I know they want people to go, but I never understood why there hasn't been a greater effort to get some of the panels online in either audio or video form. I can't see that cutting down on attendance at all.

It could have to do with having to re-negotiate the appearance details for the stars promoting their wares at Comicon.

Just got back from San Diego. I didn't buy a single thing. I can't believe I call myself a comic fan.

But wow, that show was amazing. A little overwhelming, but amazing.

Wait, some creators get paid to be at comicon? I know some guy's expenses are covered. Or are you saying maybe they would need to be paind paid ?

Either way I would just assume the guys would be happy knowing more people would hear their pitches.

Don't feel bad. I went and didn't buy anything either. The one comic I specifically wanted to pick up at the Con was given to me for free (Liberty Girl from Heroic Publishing).

I think that was the first convention EVER that I didn't buy anything. I must be getting old.

You went to SDCC and didn't meet up with me? What happened to us Knight? What happened?

I came back with swag bags galore. free shit rocks. as for news. Man, there was a ton of it. McFarlane actually drew something, Stan Lee and Kirby have a lost FF comic coming out, Bruce Timm says they're working on a sort of Death of Superman animated film. 300 footage looked dope ass.. man, what a con.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I spent the con networking. Trying to meet people to move up the food chain as a writer and editor. Met a lot of great people, but I didn't do nearly enough as a fan.

to the new Wizard format. They claim "biggest issue ever" and sure it is when you look at width and height. But, it's 24 pages less than last month and the page layout doesn't look the least bit different so they're not cramming anything more into those pages. Bah!

Well, as you point out, they are technically true to their word... I dunno, I haven't bought Wizard in ages. Is it any good? Do they still have the price guide taking up half the mag?

One magazine I've enjoyed reading is the Modern Masters... picked up #6, which features Art Adams, one of my favorite artists of all time. Anyone have any of these? I'm thinking of getting the rest (Alan Davis, George Perez, Bruce Timm, Kevin Nowlan, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and the upcoming John Byrne).

Hey, did anyone check out the Summer issue of Heavy Metal? I'm not a regular reader, but I am a fan of the concept of illustrated fantasy and sci-fi short stories, and occasionally scan the magazine at the newsstand to see if it looks like it's worth picking up. This month's issue promises standard Heavy Metal fare on the cover...



...but that turns out to not have anything to do with the actual contents of the magazine. What you get is the first three issues of the french comic Skydoll. I've only made it through the Part 1 so far, but so far we've got wind-up fembots, evil female space popes, interstellar carwashes, space bars, goat men, cat women, one guy that may possibly be a giant badger, religious zealots, robots that want to be more human, a little sex to make sure you're still paying attention, Blade Runnerish cityscapes, and all that good stuff. I really liked the art too. You can see a few samples of it on their website here:

http://www.metaltv.com/showitem.cfm?Itemnum=4329

For $6.95, it's not a bad deal.

I look on the magazine as the Entertainment Tonight of comicbooks. It's news, sure. But, it's "suck up" news. Doesn't change the fact I've gotten this magazine since issue one, however.

The price guide is 20 pages out of the 134 this month. But, they still have interesting little snippets to read in quarter page boxes every few pages of that 20, so it's not a complete waste of space.

When I was out of the comics seen, I'm barely in now, Wizard helped me keep up with the happenings. In fact,I think it was a Wizard article on Identity Crisis and all that was going to follow that got me back in last year.

Ummm... did Batman #655 make sense to anyone?

I'll never understand why people go nuts over Morrison. His stories are some of the most disjointed illogical drug trips I've ever seen.

I can't wait to read it. After ASB&R, anything is an improvement.

I'm "redistributing my funds" so I had to pass on last week's order and perhaps this week's so that means soon I'm gonna have a huge "cath up" buy. Sigh--- this hobby can be such a pain in the ass.

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=78286

Is the honeymoon over for DCBS? Anyone having problems? I haven't received a reply to my email in 2 weeks like some of these posters are saying. I haven't posted in this thread, but interesting anyway.

I really, really hope that this DCBS thing is just a few glitches (and perhaps poor website design). But I am glad to see that thread was full of mailordercomics.com people... I always feel outnumbered by the DCBS addicts on this board...

I got both covers (Alba, Spidey) of Wizard this month. Hope they're not counting that as two issues toward my sub.

Fresh off of Comic-Con I've got an itch to get into comic books. From what I can tell it seems really complicated to get into a series. I wanted to read about a superhero only to find out there are like 5 different comics based on the hero(s). Instead I bought a couple of trades or graphic novels (don't know the difference) So far I read Batman: Hush, which I enjoyed, and Batman: Dark Victory, which I thought was decent. I had orginally wanted to read the comics and wanted to start with Civil War. Unfortunately I was confused. Is the story spread out over different characters' comics or is there a central Civil War comic? Also is there a website out there to help with all these different comics? Are stroylines like soap operas where the characters remain but story arcs change after a few issues? Thanks

Dark Victory is actually the sequel to another mini-series called The Long Halloween. Although personally I hate them both.

There's a central "Civl War" comic, the last issue to come out was #3 last week. It's generally one of the better crossovers as you don't need to read the tertiary books to really get a good grip of what's going on, and it's not too heavy on continuity - only recent Marvel events are touched upon, and a quick post here will get questions answered. If you're interested in all the tie-ins, well, you can just hop into a friendly neighborhood comic store and they'll always be pleased to help you out.

And yes, most comics nowadays have storyarcs that run through them that are several issues long each. most writer/artist teams change after a storyline is done.

This week/last week:

Picked up The Goon v1-3 as per Sessa's recommendation and i've never laughed so fucking hard at a comic in my life. Great stuff. It's a shame it doesn't come out more often.

Flash is getting tedious and it's only the second issue. This is the worst Flash "relaunch" since the Johns story post #200 (the end of "Blitz").

The Superman books don't have the punch I thought they would. It's not that they're bad, but that stellar first storyline really had me pumped.

Batman #655 this week was also a disappointing read. Like MovieExchange said, sometimes Morrison can be really off in his storytelling, especially if he's paired up with an inappropriate artist. He's best paired with someone like Frank Quietely who has a surrealist bent to their work, or someone blatantly comic like Mike Allred or even Bruce Timm, because most of his work is downright parody. He's a great writer, but he can be hit-or-miss sometimes...I remember his JLA run had my head spinning...

I'd say that in addition to the central Civil War comic, Amazing Spider-Man and New Avengers should be picked up also. The rest of the books are peripheral events, but those two are right up there with the main series.

Civil War: Front Line is pretty major as well.

I liked the new Batman issue, but I admit to being a huge Morrison fan...Now what the fuck ever is going on in Supergirl is way beyond me. Just when I think I have everything figured out, it goes way back out to left field. It really drives me up a wall because I really like the character but cant stand this whole arc. Of course now I just have to see how it finishes.

Did anyone else read DC Nation this week? He wanted to kill off Nightwing in the Infinite Crisis series. Instead, they are making a few changes (or he hinted at such) - which is why Wolfman is coming to write a 4-issue arc later this year.

Good to know, thanks for the help.