Random Comic Stuff

[DBM]

I honestly can't remember the last time I said a your momma joke. College maybe?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

"Your mom" has died down with me and my friends, actually. Whenever I engage in stupid humor with my friends, I usually just add "your face" to whatever they just said. For example:

Friend: That movie was a pile of dog s***.
Me: Psshh, your face is a pile of dog s***.

I know, I'm not very witty, but at least it keeps it personal without dragging people's poor, innocent moms into the mix.

 

[DBM]

We usually just say "you are."

Like

"That movie sucks."

"You are."

It doesn't really make sense, but we say it anyway.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Heh, I guess everyone's pretty much as stupid with their friends as I am with mine, then.

 

[DBM]

Heh, I guess everyone's pretty much as stupid with their friends as I am with mine, then.

I think so. I've been a lot of places and stupidity seems pretty universal.

 

[facsmth]

So I go to the comic book store on my lunch break today, as I do every Wednesday, and I’m standing in line to check out behind a couple other people. The guy in the front of the line is talking to the comic store employee about some comics. Specifically he asked, “What do you think about what’s going on in Avengers?”

The comic store employee then answers, “I don’t read that.” To which the customer replies, “Oh, so what do you read?” The comic store employee replies, “I don’t read comic books at all. I just don’t enjoy them.”

My jaw dropped to the floor. I was astounded.

I don't blame him. Buying comics is as addictive as drugs or alcohol. I'm forever asking questions that I think are relevant to a person's work-place and never getting any responce besides "I don't know." Nobody seems to know about anything. They just ring up purchases and have no knowledge whatsoever about the product.

Now I’ve been going to this store long enough to recognize that the employee is the “Gaming Guy” (as I refer to him in my head). He’s the one that sets up the gaming tournaments and knows all about the different card games, figurines, dice, etc. So I can understand if comics aren’t his thing really.

But for ****s sake, WHY THE HELL WOULD HE TELL A CUSTOMER THAT HE DOESN’T ENJOY COMIC BOOKS?

He didn't say he disliked them. He just said he didn't read 'em. People ask me all the time for cigarettes even though I don't smoke. Half the time I think people walk away suspecting I was lying because I was selfish & didn't want to share.

I’m just ranting here because it annoyed the hell out of me. If I was his boss, I’d give him a good swift kick in the pants and then teach him a little something about salesmanship.

Well, here's my little story that's like that. It also involves a collector guy. Some guy had just bought his kid a $45 gift certificate so his kid could buy one of the collectible busts or statues. The dang things apparently cost more than that.

I asked the dude behind the counter (DbtC) how much a DVD documentary of Strangers in Paradise was. He told me he thought it was $25 but there was no price tag and he hadn't looked up the price, just claimed to "remember" something someone told him. I put the DVD back and decided to buy some bags & comics instead.

Me: "I just don't understand those." (Point to collectible statues behind glass case.) "They have no stories, no plot. I like being told stories. That's just something to look at."

DbC: "Well, some people are just rampant collectors."

Me: "I guess it's a conversation-piece. An ice-breaker or something. Or HEY!-I-HAVE-THIS-AND-YOU-DON'T!"

Then I told him a little quick story about my photographer friend who doesn't understand fiction. He never reads the stories in comics, just flips through them and looks at the pretty pictures. (All he seems interested in collecting is Electric Company's "Spidey's Super Storie.") Anyhow, my friend yelled at me because he thought I was a degenerate for liking Pulp Fiction with all it's horrible & despicable violence. He thinks every movie or TV show should be like The Brady Bunch where it just shows the perfect family being perfect & nothing bad ever happens and the people never evolve. (Sensing I already told this story...)

DbtC: "Yah, some people can be VERY reactionary."

With that, I left. I somehow felt I might have insulted the guy because he might have been an artist or a collector of that junk... He hadn't said anything, but his face kinda wrinkled at what I was saying.

*thinks* Was he the same guy I'd told a couple months ago there might be a draft?



Ooops!
Sorry.

Bought:
Intimates #2
Dead Shot #1

 

[DBM]

So, I was watching my nieces last night because my sister-in-law had to work late and my brother was out of town. We stopped at Blockbuster to get a movie and they (being 5 and 8 years old) chose The Princess Diaries 2.

It was an OK movie. Funny in some parts, dumb in some parts (though I haven't seen the first one so maybe they made sense if I had). But there was a big surprise for me near the end.

Before the wedding, all of these fictional foreign dignataries and royalty are arriving and Stan Lee was one of them. He was pretty funny too. And he had about twice as much screen time here as he did in either Spider-Man movie.

Talk about random. I never expected to see Stan Lee in it.

 

[newnoiseimage]

that is random, and being as you are the third person to see the movie, that is even more random.

 

[newnoiseimage]

so, i recently read some back issues from the 90's i belive.

Deathstroke 5-9 (whichever had the batman crossover) and Darkhawk 35-37 (whichever had the venom fight, the second one, i forget the issues) and it has now become completely apparent that the writing now is much better. It is more realistic, has more grit, and more depth. I just simply don't enjoy reading the old stories.

