RE: Comics! #13 [Collected Editions]

We're just about a month away from Gregg's visit to the store for G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis on October 24th! Hopefully everyone's reading PIX: TEENAGE AMERICAN FAIRY in the back of the G-Man Cape Crisis mini series. For a look behind the curtain at Gregg's creative process on the story, head on over to Hatter Entertainment.com!

This week Gregg and I are cracking the spine on our ideal square bound comics. Enjoi!

Stephen Mayer: When I began reading comics again I thought collections were dirt. If I couldn't get a story in single issues it wasn't worth having. At all.

There were times that this cost me dearly (I spent about $50 on the six parts of Wolverine: Origin including the most I ever spent on one comic for #1 of a story pretty much universally accepted as not good).

Then I discovered over-sized hardcovers and that all went out the window. I single, double and even triple-dipped all over the place.

As someone that grew up in a time when reprint collections weren't as prevalent, but original graphic novels for mainstream comics were at their peak how did you feel about comics in their collected form?

Now that you can obtain almost anything in either hard or softcover, how have your buying habits changed?

Gregg Schigiel: My buying habits have changed more for other reasons over the years…like creative teams/direction, quality of a book, and more recently, price.

But I never thought of collections as dirt. Matter of fact, a collected series was like a badge of honor…it said “hey, this story’s so good or relevant that we’re making it readily available and affordable so you don’t have to pay for a pricey back issue of DARK KNIGHT RETURNS”. Plus a collected book, for a creator, means the book’s in print longer meaning more income over the long term.

Now with practically everything getting collected it’s lost some of that “specialness”, for better or worse.

That said, I mix it up. With MUPPET SHOW and ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN I’ve been trade-waiting. I bought RUNAWAYS in the digests as I was late to the party on that one (though I’ve only read Vaughan’s run). But usually if it’s an ongoing series I’ll buy it as it comes out. In theory, it’s being written that way and I figure it’s worth experiencing it that way (though as we’ve discussed before there are those who “write for the trade”).

And if I have the individual issues it’s highly unlikely I’ll buy the collection, mostly because I rarely go back and re-read things I’ve read. And secondly because I don’t like double or triple dipping for something I already have.

You might be MUCH too young to have ever seen or remember audio analog cassette tapes, but they’re these things that stored recorded music, you know, like an MP3 or a CD. Well, I had plenty of cassettes and would not, when I got a CD player, re-buy those albums as CDs. (now, as technology has advanced, I’ve procured from friends via the technology of “ripping”, nearly all of those former cassettes as digital music files).

The idea of buying the same thing twice or three times doesn’t appeal to me.

But as you point out, I did come up at a time when collections were less prevalent, so I’m still sometimes of the mindset where I’m not sure if something will get collected. Or I end up waiting a LOOONG time (i.e. JLA/AVENGERS, for which I waited what I think was several years for the paperback to come out). Or I’ll decide to trade-wait, like I did with JUSTICE…and now that the trades are out I’ve bought none of them. One day though. Maybe when there’s a sale somewhere.

Meanwhile, had I decided to buy PET AVENGERS collected I’d be might ticked as the first collection is a high-priced hardcover with extras in it I’d have no interest in.

I wonder had I known ahead of time if I’d have bought Y THE LAST MAN or FABLES as trades instead of individual issues, and I don’t know. Probably not, actually. I started buying the 100 BULLETS trades but stopped with the 3rd volume. At a certain point I think I wasn’t reading them fast enough to keep up with their releases and I sort of dropped off.

Now I’m considering trade-waiting with THE UNWRITTEN, but now 5 issues in I wonder if I’m getting into that double-dipping territory I don’t like. And then I wonder, oh, will my not buying the monthly affect sales enough so the book gets cancelled and it never gets collected?! (yeah, like I alone can take a title down)

Which leads to the interesting phenomenon of when trades keep a book afloat. Didn’t trade sales of MANHUNTER keep that series going for a little while longer? And both Mike Mignola and Robert Kirkman have made it no secret that their trade business with HELLBOY and WALKING DEAD is where it’s at.

Do you notice that on the retail end? Do some books succeed as trades more than singles? And is the old mantra that the single issues make money to then justify the trade legit, or might, if the trend to collections continues, we see a shift to bi-annual or 3-times-a-year releases of original volumes? That’d be a game changer, eh?

SM: The books that do better in trades than single issues are usually not from Marvel or DC proper and aren’t considered “time-sensitive” to your other reading. For example, amidst all of the Dark Reign stuff that Marvel has going on, you can’t really read New Avengers in single issues and “trade wait” Dark Avengers because you’re going to be missing key parts of the story in the one that will either spoil what you would eventually read in the trade or leave you lost in the single issue you’re reading in the present.

So the books that really succeed in trade as opposed to single issues tend to be FABLES, WALKING DEAD, INVINCIBLE, HELLBOY and B.P.R.D., and EX MACHINA, and when they were still around Y THE LAST MAN and 100 BULLETS. These are books that we order about 25 copies of for subscriptions of single issues and then do a 25 copy initial order on the trade paperbacks.

Since you mentioned it, YOU NOT BUYING A MONTHLY ISSUE OF AN OFF-BEAT BOOK AND WAITING FOR THE TRADE CAN ABSOLUTELY GET A SERIES CANCELLED!!! Capital emphasis more for the people reading this than you, Gregg. Devaluing your self-worth as an individual comic book reader/customer is like saying that your vote doesn’t matter in a national political election. In fact, I tell people all the time when they’re upset with the way things are going in the industry, “Vote with your dollars.” =)

But yeah, if there’s a book that’s not already in the top, say, 50 in the sales charts from Marvel or DC and you’re trade-waiting it, you’re absolutely doing that book a disservice.

The best recent example of this is Captain Britain and MI13. Understandably, this is a book that not a lot of people checked out when the initial issues came out. Captain Britain is a tough character to get your head around and Pete Wisdom was coming off of a Marvel Max series, so it was a big leap despite the Secret Invasion tie-in nature of the first arc. The issues sold out and we tried out best to get people to pick up the first trade when it came around. We sold 15 copies of it almost instantly and encouraged people to subscribe to the issues from then on, but, and this could be another aside on its own, they decided to stick with the paperbacks for volume 2. Then by this month rolled around and individual issue sales hadn’t changed in spite of could numbers on the collection, the third volume was DOA.

