snap judgments

At the Marvel: Your Universe panel, i was able to not only praise the panelist for putting out two great books at the same time the Iron Man movie hit, but ask them why we got two very very very different books on the stands that were as far away as possible from the Incredible Hulk movie came out.

“We can’t always bat a thousand,” noted Quesada, mentioning that If you look at track trecord, they’re good at publishing the book in question.  Dan Buckley jumped in to note  that creatively, they hit their stride with Iron Man and didn’t need to change a lot to make Iron Man fit the tone of the movie.  matt Fraction was noted for his communication with the writers on Iron Man: Director of SHIELD and matched everything very well between current continuity and movie tone.  Hulk, on the other hand, is a bigger challenge because creators have to be able to ‘stretch their legs’ and do what they want without a corproate influence, suggesting to me that I load up customers on trade paperbacks ($12.99 and up) instead of new comics (as low as $2.99) for new readers.  Last Year, Buckley noted, they pushed the character with events like  Planet Hulk and World War Hulk and, while they had nothing to do with the movie, they it put the character out in the public eye.

Kevin Feige (president, Marvel Studios), in an Incredible Hulk hat, noted that they used a lot of the trades as influences on the movie, citing Hulk: Gray and Bruce Jones’ first run.

And yet… I don’t really feel my question was answered.  Why did Marvel not put out a comic that fit the theme of a very popular and well made movie?  Why do I have to recommend stories from years ago in order to keep customer interest?  Why can’t the Bruce-Banner-man-vs.-inner-monster story be told in the modern age?

And what in God’s good name is going on in Loeb’s book!??

Ah, wel.  At least joe Quesada didn’t tell me to sit down and enjoy the stories this time.

After the Punisher: War Zone panel I ran out into the hall to get out the word that yes, it will kick ass.  I heard them before I saw them, just a loud series of clicks and whirrs and shouts and this little knot of people slowly moved down the hall like a horror movie blob.  Thinking it’s Ray Stevenson, I get out my camera and lo and behold…

It’s Paris Hilton.

Sadly, I miss my camera moment but the guy next to me looks be having a heart attack.  Crouched down with his head between his legs, I honestly thought he was going to throw up.  When she passed by, he had paniced and talked about how the Hiltons and how they were nothing to the Trumps and the next think I know, he’s going to puke.  His friends try and calm him down, telling the guy that ‘that witch has no power over you’ and how he should just stay cool and eventually, he sits down and starts talking to me about his portfolio about a homeless guy who gets bonded to the internet.

I finish my article and leave.

I sit in my car, the husband driving (sadly, he won’t let me call him Happy Hogan as he’s both chauffer and bpdyguard this trip), listening to Sirius channel 22 (1st Wave!) and anticipating the Big One.

And for once, I’m not talking about earthquakes.

The San Diego Comic Con is like nothing else on Earth and the name is slightly misleading.  It’s not so much a comic book convention as it is a media blitz, full of sound and fury for everything from movies to TV shows to soft drinks to webisodes and oh yeah, comics.  For a few years, Marvel didn’t even come ot the big show and let DC have all the fun, but now, lives are on the line as comic properties are product above and beyond the call of a monthly title.

Right now, I can say I’m intimidated.  It’s a very daunting thing to see the list for the panels and previews and find yourself staring at the abyss of everything you wanted to know about.  Remember Tiny Toon Adventures and Freakazoid?  Yep, they got a panel.  Miss Mystery Science Theater 3000?  Yep, they got a panel.  Want to discuss the future of Star Trek?  They have three panels (and yet nothing on the upcoming movie?)  And oh yeah, comics.

How can they put so much into four days?  How can I possibly see it all?  Obviously the panel I don’t go to is the one that’ll have a cure for cancer and free t-shirts.  How do I manage my time?  How could you possibly see it all?

The answer is YOU CAN’T.

For serious.  You really can’t see everything they offer.  And in a way, you shouldn’t want to.  Don’t be a slave to their marketing shill!  Don’t forget to leave the convention center at least once every day and yes, before you go to bed.  Forage for food at a grocery store.  Go find the beach.  Do something non-Con related each day and I swear you will have a fonder memory of the experience than what was covered at any panel or picked up from a dealer’s table.  Once you come to terms with the fact that you can’t see everything, that all things are not attainable, that’s when you will find yourself at peace with the Con.

Sometimes you might run into a friend.  Hell, you might make a new one.  Sometimes you’ll go to something you hadn’t planned on and find yourself enthralled by something new.  Sometimes you  might even win a free t-shirt.  Let Comic Con come to you, do not chase the dragon.

