Attention SF-area GL fans: Blackest Night mastermind Geoff Johns will be signing at Isotope Comics on Saturday, July 18 from 4-6 p.m., followed by what Isotope’s James Sime is promising will be “the party of the year”:
The Isotope’s master bartender Kirsten Baldock, who made world-wide booze-swilling news earlier this year with her Watchmen Inspired Cocktails , will be serving up a rainbow variety of toe-curling Blackest Night Cocktails straight from her secret mixographical laboratory crafted just for this event.
That’s the flier for the event above. You can get more info here, and if you’d like to get an idea of what kind of drinks Baldock might come up with, you can see her Watchmen cocktail concotions here.
“You’re in good hands—the amazing hands of Simon and Kirby, the first rock stars of comic books”: Andrew A. Smith really liked Titan Books’ recent collection The Best of Simon and Kirby.
“Man blames child-porn possession on computer, video games and comic books”: Now there’s a headline I wish didn’t exist.
The average price of a comic book is now $3.46: According to The Comics Chronicles, that is. In this analysis of Diamond’s June numbers, $3.46 was the average price of all comics ordered, while the average price of the top-sellers was $3.50. Of the top 300, 138 are $2.99 while 116 are $3.99. I’m kind of surprised there are that many $3.99 books in the top 300, but I suppose I shouldn’t be; in most markets, you would think the product that offers the same value for less money would be outselling the hell out of that with a much higher price, but then, the direct market isn’t most markets (And it’s perhaps worth noting that some of those $3.99 books, like DC’s back-up-having books and Marvel’s reprints–in-the-back books are longer than 22-pages anyway, so the value is the same as a $2.99-for-22 pages). Anyway, go there and read their analysis, as it is more cogent than anything I can come up with, which basically just amounts to, “Why, I remember when comics were only $1.50!” It’s also worth noting that Batman and Robin #1 was apparently the highest seller in June, which is interesting (to me) in that just the previous night I had read in Marc-Oliver Frisch’s monthly sales analysis that Grant Morrison’s Seaguy sold pretty badly. Like, much, much worse than I would expect anything by Grant Morrison to sell anywhere (Warlord, Solomon Grundy and some other Vertigo series all out-sold Seaguy’s second issue). I guess that while Morrison is a huge draw in the direct market, he’s a much, much bigger draw when he’s writing Batman than when he’s writing Seaguy. Okay, I guess that’s not that surprising, but the fact that freaking Vigilante buried Seaguy still strikes me as slightly insane.
How much are you paying for your Batman comics, per square foot?: In discussing Wednesday Comics #1 here Wednesday night, I tried to summon the power of math to explain that the book was actually a better value than cheaper comics with smaller pages, given the number of panels per page in Wednesday Comics, and how long it takes to read some of those giant pages. Comics blogger extraordinaire Kevin Church shares another mathematical proof of the book’s value. In other Wednesday Comics news, Jog writes a typically insightful review here, and—one more and then I’m done, I swear—the Source blog has some charming pictures of people reading Wednesday Comics here.
July 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
That headline is also very misleading. Reading the article, it’s pretty clear that what was really going on was that he lived a sad, lonely life spent mostly on the Internet, where he may or may not have downloaded child porn (that he may or may not have even looked at if he did). Comics or video games seem to have very little to do with anything.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:45 am
It’s nice you’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but reading the article’s descriptions of the horrible photos, I don’t see how someone accidentally gets those images on his computer and never looks at them. Truly disgusting actions.
But, yeah, the man doesn’t actually blame comics or video games, he blames a fantasy life fueled by those things, so the headline is a little misleading. More importantly, the man is obviously deranged (assuming he is in fact guilty), so his testimony to the evils of comic books is taken with a grain of salt.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I don’t think the man being a less than credible source/witness really helps anything. What most people will gleen from the article is that this is what an adult who still reads comic books might be like. That reading comic books into adulthood is the gateway to becoming a pedophile.
On a lighter note, I’d kill to make it to the Isotope party. Never been, despite having visited San Francisco a few years back (didn’t know it existed at the time). My favorite part about conventions is getting drunk with friends and creators afterward…so who needs Chicago Comicon if you can make an Isotope party?