We strongly believe around here that Agents of Atlas, which is already going through a lot of changes with a 2 issue X-Men crossover and back-up stories in Incredible Hercules for 6 months before the possibility of a second on-going, and Secret Six are the next great mainstream books on the chopping block.

And before I address your last question about seeing more original material from mainstream publishers coming out in collections several times a year, I’d like to direct your attention to a recent quote by Joe Quesada from a Comic Book Resources interview and get your reaction to it:

Kiel Phegley: And I know that one thing you've cited in the past that's been a big difference between Marvel and DC in terms of the publishing slate is DC's ability to release original graphic novels and prestige format one-shots because their corporate connection to Warner Brothers gives them more leeway in terms of spending cash upfront on long-gestating projects rather than having to serialize all their stories to maximize profits. Now that Marvel is a part of Disney, do you think you'll have the capabilities to publish more long form material in one fell swoop?

Joe Quesada: Hang on a sec. While WB may offer them this leeway, as an editor and creator, I’ve stated publicly on many occasions that I’ve never seen the benefits of original graphic novels. The economics just don’t work and are poor for both the publisher, retailer and the creator, especially during this Marvel regime when so much of what we do gets compiled into a collected edition anyway. While I would never discount doing one, I don’t see the outward benefits nor does the model work.

Just look at it from the eyes of the uninitiated, or the neophyte who walks into a comic shop or bookstore. When they decide on a hardcover, do you think it matters to them or that in some cases they even know that it’s an original graphic novel or a collection of a six-issue story?

Yet from an economic point of view it makes tons of sense to release the material in serialized form first because it then allows you to sell the product in several different formats. Also, from the point of view of a creator having their material reach the widest possible audience, the price of an original graphic novel can be too steep for many. That’s why you don’t see OGN’s selling in the hundreds of thousands of copies. Yet, if the story is strong enough, you can certainly serialize it and have that many eyeballs looking at your work in installments. At the end of the day, you can work for a year on a mini series that gets collected later or spend that entire same year on the OGN. I promise you, more people will read your mini series when it’s all said and done and that year of your life will have been spent in reaching the widest possible audience. And from an exposure and marketing point of view, you work for a year on a graphic novel, it comes out and you get one big promotional push and then it’s done. If it’s serialized, you get a push every month a new issue hits the stands and then another when it becomes a trade and then another for the hardcover.

GS: Alright, okay, I’ll keep buying THE UNWRITTEN monthly! And I already buy SECRET SIX, so lay off, man!

Now, on to the Q&A…

I have a lot of reactions. First, I’m a fan of the OGN, especially when they’re done well and priced reasonably. A quick aside story and then I’ll get back to this, but it’s related:

When I was up at Marvel in 1998 there were massive layoffs. Among them was editor Mark Bernardo, who’d been working on a mini-series written by John Ostrander and illustrated by Leonardo Manco titled BLAZE OF GLORY. When Mark was let go, BLAZE OF GLORY was not on the schedule, had no deadline, and was essentially dead. Having seen the pages, it seemed a waste. Before he left I asked Mark if our office could take the pages and see what we could do; naturally he said go for it. I learned the book was in limbo because there was concern it wouldn’t make its money back.

The book, intended as two prestige format issues, was over half done - scripts were finished, a fully painted cover was done. The black and white art was beautiful. So I looked into the idea of releasing it as an OGN, one-color (a dark sepia) on cream color paper…taking it that one step past black & white while giving it an extra bit of ooph, but still a lower expense. At the time Marvel started lettering books in house; also cheaper. I spoke to our manufacturing department about printing costs and the person I spoke to at the time, now a VP at DC, was very keen on the idea and suggested we print overseas, which would bring costs down further still. I took ALL of that information -- price quotes, cost breakdowns -- as well as copies of GHOST WORLD, an OPTIC NERVE collection, and a few other similar, production-wise, books (none of which cost more than $15) with me to our P&L guy (P&L meaning “Profit and Loss”) – the guy who ran the numbers to determine a book’s profitability.

Here’s how it went down:

Me: I have all this data on the cost, so how about it, can we finish this book up and sell it as an OGN
Him (typing numbers): Okay, let’s see…a trade paperback collection at $17.99…
Me: Wait, no, why is it $17.99?
Him: That’s the cover price on trade paperbacks.
Me: But this isn’t a trade paperback. It’s an original book…in black and white.

So naturally he numbers at $17.99, despite my showing him other books priced lower from smaller publishers. Didn’t take. My suggestions…lower cost by printing overseas…lettering in-house…not going full-color…bupkiss. The numbers he ran showed that it would not make money.

About a week later he comes to our office and says BLAZE OF GLORY is a go…as a full-color, 4-issue mini-series…cover price: $2.99. This was in 1998/1999…$2.99 was high back then. So we commissioned three more covers…hired a colorist…and broke two books up into four…for something that’d end up costing the consumer $12.

None of it made any sense to me then. Still doesn’t now. In the end, there’s a satisfaction to getting the work out there, in any format, rather then it sitting in a drawer forever. And eventually, it DID get collected…a full-color trade paperback. I have my copy in front of me. Cover price: $9.99.

All that was before Joe Q and Bill Jemas and the bigger focus on collections that’s happened in the past 10 years, but I think it illustrates a certain approach: make money as many times as you can on the same thing…capitalize on the tendency of people to double or triple-dip.

There’s sense to that, sure. It’s a business and the point of business is to make money. But you can’t say that Bryan Lee O’Malley hasn’t found success with SCOTT PILGRIM. Or that Will Eisner should have done his books as serialized stories to reach a wider audience or maximize his profits. Or that PRIDE OF BAGHDAD should have been a mini-series first.

Marvel Comics is a big enough entity with recognizable enough characters that if they chose to release a REASONABLY priced OGN, it might do quite well…in comic shops AND in book markets. And whether a neophyte/lay-person could tell the difference seems irrelevant. How many neophyte/lay-people are buying hardcover volumes of comics to begin with?

When the Watchmen movie came out, “civilians” weren’t buying ABSOLUTE WATCHMEN, they were (and likely still are) buying the paperback. One could argue, ah, but WATCHMEN was serialized first! And that’s true. But I’m making a statement about lay-people in this instance.

