NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - AUGUST 26TH

Pretty busy week this time as Marvel piles on most of their Avengers titles the same time as all the Dark Reign spinoffs.





There's a few first issues though, with Kevin Smith back doing another Batman mini-series, ( what the heck is a Widening Gyre anyway) that promises a lot of guest stars. And the Titans Blackest Night 3 parter starts up( probably the least anticipated of the Blackest Night X-overs).
The Shield is the final issue of the Straczynski Red Circle relaunches. And while not a first issue, the Fantastic Four get a new creative team with a lot less hype than the last guys, but Hickman and Eaglesham are both fan favourites that could give us a book worth reading again.
Check out the full shipping list at http://www.shop.comicsnmore.ca/online/



If you have any cash left after buying all these goodies remember to stop on down to the Fanexpo this weekend. Friday August 28-Sunday 30th.

Comics & More will be there as usual,(look for the red and white banner) with tables and shelves full of great deals.

1000's of paperbacks and hardcovers as low as $3.00 -$10.00


Manga fans will even be able to stock up on their favourite titles at great prices or buy up some clearance issues for $5.00 each, 3/$10.00
The show has some great guests this year and promises to be a lot fun as usual.
Hope to see you there.

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - AUGUST 19th

BATGIRL #1 - PUNISHER NOIR #1 - BLACKEST NIGHT SUPERMAN #1


Yeah there's some first issues this week. None are a big surprise though and will sell to the people who buy stuff like Batman, Superman, Blackest Night or Punisher. There's also the two crime noir hrdcvrs coming from DC/Vertigo. But the only book that will be selling to loads of people who don't frequent the comic shops every week, will be this one.

ARCHIE #600.

A milestone anniversary for the 3rd longest running American comic book character. Despite Marvels big renumbering event this year, Archie is 2nd only to Batman and Superman when it comes to having a continuous on-going comic of his own.

I really hope everyone who is actually interested in this comic has gotten their preorder in. I sincerely doubt you will find any on a comic book rack by noon Wednesday. I ordered heavier on this than any Marvel or DC event comic in years, and over 3/4 of them are slated for reserve. More will be arriving with the August 26Th delivery, and supermarkets and variety stores will get their copies early in September. But if its a slow news day Tuesday, you can bet to see a rush for these, first thing Wednesday morning.

How many comic shops have you ever been in that actually have Archie comics on display?

Do you think that will change after this, or will most specialty stores go back to ignoring this perennial favourite once this story is over?

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY-AUGUST 12th

I really wish the publishers would work out a way to shift the delivery schedules around so we didn't get so many of the "big" titles and or first issues all in the same week. We've seen it before where 15 X-Men or a half-dozen Avengers titles all arrive at once.

This week has several prominent #1's at the same time.

DC ships us the first issue of Blackest Night: Batman, along with Blackest Night #2 and Green Lantern Corps #39. At least in a case like this they may have the excuse the the storyline forces the books to arrive together, although what order to read them in is usually confusing. In the Batman title, Deadman, has to help Dick Grayson against his newly revived and powered up parents. I originally thought that the Black Lanterns were meant to be dead superpowered folk, but apparently any deceased character is a candidate for the Black ring.

Adventure Comics gets revived as well, and features the return of Superboy and the Legion. In 2 separate stories sure, but for $4.00 this looks like a sure winner. Both stories lead off from the hugely popular Final Crisis Legion mini-series.

Also in the restart department, Marvel wiped out huge chunks of their Ultimates Universe in the recent Ultimatum storyline, and now restarts 2 of the on-going titles with the new continuity.

This seems to be a popular thing to do with alternate Earths, as DC has tried this with their Wildstorm Universe at least a couple of times now. Lets hope Marvel has better luck at it than they have.(I must have been the only person enjoying the recent Wildstorm relaunch as they announced at San Diego, it would be relaunching yet again, soon).

