Depends on the size of your order and how often. Say you have a $50-$100 size order and only a single monthly shipment: it's $7.95. It's an additional $4 for biweekly and an additional $4 for weekly. So, $16 per month for weekly shipping. I'm sure that's not going to be much more than the tax and gas you pay for going to the shop if you go weekly.

Hmmmm, I'd have to weigh the costs. I get 30% off at Mile High. Something I'll certainly look into though.

When does dcbservice charge you? As soon as you place the order, or the month that the books are scheduled to come in? Just wondering...

I've been using mailordercomics.com for a while, but they have been adding shipping costs to my later orders if the shipments come in two boxes (this is fair, I'm just not used to being charged the same no matter how big the shipment is). They do charge on the month that the Previews items are scheduled to be out, which is nice, but requires you budget things out well.

I would think most of us don't live as close as you do to one of the major online stores and don't get near that kind of discount. If I got that discount at my local shop, I wouldn't order online either.

The order I placed on 08/09 still hasn't been charged yet. So, it's closer to when they start shipping that specific order.

Hey, what's going on with Warren Ellis' Desolation Jones? The 4th issue should've been out by now, but I'm still waiting for the 3rd one. Is it on a bi-monthly schedule - that would be weird, since I recall that only one month passed between the the first two issues, but it's been more than two months since the last one.

I believe it's out next week. I could've sworn I saw a preview issue yesterday at the store..

IIRC, dcbs charges around the 15th of the month. i just got my monthly package from them today so i am a happy camper!! their monthly specials are really hard to beat. i have ordered from them for over a year with not problems. they even took back my full size bowen galactus statue when it arrived broken.

This week's stash:

• Supreme Power: Nighthawk #1 - I'm a sucker for Dillon's art. Way [the new BM Bendis] does his best Ennis impression.
• Villians United #5 - Unlike the Rann-Thanagar War, i'm diggin' the hell out of this book. Too bad it's over next issue.
• Superman #221
• X-Men #464 - Bachalo is back. Let's hope his art is better than it's been.
• Colossus: Bloodline #1
• Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder #1
• House Of M #6
• Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #7
• Detective Comics #811
• Arana #8 - Wow...Cruz's art is really slipping. It's looking like Ron Lim's. On a BAD day. Maybe it's the tracer?
• Outsiders #28
• Ultimate Spider-Man #82
• Ghost Rider #1
• the Incredible Hulk #86
• Marvel Team-Up #12
• Ororo: Before the Storm #4 - Thank god it's over.
• Soulfire #5
• 303 #5

I get a 25% discount at my local store. Having only bought comics in the Flint, MI area, I didn't know that things like club memberships that gave discounts on new & back issues was not the rule but the exception. Turns out that what happened was that years ago one of the store owners (we've always had at least 3 comic stores in the area over the years) decided to try and cut out the other 2 by introducing a percentage discount based off of how much you bought, up to 35%... but you had to buy a lot of stuff to make it to the 25% range. So the other stores introduced club memberships where you got 25% off your new stuff no matter how much you bought, and 10% off for non-members.

So not to completely threadjack this discussion, but how many of you have things like this at your local stores?

The place I was bitching about earlier has a nice discount on Comic Orders. I forget how much but somewhere around 25-30% sounds about right. They send an e-mail out on Mon or Tues for the Wed Shipment, you tell them what you want then you come in and pick it up. Trades are also discounted. This is one of the reasons I haven't stopped going there.

My LCS offers 30% off new comics/trades/toys/whatever. Every quarter of the year, he has a massive 50% off trades to make room on the shelves. Been going to this place for close to 5 years now plus another 4 when the owner worked at another store.

the newest issue of Desolation Jones will be out this coming Wednesday, I flipped through an advance copy of it on Thursday (my LCS usually has the next week's comics as "advance" copies, which usually whets my appetite for the coming week of comics).

I for one have almost gotten fed up with Marvel. I read only a couple of isolated books they put out from around 1993 until 1999/2000. When Joe Q. took over as editor and they brought in all the indy blood, the level of quality rose significantly (Alias, Bendis' Daredevil, X-Force/X-Statix, Grant Morrison's X-Men, etc.). It seemed a ballsy thing to do, but since that peak, they have pussed out one time after another. The major pisser for me was the ending of ALIAS and the start of The Pulse. Bendis can swear to the heavens that this was his plan all along, but I find that highly suspect. The series ending seemed to come out of nowhere and you don't build a character like Jessica Jones with her mannerisms, speech (i.e. proclivity for cursing), etc. and then she gets pregnant and all of a sudden she is completely cleaned up. My ass. The change in her story could have continued in her own MAX book, but (and I seem to remember a quote from Bendis in respect to this from around the time) this smacks of watering down for mass consumption and so we can have Spidey in his umpteenth book of the month. Marvel is castrating itself and has started the slow slide back into mediocrity. Apparently, Supreme Power will just be another victim of this watered down mass consumption whoring that Marvel is initiating. As an addendum, I am not saying that Marvel needs to include nudity, cursing and extreme violence in their books, but to back down from the convictions from which these books were born is almost unforgiveable in my eyes and accounts for a portion of why the industry continues to get smaller. Sorry everyone, this whole thing has been festering in my mind for awhile.

