Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with comics

Name this comic

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:22:49 -0800

A while back I remember reading a review of a comic/graphic novel. It was a superhero story but from the point of view of an ordinary person/people. From what I can remember it told the story of the effects on an apartment building and its inhabitants from the consequences of a battle between two superheros... where what happened to the apartment building (blown up? knocked down? heavily damaged in some other way?) was a throw-away panel / plot point in another comic.

Anybody know what it was?

And, no, it's not Marvels.

Help a comix n00b find his footing

northernsoul — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:34:57 -0800

I've long been intrigued by the world of comics, but the recent trailer for the Watchmen has finally pushed me over the edge. Where do I start? The problem I've often run into with comics is that I find many of the story lines archetypical and boring. I'm not interested in reading about how Superman saves the day from the evil Lex Luthor and gets the girl. I need a little more nuance and subtlety if I'm going to read a comic. So, here's some things I'm looking for in a comic:
The darker the better
I'm not turned off about superheroes, but they better bring something different to the table
Artists who are pushing the boundaries
Stories that are informed by the issues of our times, somewhat like how Battlestar Galactica does it

While I'm asking, I live in a small, remote town without a comic store. Are there some internet stores that have these types of comics and won't charge an arm and a leg to ship to Canada? Thanks in advance.

Avoiding the super-slush pile

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:12:49 -0800

So -- with no direct industry contacts and conventions out of the question -- how does one pitch to Marvel Comics? I'm an indie comics creator with a reasonable track record -- a few decently (but not ragingly) successful North American books under my belt and a few more on the way -- and I have a very good idea that uses a currently inactive Marvel Comics character. It's rooted enough in their universe that it has to be a Marvel project. The thing is, while I have a number of contacts at small publishing firms, with artists, etc., the circles I move in aren't really "Marvel circles" to the extent that anyone I know can bend the ear of an editor. And I live far away from the States, making one-on-one convention-schmoozing an impossibility.

I'm accustomed to the indie pitch process: I get together with a great artist, we put together a good package, and we send it to relevant publishers. I bat about .500 this way, slowly trending upwards as I get more projects and recognition under my belt. But I'm still a nobody as far as Marvel and DC go, and since they do their own artist/writer bundling, the idea of getting an artist to dive into spec art for a project that would probably get reassigned anyway doesn't seem practical -- although if I'm wrong on this, please correct me.

What does a pitch package that arrives at the Marvel offices look like if it's to avoid the unsolicited-garbage category right away, given that I imagine their mailbag groans with such things? And, apart from sheer unrelenting excellence, what can get such a thing noticed by the right people?

I need my comic fix: TTS.

Korou — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:19:54 -0800

I have the daily comics; the Monday, Wednesday, Friday comics; but I'm short on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. (the only one I have is Menage a 3) What are some good TuThSat comics?

Help Me Sell My Comics

ursus_comiter — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:12:53 -0800

How can I optimize the liquidation of my not so exciting comics collection? Difficulty: I'm moving to the UK in 3 months. I've got your standard'70s/'80s/'90s assortment of comics - 8.5 long boxes worth. Yeah, most of it is dross, but I want to do what I can to extract whatever gold I may have in there. I've read up on the topic here and elsewhere, but there's a few things I'd like to hear from the AskMefi comics collective on. I do have some Silver Age stuff, but nothing terribly exciting unless you're really jazzed about comics referenced in a Hembeck strip.

I've been indexing my comics using Collectorz. However, I'm clueless as far as grading comics, so while I know I've got a few interesting things in there (First Wolverine 4 issue mini-series, First appearance of the New Teen Titans, TMNT 3), I'm not sure how to maximize their sale price. Would it be worth my time and money to go the CGC route with items in that range? - i.e. potentially worth something (up to a few hundred dollars), but nowhere near the value of Amazing Fantasy #15. Also, with my database in hand, are there any resources out there that I can use to dig into my collection to find anything I might be missing that's of value? I could pore through the CBG by hand, but... Meh. I'd be happy to pay a premium to get my collection evaluated as far as finding anything worth looking closely at.

