. I guess Morrison maybe was screwing with that same thing with his Vader like appearance of Batman's dad in R.I.P.

At least going by what I have read in the Batman books and with The Question, Greg Rucka is a pretty decent comic writer. I don't doubt that either book might be 'readible', but it seems mighty peculiar to have the two main Superman titles without Superman and seemingly planned for a year. I was around when they tried Action weekly back in the 80s and that thing was a big flop, even though a couple of the stories were really OK from what I can recall. I just don't think there are enough guys over 35 to want to buy a Guardian and Mon-El Superman book.

Either way, it is all about getting the big 3 out of the way so that supposedly DC can star Green Lantern and Flash.

I guess I am just grouchy as I liked both the Batman and Superman books and this whole thing doesn't really interest me and like Johns setup in Green Lantern and JSA, it is just way too much overkill.

Eh it doesn't really matter I suppose, I'll just read something else. I've been getting the bug to go and read some old 80s First comics like Starslayer and Grim Jack anyway. I'd also like to read the latter half of the original Grendel run again.

Eh it doesn't really matter I suppose, I'll just read something else.

That's pretty much the 2009 prognosis on DC for me too. Until Moz comes back to Batman, at least.

Ditto.

Also: Andrew Kreisberg leaving New Krypton after ONE issue? Yikes.

If his other comics are like that Batman Confidential storyline he just finished, they might be better off. The guy had the Joker drop some lame TV show line in the last issue of the current storyline. It was like the Joker saying something to Batman like 'don't have a cow man since you missed Grey's Anatomy' or something similarly lame. Criminy I'd rather read Superboy Prime knocking on the doors of reality with Batmite and a marching band doing a walk through on a comic than read some dumb cloying line like that one. I don't know, it seems like to me that DC has this thing all plotted out and they just want someone to make it happen, which unless you are Roy Thomas or Len Wein and this is 1972, it isn't going to work out that hot.

Hey, give Tony Daniel some credit. After all, he did write this acclaimed classic from the late nineties:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n6/n33353.jpg

Something awesome is in the works--perhaps a SOLO-type book?
Allred + Gaiman on Metamorpho

Kyle Baker on Hawkman!

KB's badassery never fails to leave my big dumb mouth hanging open.

Kyle Baker: "Hawkman carries a mace, so it’s important for a writer to create dilemmas which can be resolved with a mace. A guy with a mace fighting a T-Rex is a good fight to watch."

"I try not to spend more than four hours on a page."

JESUS FUCK!

Can I get a "Fappo!"?

http://www.comicon.com/resources/pulse/images_07a/1kylehawk3.jpg

"I try not to spend more than four hours on a page."
JESUS FUCK!

Indeed

that looks like one of the "more than four hours" ones

There's more panels in that than there is in an average issue of the DARK REIGN crossover book of your choice..

JESUS FUCK!

Baker put himself through school by inking Marvel books on a Mon-Fri turnaround.

grinning, thumbs up hawkman looks like grinning, thumbs up osama from the rightwing cartoonists thread!

God bless Kyle Baker!

In other news I have been catching up via the, ahem, electronic library on some stuff that I neglected to buy when it came out. One of these is the DC Universe Holiday Special, which contains an Aquaman story actually written by Dan DiDio! Holy shit, is it bad. DD seems to be Sadface Patient Zero, which is a surprise to no-one. Has he actually written anything else?

(cue someone telling me that he's been writing for years under the pseudonym "Kyle Baker", and me crying all the way home)

He wrote some crap in the Halloween SPecial about Charlie Brown and Linus all grown up to become Satanists, with Blue Devil in it.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/images/litg/2009/0309/51w-aGE65cL._SS500_.jpg

Something of a "long queue for the indie club toilets" vibe on this one

http://comics.ign.com/articles/961/961044p1.html

Morriquitely Batrobin! The crew I picked this up from are bitching about Frank's faces, but I really like the batmobiles look on these pages.

I think those same people would bitch about the sky being blue.

Man, that stuff looks great in black and white.

So does DC have this yearlong weekly title stuff out of their system after Trinity?

Also does anyone know what's happening in Trinity? I felt kind of bad about not even reading the CBRs, as it seemed to be semi-crucial to the big story, but dear god it was terrible.

Last I checked, they had all turned into super-gods of a parallel earth populated by a race that's a cross between Cookie Monster and Jar Jar Binks.

Has there EVER been a convincing alien race in a DC/Marvel comic? They're all just one-dimensional or humans in fancy dress (or both).

THE LAST DAYS OF ANIMAL MAN #2
Written by Gerry Conway
Buddy Baker’s powers have picked the wrong time to desert him – a thousand feet above the San Diego skyline! He’ll have to rely on the help of a most unlikely ally if he wants to survive his rematch with Bloodrage. But there’s more than one homicidal maniac out there with designs on his life, and the Mirror Master’s daughter won’t settle for the scraps Bloodrage plans on leaving behind!

Bloodrage? Really?