Ok, so I just read Batman 644. Based on this issue...

(Batman/Wonder Woman/Max Lord related)

First question: how can all these stores afford to stay in business? Do they have a large customer base, multiple stores, etc.? I know that online stores can afford the massive discounts because they generally just have to pay for warehousing space instead of storefronts and they usually just have people order before the previews deadline instead of keeping extra backstock. I remember one of the things the Tilting at Windmills guy said when giving suggestions on running your own comic store was NOT to give discounts.

Got my monthly order too. Tons and tons of tpb goodness, including the latest Top 10 hardcover, the Runaways HC, Earth X HC, Man of Steel TP 4 (man I love this reprint series), assorted manga, and a handful of comics.

Read Titans, man, I see what you guys are complaining about. Liefeld really hasn't changed. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he lifted a lot of the layouts from his own work. He has the classic cable with gun pose for Cyborg, and the always present arms-straight-out pose. Oh, and the jumping-forward-with-arms-straight-up. I couldn't even tell what the panel order was supposed to be when Robin was jumping off the roof on the second page, and I swear that whole bowling sequence had dialogue that didn't match the art at all. On a side note, when did they tell the backstory of this new Hawk and Dove? As far as I know, before they showed up in that all-Titans story, Hawk and Dove were a couple with wings or something...

How did you like that story GR? I know it's typical to find fanboys on message boards and all proclaiming "WORST. CHARACTERIZATION. EVAAAAAAARRR!!!!111!!" and the like, but when I read it I really felt like they weren't true to that character at all. It just seemed like an easy "shocking" thing to do...but really

All that told, I really liked the story. Now how does that make sense.

There have been four versions of Hawk & Dove (that I know of).

The original was a pair of brothers created in the late 60s by Steve Ditko. Hawk (Hank Hall) was a warmonger, Dove (Don Hall) was an extreme pacificist. Wacky hijinks ensued.

Then Dove got killed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Shortly thereafter, they introduced Dawn Granger as Dove II. She was the level-headed one, Hawk (still Hank Hall) was the "punch first and ask questions later" type and mroe wacky hijinks ensued. Eventually, they were tied into the Lords of Order and Chaos.

Then they came up with the Armageddon 2001 crossover, in which they were going to reveal that a DC hero would become a villain 10 years from the then-present time. Originally, this was going to be Captain Atom, but at the last minute, they decided to make Hawk be the guy who goes bad. He became Monarch (who later became Extant). Dove II was killed.

Then along came the third Hawk & Dove team -- Hawk (Sasha Martens) was a "military brat" chick and Dove (Wiley Wolverman) a "slacker dude" guy. They gained their powers (large bird wings and a telepathic link) owing to have been given experimental medical treatments as children. They have since been forgotten.

Dove II came back briefly in JSA about 3 or 4 years ago.

Now we're up to Hawk & Dove IV (technically Hawk III and Dove II). The new Hawk is Dawn Granger's younger sister, Holly. Dove is still Dawn Granger, who is apparently back more permanently now. From what I understand, all of this is explained in issues of Teen Titans around about the time of Identity Crisis (I read Titans in TPB form, so I'm a year or so behind).

WARNING: DC SHIL COMMENTS AHEAD.

Yeah I can see your point. I think it's hard to see characters acting, well, out of character. Was it done for "shock value"? Sure. But let me suggest that in a Medium where 60 year old comic characters are stil in their 30's, taking them out of character is some thgin MUST happen whether we like it or not. I think, and I say this based on looking at my own actions , Comic fans tend to resist change. Whether it's "Good change" like Superman marrying Lois, or "Bad Change" like Spider-man's Clone Saga Change is good...no, scratch that, it's important.






I see your point..

Newsarama's got som Infinite Crisis preview pages up:

http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/Infin...1/IC_01Pre.htm

Thanks JasonF.

See, I read that Titans IC crossover with Dr. Light (Titans is one of the few titles that I still collect monthly) and I didn't see much of an explanation there either. I had no idea that this was still Dawn Granger... for some reason she seems much younger now, and they both seem British. They mention fighting with Kestrel before, which I guess could reference Dawn's earlier outings with him... Unless I missed a Titans issue or something. Great summary of the Hawk and Dove history, though. For some reason I always liked the characters, even in the terrible, terrible Titans West team (speaking of which, how is Golden Eagle alive again?)

Ah, at least I have JLU for the real Hawk and Dove. And toys!

So I guess I'll be picking up infinite crisis... how lost am I going to be? The only monthlies I currently pick up are Titans, Legion of Superheroes, JSA (and I didn't understand the crossover with OMAC last month), Superman and Batman (which is confusing as hell) and now Supergirl. Pretty much the only info I get about the core storyline is from this forum...

looking at those IC pages just confirmed that i love jimenez' work. seeing as how they are hyping this as much as they are, it's good that if they couldn't get george perez, they got someone who is a close second.

You and me both. The OMACS are going after specific Heroes but the reason why is a mystery at this point.

There has been speculation, but now it has been confirmed that the OMACs

The more I read the minis (OMAC, Villains United, Donna Troy, etc) and Wonder Woman, the more I think people who don't get them will be confused by Infinite Crisis. There's a lot going on in the universe right now that seems to be building.