Hey, remember that Shortpacked! Book 4 Kickstarter project from earlier in the year? Well, the Big Ticket item was appearing as a seasonal employee. That time has come.
The first panel today features Cholma, who’s been a reader for so long that he’s also become a friend! Dude drove me to my wedding. One of the best people you’ll meet.
oh shi
I predict she will be fired. More ‘hope’ though.
I’m personally hoping for her to unintentionally kill Snkrs and give everyone an excuse to get rid of her.
…too dark?
…possibly too psychic…
But that sounds like that would lead to scapegoating Fuckface…
not so much hoping as i am expecting. i also expect it to be a carrie style prank.
they’re all gonna laugh at you!
Awwww Malaya made her first real Frenemy.
Yep! She’s starting to fit in real well with the rest of the crew… ^^
Any chance we can have the storyline name sub Snkrs for Malaya?
Oh Cheese, am I about to get hazed by Ultra Car?! Yikes. I foresee a pie in my face soon anytime now.
At least it’s not a frozen sweet pickle pie. Pain AND horrible taste? I’ll pass.
Dump Malaya, keep Cholma and give him Fuckface.
Maybe I can replace Faz!
(note to self: work on graphs, charts, and PowerPoint skills)
don’t forget to speak in third person.
Intermittently.
Suddenly I see dueling sitcom hijinks machinations suddenly colliding like derelict locomotives set at full throttle at each other. There may be survivors of the carnage…but who knows how many?
You beat what my comment was going to be, so this is my new hope for the storyline.
Is it wrong I want to live in a world where Malaya and Ultra Car are a couple?
But think of the offspring…
The children will look something like this:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_vi9ZZD8wuI/TVziQD_obmI/AAAAAAAACI0/OYOI3kzjkWo/s1600/Steamborg.jpg
Spider legs? Does this mean that Ultra Car is also Spider Car?
Hahaha, no! Silly PM, Ultra Car is really Doc Octopus. Amber is Spider Car. :p
Somehow I don’t think Stan Lee would approve of this.
if he can approve a doc ock marries aunt may story, he can approve anything.
Stan Lee must be getting too old if he allows that sort of thing.
Speaking of crazy shit that Stan Lee approves, does anyone know if that Heroman thing was any good?
@Plasma Mongoose, that happened in 1974: http://www.spidervillain.com/SpiderManCovers/Amazing/ASM131/ASM131.htm
Hadn’t worked my way that far into the potential future yet.
This is the scariest pairing since Mike and your mum.
Does “haze” mean “run people over repeatedly in the parking lot?”
Or leave them in faraway lands.
Polybag them and then sell them on eBay as “Mint in box.”
I would love to see Malaya’s reaction to a good “Amazoning”.
That sounds dirty. Now I want to see it, too.
Yeah, Amazon her.
Amazon her hard.
Is that like a Brazilian?
I was going to elaborate on the relationship between and the Amazon river basin but the innuendo and double entendre avalanch would get me sooo blacklisted – so I leave that to the twisted imaginations of our dear readers.
I’m kind of hoping it means skin Malaya alive and use said skin as a hand puppet.
Why?
“Because.”
Malaya, denied by Jacob!
Oh Ultra Car, you can do better than Malaya ):
Is it wrong that this makes me kinda like Malaya?
IF she can pull off a scheme so twisted that Mike has a boner for a week, this might make her more popular…IF.
Same here! I mean, I hate her (not to the extent that some people do. I mean, I don’t want her around to ruin people’s lives, but I don’t want her dead and unhappy either) but this pairing makes sense and if i classify her antics more as mean-spirited hijinks, I’ll forgive her more often.
Same here! I mean, I hate her (not to the extent that some people do. I mean, I don’t want her around to ruin people’s lives, but I don’t want her dead and unhappy either) but this pairing makes sense and if i classify her antics more as mean-spirited hijinks, I’ll forgive her more often.
Huh. I thought it was Dan DiDio
Panel 2 Malaya is adorable.
So now she’s taking Mike’s place?
Ugh, just get rid of Malaya. I can’t stand her character.
Have I mentioned that I hate Malaya AND Ultracar?
Checking back in – yup, Malaya is still my favourite character in this comic. Proceed.
High-five, my good malaya-appreciating dude.
Hey, didn’t your wife start out as a reader to?
The secret is the people who stalk him most get to be in his life! You should try to win the prize too!
(kidding)
I actually don’t mind Malaya that much.