These two words have sold me more $3.99 issues than any other since I started this job.  Since I started selling.

BLOOD COLOSSUS.

Just… just bask in it for a moment, will you?  Take in the wonder and the glory that is a Blood Colossus.  The name excites the imagination and lays the groundwork for what is to come.  BLOOD COLOSSUS.  Blood, viceral, personal, horrific in some cases.  COLOSSUS, epic, monumental and ancient.  Together, they sell comics.

You see, every time we get copies in of Thor: Reign of Blood in our store, I make them leave and all I have to do is find the right customer at that right moment and say the magic words.  Ears perk, interest piqued, I show them what a blood colossus looks like.  And awe is shared.

I tell them how the Blood Colossus works.  I tell them Thor drives it and 3 out of 7 people will give me a sound of fond familiarity.  THOR!  We know him!  He’s a big norse guy/god of thunder/doesn’t he have a hammer/etc.  I show them the Man himself, laying waste to the dead.  Seeing the Blood Colossus and Thor together makes people want to hold the book.  To take it into their hands and flip on through.  They crave more.

I tell them this is a story.  A ‘single, self contained issue’ full of Norse valor and epic adventure and lore.  I tell them that there are no other comics like it, that it will cause you to sponaniously rock out and wail on a guitar.  It will make you long for the land of the ice and snow.  It will make you feel good.

And that’s the beauty of comics; some can actually elicit an emotional reaction from the reader.  That sometimes, the story can pull you in and leave you different than before you turned that first page.

I kept copies of Thor: Reign of Blood at the front counter and I would wait for just the right moment.  Right when I knew someone wanted to hear a tale.  To see something awesome.  The Blood Colossus.

I have personally sold over 17 copies of this issue alone.  If you haven’t seen the Blood Colossus, go to your local comic shop and pick it up.  Hold it in your hand.  Don’t wait for the trade or borrow a friend’s copy.  Make it your own.  Read the legend and take it home to flip through on a rainy day or a long download online.  Relish the artwork and the crafting of the two tales woven together.  Take that time to really read it, sink it into your bones like the blood of a Blood Colossus.

And when you want more, come back and find me.

I think I understand.

So, Bendis needs to write this big Secret Invasion plot and work out a complex timeline for events to occur and hand them down the lines of editorial and otherwise, create this massive summer event.  He seems like a hands-on kind of guy, not one to sit on the sidelines and work with what he’s given, he would prefer to call the shots.  Right?  Right.  So, with all of this work he’s got to do, he’s already incorporated his Avengers teams into this main plot, leaving the two books they’re supposed to be in rather empty.  Well, they’re monthlies too and Secret Invasion has to work at a slower pace than that.  The Avengers can’t go off and have adventures like Millar’s Fantastic Four can.  So what do you do with the books?

Well, you coast.

You have filler.  You pad them out until you’re ready to fold them back into the main story that they’ve been telling since you started.  If you’ve been reading Secret Invasion so far, you know that we’re taking the slow approach and letting the sinister gravity of the book sink in before you start running around too much.  The Avengers just have to wait.

Which is why this book doesn’t have an Avenger in it.  It’s the story of how the Skrulls got Elektra, which to be perfectly honest, doesn’t matter in the slightest.  She did her plot purpose and there are more interesting things going on that I’d like to hear about.  Anything, at this point.  Can we get a D-Man back up?  A Squirrel Girl four-parter?

So, we start out by finding out that Skrullektra paid Electro to stage the big breakout that kicked off the New Avengers series and ordered a hit on ‘some Savage Land guy’.  If you’ve been reading the book, you know that.  If you check on things via the internet, you know that.  If you can think back to when you read the issues back in 2004, you probably figured out that the criminal breakout was probably a ruse or something unimportant since they never really came back to it, only to hint in shadowy ways that there must be something more.  2004, people!  Four years ago and he’s telling us now!

Right.  But before this transaction went down, Elektra was chillin’ when a black suited version of herself tried to kick her ass.  They fight.  Elektra wins.  Elektra fights Skrull-Daredevil and Skrull-Wolverine.  Elektra wins.  Elektra gets blindsided by a different Skrull.  Elektra loses.  This different Skrull just so happens to be the Empress’s main squeeze, so we get a Skrull-as-a-woman/Skrull-as-a-woman kiss.  The Empress laments having to send her dear warrior to die (meaning they set up the reveal?  Really?) in accordance witht the Prophecy.  Skrullektra then goes and un-unites the Hand and Hydra, takes over leadership and talks about honor and death and stuff.

