ERIC'S "THE MONTH OF THE MINI-SERIES" COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 7 #4 - April 2005

INTRODUCTION
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It seems as though all of the premiere comic book companies got together and decided that April 2005 would be the Month of the Mini-Series. It's not unusual for each of the big guys to release one or two mini-series a month, but this month there are no less than 17 new mini-series coming out from Dark Horse, DC, Image, and Marvel. Really. Isn't that a little much? Even more frightening is the fact that very few are releasing any new titles to speak of. I guess the mini-series is where the money is, eh?

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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This month's pick is ... surprise... a mini-series!!! However, it's one where the original series it stems from has a whole lot more street cred than your average book -- Rising Stars. Rising Stars Voices of the Dead covers the one of the group that was able to see and speak with dead people; kind of a lame super-power and it made him a little nutty a lot of the time. At any rate, no one has really heard Lionel Zerb's story until now -- he opened a Ghost Interpretation clinic to help people who's houses were haunted. Instead, he falls into a huge mess with a sprititual power that threatens to take his life.

FEB051638 Rising Stars Voice of the Dead #1 $2.99 retail

** 50%-OFF AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM **

THE BIZ
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TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE AGAIN!!!

I know I've mentioned this before but a live-action version of the Transformers movie is in the works and it's going to be done with photo-realistic computer graphics. Naturally, I'm terrified after seeing SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF MY A-HOLE where the director truly believed the whole thing looked real. Come on! Wing Commander III did a far better job of a completely nonexistant soundstage way back in the mid-1990s and even Chris Roberts realized that with Wing Commander IV they had to use real sets. At any rate, Transformers is shaping up and I'm excited and more than a little bit nervous.

GHOST RIDER RETURNS... FINALLY!

There's been discussion of the movie... discussion of the comic... discussion... discussion... discussion. Can we please have some action? I mean, I'll all about philosophy but at some point some one's gotta do something, right? Garth Ennis is the man who's stepping in to bring back Ghost Rider to the Marvel Knights imprint. This is one of those characters where it's been tried over and over again to bring them back, but if anyone can do it, it's Ennis.

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions. Download the March 2005 Top-100 PDF file (it's 8KB!) at: http://www.irxproductions.com/comics/mar05top100.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. (8) Ultimate Spider-Man

2. (3) Superman Batman

3. (1) Ultimate Fantastic Four

4. (2) Ultimates 2

5. (5) Superman

6. (6) New Avengers

7. (4) Astonishing X-Men

8. (-) Secret War

9. (10) Green Lantern Rebirth

10. (7) Amazing Spider-Man

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (7) GI Joe

2. (-) Army of Darkness

3. (8) GI Joe Reloaded

4. (-) Fathom

5. (-) Aspen Seasons Spring 2005

6. (-) Garth Ennis 303

7. (-) Simpsons

8. (-) Blade of Kumori

9. (-) DeFex

10. (-) Breakdown

THE GOOD STUFF
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DARK HORSE COMICS

STAR WARS: EPISODE III #1 - 4

It begins. The final movie in the beginning trilogy of what may have been the most powerful blockbuster science-fiction film of all time comes out in May, and in order to prepare everyone for what's coming, Dark Horse has decided to ruin it by releasing the comic adaptation early (just kidding). It's the comic based on the movie... and it starts here.
By Miles Lane, Doug Wheatley, Chris Chuckry and Dave Dorman.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail each.

DC COMICS

BATMAN: JEKYLL & HYDE #1 of 6

It's kind of surprising that no one at DC has really done a story like this before -- an indepth investigation into Two Face and what it is that makes him capable of harboring two very different personalities. The neat thing about this series is that Jae Lee will draw the first 3 issues while Sean Phillips will draw the final 3.
By Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee, and Sean Phillips.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

DAY OF VENGEANCE #1 of 6

A continuation of The Countdown special from last month, the Spectre has vowed to destroy all magic so Ragman and the Enchantress have teamed up to stop him. If I remember correctly, the Ragman was a Jewish superhero that DC tried to launch a number of years ago. I guess we'll see if he's had a bit of a makeover since the last time I read about him...
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.50 retail.

THE OMAC PROJECT #1 of 6

Yet another spinoff from The Countdown special, the OMAC Project. The OMAC project is headed up by the leader of the spy organization with the incredible cheesy name, Checkmate, but no one else there knows that OMAC is a highly powerful spy satellite created to keep watch on all of the planet's superheroes. Batman teams up with another to figure out what's at the bottom of all this.
By Greg Rucka, Jesus Saiz, and Jose Ladronn.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.50 retail.

SEVEN SOLDIERS -- KLARION THE WITCH BOY #1 of 4
ZATANNA #1 of 4

The Seven Soldiers storylines continue as Klarion gets drafted into the Submissionary Order and decides to rebel because he's a whiny little brat while Zatanna takes part in a reality TV show (The Surreal Life 6, anyone?) that has her suffering through a detox program.
By Grant Morrison, Frazer Irving, Ryan Sook, and Mick Gray.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail each.

