The Four Color Media Monitor

The Beat blog publishes excerpts from Diamond Daily, which isn't available online, where Marvel's marketing vice president, David Gabriel, where he brings up the issue of company-wide events, though I'm not sure this signals anything good:

I really think there is no event fatigue. When we hear that here in the office, we all sit back and say there isn’t event fatigue; there’s extended, prolonged story fatigue. That’s what nobody wants.

But still, the fans are still going crazy over stuff like bannering books and sticking crossover labels on things. We also love that, as fanboys. We all love seeing stuff like the Utopia banner on a bunch of books. I’ll even give a shout-out to Blackest Night’s bannering. But I think we realized towards the latter part of Secret Invasion that sometimes [the story] is too long. It’s just too long.

We’re going to try to get in and out now, hopefully within four issues. The editorial idea is that everything is going to be big and fast.

Siege's main story may be just 4 issues, but even that's a bit much by now. Another problem is if they're still going to go by the Quesada-mandated status quos - no marriage for Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker, an unimaginative direction for the Avengers, not to mention the jaw-dropping lack of continuity coherence in all their universe.

Gabriel may be signaling that they realize that they've gone overboard with crossovers by now (and the dropping sales should be a strong indicator of that), even as he denies there's any event fatigue, but then, that's why they're going to have to grind it to a halt very soon, and do what they can to repair all the damage they've done to continuity and characterization over the past decade. Especially if they ever want to win back the audience they drove away.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, marvel comics

The New York-based L Magazine writes about how newspaper comic strips have been losing ground in humor quality in past years, and no strip has emerged to take up the mantle first held by Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Doonesbury, Garfield, etc. I haven't tried reading much of newspaper strips myself in at least a decade, because indeed, they were losing their humorous edge by the end of the 20th century. I used to be a very big Garfield reader, but in the early 90s, that too began to lose ground. National Review once had an article in 1994 about how daily funnies were on the decline, and now, comic strips are still on the decline. And I won't be surprised if one of the reasons they've lost their edge is because, like movies and TV (and comic books), they're drowning in leftist politics (and Doonesbury has gone that way for a long time).

In fact, they even say here:

Alternative comics are hardly faring better. Earlier this year, Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World was suspended by Village Voice Media, which controls a significant number of the country’s Alternative presses, along with all other comics. It has since been reinstated, but even that once trenchant strip has become bland in its predictability.

The Village Voice is one of many ultra-leftist weekly papers, and it's possible that a lot of the comic strips they've published slant that very way.

Another reason why there aren't that many new newspaper strips now is because many artists are turning to the comic book/graphic novel industry instead. No doubt the coming twilight of printed newspapers played a part in it.

Via Robot 6.

Labels: comic strips

Here's an interview from Wired's Geekdad blog with Stan Lee at the LA Comic-Con, where he recieved the Scream 2009 Award.

Update: here's an extra article from USA Today.

Labels: conventions, good writers

On the Newsarama blog, one of the writers makes the argument how DC has spent the past decade sacrificing numerous characters as the starting point of their superfluous "events":

It’s 2003, and Judd Winick and Geoff Johns are about to launch new volumes of The Outsiders and Teen Titans respectively. Their storyline kicks off in a special miniseries in which several characters are killed.

It’s 2005, and the pair—joined by Greg Rucka—are about to set the DC Universe on a course towards Infinite Crisis, and they kick it all off in a special one-shot in which they kill Blue Beetle II.

In 2008, Winick gets ready to relaunch a new Titans title, and he does so by slaughtering a half-dozen minor characters.

That same year, the Grant Morrison-written Final Crisis opens with the deaths of Orion and Martian Manhunter.

Surely there must be some reason for all this blood, and since it is the blood of fictional comic book characters, I can only imagine it’s a very peculiar, quasi-religious reason.

It can’t possibly be a creative or dramatic reason, because it’s been done so often in such a short span of time, and despite their occasional shortcomings, all of these men—even Judd Winick, whose work I like the very least—are talented, and have certainly read enough comic books to know that seeing a character get killed barely moves the needle of fan interest, let alone excitement.

These same writers have also been simultaneously restoring dead characters to life during that same time, even undoing some of the most “sacred” comic book deaths, like that of Jason Todd and Barry Allen, further making the act of death meaningless within the context of their fictional universe.

