Where to buy NEW comic books right now, Sept 2018 Pre-orders! And What books to get! ALL THE REST EDITION!

This is the last day to preorder books that will be shipping in December at a discount.

Here are my suggestions for the books worth your time:

MARVEL COMICS

Nothing. I can recommend nothing from Marvel Comics. Marvel is GROSSLY overpriced.  Save your money and either pick up these issues for a $1 or $2 each in a few months, when they are no longer new, from the secondary market. Or wait till they get collected into trade paperbacks and read them from your local library for free. Or buy them used online for a fraction of what getting the individual issues would cost.  I grew up with Marvel Comics, and i think they still have some fantastic creators I would love to read on a monthly basis, Ta-Nehisi Coates CAPTAIN AMERICA , comes to mind. After much hate from the moronic bigoted internet crowd, the moronic antisjw nazis, it turns out Coates CAPTAIN AMERICA is shaping up to be great. The same with just about anything Al Ewing touches. Unfortunately these great creators are sabotaged by a unsupportable comic price, and horrible editorial and marketing decisions.

The movies quite frankly are a lot better, and a lot less disorganized, stupid, and at times ingrained bigoted than the comics. The comics play lip service to diversity, and it is great to see creators like Coates and Walker get a chance to start their vision, but inevitably Editorial steps in and ruins/aborts their process/ending. The comics back pedal from everything to try to pander to the racist anti-change and anti-diversity mob, who typically don’t even read the comics they complain about.

The movies so far under Feige’s reign have embraced diversity with no back pedaling or moronic denigration that makes up so much of what goes on in the comics when it comes to characters of color (‘Oh Well we can’t have the Black Nick Fury be his own man. Let’s explain him away as the son of a White Nick fury.’ What????? Yeah this is the stupidity and racist great ideas that is happening in Marvel Comics, by there non-writers of color and editorial department.)

So yeah, so far the movies are actually better by far than the comics. So stick with them for now. Or until they start following the stupidity of the current comic books.

DC COMICS

Unfortunately DC that was doing a good job of keeping their prices under $3 a comic, ever since hiring the trojan horse of Brian Bendis, they have adopted Marvel’s disastrous and customer offensive pricing policy. Of charging $4, $5, $6,and $7… for COMIC BOOKS!!!!

Absolutely immoral.

And I like Brian Michael Bendis as a creator, but I despise him as a shill for the company, and his arrogant frat boy attitude to companies milking the audience, and  his basic ‘ah they will pay the higher price. Lower prices do not sell.’ I’m ten years of proving Bendis is wrong. It is not diversity that is the cause of Marvel Comics’ inability to keep from bleeding readers, it is the bloody price of their books. Add to that the over abundance of ads, poor placement of ads, and atrocious paper quality and you have a company that is repeatedly slapping their customers in the face, then wondering why the customers are not sticking around.

DC will soon find they will have the same issue as Marvel Comics. They will keep the die hards for a while, the sheep who buy multiple issues and variants, and the speculators, but that is  a far cry from the millions of people a publishing arm of Times Warner should be reaching.

Besides their last $2.99 books, which word is they are going away soon… The only book over $3 that I get from DC, that I make an exception for, is Christopher Priest’s brilliant DEATHSTROKE. And that is going to change, as editorial has decided to reward the critical acclaim that series has received, by mixing it into their editorial marketing ploy, basically gutting Priest’s ability to tell unhindered stories with the character. Once Priest leaves, so do I.

So what is worth getting?

Here is my list for September Pre-orders:

Beyonders 4	On order	1	$2.59
Bitter Root Cvr D Williams 1	On order	1	$2.59
Cavewoman A Wizard A Sorceress And Meriem 1	On order	1	$2.59
Cemetery Beach 3	On order	1	$2.59
Cinema Purgatorio Vast Cvr 16	On order	1	$4.54
Dark Ark Cvr A Doe 11	On order	1	$2.59
Deathstroke (2016) Cvr B Var Ed 37	On order	1	$2.59
Dick Tracy Dead Or Alive Cvr B Tommaso 3	On order	1	$2.59
Feast Or Famine 1	On order	1	$0.98
Gideon Falls Cvr B Suayan 8	On order	1	$2.59
Hillbilly Red Eyed Witchery From Beyond 4	On order	1	$2.59
Infinite Dark 2	On order	1	$2.59
Infinity 8 7	On order	1	$2.59
Jook Joint 2	On order	1	$2.59
Leviathan Cvr B Guillory 4	On order	1	$2.59
Lightstep 1	On order	1	$2.59
Lodger 2	On order	1	$2.59
Magic Order Cvr A Coipel 6	On order	1	$2.59
Moth And Whisper 3	On order	1	$2.59
New World Cvr B Moore And Muller 5	On order	1	$2.59
No World Primer 2018	On order	1	$0.16
Oblivion Song 9	On order	1	$2.59
Outer Darkness 1	On order	1	$2.59
Proxima Centauri 6	On order	1	$2.59
Raid Cvr B Photo 4	On order	1	$2.59
Red Sonja Cvr A Caldwell 23	On order	1	$2.59
Rick And Morty Cvr A 44	On order	1	$2.59
Rick And Morty Presents Pickle Rick Cvr A 1	On order	1	$3.24
Shadowman Cvr C Veregge 9	On order	1	$2.59
Sideways 10	On order	1	$1.94
Silencer 11	On order	1	$1.94
Sink Cvr A Cormack 6	On order	1	$2.59
Skyward 8	On order	1	$2.59
Spawn Cvr B Mattina 292	On order	1	$1.94
Stellar 6	On order	1	$2.59
Terrifics 10	On order	1	$1.94
Unexpected 6	On order	1	$1.94
Walk Through Hell 6	On order	1	$2.59
Warning 1	On order	1	$2.59
Whispering Dark 2	On order	1	$2.59

