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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #73
25 October 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
IT'S THE RETURN OF ONE-LINERS!
Whatever happened to Keith Giffen? Is it just me or has he not done
much of anything worth a penny since the JUSTICE LEAGUE days?
Just read Frank Miller's 300 series this past week. Great stuff.
Wait for the trade paperback and snap it up.
Went to a comics show in Wayne, NJ today. The whole thing's small
enough that you can walk around it in thirty seconds. But with all
the fifty cent bins, I ended up walking out with more comics than I
do at a larger con like Big Apple. Lesson: Size doesn't matter.
We need more humor books. I just picked up some more GROO back
issues in those fifty cents bins. Simple stories, hilarious,
complete in one issue. And it could appeal to the "mainstream."
So could, of course, Chris Eliopoulos' DESPERATE TIMES. Give it a
chance. It's had tremendous growth recently.
There was a time when my COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE would arrive every
week on the same day - usually Tuesday or Thursday. These days, I
get two on the same day, and then nothing for a couple of weeks and
sporadic shipment at best. What gives?
ToyBiz runs Marvel. Classic case of tail wagging dog.
BLACK PANTHER #2 came out this past week, also. Very funny. Well
worth the price of admission. And a Bruce Timm cover, to boot!
The new Batman animated series style works better in comic book form
than it does animated on the television screen.
I'm sure THE SAVAGE DRAGON: THE FALLEN TPB is terrific, but I still
haven't found a copy in a store I'd be willing to buy due to all the
fingerprints over the mostly-white cover.
And the cover to the THE SAVAGE DRAGON: POSSESSED TPB is so slick
that you can't get the cover autographed.
These are certain intangibles that I wouldn't have thought of,
either, when producing such books.
Vertigo is getting rid of their letter columns. So I'll just
withhold comment on any of their titles. ;-)
I miss the original BORIS THE BEAR. Not the recent attempt at a
comeback James Dean Smith made, but the original comic book satire
book.
I miss Alan Davis on EXCALIBUR. There was a good series.
Does anyone know why the "Cross-Time Caper," originally labelled as
a 9-parter, ended up taking two years or more to complete? (Honest
question; I didn't start reading the series until afterwards.)
I've only written slightly more than 60 letters of comment this
year. Looks like I won't break my all-time record of close to 200,
which I wrote at a time I bought half the comics I buy today. Go
fig.
My comics shop (The Jokers Child in Fair Lawn, NJ) recently moved
into a larger location. It's not so much a matter of a booming
industry, as it is a continued expectation of everyone to be a
"superstore." Why go to smaller bookstores when there's a Borders
or a Barnes and Nobles? And how nice would it be to get all your
genre-related stuff -- not just the comics -- in one outlet?
I got my college yearbook in the mail today. One particular person
has her picture in there on nearly every other page. I wonder which
member of the yearbook staff she was sleeping with? Seems some
things never change from high school, eh?
Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett are doing wonderful jobs in evoking the
classic Kirby spirit over in SUPERBOY, all the while retaining their
own contemporary feel. Not an easy task. But they pull it off
month after month.
Halloween is just around the corner. So round up those back issues
you'd rather throw away and give them to the trick or treaters!
-Augie
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