I only occasionally bother to do a full score look at Previews. Frankly, there’s too many other people out there doing it. So I really have to hold off on it unless there is sufficient material I find appalling enough to merit taking the time to do one. And by “appalling enough” what I mean is: I feel the need to go wash a couple layers of skin off with a pumice stone when I contemplate being in the same building as people who want to own these things.

Yeah, this was one of those months…

Liberty Meadows Keychain Trading Figures—Page 63
How to get me to buy Frank Cho merchandise:

Make me a little duckling riding a dachsund.
(There’s going to be a huge-breasted woman on the package, isn’t there?)

Cybercontroller Statue—Page 64
I’m a fairly shameless Doctor Who fan, and the success of the new series has meant that, finally, I can get my hands on decent merchandise. And still…

A $300 “Weta Collectibles” Cyberman statue? No.
(We will not mention the $330 Dalek statue…)

Spawn: Age of Pharohs—Jackal King—Page 177
Okay, the picture isn’t that great, but:

It’s nice to see McFarlane toys finally putting out a toy with a noticeable package in addition to the obligatory female figure with big…assets.

Secret Invasion—Marvel Previews Page 41
Only two cross-over titles…that’s positively restrained. ‘Couse, I’m not the slightest bit interested. Largely this is due to the series getting sadled with an artist not even remotely the slightest bit to my taste. But also because I already sat through this storyline with the Dire Wraiths. And the Manhunters.
(It wasn’t very good those last two times, either.)

Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle—Page 266
No joke, I just wanted to be sure Pete saw that a Harry Dresden comic was coming out.

The Nye Incidents—Page 274
A new graphic novel from Devil’s Due. This is the first line of the ad:

Okay, so we’re looking at some sort of non-fiction comic, like Palestine or something by Harvey Pekar, right?

Ah, so “True Events” is evidently a typo for “Unadulterated Bullshit.” Devil’s Due really should hire a better proof-reader.

Thirsty For Love—Page 290
This is the description for this yaoi title from Digital Manga Publishing’s June’ imprint:
Orie Nakano’s girlfriend is cheating on him with two other men! One is the mysteriously untouchable Tatsumi, and the other is the basketball-playing upperclassman that Orie idolizes.
But things are far from being as simple as they seem, and now the three men are inevitably pulled towards each other and bond together by their love for Yuka, which extends much farther than just the girl herself. Love, admiration and lust intermingle around them in an inescapable spiral in this coming of age sexy romance.
Teenage boys sleeping with the same girl leads, somehow, to gay sex…Yeah…You know, some gay men really don’t like the way yaoi depicts gay men. Plots like this sort of drive home why.

Mack Bolan, The Executioner: The Devil’s Tools—Page 306
Given how many comic-book characters are thinly disguised riffs on Mack Bolan, it’s nicely full circle that a new comic featuring the character is coming out.
Man, The Executioner. I can remember a time when there were two or three bays full of “men’s adventure” novels in every bookstore I ever went to. I can’t even remember the last time I saw even a single copy of something in the genre in a bookstore. Low sales killed off the genre, I guess. Well, to be more specific, the self-fulfilling prophecy of “men don’t read/let’s not put out light reading for men” killed the genre. Now I can find seven or eight bays worth of books about plucky young women going to the big city and getting their dream job and a guy who will put them in their place (but for the love of all that’s holy, don’t call the book a “romance”).
I don’t even like men’s adventure novels (well, the cover art is usually a hoot) and I feel put out that the genre’s gone…

Captain Action #0—Page 319
Really Moonstone? That’s the license you went after?

Okay, I’m scanning the next two, because if I don’t someone’s going to call me a liar:


Okay, I’m going to save all of you lovely people $220. The comics industry started when a bunch of gangsters looking to launder their money found a way to cheat a bunch of teenagers and people who couldn’t break into real illustration jobs out of their intellectual property. They made a lot of money doing so and have done their level best to whittle away their audience ever since. Now we are left with an industry where Marvel and DC screw Diamond, Diamond screws every other publisher, everybody screws retailers and fans complain that they’re not being sufficiently coddled to.
Honestly, what’s the market for these books? I’m picturing them appealing to the same sort of people who sign up for a $2000 course in “How to Save Money.”

A Whole Shitload of Indiana Jones Novels—Page 408
If I’m not mistaken, all these books are reprints of the novels that came out after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Lucasfilm tried to create an “Expanded Universe” for the Indiana Jones films, given that it didn’t seem likely that a fourth film would be made and they had to get more income off the property somehow.
I made the mistake of reading one of them once.
I’d advise against them.

Family Guy Presents Episode IV: A New Hope Premium Trading Cards–420
Trading cards based on the Star Wars parody episode of the worst animated series since Capitol Critters.
I’m not going to make fun of anyone who buys these. How could I possibly add to your shame?

