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Originally published March 22, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1166

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we’re short on time this week. So, for a quickie, I’m running the following letter and illustration from Red Sonja creator Frank Thorne, whose Devil’s Angel is one of the comics named in the Oklahoma City debacle.

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The prospect of a Cardinals/Rangers World Series did nothing for me, as I made clear on this very site. But my God, what a great game that was last night. I tuned in when some Rangers fan on Facebook said, “Only two outs to go!” and, oh my freaking God. Up by two runs, down to the last strike, and they couldn’t get it done. Next inning, up by two runs, down to the last strike, couldn’t get it done. Climaxed by a walk off home run that a poor Cardinals jersey wound up giving its life for when it was ripped off the back of the hometown boy who was the hero not once, but twice in the same game. David Freese won’t have to pay for a drink in any bar in St. Louis for the rest of his life.

There were probably so many Rangers fans banging their heads against the wall that it registered on the Richter Scale.

PAD

Originally published March 15, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1165

Planet Comics closed.

Well, the censors certainly showed them, didn’t they? They can add another notch to their belt. At a time in our industry when stores are closing because they can’t afford to keep their doors open due to “normal” sales drop-off, we now lose a store of long standing because well-organized monitors of what other people should be exposed to decided to target a store.

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“Young Justice” is preempted this Friday because of the two hour movie “Batman vs. Dracula.” So this pushes the entire slate back a week. Meaning the earliest it would air is November 18. And knowing Cartoon Network, they’ll probably wind up pushing it back to March.

UPDATED 10/27/11 at 8:32 PM–It turns out that it will indeed be airing on November 18.

PAD

Originally published March 8, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1164

So we went to Disney World again.

With New York subjected to more snow jobs than an armada of Rush Limbaughs could present—exacerbated by my extended stays in Montreal for Space Cases—my family needed some relief.

In recent weeks, 4-year-old Ariel had even taken to wailing, “My friends at Disney World miss me.” This summoned up mental pictures of Mickey standing forlornly at the front gate from morning till night, informing the rest of the disappointed characters, “Well, another day without Ariel. What’s the point of living?”
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GOP candidates and talking heads are claiming that the timing of the Iraqi pullout is politically motivated and condemning Obama for it. Perry, Bachman, McCain et al are all asserting that it’s rushed and wrongheaded…even though it’s being done on the schedule established by Bush.

So when Obama kills bin Laden, they give props to Bush, declaring that W.’s policies made it possible even though W. stated on record that he didn’t give bin Laden much thought anymore…

…but when Obama adheres to Bush’s policy and deals that Bush made for a withdrawal schedule, it’s Obama just being a politically motivated dick?

You know what? Good luck to the GOP making this one fly. Selling the notion of “How dare that bastard Obama get our young men and women out of a warzone that we never should have been in in the first place” is going to be an uphill battle at best. If anything, it’s the GOP talking heads who are going to look as if THEY are playing politics, trying to put a negative spin on something that I have to think most Americans have wanted to see happen.

PAD

Originally published March 1, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1163

John Adams died on July 4, 1826. There was an irony over his passing on Independence Day. The further irony was his last words: “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” What he did not know was that Jefferson died the same day—under the impression that Adams was still alive.

I doubt that Burne Hogarth or Jerry Siegel died with each other’s names on their lips. Nevertheless, there is a certain “double whammy” feeling when two of this industry’s “forefathers” pass away on the exact same day. One is upsetting; two becomes numbing.

I can’t claim to know Hogarth personally, never having had the opportunity or honor to meet him. Siegel, however, I met once, and it was a memorable moment.

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With the July/August issue of F&SF now off sale, I thought I’d draw your attention to the fact that my novelette was reprinted on www.suvudu.com. If you haven’t already read it, this is your opportunity. If you like it, let your friends know. Thanks.

Bronsky

PAD

Anyone want to tell me if we should feel guilty over THIS guy being killed?

