Buy This! - April 25th, 2012

Here we go again.

With Marvel ramping up AvX this week with the biggest week of tie-ins released thus far, and DC launching a full scale invasion of the bat family with Night of the Owls it’s safe to say that event season is officially underway. Really it has been for at least a month but with DC launching their own volley it really feels like it now.

 Due to this fact, this week’s Buy This is going “All Avengers VS X-Men”.  Partially this is due to the fact that AvX has been really quite enjoyable so far and partially it is because… well AvX has me anxious to see what happens next. Who knows, depending on how some of the first slew of Night of the Owls releases fare maybe I’ll do a special column for the bat titles next week.

Podcast Episode 4: The One Where Seth Goes to Disney World

Hello friends! Episode 4 of the Ancillary Characters Podcast is live, and here's an embedded version. Don't forget to comment after listening in! IMPORTANT: if you're a subscriber on iTunes, our feed just changed so you may need to go in and resubscribe... And if you haven't subscribed yet, now's the perfect time! Go!

Tales from the Long Box: Confession of a Closet X-Fan

Every week Seth goes into his back issue bins, picks out a single issue, story arc, or creative run, pours through it and then writes about it. He calls it Tales from the Long Box. Though old and now either retconned out of existence or made irrelevant by the latest event, these books still share something in common... they're bagged, boarded, and a part of comics history.

So my own personal comic book baptism took place as a child of around 12 years old. My oldest sister, after tiring of collecting baseball cards and sports memorabilia had randomly taken up the habit of comic collecting and specifically those starring the X-Men. This was in the early 90's when Image was still getting off the ground and Jim Lee had recently completed a monumental run on the merry mutants. I would read her comics on warm summer days on the porch of my parent's home and though I had no concept of the artist or writer as individuals I did enjoy the issues where Wolverine stabbed someone with his bone claws or Colossus rocked someone in the face.

Buy This! - December 28th, 2011

Every Monday Seth picks out three items that are due to ship on Wednesday and directs you toward your best bets for a quality purchase. Some times it's a single issue of a comic, other times a massive omnibus edition of a beloved series, and occasionally a figure or shiny bauble that caught his eye. Read on to find the three items you shouldn't leave your comic shop without this week.

Sooo, that happened. Another Christmas has come and gone and left me with a bunch of trinkets and baubles I didn't have before it came. I received a very cool Knight (of Knight and Squire fame) action figure and the first volume of the Flash by Geoff Johns omnibus courtesy of my girlfriend, as well as a talking Boba Fett helmet... which I've worn far too much for a grown man. I wrapped up Christmas by going to the comic store yesterday and was dismayed to discover they weren't running any sales so I bought my pulls and a couple older trades and called it a day. I have to say, all in all I got very little in the way of comics this year. Maybe it's my relatives trying to tell me to grow up or something...

This week's pulls should be hitting on Wednesday as usual but I'm hearing rumblings that some shops won't have new comics till Thursday. I know, it makes no sense since essentially all the major shipping avenues were open Monday but, there it is. In the way of housekeeping, the TMNT micro series continues this week with the Michaelangelo spotlight that I picked for my Buy This column a few weeks ago. Also, it's not there anymore but I hope some of you managed to snag that Rocketeer Adventures hardcover from Thwipster while it lasted. Mine should be arriving in the next two days.