Trying to Stay Afloat

I walked by the shop in my building the other day, and Mike, one of the owners, was inside. I knocked on the locked door, and Mike let me in. We chatted about the state of stores in this new normal of pandemic closures. It was...a sad talk.

He told me that he started grouping first issues of different companies into large bags and selling them at discounted prices. He said, "You may like this one," and handed me an indie set of first issues.

It was thick and cost only fifteen bucks, and seeing as how I want to keep them in business, and he already knows me and my tastes, I bought it right then.

This was the contents:

I haven't had the opportunity to read all of them, as I'd wanted to before I wrote this up. But hell, for now this could be some content.

I did peruse the first few pages of Aftershock's The Man who Fucked Up Time, and it looks very good.

Coronavirus Attacks Comic Industry

I mean...dang.

I'm looking forward to the new X-O, and Tyler Boss's new Dead Dog's Bite.

Anyway...

Bad Idea Soon to be Among Us

I've been watching since the February 6th announcement of the mechanics of the Bad Idea movement, if you want to call it that, with excitement and anticipation.

The former Valiant executives are starting their own new comic publishing company and are planning on distributing to originally just 20 stores, but it looks like the number is up to 50 for May's release or Matt Kindt's ENIAC.

There should be a history written about the February 2020 BI announcement's ups and downs, about the madness that overcame a portion of comic fans. I may even write up some of my own feelings, as I'm on the side of total excitement, even if I can't get any books. I'm all in.

"Bathroom Face"

This may be a little gross.

I used to "sell" old comics of mine in my classroom, but not for money, for fake, earned Sherbux. Upon hearing this, my mother would purchase Ebay lots of comics on the cheap and send them to me, to add to my market supply.

Anyway, I occasionally take them to my boy when I go pick him up from daycare, and recently I brought him a SHINY issue:

Is it hard for you to read the title? It was/is for me. Stygmata is the name, and Entity was the publisher. The cover is some kind of gold foil, and after thumbing through the first few pages, the saturated watercolors made me thing it should be okay for the car ride home for my son.

The title turns out to be more religious than I was thinking, and despite the hero/main character, Stygmata, his appearance had my three-and-a-half year convinced he was a badguy.

Since then, after noticing the, er, early-career work of the artists and the generic xenomorph actual badguy, my son and I joke that this dude has only one face: pooping face:

Over and over, pooping face.

New LCS in the Building

A new comic shop opened up in the building I live in:

Atomic Basement is the name, and they opened up on New Year's Day. I went by a few times, and brought my son in the next day. They were giving away some neat stuff on opening day:

The owner, Mike, is also in the comic-production and publishing business, and has written for comics for years. Recently, he and his people wrote, drew, and published a few different series, the following was gifted to me on opening day:

It's an interesting, screwball cowboys/interdimensional shifting-type story, even if the art borders on advanced-comix-style.

It's very exciting to live above a comic shop. My son already loves it---they give him stuff each time he goes.