You could surely make the same point about the death of Jonathan Kent, who was put to death at least a year ago, and now has risen from the grave again to terrorize his wife Martha, which renders even that death in the pages of Superman insulting.

And now, James Robinson has added himself to the list of contributors who're wasting time with this pointless death barrage:

Naturally, Robinson begins his run by killing off a character, appeasing his dark lord with the fictional life essence of Blue Jay:

And that’s a terrible shame.

Again, seeing characters killed off in a DC superhero comic book isn’t exciting, and it hasn’t been for about a decade now. It isn’t even interesting, it’s just something that one often sees in comics, like a drawing of a building in the background or a computer console in the Justice League headquarters. But I personally find it depressing. Not necessarily in a “Oh, poor Blue Jay” kind of way so much as a “Oh, poor DC Comics, why aren’t you any good” kind of way.

One can say that third time's not the charm now for Robinson, and unlike the 2 deaths that came at the beginning of Starman and JSA, this time, it's definitely pointless. The answer to why he's doing this one, even at the behest of the editors, shouldn't be too hard to figure out: it's that he's become one of their yes-men, and as a result, has turned himself into a joke writer.

This topic from Speed Force also brings up some of the same arguments, including the wholesale massacre of supposedly redundant c-list characters, whom we cannot expect to be brought back/redeemed under the current DiDio regime.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of death

The Ventura County Star publishes an article about a new book published by an academian named Robert Weiner called "Captain America and the Struggle of the Superhero: Critical Essays", which examines the history of the Star-Spangled Avenger. But alas, the author makes me frown with the following quote:

"There is something honest about Captain America," Weiner said in an interview. "He is not a Boy Scout like Superman. He does what is right regardless of consequences. Cap is not a government stooge, (with) 'Civil War' ... a perfect example. But he stands for everything that is good about America; the American ideal that we should all strive to incorporate in our lives."

This argument that Cap is not a government stooge has been really bothering me by now, particularly if the publisher has signaled he condones Marvel's wretched political crossover from 2007, telling that all may not be well with this new book. Captain America may not be a government stooge, but is he being exploited as a left-liberal stooge? That's a question we may never hear being asked in news reports like this one.

Also, is Captain America (or more precisely, the writers assigned to him) helping his country by opposing government policies that are meant to protect it, which Civil War was hell-bent on tearing down, no matter the story's outcome? We'll likely never hear questions like that asked either.

How did he select the essays? Weiner said, "I sent out a call for papers on Cap. If I liked the ideas, I told the author to go for it. ... The one thing I did not want is for the book to impart a blatant political stance one way or another, so there were pieces that I rejected. ... Obviously, there is some political stuff in the book. I did not agree with everything in the book, but ... that is OK."

Or is it? After what the publisher suggested with the earlier quote, I'm worried it might not be OK. Just what were these pieces rejected? If they were parts with positive value, then I'm not happy they were removed. And the publisher said at least one thing that alerted me that all may not be great about this new history book. It will be interesting though to see what it's got to say about how, at the time Bill Jemas was in charge, Capt. America was exploited for anti-American propaganda, though as I realize, it might not actually say that's what happened.

Labels: Captain America, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics

Suite101 publishes a sugary article about Brian Bendis' decade at Marvel:

His success has been largely attributed to his use of dialogue, being unafraid to let the character interaction provide the ‘action’ in an issue, whereas other writers might feel compelled to add a fight scene every month, even if it adds nothing to the plot. This approach has proven controversial, especially within traditionally action-heavy series such as Avengers, but continues to succeed, and appears to be an influence on many others in the industry.

Not mentioned here is how his "character interaction" is really slow, to the point where it stops everything dead in its tracks. And in what way does it succeed? Only with his most addicted fans who were the reason why it sold as well as it did in the first place, and recently, even that's begun to wane. And if he's having any influence on others in the industry, it's not for the better.

They even tell of one of the places where Bendis began as a writer:

Prior to his Marvel Comics debut, Bendis was becoming known as one of the rising stars of the independent comics scene. His work, primarily in the noir and crime genres, including Jinx, Goldfish and Torso, and he provided the art for many of his own stories.

His move to the larger comic publishers came when he was hired by Todd MacFarlane to work at Image Comics on Sam and Twitch, featuring the policemen from the successful Spawn series. He also soon started working on Hellspawn, a more horror-themed take on Spawn, although his work on both these titles ceased soon after he started at Marvel.