Most of the Avengers came through the destruction intact, so that title can move along much as it did before, and with Mark Millar back writing, you can bet it moves slowly.

Ultimate Spider-Man (and a lot of friends, judging by this cover) however, will apparently feature someone other than Peter Parker in the costume. Brian Bendis is still writing however, so most of his fans can carry right along and ignore the new numbering.

The Marvels Project is being hyped big time by Marvel, including a special 70th anniversary party to release the book on Tuesday night rather than Wednesday. There's also something like 6 alternate covers planned for it. Not being entirely sure just what it was all about, I'll only have the 2 regular covers available. From the actual text on Marvels site, it sounds kind of like the old Alex Ross book, Marvels, only it implies some kind of hidden link behind all the early superhumans. Also, it has been implied that this series may be a setup for the new Human Torch title coming soon. Brubaker and Epting are a hard combo to beat in any case.

A couple of great paperback collections arrive as well. The latest volumes of Walking Dead, Fables and Invincible, each of which regularly outsell almost anything on the shelves here.

And of course DC finally collects Hush into one volume,(aside from the ridiculouly priced Absolute edition) I could never figure out why it was 2 volumes in the first place.

NEW COMICS - WEDNESDAY AUGUST 5th

Pretty decent week coming up with a fair number of first issues.

First off are 2 new titles by one of my favourite writers, Christos Gage. I know he's not one of the big names, and most people are saying"huh" right about now, due to the fact he's never been on a regular title, at least for long. He has done work for pretty much every publisher and a few of these House of M minis though, as well as a run of Wildstorm issues, and always delivers a solid story with well paced action.

His new Avataar series is Absolution, set in one of those "if powers existed in the real world" type stories. The lead character is a powered police officer who crosses the line. As a writer for TV crime shows such as Law and Order, you can expect Gage will deliver a believable story here.

Speaking of powers crossing the line, Mark Waid's Irredeemable has been selling out since the first issue. If you've missed it, here's you chance to jump in as the first collection arrives at the bargain price of $10.99. Plus if you like what you see, issue #5 arrives for only a buck.

Jason Aaron has been pulling in new readers on Ghost Rider for months now, and it looks like Marvel has decided to give new readers a fresh start by cancelling the regular book and restarting it as a series of mini-series. Its a dumb stunt that could end up losing the momentum the title has built. Then again this could be a great little story for people who've been avoiding jumping into a title mid-stream. With both Ghost Riders and Hellstorm thrown in for a little extra "fire" power, saving the Anti-Christ should be a cinch.

Doom Patrol gets yet another relaunch. This book has had what seems like a dozen incarnations over the years, with its last relaunch just a few years ago. This time they have 2 things going for them though, and that's Keith Giffen and the Metal Men. The Metal Men are another quirky group that's had their fair share of restarts, but if anyone can make these two teams work, it's Giffen. It only helps that he has two great artists to work with as well. Mathew Clark draws some beautiful super people and delivers some of his best on Doom Patrol, and Maguire is the perfect fit for the Metal Men.

J. Micheal Straczynski starts his relaunch of the Red Circle(Archie) characters with the Hangman. Others to follow will include the Shield and the Fly. A few have already been popping up in the backgrounds and crowd scenes of some regular DC titles the last few months, but these one-shots will be the official intro-origins of the nearly forgotten super-heroes.

Captain America is still lost in time in the 2nd issue of Reborn. Sales on the first issue were actually a tad stronger than I was expecting and continues to sell well off the shelf a month later. Lets see how the hype of the first issue stands up, the killing Hitler cover can't hurt.

And to all those parents who thought they were done with Bone when the final volume shipped earlier this year, here's the Rose solo story done in the same format as the rest of the series.
The gorgeous artwork by Charles Vess makes it worth every penny.

Lots more coming , check out the on-line store for the rest.

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY- JULY 29TH

WOW! July is really going out with a wimper.

Not a bad week overall with some great reading from both the majors and smaller publishers, but not a heck of a lot to shout about. I can usually fill up a nice sized post just talking up the new first issues, but not this time.

