Hey, Folks!
I hope that your week has been a good one and that you enjoyed a safe and fun holiday weekend! For myself, it was certainly a mixed bag as on one hand I got the pleasure of enduring a root canal last Friday (along with the absolutely delightful $2000 charge), but, on the other hand, I got to attend a great wedding for some dear friends on Saturday, so I’ll take that as a win!
I also finished up the first season of Doom Patrol (from the DC Universe app) and I will go out on a limb and declare it as quite possibly the best TV adaptation of comic book material I’ve ever seen. Of course, I still enjoy the old Linda Carter Wonder Woman show (also on the DC Universe app), so what do I know? Seriously, Doom Patrol is an amazing journey through the dregs of super hero-dom with some amazing performances by Diane Guerro, April Bowlby, Matt Bomer, and Brendan Fraser. Well, Brendan Fraser’s voice anyways. Mr. Fraser creates comic gold from lead with his seemingly endless tonal variations of “@#$%” which, coming out of a robot mouth, continues to inexplicably hilarious. While the show occasionally goes flying off course with its bizarreness (much like the Grant Morrison run that much of the series is adapted from) it also manages to create an atmosphere of humor and pathos that is rare in a super hero show. This show will go from laugh out loud funny to tears tumbling down your cheek from one scene to the next. I can’t tell you what a refreshing experience it was to watch the adaptation of comic book material that was so influential to my love of the medium get such a great translation to the little screen. I can’t recommend the Doom Patrol highly enough. If you don’t like it at least you will never be bored watching it!
It was a big week for comics this week and I am still catching my breath from the flow of customers who converged on the store yesterday. Spawn #300 and Legion of Super Heroes Millennnium #1 are coming up as the big winners, so big, in fact, that I am already sold out of Legion and have only a handful of Spawns left on the rack. Add to that Doomsday Clock (finally!), House of X (this one is a big shocker!), Immortal Hulk, Justice League, and Batman VS Ras Al Ghul and you have the makings of a titanic week! Well, for those of you who didn’t get a copy of the new Legion book I am currently trying to secure more copies. They are currently going to backorder in Diamond’s system, but I am monitoring the situation in the off chance that more copies materialize. Since DC hasn’t announced a second printing of the title then I assume that there will be more copies available by the end of the weekend. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! (This JUST in! I have 7 more copies of Legion of Super Heroes Millennium #1 coming in next week! The first 7 people who contact me by Messenger or phone or smoke signals get the copies!)
On the Spawn #300 front, there are still copies of the first printing of various covers still in stock and I am going to attempt to order some more this afternoon. There will also be a second printing due out on 10/2 with a slightly revised version of cover A. Please let me know if any completists out there would like a copy of the 2nd printing. I won’t be ordering any unless I can see a demand for them.
We are also officially sold out of Marvel Comics #1000 which ended up being a much bigger hit then I was expecting. There is another printing solicited by Marvel featuring the art of Mark Buckingham and including Marvelman/Miracleman on the cover. I will be ordering a restock of these, but please let me know if you’d like me to hold on for you as supplies may be limited. Marvel Comics #1000 2nd printing is also due out 10/2.
I will be feverishly working towards getting a list together of all of the DC/Marvel open order variants listed in the September Previews for a November release. I am a little behind on my “behind the scenes” grunt work after taking Friday (root canal) and Saturday (wedding) off, but I hopefully today and tomorrow will catch me up nicely. My ultimate goal is to set up a Google form for preorder variants with a similar format to the Weekly Subscription Form, but it could be difficult as many of the variant cover images are not available before initial orders are due. Heck…there’s some cover images that aren’t available the week the comic comes out! In any case, I’m working out how best to serve you and you collecting needs, so please let me know if there are any potentially available covers that you are interested in.
Speaking of getting to work, I’d better get to work! I hope everyone enjoys the mild weather this weekend and I look forward to seeing all of your smiling faces this week!
Eddie