American Flagg! Ltd Edition Hardcover Book Set—Page 427
This is not the long-awaited new collection of this series. No, this is a set of old hard-covers that were, presumably, sitting around in some warehouse somewhere. I can’t help but feel that the presence of this listing in the catalog should be taken as a sign that the new collection still won’t be coming out anytime soon.
I expect we’ll see the next issue of Ultimate Hulk vs Wolverine before we see that collection.

The Golden Compass Basic Action Figures—Page 446
In case you somehow missed picking these up when every toy store in the country had shelf after shelf of pegwarmers going unwanted before Christmas…

The Princess Bride: Talking Dread Pirate Roberts Plush—Page 450

Oh, I hope it’s in scale with the Another Country plush dolls!

Randy Bowen’s Gargoyle Statue—Page 466
Get it now, before Disney’s lawyers get wind of it:

I’m just sayin’…

Medieval Wooden Sword—Page 518

I love this little reminders of the fact that Diamond still considers head shops and Ren Faires to be an important part of their business model.

Labyrinth Door Knocker—Page 519

I just want to draw your attention to one line here: “…One can hardly speak and the other can hardly hear, making them a form of living irony.”
i-ro-ny, noun, “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”
A door knocker that cannot speak or hear because of where the ring is placed really doesn’t fit that definition. At all.
(This observation submitted by Little Mikey Sterling, Aged 52, of Greater San Buenaventura, California)

Sweeney Todd Razor Prop Replica—Page 521

This has been your “oh dear God, these fucking prop replicas need to fucking stop already” entry for the month.

Doctor Who Micro Universe Game—Page 535

Doctor Who clicky-style collectable miniature game? Oh, my yes.Yes yes yes.

Eleven Men Out DVD—Page 548
I nearly dropped my copy of Previews when I came across this. In the midst of all the anime, bargain-basement horror films, nerd-core television shows and soft-core porn, Diamond is soliciting a European film about a gay soccer team. It’s unprecedented!
I wonder what they thought they were soliciting…

Marvel needs to quit pulling this shit:

INCREDIBLE XXXX #113 (Note: Not Actual Title)
Written by Greg Pak & FRED VAN LENTE
Penciled by Khoi Pham
Cover by Art Adams
CLASSIFIED
32 PGS./Rated A …$2.99
Order Using This Code: OCT072102
FOC – 12/27/2007, On-Sale – 1/16/2008

So, they expect retailers to place orders without knowing the contents or the actual title. All to keep “spoilers” from being leaked onto the internet.
Not working in comics retail anymore, I really wish this sort of nonsense wouldn’t annoy me anymore, and yet it does.

Also, what’s the best way for a comic publisher to make me go from “somewhat interested” to “not at all interested” in an upcoming title?
Replace decent writer Tony Bedard with hack typist Chuck Dixon. That Dixon is a right-wing crank and homophobe is just icing on the cake, really.
So, bets on Grace and Thunder? I’ve got “quietly written out of the book” at 5/2 against “suddenly hetero.”

If you know me, you know I have difficulty taking nerd outrage seriously. Partly, I think, it comes from having a low tolerance level for bullshit and insanity. But it also comes from working so long in comics retail, where week-in and week-out I’d see someone rant about how “Grant Morrison ruined the X-Men” and “I’m never buying another Marvel title until they fire Joe Quesada”…and then next week or the week after, there that person is, once again buying whatever it was they swore off of.

And so the latest comic target of fan anger that has me rolling my eyes is Amazons Attack. I’m not interested in defending the book; it is what it is, and I don’t have the patience anymore to argue that point with people (i.e. what kind of quality did you expect for a mini tying into an upcoming event with some continuity patches thrown in?). But the complaints…man…look here, here and here.

This situation reminds me of what I’ve referred to as the “Booster Gold Situation” and the “Blue Beetle Situation.” That is:
If you really think Booster Gold is dead/Wonder Woman is ruined, well clearly you’ve never read a super-hero comic before. This is all set-up, and it’s explicitly presented as set-up. Just as there was no way in hell DC was going to promote the heck out of Booster Gold in 52 and then kill him off before the series reached the half-way mark, there’s no way in heck DC is going to make this “new status quo” for Wonder Woman, the Greek gods and the Amazons permanent.
Likewise, if all the people now lamenting the death of Blue Beetle/ruining of Wonder Woman had, you know, actually been reading comics with Blue Beetle or Wonder Woman before now, instead of reading about them on message boards and copyright infringing LiveJournal groups, they’d have had the best-selling books on the market. So pardon me if I view your insistence that no, really, you’re a big Blue Beetle/Wonder Woman fan with a bit of skepticism.

But, you know, there I go again, expecting rational or logical behavior from super-hero fans. More fool me, I guess.
So, in any case, lay off Will Pfeifer. His other work is good enough we can forgive him the odd, editorially mandated clunker.