An exception to the rule of “make money at every turn” might be something like Jeff Smith and BONE, where certainly early on his single-issue sales helped finance the collections. Or our pal Chris Giarrusso going it on his own with G-MAN (buy it, EVERYONE!!). Or Jimmy Gownley with AMELIA RULES. But there’s a great example: now that he’s published by Simon & Schuster, it’s straight to OGNs following the re-release the existing catalog…a catalog that remains in print, on shelves, for years…making money not from the same audience buying multiple iterations of something, but from making one thing that reaches a wider audience and making it available longer.

That said, do I hope people pick up X-BABIES as individual issues? Yes. Do I want that mini-series to get collected into a trade? You have no idea how badly I want that. Will it upset me if people buy the collection and double dip? Probably not; in fact, I’ll thank you in advance (if it indeed gets collected; hey, there are no guarantees!).

But it’s not a good idea to discount the idea of OGNs on the basis of “you can’t make money off of them 3 times over” or “regular folks don’t know the difference, so why bother” – both of which are clear bastardizations of what was said.

To say no OGN sells hundreds of thousands of copies implies that trade paperbacks do. Individual comics don’t regularly sell HUNDREDS of thousands of copies.

And if you REALLY want to nerd it out, if you look up best-selling graphic novels on Amazon you find DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, WATCHMEN, MAUS, UNDERSTANDING COMICS, PERSEPOLIS…before the latest “mainstream” collected story arc…and that’s not even considering Manga, which is a whole other ballgame. Similarly for the NY Times “Graphic Books” lists.

But you know what, I don’t see the financial sheets…I don’t know the costs involved in putting together DARK AVENGERS or AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, so maybe that’s how it shakes out on their ledger. I’m admittedly not a scholar on the matter or on staff at Marvel or any comics or publishing company. I might even be way off. But in my past experience and what I see out in the field now, that’s my read.

But I like good OGNs and think there’s not only a place for them, but it seems like that’s where the business, if it’s growing, IS growing.

Oof…that was a lot of typing and yammering…maybe even stuff in there that’ll get me in trouble. You know what, here Stephen, you take the reigns and make everything better…

SM: If folks need proof that original graphic novels still work when done correctly, they need look no further that PARKER: THE HUNTER from IDW, adapted from Richard Stark’s novel series and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. That came out in July, sold out 25 copies at our store in a week, and sold out nationwide in I believe 2 weeks. It wasn’t the Scholastic/Marvel graphic novel size, or premiere or oversized. It was formatted and designed to look like a novel and it blew up because of the quality of the work and the classic feel of the book. It never could have performed the same in single issues. Darwyn has a devoted following, but it never would have measured up to the sales of New Frontier in the same way that Criminal and Incognito will never reach the audience for Ed Brubaker that Captain America does. I really believe that it was the prestige (the accolade, not the format) of the initial offering that really set it above and beyond.

Oni Press also came up with a cool incentive to get readers mobilized for the release of SCOTT PILGRIM vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe. Only the first printings of volume 5 would feature a foil cover. Subsequent printings would have a standard cover to match previous volumes. While it’s a technicality and in no way affects the story or the price, you were either there for that first printing that sold out in a matter of weeks or you miss out on that little bit of special.

Just to point out something that’s not working around the store one a weekly basis, RUNAWAYS from Marvel is a mess right now. It was, of course, originally released as single issues from Marvel, then was collected into digests at the same time as SENTINEL, YOUNG INHUMANS, and GRAVITY to attract the teenage audience in the Big Box manga book market. Then it got a complete oversized hardcover format collection for the first volume, a nice piece for fans of the series and cost effective to get the whole story in one pass. That model was continued for Vaughan’s first 25 issues of volume 2. Then Joss Whedon’s run was collected for the first time in premiere hardcover, hitting up Buffy fans with a more similarly sized collection to what they’d come to expect at Dark Horse. Whedon’s story arc then got a regular sized trade paperback, followed shortly by a digest version for the original Runaways paperback reader’s bookshelf. The original digests are out of print. The original 2 volumes are being re-released in premiere hardcover and regular size trade paperbacks.

My point? There’s no way for us as retailers to put together a full run of this beloved series that’s been coming out for six years into the hands of a new reader in any one format right now. There are folks so devoted to the series that they’re doing a quadruple dip, big win for Marvel in the dollar department in that way, but at the same time they’re freezing people out that are looking to devour what’s out there and get caught up so that they can start reading the monthly issues.

One more idea I have on collections is that the cost of the standard trade paperback containing a modern story with no extras should never exceed the cost of the original issues found therein. What do you think of that?

GS: One more thing to your point that PARKER “wasn’t the Scholastic/Marvel graphic novel size, or premiere or oversized. It was formatted and designed to look like a novel and it blew up”. I remember hearing Kyle Baker talking about NAT TURNER, explaining his approach with that book to make it look like, size-wise, a BOOK…something that could go on bookshelves at bookstores and libraries, because for that book, for the story he was telling, the audience wasn’t in comic shops. And to me this again hits on the point of formatting to reach an audience vs. formatting to hit up the same audience again and again and again.

This gets off the point a bit, but I just read Gail Simone’s new column, “Wonder of Wonders”, at Comic Book Resources and she makes the point that while people know these characters but don’t buy or necessarily care about the comics or source material (she spoke of a manicurist who was a huge Wonder Woman fan but never read a complete comic book in her life). People LIKE this stuff, so there’s value in exploring formats and methods of delivery.

Moving on: I’d agree almost to a letter that a standard TPB should cost the same if not less than the original issues. I might even go further and say that depending on the extras, it STILL shouldn’t exceed the original issues (especially if the intent is to get someone who has the originals to double-dip).

Heck, one of the major gets of the RUNAWAYS digests was that they were actually cheaper than the original issues ($10 for what, 5 or 6 issues, I think?).

The BOOM Kids collections are $10 vs. the $12 for all four original issues. I’m down with that, big time.

ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN trades are to my mind pretty reasonably priced AND have some cool extras in the back in the form of sketches and banter (not to mention the 2nd trade’s got an issue of INVINCIBLE as there was a crossover that happened.

And I also think a pricing structure like those above creates a greater sense of value. I know I mentioned him earlier, but I sit next to Chris Giarrusso at many a con. He sells his various digests for their cover price of $10. I sell my mini-comics for $2. These are my mini-comics and I’d more likely buy a $10 digest, full color or not, over my B&W mini-comic, assuming their quality and audience were remotely similar…and I don’t blame a parent or kid for choosing to spend $10 on a single G-MAN book of 80+ pages than $4 for two books of 40 pages (which is why I gotta put together an 80+ page book already! – and why I hope X-BABIES gets the digest or graphic novel treatment).

