Give your henchmen too cool of costumes, sign their death warrants.

I still haven't been to see Conan the Barbarian...not unlike the rest of you, judging by the box office numbers. (I probably will spring to see it in the theatres, because when else can you see Conan on the big screen?) But, I did pick up a good pile of old Conan the King comics, most of #29-#37. I had most of those back in 1985-86, but lost several of them. (We will have the last issue, #55, for this year's "The End" week.)

Today's scans are from Conan the King #30, "Revenge on the Black River" Written by Don Kraar, pencils by Mike Docherty, inks by Geof Isherwood. Whereas the first nineteen or so issues of King Conan were mostly one-and-done adventures, the book had been full-on serial mode since Prince Conn's alleged death in #20. #30 was Kraar's second issue writing, and the intrigue was also ramping up: the savage Picts are rising on Aquilonia's frontier, supplied weapons and siege engines from the rulers of Ophir, Nemedia, and Argos. The three nations have allied and move against Conan's capital while he takes forces to the Picts.

In an opening that suggests the new writer raising the stakes, or getting rid of some characters from the old writer; Conan's elite Black Knights are wiped out inside the first five pages. Conan, wearing his Thor helmet, swears vengeance.

I thought the Black Knights' chain mail uniforms were cool, but I can't recall if Conan ever instated new ones. And to be fair, this is a bit of reverse refrigerator stuffing: one of the Dragons was seeing Conan's daughter Radegund, who gets pissed at her dad over this and becomes a handmaiden of Mitra. (Basically a nun, although she doesn't realize the head priest may not be what he seems...or rather he might, since he looks pretty damn evil.)
This issue would probably seem tame today, but I think if you tried to sell kids a comic today where Conan rather implicitly endorses prostitution; there would doubtless be problems somewhere. There's also some race issues, since while there are noble Kushite tribesmen serving as one of Conan's mercenary legions, the Picts are dark-skinned murderous savages. Led by Shooz Dinj, who is painted white not unlike Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die. Uh...huh.

Conan mentions he hasn't seen Shooz's ugly mug in twenty-five years, but he'd recognize him. Well, with that makeup, I'd hope so. I think Kraar might've been used Shooz a couple times in Savage Sword of Conan, having run-ins with the younger Conan, possibly with the idea of making him a recurring villain. Who is killed this issue, but still. Not unlike the Punisher, I don't think Conan needs recurring villains; or at least they shouldn't be around for more than a year; because I don't think it takes Conan longer than a year to kill anybody, and that's if they start running last year. (The Conan movies seem to have this problem: Conan is orphaned, grows up, get revenge. I'd really rather Conan get orphaned, gets revenge that afternoon, and then we move on.) There are a few exceptions, like Thoth-Amon and maybe the Devourer of Souls; but then, like the Punisher, Conan shouldn't really be in the same room as them until the big finish.

When the Picts are defeated, the survivors offer to go back beyond the Black River and never return. Conan counters with his best offer: "Go back to your warriors and tell them to sing their death song." (I would not want to be the guy that had to go back with that news. "So, what'd he say? Did he go for it?" "Well...") Conan's forces kill the lot of them, then Dinj after he's captured later. Faced with the headman's ax, Dinj hesitates, but Conan points out he himself would not get off so easily, if the shoe was on the other foot. Still, it's not like Conan was singling Dinj and the Picts out, either: this would be a start to Conan's road to empire, whether he wanted it or not, and there would be tougher choices to come.

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"He loves only clay" would be a crummy post title, but here we are.

So, we mentioned Joker's Asylum II: the Mad Hatter some time ago; but I picked up a fifty-cent copy of Joker's Asylum II: Clayface the other day. "Midnight Madness" Written by Kevin Shinick, art by Kelley Jones.

Like many readers, I was introduced to Basil Karlo in "The Mud Pack" beginning in Detective Comics #604 from Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle. (That wasn't his first appearance, but since that was back in 1940, it may as well have been.) A former horror-film actor, Karlo now had full-on clay monster powers; and this issue, an entire revival theatre of clay and fans who didn't care if they lived or died.

