ERIC'S "NOT SO HALLOWEENIE" COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 6 #10 - October 2004

INTRODUCTION
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October is here and although we usually have some sort of focus on the special holiday that all Christians love to denounce -- Halloween. This year... not so much. The comic industry has all but forgotten the holiday of horror except for DC Comics which is bringing George Romero in to kick some horror butt.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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The big news this month is the return of Hal Jordan. Love him or hate him, there's no denying that the "death" (and subsequent rise as Sceptre) of Hal Jordan rocked the DC Universe to its core. Though probably not as dramatic as his demise, this month, Hal Jordan returns to the DCU as himself, not some shadowy spiritual alter-ego. Once you've read comics long enough you begin to realize, no one stays dead for long.

AUG040383 GREEN LANTERN REBIRTH #1 of 6 $2.95 retail

**50%-OFF AT HTTP://WWW.COMICSNOW.COM**

THE BIZ
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ULTIMATE CRAP!

So, Marvel's let it leak that the next big push in the Ultimate Universe will be happening in December with the release of... Ultimate Namor?! Ugh. Man, I don't know how many times I have to say it, but the comic book companies just don't seem to realize when it's time to let a bad title die and stay dead. Check out our GOOD STUFF section for the death of Thor with issue #85 this month. Thank God!

SUPREMELY SLOW

Finally, the word is out -- J. Michael Straczynski will not be "relaunching" Supreme Power but rather writing it from issue #12 and going onward. Rumor has it he will be FINALLY focusing on the team-oriented ideas behind the series. I love Supreme Power, but it's taken a REALLY long time to get the series to go anywhere. Maybe this'll kick it up a bit.

HEROES OF TOMORROW... OR MAYBE THE NEXT DAY

Top Cow ran a contest a few months back where writers could submit their comic ideas in hopes of being chosen as the next big thing. Well, the contest is over and 27-year old Drew Melbourne from New York won with his idea HEROES OF TOMORROW. Melbourne describes the story as a "Smallville meets Terminator 2 meets the Justice League" kind of storyline. Lord knows I'm intrigued.

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions. Download the September 2004 Top-100 PDF file (it's 8KB!) at:

http://www.irxproductions.com/comics/sep04top100.pdf

It's Comics NOW!'s very own Top-10 and Top-100 lists. This list is based on the internal sales quantities of the titles with Premiere being the big guns who pay the extra bucks to be listed first in the ordering system: Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. The Independent list is everyone else, all those pea-shooters who no one really pays attention to... or do they?

Here's an example of how to read the format:

1. (3) The Amazing Eric Comic

"1." - the place of the title in the list this month

"(3)" - where the title was LAST month ("-" if it wasn't)

the title - this one should be pretty obvious

TOP 10 PREMIERE COMICS

1. (4) Identity Crisis

2. (3) Superman

3. (6) Superman Batman

4. (8) Amazing Spider-Man

5. (7) Astonishing X-Men

6. (9) Spider-Man

7. (-) Strange

8. (2) Ultimate Fantastic Four

9. (10) Ultimate X-Men

10. (-) Avengers

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (1) Transformers G1 Vol 3

2. (2) Soulfire

3. (-) Transformers War Within Vol 3

4. (3) Transformers Micromasters

5. (4) Transformers Energon

6. (5) Youngblood Bloodsport

7. (8) Army of Darkness Ashes2Ashes

8. (6) GI Joe

9. (-) Youngblood Imperial

10. (7) Youngblood Genesis

THE GOOD STUFF
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DC COMICS

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1 of 6

It begins... again. Hal Jordan is being brought back from the dead... well... almost dead. For the last few years, Jordan's soul has been trying to redeem itself as the Spectre. Finally, the great powers that be at DC realized that the whole "Spectre Hal Jordan" deal was just lame and that it's time to bring back everyone's favorite Green Lantern. Here we go.
By Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.
40 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

SOLO #1

It's a new idea from DC and kind of a spinoff of a few old ones. New creative teams every few issues get to decide which characters they want to use in this title and then create them in whatever genre they choose to. The first issue will bring in Tim Sale, artist extradonaire, using Catwoman in a kind of noir-looking setup. This could bring promising creativity to the DC Universe.
By Tim Sale, Brian Azzarello, Jeph Loeb, Darwyn Cooke, and Diana Schutz.
48 pages. Bimonthly ongoing series. $3.95 retail.

