You Can’t Swing A Dead Cat…

Here in the United States, last weekend was a long holiday weekend. In fact, it was the first official and universal long holiday weekend since New Year’s Day.

Oh sure, we have a few catch-as-catch-can holiday weekends that some American entities like banks and public schools observe (like President’s Day in February, which is not an official national holiday because our presidents are elected, and not worshipped unless they belong to your personal political party and are currently in office), and God knows that your Europeans get off every holiday any reckless alcoholic ever thought of on an Sunday afternoon (St. Shitfaced Day? Really, Icelanders? How can you take that day off in good conscience considering I just made it up?), but for we Yankees, Memorial Day is one of the few universal holidays.

However, being a universal holiday here in the States, that usually means a lighter-than-usual take for the week… and this week is no exception. We got about half the books we normally get on a Wednesday… but it is a Wednesday, and being New Comics Day (albeit a light one), it means that this…

…is the end of our broadcast day.

But still, there are some noteworthy books there. We’ve got the first issue of Scott Snyder’s The Wake, Brian Wood’s all-female team book X-Men, another issue of Mark Waid’s and Walt Simonson’s Indestructible Hulk, and a new issue of Geoff’s Johns’s Justice League of America that closes with a cliffhanger that the title only hints at. If you get my drift.

But even though it is a light week, you know how this works: before we can review them, we need time to read them. So while we continue to recover from our three-day drunk – I mean weekend – and go through them…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Deadlines And Commitments

It has been a busy one around the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, in the sense that we haven’t been around the office since this morning.

Amazingly, running the 1,952nd biggest comics blog in America (but we’re catching up, Comics Sty dot org!) doesn’t pay the bills, so Amanda and I have been busy doing the things that do. Combine that with an a commitment to an after work “teambuilding exercise” at a local bar (although how my getting shattered and throwing a punch at that cock Kunal who takes credit for my shit will foster teamwork, I have no idea. Unless everyone else joins in), and our time today is regretfully short.

But regardless, it is Wednesday, and come hell or high water, it means new comics. Which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And it’s a decent take, with Geoff Johns’s last issue of Green Lantern, a new The Superior Spider-Man, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But you know the drill: before we can discuss them, we need a chance to show Kunal what happens when you check in another man’s code. Oh, and a chance to read the comics. So until I post bail for Aggravated Assault…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

A Little Light Reading

It is never a bad time when I visit my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to shriek, “Who’s looking for a good time?” at the paying clientele, at least not while I’m wearing my Namor Speedos.

But some weeks are a little more, shall we say, disappointing than others. This was one of those every-few-weeks weeks where, when the owner of my local comic store, where they kow me by name and ask me to for Christ’s sake stop wearing my Namor Speedos, hands me my week’s pulls, and it’s only about an inch thick. And while it’s nice to come home from my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that there are decency laws in greater Boston, without being a full Benjamin lighter in the wallet, it means fewer books to read, sink into, and forget that these Speedos were once my fat shorts.

But still: some new comics is better than no new comics. And any new comics means that it is Wednesday, and further indicates that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But even though it’s looking like a light week, there are still plenty of decent comics this week. We’ve got another issue of Marvel’s Age of Ultron event (which contains neither ages or Ultrons. Huh.), a new Legend of Luther Strode and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, something new from Dynamite Comics called Pathfinder that I bought on a whim, along with something called Dream Thief from Dark Horse Comics that Amanda bought on a whim, and a decent pile of other cool stuff.

But you know how this works: before we can review them, we need a chance to Johnson’s Baby Powder ourselves out of these Godawful shorts. And some extra time to, you know, read the damn comics. So until that time…

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Sensory Overload

Okay, between Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars Day (May The Fourth Be With You! Get it? Is this thing on? Bueller?), the viewing of Iron Man 3, and the celebration of the birthday of one of our contributors (Happy Birthday, Trebuchet! Here’s to being one year closer to death!), we have been flat out all day and likely will be through the remainder of the evening. Thus, this is the end of today’s broadcast day… being as this is being written and published from a two-year-old cell phone.

However, we plan to see Iron Man 3 one more time tomorrow to better be able to review the film here, so watch for that in this space tomorrow. In the meantime, get yourself to a theater and check it out (one-line preliminary review: well worth seeing, but not nearly as exciting as last year’s The Avengers, and the whole thing kinda stinks of where they removed the Demon In A Bottle references that, by rights, should have been there. But a damn fun movie nonetheless), and we will regroup on the morrow.