The Joker has a pretty good chuckle at the headline "Clayface Kills at Box Office," and Jones' art does wonders for this story; but what I've seen of the Joker's Asylum stories don't seem to go quite far enough. And, since it's not entirely certain if these are in-continuity stories or entertaining lies spun by the Joker, I hope if there's another round of these sometime that kick it up a notch. Of course, since Joker's Asylum already done Joker, Penquin, Two-Face, and seven others; I wonder if the third wave would be down to Killer Moth, Calendar Man, Zsasz...(There are, of course, other decent Batman villains, but I firmly believe in the separation of Arkham and Blackgate inmates.)
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Whenever I see a dancing girl in Conan...

...I hear the Orion slave girl music, from the Star Trek pilot, "The Cage." You can decide for yourself if that's unfortunate or not.

The new Conan the Barbarian opens up today, but I probably won't get to see it for a bit. Still, I did restock some old and lost comics at the Comic Book Shop's 23rd anniversary sale! Today's book: Conan the Barbarian #158, "Night of the Wolf!" Plot and art by John Buscema, dialogue by Michael Fleisher, inks by Rudy Nebres.

More after the break!

Riding through the desert, Conan runs across two brigands dragging a woman in a crate. Conan wouldn't put up with that on the best of days, but the brigands give him some lip, which doesn't help matters. After rescuing the girl, she in turn saves him from her vengeful father, who has coming riding to her rescue with his tribe. A rival sheik had taken her, refusing to take no for an answer. Grateful, Conan is toasted that night, and the father doesn't seem to mind Conan eying his daughter.

But, the chieftain is disturbed to hear the howl of a desert wolf. He leaves to check it out, in time for a werewolf to attack Conan. The monster's strong enough to choke even Conan, who barely holds out until help arrives; but it escapes. Conan's about to go after it, but the chieftain holds him back, noting it may not be a good idea to try chasing that thing down in the dark.

The next morning, the chieftain's daughter is missing, kidnapped again. With Conan's help, they follow the trail, and find the daughter tied to a cliff face. The sheik that supposedly wanted to marry the girl, wanted to kill her, revenge for the death of his son, since of course she's the werewolf. She doesn't seem to be to broken up about it, either.


The sheik had an arrow prepared with the poison of the black lotus, but her father takes the responsibility and kills her himself. As Conan rides off, the narration notes that the survivors of this night will tell that story for years to come, but also admits this probably isn't the weirdest crap Conan will see this week.

Although I don't think he brought the A-game on this one, big John Buscema still delivers a solid issue, and I like Nebres' inks too. Buscema gets a plotting credit, but it's so standard I was pretty sure it was Fleisher, since I've seen this "hero rescues helpless damsel who turns out to be something else" before from his work in Warlord and Jonah Hex. Which may have been before or after this issue, but here we are. Have a good weekend!


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I'd definitely read more Question Quarterly, but I'd probably read Rashomon Quarterly too.

Over at TV Tropes, this issue was under Rashomon Style, and it was a grail for me for some time. I finally found a copy a couple weeks back for myself: The Question Quarterly #5, "Outrage" Written by Denny O'Neil with Kelly Puckett, Mike Baron, and Mike Gold; art by Joe Quesada, Denys Cowan, Shea Anton Pensa, Jan Harpes, Mark Badger, Mike Mignola, and Mike Manley.

The facts are clear: Vic Sage, aka the Question, No-face, or That Sumbitch; punched out his old flame and mayor of Hub City, Myra Fermin. But why? Yeah, no one's going to agree on that, especially when you ask Vic's kung-fu buddy Marco, former bad cop Izzy, a crackhead, and Myra herself. Myra's story may start with the truth: a representative of a crime cartel tries to bribe her, in order to set up shop and bring in drugs without interference. Myra's first instinct is to send him packing, but she knows Hub City is in such terrible shape that even dirty money could do some good.

Vic talks her out of it...until a child is bitten by a rat in the street in front of them. Myra goes to meet the cartel, but the Question stops her. She figures he knocked her out, then went straight to the cartel to bust some heads, and she's grateful for Vic saving her from a terrible choice. On cue, Vic arrives, and explains tomorrow there'll be a fifty-thousand dollar contribution for the city, from "concerned businessmen who have decided not to relocate to Hub City." He says the money is "relatively clean," and Myra asks if she guessed the truth. Leaving, Vic tells her she got it all wrong.