She reminds me of Mike if he was a girl and smiled.
Mike’s assholeness is usually deserved to some degree, though never the extent he dishes it out in. He likes to really drive the lesson home while having fun being a dick at the same time.
Malaya is just self-entitled and doesn’t care about anyone else. Mike’s proven that he does care about people, just in strange ways.
I’m diggin ulta car’s headlight in the last panel.
Seriously, who reads this and doesn’t go “I want to see what happens next!”? Malaya is a character who exists to make other people’s lives difficult. She is fully aware of this fact.
Nooooo!
Sigh, this is not a team-up I like to see.
I honestly love Malaya. This is awesome.
And suddenly Malaya’s employment there seems to make perfect sense. This should be fun.
Count to Malaya feeding the hamster to her pet lizard in 3… 2…
Here’s hoping. I would love to see Amber kicking the living shit out of her.
Or better yet, Amber would be too upset to respond, and this would invoke the Wrath of Mike – “Only I’m allowed to torment her” – and Malaya learns what a true bastard can do.
This – nuff said.
How does Ultra-Car move his brows?
That seems like exactly the sort of thing that Joe would senselessly waste animatronics on.
Though that does raise the question of why Ultracar can’t transform into a humanoid robot. Joe once rebuilt him into a completely new chassis; that would have been the perfect opportunity.
I once proposed a strip in which UC attempts to transform ala the recent version of KNIGHT RIDER–and he winds up a 1950s stepside turnip truck.
Why aren’t Malaya and Mike together? 0_o
I mean behind the whole Malaya-is-a-lesbian thing
Because Mike has standards. And is out of nickels right now.
He spent them all on your mum.
“No. Because I’m also better than you.“
You have a guest strip over at Questionable Content, but there is no link. Why is there no link?
I kept on looking at your Marten & wondering why Chung-Li was in the comic (okay, I mean Ken). I need help working out these things early in the morning.
I really, really, really hate Malaya.
I notice Ultra Car didn’t agree to their team up. Hopefully tommorow will be her being pushed out and hit with a pie.
I have a feeling that Malaya’s and Ultracar’s definitions of hazing aren’t going to line up too well.
Trainee looks like Dan Didio. Maybe this will be his future once the new 52 crashes and burns.
I wonder how many reports of dramatically increased sales it’s gonna take for people to start thinking maybe their individual opinions don’t always match the consensus.
Yeah, okay, it’s very sad that Superman wears pants now and has an attitude, but you know what? The previous Superman was going to go away anyway, in a few years. Nobody buys comics. And unless things change, somehow, that’s an inescapable fate. The comic book industry was the Titanic, and a “crash and burn” just changes it into the Hindenberg. It’s all the same, in the end.
The only way out is to offer comics digitally, on day of release and with ease. And that is the most important thing Didio has done, and what he’ll be remembered for.
Agree & disagree. The new 52 is a gimmick, if it sticks around for the long haul, is questionable.
I think Marvel did something similar with the Ultimate comics outright replacing their main series (if memory serves). Then they brought those back & had two universes.
DC might stick with this, or switch back, once the gimmick loses its novelty. Too early to call it either way.
Ok, you can’t just disagree with numbers, unless you’re insane. It has nothing to do with personal views.
The fact is the new 52 DC Comics are selling. This is just pure math. DC sales have spiked because of the rebranding, so it’s working.
And no, Marvel never intended for their standard universe to be replaced with the Ultimate Universe. It was always two separate universes, I remember when Ultimate comics first hit.
See, I’m not arguing the numbers. I’m wishing certain numbers would go down (say…Suicide Squad).
But.
I don’t think it’s wise to make a call one way or another until we’ve had at least five or six months to go on. A whole story-arc or two. Of course people are buying comics now. They’ve had the hell marketed out of them as the Hot New Thing. They offered oodles of #1′s that sure look like handy jumping on points that people are going to try. Heck, a lot of folks went and bought every single new #1, knowing full well they wouldn’t like ‘em all, but wanting to give each one a fair shake. If those same people are still buying as many books in half a year’s time, then aces, successful reboot, drinks and high fives all around. If not, well, hopefully they’ll throw away what doesn’t work and build on what does.
Short term, it’s a good move for DC. Much like killing off Batman, might have increased sales. Long term, the changes might hurt, or they might not. Too early to tell, but I’m just saying they could.
Events & gimmicks boost sales temporarily, but don’t always stick for the long haul. This change, might eventually be reversed on this sort of reasoning.
