Category: But I Digress…

Originally published June 17, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1074

A while back I mentioned one of my demented notions, prompted by DC’s Sandman Mystery Theater and my enthusiasm for Mystery Science Theater 3000 (which features a human and two robots situated in front of, and loudly making snide remarks about, genre flicks.)

I suggested the combining of the two into Mystery Sandman Theater 3000, and invited folks to send in sample for inclusion in BID whenever I’m heading out of town for a while (like today, for instance.)

Continue Reading “Mystery Sandman Theater 3000” →

Originally published June 10, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1073

The thug is on the ground, blinking in terror and fear at his chalk-faced attacker. Unable to hide his panic, he stammers words to the effect of, “You’re dead! You’re dead! You can’t come back! This is real life! This is real! The dead don’t come back in real life!”

As I’ve mentioned in a past column, it’s an old writing trick to try and give a movie (comic book, novel, whatever) an additional air of actuality by having characters cite a particularly hard-to-swallow plot element and pointing out that such things only happen in works of fiction. The inference to be drawn is that what you’re experiencing is not a work of fiction but, in fact, something with a much greater claim to reality than mere fabrication.

Yet never has such a line had more of a sense of melancholy than in the The Crow, the beleaguered and notorious film version of James O’Barr’s highly personal and highly charged magnum opus (as in, many magnums were fired.)

Continue Reading “Review: The Crow” →

Originally published June 3, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1072

The rumor was flying all over the Capital City Distribution meeting–supposedly “confirmed” by Marvel sources–and then moved out into the public arena as I started getting calls from people unable to contain their incredulity:

“Have you heard what they’ve got planned with Spider-Man?” they asked me.

Continue Reading “When the Clone Saga was just a rumor…” →

Originally published May 27, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1071

Before continuing last issue’s topic of “Homicidal Heroes,” there’s a couple of bits of past business on which I want to update folks.

Continue Reading “Homicidal Heroes, Part 2” →

Originally published May 20, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1070

One of the questions you hear a lot these days is “When did it become ‘all right’ for heroes to kill?”

The answer, of course, is… well… always.

Continue Reading “Homicidal Heroes, Part 1” →

Originally published May 13, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1069

The strange things that come about on computer nets.

On Usenet, speculation was rife that Marvel’s mutant books would reveal the existence of a third Summers brother, to join Scott (Cyclops) and Alex (Havok) Summers. A joke was subsequently made that perhaps the new sibling might actually be a Summers sister and that, in a bizarre twist, the Summers sister was Rogue. This, in turn, led an individual called “The Vodkinator” to suggest an opening a la Steven Spielberg’s Animaniacs, with Cyclops, Havok and Rogue taking the place of Wakko, Yakko, and Dot (the Warner brothers and Warner sister, the series’ protagonists.)

This, in turn, led net frequenter Tom Galloway to write an entire take-off on the theme of Animaniacs. He then showed it to me, and once I picked myself off the floor, I cajoled Arne Starr into doing an appropriate illustration. And here we go:

Continue Reading “The Mutantmaniacs” →

Originally published May 6, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1068

Time to kill two birds with one stone, as they say (although I should emphasize that no animals have actually been injured in the making of this column.)

Several readers called to my attention, with some alarm, the April issue of Self magazine, a so-called women’s magazine that does big business in supermarket racks.

Continue Reading “Self Help” →