I'm sitting here watching the second episode of the new Fantastic Four cartoon. I tried to withhold judgement after just the first episode, but the second episode did nothing but confirm my initial impressions.

I want to ask why no one can get the FF right outside of the comics, but I know the answer to that already. It's because there are too many people putting their own spin on the characters into each story. Any character is perceived and interpretted differently by each individual viewer. We might see/hear/read the exact same story, but I might notice a character's inner resolve most prominently while you might notice their strength of character... subtle differences, to be sure, but enough to color how you and I define the character. And what about the next guy who just notices the physical characteristics?

So with a cartoon, you have a group of writers contributing to a script, which is overseen by a lead writer and later interpretted by a series of actors. The director chooses which interpretations s/he likes the most and uses in the show. And a slew of animators try to follow the lead of a character designer when trying to depict facial expressions and physical manifestations of mood.

So by the time the show gets aired, a few dozen people have easily had their input into the show and any vision that the original creators (in this case, Stan and Jack) may have had has been interpreted and re-interpreted so much that they may as well be new characters.

I know all this at a conscious level, but it never ceases to surprise me just how much distortion happens.

At the end of the show, I grabbed the remote from The Wife and removed the automatic timer I had set up to turn the show on when it airs.

I've been re-cataloging my comic collection off and on for the past few months, using the online database ComicBookDB.com. It does an excellent job, I think, of allowing me to include all the information about my collection as I deem fit. Plus, it's online so I can access that information from just about anywhere. (For those who might be wondering why it's taking so long, I've recorded around 5,500 individual issues so far, and I know there's plenty I haven't touched yet.)

But the reason why I'm writing about it today is that I've found it interesting to recollect the stories as I'm tagging them in the database...

"Yeah, I remember I got Marvel Team-Up #126 on my birthday. It had that cool Hulk vinette."

"Heh. I remember finding that copy of Bring on the Bad Guys in that used bookstore just off campus."

"Hey, that was one of those Superman issues I found in the back of a file cabinet when I was working at Kenner."

What struck me as particularly odd is that The Wife has told me that this is much the same type of feeling many women get about shopping in general. The whole buying experience is one that not only includes the obtaining of an object, but also the circumstances and feelings associated with it. Each issue in my collection has a memory attached to it -- maybe when I got the issue, maybe where I first read it, maybe who gave it to me -- and those memories can sometimes override the actual content of the book itself.

Just an unusual observation.

So I swang by the comic shop today around 12:30 to pick up my new books. As I mentioned yesterday, I was concerned that I'd have trouble seeing the racks for the gamers. I was pleasantly surprised to see, though, that the shop in fact has a back room specifically for the gaming crowd. Aside from a couple of gents who walked past me to get to the back room, I pretty much had the front of the shop to myself. (The owner was there as well, but I was the only customer out front.)

One of the interesting things about going to a new shop is finding the unique things they do. Today, I found a "Bargain Toy Bin" in the corner. I poked my head and saw several Marvel Legends figures sitting in there, still in the packaging. I looked a little closer and saw they were from the recent Onslaught series. I looked even closer and saw they were priced at only $5 each! A second or two later, I realized that the owner had sliced the side of each of the packages, pulled out the Onslaught piece and built the extra figure, which he was then selling separately. The rest of the figure/packaging was in tact, though, and since I was only interested in getting Pyro anyway, I picked him up for a lot cheaper than I thought I'd have to!

Next to the "Bargain Toy Bin" was a long box with all of the shop's leftover Free Comic Book Day books. Still free. Since I missed this past year's event (my then-regular shop did have some of the Marvel and DC books left by the time I got there the following Wednesday, but nearly all of the indie publications were gone) I did a quick flip through and found a couple of interesting-looking indie books I hadn't seen. If I weren't on a tight schedule, I would've gone through the box more closely to see what else may have been in there.

I can't wait to see what other treasures might be buried in the other corners of the shop!

As many of you are likely aware -- at least the Americans among you -- Monday was a federal holiday: Labor Day. It's a day we're intended to honor those working classes by taking the day off and relaxing a bit. Of course, that only applies to those of us who work in offices -- all the stores and restaurants are still open, so your retail level workers get shafted. But one of the groups that does get a day off are those people who work for the U.S. Postal Service.

