Conversations with a Comic Book Store Owner

“Are comic books a dying medium?”

Brightest Day

That was just one of the things that we talked about on Tuesday night when I stopped by The Mind Shop in Centrepoint to pick up my copies of Geoff Johns’ latest opus “Brightest Day”. It was great being able to talk to Alex (the proprietor of The Mind Shop) and to just talk comic books and talk about the different creators that we enjoyed in the entire time we’ve been into comics.

The coolest thing about the conversation was discovering that Alex has actually been to a number of comic book conventions in the U.S. which made me go “wow”. The awesomest thing was finding out that on one of his trips, Alex actually got the opportunity to have lunch with Joe Quesada back before he became such a big creative force over at Marvel. My jaw sorta dropped when he told me that and that made me feel all the more that it’d be great to experience a comic-con one of these days. It’s kinda sad that we don’t have anything of that sort in a big way here in Malaysia. *sighs*

Oh well, I’ll have to plan for that day one day cos’ I’m already 32. Ha ha ha ha ha! I doubt it’d be easy to do something like that once I’m attached or married so I better save up and do it quick before it’s too late. Anyways, we spent quiet a fair bit of time talking a lot about Valiant Comics because of the recent announcement that Jim Shooter is coming back with a new Solar, Man of the Atom book courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. Valiant was such a hot property back in the late 80’s and early 90’s with great titles such as Magnus Robot Fighter, X-O Manowar, Turok Dinosaur Hunter and lots more. It’d be cool to see these characters come back and I must say that I’m really tempted now to swing by Kinokuniya over at KLCC to pick-up the X-O Manowar trade that I found there last week.

The Valiant Universe

It was a nice conversation and even though I just picked up Brightest Day #0 & #1 that day; I spent about an hour just chatting there. It’s always nice to meet like-minded people and it’s a relief to realise that there are still a lot of us out there who still believe in comic books as an art-form and who refuse to download comic books online. Nothing beats the feeling of thumbing through the pages of a comic book and admiring the care & love that goes into each panel and each speech bubble. I’ll always love comic books and maybe I’ll be able to get to be involved creating one, but where do I start? I’ve always had wild ideas of writing a script or plot line and sending it over to Marvel or something. We’ll see.

From Blackest Night to Brightest Day

Blackest Night #8

DC’s latest mega-event has just concluded with the release of Blackest Night #8 and what a thrill-ride it’s been. Ivan Reis has done a bang-up job at delivering some of the best artwork I’ve seen in recent years. He pencils every DC hero imaginable in both their Black Lantern and traditional forms well!

I’m not one for spoilers so I’m just gonna say that Blackest Night actually does a great job at resetting the DC Universe after all the recent deaths that have occurred over the course of DC’s CRISIS-labelled tie-ups. My only regret is that I hadn’t realised just how closely tied the story would be to the other Green Lantern books; namely Green Lantern & Green Lantern Corps. Looks like I’ll have to pick-up those issues when the tradepaperbacks are released.

It’s been a great 8 months and I can’t wait for the next 12 months as we jump directly into Brightest Day. Geoff Johns’ definitely has got loads planned for the DCU as more is revealed about the White Lantern rings and the return of various characters to the DCU.

On another note, Mark Millar & Steve McNiven’s Nemesis was somewhat of a disappointment. McNiven’s artwork is absolutely the pits compared to some of his stuff that made me fall in love with his artwork. Maybe McNiven’s trying to experiment with his artwork but it’s absolutely horrible in my opinion.  What a shame, I was so looking forward to new stuff by McNiven but have this instead… oh well, the premise & concept is somewhat interesting so I’m willing to see where Mark Millar is headed with this new creator-owned series. Hopefully Steve McNiven will buck up in future issues.

For a full-review of Nemesis check out CBR’s review here.