As a cartoonist, I want to get my work seen by an audience. So far, from the evidence I’ve gathered, I believe I’d have more success with a single volume, say, of PIX: TEENAGE AMERICAN FAIRY, than trying to sell single issues of a comic book about a teenage girl superhero claiming to be a fairy princess to comic shops via Diamond.

So maybe that’s the thing. If you’re selling to die-hard comics buyers you can get away with multiple formats and $3.99 cover prices. But if you’re looking outside the traditional audience, it seems you have to look outside the traditional formats and approaches.

That said, I’ve recently learned that the $3.99 X-BABIES #1 will feature a reprint of the 17-page X-Babies’ first appearance by Art Adams…so on some level that makes the cover price a tiny bit easier to swallow?

Now, speaking of collections, and I know we (and by “we” I mean “I”) have gotten pretty long-winded, but you as an out buyer of multiple formats, how about something like WEDNESDAY COMICS? I’m about halfway through reading (most of) it and I can say I wouldn’t double-dip for a collection of the whole thing all together. And until I read it all I’m not so sure I’d buy individual collections, especially after an initial investment at $5 an issue. $60 in I’m hard pressed to put MORE money into that that project. You?

SM: It's probably a really good thing that they're reprinting the original X-Babies story in X-Babies #1. My first inclination when I heard about your mini series was to run to our backstock and look for Uncanny X-Men Annual #12. $3.99 price tags aren't a big deal when you get a nice, full package, like Amazing Spider-man #605 this past week that had two 22 page stories in it.

I've actually been getting 2 copies of each issue, not sure exactly what to do with the extra yet. Jermaine at one point suggested framing each page of my favorite story, which would look pretty nice on the wall of my stairway. I also thought about wallpapering one of my bathrooms with them, like decoupage the walls instead of the boring paper that was here when we moved in. The frontrunner idea right now is to buy a big art portfolio and just putting each story together sequentially.

As far as DC collecting it, I don't see them doing a giant, original sized book a la Little Nemo in Slumberland and I don't see anyone paying that kind of price tag that accompanies a hardcover that size ($125). Jermaine theorized that they could do single issues compiling each story like Dark Horse is doing now for their MySpace/Dark Horse Presents stories, but a) those are already formatted for a standard comic page and b) while strips like Superman would probably translate fine, you'd never be able to read what Wonder Woman's got going on.

GS: Yeah, should be interesting how they end up offering what amounts to 12-page stories. My guess is they do ‘em oversized (a la the Paul Dini/Alex Ross books from some years ago – speaking of OGNs) and pad them out with sketches, designs, and commentary from the creators and Chiarello. But wow, you’ve been buying two copies of each issue? Wow.

And yeah, that Wonder Woman story would be difficult to shrink. BUT, it’s structured in such a way that you could probably split those huge pages into two pretty easily.

Only time will tell. But in the end we agree that, for the most part, we’re for square bound, long form comics you can put on a bookshelf, be they collections or original works. And if anyone’s got beef we go back to back and take on all comers!

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon in addition to creating his own characters and books. He's currently writing X-Babies for Marvel with artist Jacob Chabot and writing and drawing Pix: Teenage American Fairy and Safari Junior High, appearing in the back of the G-Man: Cape Crisis mini series from Image. He'll be visiting Acme on October 24th as part of G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis as well as the X-Babies #1 Release Party! Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com.

Stephen Mayermakes his mama proud by making humorous commentary during the Emmy Awards and getting the repairs done on his car that need doin'

Living Wednesday to Wednesday #66

So long sweet summer,
I stumbled upon you and gratefully basked in your rays,
So long sweet slumber,
I fell into you now you're gracefully falling away

-Dashboard Confessional

As I sit here, 3 hours and 36 minutes from the autumnal equinox and the official start of fall, I wanted to take a few minutes to thank everyone for a wonderful summer. Going all the way back to Free Comic Book Day in May, me, Jermaine, and Matt were graced with praise from customers, volunteers, and visiting creators alike in every endeavor we undertook. It's that kind of support that makes it easy to move on to the next thing with energy and gusto.

I went places I never thought I'd go, everywhere from a windowless BBQ joint in Charlotte to the hallowed halls of the San Diego Convention Center, all as a result of the enthusiasm of everyone that walks through our doors and the companionship of friends new and old. As I told Jermaine the other day, "No disrespect, an' I'm gonna let you finish, but I had one of the greatest birthday wishes of all time. OF ALL TIME!"

We're trying our best to put together a memorable fourth quarter of 2009 for folks young and old, a little bit of the new and a little bit of the old. But no matter what happens over the next three months, you've all made this one of the best summer's ever.

Stephen's So-Called Emo Life! #4

Derek Jeter - congrats to Derek on becoming the hittingest Yankee in history last Friday night!

• Nothing But Trouble - no idea why Jermaine brought this back into the public consciousness, but we watched it last Saturday night and it's every bit as distrubing as it was when I was a kid.

• Jennifer's Body - can Adam Brody, Amanda Seyfried, J.K. Simmons, and Amy Sedaris overcome the terrible acting of Megan Fox? That poster makes it look like TrueBlood, too.
  

• Ultimate Alliance 2 - only played through the first act so far, but so far it's the most faithful adaptation of a comic story that I've seen in a long time.

• Transformers Season 2 pt. 1 - didn't even know this was coming out this week until I went to get Always Sunny on Tuesday. Gonna have to go get it after work today!

RE: Comics! #12 [Whoops]

I could try to make excuses for why there isn't a full RE: Comics! column this week, but Gregg's illustrated hypothesis pretty much hit the nail on the head:

We jetted together a hilarious piece that I've slipped into my desk drawer for the next time I get distracted by some shiny (or oh, so catchy as Beatles Rock Band is) and next week we'll be chewing away at the topic of collected comics.

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon in addition to creating his own characters and books. He's currently writing X-Babies for Marvel with artist Jacob Chabot and writing and drawing Pix: Teenage American Fairy and Safari Junior High, appearing in the back of the G-Man: Cape Crisis mini series from Image. He'll be visiting Acme on October 24th as part of G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis as well as the X-Babies #1 Release Party! Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com.

Stephen Mayer makes his mama proud by achieving perfect scores on the "expert" level drums on Beatles Rock Band and keeping her updated on the comings and goings of the New York Yankees.