Anyone else feel the same, opposite, Do you feel anything?!?!?!?!

 

[Cap1970]

Absolutely the same thoughts here. I go back through my boxes sometimes and shake my head and wonder what I was thinking. I think the writing is much better, and that in a lot of cases the art is better, too. More proportional in most cases, though there are some anomalies to that...

If you look back even further into the eighties, you can see how much things have changed. The believability of today (even for fiction) is leaps and bounds beyond what comics were twenty years ago because of the grit, depth, and character development.

Reading the older stuff is fun, but you really have to suspend your disbelief, you know?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

It doesn't stop me from enjoying the older comics but yes, there is a very pronounced difference between modern comics writing and Silver/Bronze Age writing. I can read really well-written stuff like JSA nonstop but older things like Journey Into Mystery I can only take like 3 or 4 issues at a time before I have to stop and just marvel that comics made it as far as they have.

 

[newnoiseimage]

im not even talking that far back. 10 years and the writing has changed significantly. its more mature, and much less for kids. i guess thats why marvel has marvel age now, as there is a distinct audience change.

 

[Elijya]

Conan comics still hold up VERY well

 

[Gambit8370]

I noticed a little something I'd like to bring to your attention.

The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe - Golden Age 2004

Cover.

Upper left-hand corner.

Marvel logo that also says "65th ANNIVERSARY".

Hm.

That's odd.

You'd never know by looking at the issue # of most of the monthly published Marvel comics.

Most haven't even hit #12 yet.

Many haven't hit #100 yet.

Two current ones are over #500 but only because those titles were relaunched / renumbered / and eventually returned to their original numbering to capitalize on the "event".

Yeah, well they're lucky. There's this one that was recently returned to it's original numbering just in time to hit #500, and got utterly decimated as a result of it!

Uncanny is the only one that never got renumbered. I wonder why...

Thanks for listening.

I just needed to b***h for a bit.

AHHHH...

I feel SO much better now!

 

[NightRiver]

If you head over to www.philadelphiaeagles.com youll see a funny flash animation intro. It shows the eagle players as a spoof of a superhero Team. Its funny and pretty cool.

 

[Elijya]

eagles rule

 

[DBM]

I noticed a little something I'd like to bring to your attention.

The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe - Golden Age 2004

I bought that too because I love the OHOTMUs. I was a little disappointed in the Golden Age one though. They pretty much only included the well known characters. I was hoping for some more obscure ones.

 

[Elijya]

there aren't that many "well known" golden age charcaters, at least for me. I knoww torch, Namor, Cap, and Bucky, and while I can name a few others, I don't know anything about them

 

[Gambit8370]

If you head over to www.philadelphiaeagles.com youll see a funny flash animation intro. It shows the eagle players as a spoof of a superhero Team. Its funny and pretty cool.

That was awesome!

 

[Elijya]

wasn't it? don't you really want the eagles to win the superbowl this year now? so much so taht'd you poison other teams. I know I do, and we're friends, aren't we, gambit?

 

[DBM]

there aren't that many "well known" golden age charcaters, at least for me. I knoww torch, Namor, Cap, and Bucky, and while I can name a few others, I don't know anything about them

I guess that could be true for most people now that you mention it. Sometimes I forget how much of an uber geek I am. Especially when it comes to the really old characters.

If you want to know more about the Golden Age characters you should check out this site because it's awesome.

http://www.geocities.com/ratmmjess/gaguide.html

I wish someone would do something with some Golden Age characters (aside from Invaders) sometime. There's so much story potential there.

 

[Gambit8370]

wasn't it? don't you really want the eagles to win the superbowl this year now? so much so taht'd you poison other teams. I know I do, and we're friends, aren't we, gambit?

Hey, I picked the Eagles to win it all back in the preseason.

T.O. was my first round pick in fantasy. (Hey at 10th pick all the really good RBs were already taken.)

So you're preachin' to the choir.

 

[Elijya]

I guess that could be true for most people now that you mention it. Sometimes I forget how much of an uber geek I am. Especially when it comes to the really old characters.

If you want to know more about the Golden Age characters you should check out this site because it's awesome.

http://www.geocities.com/ratmmjess/gaguide.html

I wish someone would do something with some Golden Age characters (aside from Invaders) sometime. There's so much story potential there.

thunderbolts touched on alot of GA characters when Fab was writing it

 

[Gambit8370]

thunderbolts touched on alot of GA characters when Fab was writing it

I hope "New" Thunderbolts does more of that too rather than just focus on "The Reformed Villain Of The Month Club".

I'd like to see more characters return from the 1st series.

 

[DBM]

thunderbolts touched on alot of GA characters when Fab was writing it

True and Slingers was started by a GA character but there is hardly ever any mention of Golden Age characters anymore. I often wonder if they are ignored because Marvel is trying to "update" their universe. By refering to GA characters and events they date their universe a lot.