ERIC'S "EAT FLOOR. HIGH FIBER." COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 6 #11 - November 2004

INTRODUCTION
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It's finally happened. The comic industry has completely taken me by surprise. Well, maybe I wouldn't go THAT far, but I am floored by the AVENGERS #500 DIRECTOR'S CUT. Bendis is amazing. In what can only be described as absolute genius, Bendis has destroyed a team that had been running for 500 issues in an effort to create something better. It's explosive. It's amazing. And it brings a tear to my eye. It's issues like that that make me love comics.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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You should've been able to see this one coming. This month's pick is the AVENGERS FINALE from Marvel. Kind of a denoument to the rousing tale that spanned issues #500-503 of the AVENGERS and closed out the title. Granted, the next title, NEW AVENGERS, is well on its way for November but the AVENGERS FINALE should be a neat way to close out what has been more than 40 years of comic stories.

SEP041724 AVENGERS FINALE #1 $3.50 retail.

THE BIZ
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PAT LEE DOES X-MEN/FF CROSSOVER

Marvel has grabbed the head boss of Dreamwave Productions to run the X-Men / Fantastic Four crossover series. A pretty gutsy move on Marvel's part considering Dreamwave grabbed the super-profitable Hasbro titles Transformers and GI Joe out from Marvel (Marvel had the license for those titles in the 80s and early 90s before Dreamwave grabbed em).

MOON KNIGHT ATTRACTS... WELL ... EVERYONE

Marvel's having to beat them off with a stick -- Brian Michael Bendis, Geoff Johns, David Finch... everyone wants to do the new Moon Knight series. Why? Because Moon Knight was supposed to be Marvel's Batman and it didn't happen. The last of his three ongoing series went the way of the dodo back in 1994, a full ten years ago. They all want in and from the House of Ideas the word is --- silence. Will Moon Knight make his way back into the forefront? No one knows.

TV, MOVIES AND COMICS ALL IN ONE

What's on the schedule for new TV shows and movies based on comics? How about EVERYTHING! Gaiman's Sandman series is being made into a movie called Death's Day, Global Frequency is a WB television show, Elektra is being released into theaters Jan. 14 2005, Green Lantern is being scripted for the big screen, Hellboy 2 has a story in development, and Smallville has Clark Kent finally flying in its Sept. 22 premiere. It's all happening now.

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

http://www.irxproductions.com/comics/oct04top100.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. (-) Wolverine The End

2. (8) Ultimate Fantastic Four

3. (1) Identity Crisis

4. (-) Green Lantern Rebirth

5. (3) Superman Batman

6. (2) Superman

7. (4) Amazing Spider-Man

8. (5) Astonishing X-Men

9. (-) Ultimate Spider-Man

10. (9) Ultimate X-Men

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (1) Transformers G1 Vol 3

2. (5) Transformers Energon

3. (3) Transformers War Within Vol 3

4. (2) Soulfire

5. (-) Pat Lees' Transformers GI Joe

6. (7) Army of Darkness Ashes2Ashes

7. (-) Transformers Universe #1

8. (-) Strangers in Paradise

9. (-) Fathom Dawn of War

10. (-) GI Joe Vs Transformers Vol. 2

THE GOOD STUFF
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DARK HORSE COMICS

THE INCREDIBLES #1 of 4

Based on the Pixar Animation Studios film by the same name coming out soon, The Incredibles mini-series from Dark Horse is an adaptation of the movie starring the super-strong Mr. Incredible who had to go into hiding after being sued by those he saved. Now, we need him back...
By Brad Bird, Ricardo Curtis, and Ramon Perez.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

JINGLE BELLE #1 of 4

Jingle Belle is the daughter of Santa Claus, but nobody believes it. In Paul Dini's comedic style, this four-issue mini-series follows the adventures of Belle in what promises to be an infinitely more funny style than Will Farrell's horrendous ELF movie from last year.
By Paul Dini, Jose Garabaldi, and Stephanie Gladden.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

DC COMICS

DETECTIVE COMICS #800

Wow. The numbers just keep going up, don't they? Funny how they work that way. Lots of bad guys escaped from Arkham during the whole "War Games" storyline including Killer Croc and the Mad Hatter. It's an entirely different Gotham City and the question as to whether Batman even stands a chance rises to the forefront. We all know the truth, though -- of course he stands a chance! DUH!!
By Andersen Gabrych, David Lapham, Pete Woods, Cam Smith, and Lapham.
48 pages. Ongoing series. $3.50 retail.

JLA: CLASSIFIED #1

A whole new JLA book. This one starts with Gorilla Grodd and his military milita raising trouble with the JLA nowhere to be found. Am I the only one who absolutely can't stand these idiotic "giant gorilla" tales that both DC and Marvel have running through their books?
By Grant Morrison, Ed McGuinness and Dexter Vines.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.95 retail.

THE QUESTION #1 of 6

Soon to be followed by it's smaller sequel series, THE ANSWER <insert laugh track here>, Vic Sage is a television journalist who has the ability to break very difficult stories because of his crime-fighting alter-ego, The Question! Maybe it's just me, but if I were in a career where I was asking questions all the time, I'd think about a better name for my alter-ego so I wouldn't get caught. Silly me but I think naming myself The SmartAss probably wouldn't be the best way to evade public persecution.
By Rick Veitch and Tommy Lee Edwards.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

THE INTIMATES #1

Jim Lee and Joe Casey come together to create a semi-interesting concept with great art; there's a school called the Seminary where teenagers go to learn how to be super-heroes. This series looks into what it would be like to be in such a school. It's kind of like a X-Men series where there's no action and just drama... hmm... maybe this isn't a very interesting concept after all.
By Joe Casey, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Sandra Hope, and Jim Lee.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.95 retail.

