ERIC'S "IT'S BEGINNING TO FEEL A LOT LIKE WINTER..." COMICS NOW! NEWSLETTER VOL. 9 #12 – December 2007

INTRODUCTION
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Alright, so, yeah, I’m sad and pathetic. I never got a chance to see 300 in the theaters and just checked it out last week when I got it on DVD. Did you know that movie was actually pretty darn entertaining? Of course you did. You were one of the millions who saw it in the theater. *sigh* Well, to keep you in the know, Spider-Man 3 and Transformers are both coming to DVD shortly, so, if you’re a turkey like me, you can catch up with some of the great comic-book movies of the year had you missed them on the big screen.

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE
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This month is an Ultimate kind of month. With Marvel releasing Ultimates 3 and Ultimate Iron Man II, it’s really hard to say which sequel is going to outrank the other. However, I was truly enthralled by the first volume of Ultimate Iron Man, so I’m going to have to make this month’s pick Ultimate Iron Man II. Let’s see what kind of trouble the young Tony Stark of the Ultimate universe can get himself into this time, eh?

OCT072070 Ultimate Iron Man II #1 $2.99 retail
*** 50%-OFF AT WWW.COMICSNOW.COM ***

DECONSTRUCTING COMICS
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It's a constant, consistent, mad demolition of different comics (and they feature my newsletter!) at Deconstructing Comics (http://www.globalcomics.net). Deconstructing Comics always has a wide variety of comics news as well as their awesome podcasts. There are MP3s available of all previous podcasts as well as XML feed links if you'd like to have an ongoing subscription!

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:

50%-OFF COMIC DEALS:
OCT070133 Batlash #1 $2.99
OCT070118 Countdown Arena #1 $3.99
OCT070241 Northlanders #1 $2.99
OCT072093 Fantastic Four Isla De La Muerte #1 $3.99
OCT072127 Twelve #1 $2.99
OCT072070 Ultimate Iron Man II #1 $2.99
OCT072075 Ultimates 3 #1 $2.99
OCT072103 World War Hulk: Warbound #1 $2.99

40%-OFF TRADE PAPERBACK DEALS:
OCT070251 Doom Patrol TP #1 $19.99
OCT070196 Green Lantern HC Vol 01 $24.99
OCT070197 Infinite Crisis TP #1 $14.99
OCT070256 Pride of Baghdad SC #1 $12.99
OCT072158 Criminal TP Vol 02 Lawless $14.99
OCT072175 Mighty Avengers HC Vol 01 Ultron Initiative $19.99
OCT072181 Ultimate Vision TP $14.99
OCT072176 X-Factor Prem Heart of Ice $19.99

THE BIZ
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HEROES: ORIGINS SERIES LAUNCHES IN 2008

In case you weren’t getting enough of your invulnerable cheerleader fix from the Heroes television show, Kevin Smith is writing and directing the first episode of the spinoff series called Heroes: Origins. A whole bunch of new characters will be introduced throughout the series. It launches in Spring 2008 (just in time for the main Heroes show to go off-the-air so all of their actors can catch their breath).

HALO 3 AND HALF LIFE ORANGE BOX RELEASED

I’d like to write more on these two incredibly addictive first-person shooters but I’m too busy playing them both to talk more right now (Portal rocks, by the way).

THE DARK KNIGHT… BATMAN BEGINS AND CONTINUES

Wizard World Chicago signaled the start of the official release of Batman: The Dark Knight footage. We all knew that Heath Ledger was coming on-board to be the new Joker, however the footage at Wizard World revealed Aaron Eckhart (of THANK YOU FOR SMOKING fame) as none other than Two Face.

TOP-10 and TOP-100
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Check out Comics NOW! Inc.'s Top-100 on IRX Productions.