I also have some series that are more or less complete and might still be of interest to folks who are looking at getting them to read or collect. Would it be worthwhile to go out and dig up 1 or 2 missing issues to complete a run and then offer the whole thing on eBay? I'm thinking of Vertigo stuff here, mostly.

I'm willing to make some effort and I don't mind pulling stuff that's worth significantly more than cover and doing what I can to get the best deal for it. The rest, I'm prepared to donate, recycle, or whatever.

What is this comic?

nvly — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:09:31 -0800

Trying to find a comic strip feat. 3 (or 4) animals trying to sell something, using sunny-side-ups as puppy dog eyes; from a few years back

What should I do with comic books after I read them?

raddevon — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:37:08 -0800

What should I do with comic books after I read them? I'm starting to get into comics and would like to read some of them on a regular basis. However, I am in the process of uncluttering my life and don't want the comic books to defeat that. For those of you who don't keep your comics, how do you dispose of them? I don't want to just throw them away. I wouldn't mind giving them away to friends, but if there is a way I could get just a little money for them or, better still, trade them for other comics I would like to read, I would prefer those options. I should clarify that these are brand new comics--not classics or anything like that. I will purchase them new, read them in a week or so, then get rid of them.

Chariots of the Globs

Artw — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:13:16 -0800

Help identify a (most likely European) comic with Von Daniken style ancient astronauts that I vaguely remember from childhood. I would have seen it in the early 80s, and it came in softcover Tin-tin sized volumes. It concerned (as I remember) a bunch of ancient astronauts knocking around on Earth befire the evolution of man, carving the Nasca lines in Peru with spaceship born lasers, that sort of thing.

(No, it wasn't Jack Kirby)

What famous(ish) comics folks love Tintin?

Shepherd — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:59:39 -0800

What (semi-)famous artists (preferably still living) are stated Tintin fans? Comics-related artists especially sought. I'm working on a column on bande dessiné for a North American comics magazine, and the third (or fourth) column is going to focus on Tintin -- one of the three pillars of bédé, and arguably the most familiar for English-language audiences.

But rather than just me blathering about Tintin, I'd love to find some other people in the comics field who are fond of Tintin and conduct brief interviews with them about Hergé, his work, and its influence on their artistic lives.

I know there are comics fans among the hive mind, so I'm hoping that some of you will recall interviews, conversations, essays and whatnot where established comics folks have stated their affection for everyone's favourite Belgian man-child. Ideas?

How to get rid of lots of unwanted comics

snarfois — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:21:43 -0800

What's the best way to dispose of those parts of my comics collection I no longer want? I have rather a large number of comics, collected over many years. Many of them I no longer care for, or were bad purchases to begin with, and I'd like to clear some shelf space. I'm wondering whether I can recoup any money from them by selling them, or if it won't be worth the trouble.

- I'm not a "collector" -- I don't keep things in plastic sleeves, I prefer to buy the trade paperback rather than the original issues, and lots of them were second-hand when I bought them.

- They're eclectic. America, UK, Europe, Japan are all well represented, as are all decades from the 60s to today. They're mainly from the independent/alternative end of the spectrum. Some are quite obscure. Quality varies, but since I want to get rid of them you can guess I don't rate them too highly. Still, you can find interesting things to say about most of them.

What are my options? (I'm in London, UK.) We're probably talking about a 100 or so comics, all formats. I kinda doubt it'd be worth the effort to advertise them individually on eBay, but I could be convinced otherwise. In bundles perhaps? Or am I better off taking it to a local 2nd-hand book/comic exchange? Anyone know what these places pay? (Obviously they have a lot of leverage over someone who've just lugged a crate of books through their door.)