And, as a comic fan, that means all of the shipments of new comics are delayed by one day. New Comic Day is pushed back from Wednesday to Thursday, while everyone works twice as hard during the week to catch up with everything that could've gotten done on their day off, had they continued working through it.

Normally, this only means that I have to wait an extra day to read my new books, but this week is a little different. I've just noticed that at my new shop, they normally hold HeroClix tournaments at noon on Thursdays. Physically, it's not a very big shop so I expect that it will be completely jam-packed for that hour, making shopping noticeably more difficult. I may have to shoot for a REALLY late lunch tomorrow to try to avoid the crowds. I could, I suppose, just swing by after work, but the later I delay in getting on the road home, the more traffic builds up and the longer it takes for me to end my work day. And with a 45-minute commute already, I'm really not keen on extending that any longer if I can avoid it!

You know what the world needs more of?

Comic book contests. (In case you didn't guess that after reading the title of this blog entry!)

There need to be more opportunities to coax people to become interested in the hobby. World Famous Comics has had several contests over the past few years, but there are two problems with them: a) they generally require a fairly high degree of artistic talent, and b) they're often only tangentally related to comics. I've seen where a handful of comic shops have their own contests -- raffles, giveaways, etc. -- but the problem there is usually one of reaching a good audience. It's great for the folks who already frequent the shop, but no one is going to happen across information about it unless they walk in the store or hit the shop's web site, and it's also generally only good for people who are actually near enough to stop in the shop anyway. No, what we need are more contests online that anyone can enter and have just as good a chance of winning as anybody else.

Over at FFPlaza.com, I just finished up a contest tied in with the Who Wants to be a Superhero? show. It got a bit of attention for my site and the show and I just spoke with the winner of the contest who was quite pleased to have won. Now, the problem with that contest is the same as World Famous Comics' contests: it's only tangentally related to comics.

MarvelMasterworks.com frequently teams up with Tales of Wonder to offer free Masterworks and Archives books, which is great, but it seems a little infrequent. I just found out I missed the deadline on their last contest by just a few days. My local shop just had a raffle event to celebrate their third anniversary, but I couldn't actually swing into the shop over the weekend to participate. Diamond had a great contest for Free Comic Book Day a few years back (which, I might add, I won!) but they haven't repeated the contest.

But think of how cool it'd be if someone could sign up at, say, Amazon.com or someplace big like that and win one or two hundred dollars worth of comic book loot. Maybe a grab bag of Marvel, DC and Dark Horse stuff. Get folks interested in the wide range of great material that's available out there. Can you imagine getting a Fantastic Four Masterworks, The Spirit Archives, and maybe a couple of Hellboy or The Goon TPBs? Tell me that wouldn't be cool!

I received from The Wife for my birthday Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television. It's a documentary about EC Comics and, on the whole, fairly well done. Plenty of interviews with Al Feldstein, Mark Evanier and a bunch of other folks knowledgeable about the industry and/or EC in particular.

What struck me was that it was a very professional documentary. I had expected it to be filled with love and great reverence for the medium, but lacking in professionalism. In point of fact, the documentary was very well put together and, with a running time of about 56 minutes, clearly done with an understanding that a more in-depth, long-running piece would bore casual viewers and impart no new information for EC devotees. What I've found particularly clever is that they've included a number of the original, full-length interviews with Al Williamson, Jack Davis, Marie Severin, Jack Kamden, Russ Cochran, Bob Overstreet and George Romero. I've only watched a few of the interviews so far, but they're a wonderful addition to the basic documentary.

Overall, I think it's an excellent purchase for both EC fans and comic fans in general.

I was recently reminded that, back in May, I had heard of a tribute book for Bill Mantlo tentatively titled Mantlo: A Life in Comics. It was intended to feature interviews and commentaries by folks like Keith Giffen, Al Milgrom, George Perez, Roger Stern, Herb Trimpe, and Marv Wolfman and the proceeds would be given to Bill's guardian, who would use the money to benefit Bill.

Bill was a talented comic writer, if you weren't aware, and fell victim to an accident that's left him unable to write. (I don't have details handy, but I want to say that he was struck by a car and suffers severe permanent brain damage.) I didn't grow up on Bill's stories the way many other fans did, but reading them in retrospect, I can see that he was indeed very talented and gave a lot to the comics industry.

In any event, I haven't heard anything about the book since May and was curious if anyone had any new information on it. Is it still moving forward? Has it been cancelled? Anything?