COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 365

This and That

Once more I've been a bit of a deadbeat when it comes to this column. But soon enough school will be over, so that'll be four less headaches to worry about (taking 16 credits, 4 classes this semester). It'll be that one big migrane of school over with, though soon I'll have to deal with paying back my student loans. Yuck. But until that wonderful date, I have a presentation, a paper, a book, and a portfolio to do. So I may miss more columns. So while I'm actually sitting here doing this I better try to cover as much as I can while keeping it short.

Free Comic Book Day is next week. More precisely, a week from Saturday, the day after the next of this of this here mag comes out. I like the idea, even though I gain little from it since they're offering mostly reprints. Not that I'm discouraging it, I think it's wonderful for getting people to check stuff out. I'm just wondering where we're going to get all these 'new' people. No way I'm going to be able to drag my mother into a comics shop.

I haven't seen too much hype for this very special day, not too much hype outside of the comics industry at all. I could be wrong, maybe next week I'll be watching the news and they'll mention it. That would be awesome. In fact, I better hear about it somewhere, otherwise we've no hope of doing it again.

Yes, again. I'd love for this to be a regular thing. The whole "10 cent comic" thing is developing into a pattern, and that's practically giving them away. So I'll openly admit. I want more free stuff. I want one day a year where even the poorest little comic geek can walk out of a comics store with an armful of brand new, high quality comics. It's very idyllic, or socialist if you think along those lines.

On a completely unrelated note, I am disgusted by the fact that the Star Wars: Episode 2 novelization, comic adaptation, and soundtrack are already available. Too many spoilers floating around to do the fans any good. And it's not even like it's standard practice. I've seen many cases where these things aren't released until the week the movie comes out. We still have three weeks to go, dammit.

Oh yeah, been obsessed with Marvel lately. Nothing much to say there, though there have been two interesting bits of news of recent. One being that Kevin Smith will pimp his new Spidey/Black Cat series on the Tonight Show. That's really, really cool. But why Leno, dear god why Leno???

I prefer Letterman because he IS a geek. But well, we take what we can get.

The other big thing is the exclusive contracts Smith and JMS have been signed too. I think that's cool too. I'm not terribly concerned that Smith doesn't produce as much as he should, and I'm not disappointed with the delay of Brave & Bold. Mostly because I wasn't terribly happy with him bring back Oliver Queen (ok, I admit it, I've totally got a thing for Connor Hawke) and was not riveted at all by Green Arrow (though his Daredevil was good. But David Mack's DD was better).

What does concern is where Marvel is getting the money to back up these contracts. Weren't they seriously suffering last year? Has the cash situation really shifted that much for them since then? Wow. Just... wow.

Like a middle-aged mother with kids out of college, I worry. I'm happy, but I worry. Just some things I'd thought I'd bring up.