It's what the kids like these days!

With their rap music and their internets and their Clockmen.

Can't believe you dinguses are hung up on L&O hacks & aren't plotzing over WEDNESDAY COMICS -- bastards made me delurk & everything

Hey, that does look interesting: and the big, floppy size is a good way to frustrate (not stop, I'd guess) scanners.

I was down just for the Kyle Baker Hawkman pages, the rest of the lineup is dece enough to get a semillon for (though filled with bonekillers too obv - ie yay Gibbons if drawing, boo if writing, yay Pope, yay Simonson, yay Amanda Connor drawing Supergirl, boo Palmiotti writing Supergirl, yay Gaiman on Metamorpho, yay Allred on Metamorpho, boo Gaiman and Allred on Metamorpho etc etc...)

ALSO:

In yesterday’s episode, host Blair Butler announced that writer Kathryn Immonen (Patsy Walker: Helcat) and artist Sara Pichelli (NYX) will pick up Runaways after Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos’ run ends in April. David Lafuente (Ultimate Spider-Man) will provide the covers.

as of this week, the only superhero book on my pull list is Captain America. WTF is up with that???

also, I am lonely on Saturdays.

Jesus Creeping Christ!

Dwayne McDuffie: I wrote a scene set at their gravesite that I recently had to quickly rewrite into something not very good.

Matthew Murray: Do you actually enjoy writing JLA? It just seems to be constant editorial rewrites and bad art.

McDuffie: No, I don’t.

Hahaha, those posts kinda transformed themselves into the most recent issue. "You know what, this is fuckin' bullshit! I'm breaking up the band!"

DC is pretty much a train wreck.

Funny thing is that I guess McDuffie is actually making his living as a TV writer, so JLA is the only comic work he is doing at this time. I don't know his comics, but that is one bad situation to try and make good comics.

When I started back into reading some monthly super hero books was around the time ONE YEAR LATER happened. The Marvel comic stuff seemed really impenetrable to me (and it was the Civil War so everything was sold out anyway), so I started on a bunch of the new starting up DC books. I really liked the Batman and Superman titles, but the others just never caught with me. Getting caught up I read Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis and man those are some hard to read titles. I was kind of hoping it was a good starting point like when I got really into DC comics in the wake of the first Crisis, but other than the books I mentioned, I was wrong.

I've come to the conclusion like the other 12,000 angry fan boys that their EIC Dan Didio is pretty much an idiot. I get the idea from interviews he is pretty much a failed comic writer who is somehow trying to sculp this whole line. I don't know what he did in TV, but I bet it was shit. I can definitely see why so many talented writers and artists have said fuck it and quit dealing with them. Marvel seems to have more of a total line storyline going on, but yet at the same time they seem to let their creators have some freedom to tell some stories and yet give the fanbase what they want.

It's kind of sad to see DC comics overall kind of suck (even though there are a couple of exceptions).

I'm glad you posted that McDuffie interview snippet, Doc Supes. It explains why that last JLA issue was such a magnificently shitty waste of time.

:(

This posting has been deleted by its author.
(The title on the listings page will be removed in just a few minutes.)

????

:(

:?

I sure hope his kid is ok.

http://www.pedalcarsandretro.com/Classic_Pretty_in_Pink_Sad_Face_Sedan-p-20.html

n'rama:
"On the 'Legion', I have a lot of homework to do before I'm ready to hit the keyboard the first time," Levitz said, adding that he's going to have to do a lot of research.

shockingly low expectations of Noozarama reader's comprehension levels aside, I wonder if Levitz's return to Legion will be awesomely awesome as his return to JSA was?

Your 2010 JLA:

CONGORILLA
DONNA TROY
MON-EL
BATMAN
DR. LIGHT
GREEN ARROW
GREEN LANTERN
THE ATOM
CYBORG
STARFIRE
THE GUARDIAN

the comics reporter: "At Marvel, Iron Man is central to many of the past few events. At DC, you're as likely to see a major event with a central role for Donna Troy as you are for Batman. Marvel re-launches its movie-style Avengers title; DC launches a new Red Tornado mini-series. DC's individual creator most in tune with the modern film-driven publishing market seems to be Alan Moore 23 years ago."

Who will wield the shield? I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a throwback to Stan the Man era hucksterism or if it's some kind of American Idol reference.

That quote is interesting, but I'm not sure things haven't been this way in general. Marvel's always been more practical, financially, in its publishing. They've been their own company until just recently - compared to DC's corporate child status, though now they're in a similar boat. Despite the lesser films Marvel definitely has been doing a better job in terms of overall throughput of their films/tv series/video products.

Is Darkseid's body even cold yet?
http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2009/11/13/end-your-week-with-the-cover-to-justice-league-of-america-42/

Does Johns not seem to have thought through his five-years-in-the-making epic or is he just awful at talking about it?
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/091229-geoff-johns-blackest-night.html

Johns: Well, the blackness isn't death. The blackness just is. It's existence. It's emptiness. Death isn't really a force.