Happy Planetary Day!

When I last read comics regularly a bit over five years ago, Planetary was one of my favorite series. I believe when I quit, it was somewhere around issue 8.

Imagine my surprise when I returned to comics 5 years later, only to find that issue 23 was just coming out! I'm trying to catch up through trades, the stunning Absolute Planetary, and a desperate hunt for the recent single issues (issue 19 seems impossible to find).

Anyways, considering the pace Planetary is going, it seems appropriate that each new release becomes "Planetary Day", with celebrations and festivities spanning the globe. My contribution is my favorite chunk of Ellis, from Chapter 5, describing the adventures of Pulp hero Doc Brass:

The Caged Horrors of Neilia-Sai spat acid and shrieked like stuck babies, but Doc Brass stood fast, dealing hot righteous death with his marvelous turbopistols.

The sickening UnderEngland Junta unleashed its Black Royalty, torching the very sky and driving good men mad, and Doc Brass held his ground, taking the pain and the flame and killing hard.

The Emperors Of America advanced upon him and poisoned the ground and invented new ways to torture and despoil and murder with every step they took, but Doc Brass stayed right there and put his guns upon the monsters and saw to it that they went no further --

-- because somebody had to.

Happy "Planetary Day", all. It's a Strange World. Let's keep it that way.

Millarworld Offline

Well the big Millarworld relaunch is rapidly approaching, and to whet the appetite, we've been given this at millarowrld.net:

Board Offline

We will reopen at 12am GMT on July 1st, for the Millarworld Relaunch.

Please check back then.

best,
Millarworld

Though I haven't been there long (it took forever to register - I guess they don't like gmail addresses) ... it's already become part of my daily routine. There's intelligent discussion, lots of news, and a generally chummy atmosphere. In a sea of dreck, Millarworld's one of the few boats afloat. I recently "retired" from running a pretty large message board myself, so I know how hard it is to manage. The Millarworld cats do a fantastic job.

If you need your Mark Millar fix for the day, check out his interview on Radio Scotland's "The Book I've Yet To Write". It's a fun interview that touches on his history, his superhero work, and a mad idea for changing the world. Near the top of my list for changing the world is ditching Real Audio, but it seems the BBC disagrees, as it's required.

This Week's Shopping List: June 29, 2005

Green Lantern #2
Albion #1
OMAC Project #3
Planetary #23
Seven Soldiers Shining Knight #3
Fantastic Four #528
Young Avengers #5
Wizard Comics Magazine #166

Problem is, I'm still trying to catch up on a lot of storylines from the past year. A recent spree at Midtown Comics and MyComicShop.com should catch me up, but they have yet to arrive. So I'll be waiting to read most of these until I can catch up, and my list of books I'll actually get to read today looks a lot more like this:

Green Lantern #2
Albion #1
Wizard Comics Magazine #166

I was not all that impressed with the first issue of the Green Lantern relaunch, but I'll give it a few issues to hook me. Though it was wonderfully "compressed", I just felt like it was ticking off the fanboy checklist to give them the Silver Age Hal they wanted. This is the first Geoff Johns I'm reading, so I have no idea what to expect from him. We'll see where it goes from here.

Albion is something I'm looking forward to. Though I'm not completely clear on the extent of Alan Moore's involvement, even if it's purely conceptual this will be a good read.

With only two new comics I'll be reading immediately, I wanted a bit more punch from New Comic Day. So I just added Wizard out of desperation. I haven't touched that mag in over 5 years, but I'm not guessing it suddenly got ... intelligent.

.......

Who am I kidding? I know I won't have enough willpower to resist a new Planetary.

Categories:

• Comics
• NewReleases

Thank You, Mister Morrison!

DC Comics Sneak Peek: "SEVEN SOLDIERS: MISTER MIRACLE #1 (OF 4)"

One of the things that really pushed me back into comics (instead of the occasional trade collection that I've done over the past few months) was Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project. It's one of those things that I just can't wait for. I've missed all the issues published so far, but should be catching up soon thanks to the mail order finery of Midtown Comics and MyComicShop.com.

All this blather of mine is preface to pages 5 and 6 of the Interior Art PDF that DC's shown of the Mister Miracle mini. Perhaps this is par for the course for Seven Soldiers, but I was blown away.

Blown away ... and happy as that proverbial clam. And this is the guy revamping the DCU? Were I the sort of person who would squealing with glee, I would be doing so at this very moment.

It's pages like that which make me say: "Gosh. But I really do like comics."

Go. Look for yourself. Savor it.

Return to Comics: There is Another

From the excellent Return To Comics:

I’m always adding new blogs to my blogroll and one notable addition is Zilla’s Journal of a Comics Addict. Zilla has recently returned to comics after a 15 year layoff and as such is viewing things from a similar remove to my own. Do I detect a trend? If anyone is aware of any other bloggers with a similar story let me know. We’ll start a club, with meetings and secret handshakes and stuff. I won’t be able to make the meetings -- cause I’m real busy -- but I’ll provide moral support and maybe send along some of my wife’s brownies.

Well, here's yet another. I enjoy both secret handshakes and brownies.

I've been slowly creeping back into comics for the past couple of months, starting with a hardcover collection or two and escalating from there. I just made the jump to weekly trips to the comic ship, and setting up a subscription with the excellent mailordercomics.com. I write reviews and blogs over at my internet home, OperationSports.com and decided that perhaps I could expand beyond sports gaming, and join the club of Comics' Prodigal Sons.

I've only been gone a little over 5 years, so I'm hoping I qualify. I wonder if this is a trend outside of the blogging world? Are other people in their 30s returning to comics? Are the "new readers" that are so coveted in the industry turning out to be a lot of retreads with children, mortgages, and greying hair?

Though I know some of the current creators, it's largely a whole new world. Mark Millar was writing Superman Adventures, and Brian Bendis was an indie crime-writer, and Geoff Johns was doing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., I think. Now these guys are basically running Marvel/DC.

And the face of comics on the Internet is a whole different cat. I remember posting quite a lot on rec.arts.comics.* in what were the grand old days of USENET. Now the conversation has increasingly turned to message boards and blogs. Luckily, I found Millarworld, which seems to be one of the lone comics discussions that features both traffic and intelligence. Though if there are other boards I should check out, please let me know.