Pipeline #490 - 31 Oct 2006

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

No, I'm not doing a Halloween theme.

I am, however, taking a look at the Dark Horse and Marvel listings in the latest PREVIEWS, as well as a long and rambling series of thoughts on current issues/news/reviews. Something like that.

-Augie

[Deathstroke]

No special Halloween theme? What kind of unpatriotic sob are you? :D

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Bah humbug to Halloween. All it means is that you have to drive REALLY REALLY slowly to swerve around the dumb kids who pay no attention to their surroundings.

Of course, you pretty much have to do that for all the knucklehead adults driving on the road today already, too.

BAH!

-Augie

[pmpknface]

I love Halloween! I've been to 2 parties so far and I'm going to a 3rd on Halloween. Only that last one is a 1986 prom themed one that I won tickets to on a local radio station. Should be awesome! I've been having fun watching whatever's on AMC lately too. :p

Usually I reread some horror comics this month, but I've been so busy I'm just trying to keep up with my normal reading!

[goman]

You're right about that wait for the XIII trade. I've ordered that a long time ago, I think it was with a different publisher when I ordered it. Finally coming out. I need to find that Two Faces of Tommorow trade. I have the first issue sitting in a long box somewhere, but I never got the rest of it. Nice to see Dark Horse putting out some of their older manga, I kind of wish they would collect it in the standard comic size though.

And I second your Halloween bah-humbug. I've got to figure out something to do tonight. No, kids, I don't have any freaking candy! Stop ringing my doorbell, my front light is off for a reason.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Trying to sell a holiday predicated on giving away candy to a diabetic is just plain cruel. ;-)

And I'm looking at that "Sponsered by" image now and just realizing something: There's a woman's face directly behind it. It almost looks like you've stumbled onto a bad porn site. UGH

-Augie

[roach04]

Augie, when I was a kid Hallowe'en was a bonanza for me! My old man has always had a bit of a chocolate addiction so I went out with the normal kids and filled my bag. The "junk" candy (diabetic kid + dentist father is the epitome of anti-Hallowe'en) got pitched, I got to keep the bags of chips, and my old man bought all the chocolate bars off me for $0.10 a bar. I remmeber in 5th grade (the last year I participated) I made enough to buy 5 comic books. Good times.

[del gorky]

Augie, Halloween has a lot more to offer than just candy. It's a very fun cultural holiday with a lot of great pageantry, parties, and a celebration of the horror genre and the supernatural. I know several diabetics including relatives who continue to celebrate Halloween and look forward to handing out candy to Trick or Treaters. Lighten up and enjoy. No candy;no problem. It's like hating Thanksgiving and refusing to be thankful because you are allergic to turkey.

But that's not what I'm posting about. You compared Thor to Blue Beetle but there are some flaws there. Thor was a successful core book for Marvel for decades. Hence, Marvel feels that it could well be a success again or at worst an upper mid-range seller. Blue Beetle was a property bought from a bankrupt comics company that had a very limited and unsuccessful run as a solo property at DC which no one was all that interested in.

Thor is a core member of the Avengers and had the longest running comic series in Marvel history, and one of the longer ones in comic history, since it was Journey into Mystery before it became Thor. What happened to Thor at Marvel would be like DC cancelling Detective and then restarting a new series Batman: Darknight Detective with a new number one and then cancelling it a handful of years later. The way Thor has been handled at Marvel is a complete debacle which can largely be placed at Marvel editorial's feet since they engineered the whole renumbering and relaunch craze in the 1990's.

This tactic appeared to help some books Amazing, Avengers and pretty much
destroyed others Captain America, Iron Man, Thor. A lot of it seems to be affected by how well the relaunch was planned and how stable and long-term the high profile relaunch creative teams were. Captain America and Iron Man had initial spurts but quickly died as delays occurred and creative teams left quickly and Thor was just decimated. In some cases, renumbering a long standing series really is disruptive and destroys the loyal customer base that was taking the book mainly out of habit and loyalty and to maintain their collection's integrity. In any case, it makes a hell of a jumping off point for a mediocre series.

Anyway we should see Thor back soon and it will probably celebrate it's first year anniversary as DC cancels the new Blue Beetle revamp.