Help me think of Reenactment Photos for Cosplay

Del Far — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:11:24 -0800

Creative Ideas Filter: I need ideas of Famous and Memorable Photographs or Paintingsor famous and memorable scenes from History, Movies, or Television that can be Reenacted on the spot without planning by 3-6 people for me to photograph for a final project for school. So I have this final project for school and I realized that I could use my trip to the NY Comic-Con for "fun and profit." We had previously done reenactment photography in my digital photography class and I had a lot of fun, and I just thought, I could get some hilarious shots of people already cosplaying but also reenacting great scenes for me.

Imagine it, all the Naruto cosplayers reenacting the Mexican stand off scene from reservoir dogs. Or a reenactment of Jesus' Last Supper with people dressed up as DC heroes.

Best Comic Shop in El Paso

vraxoin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:35:31 -0800

What is the best comic book store in El Paso? I'm a comic book writer and I'm looking to do a signing in El Paso, TX. But I'm not very familiar w/ the area, and I don't know which is The Store to go to there. Suggestions?

Can I subscribe to comics like I do with magazines?

penciltopper — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:45:17 -0800

Can I subscribe to comics by mail, like I do with magazines? 1) I keep missing issues of things I'd like to follow because I forget to go pick them up, they drift off a regular publication schedule, etc.
2) I spend too much on too many titles, and end up doubling my order with impulse buys when I do manage to swing by a shop (oh, it's been a while - what are they doing with so-and-so these days? let me buy 4 issues...)

With magazines, I sign up once, and get a year's worth of issues delivered to me, even if I forget about them.
I also get a significant discount off the newsstand price.

Shouldn't I be able to do the same deal with comic titles?
(if not, and you know why, please explain )

I know that I could find a local comics shop and give them a list of issues to save for me, and they'll call me to come pick them up and pay for 'em, like grownup geeks do.

But I'd prefer to get all excited when I get the monthly envelope from DC/Vertigo in my mailbox, and go retire to my fort made of sofa cushions and read them by flashlight with a box of crackers and a bottle of Vernor's.

Is this possible? Are there alternatives?

(If it helps, I'm mostly reading DC/Vertigo/Wildstorm, but there are a few Dark Horse titles I always forget to grab. I suppose I'm going to have to go and get my Doktor Sleepless from Avatar on my own.)

Asian stereotype: why the exaggerated front teeth?

sweetlyvicious — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:41:32 -0800

Asian stereotype: why the exaggerated front teeth? So I stumbled across this comic Wun Cloo, Detective off the LJ community Scans_Daily. Now the depiction of the main character is of the stereotypical Asian man at the time (1940's). I understand the slanted eyes and pigtail, but why the buckteeth? What's the reason or history behind this?

What are the text changes between the Sandman comics and Absolute Sandman?

hindmost — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:52:44 -0800

Is there a resource that delineates the differences between Absolute Sandman and the original comics? Neil Gaiman mentions on his blog:

I fixed the Joshua Norton announcement declaring himself emperor, which was right in the script but had somehow been changed when it was lettered, and I also changed a word that I realised a few years ago did not mean what I thought it meant when I originally wrote that issue (no, I'm not telling you which word).

I would like to know the word, and where it is located, and the various other changes. I read the comics a while ago but only possess the Absolute volumes. Surely some comic book geek has already done this?

Complete runs vs. cherrypicking?

cgs — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:15:16 -0800

Selling a complete run of comics: advice? I'm purging my collection and selling a variety of contemporary lots. Some are complete runs containing valuable single issues (signed, or famous artists, etc). I've sold comics on eBay in the past and am familiar w/ most of the advice given in this previous AskMeFi post, (especially that of not making a profit but minimizing your loss).

But, strictly speaking, what is best: selling the complete runs, or cherry picking the valuable stuff and then selling the runs w/ gaps?