Order yours here:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/subscriptionservice?AffID=200301P01

And tell them HT sent ya!!!!

🙂

 

 

YouTube CHANNEL of the Day: PROFESSOR THORGI & Why Marvel and DC Comics are not selling!

Stop by Professor Thorgi’s channel and check out his review of new series JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK. As someone who with rare exceptions no longer gets monthly comics from the major comic publishers, me being interesred in anything new from DC or MARVEL comics… is rare.

The excellent coverage YouTube channel Professor Thorgi provided today on series JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK has me interested.

I really want to rush out and buy this series from DC Comics, however… I will not.

DC has recently followed Marvel in pricing their comics at S4 a book. The cost of hiring Bendis perhaps. Whatever the reason, for me that translates into both companies charging more for new comics than they are worth. $4 cover price at a minimum, with many of the books being even more expensive at $5 and up. 

I can spend that money to buy bronze age back issues that will hold their value as opposed to new issues, that 99% of them will be in the surplus dollar bins in a couple months. WHY ON GOD’S EARTH WOULD YOU PAY $4 for A NEW COMIC , when you can get a classic fantastic four or kubert comic for the same price?

Buy Back issues here:

https://www.mycomicshop.com?&AffID=200301P01

That pricing for new comic books is just pure greed, from two companies that are backed by billion dollar parent companies. Unlike smaller publishers, these companies have the infrastructure and scale to support bringing in these books at $2.50  or at least hold the line at $2.99.

I feel the companies inability to do so, and in the case of Marvel, unwillingness to do so comes down to greed, short sightedness, and mismanagement.They would rather try and price gouge the same aging customer base of about 70000 readers to buy multiple copies of overpriced issues, than price the issues at an attractive $2ish price point, to try to sell to millions rather than just thousands.

Contrary to the minority of loud but wrong right wing nuts, comic fan pretenders, screaming against creators and against diversity, as the failing of comics, comics are, in terms of creativity,  in a golden age.

Comics as someone who has been reading these books longer than most of the vocal minority have been alive, comics across the board have never been better in terms of writing, art, stories, creativity, diversity of genres, etc.(with minor exceptions such as Nick Spencer’s racist Nick Fury Jr idea. Really?? That is your idea? I don’t think so. :). Just have the Black Nick Fury be the black Nick Fury. Don’t hamstring him with some insulting, denigrating  and moronic story about him being the ‘son’ of the White Nick Fury. Just stupid and insulting on so many levels. An example of the movie division just being better and  smarter and less racist than the comic book division. And who would have thought that? 🙂 )

But that one caveat aside, the reason the comics are not selling is they are overpriced. Bottom line. And the big two publishers are over saturating the market to try to get their few readers to buy a lot, everything, to keep up.

Newsflash… people can not afford to get a lot, much less everything, especially at $4 a book.

So they choose, like I choose, to either severely limit their consumption or get nothing at all ( I get from DC only one $4 book, Christopher Priest’s DEATHSTROKE, and their few remaining $2.99 books.  However with DC poised to ruin the good work Priest has done on DEATHSTROKE, by putting the character in the JLA, hampering Priest’s ability to write for the comics unhindered, I see me dropping even that title. And according to the rumor mill the $2.99 books are going away. As far as Marvel, I  get nothing at all.)

The fact that Marvel is not legitimately selling millions of copies of Ta-na hesi Coates or Donny Cates or Al Ewing or Mark Waid or David Walker has nothing to do with those creators, those creators are doing their job;  but marketing and management and editorial mandates are failing these books.

