A London friend told me Christmas Stuff started showing up in shops…
Three Weeks Ago!

Nice news, huh? I don’t know how you feel, but I love Christmas and the full spectrum of emotions it brings… Plus the music. Yes, I said that. Even though most of it is decidedly old school, I drop the Alternative Rock (normally playing 24/7) and listen to Christmas Tunes for an entire month. I don’t know why. Maybe it reminds me of a simpler, happier time. Maybe it reminds me of fresh-baked cookies and fudge. Hell, maybe it reminds me of Xmas Swag.

In any case, other than a brief day in July when I turn my AC way down and play some Christmas music to beat back the oppressive California heat (this year temps hit a summer high of 125℉)… I reserve Christmas for the Christmas Season– the month before December 25th. But even though jokes have been flying for decades about how Christmas gets earlier and earlier at the retail level… It’s especially crazy this year. The abysmal phenomenon even has a new name. It’s now called Christmas Creep.

Speaking of Christmas Creeps (like how I got there?), if you walked into your Comic Shop this week (or look at the list below)… You’ll notice that Marvel is already slinging out the Omnibi in full force in this first week of October. Image released the second Walking Dead Compendium too. Yes, these books are best suited for Halloween (with at least one also timed to coincide with the third Season Premiere of a certain Zombie TV Show)… But let’s get serious. That one spooky day is a stepping stone to the much bigger Jingle Bell Payday coming later in the year.

You may hand out comics on Halloween but few of you are sitting around reading them. (Except for this year, of course– since Halloween falls on the last Wednesday of the month.) Even after all that… Who in the hell clamored for Marvel to release a Man-Thing Omnibus (a nice hardcover of the earlier stories would’ve sufficed) or *gag* the Marvel Zomnibus? (Seems like another company knows a certain Zombie-themed TV Show is premiering in a few weeks too.) You know what’s crazy about this Zomnibus? Marvel released the Marvel Zombies Destroy Hardcover just last week… And it’s not included… So this doorstop is already incomplete.

Come to think of it, I’m surprised Marvel didn’t release the Marvel Zombies Destroy series as part of a “Zomnibus Exclusive”… Forcing completist collectors to buy the entire $125 USD book to get the one story. (Their crack Gouge Squad must have been on holiday the week somebody decided to publish this collection.)

Oh look! October 2012 also has FIVE Comic Book Shipping Weeks again. Anybody want to bet there will be much more crap coming out on these 5 Wednesdays than the sparse 5 shipping days we saw in August 2012… A little over 30 days ago?

I wouldn’t bet against it.
(Marvel Now! starts next week.)

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips get the love this week… Not that they– or Criminal– really need it. Almost everybody who’s ever picked up one of the different Icon (Marvel) mini-series think they’re aces. Brubaker and Phillips have reconstituted and reinvigorated Noir comics for the 21st Century (much more so than Marvel’s Noir line of superhero books)… Making Noir a very viable comics genre. And the two creators’ hard work and professionalism continue to shine in this volume.

I particularly like these hardcovers because they are oversize– which brings out a lot of the detail in Phillips’ consistently powerful art. Of course, the stories remain the same– except they seem to carry extra gravitas with the more detailed art on display. There’s also some decent extras in the back– better than the usual bonus feature claptrap that often seems to exist to please uber collectors raise the price of the book. (I usually find I enjoy the extras more when they come with a book created by high quality professionals. What a shock.)

Amazon’s info blurb for this volume says the first Criminal Deluxe Hardcover has gone through 4 printings so far. Who knew? But more power to all involved. I can rarely find anything negative to say when quality comics are massively consumed.

The Amazon site also has this strange warning for Volume Two (as of 10.5.12):

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it’s described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We’re working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

I’ve seen this kind of warning before on the site before. I hope whatever problems the Amazon books are experiencing aren’t indicative of the entire print run. That would suck.

