It is good to be right

So, I picked up my weekly comics the other day and one of them was Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2008. Well, while I haven’t read the issue as of yet, I couldn’t help but to notice that the cover of the issue had three numbering sequences on it, first it was (correctly) labeled as the 2008 annual. Next, I saw that Marvel had chosen to re-start the numbering sequence with #1. Totally understandable, as the last ASM annual was published back in 2001.

However, what surprised me was the “alternate” numbering sequence (a number 35). Now I remembered that the original ASM annuals ran from #1 to #28 (1994)then continued on to four annuals that carried only a year (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998). This was followed by the next three annuals (which continued with years not numbers — 1999, 2000, & 2001). Keep in mind that Amazing had also been renumbered at this time.

Well, as the Sr. Title Coordinator for SpiderFan as I was entering the title inthe database, I wanted to verify our count and contacted Spider-Editor, Stephen Wacker, who confirmed that our count was correct. The current issue should have been numbered 2008 / 1 / 36.

Oh, and just for the record,I’m not making this post to show up Stephen — who is being very helpful, and a real good sport in all of our correspondence — but to keep the record straight, and because I’m totally anal in this regard...mostly because I’m anal about the numbering system for both my own collection and the SpiderFan database.

Cool, eh?

Looking towards 2009 (again)

As I mentioned a short while back, I had the opportunity to help produce a 2009 calendar. (of you click the calendar image to the right, you'll be taken to a site where you will be able to purchase the calendar itself. It is way cool).

Well, just the other day, I acquired another 2008-2009 (5769) calendar (this time from my Father-in-Law) that contained artwork from a very good friend of mine. The calendar in question is Beit Chaverim Synagogue of Westport/Norwalk.



The calendar is for the Synagogue’s New Year, and the reason it is special to m,e is that the image on the cover, as well as for the month of November, features the artwork of my good pal, Arlen Schumer. Arlen if a fabulous commercial graphic artist, and fellow cartoonist. Personally, I love Arlen’s work and would highly recommend him

His character, Captain Israel is a character that he created some years ago and he lent the image to the Synagogue for use in the calendar. As can be expected, the rest of the months are also full of the art from other congregants.

(Captain Israel is © Arlen Schumer)

It is getting cold out there...

As Fall comes soon follows Winter. I live in the lower reaches of New England, and the leaves are already falling from the trees, and the weather is getting nippy. To be sure, something more than nippy, as these days, when I go out in the morning, there is frost on the windows of my car.

As can be expected, this also means that it is getting colder in the evening as well. Needless to say, when it gets colder, I like to turn to hot coco for warmth. Personally (and as you can see) I like my coco delivered with superheroes.

Who watches the Watchmen?

I just came across this poster of the upcoming Watchman film. While I, like the rest of you am disturbed by the reports that the film may be held up due to some litigation over the distribution of it, I am ever hopeful that cooler heads (and deep pockets) will prevail, and the film will be out on time.

Beyond that I really have nothing to report, other than to hook you to a site that is comparing the film's trailer to panels from the comic itself, an (from what we can see) it seems that the film is following in the footsteps of the comic. This can only be good.

However, there are currently reports that the ending of the film has been altered from the comic (I can’t imagine why).

Put this firmly into the "might not be true" category of your brains, and then take it with an additional grain of salt. I hesitate to even spread this further because it is unverified, but I think it's worth discussing. And hey, maybe someone who caught the movie might weigh in.

Needless to say, I’m hoping this report is true. In the mean time, I’m loving this Lego Watchman poster.

Spider-Girl has been canceled!

Just recently I have been informed that The Amazing Spider Girl has been candled and that issue #30 will be the final issue of the series. I have to say this news totally sucks. I happen to think that Spider-Girl is easily the best Spider-series that is being produced by Marvel today.

Some time back I happened to be in the same place as writer, Tom DeFalco, and spent five minutes bending his ear telling him that I really loved the series. I told him that it had the same feel to me as Spider-Man back when I was a teenager (when Stan was writing the series). My reasoning for this was that — since the series wasn’t technically part of the “real” Marvel Universe, that Tom was virtually left alone to do whatever he wanted to do.

I’m really not very happy that the series is being canceled; although (according to Tom), there is a possibility that it might be continued in Amazing Spider-Man Family.

If you all recall, I spoke about this recently in a post where I discussed that I had won a (third) No-Prize with a letter printed in Amazing Spider-Girl #20

Captain America is still dead...(but I know where to find him)

No, seriously, I just learned where he is, apparently he was left on the cutting room floor of The Incredible Hulk. Yep, that’s what I heard. and now, I have proof.

According to the folks at SlashFilms.com now the DVD is out the folks over at FilmSchoolRejects went through the deleted scenes frame by frame.

The result is the screenshot of the Captain buried in the Arctic. If you look closely you can see his shield. I’ve been told its much clearer on the blu-ray disc, but no one has been able to do a HD screen capture yet.

Well, I had planned on getting the Iron Man video this week, but circumstances beyond my control have pushed that off ‘til next week, and I was thinking on passing on The Incredible Hulk DVD, but now, perhaps I’ll pick that up as well.

This is a job for Super Obama

Presented without comment:



(by Alex Ross. Click image to go to Graffiti Designs to purchase one of your own.

The Superhero Quiz

In yesterday’s responses, our good buddy Tommy made an oblique reference to his darker nature, and pointed us towards this image. In doing so he reminded us of the Superhero Quiz (our results are seen below). I know that we’ve chatted about this fun quiz some time back, but our increased readership, along with Tommy’s timely reference made bringing it back worthwhile.