Everything in mainstream comics is a gimmick for making money. EVERYTHING. Without exception.
The Ultimate universe was never going to replace the regular Marvel U. There were rumors to that effect, because people assumed there was no other reason to start a rebooted universe, but it turned out that the real reason was to sell more comics.
To sell more
toyscomics, you say?On the print side of things at the comic stores I have seen, comic books make up far less of the store than they used to and the baperback format is increasing the new norm, at least in Australia.
@PM, this happened in back in 1974!: http://www.spidervillain.com/SpiderManCovers/Amazing/ASM131/ASM131.htm
The things one does to piss off Spiderman…yeeek!
That makes that one Robot Chicken sketch so much funnier.
Granted, my local comic book store is ONLY one store and may not be indicative, but from a poll conducted by the owner, interest in digital comics seems to be tepid:
DC announced that starting in September, all of their Super-hero comics will be available on the same day in a digital format. Would you be interested in getting your comics via computer or device?
No, paper is the way to go (74%, 119 Votes)
Yes, but only if they are cheaper (21%, 33 Votes)
Yes (5%, 8 Votes)
Now, I remember the big thing about e-books was that they were going to be cheap and convenient… but I usually find that an e-book and a paperback are about the same price, and a paperback is still better in my hands. The only reason I DID finally start buying e-books was that I have a tiny house, and am slowly running out of shelving room.
The e-reader version should cost less as there is no printing, paper costs involved.
But aint most e-readers like the Kindle monochrome still?
Yes, but if that poll was conducted by a comic shop owner, presumable polling his own customers, what would you expect?
The goal of same-day (reasonable price) digital isn’t to get folks who are already buying comics buying comics. We do that already. We schlep over to the comic shop, where the owner knows us by name and keeps our pulls in a folder, every Wednesday. We’re aces.
Ten-year-old kids who can’t drive? Folks who don’t have a comic shop in their town? People who just plain aren’t comfortable setting foot in a comic shop? There’s a lot of those, and a lot of those are folks who’d like to buy comics. Making them available digitally makes them available to people who can’t get them otherwise.
It’s one of the myriad reasons that I’m baffled that this reboot didn’t try to make the DCnU line up more with the DCAU. Aside from that being the version of the Justice League that those just entering their target demographic of 18-34 would have grown up with and would recognize, if they’d made the core books a little more…well, kid friendly, I guess. In the same way that JLU was–never childish, still dealing with death and sex and danger (there was a lot of sex in the JLU for a kid’s show). Just never in an overt, gratuitous way. If they’d made their core books more like that, offered them up same-day-digital, and maybe pushed some iTunes-style gift-cards to buy said digital comics, they’d have oodles of thirteen-year-old kids buying their books right now and growing up to be the new audience.
But…eh. Whatever. Marketing to the exact same audience as before works too, I guess.
The DCAU, which I loved and still do, worked in part because it could be a distillation of what was good about the comics without being subject to all of the same demands of scheduling and marketing (like completely arbitrary Yearly Crossover EVENTS). This isn’t to say it didn’t labor under its own set of limits, like Broadcast Standards and Practices, the Bat-Embargo, etc etc… but just for starters, the writing pool for most of those series was a LOT smaller and easier to wrangle. And there was, in essence, only a single “book” running at a time.
If you tried not to merely re-import certain elements (like Harley Quinn), but copy it over entire, I think a lot of things wouldn’t translate well and a lot of the charm would be lost. It’s like trying to turn your favorite little restaurant into a nation-wide franchise.
Meant to say/add:
“and without all of the cruft that naturally accumulates over decades and dozens of writers, some of them with very different ideas about the characters and the direction their stories should take.”
No, you make a valid point. The DCAU was just lightning in a bottle, labor-of-love type stuff where no writer went in who wasn’t pulling their weight. (Seriously, there is only one bad episode of JLU, and everything else is stellar).
But if DC’s PTB were insisting that the reason for Babs back as Batgirl, etc were because they wanted to go back to the “iconic” versions that people recognized, why not use the the DCAU’s Justice League Line-up. The Trinity plus John Stuart as Green Lantern and Hawkgirl of the unconfusing past (who, unlike any other version of Hawkgirl, is NOT defined by her relationship with Hawkman). And a Flash. Two women on the core team? Aces.