I don't think the Question had been wearing the trenchcoat and fedora combo that is usually associated with him, for some time, but it's back this issue. (For most of his series, Vic had been improving his fighting skills, and usually wore clothes more suited for brawling in.) A great issue, although now I'm a little sad that I've read just about all of the Question: it was a nice feeling, knowing there was at least one more issue out there waiting for me. Well, I still don't have the Question Returns...or his run in 52. Man, if DC had announced a new, Denny O'Neil written, Denys Cowen drawn, Vic Sage Question book in the relaunch, I'd give them a lot less grief.

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Build your own papercraft Iron Throne!

I enjoyed HBO's Game of Thrones, even though I have yet to read any of George R. R. Martin's books. (Well, not those, anyway; I read the Wild Cards books way back when.) And the other day, for some reason thrones came up at work, and I was thinking of the Iron Throne. If you've seen any promo pictures from the show, you've probably seen it:

No spoilers, especially since I'm going off memory here and haven't actually read it: before the start of the series, a king unified the land by conquering the hell out of it. As the old barons and nobles surrendered to him, the king took their swords, and had them melted into his throne. Which is kickass, if not particularly practical or comfortable--in-story, characters have mentioned getting cut just sitting on the damn thing; which is a pretty good metaphor: fighting your way to the throne is hard enough, but you can't rest easy when keeping it is a pain in the ass to boot. Still, the Iron Throne does send a message; even if I figure it's like using your vanquished foe's skull for a goblet: symbolic, but not entirely functional.

(I also have no idea how medieval blacksmiths would've made that thing; although I do like the notion of a somewhat crazed king dumping a mountain of swords on them and screaming at them to make him a goddamn throne, right now.)

So, I had a hankering to build an Iron Throne. From years of collecting action figures, I had a big honking pile of swords. But, I didn't have enough for this, and even if I had, I wouldn't necessarily want to bend them up and glue them. So, we're working with the cheaper medium of paper! We're not going for an exact replica, more of a homage. Or a swipe, either or.

First, you'll need a printer, glue and a gluestick, tape, comic backing boards, scissors, an x-acto knife, and probably a black sharpie. For my throne, I gathered up all the action figure swords I had handy, and experimented a little: the swords that were mostly flat worked better for this, and I scanned or copied several...I probably should've counted how many. Oops. Below is one of the scans I used; I just saved it to a flash drive, took it over to Kinkos (about a block from my house) and got a couple color copies, and a lot of black-and-whites. (Partly because the whole thing is going to be on the gray side anyway, and partly because I had no idea what I was doing.)

Using one of the backing boards, make a base. The front is vaguely trapezoidal, and as you can tell by the crappy template there, was drawn in about two minutes with a pencil and a Borders gift card with five cents on it. Slap one together and tape it up. (Or, if you go to a craft store, you could doubtless get a hunk of styrofoam or something in a shape you like, then go from there.)

Now, the swords. Here's a scan of some of the ones I used: I know there's Conan and the Devourer of Souls' swords, two from Ultimate Nightcrawler, and I think Loki's and Taskmaster's; all from Toy Biz. The Black Knight's Ebony Blade from Hasbro is in there, one from DCUC's Deathstroke, 200X Masters of the Universe He-Man and Teela's swords, and MOTUC's Vikor as well. And...one from an old Witchblade toy, Excalibur from that Merlin figure I got a while back; and some more I don't really recall. Mostly flat ones work best for this, OK?

You're going to want most of them printed on just plain paper, but you'll want some either printed on card stock or glued to a backing board before you start. (You probably want the color ones on card stock.) Then, get cutting! And cutting. And cutting. Be careful with the crossguard, since it's really easy to bend them right off. How many do you need? Um...gee, I really should've been counting when I started this, but a lot.

Starting with the ones on plain paper, start gluing the swords to the base in layers. A lot of the swords in the Iron Throne are bent or melted then hammered into position, and I think the whole thing is just swords on top of more swords, so that's the effect you're going for. You will want a few of the swords on card stock for the sides: think of them as making the armrests. Really uncomfortable armrests. There are a couple swords in there that I glued to the backing board, then glued another cutout on the other side, so I could use it on the sides and it would look OK from front or back.

