You can buy this Brightest Day Hardcover on Amazon for $17.84…

Sure, this week is better than last week’s poor showing… But seriously, where are the books? Next week looks to have a couple of quality high-priced collections (Eerie Vol 11 HC) but again, it’s a mixed bag. Lots of reprints of previous reprints… New configurations of earlier collections.

I’ve never seen so many weeks in a row dominated by Trade Paperback reprints of previously published Hardcovers… Which is good for me, since I like buying Hardcovers and don’t care for Trades so much. (The three advantages to buying Hardcovers over Trades are 1) They’re not that much more expensive, 2) They don’t damage anywhere near as easy as softcovers do, and 3) They’re easier to resell… By the time I get around to selling off my books to help my friend with MS pay her bills, the low Hardcover print runs have long since sold out.)

Not that I’m complaining. I don’t mind drawing lines through previously purchased books. But it makes me wonder… Are the companies running out of comics to reprint? (Not Marvel, of course– they’ll reprint anything.) But it almost seems as if the good stuff is drying up… The Graphic Novel market seems to have matured that much.

… And this Green Lantern Archives Vol 2 Hardcover for $13.95!

While it has been obvious for a while Marvel way over-printed certain collections (they’ve had more than a few yearly liquidations on older titles– offering comic shops huge discounts on certain overprints), DC just had another huge sale too… That leaned heavily on their once popular (but still pricey) classic Archive Editions. I would be royally  pissed if I bought those DC Archives at cover price… Only to see retailers offering them for 65% OFF the last few weeks. (What did they buy them for… $3 each?)

What’s completely insane: There are tons of volumes that Marvel & DC seemingly refuse to keep in print… High priced books that could be making beaucoup bucks for them today… Even in this very slow collector’s market.

But I’m not complaining (again). If they continue to put the reprinting of these sought-after editions on the back-burner, it only makes my collection more valuable… Which ultimately helps my friend pay off more of her bills. Thanks, Marvel & DC!

Alien Illustrated Story
Batman Arkham City
Birds of Prey Vol 1 Trouble In Mind
Breed Vol 3 Book of Revelations
Brightest Day Vol 3 – Own the Hardcover
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Library Vol 2 HC
Bucko HC – Jeff Parker!
Bulletproof Coffin Vol 2 Disinterred
Chronicles of King Conan Vol 3
Crackle of the Frost HC
Criminal Macabre The Iron Spirit HC
Crossed Wish You Were Here Vol 1
Crossed Wish You Were Here Vol 1 HC
Crossed Wish You Were Here Vol 1(Signed) HC
Dr Strange Season One HC
Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Drizzt Omnibus Vol 2 - Recommended
Duplicate
Essential Punisher Vol 4
Fear Itself Secret Avengers – Own the Hardcover
Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Men God Particle
Green Arrow Archers Quest (New Edition)
Green Arrow Longbow Hunters (New Edition)
Is That All There Is – Own the Hardcover
Judas Coin HC
Legends of Zita The Spacegirl
Little Heroes
Love And Rockets New Stories Vol 5
MMW Iron Fist Vol 2 HC
Maximum High
Mondo - Ted McKeever!
Marvel Universe Avengers Earths Heroes Digest Vol 1
Nemesis - Was a POS* as a Hardcover… Still a POS* as a Trade
New Mutants Vol 5 Date With Devil – Own the Hardcover
Oz Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz HC
Powers Vol 5 Definitive Collection HC – Own Deluxe Editions
Return of the Dapper Men HC (Special Edition) – Own Original HC
Star Wars Crimson Empire III Empire Lost - Paul Gulacy!
Star Wars Crimson Empire Saga HC
Steve Jobs Genius by Design Campfire
The Cavalier Mr Thompson: A Sam Hill Novel
Trail of Steel 1441 AD
Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen Vol 1 – Own the Hardcover
Whore – This Week’s POS*
Wolverine Rot HC - Cullen Bunn!

Arata The Legend Vol 11
Genocidal Organ (Novel)
Genshiken Second Season Volume 1
Hayate The Combat Butler Vol 20
Loveless Vol 9
Naruto Vol 58 TPYou know the old adage, “Never judge a book by its cover”? Well, there’s another adage too, “Never say never”… And you guessed it, you can judge Whore by its’ demeaning cover, its’ stupendously stupid title and its’ sad, desperate need to draw attention to itself.

There’s two ways to define your new comic in the crowded indie marketplace:

You can bust your ass to publish a fresh idea with great art & story…

…Or you can go the lowest common denominator route and call your book something like Whore.

To make matters more distressing, a quick check around the Net finds many sites praising this book– urging potential readers to “… embrace their affinity for the filth…”. For the 3,002nd time– I am no prude… But I am a stickler for quality… And Whore has little, if any, for sale.

Totally overlooking how degrading the cover is to women, Whore is filled with photo reference art (and everyone should know by now how lazy and ridiculous I think photo reference art is)… And get this: Despite the title, despite having numerous sex scenes, there is no real nudity (all the naughty bits are conveniently covered by random object placements, calculated POV positioning or whatever).

Here’s what you do get: An ex CIA agent who treats women like trash and assassinates people for money– all while acting like a supreme jerk-off. As if I need to say this, character development is non-existent. This book is just a mess of rehashed ideas– including a scene where the assassin plays basketball with President Obama. (Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick… The “Look! Obama’s In Our Comic!” sales gimmick got old three years ago.)

Every loyal Pull List reader knows if I thought this book had been done well… Or been anything other than a classic treatise on what kind of comics get published when creators are presumably weaned and raised on Mark Millar comics… I wouldn’t be the least bit miffed about any of the sexual situations, assassinations or even having an asshole for a protagonist. Good comics speak for themselves. But Whore reeks of opportunism, desperation and idiocy… And is symptomatic of everything that can be wrong with comics nowadays.

If you insist on reading a comic with the word “whore” in the title, please allow me to steer you toward this Eros Comix one-shot from the 90s… Bluntly called Crack Whore. In this book you get scenes of Drug Use, Full Nudity, Sex, Sex for Drugs… A virtual smorgasbord of impropriety. But hey, at least you get what you pay for with Eros… Unlike the sophomoric crap Zenescope relentlessly shoves into the marketplace almost every week.