So what do you need to know?  How much of this was told in interviews or articles in the PAST FOUR YEARS?  How much of this relates to the story as its being told now?  And why is next issue going back to Hank Pym again?  Didn’t he get his issue already?

We are getting filler.  I honestly can’t think of anything that should be noted out of this issue that we haven’t already heard or assumed.  I can see why his attention is elsewhere, but I’m really hoping the next issue of Secret Invasion turns it up a notch.  Or at least gets the characters in that book some breathing room so they can return to their titles and show us how the heroes are fighting the Invasion first hand.

This is going to be one WEIRD trade paperback collection.

When I worked at my first comic shop down in the City of Industry in sunny southern California, I was handed a small pamphlet titled “How to get Women (and other new customers) Into Your Store!”.  Well, something like that at least as that’s the impression that was left to me upon seeing the cover. The actual title might have been worse. I do remember the cover was pink.

Now, back then, this excited me. I was the only real fangirl around the shop that knew her DC from her Marvel and the idea of attracting other girls into the store was just as much of a mystery to me as it was to the people who made this handy little guide. I was disappointed to see less of a ‘how to promote your reading material to a group of people who have been somewhat trained to disregard it’ and more of a ‘how not to run a crappy store’. One of their suggestions was to make sure the store was ‘well lit’ and didn’t smell. Another was to showcase featured books towards the front door to interest people in the covers and artwork. By the time I got to ‘be friendly and approachable to questions’, I was done with the little pink book.

Wasn’t this stuff self-explanatory? Wouldn’t a dimly lit, smelly store with unapproachable staff and hidden product turn off anyone?

I’m lucky to have worked in some fine funnybook establishments. Both my first job and my current employer run pretty kick-ass stores, if I do say so myself. I work at a very inviting and easy to navigate store with an  eye-catching layout and less cardboard boxes, kept ship-shape by helpful and attentive staff. We love comics and so should you.

So how do we attract that ever elusive ‘girl’ market? By getting Minx books? By stocking manga? Can you lure in one type of customer over the other like that?

Now, I purely speak in a snap judgmently fashion here, so take this with a grain of salt, but to be perfectly honest:  NO.  You can’t make a Lifetime channel for comics.  You can’t just stock manga and expect the chicks to roll in.  Mind you, certain types of books attract the female reader more than others but when you really look at it, do you know what’s really selling it?  A GOOD STORY.  That’s right: good writing, aesthetic artwork and some drama will attract ANYONE let alone women.

Recently with the influx of Buffy comics (one of Metro’s top sellers!), I was asked to make another display for ‘Girls’ Comics‘, getting my goat as if I had gift-wrapped it for them.  Girls’ Comics?  REALLY NOW?  Thinking about it, I sadly realized that it was a valid sales point.  How many mothers called us a ‘Boys’ Store’ or bee-lined straight for comfort zones?  So I set about making a display that solved the issue and I felt groovy with.  I tried to find books that were engaging, interesting and well-drawn that just so happened to have a female protagonist.  I know, it’s not like women only watch TV shows or movies about women, why should the protagonist matter, but again…. comfort zones.  Next to our display of Buffy and Angel comics is a little rack with a sign that reads: “Real Women, Real Comics”.  Why yes, it is cheesy!  We even have Strangers in Paradise, front and center!  But we also have Whiteout and Queen and Country, Manhunter and She-Hulk, Blue Monday and Nana.  I tried to make it diverse, but what can you do?

Especially when it sells.  I’ve been able to put Manhunter in the hands of a few folks who’d never pick it up and you wouldn’t believe how many guys stand around flipping through She-Hulk (remember kids, this isn’t a library). I can’t say that a primarily female audience is catching on to these books, but the very fact that they’ve been taken from their usual place on the shelves and given a little section of their very own seems to be doing the trick.  Mind you, so does the Movie Themed endcaps on our aisles, so what can you say?

So in the end, what’s all this mean?  I am no feminist blogger; there are so many people who do it bigger and better than I do that I would feel like a moron to dare step into incredibly well covered territory.  All I can say is that a retailer and reader, try not to shoehorn people maybe?  Maybe the quality of the product is the only thing that’s going to sell the book?  Maybe that all of this is pointless?  Be a good store with a great selection and you should have anyone beating a path to your door.

Also, make sure your store is well lit and smells nice.

