Wednesday comics is GORGEOUS!!! The stories themselves range from "This is OK" to "This is a really good opening chapter," but the artwork is just phenomenal.

Pretty sure I saw Robert Kirkman at the zoo today.

Cincinnati Zoo? You totally did, how on earth did you recognize him? I follow his twitter, he was there with his family.

LOL! Yes the Cincy Zoo. Shit I should have said something but I wasn't sure it was even him at first. I was standing there with my girlfriend, watching one of the handlers show off this huge snake and I see this big bearded guy with his family, and I'm like "that guy looks like Robert Kirkman". Then I saw he had on a Criminal shirt on (Brubaker), so I was pretty damn sure it was him but then he went into one of the bathrooms to change his kid, so I just let him be.

I just finished the 4th Invincible hardcover this week, too!

I just started #2 and love it.

Thought this was a surprisingly entertaining read:

Love those, I think the new one comes out soon.

My LCS just said they're having a tenth-anniversary celebration on Wednesday: 50% off everything!

I think that's a really good direction that comics are headed into - Batman and Robin is another good example - of comics becoming a pop caricature of themselves.

Yeah, but $4 a pop for 15 pages of incomplete stories presented on newsprint is a bit much. It feels like even more of a rip of when the pages start to rip at the folds like mine has. The whole idea of a "Wednesday Comics" is to bring back the old disposable feel of old school comics when they were fun but cheap throwaways you'd roll into your back pocket, which they accomplished with some great talent, but they were never this expensive.

Some random stuff I've been reading catching up on my massive backlog. . .


Jonah Hex - Continues to be one of the best comics that nobody reads. The rotating artists are phenomenal, it's mostly stand alone stories, which makes this current arc even better. It's the first 6-part story arc I think of the entire series, & the first time all the characters are coming together for one story.

The Sword - What a phenomenal series, if anything I wish I never picked up the monthies & waited for the complete hardcover, but every issues is so damn good. Way better then Ulta & Girls both of which I thought were pretty overrated.

House of Mystery - Great series, just read the first 8 issues. Phenomenal art. A must read if you dig Fables.

I Kill Giants - Just read this trade, WOW. Should be in every comic fans collection (although it is printed on some pretty crappy paper). One of the best mini-series I've read in a while. It's the kind of book where discovering what kind of book it is is half the fun & has a phenomenal ending that just makes the story stay with you.

Ah, I had no idea they went back to newsprint for this. I thought the throwback was in the page layout and size. So basically I should have just waited for the trade...

I don't seen how they'll be able to do a trade for Wednesday comics.

Maybe that's why they're charging so much - they won't be able to recoup any money from trades.

I could see them doing a trade in the size of those oversized comics, like Superman: Peace on Earth (dimensions 9.8" x 13.2"). It's not exactly 14" x 20", but it's a manageable size for a collection that be 180 pages in page count.

I'd wonder if they'd still be bold enough to print the issues as-is for all 12 issues, and not collate the pages for each feature as a stand-alone story.

They are certainly planning for a couple (not sure how or if it will actually happen):

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=21695
Of course, I started ordering it because I didn't think they would ever come out in trade form.

So Blackest Night came out today. I have to say, I'm not really a GL guy (I've read all of the trades up until Secret Origin to grab me -- it didn't), but this was a cool start to the story. This feels much more like a DC story, with a GL focus, instead of just a GL story. I think everyone and their mamma is calling for Hal to become a White Lantern, but I'm curious to see how this is going to play out.

There were a couple of really awesome pages here.

Also, I've just started reading 100 Bullets. That's my summer reading project, and those first 5 issue just grab you by the balls. This year I've already read Fables and Y The Last MAn, but 100 gets off to a better start than both of those series combined. Knowing how good Fables and Y got, I can only imagine what I'm in store for with 100.

Blackest Night is phenomenal so far.

100 Bullets is as good as any comic published, well . . . ever. It is so highly re-readable to, the way all the characters connect & stories interweave is just flawless. And the art is as complex as the story.

Blackest Night just felt like continuity porn to me.

Agreed. Part of it for me might be that I don't follow DC too closely - but there was definitely some self-fellatio going on.

I can see that, but I'm a huge GL fan so it all worked well for me.

Y'know, I'm only 14 issues into the series, but it's already hitting the deep comic itch that only the best comics can scratch. So far, 100 Bullets is pretty much perfect. The characters are all great, the story is interesting, the plot is dense and complet yet not convoluted, and that art? Fuck me.

Risso is a master. It's amazing that he can draw the sexiest women you've ever seen, while also making them look like they'll give you every STD known to man. And the guys (who are supposed to) all look like hard men. I'm not ever fucking with Mr. Graves. It's amazing that Risso can get across such gravitas for Mr. Graves in a comic. I'm addicted.

I can see why Blackest Night felt like continuity porn, but when you're in the mix all that stuff works. I don't think every event needs to be accessible for every reader, though I think BN is easy to get on. This isn't Final Crisis continuity after all. I don't know how many of the tie ins I'll be reading. The concept is one that intrigues me, so I'm much more apt to follow things I wouldn't normally just to see the fallout of the dead returning to certain books.

It wan't that Blackest Night was inaccessible -- there was nothing in it that left me puzzled. It was that (except for the final scene with the Hawks) there didn't seem to be any point to the story other than to take us on a tour of a half dozen or so characters who have died. Maybe the second issue will be more plot-focused, but this issue just didn't do it for me.

The art was great, though.

Matt Brady left Newsarama:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/070917-goodbye.html

Oh noes! Now who's going to republish press releases and run fluffy interviews with hard-hitting questions like "How come your comics are so cool?"

Am now onto #3. Crushing on Atom Eve....

I hope you haven't kept up to date on the plot.