Ah, now I see where he got his start: on some Image titles that have been since regarded as junk.

In 2005, Bendis took on his most high-profile project to date, the Avengers series, which he reworked substantially from the very beginning. Relatively new characters were introduced, such as The Sentry, not to mention established Marvel mainstays like Spider-Man and Wolverine, even though they had little prior involvement in Avengers. Despite the hesitance of some readers, the relaunch, entitled New Avengers, was a success and spawned multiple spin-offs, such as Mighty Avengers and Dark Avengers, also featuring scripts by Bendis.

Predictably, this is not a critical article, so they won't tell how silly it is that he was in charge of almost the entire Avengers franchise, although Dan Slott has since taken over the not-so-Mighty.

As his tenth anniversary at Marvel beckons, a collected edition of milestone issues from his time there is planned, along with new hardback reprints of his earlier indie work. A major Avengers storyline, Siege, begins in January, which will apparently tie up storylines going back to the very start of his time writing the team.

So, with ten years under his belt, Brian Bendis is showing no signs of slowing down. Hopefully this will be a very happy anniversary for him, and begin another innovative, successful decade.

But not a happy decade for Avengers fans who've been alienated by Bendis' cynical, overrated work. And it's unlikely that any storylines of his from the past 5 years will be tied up, and even if they are, more incoherence is only likely to follow, mainly because this is the Quesada regime that's in charge.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, crossoverloading, dreadful writers, marvel comics

An article in the Oregonian about a comics and artwork exhibition being held now at the University of Oregon on superhero history.

Labels: exhibitions

An article in the Edwardsville Intelligencer in Illinois about their public library's new two-part series on the history of comics.

Labels: libraries

The Ventura County Star provides more perfectly awful news coverage of Blackest Night:

At DC Comics, the dead are rising. And so are sales.

Really? I thought they began to drop after the first issue.

Meanwhile, sales are surging. "Blackest Night" No. 2 was the biggest seller in August, according to Diamond Comic Distributors Inc., and "Green Lantern" has more than doubled its sales from this time last year. That makes retailers very happy.

"I have yet to hear a bad thing about this story," said Ron Jacoby of Secret Headquarters in Tallahassee, Fla. "I think it's one of the best 'event' comics ever done. The story is tightly plotted, with lots of 'Holy Moly!' moments, some stunning visuals, and it's obviously being done with love and respect for the characters. DC has hit a home run with this event in a way I've never seen before."

Sometimes I really get disgusted at these store owners for paying lip service to these time-wasting, vulgar events, and how they sugarcoat the misuse of the DCU's cast of characters, all at the expense of us the customers.

What's so cool about "Blackest Night"? Well, as I write this, Martha Kent is being chased through a corn field by her dead husband, Jonathan. Batman is fighting off his dead parents. All the dead members of the Justice League have arisen, from Aquaman to Martian Manhunter to the Elongated Man, and have already killed two more members -- who promptly joined the Black Lanterns. And at the center of the storm, on the planet that serves as the headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps, all the dead Green Lanterns -- of which there are jillions -- are trying to "recruit" their living counterparts.

What in the eyes of those comic store managers and the reporters wrting this horrid propaganda is so loving and respectable about seeing the dead turned into violent zombies going after their loved ones? And doesn't bringing Batman's parents back, even as zombies, trivialize the significance of his origins?

Spooky? Yes. Because, says DC editor Dan DiDio, "Blackest Night" isn't a superhero story -- it's a horror movie. In explaining the concept, he refers to "Alien," "The Exorcist" and other famous, frightening fare.

"You can see how the stories develop, in the earliest issues of 'Blackest Night,' they play out like horror movies," he said. "We were laughing as No. 3 was being created, because you have the moment between the two young lovers (a hero and his girlfriend) at the beginning ... and you're like, as soon as you see the scene, you go, 'This is going to go horribly, horribly bad.' And sure enough, it fulfilled those expectations."

Spoiler: The girlfriend was turned into a pillar of salt! Since most "Blackest Night" victims get their hearts pulled from their chests, she got off easy.

I don't think this is funny. Not at all. And for any victims in Blackest Night to get their hearts ripped out is repulsive. This article even makes it sound more disgusting than it is.

What's next? Well, October brings "Blackest Night" No. 4, titled "100 percent," and refers to the power levels of the Black Lantern rings. Readers have noticed that the more the Black Lanterns kill, the higher their power-ring levels.