But until then: see you tomorrow, suckers!

Double Murder

I knew I knew you, I knew I knew you. But you ain’t you. You can’t be you… There ain’t no coming back. This is the really real world, there ain’t no coming back. We killed you dead, there ain’t no coming back! There ain’t no coming back! There ain’t no coming back!

– T-Bird, The Crow

Man, Dan Slott isn’t interested in making any friends these days.

Slott’s Twitter feed has been lighting up all day from people who are, shall we say, miffed at Slott over the events of The Superior Spider-Man #9. In the way that Simon Weisenthal was miffed at Josef Mengele. Or the way Alan Moore is miffed at Dan DiDio. Or Joe Quesada. Or Dave Gibbons. Or pretty much anybody.

So as soon as I got to my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop making frivilous references to Mengele, the first thing I did was read The Superior Spider-Man #9. And while I don’t want to spoil anything (at least not until I review the issue), I can safely say that the reason so many people are affected is that, well, Slott’s done it again… which actually is a spoiler, but fuck it. If you actually figure it out, my defense will be that my brain has been taken over by an evil scientist: Dr. Jack Daniels.

So there’s that big Octopus-scented shot coming across the bow this New Comics Day, but that’s certainly not it for new comics. There’s plenty of other books just out, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

There’s some good stuff in there, huh? There’s the new book by J. Michael Straczynski and Ben Templesmith, Ten Grand, the new Gail Simone book The Movement, Brian Buccellato’s new pulp superhero book The Black Bat, a new Hawkeye and Age of Ultron, plus a bunch of other cool-looking stuff!

But you know how it is: before we can review any of them, we need time to read them. So until we can get that done…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Big Wheel Keep On Turning

Last week was one of those weeks that moves a litle faster than most. And while it was a week with some decent comic books, it was hard to focus on them when Amanda and I knew that there was a mad (if not particularly talented) bomber somewhere in a ten-beer pissing range.

But that madness is all over now, and it is not only New Comics Night, but it is New Comics Night on one of those odd weeks when there are a legitimate shit-ton of new issues of not only old favorites, but a bunch of actual new and interesting comics as well.

All of which is an roundabout way of saying that the Boston-based D-List supervillain team of The Dzhokhar and The Speedbump are no longer an issue, the new comic books are out, and therefore this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But there are a ton of new issues of some very decent regular series here. We’ve got one of the last issues of Joshua Hale Fialkov’s generally good I, Vampire, new issues of Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers (plus a new issue of Uncanny Avengers by Rick Remender), new issues of DC’s Flash, Justice League Dark and All-Star Western, plus Jupiter’s Legacy, the new book by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, plus a bunch of other good-looking stuff!

But before we really talk about any of them, we need some time to review them. So until then…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Return of The Dzhokhar

Update, 4:10 p.m.: Boston Comic Con just announced that this weekend’s convention has been cancelled:

ATTENTION: Boston Comic Con has been cancelled. We will try to reschedule for a later date. Thank you for your support & understanding.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 19, 2013

The full message from Boston Comic Con, including details on rescheduling and refunds:

Due to the unfortunate events that have transpired here in Boston, a city wide lock down has been put into effect until further notice causing The Hynes Convention Center to suspend all events until further notice. As such, The Boston Comic Con has been posponed [sic] and will be rescheduled to a date sometime in 2013.

All people who purchased advanced tickets on line will have their tickets honored at the rescheduled show. We will notify you of that date. If for some reason, you can not come to the show on that date, we will refund your ticket.

Please, we ask for your patience, understanding, and cooperation.

We appreciate your loyalty, and continued support for The Boston Comic Con. Unfortunately, this situation is beyond our control.

We stand with all Bostonians and hope that current events are resolved quickly and a degree of normalcy can be returned to our city.

Thanks a lot, you cowardly, mad-bombing, cop-killing douchecanoe.

————-

Yes, the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office is in the lockdown area because of the manhunt for the missing Boston Marathon bomber, roughly walking distance from where last night’s shootout with the prick occurred. As such, we are a bit distracted from normal comics news today (but not so distracted that we didn’t notice that “Dzhokhar” is uncomfortably close to being pronounced, “Joker”).

However, we are still anticipating that a single 19-year-old untrained dipshit will either be found dead or rounded up by the cops in time to allow tomorrow’s Boston Comic Con to proceed as scheduled – and as of this writing, it is still scheduled.

