Heroes…Inked

Civil War #7 to be delayed beyond the 3rd promised ship date.

It feels like all I have written about this week are problems with Marvel’s Civil War. I promise I’m laying off after this post. I personally have enjoyed every issue and have read most of the tie-ins and enjoyed them as well. The lateness has been annoying, but nothing I can’t live with. I just feel the need to pass along the news I find. Without further ado, in the words of Tom Brevoort (Marvel Executive Editor):

At this stage, we’ve finalized the page count for the issue, and as predicted, it’s a bit larger than a normal issue, clocking in at 28 pages. So we’re computing the schedule based on this fact (and now that we’re past the holidays so we can see what kind of effect they had upon everybody’s productivity) and David Gabriel and his guys will have an update on the shipping situation for everybody on Tuesday the 9th!
Extra pages, no extra cost!

At least they can’t have any more delay’s after issue #7. Though technically Marvel DID say the Trade Paperback version would be delayed in a communication with retailers last week, to allow them to sell through their issues.

OK I PROMISE to get back to happy news in this weeks posts, and will whine no more about lateness issues…unless they delay this week’s Thunderbolt’s #110, Batman #662, or 52 #36(I’m not a fan of this weeks cover though-pictured). At least 2 of the comic’s I’m looking forward to this week are from DC, so my chances are good!

Isotope Comics posted an extremely well written response to the West Coast Civil War #6 shipping issue this week. I completely agree with this idea:

Personally, I don’t think Diamond should distribute any book that has over 50% allocations to my coast if they have the option of waiting a week and filling our complete order the very next week. And for a book as popular as Civil War I feel they should have made our East Coast friends wait as well, if possible.

The Comic Book Publishers may be the “brains” of the “being” that keeps comic book collecting as a hobby alive. The Distributors of those comics may be the “heart” that pumps the books out for consumption. But it’s the retailers who are the “backbone” of Comic Book Collecting. The retailers risk their far more limited capital, sweat, plan and toil to stock the shelves everyday and keep the comic book collector (the lifeblood of comics?) happy and coming back for more. Without those retailers Diamond would be nothing. The publishers? Nothing.

I know Diamond doesn’t want to “sit” on inventory for a week. I know it costs them money for storage, care, etc. But by passing costs and headaches on to the small comic book retailers, forcing the retailer to make decisions in which none of their customers really wins (by the way, I am one of the fan’s who will have to wait– not that you will shed a tear ) and to cause these retailers to lose sales when their excited “Civil War fanboys” turn elsewhere is just wrong. A better method of notification at the very least or a better contingency plan needs to be come up with.

I think Isotope made some very valid points in their post and hope the “brains” and “heart” of our awesome hobby listen to their “backbone” to solve these problems in a better way next time.

Soapbox off!

The folks over at the Comic’s Buyer’s Guide website CBGXTra.com opened up nominations for their annual fan awards today.

Nominations are for everything from favorite writer and artist to favorite editor and publisher. An archive of past winners can be found on their website as well. Batman has dominated the Favorite Character category since the awards began in 1982. Also, DC Comics has yet to be dethroned as Favorite Publisher since the category was added in 1998.

If you choose to participate you will need to fill out some information before entering your nominations, since this is for CBGXtra visitors only.

Enjoy!

It seems the only thing you can be entirely sure about is the lateness and problems Marvel is having getting Civil War out. It seems that there are going to be HUGE availability problems for retailers and fans waiting to see Civil War #6.

According to this article West Coast retailers are only receiving about 15% of the comics they need to pass on to the rest of us. Sure the other 85% will likely come next week, but issue 6 was “supposedly” delayed by two-weeks only due to a traditionally slow after-christmas week for comic retailers. It seems to me (as if I didn’t already expect it) someone was pulling our collective chains.

I am not a comic book fan that feels I am entitled to comics on-time-every-time. I believe that by accepting the short delays Marvel will have achieved a consistent look and feel to this important title. I also know unique problems arise on a regular basis for the comic book industry. But failing to notify people via news, a corporate website, or a trusted magazine source is just plain wrong to those who support you. Even if the news is bad, a corporate entity like Marvel or Diamond should own up to problems and inform those they do business with in my opinion.

It only makes good business sense to me, but what do i know?

Namor The Submariner fans (myself included) have something to look forward to in 2007 .

The marketing team over at Marvel released a cover featuring Namor. The only comments made with this release were that Michael Turner was doing covers AND that Namor would have his own title!

They announced that this was one of the spin-offs from the Civil War.

No mention yet on whether this will be a mini-series or a permanant title.

The folks over at Newsarama posted a short interview with Dan Didio looking forward into 2007 while I was gone for Christmas. It seems something is brewing; 4 comic team spin offs from 52 as a starting point.

I admit, I have always been a huge Marvel fan and been a pickier DC reader. As I catch up this time after my comic book collecting hiatus I find that I still have much the same taste as before. The DC boys just always seem to be much more haphazard with their characters and the continuity of the DC Universe has just always bugged the heck out of me. But who knows? Maybe 52 will do it for me.

Well I am back at it today. I have some reading to do to catch up  after the Christmas craziness.  Hopefully I will run across some news to pass on or something new to share.

Did anyone catch Stan Lee on NBC’s Identity game-show last night? He is looking great!

If you missed it NBC has the episode online here.

His identity was billed as Spider-Man’s creator. The contestant correctly identified him on her 4th or 5th pick because “Spider-Man is old.” That made him (and me) crack up a bit. Here is hoping the greatest comic creator of all-time keeps on kickin’.

Excelsior!