TOE TAGS featuring George Romero #1

Romero comes to comics. Best known for his zombie films: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, Romero's coming to comcis to bring us Toe Tags, a series of horror mini-series. The first one's going to be very creatively named "The Day of Death." Romero has a good eye for film, but sometimes the transition from film to paper is more than a little difficult. We shall see.
By George Romero, Tommy Castillo, and Rodney Ramos.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.95 retail.

THE AUTHORITY: REVOLUTION #1

They're baaaacck. The Authority is now settling into its role as the governing body of the U.S. after deciding in the COUP D'ETAT storyline that American leaders are not worth of, well, leading. The question is, will the citizens of America deal well without their inalienable rights or is a second American revolution on the way? Well, looking at the title of the comic definitely makes me think it's time for some super-butt-whuppin'.
By Ed Brubaker, Dustin Nguyen, and Richard Friend.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.95 retail.

OCEAN #1 of 6

Warren Ellis' new 6-issue mini-series brings sci-fi to recent discoveries about one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, which has an ocean beneath its hard, icy crust. Ellis suggests that the key to life on Earth -- and possibly extinction -- lies within that very ocean in this series.
By Warren Ellis with Chris Sprouse and Karl Story.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

ASTRO CITY: A VISITOR'S GUIDE

All but completely giving up on actually writing ongoing issues of the popular series, Kurt Busiek has once again fallen prey to writing single one-shot specials. This one will give you everything you need to know but didn't really care about in Astro City with guides to the neighborhood, restaurant recommendations, and more. If this was AAA it would make sense, but as a comic, well, color me confused.
By Kurt Busiek with art by Brent Anderson, Ben Oliver, George Perez, Carlos Pacheco, Dave Gibbons, Michael Golden, Jason Pearson, and various other no-namers.
48 pages. One-shot special. $5.95 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

TALE OF TELLOS #1 of 3

Remember a couple of years ago there was this really cool fantasy comic about this land of mystical creatures and everything that happened in it but it all copped out when at the end of the comic, a little kid woke up and apparently the whole thing was happening in his head? (e.g., the biggest writing cop-out that even my sixth grade English teacher wouldn't let me do) Well, it's back.
By Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau, Kelly Yates & Steven Bird.
32 pages. 3-issue mini-series. $3.50 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

SABRETOOTH #1 & 2 of 5

The U.S. military is sent after Sabretooth when it appears that he killed an entire island of innocent civilians. Of course, it's hard to give a damn about one of the most evil bad guys in the Marvel Universe so it's sort of a strange story concept. Ah, well... leave it to the House of Ideas to run out of good ones.
By Daniel Way, Bart Sears and Paolo Rivera.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

TOMB OF DRACULA #1 of 6

In a desperate attempt to figure out how to sell comics that star everyone's favorite half-vampire vampire killer, Blade, Marvel has decided to release a mini-series about a group of vampire slayers dead set (pun intended) on killing the Vampire King, Dracula, as well as Blade. Will it suck? Well, the track record does not bode well.
By Robert Rodi, Bruce Jones and Jamie Tolagson.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

THOR #85 -- FINAL ISSUE

In this issue, Thor dies... yet no one really cares. Once again trying to sell comics, Marvel has canceled Thor with the intention of killing him off in issue #85. I'm buying this issue just so I can read the end of the absolutely obnoxious speeches in verse that have plagued so many good titles over the years. Die, Thor, Die!
By Michael Avon Oeming and Andrea Di Vito.
32 pages. Not-so-ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

GIVE ME A TIP?
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Thanks to all for your support!

FINAL NOTES
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And that's all there is to say about all of that. The issue is all wrapped up and I didn't vomit treacherous zombie puke even once in the writing of this month's newsletter. What a shame. At any rate, we'll be back here once again next month, ready to rip open a new one and see what kind of stuff we can smack-talk about our favorite industry.

As always, remember, if you love something, set it free, and if it comes back to you, beat it on the head over and over again with a large salami to guarantee that it never leaves again... dammit!

And, as always, thank you for your business!

Eric Jacobson