BilmBlog500

So over the past several weeks I've been spending more money week in and week out at the comic book store than I've done in a long time, mostly on account of the DC Retroactive series of comic books. This send off for the old DC Universe ahead of the New 52 that launched today with Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 was one of the more delightful ideas to come around. There were 18 issues, six each for the '70s, '80s and '90s, which paired a "new" story from the era in question with a classic reprint. The first few I tried were enjoyable enough that I decided I'd stop leafing through to decide which I should buy, and instead just went for all of them, $4.99 a pop, three a week, several weeks running. Not all of them were entirely successful, some had a good reprint but a so-so new story, others had a good new story paired with a so-so reprint, but the overall was just a lot of fun. Favorites might have been the Green Lantern story with the Jon St...

DC Comics recently reversed a decision to go to $3.99 pricing on some books, and all regular monthly titles are now $2.99.  Which is a good thing. Except that a couple of story pages were dropped. 20 pages is still more than the 17 I can remember a long time back, but not 22 or 23. But I am still doubly thrilled because at least one of the pages will be used to restore letter columns to the books.  I loved letter columns. Even had some published back in the day. We will see if they print good letters and bad, or if they use it to have some real dialogue, but just the idea of seeing them back thrills me no end. Even on a limited basis, pushing feedback and dialogue to your readers in the comic instead of having people pull it by visiting a forum or bulletin board or whatever is a welcome return to a better way of doing things. If the opening issues of the new Superboy series are all that can be good in comics, the first issue of threw Shazam is every bit the opposite. If you haven't...

I was surprised just how much I enjoyed DCU Legacies #8. This one dealt with some crazy things I'd tried to forget, like the aftermath of Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday when the Superman books split up to show 4 different of them doing their thing. Maybe I'd forgotten because we're starting to get into comics from 1994 and 1995 when my post-JABberwocky hiatus from reading comic books began due to time constraints. Even now, I read only a third or a quarter of the # of books I was reading in 1993, so the forthcoming issues of the series will cover a lot of stuff that I've skipped over these past many years. Like the whole Hal Jordan not being Green Lantern thing. After covering the death of Batman (he died then, too, wow!), we get into Parallax, introed from 1994, all new to me. I know Len Wein is doing good scripts, and Jerry Ordway and Dan Jurgens excellent art for this issue, but will this all be more or less interesting as we move forward? Teen T...

Following up on the last Funny Book Roundup , I purchased only four comic books the past two weeks. One I didn't purchase: I noticed there was no Firestorm to be found in the latest issue of Brightest Day, and I didn't keep buying it because some of the issues have had Firestorm in an important role. The amazing adaptivity of the human mind! The most delightful way to spend $2.99 was with Futurama #52. Bender decides he needs plastic surgery, becomes addicted, and it's just funny and adorable and true to the characters. I've said many times before and will again that I've gotten more consistent enjoyment from this comic book than I ever did from the TV show. And this issue continues their series of black light posters being included free, so what are you waiting for, go, by. Eric Rogers wrote this pleasing script with art by Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy. There's also a decent enough back-up story where Zapp Brannigan gets a medal he doesn't deserve. ...

Comic Book Guy seemed to be a miniseries with great promise, and the first issue with it's multitude of covers and the story inside kind of lived up to it.  But things faded fast. The 4th of 5 issues wasn't funny, wasn't understandable, whatever it was supposed to spoof was hard to find.  At least with the fifth issue things rebounded some. The grand reveal didn't make any sense but it wasn't supposed to, and I had a smile on my face while reading it instead of a look of utter mystification.  Bongo does better with Futurama #51, which is a typically amusing issue that takes us from the Donner party to Vegemite in entertaining fashion.  Bongo is much more successful with the delightful laugh-filled joyful holiday romp in issue #172. The script is from a not-obvious source, the longtime writer Mike W Barr, whom I associate with various DC heroes over the years or with his own Maze Agency "fair play" mystery comics. This issue of The Simpsons so thoroughly ca...