"The fact of the characters being reanimated from the dead is just a means to an end," DiDio said, "and what the end is we'll start to reveal more of as we hit No. 4." He added, chillingly, that the dead people aren't wearing power rings, but that the rings are alive, and "wearing the dead people."

I'm sure I won't want to see how that turns out. The examples already given here in this sensationalized report are tasteless enough as it is.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, Green Lantern, msm propaganda, violence

In the latest followup to Dark Reign, Norman Osborn plots to attack Asgard:

In the upcoming Marvel miniseries Siege, writer Brian Bendis is writing what he calls the “final act” of the Dark Reign era of the Marvel U as Norman Osborn sets his sights on Asgard and its conquest. Spurred by the events of Dark Reign: The List, Osborn is going after Thor’s homeland with all his combined forces behind him.

Yep, they really have gotten that silly, and as far from the original take on the Green Goblin as is possible to get. And if that weren't enough, there's the following to ponder:

Nrama: You're talking about the Nine Worlds, the realm of which Asgard existed in up until Asgard's move to Oklahoma in Thor #1.

Bendis: Right. Asgard shouldn't be on Earth – or Midgard, as Asgardians call it.

From Norman Osborn's point-of-view now as head of H.A.M.M.E.R., it's a massive threat. Consider the situation – all of the sudden another country is laying on top of the United States. That can't be seen as a good thing by anybody on the outside, but more a hostile move. Norman's thoughts are that this is a legitimate threat and could easily be seen that way by others. Loki also agrees this is wrong, and not the way Asgard should be.

But for the heroes, it is what it is. There isn't a person in the Marvel U that Thor hasn't chipped in to help out once, so they're on his side.

Naturally, one has to wonder if there's any political themes seeping in here, just like with Superman's New Krypton arc, and Asgard is being exploited as another allusion to Iraq/Iran, which, again, is ludicrous and insulting. But this is what their would-be events have been coming down to, as they let their political biases get the better of them, and drive away more readers with both that and the rising costs of buying these limp, overhyped stories.

On top of all that, there is a siege taking place alright, and it's the very stifling so-called events like this current one, to say nothing of the editors and their pet writers who are imposing it.

Labels: crossoverloading, dreadful writers, marvel comics, politics

The UK Independent reports that on October 29, the little Gaul from Brittany whose village stood against the Roman conquest with the help of their druid's magic potions will be celebrating the 50th year since his creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo first came up with the series in 1959.

Update: France24 reports there'll be a 34th book.

Update 2: one more article from Cape Argus.

Update 3: here's an article from Veronique Chemla, in French.

Labels: Europe and Asia

An article in the UK Independent about how the popularity of anime and manga has brought many tourists to Japan to visit their industry up front.

Update: and while we're on the subject, here's a video of a tour of Kyoto's Manga Museum:

Here's the museum's website.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

IGN Comics is asking if Uncanny X-Men should turn to a weekly format like Spider-Man has.

The answer here is no. There's still too many X-books as it is too, and turning it weekly would only discourage more readers from buying both flagship series for starters.

Furthermore, the reviewers they spoke with here are on the very biased side themselves, as the following suggests:

JESSE'S TAKE: I'm very much in agreement with Rich that this strikes me as an instantaneous yes. If Spider-Man, a lone hero who at the beginning of Brand New Day had a fairly confined supporting cast, can thrive in such a format, then surely the X-Men and their cast of hundreds could do at least as well.

And yes, in a lot of ways the franchise is on firm footing on a conceptual level. The mutant race has certainly never been in more danger than it is now. All the same, I do find myself wishing for the same sort of fresh start for the characters that Brand New Day offered Spidey. No, I'm not suggesting Mephisto show up again to ruin Cyclops' marriage (Cyke already did a stellar job of that himself), but I do sort of yearn for the days when the mutant race was at least large enough to function as allegory for various repressed and downtrodden social minorities. The X-Men resonate so well with readers and even non-readers because everyone feels like an outcast at some point in their lives, and they can identify with the sort of struggle mutants face everyday. I'd like to see that element return to the franchise in a bigger way.

Uh uh, they can't fool me. It doesn't take much to guess that these fools were okay with the horrific job Quesada and company did on the Spider-Marriage. And if that's how it's going to be with them, then their argument in favor of turning X-Men into weekly series carries even less weight here.