We are still continuing with this weekend’s convention under the assumption today’s situation is temporary. Apologies for any inconvenience.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 19, 2013

We are still preparing to attend and cover both days of the convention, so watch this space for that coverage… or for news of whether the status of the convention changes. 

The Heroes We Deserve

It has been an… eventful week so far here in Boston. We had the awful events at the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday, followed by an outpouring of support from around the country on Tuesday – the New York Yankees, a baseball team that, on a normal day, no Bostonian would admit is staffed by a single legitimate human being, played the Red Sox’s victory song, Sweet Caroline, during the third inning at Yankee Stadium last night – and all the late night comics were extremely supportive, despite carrying humiliating memories of being eaten alive at Nick’s Comedy Stop on Warrenton Street back in the 90s (and as someone who was a comedian back in the 90s, trust me: they were all eaten alive at Nick’s).

But now it is Wednesday, and as you might have read, Boston is not your normal American city. We’ve been here longer than almost any other city in this country, we were the first ones to chuck a hearty “fuck you” to out British overlords in the 1770s, and we were the setting of America’s greatest sitcom, where every single character drank in a bar all day and then went to work because even the most incredulous TV viewer had no doubt that not even hours of drinking could prevent a Bostonian from getting up and going about his fucking business.

We Will Soon Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

If ever Boston needed a Batman, it was today.

— The Batman (@TheBatman) April 15, 2013

The Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office is based in Boston – miles away from the site of yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombings, but still, we’re here – so suffice it to say that we have been a little distracted for the past eighteen hours or so.

We, and everyone we know, including all our contributors, are all fine, although a bit shaken up as we had idly kicked around the idea of venturing downtown yesterday to try to score Red Sox tickets for the morning game, and the idea of getting hammered at the Cask And Flagon bar on Lansdowne Street and wandering toward Copley to drunkenly heckle the workaday, “This is my first marathon!” runners had been floated. Marking April 15th, 2013 as the first day we have ever been grateful for having made the decision to not day drink… although after the news started to come out, you can be damn sure that we made the decision to night drink in fairly short order.

So please bear with us as we shake this off and soon return to our regularly-scheduled comic book programming, probably later today… with that programming to include coverage from the Boston Comic Con, currently scheduled to take place this coming Saturday and Sunday.

Currently we expect #BostonCon to continue as planned. We will have more information in the days ahead. Thank you for your patience.

— Boston Comic Con (@BostonComicCon) April 15, 2013

Space Cowboy Butttext, Or: First Second Printing

Based on the comics news of the past couple of days, there have been thousands of comic readers who have wondered, based on the initial indications that it would be impossible to get Saga #12 on the iPad or the iPhone because of Apple’s App Store policies, and the subsequent news that Comixology had never submitted the issue to Apple for sale, how they would get their hands on that particular comic book. For a while, it seemed like the rarest comic book in the world on sale this week.

However, based on this picture…

…that clearly isn’t the case.

But before we talk about the misstated rarity of Saga #12, or any of the rest of the comics in that photo, let’s talk about this one, which seems to be a genuine Goddamned rarity:

That is a copy of Invincible Universe #1, which was released for the first time today. Which means that it is an initial printing. And yet if you click that picture to enlarge it, and look under the issue number, it clearly says, “Second Printing.” And while it might be an apocryphal story, the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and often tell me, “Rob, you are a long-time and valued customer, so long as I can’t prove you’re the source of those awful stains,” told me that his is the only comic store in America who received first-print copies of the issue with the “second printing” indicia stamped on it. And if he is correct, and / or telling me the truth, that means that that photograph is of a comic book of which there are only eighteen copies in existence.

I just bought a 55-inch TV, which is being delivered tomorrow. If you’d like to pay for it in exchange for a weird issue of Invincible Universe, ping me in the comments.

But anyway, regardless of comics that are rare because of Space Cowboy Butttext, or because of misprinted print issuance indicia, its still a pretty decent week for comics. We’ve got a new issue of Scott Snyder’s Batman, the second issue of DC’s Constantine, the final issue of Mark Millar’s and Dave Gibbons’s The Secret Service, the issue of Batman & Robin that supposedly gives us Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns Carrie Kelly as Robin, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But before we can address any of them, we need time to read them. Well, either that or read them and then slab them and slap them on eBay before a real second printing is issued, but one way or the other: until we can do that…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!