Oh baby

Mongrol getting physical is not what you want.

I need a time machine

Preferrably one that can make the next 2 months speed up. Latest addition to April's convention here:

I've already gone through my Moon Knight collection and picked out a few issues that would be cool to get signed, which is totally optimistic on my part given that a lot can go wrong in two months and who knows if he'll actually end up attending, but I couldn't help myself. They've booked him, and that's all that matters right now.

Remembering the important stuff

I was browsing ebay for comic art, and someone's selling a page from Spawn #46, saying it's the first appearance of a character called Tremor. I just sent them a message telling them that his first appearance was actually #25. It came out 13 years ago, but I still remember. I checked my Spawn collection just to be sure, and I was right. I find that amusing.

*dreams of the days when Spawn was a good comic*

Oh, and I found this auction for a Wonder Woman piece. The description disturbs me.
"You are bidding on a signed and numbered print of Wonder Woman undressing in a mirror and she is topless... yep that's right her top is down around her waist."

OMG, TOPLESS WONDERWOMAN!!!!! (lets just ignore you only see her back). Atleast the reserve is set to $1, so all the 14 year old boys can afford to bid.

Anthems to lost icons

This gem made it's debut in 1994. Dark Horse decided they needed a superhero universe, and came up with, among other things, this:

Infected with alien blood, he had enhanced physical abilities, fast healing, as well as a degree of invulnerablility (he could take several rounds to the chest, and still keep on fighting, but they would penetrate him, no Superman stuff here). X roamed a city similar in makeup to Gotham, in terms of corruption and criminal elements, the city itself was more modern (though it had huge sewers). X's goal in life was to clean things up, appointing himself the one-man police force. He had one simple rule:

Break the law, you get marked once. Get marked twice, and you're dead. Much time was spent in the comic coming up with creative ways for the bad guys to get marked. They might recieve a photo of themselves with a slash across it, or look in to a mirror to see a red line on it. Others were less fortunate, and would be physically scarred, usually across the face in a fight with X. He took this rule seriously:

Three panels after saving the above guy from being murdered, he kills him himself because he was marked twice. Daaaaamn.

The message for bad guys was simple:



I think a large part of why I loved this character so much, was his combination of various elements. There's the Judge Dredd kind of mentality, "obey the law or you're screwed". Also a bit of DC's Vigilante, with his interest in cleaning up corruption and flat out killing the bad guys. Probably some parts of Batman too. I was a fan of those 3 characters growing up during the 80's, so it was almost a given that I'd like X.

The title ran for 25 issues, until the entire Dark Horse line imploded, never to be heard of again. I mourn his loss.

One other reason X was so cool. The last 12 or so issues were drawn by

SPEED

LINE

GOD

JAVIER

FRIGGIN

SALTARES


The above sequence is from a single page. I love that man.

Don't forget.

More ebay crap

Ok, this is the last show-off post for a while, I promise (mainly because I haven't bought anything else yet).

4 original pages from Firestorm #18. Pencils by Pat Olliffe, inks by Simon Coleby.




Hell yeah.

(excuse the bad pictures, it's the best I can do without natural light. These arrived an hour ago and I'm too excited to wait :p)

Sucker born every minute

What's wrong with this picture?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no way what effectively amounts to a reprint, is ever going to be a collectors item.

Bonus question: When was the last time anything marked with "Collectors Edition" actually turned out to be one?

Cool comic though.

Look out!

Somebody got Rogue Trooper pissed off!

Shame what he's saying doesn't totally make sense.

Meanwhile, Spidey gets hit in the head so hard his eye turns red.

Doreen Day has strange parents

That book frightens me!

More purchases

Arrived at the comic shop this week:
Mr Terrific, Dr Midnite, and Hourman, so now I have a cool looking mini-JSA

Actually I tell a lie, I didn't buy them at the comic shop. I saw them there first, for $40 each, but on a hunch I went to the card shop, and they had them for $35. Neither shop had Hawkgirl, and I passed on the Atom figure since I'm not a fan. Hourman's head doesn't quite look right, and Mr Terrific has a bit too much of a scowl for my liking, but other than that they look pretty cool.

Then I get home, and find a couple of eBay purchases waiting for me. First off, there's this art print of Firestorm by Tom Flemming:

(it still has a bit of a curl to it since it was sent rolled up, hence the picture looking a bit off). As an added bonus, Tom drew Killer Frost in the bottom right corner

The pictures of that print that I've seen on the net don't do it justice. At the size it is (9.5" x 9.5" for the actual picture), it is friggin beautiful.

Next up, a picture of Firestorm (Jason), penciled my Jamal Igle and inked by Matt Talbot

Making it extra cool, the art came with a photo of Jamal with the drawing, to prove it's authenticity (see previous comments about being skeptical about art on ebay)

It doesn't really come out in the picture I took, but all the rough blue pencil lines are on it, which I think is neat, I love seeing a bit of 'behind the scenes' stuff to artwork. It cost me $20US, which I like much more than the $150 Jamal is charging for direct commissions (though I really want to get a pic of Firehawk off him).

Time to go buy some more picture frames.

The great hunt begins

Seems like the time is fast approaching where I'll need to find new titles to read. My current roster is on shakey ground. Titles coming to an end soon:

• Firestorm (Cancelled *sigh*)
• Annihilation (which has kept me busy for months with the prelude mini's etc)
• The Creeper (sucked horribly, my comic shop must be telepathic since the previous issue never made it's way in to my file. Hopefully they repeat the mistake for the final issue)
• Omac (which I had no intention of buying, until it turned out Firestorm was in it)

Recent culls:

• Hawkgirl/man (Ditching Chaykin hasn't seemed to help, based on the brief look I had in-store)
• JSA Classified (The Vandal Savage story killed it for me)
  

In the danger zone:

• Blue Beetle (I like it, but apparently it's close to cancellation territory)
• Moon Knight (First issue rocked, then it stopped making sense. It has one more issue to convince me to stick around, and I love Moon Knight)
• Green Lantern (Geoff Johns on JSA is magic, but he leaves me kinda cold on everything else. I could've sworn I asked for it to be taken off my pull list a couple of issues ago, but apparently not. The next issue better be good, or it's gone)

That leaves me with:

• Justice Society
• 52
• Aquaman (my enthusiasm for it is sapped, with the impending writer change. I was enjoying it, and I'm looking foward to the new guy, but I find it hard to get interested in something that's about to end mid-stream. I'm the type that will drop a book the instant it gets cancelled, even if it has several issues still to come out. Firestorm is an exception, for obvious reasons :p)
• Birds Of Prey

It's all left me feeling like it's the mid-90's again, where seemingly every title I got hooked on wound up cancelled just after I'd run out and bought all the back issues. Ghost Rider 2099, Takion, Bloodshot (whatever volume the last one was), House Of Secrets, Alpha Flight, X (the Dark Horse character, and the most infuriating title to do web searches for), and probably a bunch of others that are long forgotten.

There's a new Silver Surfer title on the way, but outside of that, I don't know.