Episode 1557 Talkback - Previews

Adam_Murdough

Into every month, a little Previews must fall! We go through the May catalog for items shipping to stores beginning in July. (1:34:03)

Listen here.

nweathington

Chris, if you truly haven't read Matt Kindt’s creator-owned work, you owe it to yourself to do so. Two Sisters isn't his best, but it's still quite good, and I think it is something you would like.

I've only read the first two issues of Ladykiller so far, but I'm enjoying it. The story is twisted fun, and the art is lovely. I don't think you'll go wrong with getting the trade.

nweathington

Re: the Steve Skroce pronunciation, you kind of both were right. He's of Croatian descent, where the name is pronounced SKRO-chay, but he grew up in Canada where he generally went by SKROCE, one syllable, long O.

i_am_scifi

Just to quickly correct @Adam_Murdough on the Cyborg front, he did indeed have a miniseries back in 2008 all his own! DC Special: Cyborg, a six issue miniseries, that I'm pretty sure I sold off at NYCC a few years ago.

JaceTheComicSource

Not done with the episode yet, but I wanted to comment I find it interesting to hear Chris complain about Convergence from a retailer perspective, but not Marvel. Maybe he will say something about it when you guys get to the Marvel section. I have talked to a ton of retailers now that I live in Phoenix there are about 20 shops here. I find their opinions about the events from the big two to be worth discussing when I see them. While Convergence being just 2 issues is a total shot in the dark from an ordering perspective, at least it isn't going on and on like the Secret Wars event. Plus there are SOOOOO MANY Secret Wars books ... SHEESH! I suppose the upside is the Marvel series last longer so you can get your #'s dialed in by issue 4 or so, still I know many regular DC readers who just told their respective LCS's ... I'll see you in 2 months. Will the Marvel stuff be likewise? For myself, I was only reading 3 Marvel titles on a regular basis, Hulk, Miles Morales and Moon Knight. So it is nothing from Marvel for me for awhile because all those got canceled. Miles Morales will probably be in the new 'unified' Marvel universe and obviously Cullen Bunn is doing 6 issues of Moon Knight so that series will return. Hulk was particularly enjoyable so what will become of Gerry Duggan's take on the character has me anxiously anticipating some news, maybe at SDCC. Anyway I am off to hear more of the episode, but would love to hear Chris's retailer perspective on both Marvel and Dc really sticking it to you guys at the same time with the way these books have replaced the usual titles that you have a good generally idea of how many to order. Tough spring/summer to be a retailer methinks.

JaceTheComicSource

The Shazam 75th Hardcover came out April 15th

Evening639

An upcoming all-indie Off The Racks episode, eh? Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.

bralinator

Nice job finishing the podcast solo @Adam_Murdough

While they naturally have a short shelf life, the Previews episodes are some of my most enjoyable episodes. I frequently alter my current order after listening to some of the items you guys mention.

Thought for sure Adam would mention the Secret Wars Official Handbook Of Marvel Multiverse #1. It's the Murd's frequent renditions of the OHOTMU entries that piqued my interest in this.

Another item in the back-of-the-book section that you guys may have missed that intrigued me was Mechanism #1 from the new creator-owned Heavy Metal comics line. This story follows a pair of police working with an experimental robot cop in a world that’s been overrun by lizard-like aliens. This new ongoing series is written and drawn by Raffaele Ienco, whose other credits include the “Epic Kill” from Image Comics and several issues of "Fantastic Four" at Marvel. This series looks perfect for Heavy Metal too, combining science-fiction, hard-core metal machines, the future, unfathomable aliens, conspiracies, the mind, destruction, and downright beautiful art.

This relatively new move into creator-owned comics was announced last year after Kevin Eastman sold Heavy Metal to David Boxenbaum and Jeff Krelitz. Their comic series business model is that if Heavy Metal likes a creator’s comic, they only charge the creator $1 to publish it. Check out Mechanism's solicit on page 366 this month in Previews. More here.

Elsiebub

Very enjoyable two-man show, guys. I anxiously anticipate the Off-the-Racks eps.

JaceTheComicSource said:

Not done with the episode yet, but I wanted to comment I find it interesting to hear Chris complain about Convergence from a retailer perspective, but not Marvel. Maybe he will say something about it when you guys get to the Marvel section. I have talked to a ton of retailers now that I live in Phoenix there are about 20 shops here. I find their opinions about the events from the big two to be worth discussing when I see them. While Convergence being just 2 issues is a total shot in the dark from an ordering perspective, at least it isn't going on and on like the Secret Wars event. Plus there are SOOOOO MANY Secret Wars books ... SHEESH! I suppose the upside is the Marvel series last longer so you can get your #'s dialed in by issue 4 or so, still I know many regular DC readers who just told their respective LCS's ... I'll see you in 2 months. Will the Marvel stuff be likewise? For myself, I was only reading 3 Marvel titles on a regular basis, Hulk, Miles Morales and Moon Knight. So it is nothing from Marvel for me for awhile because all those got canceled. Miles Morales will probably be in the new 'unified' Marvel universe and obviously Cullen Bunn is doing 6 issues of Moon Knight so that series will return. Hulk was particularly enjoyable so what will become of Gerry Duggan's take on the character has me anxiously anticipating some news, maybe at SDCC. Anyway I am off to hear more of the episode, but would love to hear Chris's retailer perspective on both Marvel and Dc really sticking it to you guys at the same time with the way these books have replaced the usual titles that you have a good generally idea of how many to order. Tough spring/summer to be a retailer methinks.

I'm of two minds about what the companies are doing. On the one-hand I think the short and sweet two-issue Convergence series allow for readers (and retailers) to quite easily make up their minds about whether or not they want to take on this fairly light commitment... and yet I really get the impression that DC really went deep into their bench to find some of these underwhelming creative teams. On the other hand, Secret Wars seems a lot better managed, solicited, and produced as an exciting event... and yet I find it totally inexcusable that Marvel hasn't said how long some of these tie-in series are going to be. A few months ago when Marvel.com started advertising ostensibly 12-issue subscriptions for titles like "Inferno" and "Squadron Sinister", I face-palmed. Are these actually going to be at least 12 issues long? Are other series like "X-Men '92" NOT going to be as long? They really should have given us some idea. Unlike the Age of Apocalypse event from 20 years ago, in which the X-titles were canceled and replaced by alternate reality books for an undefined amount of time going in, for this new Secret Wars we have already been told that the main event is only eight issues long and will conclude with the formation of a new universe. If I knew that, say, "Future Imperfect" was only going to be four issues, then I'd probably buy it. But as it is, I have no idea whether it's going to go on for a dozen issues or more, totaling at least $48 in cover price, and I don't even want to have to think about taking on that commitment.