Stephen's Secret Stash for 9.10.09

• G-Man Cape Crisis #2 - tons of fun! I think it's very indicative of my comic mindset right now that I was gunning for pure, all ages goodness above all else this week. The variant cover to G-Man #2 featured above will be available on Saturday, October 24th during the G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis event at Acme Comics! That's the first ever Acme exclusive variant cover, the brainchild of Jermaine and I as an homage to Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-man, and so beautifully transferred from our rambling e-mails to the page by Chris Giarrusso!

• Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men Exodus - this took my completely by surprise as I was mainly reading it as a prerequisite for the List at this point. If you look back in the previous weeks' threads I've been pretty underwhelmed with the story, but this final issue had everything I felt the others were lacking and left me chomping at the bit for Dark X-Men: the Confession and Dark Reign the List Uncanny X-Men.

• Dark Reign the List Avengers - this was another great read. I had been complaining all day on Thursday how Dark Avengers and Dark Reign hadn't really interested me for the last...5 months? But this really got me. I thought there were a lot of great moments. And best of all I feel like we saw Marko Djurdjevic come into his own as a penciller with a flair of his own mixed with Mark Brooks, Jim Cheung, and Mark Bagley. Or maybe it was Mark Morales's influence, too. The List Uncanny preview in the back by Alan Davis looked great, but I think the DD List might be make or break for me and Andy Diggle's upcoming run.

• Kick-Ass #7 - I'm done. Does anyone need first printings of the issues for #1-7? There was a lot of talk around the store about Chew this week, and what was setting it apart. My answer was that a lot of crazy stuff was going down, but it was never mean spirited. They were never needlessly sticking it to the characters or the readers, but I feel like in Kick-Ass's case that's all that's happening.

• Nomad: Girl Without a World #1 - a lot of exposition, but I appreciated it and it probably needed to be there to get people caught up on a character that's been out of circulation for about 15 years. I think that when her "brother" John was passing her a note that he would be asking her out to add another level of awkward and maybe fun to it, but that probably says way more about me than the characters and I'm sure that Sean would agree.

• Adventure Comics #2 - Ultimate Comics Spider-man and this book right here are the two that are pulling my heartstrings for the last two months and I hope they'll continue to, even with the change-up on Adventure after #6.

• Green Lantern Corps #40 - I was a little disappointed that this ongoing Lantern book started to make with the formula of the minis so strongly (main characters fight the dead characters from their past), but elements like the Alpha Lanterns dropping by and the Krib quest really kept me in there.

• Amazing Spider-man #604 - really glad to see this story done. The last five pages or so were my favorites. Is that a character aspect of the Chameleon that's always been there, or is that something new?

• Blackest Night Batman #2 - pas mal.

• Marvels Project #2 - the Nick Fury scene was my favorite.

• Incredible Hercules - this was the first issue of this story that won me over (isn't only the second issue?). I think what they're doing right now would be stronger if they kept the bi-weekly schedule they're running and told 10-12 pages of Herc's story and 10-12 pages of Cho's in each issue like they did in Hulk #7-10 rather than alternating entire issues worth of material. Mainly cause I don't think Amadeus can carry a book.

• Thunderbolts #135 - I was right at the part when they show up at Yankee Stadium when I had to stop and watch Derek Jeter become the all-time hittingest Yankee. It was pretty serendipitous. Overall this was a super issue that doesn't really tie-in to Secret Warriors in a big way, but I think SW might come back to it hard in the next issue.

• Ultimate Comics Avengers #2 - this issue really reminded me how Millar's Ultimates were supposed to work as opposed to the scattershot stuff we've had from Loeb over the last few years. I like Pacheco's art better than in #1 as well. The Gail stuff was killer.

• War of Kings: Who Will Rule - I thought that this was the best issue of the series with a lot of cool moments like Medusa's freakout, but it wasn't enough to make up for what we'd had before in the main six issues and wasn't enough to make me check out anything that's coming up afterwards except continuing with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Stephen's So-Called Emo Life! #3

• People of Walmart - hilarious. Candid pictures of all the messed up things that, odds are, are occurring at Walmart every time you're there and you just don't notice.
  

• 9 - most likely destined to join Inglorious Basterds on the ever growing list of movies I pimp out here and then fail to go see. The Coheed in the trailer did intrigue me though.

• Batgirl PSA - thanks, Dan Slott! More craziness!

• KGB - a new web comic by Becky Cloonan and Hwan Cho!

We're back from a very relaxing Labor Day weekend and ready to talk 'toons! Believe me when I say that it took a lot of willpower for us to not spend a week disseminating false information about the Disney purchase of Marvel.

Gregg's also got an awesome blog for his unpublished one-shot Starfox's Swingin' Spring Break Super-Special, in which our hero teams up with the other ladies men of the Marvel Universe to try and get Eros's half-brother Thanos a date with Death!

Stephen Mayer: As Dan Rydell from SportsNight experienced a “New York Renaissance,” in which he recollected and indulged in all the city had to offer, I’ve lately been going through a superhero cartoon renaissance. I’ve been watching the new stuff, catching up on what I may have missed over the last few years, and really digging the stuff that I watched during my childhood.

What are your favorite superhero cartoons from yesteryear and today?

Gregg Schigiel: Before we talk ‘toons: Dan Rydell was, while that incredible show aired, was the most likeable character on TV. Also very likable: the cast of NBC’s Ed. But again, not a cartoon and therefore not relevant, but I had to acknowledge my appreciation for your mentioning him and that show. Tip of the hat!

Alright, now let’s talk cartoons.

I grew up in the ‘80s, which is generally considered a dark age of TV animation...with cartoons pretty much serving as commercials. But as a kid I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about it that much. Which isn’t to say I wasn’t discerning. But there were a LOT of cartoons then and I could really go on and on even just mentioning the ones that come to mind, from the obvious to the obscure.

But you asked about superhero cartoons so I’ll stick to that.

I was a Superfriends/Challenge of the Superfriends and Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends kid. There was even a period when one of the local stations played the old Marvel cartoons (with the goofy theme songs), which were essentially what people call “motion comics” today. There was something about those I liked, too.

On the same track of action/adventure shows, I was a G.I. Joe fan. Transformers and Thundercats also would be in the “like” column. I never took to He-Man or Voltron. (And as you’re younger than me, is M.A.S.K. even a thing you know? Because that was kind of cool. What about Silverhawks or Tigersharks (they were like the Thundercats, but underwater)?)