Sure theres the Kid Colt one-shot from Marvel, and another Muppet Show mini-series kicks off, but there seems to be more series wrapping up than beginning. And the Dark Reign Goblin Legacy is basically a disguised reprint cashing in on the dark Reign event.

The 3rd and final issue of Blackest Night Tales of the Corps(the titles take longer to read than the book sometimes) arrives. This has been a great little introduction to the new colour cast added to the Lantern mythos, and reads well on its own but adds mostly to the reading experience of the Blackest Night title. Probably why the three issues shipped weekly to fit between issue 1 and 2 of the main book.

Marvel Zombies wraps up their 4th mini, but the story continues in the main Marvel Universe as Deadpool is already teaming up with his Zombie counterpart(at least his head) in the Deadpool Merc with a Mouth series.

The Millar Fantastic Four run wraps up with the finale of the Doom's master story. There was a lot of hype on this book when first announced, and despite some pretty solid sales, it never really felt like anything special. Heck the last issue doesn't even have any Hitch art other than the cover(although I love Stuart Immonen's stuff).

Ultimatum finally brings to a close the Ultimate Universe. Or at least that was the original story. Of course now we know that it continues with at least 3 titles restarting soon.

In fact, the Ultimate Spider-Man story seems to pick up right where it left off(if you ignore the devestation in the background).

As usual, you can check out the rest of next weeks list at:

http://shop.comicsnmore.ca/online/index.php?cPath=381&osCsid=419b0f202e472ce9204ea8d6c4f217e7

DRIVER WANTED

With my regular driver going on holidays for a few weeks, I find myself in need of someone to help me get the new comics to the store on Wednesdays.
A reliable driver with a mid-size or larger vehicle, available for a couple hours on Wednesday mornings from about 5:30-7:30 a.m.
The 3 Wednesdays would be JULY 29th, August 5th and August12th.
Anyone who thinks they would be able to help on any or all of these dates, contact me soon.
Aside from my gratitude, and being able to pick out your comics a couple hours before most stores are even open, you will receive a store credit with a temporary employee discount attached.

NEW COMICS WEDNESDAY - JULY 22nd

A nice balanced week this time around with a good mix of stuff. No big first issue really but the anniversary issues make up for it.


Both Hulk and Amazing Spider-Man hit the big 600 at the same time, which seems strange when you figure how much earlier Spidy started and the fact that he's been shipping 3 times a month for the last year or so. Multiple covers for both of these should help them sell brisk even with the hefty price tags. The Spider-Man is over 100 pages though, and NO reprint material. Thats a heck of a deal for under $6.00, plus a new story by Stan the man himself.
The Hulk #600 is not as good a deal with a Savage She-Hulk back-up and a reprint of Jeph Loeb's Hulk Gray #1 included. Still, it features Spidy trying to track down the mystery identity of the Red Hulk.

Also this week is another of Vertigo's great buck book reprints. This time its
100 Bullets #1, which will include previews of the new Vertigo hardcover crime library. These books will be smaller sized(roughly paperback novel)
and in black and white. Of the first 2 volumes, one is a new Constantine murder mystery and the other is a story by Brian Azzarello about an ex-football star who finds himself drawn into the underworld of sex, drugs and rock and roll, while playing the part of lapdog to a spoiled rich girl.

Another Halo min-series comes our way, and I have to hope that with Peter David scripting this time, the book may actually finish in under 3 years.

Also in the better late than never department, we finally see the last issue of the Final Crisis Legion of 3 Worlds mini. Granted its only a half year late, but considering it ties into the relaunch of the new Adventure Comics and the return of Superboy
it'll be a welcome read.

Check out the on-line store for the rest of the weeks offerings, including the new (now in colour) Lenore vol.2 #1.

Also a couple of $1.00 paperback specials available to on-line orders only, for a limited time.

http://shop.comicsnmore.ca/online/