Wonder Woman 602 was a disappointment. First issue at least intrigued but instead of moving forward I thought this 2nd issue in the J. Michael Straczynski run became incoherent. Peter Brett and I were discussing if it's possible for anyone to do a good Wonder Woman because of the inherent flaws of the character herself, and this perhaps further proof it might not be.  Better news from the Straczynski revamp of Superman.  This was a solid second issue, #702, at least to the extent that if you like what he's doing there's more to like here, and I still like the art by Eddy Barrows and JP Mayer which well suits e story. The larger lingering question is if the "socially relevant Supes" is the right direction.  I just don't know what to make of the Paul Levitz run on Legion of Superheroes there and in Adventure. I liked the story in Adventure 517 more than the first installments, but was seriously disappointed with Legion #4. The last issue suggested a major new st...

DC Comics is doing many things these days that sound really interesting but too often aren't living up to my expectations. Which I could be happy about; bailing out of disappointments is keeping me from going back to the days of 18 or 25 years ago when I read dozens of comics a month. But honestly that would be a happy problem to have. I'm seeing that a lot with Brightest Day and its many tie-ins. Brightest Day itself had an interesting 0 issue with an interesting mix of heroes coming back from death or obscurity but by the second issue just a lot of fights and nothingness. Same with JLA Generation Lost. Nice premise, evil mastermind has wiped memories of him from everyone but a few JLA characters. Who just end up fighting with everyone. Boring stuff. I have been sticking with Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal. This is part of a big Green Arrow revival being undertaken as part of Brightest Day. Solid straightforward stuff as a grownup GA sidekick deals with the death of h...

Toy Story 3 may be the best movie I've seen so far in 2010. It demonstrates that if Hollywood were to try, if it were to care, that it could make movies that were actually good. The people at Pixar care. They don't always succeed, and I haven't been as big a fan of Up or Wall-E as others. Not that either of them was bad, but I just didn't think they were as good as some of the fuss and bother had them to be. And when I see Toy Story 3, I'm seeing the difference between true greatness and some nice tries. Why do I love this movie so much? Well, the most important thing might be the characters. They're toys, but we really and truly and deeply care about them. There's something about the performances of the voice actors that goes a little bit deeper than the usual. Way back when the first Toy Story came out not every actor was lined up for these animation voicing jobs like it is now. That's a long time ago, it is, and we were just getting to Robin W...

I just finished catching up on the last two weeks of The Simpsons. This season is shaping up to be a very good one. Earlier in the season , there was "I was one Uday who didn't need a Qusay." This past Sunday, Homer pays a visit to Israel, and the episode is wonderful. There's Homer ordering a falafel with extra cheese, being asked to say that latkes are better than American pancakes in order to enter the country, a teaching opportunity if you watch with your family to tell your children what a tagine is, and more. Some of it, I assure you, is in quite bad taste. The week before that, there was an extended sequence called Koyani-Scratchy, which is classic Simpsons. If you're at all familiar with the movie Koyaanisqatsi it's hilarious on one level, and if you are 14 and can't tell the difference between Glass, Philip and Glass Plus -- well, it is Itchy and Scratchy and works on another level entirely. That episode also has a montage of great kiss s...

Oh those Simpsons! I've probably watched the lion's share of episodes, and certainly pretty much all from the last 12 or 15 seasons. As the show's gotten on in years, there are the occasional weeks, and sometimes stretches of weeks, when the series shows its age. There are some ideas like the historical reenactments or fairy tale retellings that I can't stand at all. The show is a lesson in TV credits. The longer a show is on the air, the more and more people manage to get contractual producer credits of some sort or another. The roster that appears on air is now pushing 30 producers of various shapes and sizes in the opening credits. Most weeks, though, the show is pleasant enough, that it's worth watching because the only way to find the great episodes like this past week's is to keep plugging away, and then lo and behold once or three times a season there's something that works so wonderfully on so many levels that you just sit and marvel. This week...