Getting linked to by BoingBoing gets you hate mail from conservatives.
I mean, honestly, this was the saddest attempt to put me in my place I’ve ever seen. It was so inept I can’t even work myself into a state of mild annoyance.
Finding the attempt utterly fucking hilarious, though? Yeah, that’s easy.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got a brilliant idea! How about we release a trailer for our new movie, that features a bunch of pretentious hipster white people filming a party with a camcorder!”
“And?”
“Something happens!”
“What happens?”
“Something! There’s noises and explosions in the distance!”
“Signifying?”
“Something really cool and interesting happening a long way away that the characters can’t see!”
“Okay…what’s this movie called again?”
“That’s the brilliant bit! After all this, we don’t tell the audience the name of the movie!”
“Won’t that just confuse and alienate the audience?”
“No, of course not! Trust me, I pull this shit on Lost all the time and the stupid fucking rubes eat it up!”

DC partners with Mattel to make toys based on DC properties.

Fan reaction: Alan Moore is a big jerk for not letting DC make Watchmen action figures.

Christ…

Christopher Hitchens, who has proven himself to be objectively, demonstratively wrong about everything, has a new article in Vanity Fair about how women are incapable of being funny. Because, apparently, women don’t need to be funny to attract a men, so they never develop a sense of humor.

Oh, and then there’s this:
There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three.

He goes off on a half-cocked theory about how women don’t develop a sense of humor because it presents no advantage to them in their attempts to attract a mate. Which is why “hefty or dykey or Jewish” women apparently are funny, because no red-blooded heterosexual man would find them funny anyway, I suppose.

It’s the sort of piece that suggests that it should be responded to or refuted in some way. But, since it’s Hitchens, who remember is always wrong about everything, the entire premise of his piece is so stupid as to make any rejoinder unnecessary.

Though, I will say, this notion that men are inherently funnier than women? I can disprove in two words:
Dane Cook

Ah, the 70s…where seeing hidden and sinister meanings everywhere could get you a book deal. How else to make sense of Wilson Key and his Media Sexploitation. In it, he details the many ways that advertisers and artists are secretly manipulating your mind in order to hypnotize you into doing things contrary to your self-interest. I mean, just look at the kind of filth they tried to get away with in ads!

Why, Jesus is making faces at that ladies crotch! That makes me want to, I don’t know, join the Episcopalian church, or something. I guess…
Well, you sort of see where Key’s theory starts to fall apart. He insists that the imagery and hidden meanings are there, but his claims are so patently ridiculous, if there really were all this blatant subliminal imagery in everything, no one would ever buy anything, because we’d all be too busy laughing at the desperation of advertisers.

I mean, Key seems to seriously believe that crackers are baked in such a way as to cause the word “sex” to be embossed on each one.

And, it’s not just advertising, oh no. Did you know that all men’s nudie magazines are part of a secret homosexual plot to effeminize American men?

This is the image he’s talking about:

Oh, how could we have been so blind as to not realize that pin-up models are all actually guys in drag!

Even comic strips are loaded with vile Freudian meanings:

A particularly eye-opening chapter explores how American pop music was all about sex and death, until the Beatles came along, and then every song ever played on the radio was about drugs.

Or, you know, it’s a distinctive sounding name that doesn’t mess with the song’s rhyme or rhythm. And I’m not playfully exaggerating Key’s hypothesis there. That is his argument, in a nutshell.

For a fan of cultural studies and critical theory books, a work like this is fascinating on multiple levels. On one hand, it’s an object lesson on the dangers of reading too deeply into works. And there actually is, buried deep within the book, some good analytical writing. The chapter on symbolism and cinematic technique in the film version of The Exorcist is really very good and insightful, if not undermined by Key’s insistence that director William Friedkin only used montage shots, dubbed over sounds, deaths head motifs and the complicated cultural symbolism of the rose to brainwash audiences into pedophiles. But the book is also an invaluable glimpse into what the “talking heads” class of commentators and writers were preoccupied with back in the day. I’ve got more than a passing notion that the current mania for “liberals are evil traitors” books will look as embarrassingly quaint and stupid thirty years from now as this book does today.

But, seriously, stuff like this says more about Key than any advertising executive:

New technology allows for incredibly detailed pictures of animal foetuses. This is a real scientific breakthrough. The potential medical applications of this imaging technique are really quite impressive.

Naturally, the comments section rapidly devolves into a forum for anti-choice propaganda.

Likewise, this IMDB thread, “Was Don Knotts a Christian?”. Because the man’s personal religious beliefs are of course the most important things to discuss in a forum devoted to his film and television work…

Why, it’s almost enough to make comics message boards seem like bastions of sane, polite and rational discourse.

(hat-tip to Dave Fiore for the Don Knotts link)

How to block referrals to your site by domain name. Or, how to prevent certain sites from linking to yours.

Of course, it helps if you’re using a real web-hot, not a blogspot address.

See, this is how the grown-ups deal with unwanted traffic.