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 80% The Flash 75% Hulk 70% Green Lantern 70% Superman 65% Iron Man 65% Robin 47% Supergirl 45% Catwoman 45% Batman 40% Wonder Woman 35%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test


As you can see by my results, above, it is rather obvious who I would be (am). You too can play this game, and find your own inner superhero.

Got (Superhero) Checks?

Do you have a checking account? Do you still write paper checks? Well, if you do, then perhaps you might want to spruce up your bill-paying activities by declaring your allegiance to the Marvel Universe with wicked-cool checks that do just that!



Well, if you are interested in checks like these, or virtually any other type, then you are going to want to check out Checks in the Mail. Their check pricing is reasonable, and their product is quite good.

The Wife and I have been using them for years.

Funny is as Funny does

Like most of America, I get my news not from either the broadcast networks, nor from the 24/7 cable news networks, or even from the Intertubes. I go straight to the source and get my news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Still, that is for “real” news. For what is going on in the world of Funnybooks I go directly to PVP:



Then, for an alternate view, I stop in over at SpiderFan:



Now I’m going to go drink heavy and giggle like a schoolgirl.

Spider-Man speed painting

Have you ever seen an artist draw a picture? You know, standing around at a convention in Artist’s Ally, while you are waiting for a con sketch and chatting up an artist? Yeah me too, only it somehow never looked quite this cool:




Pretty cool, eh? well, here is another speed painting, this time of Spidey in his black costume.



I love watching this stuff.

A retconning we shall go!

A short time back I talked about how the syndicated strip For Better or Worse went into some sort of odd retcon mode. well, base on my reading of that strip, I couldn’t help myself but to construct a Spider-Man strip that dealt with the same subject.

I present that strip here.



Oh, in case you don’t recognize him, the guy in the shower is Patrick Duffy, who came back from the dead a year after he left Dallas, because the writers of the show reached a wall with stories, and needed him back, so they decided that the previous year’s worth of stories were all “Imaginary.”

Sound familiar?

Colbert Nation Invades Marvel!

I know that I told you all that I was going to spend today waxing poetic about some comics that were produced by some of my good buddies over at CAG, but I’m going to have to bump that back a day or so, to bring you this breaking news about some exciting Spidey-News. We have just learned that Spider-Man has teamed-up with none other than Comedy Central’s blowhard, right-wing, political pundit, Stephen Colbert. That’s right, the star of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will not only appear in Amazing Spider-Man ##573, but he will appear on the cover in a take on Amazing Fantasy #15. According to SplashPage:

Spider-Man has teamed-up with some rather unique characters — from Dracula to Howard the Duck to even the original cast of “Saturday Night Live.” Now, adding to that, um, prestigious list, in the upcoming “Amazing Spider-Man” #573, he’ll team-up with late night talk show host and true American patriot, Stephen Colbert.

I understand that there is a 1/25 ratio to this cover, so, it might be tough to acquire.

What is not going to be tough to acquire is Chris Giarrusso’s newest Mini Marvel digest comic, Rock, Paper, Scissors. This comic not only gathers together ongoing stories involving the Mini Marvel charters that have been running throughout the backs of numerous Marvel Comics, but delivers a couple of longer-form stories involving Spider-Man as a paperboy delivering the Daily Bugle. As a special treat, it also reprints a couple of the very first Mini Marvel strips that appeared in the Bullpen Bulletins page.

Personally, I think that this stuff is some of the best material I’ve seen come out of Marvel in years, and to have it all collected in one place is worth the purchase price. If you want to stop in on Chris’s website and see what else he is up to, I’m sure he’d love to have you do just that.

In other Marvel News, Earlier this week Marvel released Iron Man on DVD and Blu-Ray. As I understand it, there are a number of versions of the disc out, including a “standard” version, a two-disc version, one that comes with a comic, and one that comes packaged with a trio of Iron Man bobble-heads.

As if that wasn’t enough, According to SplashPage, it looks like Tony Stark is gonna have a little bit of competition in the DVD section of Best Buy, when the chain store releases the (much derided) made-for-TV Nick Fury film, staring David Hasselhoff.

Also riding on Stark’s coattails, will be The Hulk, who’s DVD follows Iron Man’s in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, this is going to be a fine month for Marvel fans. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the trailer for the new Punisher flick (due out in December), is also in theaters now. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. I’m thinking that it will be the best one yet.



More cool stuff as it happens.

*** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE ***

Hey folks, I just heard from Chris about the Mini Marvel’s book, and he wanted to correct something that I said in regards to his book.

However, in response to your line, "What is not going to be tough to acquire is Chris Giarrusso’s newest Mini Marvel digest comic, Rock, Paper Scissors," I'd like to respectfully suggest that it WILL be tough to acquire.

There were not a lot of orders, so the initial print run was very low and sold out in under a month.

There is a second print run now available with a new cover, making the first cover (the one in your blog) impossible to now acquire.

This book does not have very significant retailer support and tends to fly under the radar, so it's unlikely this book will be found in a comic shop unless it is order requested by a knowledgeable fan.

Though it's an obvious all-ages title, Marvel is not offering this book in the bookstore market.

Sorry to be a stickler for detail, I just want to do whatever I can to spread awareness of the book and overcome the obstacles it's facing.

While I’m glad that Chris took the time to bring me up to speed, I’m sorry to hear that the book is under-performing (even if it is due to under-promotion on Marvel’s part). As stated, I think that this stuff is great, and I want to fully support the book, so everyone go out and buy up a copy. You should all go to your retailers and demand that they carry this (and previous Mini Marvel one-shots).

Oh yeah, you should all probably write to the various Marvel editors and tell them how much you love reading Mini Marvels in the back of the comics.