Thanks for your help-
cgs

"Damnation, I've run out of air!"

breezeway — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:19:40 -0800

Please help me find a poem/comic book story -- it takes place on Mars and ends with the line "Damnation, I've run out of air!" It was published in a sci-fi/horror comic, possibly Alien Worlds, less likely Twisted Tales, most likely something else; it was doggerel, and as I remember, it took place on Mars, and may have involved a stranded spaceman meeting a beautiful Martian or something along those lines, and then running out of air in his space suit.

A list of independent and underground comics publishers

ZippityBuddha — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:00:22 -0800

Contact information for comics publishers. I make comics, and am looking to get them published. I would like your help in compiling a list of as many book and comics companies which accept submissions, for underground and independent and art comics The sort of comics I make are quite (well, very) niche things, so the sort of people who would even be interested in taking a look at them are very few and far between. Obviously I know about Drawn and Quarterly and Fantagraphics and the like, but finding information on other small press and arts companies (like, say, Redstone Press, who publish David Shrigley's books) can be difficult to find.

So if you know of any publishers, no matter how small (or big), who publish this sort of material, could you list them here?

How do I sell very large and potentially valuable LP and comic collections?

ROTFL — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:31:59 -0800

How do I sell very large and potentially valuable LP and comic collections? We're finally ready to part with most of our childhood/early adulthood collections, so my husband is going to sell his comics and I'm going to sell my LPs.

The comics are mostly Marvel and DC, with scattered indies. The dates are mostly late 70s-late 80s, but some are older. Most are in pretty good condition; some are in excellent condition. There are upwards of 1500 to sell.

The LPs are mostly mid-60s to late-70s, and they're all over the map condition-wise, from near-pristine to barely holding together. Content is mostly pop/rock, with lots of soul and funk thrown in. Decent stuff, honestly, but I know LPs are not as desirable as they once were. There might be 2,000 or more LPs to dispose of.

In both cases, we know there are some valuable items amidst the commonplace, but we want to get rid of all of them, not just the cherry-picked prizes.

We're trying to hit a happy medium between "very expedient but not profitable" and "very profitable but not expedient." In other words, I don't want to sell it all to the first Craigslist reader who can pony up $50 and a van; neither do I want to catalogue and grade everything and put ads in record-collecting or comic-collecting publications.

What will allow us to maximize our profit while minimizing our work?

(We're in NYC, in case that makes any difference to your answer.)

An ounce of prevention ...

EatTheWeak — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:07:57 -0800

What should I know about trademarks and copyrights before launching a web comics site? Hi AskMe!

I'm a couple weeks away from launching a web comics site. I've got my hosting, Wordpress theme, equipment and production plans all nailed down. What I don't know much about, however, are trademark and copyright issues. How do I secure my intellectual property?

I realize that by posting my work online, some measure of cutting and pasting and sharing is inevitable. Indeed, I can only hope my comics generate so much interest. What I'm concerned about, however, is maintaining control of my unique characters, illustrations, stories and designs.

I don't plan on making money initially, but if the site catches on, then I have every intention of selling merchandise such as t-shirts and coffee mugs and so on, as well as print spin-offs of the online comic. I've been cooking up a lot of these stories and characters for years, and I want to make sure that I retain ownership of them.

I live in Washington State, if that makes a difference. This is a very new venture for me, and I know next to nothing about copyright law. Any advice is appreciated. I want to move forward with this project as soon as possible, but I don't want to lose my investment because I forgot to cross a 't' or dot an 'i'.

All the men are dead. Bang.

ZachsMind — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:26:38 -0800

After reading Y: The Last Man I'm finding myself haunted by the questions posed by the series. Where might one go (preferably online) to find statistics or evidence of how many women currently excel in various industries? I'm particularly thinking about industries that would be important in times of crisis like power plants, shipping, infrastructure, law enforcement, etc.

The comic book series Y: The Last Man by Brian Vaughan (which wraps up its sixty-issue run shortly) poses a world without men, in which women would be unable to keep roads clear of cars, to keep any power plants up consistently, phone systems would go out, gas distribution would dry up, in some parts of the US poverty and starvation would get out of hand in a matter of weeks or months... Surely women would fare better than this comic book series speculates. Is this work an example of a male-centric point of view on a matriarchal society? Is there a way of collecting evidence that would either prove or disprove the claims made by this fictional work? Online information by reputable sources would be preferable.

