Comic Book Candy

This year's Comic Con International, or "Nerd Mecca", ended yesterday after four days of exciting comic book, film, and television announcements. It would be impossible to cover every single revelation, but here are the ones that got the most people talking, the most retweets, and reblogs, and maybe a few announcements that we're just a little more excited about than others. Neil Gaiman to write Sandman prequel for 2013 release, JH Williams III will be artist DC's got the prequel fever, but unlike Before Watchman, Sandman's original creator Neil Gaiman is willingly spearheading the project. The five issue mini will focus on revealing the background of Morpheus leading up to his unexpected imprisonment. Everyone is still heartbroken over the cancelation of Firefly, but that's okay As if missing Comic Con International wasn't hard enough year after year, 2012 was particularly difficult to miss due to a cast reunion of Serenity, a show havi...

It's been two weeks since Chicago's third C2E2 convention ended, which has given me enough time to decompress, edit photos, and reflect on the show as a whole. Though results may vary, it is safe to say the show was a success. With the official number of 41,000 being thrown around, attendance was up from last year, great news for vendors and organizer Reed Pop. I missed the first year of the show where it was held in a far-too-large space at McCormick, and each year since it has been in a different hall. This  year it had the goldilocks room (not too big, not too small) which allowed the layout a little more breathing room. Aisles were much wider, and though there were still bottlenecks of traffic, it was normal convention congestion and not "they underestimated the crowd" congestion. The organizers provided generous space for celebrity signing lines, and though this made sense for a day like Saturday, it made small lines look extra sad during the rest of the show....

Here we are, another year older, wiser, and with lighter pockets. Twenty-ten brought a lot of changes to the industry, and this year will surely be remembered as a turning point. All major publishers are now offering an outlet for digital comics, and the growing popularity of the iPad and other digital tablets is a game changer with results yet to be seen. Many months posted lower direct market sales than last year, proving that no industry is recession proof, and that giant crossover events do help individual issue sales after all. Without Blackest Night to make many DC titles “must reads”, sales have slumped, a theory that I myself support considering I dropped all tie in books upon the crossover’s end. The return of Bruce Wayne hasn’t resulted in any shake-ups either, in stories or sales. (It might’ve helped DC if readers did not see this predictable non-event coming). Despite gimmick after gimmick (the new and vague Heroic Age , enough Deadpool titles to rival the X-books, vampi...

My pulp novel / crime noir kick does not seem to be ending anytime soon. I stumbled across a first print hardcover of Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Hunter this week at a local comic shop, and this was one impulse buy I could not resist. Cooke's graphic novel adaptation of the pulp novel classic was unsurprisingly fantastic, as pretty much everything I've heard / read about it guaranteed that it would be a good read. That being said, a review isn't necessary. The accolades and praise heaped upon this novel from the past year pretty well prove that if you haven't read it yet (like me) that's probably because you've had a hard time getting your hands on this oft-sold out graphic novel. I will give you the "reading rainbow" version of a review: Parker is a hardened professional thief who specializes in one time heists, and never takes on a setup with too many risks. When a job falls through, Parker goes against his gut instincts and joins an operation...