But line-ups aside, I still don’t understand why so many books are pushing the envelope with violence, gore, and sex. Yes, those things sell, but they’re not the ONLY things that sell, and by marketing almost exclusively to 18+, DC manages to miss out on the wonderful opportunity of converting wee little ones into DC-lovers. At least Marvel has “Marvel Adventures”–fun, regular comic-type stories that don’t talk down to the people reading them.
“I wonder how many reports of dramatically increased sales it’s gonna take for people to start thinking maybe their individual opinions don’t always match the consensus.”
Thanks for your opinion, Joe Quesada two months after OMD.
Alternatedly: Dan Didio two months into Infinite Crisis!
NEWS FLASH
Comics industry can spike sales with gimmicky events
WHO KNEW
Like I said, everything done by mainstream comics is a gimmick to boost sales.
so, why does offering comics digitally require a reboot?
I don’t think I actually said that was necessary.
However, if you’re going to do a big push for new readers, I really don’t think asking them to buy issue #780 is going to be as effective as asking them to buy issue #1. You have to convince people that this is a starting point. The easiest way to do that is to MAKE it a starting point. (Of course, DC’s ability to make starting points varied drastically across their titles.)
I also don’t have a huge hate-on for reboots. Reboots happen. And if you want something to survive decades and decades, it’s going to have to evolve. Yes, it sucks for older collectors like me (and presumably) you, who’ve sunk a lot of time and money into an older continuity. But, let’s face it, catering to people like us at the expense of a newer generation is what put comic books in the horrid place they are to begin with. Increasingly older people are a dwindling market. And, frankly, Crisis on Infinite Earths and its fallout was one of the best things to happen to DC Comics. And outside the comics themselves, another best thing was Batman: The Animated Series. Both of those were reboots. I can’t use “reboot” as a pejorative. Confidentially, I don’t think the New 52 Reboot was strong enough. Should have actually just started everything over. What we got feels a bit too much like hedging.
But I do think they’re a smart thing to do right now. Especially during a line-wide #1-issue digital push. With the comic book industry in the state it’s in, half-measures are not a bright idea.
I’d have rather, if they had to do a reboot, instead of Flashpoint arbitrarily resetting reality in a way that leads to them trying to mesh disparate element together as they are they used the fact they’ve got a multiverse again, crossed over their main universe with a new continuity and at the end announced they’d be switching over to the new reality
When I was growing up I had to start in the middle. Comics were in the 200s, 300s and some like Thor were in the 400s. Even reading my brother’s old comics from the 70′s I had to start in the 90′s and 100s. I had no problem jumping in because each story was an access point with its own beginning middle and end.
It’s the execution that makes comics accessible to new readers. Simple easy to read-stories done in three issues or less. But in today’s world of padding books are hard to get into because it takes 8-12 issues to finish a story. I could finish watching a whole season of a TV shows by the time a comic storyline finishes these days. That’s too slow in a fast-paced world where comics compete with internet, movies and TV for
Sure Didio made e-comics. But like HD, it boils down to content. Sure it’s flashy, but there’s no substance to keep the customer compelled to continue buyinig the product.
Today’s reboots also fail because as soon as the secondary creative team comes on a book after the acclaimed first team ends its run, the sales decline. It’s been the cycle of the business since 1997. And usually the secondary team is inexperienced and doesn’t get the guidance it needs from editorial on how to write consistent charactes, develop a “Voice” or a sense of style unique to themselves. I’ve seen this happen with the Heroes Reborn, Heroes Return, and DC’s One Year Later titles like Flash Vol.3 (Bart) and Wonder Woman Vol. 3. Every time the series changes a creative team it leads to a complete collapse that leads to another reboot. A vicious cycle that repeats itself because no one in editorial understands the basics structure of comicbook storytelling. The goal in a comic is to get em’ in, get them to finish, and leave them wanting the next issue in 21 pages. Not pad things out for months on end and come to a weak finish.
Oh hell… is Malaya trying to be the new Mike? Because if so, she’s going to fail so bad… Frankly, I kinda wanna see Mike destroy her.
Did Ultra Car ever haze Malaya? If not, why not? There must be a plan here…
I believe that UltraCar’s disinterest in humans requires them to attract his attention before he starts hassling them. Thus Malaya could have avoided this simply by ignoring him first, which based on her unawareness of his name, appears to be a possibility.
I hereby demand that Hasbro should create three slovenly Ex-Decepticon Mercenaries who fight alongside the Autobots for pay, and they should unofficially be called “the Wino-Bots”.
They should be named Thunderbird, Mad Dog, and Night Train.
That is all.
So what’s with the notebooks??