Do Duck Tales or Gummi Bears fit into this category? I mean…they weren’t superheroes per se, but the Gummi Bears DID have powers…and Duck Tales was essentially an adaptation of Uncle Scrooge comics…

I was in high school during what felt like a mini-renaissance of TV animation in the early ‘90s when Batman: The Animated Series and MTV’s Liquid Television (which begat Aeon Flux) hit the scene (and X-Men, Savage Dragon and HBO’s Spawn – but I didn’t really watch those).

Batman: TAS set the bar…high. Especially compared to the terrible Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Hulk cartoons at the time.

Since then…I was at Marvel when Avengers: Unlimited was launched and that…maybe the less said about that the better. Oof, that wasn’t so good. X-Men: Evolution I thought wasn’t too bad; I liked the look of it. Superman was good, but I’m just not that into Superman.

And in more recent history there’s just SO much stuff out there. There’s no way for me to keep up and see everything. Of the stuff I’ve seen, I’ve liked Justice League Unlimited and as I’ve mentioned, I love Batman: The Brave & the Bold. I’ve seen some episodes of The Sensational Spider-Man and that one’s pretty cool (on the other hand, the MTV Spider-Man CGI cartoon I didn’t like much at all – I’m similarly not taken by the new teen Iron Man series of which I’ve seen half an episode). I’ve heard great things about Avatar, but I’ve not gotten into it.

So with my trajectory being more a heavy watcher to lighter watcher over the years, I get the impression that you’ve only increased your consumption over time. So turning to you as more “hip to the scene”, what have I missed? What have I mis-judged? And in the battle of the big two, is there even a contest between Marvel & DC animation, or does the mere existence of Bruce Timm end any debate?

SM: Starting in the way, way back, Transformers was my first love in life. We moved to North Carolina when I was 3 (so summer of ’87) and I still have the commercial-free VHS tapes that my grandpa would tape for me in New Jersey and send down to me as I don’t think my parents ever figured out when Transformers aired down here. I also watched Thundercats and a lot of G.I. Joe. I got to watch stuff like M.A.S.K. and Silverhawks because the video store near my house hand an amazing family section. They’re now located across the street from Acme and even in this world of DVD and BluRay, they still have all of those old VHS tapes going back to the oldest Marvel cartoons (including Spider-woman!).

Sadly I’ve got next to nothing for Super Friends to the point where one of my friends had to explain who Gleek was when he asked me to pick up the Wonder Twins box set for him at San Diego. Same pretty much goes for Spider-man & His Amazing Friends, but I have seen a good bit of that on Boomerang over the last few years.

I would totally count Gummi Bears and Duck Tales. I would venture to add Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin to the mix, even though they came along a bit later.

I think I was in middle school when the Spider-man, X-Men, and Batman the Animated Series were on, so they were hitting me right when the superhero bug was strongest. Rewatching Batman TAS right now, I realize that it was preparing me for a lot of what I enjoy most about comics today. Mike Mignola designing Mr. Freeze. Darwyn Cooke doing storyboards for segments based on Dark Knight Returns. Bruce Timm’s style, of course. Paul Dini’s take on Batman villains (even amongst Morrison’s run and Hush and Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, Dini’s one-off and 2-parters on Detective remain my favorite Batman stories of the last 10 years).

At the time X-Men had me more excited, probably because the “real” comics looked pretty much the same. Now I can’t even bring myself to buy the DVD sets that they’re putting out this fall. I would still put the theme song at #2 behind Batman TAS. And there’s the phenomenon of Morph, an original hero for the series that was burned into the collective X-Men consciousness of those that watched it despite being killed off in the second episode and returning as a villain.

X-Men Evolution, I agree, was solid and then got really, really good as it went on. Legion of Super Heroes was nice, but I still don’t understand why they didn’t include Cosmic Boy as a member of the core team. I’m just now getting into Teen Titans, but I like what I’ve seen. Batman Beyond was something that I wrote off when it first came out, but I’m now finding stands on its own. Superman, while still being more, as Carly would say, “vanilla” than Batman, really brought up a lot of the characters and concepts that allowed Justice League and eventually JLU, my second favorite to Batman, to be possible.

Since you can’t have a talk about superhero cartoons without mentioning Bruce Timm and the other heroes of Batman the Animated Series like Dini, Eric Radomski, Dan Riba, and Boyd Kirkland, I think we should throw two more names into the mix on the Marvel side, Craig Kyle and Chris Yost. Craig Kyle has produced all of the Marvel direct to DVD movies, Spectacular Spider-man, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine and the X-Men as well as writing of episodes and the Ultimate Avengers and Invincible Iron Man movies. Chris Yost has written for pretty much all of those shows. They co-created X-23 on X-Men Evolution and co-wrote the Hulk Vs. movie. They wrote the New X-Men comic together after House of M, which then led into X-Force, where they’re applying concepts like the Mutant Response Division from Wolverine and the X-Men to the mainstream Marvel U as of last issue.

Have you seen any of the direct to DVD movies put out over the last few years from DC or Marvel?

GS: Here’s where my reduced viewing’s gonna come back and bite me. I’ve half-watched New Frontier and Green Lantern: First Flight. And by half-watched, I mean I was working while they were on. I will say that from what I saw and was able to attend to, Green Lantern was pretty sweet. There were a lot of sequences where there was just music and sound effects, so I knew, despite not looking up, there was a lot of action-y stuff going on. I did look up enough though to see a wicked battle with Sinestro and some generally cool stuff happening. I’d like to see the Wonder Woman movie, but haven’t yet.

In the Marvel side…I’ve not seen any of them (shame on me, I know). And a lot of people asked me if I’ve seen the Avengers: Next Generation or whatever it was called because they said there were similarities to the last issue of WHAT IF? I worked on, but I’ve not. I heard the Hulk Vs. movies were pretty rad; action packed. But overall, from trailers and such, the Marvel stuff looks either rushed or rougher than I tend to like animation. I’m not saying it needs to be a Disney feature in its fluidity, but again, Batman: TAS was now over 15 years ago and still looks pretty good, considering it was on a TV animation budget (which I understand is significantly lower than a feature).

Batman Beyond is another one where maybe the timing was off because I just never even started watching it. I know it’s good and cool, but yeah, I let it pass me by.

Then again, I did see the first animated Hellboy movie when they showed that on Cartoon Network, so that’s got to count for something!! Right? Maybe?