CITY OF TOMORROW #1 of 6

So, a renegade billionaire (not the Virgin president dude) built an island called Columbia off the coast of California ten years ago... in this comic (isn't Columbia a real country?) Anyway, rich people were supposed to move there and be waited on by robots who got infected with a virus and decided to become mastermind criminals. Now, Ed Foyle (the billionaire who started this mess) and his son Tucker have decided to put a stop to it with some help from Tucker's Navy SEAL buddies.
By Howard Chaykin.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

MNEMOVORE #1 of 6

"Nem-oh-vore?" At any rate, this comic tries to take a spin on the old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers that was an analogy for what would happen if people allowed communism to infect their minds. That's probably a bit deeper than I'm allowed to go in a comic book newsletter, however this comic purports to be the Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the ADD generation. Kaley Markowic is an Olympic athlete who's career is brought to a standstill when she's severely injured and loses a lot of her memory. Suddenly, she can't remember her friends or family and a monster appears to try and damage the memories of her family and friends... it's a really strange storyline with a funny name, really.
By Hans Rodionoff and Ray Fawkes with Mike Huddleston.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

DEATH, JR. #1 of 3

This mini-series asks the following inane question: What would junior high school be like if your dad was the Grim Reaper? And so, it begins. "DJ" has to survive school and finds some strange friends to do so with including an armless, legless foreign exchange student who lives in a jar and a girl who bleeds when she gets nervous. I don't think this is going to be a really deep comic but might be good for some laughs.
By Gary Whitta, Ted Naifeh, and Sach Steffel.
48 pages. 3-issue mini-series. $4.99 retail.

IRON GHOST #1

You'd think that World War II would have had all of the possible stories written about it by now. It's more than 60 years since the end of the war, yet every industry is still obsessed by it -- comics, video games, movies... At any rate, here's another one: the Iron Ghost kills German soldiers who committed crimes that would normally have gone unpunished. Yup, that about sums it up.
By Chuck Dixon, Sergio Cariello and Flint Hentry.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.95 retail.

NIGHT CLUB #1 of 4

The Night Club is a bar where religious people meet to talk about the coming Apocalypse. Jack and Annie are two teenage runaways who accidentally find their way to the bar after being pursued by mutant zombies bent on eating their flesh in the middle of Boston. It's kind of a loose storyline but it looks like it might have a bit of promise.
By Mike Baron and Mike Norton.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.95 retail.

RISING STARS: VOICES OF THE DEAD #1 of 6

Lionel Zerb can see and speak to dead people. He's always been a bit of an enigma in the Rising Stars story and looked a little down upon by the other characters. Finally, we get to hear his story about his Ghost Interpreter business that gets him a little bit closer to the dead people he can talk to than he'd like to be.
By Fiona Avery, Staz Johsnon, and Wayne Faucher.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

MAGDALENA VS. DRACULA: MONSTER WAR #1 of 4 Dracula wants to convert Magdalena into a vampire but Tomb Raider wants to stop him but she's going to have to fight wolf-men next month.... sigh.
By Chris Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Joyce Chin, Scott Kester, Marc Silvestri, Eric Basaldua, and J.M. Linsner.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

TOXIN #1 of 6

Venom... cool idea, neat story. Carnage... a little cliche, slightly creative. Toxin... a whole new alien symbiote from the whole Secret Wars thing from the 80s? Hmmm... count me out. At any rate, Toxin was let out of the New York prison holding all of the super-baddies back in New Avengers and he wants to use his powers for good, not evil. Toxin disagrees.
By Peter Milligan, Darick Robertson, and Esad Ribic.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

SPIDER-MAN: BREAKOUT #1 of 5

The riot from the New Avengers hits Spider-Man head-on as he's caught in a battle between two warring factions of super-baddies from the breakout. Good lord, y'all!
By Tony Bedard, Manuel Garcia, and Mike Deodato.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

HERCULES #1 of 5

Thor was killed off. No one liked Thor. That whole Asgard thing can just plain disappear and I know that I, for one, wouldn't complain for an instant. Yet, Marvel is determined to keep beating that dead horse over and over and over. This Hercules mini-series sees Hercules accepting the challenge of twelve labors with each being more dangerous than the one before it all prepared for (no joke, here) "reality-TV consumption." God help us all... Marvel has lost its collective mind.
By Frank Tieri and Mark Texeira.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

G.L.A. #1 of 4

The Great Lakes Avengers. Finally, something I can get on board with -- comedy. The Great Lakes Avengers are one of the more underappreciated superhero teams but now that the mainstream Avengers have been disbanded, it's up to the GLA to step up and take some of the burden onto their shoulders... if they can without getting killed on the way there.
By Dan Slott and Paul Pelletier.
32 page.s 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

FINAL NOTES
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Wow. So, lots of new comics... sort of... all coming out in April. It looks as though there really will be some good stuff... just nothing ongoing. Go figure, eh? As always, remember, if you're a comic book company desperate for some more income but have absolutely no new character ideas, just release a mini-series... or 20! And, as always, thank you for your business! Eric Jacobson