For the back, take a backing board, and if you used the template size, you want to cut out a piece about three gift cards high. The bottom third is going to be mostly behind the main section, but you'll want to overlap the swords on there.
On the backside, use a bunch of the black-and-white ones for the blades pointing up that remind me of lines from a child's drawing of the sun. The HBO version has well over a dozen on the back, but you can cram in as many as you think looks right, or can fit. Keep slapping them on, until you like the look of it. If any white areas don't look right to you, use the sharpie to black 'em out.
A couple of notes: Again, the flatter swords work best. You can see He-Man's sword in there, and it was a bear to try and cut out; but Skeletor's sword might not work at all. (I'm thinking the 200x version, there.) If you had a modicum of Photoshop skills and wanted to do this, it would probably be pretty easy to set up multiple versions of the swords you want to use on the same printout. A throne made out of He-Man's sword, or Lion-O's Sword of Omens, would look sharp. Ha. Ha.

Even though a lot of action figure swords are made out of plastic that should be in quotation marks, it would be mighty tough to actually get enough to build a plastic Iron Throne. For example, Ultimate Nightcrawler is an all right figure, comes with two swords, one double-bladed, both terrible; but even then you would need dozens. If you have the skills, you could take an impression of a sword you wanted to use, then cast it in wax. Keep in mind, we're already way out of my skill set here, but if you make a ton of wax swords, you could probably bend them enough to cobble them into shape. The other idea I had was to use metal snips, or some sort of sword-shaped cutter, to punch them out of tin or something...that seems like a good way to cut the hell of your fingers.

You might be wondering why Negative Man, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman are in the pictures, instead of a He-Man or Conan or something. The ones I have aren't poseable enough to sit on it! Or they have stiff fur loincloths or capes. That's why in all the Bastards of the Universe strips, it's usually Beta Ray Bill on the throne (from the Mephisto Marvel Select figure) and even then his cape makes that a little tricky.

If you build your own throne, let me know how it turns out, or leave a comment with a link!



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"Lemme check those dice, Mike." "Bite me, Jack."

An oddball of an issue: Warlord #35, "Gambit" Written and illustrated by Mike Grell, inks by Vince Colletta. (Colletta had a reputation for speed, or hackwork, depending on your perspective, but I know he did several issues of Warlord and don't recall seeing anything out of line, as it were.)

This issue, Travis Morgan prepares to leave Wizard World--prehistoric Skartaris--to return to the present day Skartaris, and Mariah and Machiste elect to stay in the past. (Aside: Machiste is king of Kiro, but as is typical for a comic-book king, never there, ever.) With the magic sword Hellfire, Travis is launched through space and time, arriving in what appears to be a suburban living room of the seventies.


Before he has time to be dismayed at being back in America, in that outfit, Travis is attacked by an armored woman. Named Agnes. Although initially amused, the fight quickly becomes earnest, until Agnes goes for a rifle in the game room. Two shadowy figures discuss the point, and Agnes is disqualified.


The scene shifts to a bar, where a bartender helpfully tells Travis where he is, Quakertown, PA; but also slips him a mickey, what you kids today would know as a "roofie." Travis is then slated for human sacrifice, with an electric carving knife, before regaining consciousness in what looks like a lucky saving throw. Travis is running all over the cloaked cultists, before one completes the sacrifice...by stabbing himself.

Now faced with a flaming demon, Travis is forced outside, and manages to beat it with a fire hydrant. Even Travis thinks he's been getting overly lucky, but the house is on fire, and he figures the time portal that brought him there is still inside, so it's back into the flames. There, he's attacked by a chainsaw-wielding Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. (Aside: I don't think I've ever read any Lewis Carroll, but frankly if you read enough comics you'll get the gist of it eventually.) Travis defeats them, but the fire has him trapped there...as Mike and Jack congratulate themselves on a game well played and a deadline made!

As they box up their game of "Devils and Demons," Travis appears in Skartaris proper, with his companion Shakira. He writes off the experience as weirdness brought on by the magic of the Hellfire Sword, which may be (and in fact is) more than meets the eye...