Besides Batman: Brave & the Bold, the recent cartoons that have caught my eye haven’t been superhero cartoons…Chowder…I dig that show…though not enough, as it apparently was not renewed.

But since I’d rather not keep talking about all the stuff I haven’t seen, let’s play a little shop-talk/fanboy dream game. So with all the stuff that’s been done, what would you like to see done. A lot of people talk about what comic or character they’d like to see done in live action, but I’m gonna ask what would you like to see done as a cartoon. And, additional to that, how would you want to see it done?

For example, years ago, before there was a Spider-Man movie, I thought it would be pretty wicked if there was a high-quality feature length animated Spider-Man movie which stylistically was based on Todd McFarlane’s run…my theory being that while us comics folks knew it, the lay-person, seeing a Spider-Man with those huge eyes and funky poses and fingers and elaborate webbing…while a pain to animate, surely, would be a game-changer for “civilians” in a way that Batman (1989) and Batman Begins sort of gave people a look at Batman that we in comics have seen for many years.

So, what would you like to see? Characters? TV or Movie? Style? Go!

SM: I haven’t seen many of the DVD movies either. I own New Frontier, and I’ve got Mask of the Phantasm, SubZero, and Mystery of the Batwoman from the Animated Series. I saw Ultimate Avengers when it first came out. That’s it.

I’ve got all the Hellboy animated movies and they’re pretty exceptional. My favorite part is that they added Kate Corrigan to the cast. She’s my favorite character from B.P.R.D. As a quick aside, when I got a Kate sketch from Guy Davis and Baltimore Comic Con last year, John Arcudi, co-writer of B.P.R.D., leaned over and pointed out that Guy didn’t have to worry about my sketch going up on eBay because no one cares about Kate but me. Mike Mignola was also surprised when I pointed out the typo in the Hellboy handbook that would put Kate in her mid 70’s.

And a final Dark Horse bit of toon wonderful, it was amazing that the Amazing Screw On Head got a special, even if it was on Sci Fi.

OK, pie-in-the-sky cartoons.

Casanova or Umbrella Academy – I know that Gabriel Ba’s style is very influenced by his Brazilian comic heritage and other European styles, but I think it’s ripe to be made into a cartoon. It’s not quite as heavy as Mignola, so I don’t think it would need a redesign like Sean “Cheeks” Galloway did for Hellboy, though he takes on those characters were great. If it were Casanova, I think it would work well episodically. Fraction could go completely psychedelic Steranko in every show and the colors on that thing would POP. If it were Umbrella, direct to DVD movies for each arc would probably be more appropriate and get a better reception from Gerard Way’s My Chemical Romance fans than a cartoon on any channel at any time.

Heroes for Hire – it might sound crazy, but I think that this concept would be Marvel’s best shot at a team-up show like Brave and the Bold. Start with Power Man and Iron Fist and play them for laughs. Lots of jokes about Luke’s tiara and Danny’s booties, but with a genuine closeness and respect at the heart. Misty and Colleen could be supporting cast, but every episode it would be great if Luke and Danny teamed up with someone new be it Spider-man or the Thing or Deadpool or Jewel or Machine Man Ms. Marvel or Brother Voodoo whoever. They could also go up against anyone, be it Dr. Doom or Kingpin or a street-level hood or whoever. Luke could be married to an extremely toned down Jessica Jones and they could have the baby Danielle, or they could move on to that and have the naming of the baby be a nice moment later on in the series.

G-Man/Mighty Skullboy Army/Pix – you guys need to team-up for a hero half hour on Saturday mornings! Personally I would picture approximately 7 minute shorts for each concept, 1 for every commercial break, with the order rotating each week so everybody gets to play. Occasional crossovers strongly encouraged.

GS: Ha ha, now you’re just playing to my sympathies! For what it’s worth, I think G-Man and Skullboy could probably support their own full shows, so I’d hate to horn in on them. Though you remind me of a con once where a kid was checking out Chris’ work and suggested to Chris, “You know what you should do? You should go for a cartoon.” It’s become a sort of running thing with us, where whenever we hit a block or a wall, “go for a cartoon” is the suggested solution. Because as I’m sure everyone knows, getting a cartoon on the air’s pretty much a cakewalk.

I’d imagine for my pie-in-the-sky not so much adaptations of existing stories, but new stuff done in an animation. So while it’d be cool to see Umbrella Academy movies, I’d suggest doing a series, maybe even a short-term thing (like they do on the BBC or HBO) of the Umbrella Academy as the academy…like, them as kids being trained/taught by their father, etc. So it’s still in the same visual style, but you’d be getting something new (part of the reason I half-paid attention to New Frontier was that I’d already read it).

That’s a nice idea about H4H, though I’d avoid the self-aware jokes. The tiara and the booties, it’s all part of the show, if you will, and suspension of disbelieve should kick in at that point.

My top pick for an animated series would be LEAVE IT TO CHANCE. Paul Smith’s stuff is already so clean and perfect for the transition. And since the series has sort of gone into limbo, it’s pie-in-the-sky in every way.

Along those lines, I think TELLOS would probably find the audience it was unable to in comics. And Mike Weiringo’s work, like Paul Smith’s, is practically animated right there on the page. It could be like Gummi Bears but less cute and more cool.

I’d like to see any of Kyle Baker’s work done in traditional, hand-drawn animation…be it his Plastic Man or his original material.

And Roger Langridge’s FRED THE CLOWN would be awesome. Come on, BBC!

On a whole other track, I think it would be really cool to see something like FABLES done in the style of an early Disney feature, real smooth and fluid and pretty. With that, you’d take the visual style people are comfy with when it comes to animated fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, etc), but telling Fables stories. I’d check that out.

And now it dawns on me how few of these suggestions are actually superhero cartoons. Sure, they’re based on comics, but they’re not superheroes, per se.

So I’d say a Green Lantern Corps show could be awesome (though one could say Buzz Lightyear of Star Command was sort of that). I’d like to think Wonder Woman or Aquaman could possibly, like Tellos, find the audience that seems absent in comics, in animation. The trick with DC stuff is that with Batman: TAS, JLU, and Batman; TB&TB, they’ve covered so much ground so well it’s harder to find that other thing.