What are the names of some fictional cities?

kbanas — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:14:11 -0800

I'll phrase this as succinctly as I can - I'm looking for fictional US cities featured in comic books. Can you help? Ok, I employ a particular naming scheme with my home computers. How I settled on this scheme, I couldn't really say, it just sort of came to me one day when I was trying to give all my devices unique identifiers that weren't totally pedestrian (like, you know, "MY LAPTOP", "MY DESKTOP", etc..)

Because I used to read comic books when I was a kid, and a teenager, and, ok, I still kind of read them today, I settled on the fictional cities that I remembered being featured therein.

For example, my laptop is named Metropolis (Superman) and my desktop is named Gotham (Batman). However, I took out a piece of paper and a pen last night to write a more complete list of possible monikers (because Christmas has gifted me with a couple new devices) and I found, much to my astonishment, that the list was actually pretty short.

In fact, the only other city I could come up with is Coast City. Hal Jordan lived there for awhile when he was the Green Lantern, and then it blew up.

So, I come to you, hive mind, to look for more of these, because, honestly, I know there have to be more, and I must be suffering some sort of immense brain blockage. Maybe I'm having an stroke, but that's another AskMe question altogether.

If my recollection serves, this wasn't big in the Marvel Universe - I think most of their heroes tended to reside in real places. Spider-Man, for example, kicks around NYC.

So, that said, I think there may be more a more plentiful bounty in the DC and (maybe) Dark Horse universes.

The only criteria I have is that there be a remote possibility I have heard of said places - I mean, I appreciate your friend self-published his own comic for two issues twenty years ago, but it would be encouraging to me if I'd actually heard of the fictionalized residence before.

US cities would be preferable, just because it would fit the Gotham City, Metropolis, Coast City mold, but if the list is too short to be useful, go hog wild.

And, while we're at it, if I have wildly over-estimated, and the list of fictionalized cities used in comic books is just not that long, feel free to expand your scope to pop culture in general - TV shows, books, movies, things like that.

I hope this makes sense. Maybe the stress from the holidays has finally taken its tool.

Where is this batman panel from?

John Kenneth Fisher — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:18:37 -0800

There's a Batman panel I have a clear, but possibly flawed memory of.. where is it from?

Likely written well after, but taking place shortly after The Killing Joke, I have a clear image of Barbara Gordon, in the hospital, talking to Batman (or possibly Bruce Wayne), realizing she'll never walk again, never be batgirl again, that this incident has derailed her entire planned existence, and essentially saying something to the effect of "I've heard when the police pulled up, you were standing there laughing with the man who did this to me, and I wanted to know.. were you laughing at me?" Where is this from? It can't just be in my head, can it?

Online webcomics - graphic novel or manga style

arcticwoman — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:05:59 -0800

Can webcomics fans point me to some good online manga or graphic novel type comics? Bonus points if the story is complete and I don't have to wait for an update every week (side question - why is it so hard to find webcomics that are completed?). Sex, violence, serious, silly, whatever, as long as the story is engaging and the artwork is well done. Some I have found so far that I like (although all are unfinished): Last Blood, No Rest for the Wicked, Rice Boy, Flipside.

Help me find some neat comic anthologies.

radiocontrolled — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:58:46 -0800

Help me find some neat comic anthologies. Probably because I grew up on Mad magazines, I'm a fan of comic anthologies like Drippytown, which feature a whole bunch of different artists in each issue. I'm partial to series' like this, because as a amateur comic creator, I like getting exposed to numerous artist's styles as it helps my own taste grow. I'm looking for hot tips on where to find similar series, either by ordering online or at my local comics stores (I live in Vancouver, BC).

Thanks!