I will definitely be reading Coates Captain America run, or the latest Moon Knight. But not monthly, Marvel and DC have taught me that they are not good or affordable publishers of periodical material and to rather wait for the collected edition and read it for free at the library, and the ones worth buying, to purchase in collected form, at a substantial discount over the individual issues. That is just smart shopping in this day and age, and for periodicals to not adjust their price point and marketing plan to make their product more attractive to an audience with a glut of choices and demands for their time… is to be bad at your job.

Marvel and DC’s periodical publishing arms… are bad at their jobs. People in charge of getting these numbers up and selling these books, should be given a deadline to turn things around and make improvements. And if they don’t  maybe what Marvel Upper Management needs is to sweep out the old under-performing and stagnant comic selling paradigm that has taken root at Marvel and DC and replace it with fresh faces, with fresh, innovative ideas for moving product, and winning readers. Do mail order subscriptions at a discount through Amazon, like Entertainment Weekly and other magazines do. Even selling the books as a loss leader, by increasing your subscriber base to millions rather than tens of thousands, you dramatically  increase what you can charge for ad space. But it takes change to make positive changes.

 

Now on the other hand, companies that are worth supporting in periodical form are ALTERNA, CHAPTER HOUSE, they provide inflation friendly comics, that allow you to pick up great books at a sub $3 price.

Also IMAGE, DARK HORSE, IDW, even though they are in the $3 and $4 range, they give you a lot more for your money than DC and Marvel do,  The smaller companies offer you a better periodical experience, they give you more pages, less ads, on better paper, and with additional content such as letters pages and special features.

All that creates a very simple take away for where and how I buy comics in the 21st century:

• These days when I buy comics, I buy them via pre-order courtesy of MY COMIC SHOP. COM, at a sizable discount off of cover price. I am an affiliate for My Comic Shop, so when you use these links you earn a few pennies for this blog.
• But the reason I am an affiliate, is because i use and love the service, so it becomes easy for me to hawk them. I have tried other mail order services, and have been pretty disappointed and felt pretty ripped off by them.
• My experience with MCS has really kept me from quitting the hobby all together. They have been that good for me, and you may find them similarly for you, an easy on-road to a medium, comics, that seemingly has more off-roads.
• They let you read synopsis of the many, many companies out there.
• And I get these great books mailed directly to me in great condition.

• And generally speaking…  I am not buying Marvel and DC. And I have to tell you my reading experience has never been better, and my wallet thanks me.

Use the link below, and your wallet can start thanking you as well:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/subscriptionservice?&AffID=200301P01

BBC, BBC America, Doctor Who and an outrageous Season 3 DVD Set!!

I have to tell you, I just got the US boxset of Doctor Who SEASON III (the one starring Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones), my favorite season of the new series, and the only one I think enough of to own in its entirety (Don’t get me wrong there are weak moments in this season, and bits from other seasons I like and think are great, it’s just as a whole I feel this season works the best), and while very happy with Season III’s episodes I’m not as happy with the special features, particularly the commentaries.

The BBC season DVDs are extraordinarily expensive, retailing at $80 per season in the US for only 13 episodes, calling that high-way robbery prices wouldn’t be too far off. BBCs pricing is rubbish.

And even though most of us can get it for less than retail, the fact remains if you’re going to justify that exorbitant retail price (you can get multiple seasons of most shows for that price or less) you need to offer more.

Namely you need to offer full cast DVD commentaries. This is David Tennant and Freema Agyeman’s journey, and people who love this season are buying to hear these great actors discuss and reminisce over that journey, so common sense would tell you to at the very least, have these two actors in the commentaries.

I’m always amazed how uncommon, common sense is.

Because these two show up together on the US release in exactly 0 episode commentaries. ZERO!

WTF is that?!!!

We do get commentaries, by various producers, and editors, and writers, but really the people you want to hear from most on these commentaries are absent, and it is a huge, effing glaring omission.

In addition to offering no Tenant/Agyeman commentaries, the special features are very light. Why just snippets of Doctor Who Confidential? Why not full episodes??

Christ, BBC you’re charging an arm and a leg for these boxsets, you can afford not to be cheap bastards.

So I’m very glad, I didn’t pay full price for this boxset, but even still… lacking decent cast commentaries I still feel more than a bit cheated. So I’d recommend (if you have a multi-zome player) avoid the BBC America DVD release and purchasing the UK version instead. At least you get (according to various sites) one Tenant, Agyeman, and Barrow commentary on the UK set, and it’s currently priced at 1/3rd the price of the US boxset. So even when you factor in shipping, it still screams deal to me. Man, US/Region 1 viewers are getting screwed. BBC America is rubbish!

So I guess that single episode 13 commentary (with all three stars) will have to do me until BBC grows some brains and decide to release proper full cast commentaries for this season.

So in closing, just say no to BBC America and their rubbish overpricing and heavy editing of episodes (and according to some, poor mastering of US/Region 1/A Blurays, read this). You’d be better off waiting for the UK DVD releases.

Here endeth my ranting for today.