On the Marvel side…well, I think The Incredibles showed us what an FF cartoon COULD be, so there’s that. In my Marvel days I’d proposed a book called “Marvel Heroes & Villains” or “The Mighty Avengers”, which would essentially be Secret Wars: The Series. In other words every issue would feature a team of heroes (or the Avengers) and a team of villains (The Masters of Evil) at odds over something. In a lot of ways I was pitching a comic book version of Challenge of the Superfriends, but with Marvel Characters. That could be a fun cartoon.

And if anyone read our Star Comics piece, I’d watch a Top Dog cartoon, no question. That could be the next SpongeBob SquarePants! (though, I also thought Chowder could be the next SBSP and Cartoon Network seems to have disagreed with me)

And now I’m looking over my bookshelf to see what else I can find and I have one more thing to throw out there…an adaptation of an existing story: THREE FINGERS, but Rich Koslowski. That’d be a very interesting thing to see get wide exposure in cartoon form. It’d be like taking the turn Roger Rabbit took and twisting that a few times over.

And maybe with my list of picks it’s clear why I’m not an animation producer…

SM: For minor clarification, I forgot to add that Power Man and Iron Fist would be in their modern costumes, so street clothes for Luke and the collarless shirt for Danny. Picking on their costumes would be a retroactive thing, like “what were we thinking?”

I like everyone you put out there. Over the years I think I’ve already compiled the cast for a Fables live-action movie, but now that you mention it, perhaps that could be something that takes the structure of a movie like Enchanted, where the characters are cartoon in their world or the Homelands and then live action in the real world, and ratchets it up a notch.

Tellos and Leave it to Chance are both awesome ideas.

GS: Having nothing to do with cartoons: I don’t like the street clothes look for Luke Cage. There’s nothing visually interesting about it at all. He doesn’t even have the chain belt! I mean, he’s a Mexican wrestling mask away from looking like Rage…or Bane for that matter. Boring. Veto!

Well, Fables is being developed as a live-action pilot on ABC, so both of us are too little-too late on that front. Though it’d be nice to imagine some big, important muckity-muck reading this and putting the breaks on that pilot because WE hit upon the perfect approach.

Talk about pie-in-the-sky!

Luckily, though, in the likely event that none of our fantasy cartoons actually come to life, at least we’ve got the comics.

Now we just have to get Paul Smith (and James Robinson) to do more LEAVE IT TO CHANCE…

SM: Jermaine has a big LEAVE IT TO CHANCE poster in his kitchen.

Carly had a neat idea when we were talking about the column last night. In a half live-action, half cartoon Fables show, it might be even cooler in the Homelands were live-action and our world was a cartoon, as that would be reality as the characters see it.

As for breaking up the Fables pilot, we can move mountains.

Gregg Schigiel is a cartoonist, illustrator, and writer. He's worked as a penciller and editor for Marvel Comics and an illustrator and cartoonist at Nickelodeon in addition to creating his own characters and books. He's currently writing X-Babies for Marvel with artist Jacob Chabot and writing and drawing Pix: Teenage American Fairy and Safari Junior High, appearing in the back of the G-Man: Cape Crisis mini series from Image. He'll be visiting Acme on October 24th as part of G-Man's Greensboro Cape Crisis as well as the X-Babies #1 Release Party! Check out his website at Hatter Entertainment.com.

Stephen Mayer makes his mama proud by playing board games with the family and rationing his work load on weeks when comics are delayed a day.

Stemo's Secret Stash for 9.2.09

• Ultimate Comics Spider-man #2 - A close second. If anyone knows how to get in touch with David Lafuente, I must get the above page.

• Immortal Weapons #2 - after the David Aja cover, not even Dan Brereton's fantastic art could keep up. The Iron Fist story in the back is also just as good as anything that happened in the ongoing series.

• Justice League: Cry for Justice #3 - Bendis is gonna have to really bring it in the Powers letters page when they re-launch to continue to hold onto the title of best back-matter.

• Incognito #6 - didn't end up loving this series as much as Criminal, but I'm also not sure about the new Criminal mini series format, even though each story before was basically a mini series in itself.

• Strange Tales #1 - Paul Pope's story was amazing. I wonder when he wrote that/his Wednesday Comics pages. Spider Town was adorable. Dr. Strange was so trippy. Namor made me want to read Tales Designed to Thizzle. I didn't expect much from Peter Bagge or Molly Crabapple, but they brought it, too. The weak link was, sadly, James Kochalka.

• Deadpool #15 - I'd like a Young Liars/Deadpool crossover in which Daniel Way and David Lapham just go nuts and try to one-up each other in the crazy stunts in which they have their characters partake.

• Witchfinder: In Service of Angels #3 - there's something really appealing about this series, but at the same time I never have any notion to open it until I get to the bottom of the pile.

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer #28 - Carly said that she saw the last page coming a mile away, but it was a complete surprise to me. Much more exciting than anything that actually advanced the plot.

• Invincible Iron Man #17 - Pick of the Week. "Flowers for Shellhead."

• Mice Templar: Destiny #3 - congrats to our Acme customer Tim Hamrick for getting into the letters page! The layouts were awesome, too.

• Batman #690 - this is the closest I've come to dropping a Bat-book, which makes me sad because I really dig Bagley. Hopefully Art Thibert will be inking him again when he gets to Justice League, and that the tone of the story will allow the colors to be brighter.

• Agents of Atlas #10 - Agents of Atlas oversized hardcover, #1-12, plus the Agents of Atlas vs. X-Men 2 parters that's coming up. It's gonna have to happen, just like an Invincible Iron Man Omnibus with #1-19 of that one.

Chew #1-4 - this was our big push this week at the store, and I think we moved something like 15 sets of these issues between Wednesday and Friday. As too often happens, I fell victim to our sales pitch myself and dove in. This is a great series with serious backmatter and working on a lot of different levels. The recap of Tony's powers/affliction reminds me of the opening to Pushing Daisies. The above pic came from Major Spoilers.com.

Stephen's So-Called Emo Life! #2

• MLB Power Pro - Somewhere between MLB 2008 and Backyard Baseball. Rookie is way too easy, Difficult is impossibly hard. Normal is just right in the middle, but I still have to get used to losing over 1/3 of my games in Season Mode, cause that's just the way baseball rolls.

• Rock Band Beatles - super psyched!

• Greek - not great, but the new thing that I'm watching in its entirity on Hulu. Clarke Duke is awesome though.
  

• Glee - again, not a great show, but the first thing to come back this fall that caught my interest in any way.

• NOT Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law - a choose your own adventure book in the form of a video game in which your choices have no effect on the outcome.