…

Bayton…

“Really? People give a shit about this?”

Sure we do. We love comics, and this is comics. Right?

Ed Brubaker is so protective over the Bucky character at this point, that its pretty obvious to me who takes his mantle… and Tony Stark will be puzzled, because not even SHIELD knows that Bucky is alive, except for Sharon Carter (Agent 13, who will be shattered), Nick Fury, and the Young Avengers. Bucky is also a lot more brutal that Cap was, and less brutal than frank Castle… a good happy medium, plus Bucky is the only person I could see even worthy of Cap’s mantle, and it seems to me that Cap’s death will have meaning for him, enough to make him want to serve his birth country *his way* again. Also a Patriot/Bucky teammup is just too cool to not see happen.

While Caps death saddens me, especially as a Libertarian comics reader, I am interested to see where this is taken next… and in a year, Cap will be revealed to have been “assassinated” so they could quietly hide him away, as patrt of a plea bargain championed by Tony Stark….so that Cap’s good name will not be disgraced with a felony….

I really feel that The Punisher will be the new Captain America (until Bucky takes over). He did pick up Cap’s cowl (maybe to sell it on eBay though).

Assuming this is true, let me pose a question. Does anyone feel that Marvel (or Brubaker) is trying to make a statement about America and our little “war?”

If Steve Rogers was a mirror of America in World War II. Does this mean that Frank Castle is a mirror of America today?

Richard
http://1rightopinion-comics.blogspot.com/

Tim: WOW you made my week.

Crap I took out Venice, too? Nooo!!! Glad you like my blog though. Batton is one hell of a guy.

Ironically, I ended up buying Jason’s You Can’t Get There from Here — and was very happy to see it on the shelf. So, that was one more copy sold thanks to Cap… though I tend to pick any Jason book up eventually.

Perhaps he can shed some light as to why DC picked Superboy to become the big bad guy in the recent “Infinite Crisis” crossover.

I enjoyed your Batton entry from the 27th! Now I want to get my work incorporated into Supernatural Law!

Marvel should just eliminate the Direct Market altogether and send out comp copies to the WORLD. Then, we wouldn’t have Brian’s problem.

I still remember being at the comic store - back when new comics came out of the Friday of each week - when The Guardian ate it in Alpha Flight and our dumb-ass, casual comic book reader friend said, “Who’s Mac?” Jerk!

You make a good point, Brian, that (in our media saturated world where content is delivered - without much filitering - the second it’s created) avoiding “spoilers” is an art in itself. The Tivo/PVR teevee recording device is a wonder, but try going a few days without finding out from some other source what happened on Lost or Battlestar Galactica.

How ’bout poor Heidi, who has to wait for the trade!

That changed with the Hellboy movie, taking me right back to my babysitter’s living room floor on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Hellboy is practically mainstream, but Mike Mignola’s art defied my preconceived notions of what was going on in comics and prompted me to seek out other artistic and story-telling surprises in comics. This led me to a lot of independents (of very wide-ranging genres, not just horror/detective stuff).

My focus on independents gave me the skewed impression that they had a good slice of the market, so I was surprised when I went to SDCC the first time and instead of finding them taking up 1/3 of the dealer floor, they mmmmaaaybe had 1/8. More than half was stuff that I still have no interest in to this day (though I sometimes read some Batman, but only once it’s collected). Yet Marvel and DC books seem to be the measure of “comics” by a lot of people to the disregard of all else.

Speaking of collections, one thing I haven’t been able to completely accept as a new comics reader is the sales model of the serial pamphlet with a guaranteed TPB collection in a few months. I’m annoyed by the thought that I am expected to spend my money twice. If I can wait two years (or more) between Harry Potter installments, I can wait a few months for the TPB. Plus it drives me mad to spend $5 (CDN) to read for 15 minutes and then have to wait a month or two to find out what happens next. I’d rather read it all in one go for less money. I buy less popular or independent titles in pamphlet form (or cool mini-comic form in interesting envelopes or hand-screened covers) because I know sales of the individual pamphlets determine the longevity of the series and that it may be years before they’re collected or even never. However, when it’s a given that there’s going to be a TPB after 6 issues, why bother? I’m definitely more of a TPB/GN buyer than a true “comic” buyer checking my pull box on a weekly basis and I wonder how many others there are out there like me. The TPB market is also what the mainstream bookstores, book publishers, and libraries tap into and the format makes them seem somehow more “legitimate” than a flimsy pamphlet. I wonder if determining the popularity of a title strictly by serial sales when a growing number of people might be waiting for the TPB might be becoming detrimental to some titles.

There’s so much speculation about who’s buying comics, who might buy comics, why they’re not buying comics, what stories/genres/formats might or do connect to which readers and why or why not, what floats whose boats… someone needs to commission a survey!