Okay, so I was minding my own business on the week of June 25th, seeing as it was my birthday and whatnot when I was DELUGED by Avengers titles.  Everyone Marvel could think of came out that week, leaving me no choice but to read all of them.

Let’s start at the beginning, the two major Avengers titles of Mighty and New.  Mighty is about how the Skrulls got Hank Pym and turned him into the Time magazine cover and Initiative director guy we know today and New is about how the Skrulls got Spider-Woman and the Skull Empress got into her position of power and directed her little infiltration group.  Apparently, the Skrulls have a ceremony where placing a towel of blood over their body gives them a quick recap of issues to date and gives them a dual identity.  They seem to be taking in the new persona so to speak while keeping their own personality; thus Hank Pym can act in the best interests of both the Skrull empire by forming the Fifty States Initiative (which I’ll get to later) and fit in amongst his peers.  SHIELD/HYDRA/Skrull Empress Jessica Drew takes us on a recap of how the Skrulls have been manipulating things since I’m going to assume right before Avengers: Disassembled.  Talk of the VIBRANIUM mines comes up as THE ONLY THING THE SKRULLS CAN’T FIGHT BACK AGAINST so the Savage Land group comes in as trying to destroy the Vibranium stores there. Talk about all the mutants comes up as they try and turn a race war to their favor, pitting humans against mutants, something they want to do to the super-human community at large, thus Civil War.  This… is a lot of things for the Skrulls to be responsible for.

Anyhoo, more recap goes down as Jessica Drew joins the Avengers, asks Madame Hydra for money for continuing her double agent clause (money? really?), yadda yadda.  In the end, Pym calls to tell her that they’re going to Genosha to go put the Scarlet Witch down.  The Skrull empress gives the kill order and OH BOY THINGS FADE TO A WHITE PAGE.

So, For New Avengers #42, all you need to know is that the Skrulls have been pulling the strings on nearly everything and have a HUGE WEAKNESS TO VIBRANIUM, making the Black Panther tie-in possibly essential at this point.

Okay, Mighty Avengers #15 continues in recap fashion to show Hank Pym at his new teaching job which is where Bendis put them after Disassembled, which makes my early thoughts of New Avengers stuff wrong, so now I’m confused.  Well, I’m sure when Secret Invasion Chronicles comes out, things will be a lot smoother and no one will have to make a flow chart.  Man, I hate it when comics make me feel like an idiot for not learning their timeline…

ANYHOW, Pym is doing a lectures at Cambridge as I think that’s where they put them.  Jan’s apparently getting drunk at parties.  Hank’s either resentful of this or just as mad as me that a former Avengers chairwoman has really let herself go in the name of her ‘fashion design business’.  The arguement is weak as it seems to paint Jan as a drunk harpy and Pym as a disapproving shut-in, showing us that years of comics and storylines keep them coming back to an age old arguement.  Waking up in his office chair to find Jan moved out, he grumbles about this ‘classy’ move while the next page shows him sleeping with one of the students from his lectures.

Someday, we’ll get a new angle on these two, I swear.

So the young blonde student is completely facinated by Pym’s Avengers days, personal life and powers and pumps him for information he gives gladly.  When he brags about how he and the boys could totally detect a Skrull at 30 paces, the girl’s had enough and frankly so have I.  Telegraphed a mile away, the girl shapeshifts into an awesome Skrull and beats the crap out of him.  Jan drops by at the right time to see this young semi-nude blonde chick at Hank’s place and just tells the chick she could do better.  OH JAN.

For the record?  The ‘very ex-husband’ comment Janet makes is a little awkward since those two have been divorced for quite some time; Johns or Austen I think tried to get them remarried tried to get them remarried but it didn’t work out.

The Skrulls create a new Pym who does all the stuff we’ve seen until now, putting him back on top by giving him ambition that, let’s face it, our old Hank Pym didn’t have.  He goes back to his buddies after the Ultron storyline in Mighty Avengers and tells them how to defeat Stark’s armor.  Since the Skrulls are all set to go, Pym gives Janet a ‘new growth formula’ that’s probably something horrible.

All you really need to know for Mighty Avengers #15 is that last bit, that Janet Van Dyne now has some sort of evil formula in her hands that she might think is some new way for her to become Giant Woman (which she already did during the ‘Venom Bomb’ storyline).  So maybe you don’t need to know that.

Right!  So those are the big two, reminding me a lot of those episodes mid-season that get a lower budget so they resort to a ‘remember when?’ recap show.  Mind you, that Vibranium thing is big, but… that’s a lot of ‘previously in the Avengers’.