Category: comics

As long as I’m linking to comics, this Shoe makes me feel a little better about my turning 40 last month.

I’m a sucker for crossovers. And here’s another one! Lio is definitely the funniest strip out there right now.

It looks like the last Big Top strip ran today. I’ve been enjoying this strip since I started reading it in January. Sorry to see a good strip go!

Well, I’m back in NJ. It was snowing a bit as we came into Newark, so I really feel like I’m back home now, after the great weather in SF. Sunday at WonderCon was pretty uneventful. I went to the “Art of the Cover” panel that Mark Evanier has been doing for the past few years. It was once again very enjoyable. I bought a few more comics, but not a lot. A few discount manga volumes, a couple of half-price trade paperbacks, and a set of “21 Down” 1-12.

Off to bed in a few minutes, then back to work tomorrow.

I left the con early today, largely because I was weighed down with so much stuff I could barely move, and also because I’d hit a lull in the programming where there really wasn’t anything I wanted to sit through at that point. I may head back in a bit to catch a panel with Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra, and Tony Harris. I’m not sure I’d be able to claw my way back to the Moscone Center, though, since the streets are starting to fill up for the Chinese New Year parade already.

I picked up a bunch of stuff today, mostly at pretty good prices. I got The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, which is a book I’d been meaning to pick up since it came out, a couple of years back. Really oddball stuff in there, including contributions from Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, and Alan Moore.

I also got several Powers collections, volumes 5 to 8, at various discount levels. I’d read the first four volumes some time ago, but hadn’t gotten around to picking up any more. Looking at the dates on these, I guess I’m still not up to date, but I’m a bit closer. It’s great that Bendis continues to work on this. It’s different from his other Marvel work, and always a good read.

I haven’t been following Civil War at all, but I’ve been curious, and now that it’s done, I figured I’d try and pick up a set of 1-7. I found someone selling a set at right around cover price, along with a set of Civil War: Front Line also at right around cover, so I went ahead and got both. I’m not generally seeing Civil War back issues selling at below cover, so I guess people are still interested in this storyline, and some (like me) are just jumping on the bandwagon now that it’s over.

What would a con experience be without picking some stuff out of the quarter bin? Incomplete, I say. Brian K. Vaughn, during his spotlight panel, mentioned that he’d done a Ka-Zar annual early in his career, and I managed to find that in a quarter box. I also found some of the Jeph Loeb / Tim Sale Challengers of the Unknown mini-series, which Loeb talked about during *his* spotlight panel. I would have liked to get the Ka-Zar annual and one of the Challengers issues signed, just for laughs, but I may have missed out on my chance for BKV and Loeb autographs at this point.

I’m here in San Francisco at WonderCon right now. In a (perhaps) interesting example of Old Ways meet New Ways, I picked up Nextwave 1-7 from a dealer yesterday, for $15, then went on eBay last night and bid on a set of Nextwave 7-12. I won the auction at $7.50, so I now have a complete set of Nextwave 1-12 (with an extra #7) for a pretty reasonable price. Now, I need to go looking for Fell, another Warren Ellis series that flew under my radar, so to speak, when it first came out.

Mark Evanier has posted the list of panels he’ll be hosting at WonderCon. Looks like some good stuff, including a spotlight on Gene Colan, one of my favorite artists.

The main WonderCon site has an updated program schedule posted. They’ve got a Pixar panel on Saturday that I’m definitely interested in, with Brad Bird and Patton Oswalt.

I’m a bit worried about what the weather might do to my flight out of Newark, but it’s looking like the snow and rain will likely clear up by Thursday.

Mark Tatulli’s comic strip Lio is starting to grow on me. Very odd humor. Have you hugged your cephalopod today?

Once again, Wondercon will coincide with the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade. The initial programming schedule for Wondercon is up, too, and it looks good.