Download the October 2007 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 #500

"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. (1) Justice League of America
2. (2) Batman
3. (-) Amazing Spider-Man
4. (3) New Avengers
5. (4) Detective Comics
6. (-) All-Star Batman and Robin
7. (5) Superman Batman
8. (7) Uncanny X-Men
9. (5) Superman Batman (2nd issue)
10. (-) X-Men

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT COMICS

1. (1) Transformers Devastation
2. (-) Transformers Spotlight
3. (2) Transformers Beast Wars
4. (3) Boys
5. (-) Angel After the Fall
6. (5) Red Sonja
7. (6) Transformers Best of UK Dinobots
8. (-) Fallen Angel
9. (7) GI Joe America’s Elite
10.(9) Simpsons Comics

THE GOOD STUFF
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DARK HORSE COMICS

THE END LEAGUE #1

The last few remaining superheroes on Earth search desperately for the Hammer of Thor, the only thing that can save the planet (and get out those pesky hangnails that have really been bugging all of us for the past couple of years). Seriously, couldn’t we all use a Hammer of Thor to help us around the house every once in awhile?
By Rick Remender, Mat Broome, Sean Parsons and Wendy Broome
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

DC COMICS

BAT LASH #1 of 6

Do you like cheesy western comics where some crazy nutjob tries to impress the farmer’s daughter by challenging a greedy rancher and a corrupt sheriff? No? Well, then Bat Lash is definitely not for you. For example, as Western as I get is going into a Texas Roadhouse to pick up my carryout order before high-tailing it out of there when some chick in way-too-short-shorts and cowboy boots tries to join me some sort of dancing that involves a line. Yikes!
By Peter Brandvold, Sergio Aragones, and John Severin.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

STORMWATCH PHD: ARMAGEDDON #1
WILDCATS: ARMAGEDDON #1

Armageddon continues this month into Stormwatch and Wildcats. Consider it a “What If…” the Wildstorm Universe was plunged into a postapocalyptic world. Of course, to those of you who don’t read Wildstorm comics, this is of absolutely no interest. Do you like things that go boom? Well, you might like these comics because everything went boom. There we go.
By various.
32 pages. Special issues. $2.99 retail each.

NORTHLANDERS #1

Sven is a Viking in 11th century Europe having to deal with all the problems that a typical Viking has to deal with – where’s my next meal coming from? Is that chick cute enough to bonk on the head and take home with me? What are those sores that I’ve got going on? Seriously, though, this is actually a serious story that compares the 11th century Viking world to our modern 2007 Christian/Islamic battles in true 300 style (funny how I just saw the DVD earlier, eh?). Like Vikings? Like 300? You may like Northlanders.
By Brian Wood and Davide Gianfelice.
32 pages. Ongoing series. $2.99 retail.

IMAGE COMICS

INFINITE HORIZON #1 of 6

Okay, so it doesn’t take the most perceptive of readers to see that, typically, I have an incredibly low opinion of the mass-production sausage-fest that is Image Comics. Every once in awhile, however, they come out with something that intrigues me. Take Infinite Horizon, for example. A modern re-telling of Homer’s The Odyssey except set with a modern military Captain who is leading his group of abandoned soldiers home after the war in the gulf. Now, that’s different.
By Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto.
32 pages. 6-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

MARVEL COMICS

ULTIMATE IRON MAN II #1 of 4

For a long time, it seemed as though the Ultimate storyline was going to ignore Iron Man. Then, the first UIM story came out. We saw that it was good. We said that it was good. And, then, it disappeared. Well, now the untold origin of Ultimate Iron Man continues with the second installment. More of the great stuff telling us of a young Tony Stark trying to overcome a debilitating disease.
By Orson Scott Card and Pasqual Ferry.
32 pages. 4-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

ULTIMATES 3 #1 of 5

It’s the age-old question: how many mini-series must a comic publisher make before they can release an ongoing series? Apparently, at least 3, as the Ultimates returns again with a short mini-series storyline. If you loved the first two, you’ll love this one. If you haven’t been paying attention to the Ultimates, well, to be honest, this may not be the best place to jump on and understand what’s going on… but look at all the pretty pictures!
By Jeph Loeb, Joe Madureira and Christian Lichtner.
32 pages. 5-issue mini-series. $2.99 retail.

FINAL NOTES
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There ends yet another issue of the newsletter. Granted, we’ve entered the cold days of Winter, but at least the comics industry is always standing by with comics to keep us warm.

As always, remember, heck, it’s so cold my brain’s frozen. I can’t even remember what I was going to say!

And, as always, thank you for your business!

Eric Jacobson

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