PAD

The thrills! The excitement! The match-up that everyone has been zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Herman Cain is a big advocate of the 9-9-9 taxation plan, as previously proposed in Sims4. And everyone knows that video games are tools of the Devil. And in coming in out of pretty much nowhere, he’s turned the political establishment on its head. Turn 9-9-9 over and what do you get?

Coincidence?

PAD

So a guy in a dead-perfect Wolverine outfit came by my table at the New York Comic Con. Also present were Kathleen, her friend Reid Cooper, and the puppets of Xavier and Magneto from “X-Men: First Class” that she’d made. So we decided to shoot, on the fly, a re-creation of Logan’s now legendary cameo (complete with profanity intact, so you’re warned.)

Enjoy.

PAD

Originally published February 23, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1162

It seems that no matter where you go in the comics industry or what you do or what facet you work in, crossovers and tie-ins are unavoidable. In this case, the word has come down from on high that this installment of BID should tie in with the 25^th anniversary of Comics Buyer’s Guide.

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Originally published February 16, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1161

This will be a relatively short column. Hope you’re all OK with that.

We’ll cover two topics:

1) A public service message. You’re not gonna believe this.

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I will be set up most of the next three days over in Artists Alley at Table U1. Tragically, neither Bono nor the Edge will be at the adjacent table, although we will have the next best thing: J.K. Woodward. So if you want your “Fallen Angel” or your copy of “The Camelot Papers” signed, now’s the time.

Friday at 1 PM, I’ll be signing at the Marvel booth. At 5 PM I’ll be signing at the Evil Ink table promoting my work with Coheed and Cambria.

Saturday at 11 AM I’m on a panel about Independent publishing, promoting Crazy 8.

Sunday at 3:30 PM I’m on the mutant panel.

See you around.

PAD

We’ve been hearing all this bitching about how we should build walls so that Mexicans couldn’t come flooding into our country and take all the jobs. The left wing counter to this philosophy has always been that the only jobs they’re taking are the ones that Americans didn’t want in the first place.

But now it’s been reported that Iranians wanted to hire assassins to take out the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US. And who did they endeavor to hire?

Mexicans.

Goddammit, what’s wrong with good old American assassins? Don’t Iranians watch television? Don’t they have the slightest idea of the high caliber (no pun intended) of contract killers we have here in the states? We’ve got wise guys, we’ve got Yakuza. We’ve got street gangs, for crying out loud. We’ve got more bullets flying than JFK has airplanes. And they’re reaching out to a Mexican drug cartel? Really?

That’s just insulting.

PAD

Originally published February 9, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1160

Previous installments: Part I – Part II - Part III – Part IV

I was staring at the wall.

This entire business had started small with a request by a kid named Billy Gates (who was no relation to some guy that people kept asking me if he was related to) to find out who had taken the fun out of comics.

The trail had led me in a giant circle, going from retailer to speculator to publisher to distributor and back to retailer. Each one pointed the finger of blame at the next. Each one had an answer that passed along responsibility to someone else.

And, in the wake of my investigation, there had been a massive purging of people from one of the major comic book companies. I found myself ankle-deep in devastation.

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Disputes over salaries for the actors (with Fox wanting to cut their per episode salary from $400,000 to $250,000 per episode) nearly resulted in the series being axed by Fox.

Candidly, I wasn’t concerned about the fates of the actors. All I could think was that the writers who have kept the series alive for 23 years and put the words into the actors’ mouths get a hell of a lot less than that, and it would have sucked to see the writers out of work because the actors couldn’t make ends meet on a quarter mill per show. My guess is that even with a pay cut, they make more per single episode than the writers make for entire seasons.

PAD

Originally published February 2, 1996, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1159

I knew better than to roll over the corpse of the Big Boss—or, should I say, what was left of the corpse of the Big Boss. The last thing I needed was to have my fingerprints all over the epidermis of the recently deceased.

But even without getting close, I noticed something straight off.

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Love him or hate him, I think there’s no denying the impact he had on the world in which we live.

PAD