At least 2 flagship books are published now, and if both were weekly, it'd cost at least 18 dollars a month to buy them. And even if they cancelled one, I think almost 10 dollars a month is already too much for some people, so it still wouldn't get anywhere.

Labels: marvel comics, Spider-Man, X-Men

The New York Post has written a sugary article about the publisher of Wizard magazine:

Pop culture is finally catching up with Gareb Shamus.

Shamus, 40, grew up around his parents' Nanuet, NY, comic book store and loved the fantasy genre so much that as soon as he graduated college he started Wizard magazine -- a monthly dedicated to comic-book characters and the world they live in.

Shamus was animated about comic books before comic books were cool -- and tremendously profitable.

Today, Shamus' Wizard Entertainment still publishes the thriving 19-year-old title, along with ToyFare, a 12-year-old monthly spin-off that focuses on action figures, and 11-year-old FunFare magazine, a twice-yearly magazine that covers the toy industry.

Take a look around, though. As comic book and other fantasy character content has exploded into the center of pop culture over the last decade -- some of Hollywood's recent highest grossing films, Transformers, Dark Knight, Iron-Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman, Star Wars -- Shamus is branching out.

After dipping his toe into the comic book convention, or Comic-Con, business when he bought the sleepy and financially struggling Chicago Comic-Con in 1994, Shamus has been on a buying spree.

[...]

His timing couldn't be better. While the economy is taking its toll on many forms of entertainment -- from professional sports, to television to Hollywood -- Comic-Cons across the country are ringing up sales gains of 15 percent, and more.

These aren't your older brother's Comic-Cons -- those sleepy, hotel-based two-day affairs that draw 3,000 hard-core comic book geeks who drool over top comic book illustrators and swap insider hero tales.

Today, Hollywood has taken over these Comic-Cons and, along with a new generation of promoters, like Shamus, are turning them into festival-like affairs complete with mega-watt celebrity appearances, sneak previews of upcoming films, videogames, TV shows and toys.

You might have to look hard to even find a comic book.

Well isn't that the problem? Aside from that, Shamus's Wizard monthly is a sham, a magazine that's dumbed-down the perception of comics for many years now, and I'm very sad they've chosen to overlook that.

And despite what they say, the public attendance of comic conventions is still very iffy, and if Tinseltown continues to take over, it's not certain comics will ever regain true recognition. Especially if "news" sources Wizard continue to give such a poor perspective.

Labels: msm propaganda

A press release from eMediaWire about the upcoming NekoCon anime convention in Hampton, Virginia, which'll be held in November.

Labels: conventions, manga and anime

Here's a review in the English-language version of Tokyo's Daily Yomiuri of a new manga book called Solanin, a drama of everyday life.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

Labels: Carnival entries

I'd heard that the recent Superman storyline where the Man of Steel travels to New Krypton and its colony of Kryptonian survivors had anti-war themes featured, but it took some time to try and find the fitting info. Now, through Scans Daily, I've been able to gather a bit about the story in Superman #691 written by James Robinson and Greg Rucka, and it certainly leaves me feeling disappointed.

Let's see if I have this right: New Krypton is supposed to be a stand-in for Iraq/Iran? Let's be clear here: taking noble communities like the one Superman is descended from and making them stand-ins for what are enemy-run countries is really insulting. Another troubling part is the once presumed dead Sam Lane's shouting out to Superman and company to surrender, "or feel the might of America!" and is most likely meant to be interpreted as an illegal act of war by the US. I'm very disappointed in Robinson and Rucka for exploiting the franchise this tastelessly as a platform for their political biases, to say nothing of their failure to come up with a new fictionalized country/planet that could serve as a stand-in for Iraq/Iran. And the plot of getting Earth to hate Superman is no longer novel.

One of the replies to the topic also raised my eyebrows and left me shaking my head:

This is Sam Lane (aka James Robinson's) master plan? To have everyone hate Superman - again. The same plan Luthor came up with in Loeb's S/B: Public Enemies and upteenth times before that? I hate when writers have to make everyone in the DCU so fickle that they always turn on the greatest hero in the universe in a second. I also hate how they've turned Sam Lane who was always a hard-ass but never a b*stard into an even more one-dimensional Snidely Whiplash villain than Zod. So they kill Lois's sister (a character who goes back to the 50s) and make her father a super-villain, the next Wade Eiling. How lame. Is this the kind of stuff we have to look forward in Didio's "Year of Superman" next year.