A fun bit of tomfoolery here. I may have to dig up an issue in a similiar vein, Forgotten Realms #24, which takes a little look behind the curtain as well. One character specifically points out what a pain in the ass it would be to plot out a comic by playing D&D, since the whole thing could be derailed by a few lucky throws. And that was in a comic based on D&D!


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This is why my figurehead is a fluffy bunny:

Another one from the quarter bins...rather, a drawer at a used bookstore in Kalispell, MT. Somehow, I got talked out of fifty cents for Worlds Unknown #7, featuring the Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Yeah, based on the Ray Harryhausen film. (Well, that's not quite accurate: Harryhausen didn't direct this one, but even so.) I don't think I saw Golden Voyage until fairly recently; as opposed to Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, which I've seen many a time.

The cover copy proclaims "Sword versus Sorcery--in the epic tradition of Conan!" That's a blurb that I would've sworn Marvel would use many a time (although I suspected they used it for Gulliver Jones) for books like Kull or John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Of course, after thirty seconds of looking, I didn't see any covers with it, so maybe it was just the house ads.

I've been working on something--a little craft project--so I haven't read a lot of comics lately. Going to have to do something about that.

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I wish my dog had a costume...

...it'd mean less hair lying around, for one thing.

Picked up all of Prelude to Deadpool Corps and the second two issues of Deadpool Corps out of the dollar boxes the other day. I didn't pick them up the first time, when Marvel was flooding the market with as many Deadpool books as they could cram in there. But for a buck a pop? Way more enjoyable than they oughta be!

To save the universe from an unstoppable alien force, Contemplator of the Elders of the Universe (who are more varied and slightly less dickish then the Green Lanterns' Guardians of the Universe) gathers the Deadpool Corps, featuring Deadpools of several different realities. There's our Deadpool, Zombie Deadpool (or Headpool), Lady Deadpool, Kid Deadpool (aka Kidpool, or 'Tito'), and Dogpool. They work about as well as you'd expect.


The book should be completely unreadable: no, not because of the Rob Liefeld art; it's not so bad here! But all of the Deadpools have multiple caption boxes, as needed for the multiple voices in their heads. Even Dogpool! Here is a typical panel:

And here's what it could've looked like:

Written by Victor Gischler, pencils by Rob Liefeld, inks by Adelso Corona.
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Two Super-Soldiers figures...after he goes back to being Cap.

Over at It's All True's Armchair Comicon Coverage, there's a link to pictures of Hasbro's upcoming new Marvel Legends, including Steve Rogers in his Super-Soldier outfit. I wasn't completely excited for that one, since he's back in his Captain America suit already; and I hadn't read a lot of his appearances in that suit.

So, I lucked out finding all four issues of Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier out of the quarter bins. (All right, for a buck an issue.) And...it's not bad. In a nice opening, Steve gets a tip from Britain's Pete Wisdom: the grandson of the creator of the Super-Soldier formula, Professor Jacob Erskine, has 'taken back the family name' and announced he's cracked the formula. Steve realizes he knew the new Erskine's grandparents, but is more alarmed to hear the formula is going up to the highest bidder.

Steve investigates the auction in Madripoor, and gets a surprise when he seems to recognize Erskine's wife: she looks like Lt. Cynthia Glass, a Nazi spy who died to save Cap. After fighting his way through some newly enhanced guards, Steve confronts Erskine, who denies everything, but is killed by a sniper...

I liked the set-up for the first issue, and although the reveal of the bad guy was a nice surprise, there's a few holes and odd spots. Just like the recent Avengers: Prime series, Steve kisses another girl, which makes me wonder where his and Sharon Carter's relationship is now. Steve also gets turned back into his old, 98-pound weakling, pre-formula self...and then back, both of which are a little iffy even for comic book science. And the big bads' master plan is likewise questionable: having re-created the formula, now they plan on wrecking the economy and giving as many candidates as possible a Steve Rogers-style upbringing, so they can put the two together into an army they can control. But--oh, I'm not going to get into it.

It's also odd for me to realize Steve's had multiple costumes over the years, besides his traditional Cap look: the Nomad suit, his black costume that went to USAgent, the terrible no mask/leather jacket/headset thing he had for a bit in 90's Avengers comics, his armor, and now this. Although it's weird to see Steve without a mask, because that makes this outfit seem like Steve's casual wear. While I was glad to see him using his energy shield option, it was also surprising to see Steve using other weapons as well; more of the soldier than usual.

