ERIC'S "SO EXCITING, I MAY JUST POP!" NEWSLETTER VOL. 8 #6 - June 2006

INTRODUCTION
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Oh my my. So many great new comics coming out this month that I don't know where to look. This is what it must be like when they have supermodel conventions at nude beaches in France (they do things like that, right?). DC, Marvel, and Image are all tossing out books worth reading this month so I'm not going to waste another word on the intro. Let's get right to it...

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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There's just an absolute ton of great stuff coming out this month so my pick-of-the-month is purely based on the pocket book. For your money, nothing can beat the whopping 80-page special DCU: Brave New World that DC is letting out the door for one measely buck. $1. One smackeroo.

Unbelievable. And, if you grab it through Comics NOW, you're looking at $0.50. 50 cents. Really. It practically costs that much to mail a letter!

APR060209 DCU BRAVE NEW WORLD #1
*** 50%-OFF AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM!! ***

HUGE DISCOUNTS AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM
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Aside from always offering 35% off the cover price of monthly comics with no minimum to buy, each month Comics NOW offers incredible deals on some of the newest titles out there. Just point your browser to http://www.comicsnow.com to order any of these titles below at huge discounts or any other comic at least 35% off the cover price.

Here are this month's deals:
APR060270 ASTRO CITY SAMARITAN SPECIAL 50%-OFF $3.99
APR060278 CLAW THE UNCONQUERED 50%-OFF $2.99
APR060209 DCU BRAVE NEW WORLD 50%-OFF $1.00
APR060210 FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1 50%-OFF $2.99
APR060216 GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1 50%-OFF $2.99
APR060244 WONDER WOMAN #1 50%-OFF $2.99
APR060280 SILENT DRAGON TP 40%-OFF $19.99
APR060193 SUPERMAN INFINITE CRISIS TP 40%-OFF $19.99
APR060282 TOP 10 BEYOND THE FARTHEST TP 40%-OFF $14.99
APR062019 CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #1 50%-OFF $2.99
APR062022 ETERNALS #1 50%-OFF $3.99
APR062064 GENEXT #1 50%-OFF $2.99
APR062088 DECIMATION GEN M TP 40%-OFF $13.99
APR062097 PUNISHER VS BULLSEYE TP 40%-OFF $13.99
APR062096 SUPREME POWER NIGHTHAWK TP 40%-OFF $16.99

THE BIZ
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SPIDER-MAN 3 - BACK IN BLACK

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for Venom's debut on the big screen and can any of us wait until 2007 to see the movie? Well, it doesn't matter if you can, you'll have to. At any rate, there's going to be a new love interest, there's going to be Spidey in the black costume, there's going to be Venom (of course) and there's going to be Sandman... and this is just the start of the rumor mill.

SUPERHERO! MOVIE

The Zucker Brothers, famous for "Airplane!" and "Scary Movie 3" are targetting the recent superhero craze with a parody scheduled for release from none other than Dimension Films this upcoming December. Funny or flat? We shall see.

TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND DEMO RELEASED

By the time you read this, chances are that the new Tomb Raider game has already been released. Having just gotten a chance to play the demo all the way through, let me tell you this: it's great. I mean, the same overwhelming feeling of space and excitement that made the very first game so exciting is all there. The gameplay seems spot on and the graphics are spec-freakin'-tacular! I'm very excited about this. Scheduled release date: Apr. 11, 2006.

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions. Download the April 2006 Top-100 PDF file (it's 8KB!).

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. (2) Superman Batman
2. (7) New Avengers
3. (5) Batman
4. (6) Amazing Spider-Man
5. (-) All-Star Superman
6. (-) Detective Comics
7. (8) Supergirl
8. (-) Civil War
9. (-) Superman
10. (-) Teen Titans

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (1) Transformers Infiltration
2. (2) Transformers Beast Wars
3. (-) Battlestar Galactica
4. (3) Soulfire
5. (-) Red Sonja
6. (4) Transformers Generations
7. (-) GI Joe Americas Elite Hunt for...
8. (7) GI Joe America's Elite
9. (10) Strangers in Paradise
10. (-) Simpsons Comics

THE GOOD STUFF
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DC COMICS

DCU: BRAVE NEW WORLD

DC is at it again. Yet another $1.00 issue to try and get as many people as possible addicted to the crack-cocaine that is the Infinite Crisis and afterward storyline. Brave New World will act as a preview to Martian Manhunter, OMAC, Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters, The Creeper, The All-New Atom, and the Trials of Shazam! I'm not a big one for jumping on bandwagons but when a comic is this cheap, I almost always have to pick it up... it's the bargain hunter in me.
By Various.
80 pages. One-shot special. $1.00 retail.