And once again I have to say that Allura's insta-hatred and distrust of Earth is looking to be the right one. I wonder if Supergirl will realize this? Or Kal?

So aside from Sam Lane's being used as a means of villefying the army, Lucy Lane's become the next victim of DC's obsession with terminating minor supporting characters? Truly distasteful. What will be the outcome of this story in the end? There's every chance it'll be as awful as can be.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, politics, Superman

IGN Comics writes about Spider-Man: The Clone Saga, a new miniseries that's supposed to "streamline" the most notorious Spider-story of the 1990s:

X-Men Forever seems to have started a trend wherein publishers can reunite old creative teams to "fix" books that went astray by starting over from square one. Never you mind that X-Men Forever doesn't really "fix" anything. Spider-Man: The Clone Saga takes a similar approach to the infamous event storyline of the '90s. It's generally acknowledged that the Clone Saga might have had merit if it hadn't been drawn out over several years and stretched beyond all logical breaking points. This mini-series finally offers Marvel the chance to prove that.

In six issues, Spider-Man: The Clone Saga is meant to retread the entire saga from start to finish, streamlining the events, eliminating the excess nonsense, and giving readers the ending the writers originally intended. Not a bad pitch for a mini-series. Writers Howard Mackie and Tom DeFalco seem to have taken a fairly literal approach when it comes to streamlining the story. My memory of the Clone Saga - what I actually read of it - is fairly hazy, so I consulted a few reference sources before plowing through issue #1. I was surprised and a little amused to note that the writers have essentially boiled down the timeline of the first six months of the original Clone Saga into a series of bullet points. Those bullet points make up the outline of issue #1.

But I still don't see what the point is of trying to "repair" a story featuring ideas that everybody shunned back in the day, and I honestly think Mackie and DeFalco are making a serious mistake to revisit this story, even if they avoid some of the more offensive parts, like Peter (or Ben?) shoving Mary Jane against a wall when it's "revealed" he's a clone as he runs out the door furiously. The story never did anything for the Spider-mythos and was symbolic of Marvel's deviation from plausible storytelling at the time.

What is surprising though is that EIC Quesada would actually allow a story like this set in the 616 universe purists consider the real one to be published that even alludes to Mary Jane's pregnancy from then. But since this miniseries focuses on one of the most time-wasting stories of the mid-90s, that's why it just isn't worth it. And who in their right mind would buy it? Not those who were alienated by the Clone Saga back in the day, that's for sure.

On a side note, the writer of this review gets something wrong: the Clone Saga didn't span over several years, just 2 at best, and that's very fortunate, because if it had gone on for much longer, things would've gotten much worse, and lost a lot more audience than it did.

Labels: marvel comics, Spider-Man

Here's an article on MI2N about comic book publishers who are working on drawing up comics featuring music band members.

USA Today's Pop Candy blog tells that there's a postcard campaign under way now to have Wonder Woman restored to the 600th issue. In other words, not to restore it to where they left off 3 years ago, with issue 228 of the second volume, but rather, the number of issues that's been published since the Amazonian princess's debut in 1941.

I find this a very surprising request, because already 3 years ago, the decision to relaunch the WW series in a new volume was as ridiculous and needless as Marvel's own steps for the same. If anything, I do think that WW should be restored to the previous numbering for the 2nd volume, and come to think of it, the background she had when George Perez, Greg Potter and Len Wein revised Diana's origins in 1987.

Labels: dc comics, women of dc, Wonder Woman

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, it's the Spider-Man comic with Obama in it:

Virginia Commonwealth University's library has acquired its 2 millionth volume: a Spider-Man comic featuring President Barack Obama.

A public event celebrating the milestone will be held at 2 p.m. Friday on the first floor of the James Branch Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave.

Marvel Comics' "Amazing Spider-Man, #583," released in recognition of Obama's inauguration, was added to VCU's Comic Arts Collection, which includes more than 125,000 items.

Oh, come on now. This is what they need to celebrate, even after his whole health care debacle? There were so many other, better comics that could've made the list, and they had to make it that tedious tripe? Please. This shows how some libraries are really scraping bottom in what they seek to stock their shelves.

Labels: libraries, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, Spider-Man

The Newcastle Evening Chronicle reports that an auctioneer living in England has discovered a massive Marvel and DC collection in a clear-out house.