Anyway, good pickup for the price, so keep an eye out. I am a little disappointed Steve doesn't bust out the flamethrowers he has on the cover of #4. Written by Ed Brubaker, art by Dale Eaglesham, color art by Andy Troy.
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"Doom Secret."

OAFE.net totally beat me to this one, but when I found Catman the other day, I thought the Secret Six is in the same boat as the Doom Patrol. Both comics had a crossover together recently, have recently been cancelled, and as far as action figures go, are never going to get complete teams made. (OAFE's blog also has a post on the various lineups of the Secret Six, as well as a rundown of which members have figures!)

The Bane here is the somewhat undersized DC Super Heroes version; the Collect-and-Connect one would be nice, but I bought the figures I wanted from that series on eBay, sans parts. (The Creeper and Jonah Hex, if you're wondering!)

Even though there's been a pretty good-sized outpouring of love for the outgoing book, I only read Secret Six a couple of times myself. In fact, I was a little disappointed in #28, where two Secret Six teams go at it in Skartaris; since with all that going on, Gail Simone didn't use Warlord characters Shakira and Machiste to the fullest...

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Tomorrow: Hellboy: the Fury #3

I don't always get to the comic book shop every Wednesday lately, but tomorrow would be a special trip either way. Hellboy: the Fury #3 (spoilers!) comes out, and...this could be a big one. If you've ever had an interest in Hellboy, this wraps up years worth of storylines. I think it's going to pay off, since Mignola and Fegredo have been consistently on top of their game here. It's going to be an issue you want. Better hurry.

Scan from Hellboy: the Fury #1 (and love that variant cover) Written by Mike Mignola, art by Duncan Fegredo.
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If you're seeing Superpro here this morning, something's gone amiss...

Maybe the blog's on lockout? My collective bargaining deal fell through? Maybe I'm on a sixty-day suspension from blogging for using performance-enhancing drugs? Maybe I didn't pay the cable bill before I left? Maybe I'm back from vacation but still need a bit of a lie-down?...I'd bet on that last one.

From Superpro Special Edition #1, written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Jose Delbo and Bob Hall, inks by Tom Morgan, Mike DeCarlo, Kim DeMulder, and Bob Hall.
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I was just watching (some time ago, really, but bear with me) Godzilla vs. Mothra: Battle for Earth, a 1992 film with a very pro-environment message. For a kaiju monster movie...anyway, towards the end Battra and Mothra team-up to drag Godzilla outta town, in a rather undignified fashion. Which reminded me of one of my favorite Twisted ToyFare Theatre strips, which is conveniently available online: "Annoy All Monsters!" Check it out, it's a good one. Read more!

Reading list: Fantastic Four: Doomgate!

I'm guessing this one isn't involving tapes from the Latverian throne room...but these Marvel novels are fun summer reads. I'm not familiar with author Jeffrey Lang, or if it's a traditional or Ultimate-style Fantastic Four, but we'll see. EDIT: It's traditional, set post-Civil War sometime after the core team reformed.

I actually read this before going on vacation: I wasn't sure how much time for reading I was going to have; as it happens, plenty. I also read Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars and Brian Cronin's Was Superman A Spy? (If there's still a Borders store in your neighborhood, you may be able to find the latter for well under $4! I picked those two up, along with the new Underworld CD.)
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Vacation week: Akira!

I haven't read all of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, but after seeing the movie in a little theatre in Montana I wanted to check out an issue of Epic's 38-issue reprint. Huh, it would've run you a hundred and fifty bucks for the whole series back then. This particular issue is not only way into the series, there's also several scenes that aren't in the movie, like Kaneda and Kai tooling around on some kind of tank-platform-gun thing. Still cool.
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Reading list: The Ultimates: Tomorrow Men!

I'm curious how much I'll like this one, since I've pretty much soured on the Ultimates. The first two series are great spectacle, but the whole lot of them are generally unlikeable bastards; and later work has put me off the Ultimate universe entirely.