30 Days Of Night Omnibus Vol 2 – Bought all the Trades…
Age Of Apocalypse Vol 1 X-Terminated
Amazing Spider-Man Vol 3 Dr Octopus (Young Readers)
Amulet Vol 2 Stonekeeper’s Curse
Artemis Fowl Vol 2 Arctic Incident
Avengers Bride Of Ultron HC
Batman The Dark Knight Vol 1 Knight Terrors HC
Best American Comics 2012 HC
Broxo
Carter Family Don’t Forget This Song HC
Creepy Archives Vol 14 HC - Recommended
Criminal Vol 2 Deluxe Edition HC - Hot Pick of the Week!
Crusades HC – Looks cool…
Death The Deluxe Edition HC – Been there, read that
Epic Chronicles Hagar The Horrible HC
Epic Kill Vol 1
GI Joe A Real American Hero Vol 5
Grimm Fairy Tales Presents Jungle Book Vol 1 – Oh No!
Halo Fall Of Reach HC – Own the Hardcovers
Hell Yeah Vol 1 Last Day On Earths
I Vampire Vol 1 Tainted Love
Jack The Ripper Vol 2 Hell Blade
Justice League Of America Rise Of Eclipso
Man-Thing Omnibus HC
Mars Attacks Classics Vol 2
Marvel Zomnibus HC – *cough*
Moomin Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip Vol 7 HC
Moomin Turns Jungle
Moomin Winter Follies
New York Drawings Adrian Tomine HC - Recommended
Picture Of Dorian Gray (Illustrated Prose) HC
Pippi Longstocking Vol 1 Pippi Moves In HC
Planet of the Apes Vol 3 - Recommended
Queen Sonja Vol 4 Son of Set
Raven
Roger Landridge’s Snarked! Vol 2
Sailor Twain – Looks very cool…
Skippy Vol 1 Complete Dailies HC
Spider-Man Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut HC
Star Wars Omnibus The Clone Wars Vol 2 The Enemy On All Sides
Superman Batman Sorcerer Kings – Own the Hardcover
Trio Vol 1
Twelve Vol 2 – Own the Hardcover
Voltron Vol 1 The Sixth Pilot
Walking Dead Compendium Vol 2 – Own the Trades & Deluxe Hardcovers
World of Warcraft Curse Of The Worgen
X-Men Bishop’s Crossing HC
Your Vigor For Life Appalls Me (Crumb Letters)
Zombies vs Robots Z-Boys In The Robot Graveyard – Own the Trades/Hardcovers

Bleach Vol 48
Bleach Vol 49
Dawn of the Arcana Vol 6
Devil & Her Love Song Vol 5
Drops Of God Vol 5
Fairy Tail Vol 9 (Kodansha Edition) – Own It
Fairy Tail Vol 21
Ghost In The Shell 1.5 Human-Error Processor (Kondansha Edition)
GTO 14 Days In Shonan Vol 5
Jiu Jiu Vol 2
Nura Rise of the Yokai Clan Vol 11
Paradise Kiss Volume 1 (Vertical Edition) - Manga Pick of the Week!
Skip Beat Vol 29
Slam Dunk Vol 24
Stepping On Roses Vol 8
Story of Saiunkoku Vol 8
Toriko Vol 12
Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s Vol 3

This was about to be another love/hate week for Marvel Comics… A fairly normal occurrence since they normally publish a lot of different Hardcovers & Trades every Wednesday. (Last week’s Dumpathon was crazy. I had this huge stack of Marvel collections and one DC New 52 Trade.)

After looking at the cover on the left, I began writing this long tirade about The Man-Thing Omnibus– not for what appeared inside (per se)… But for the lack of a certainname on the cover. I couldn’t believe the late Steve Gerber wasn’t listed on this book front and center. While Gerber didn’t create The Man-Thing… He was absolutely essential in bringing the character to prominence and creating another ancillary character for the series that turned into an overnight phenomenon– a foul-mouthed fowl called Howard The Duck.

Look at the picture on the Right Side: This is the pic plastered all over the internet representing the book. But seeing Jim Lee’s name in the credits really threw me. I believe I’ve read every Man-Thing series and one-shot comic… But I don’t remember Jim Lee ever drawing the moss encrusted hulk. That doesn’t mean anything, of course. All pencilers have to get their break somewhere. Lee could have easily drawn a Man-Thing story in his early days that I simply didn’t remember.

But it still bugged the shit out of me.

People sometimes laugh at me when I say I have a near-photographic memory. But I do. And I knew I had seen that exact credit sequence somewhere before– and fairly recently. I was deep into the 5th paragraph of my rant when I decided to perform one last series of internet searches. I hit the Marvel Wiki database and Wikipedia (usually my last resort) with no real answers to what was in the omnibus. Then thought, “Let me go look at the actual cover over at InStock Trades.” And that’s how I finally got Pic #2 on the left. (You can even see the cellophane grouping the corners of the omnibus.)

This is the true cover and it’s a real relief. Marvel and Gerber had their skirmishes, including a trial over the ownership of Howard– which Marvel won… But not to put his name prominently on the cover of this reprint would be poor form in any universe.

So yes… Good on Marvel. While I would have rather not spent so long writing a commentary that ended up being useless, I would much rather present the truth and facts– always. We may have very pointed opinions here, but we would never intentionally mislead you for any reason.

Finally, for those wondering how those creator names got on The Man-Thing cover on the left in the first place: The pic on the left is simply a mock cover used to represent the final product… But was obviously never meant as the final version of the cover. Someone in the art department saw Chris Claremont wrote something in the book, so he/she just slapped an already completed credit line onto the bottom… Probably never having read a Man-Thing comic or even realized who Steve Gerber was to the history of the character.

As you can see, it wasn’t hard to find where the credits used for The Man-Thing promo piece came from– the X-Men Omnibus by Chris Claremont & Jim Lee– notably a previous This Week’s POS* winner.