WILD GIRL #1 of 6

Rosa Torez is a 13-year old Doctor Doolittle. So, there's the idea. Here's the cliche madness that has to follow it: "her world is turned upside down ... she must figure out whom she can really trust... a wrong decision could destroy her whole family!" Whew. Need I say more?
By Leah Moore, John Reppion, Shawn McManus and J.H. Williams III.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

ANGELTOWN #1 of 5

Crime-novelist Gary Phillips have created a 5-issue mini-series about Los Angeles starring Nate Hollis who's a private eye. It's cliche but the artwork in combination with the storyline may just be enough to pull it off. "How cliche?" you ask? "Nate Hollis is a Los Angeles-based private eye who's cool as a frozen cucumber and tougher than a box of nails." Case closed.
By Gary Phillips and Shawn Martinbrough.
40 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

BURGLAR BILL #1 of 6

Hooo-weee. Burglar Bill is being chased by the good guys and the bad guys for nothing he did wrong outside of the burglaring thing. There's not much here for a story and the art ain't so hot either. However, Paul Grist has pulled stranger things out of his ass before...
By Paul Grist.
40 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

CHOLY AND FLYTRAP #1 of 4

More film noir action adventure stuff. Center City is the largest and most corrupt of the few remaining cities grasping to hang on to whatever little civilization they have left. Cholly and Flytrap are the anti-heroes as they "wisecrack their way through the gauntlet of threats like gunslingers of lore." Um... yeah. Right.
By Arthur Suydam.
48 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $4.95 retail.

THE DETONATOR #1

Hmmm... maybe. Frank Grace (hmmm... a Frank who likes to kill lots of bad guys, eh?) is a detonation expert who works for a company named Grindcorps. They rent a mine and wire his explosives to bring the mine down on top of him so they can... collect his life insurance? Ohhh...kay. Anyway, Frank makes it out alive and goes to Costa Rica for some quick plastic surgery (everyone needs a new nose if they can afford it) and then goes back after Grindcorps for revenge.
By Mike Baron, Mel Rubi, and Barbara Kaalberg.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.50 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

AVENGERS FINALE #1

The Avengers are now disassembled. The end of an era. The end of a series. Maybe it's just the end until the New Avengers is released later on in the month. Regardless, this is the epilogue where the Avengers meet for the final time... period.
By Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch, George Perez, Steve Epting, Jimmy Cheung, and a whole bunch of other people who've worked on Avengers through the years.
48 pages. One-shot (?). $3.50 retail.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #1

Here we go again... Captain America starts over all over again. Ed Brubaker makes his Marvel debut in an effort to take Captain America and make him a character that people actually want to read.
By Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

IRON MAN #1

Warren Ellis steps up to the plate to prepare to knock out a home run with the new Iron Man series. Never before has such a powerhouse writer been paired up with such a questionable superhero. This should be something to see.
By warren Ellis and Adi Granov.
48 pages. Ongoing series. $3.50 retail.

NEW THUNDERBOLTS #1 & #2

*Yawn* A new group arises from the ashes of the disassembled Avengers -- and they all happen to be villains of the Avengers. Go figure. This series has been rebooted more times than a PowerMac and it never gets a stranglehold on... well.. anything. Let's see how many issues they make it before they're cancelled again, shall we?
By Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

AVENGERS: EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES #1 & #2 of 8

Want to see how it all began? Really? Well, if reading Thor's horrendous prose, seeing Iron Man look like a walking trash can, and watch The Hulk try to talk like a normal human appeals to you, then this flashback series is the one for you. See how the Avengers started. And where it all went so very wrong right from the start.
By Joe Casey and Scott Kolins.
32 pages. 8-issue maxi-series. $3.50 retail.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #1 & #2

Paul Patterson is a student at Peter Parker's high school developing mutant powers and being picked up by Cerebro. It's inevitable that Spider-Man is going to get involved and Professor X has sent Wolverine to jump on the task. Ooooh.... rivalries abound!
By Robert Kirkman and Scott Kolins.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.25 retail.

SPIDER-MAN: INDIA #1

Gack. It's a reinterpretation of Spider-Man. Think of it as a "what-if Spider-Man happened in India?" Get ready as stereotypes abound and an Indian teenager named Pavitr Prabhakar is gifted with the abilities to make wisecracks and wear skin- tight long underwear.
by Jeevan J. Kang, Suresh Seetharaman and Sharad Devarajan.
32 pages. Ongoing series (?). $2.99 retail.

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FINAL NOTES
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November's shaping up to be a big month and maybe it's just me but I'm feeling a huge rise in comic book popularity. The industry has certainly been on a heck of an upward climb in the last few years but things seem to be speeding up even more. This is great news. The comic book industry has long been the undervalued pop art of American culture and now it seems that wherever you turn, they're there. And we'll be here once again next month to let you know what's going down. As always, remember, if you can't live without your comics, buy some more.

And, as always, thank you for your business!

Eric Jacobson