But, I'll give it a shot, and I know Michael Jan Friedman wrote a ton of Star Trek stuff, so it should be entertaining enough. I'll let you know.
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Vacation week: Iron Man: Hypervelocity!

Another trade that I actually managed to wait for: Iron Man: Hypervelocity, written by Adam Warren, art by Brian Denham. Not to slight Denham, who drew the hell out of this one; but I had been really hoping Warren would've drawn it. Still, he's done a spot of writing for Marvel on Fantastic Four, Livewires and his own book Empowered. I just hope he doesn't give up the art, though. (For my tastes, Adam Warren is up there with Evan Dorkin or Walt Simonson, guys who I want to see doing story and art, not just one or the other.)
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Reading list: Elric at the End of Time!

Another one from Michael Moorcock, I can't remember if I've read this before yet. Although the cover describes it as "The seventh book of Elric of Melniboné," I think it's set between books two and three.

(If you've ever read Stephen King's Dark Tower books, there are a few stories like that, that came out long after you probably read the end. How much you enjoy said stories may depend on how you felt about said end...)
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"The Terror of...someone."

A quick and silly one while I'm on vacation: I picked up the last parts I needed to complete the DCUC Collect-and-Connect figure from series 13, Trigon! Out of the six figures needed to build him, I bought four; and got the other parts off eBay. I had only planned on buying Negative Man and Blue Devil out of that batch, but lucked into Superboy, Blue Beetle, and Cyclotron on sale. (Cyclotron had a base, so he wasn't 100% necessary.)

Strangely, while I still may pick up a Cheetah later (a local store has like four, so I'm waiting them out) I once again avoided buying a Teen Titan, in this case, Wonder Girl. The one pictured above is the DC Direct version (and check the links to OAFE for more answers!) but I'm just not a huge Teen Titans fan. And I don't think I've ever actually read a comic with Trigon; but he's a big red demon, so why not put him together.
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Vacation week: Violent Cases!

The second print of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's Violent Cases--originally from 1987, this one's from 1992, and it's had two more prints since then. Maybe I'm prejudiced since it's been on my shelf for about twenty years, but I like this cover the best.

Gaiman is kinda like Alan Moore for me: I like his stuff when I get it, but I don't seem to go out of my way for it, either. (As opposed to Warren Ellis or Garth Ennis, who I'm more apt to follow.) I think this was a gift, and I'm still glad to have it.
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Reading list: Elric of Melnibone!

Another book I read as a kid, although I'm positive I read Michael Moorcock's second Elric first (Sailor on the Seas of Fate) and possibly even a couple others. Tomorrow's, if I stay on reading schedule, one I'm not sure I read before...

And I know I've mentioned this before, but I preferred these to the Lord of the Rings books.

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Vacation week: Beyond!

From 2006, Dwayne McDuffie and Scott Kolins' Beyond! A used trade from Hastings for the cost of an issue? Sold! (Oddly, I saw this same book at another location, along with some other books in the same vein: mid-to-lower tier Marvel trades.) Looking forward to reading it, since McDuffie's name overwhelms my distaste for the Hood or Kraven, Jr.
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Reading list: the Bachman Books, or at least a couple of them.

I had been keeping my eye out for a new copy of this for some time, but I needed an old one. Huh? Well, the first story in Richard Bachman Stephen King's Bachman Books is Rage, about a school shooting; has been taken out of print at King's request since several actual school shootings. Which is a shame, since it's still damn good. (The second story, the Long Walk, also scares the hell out of me, which won't stop me from walking while I read it.)


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Vacation Week: Featuring, things that don't fit in my scanner!

Well, the book itself might fit in my scanner, but I can't open these books up to scan out of them. Which is just as well, since I'm out all this week, visiting my ancestral homeland in Montana! It's also my birthday today, so I have no intention of doing any work in the slightest...

Today we'll start with a book I'll be reading up there: The Bulletproof Coffin, by David Hine and Shaky Kane. Or maybe Destroyovski. If this link still works, check out the first issue at Comic Book Resources! Looking forward to finishing this one: I missed the first issue and had to wait for the trade, which I forget to do about half the time.

Coming up later: other stuff I'm reading on vacation! (I read like a chainsaw, so it could be a pile!)

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