I posted sometime last year (back in the November archive, I think) about my experiences running a specialty comic book store during the worst winter in modern history for that part of the country. And I think I may have made a disparaging remark or two about "fanboys" -- adult males who act worse than 12-year-olds when it comes to comic books (at least). Now, they all have their revenge. I am a fanboy. I'm proud of it. The world can't take that away from me, either. *sniffs a falsely cocky sniff* Two stories have sucked me in and made me an addict.
I can now admit I only pretended to be looking at the Classics section of the bookstore, because from there I could just work my eye over to the comic book section, if I sort of bent my head backward just a little (a little more, a little more, ow! that crick hurt!, oops! almost fell on my ... ). I guess I was pretty obvious, so it's such a relief to now confess that I really wasn't interested in books I was made to read in high school. I wanted to see that mad wild cover on the new X-men limited series! (Cyclops is back! Wow!)
Now of course, harrumph, I can't be seen buying those things. No, I just look at them (trying hard not to bend the cover any around the staples -- lookin' out for muh fanboy crew!) with pain only a permanent 12-year-old can muster. I can allow myself the more respectable "graphic novels" or "limited series" that bookstores are now putting on the regular mag shelves. I can march to the stand, after a few minutes of pretending to be reading the latest edition of the Atlantic Monthly or The New Republic, while I'm really aiming at that last copy (hiding behind a muscle-car mag) of The Dark Tower.
The Dark Tower is Marvel's take on a series of books written by Stephen King on a hero he calls "The Gunslinger." Set in a future dystopia, the young gunslinger Roland Deschains begins to learn the hazards of his father's craft, where the only weapons left are six-shooters from the Wild West. It's written by someone who's spent a lot of time cataloging the details of the novels in a book of her own, and this limited series contains some of her writing about the "Dark Tower-verse" or whatever it's called (My copies are in the other room and I'm posting past my downstairs neighbor's bedtime, so I can't get up to check unless it's, like, to heed the call. No, I'm just drinking water. For now).
(mercurius_21 won't review* this series, or the other one he's eating peanut butter to afford this year, because I'm sure there are other, and better, places for that. He's just so enthusiastic about actually living like a kid he can't contain himself.)
The other one I'm carrying to the register with my head held high is the long-awaited Season Eight of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I pore over each one of these again and again, savoring every panel -- just like those guys I thought were such poor wretches so many years ago when I was running that shop in Tobac Town. Now that I'm a poor wretch myself, I must say it's a liberating experience. Plus, it's great to see Joss Whedon (a confessed fanboy himself -- though I'm sure he has a better term for it) put in all kinds of trivia only people like us really enjoy. The first issue in the series features characters who look exactly like Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Foggy Nelson (Matt Murdock's law partner in Daredevil). A character who strongly resembles the general that chased The Hulk around in those early issues is also carefully rendered so a true fanboy would not fail to notice. Nobody cares about this stuff but us fanboys, and it's what we live for, truly.
After the stories of Roland Deschains and Buffy Summers are told, what next? There are many others I'm salivating to read. So where will this juvenilia end? I don't know. After all, Peter Pan is more than just peanut butter.
___
*Review it I did, only to remove the whole thing later. Here it is:
'"Maybe I'm a fan."
"I'm just
glad this damn thing is finally over!"
The first
statement is Buffy creator Joss Whedon's closing sentence in his letter to
readers that concludes Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight -- a fan-fiction
project if ever I've seen one (and I have!). The second statement is mine to
the comic store's clerk as I was leaving, the final issue of S8 in hand.
Now that I've
read the comic, I will say this: those who "waited for the trade" did
the right thing. I don't regret buying the stapled version for four years,
though I do feel a little jerked around by Dark Horse during that time. The
company could have done a much better job of communicating honestly with fans
like me about this series, and from the beginning.
Back when I
was the clerk (and manager and floor-sweeper) of a comic shop in that very same
town 26 years ago, Dark Horse was the third party in the color-comic world.
When the comic boom began going bust in the late 80s, DH bought up many of its
smaller competitors (and their properties). The company was very businesslike,
in that way and in many others. It still is, IMO.
Those of you
thinking about buying trade-paperback collections ("the trades") of
this (almost) monthly comic may use that background for your purchasing
decisions, because Buffy S8 was a very businesslike product: the first 19
issues were aimed at the general bookstore ("graphic novel") buyer,
the last 19 were for the specialty store ("comic book") customer. The
issue in the middle (see above) was a nod at the group I learned a
quarter-century ago is the envy of both types of customer -- the collector of
animation celluloids ("cels").
Would I have
expected any publisher to spell that out for its customers? Of course
not. But DH at least could have indicated the series would likely last four
years, averaging ten issues a year. (If DH had done as it had in the years
prior, there would have been no Buffy issue shipped in December. That would
have put issue 40 shipping to stores in February. The first issue of S8 shipped
in March 2007. DH put out Buffy in December 2010 so it could get a publicity
bump from the Jan. 19 "birthday" of the title character.)
I mean that
analysis as pragmatic, rather than cynical. Still, I will not likely be on
board for S9. I feel it's time for me to move forward from here, on this and
many other things in life. However, I am looking forward to the Buffy
movie. Without Joss.
He has bigger
things to do. And so do I.'
LJ orig.: 05/20/07
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