THE FLASH: FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1

The Flash is back, byotch. Shortly after all the dookie went down with the Infinite Crisis, the Flash has discovered that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger... and faster.
By Paul DeMeo, Danny Bilson, and Ken Lashley.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1

It's all of the Green Lanterns. For those of you who weren't completely aware, the Green Lanterns are defenders assigned to different solar systems and galaxies by the mysterious beings only known as "The Guardians." This series will follow the adventures of the various Green Lanterns, including those assigned to Earth.
By Dave Gibbons, Patrick Gleason, and Prentis Rollins.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

WONDER WOMAN #1

Baaaaa-zing. What the heck is going on with everyone's favorite DCU hottie? Is she a killer or does she just have a killer bod? And what's up with the reboot? The first story arc will cover the wiley woman's history and take you up to the present... great for those of us who always appreciated her fine figure but never paid attention to the comic.
By Allan Heinberg, Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

MANIFEST ETERNITY #1

The premise for this bad-boy is an intergalactic war between an empire based on science and an empire based on magic. Smells a lot like Warcraft mixed with some Starcraft to me, and, quite frankly, I like what I'm smelling (perhaps I took that metaphor too far).
By Scott Lobdell.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED #1
Claw is so-named because one of his hands is, well, a claw. He starts off the series working as a poorly-paid mercenary only to discover that there's this big, dark prophecy in the works, and, of course, he's the center of it.
By Chuck Dixon and Andy Smith.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

CASANOVA #1

Casanova Quinn is a giant scumbag. He's a thief, a liar, cheat, and he looks like Mick Jagger on LSD. Not a good mix of characteristics. Then, his twin sister's killed and he's brought in as a super-secret agent man. Oh, yeah.
By Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $1.99 retail.

PAUL JENKINS' SIDEKICK #1 of 5

Eddie Edison is a delivery boy by day and a mercenary super-sidekick by night. When he discovers that the pay sucks from his first superhero, he goes and works for two others. Juggling so many jobs becomes very complicated, tho'.... very.
By Paul Jenkins and Chris Moreno.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $3.50 retail.

UMBRA #1 of 3

Okay, I'm not making this up... here's the description of this comic straight from Diamond's mouth: "Set in Iceland in 1999, Umbra is a 3-issue mini-series about a young police forensics technician with an anxiety disorder and a bit of a drinking problem, and how her discovery of a very strange skeleton sets in motion a series of violent and tragic events. And then things get weird." Really?!? I mean, really????!!? *sigh*
By Murphy and Mike Hawthorne.
52 pages. 3-issue mini-series. $5.99 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE #1 & 2 of 10

It's heeeeeeeeerrrreee....the beginning ... errr.. continuing of the Civil War mega-super-maxi-saga-series that Marvel claims is the end of the world and everything as we know it. Peanut butter and chocolate mixed together. Dogs and cats living under the same roof. Total pandemonium!
By Paul Jenkins, Ramon Bachs, and Steve Lieber.
32 pages. 10-issue maxi-series. $2.99 retail each.

ETERNALS #1 of 6

Neil Gaiman's at it again. Ike Harris is thousands of years old, has super-powers, has watched civilizations rise and fall, and although he has vivid dreams of his life, no one believes him. Surprised?
By Neil Gaiman and John Romita, Jr.
48 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $3.99 retail.

GENEXT #1 of 5

Wow. How many times has Marvel tried this storyline. The X-kids leave the X-Men to start their own X-team because they just can't take it anymore. Well, at least this time's Claremont's at the helm.
By Chris Claremont and Patrick Scherberger.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

FINAL NOTES
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There you have it. Civil Wars. Superfast men coming back. Hot murderer women in one-piece swimwear. This month has got it at all and it's all right there and waiting for you. Yummy! As always, if you can't decide which comic to read, just open up all of them and read one page at-a-time from each and enjoy the most convulted story arc ever! It's like reading an Image title cover-to-cover!

Eric Jacobson