the vynsane asylum

I think I can swing by the Red Five booth at Comic-Con. I'm only going to be there one day, and am trying to get someone to score the Hasbro stuff (as well as anything from Mattel if it's worth getting) for me. I don't want to waste "Kid's Day" at Comic-Con with my daughter (not to mention the day the vendors are desperately trying to unload everything) waiting in one of Hasbro's fucked up lines, especially given the chance they might sell out of stuff earlier, but Red Five's booth was pretty dormant last year. I still haven't read all the Atomic Robo stuff I got, but what I read is freaking awesome.

I got

Iron Man/Thor
Iron Man/Nova
War of the Supermen #0
Solar/Magnus
Irredeemable/Incorruptible
GIJoe 155 1/2

I also bought two drawer boxes at $10 each (which is a great price, if I had more money I might have bought 20 knowing I'd eventually fill them. Drawer boxes are the greatest invention ever when you have over 100 longboxes of comics) and I bought a shortbox full of quarter comics for $30. A lot of Advs of Superman and Action Comics that filled holes in my collection. But also a lot of random stuff that looked interesting. Almost the entire run of Ultimate Spidey after Bagley left was in there. A nice run of Gotham Central. A bunch of early Giffen/Maguire JL/JLI/JLA issues. All for a quarter each or less.

And GIJoe 155 1/2 was a beautiful beautiful book. That page with Stormshadow, Billy (in a Cobra ninja uniform) and Baroness in a hail of bullets is fanboy giggity. Also, Billy finally gets a filecard in the back! Sweeeeeet....

I was slightly disappointed that there was a major typo in Billy's filecard, though. I'm sure I won't have to point it out to a fellow Joe continuity freak like yourself, Rollo.

Cobra Commander also got the order of events regarding Billy's backstory in the wrong order. Not sure if he was confused or if it was a mistake on Hama's part.

I'm willing to bet serious money that the first major ongoing subplot will have to do with the trojan horse installed by Dr Venom, not to mention that everyone involved seems to know they're brainwashed.

What's the typo? I must've glossed by it.

It says Billy's suit was made by a CG named Fred III.

Aha. And he was a series VII?

Not series VII, he was just Fred VII. Presumably the seventh Crimson Guard (at least of the Freds; it never said if there were other CG series, but I'd assume a black dude wouldn't get plastic surgery to be a blonde guy). He's the one who "killed" Cobra Commander.

That I remember. Issue 61. Marshall Rogers did the art after Todd McFarlane couldn't do it to Marvel's satisfaction. Then after he became a bigshot Image guy, they resolicited it as the single most expensive fucking GIJoe issue ever and I don't have it. Grrr....

Atomic Robo is awesome. I read last year's FCBD issue where he fights Dr. Dinosaur. That shit was hilarious yo.

Here's what I got for freebies in 2011.

Amazing Spider-Man. The book opens with "Howdy, Cheapskates!" and continues to be hilarious. Does a decent recap of the Spidey mythos/origin for those seven people on the planet that don't know it yet. Then gets into a story where Spidey is fighting a thought controlled Spider-Woman. In it we get the jist of the current state of the Spidey book (i.e. the Spider-Sense is gone, Peter has a job at Horizon etc) and then sets up the future book's stories by having Shang-Chi train Spidey to compensate for his lack of Spidey sense by learning some kung-fu. A great read, and does exactly what a Free Comic should do.

Atomic Robo. Atomic Robo fights Dr. Dinosaur again! At a Grade School science fair where Dr. Dino is tryng to steal a student's framistat-doohickey. Hilarity ensues. Just an example, we flashback to a moment where Dino is attempting to purchase firearms, and opens a big book of dinosaurs and points to the page with his species on it. it's enough to get him the guns. Another gem.

Captain America/Thor: The Mighty Fighting Avengers. A no-brainer considering the summer's film slate. this is a wonderful issue by Landridge and Samnee, the guys who did the Thor:The Mighty Avenger series. What sucks is that any reader who would find this book charming and want to read more, would be disheartened to discover that the series was already cancelled as of issue 8...LAST YEAR. Thanks for the parting nutshot, Marvel.

Green Lantern:Special Edition In this case, "special edition" means reprint a comic from three years ago that ties in with your big tentpole film and tack on a six page teaser of this years Event. Yawn.

The Mis-Adventures of Adam West. I was hoping this book was written with a sly sense of irony and tried reading it in West's "voice". But it just didn't work. And the art sucked. What deal with what satanic entity did Bluewater make to stay viable as a publisher?

Super Dinosaur. Kirkman's new creator owned Image title. Had a semi clever and fun premise, like something you'd see on Saturday morning in the 80s. Nothing groundbreaking though.

Super Hero Squad Online: Hero Up Oneshot. If you like the humor of the cartoon, more of the same here. for some reason this is priced at 50 cents instead of free, but they were giving it away anyway. Weird, Marvel. Do you not understand the concept of FCBD?

Also got a cool fold out poster of the new FF team in their new costumes. I also bought a shortbox of 160 comics for $20 and 10 DrawerBoxes.

I had to give the SAT this morning. Every year, FCBD coincides with the May SAT, because someone didn't think about how the target audiences coincide just a bit. I wanted to take Anarky Jr again. But we have only one car, and the nearest comic shop is a half-hour away, and I didn't get out until about 1. Factor in going to pick her up, eating, and such, and there's a huge chance nothing will be left. I'd rather keep mum than take her to be disappointed.

The store doesn't even know Red Five Comics exists, so no hope of the Atomic Robo comic. Most of the "grown-up" comics didn't look appealing to me. There was Super Dinosaur, likely to be reprinted in the paperback, and a Young Justice/Brave and the Bold flip book... and, if the past is any indication, the DC booth at Comic-Con will have shit-tons of them.

So I got my wife to stop on the way to visit her family in San Diego at a Borders store near my sister-in-law's that's closing. Turns out they had gotten to 60% off graphic novels (and trade paperbacks that everyone calls graphic novels even though they're not really), or 64% off with the Rewards card, which there's no chance I'll be able to match even at Comic-Con's half-price bins. Tune into the "What Comics Did You Buy" thread for the rest of the story....

Just the Spidey & Cap/Thor for me as my shop at 2 per customer rule. I'm really hoping he'll have a few copies of GI Joe 155.5 left by next week when I'm back in there.

I wont be in town, and as far as I can tell, nowhere near a comic shop on Saturday, so I'm hoping one of you could maybe try and snag me a copy of the Serenity/Star Wars book. Its the only one I really want.

I am going to ask my LCS if he'd be so kind as to grab just this one for me, but I'm not sure if he will since he repeatedly stresses a "no holds" policy.

Yeah, I'll pick up a copy for ya.

Thank you!
I sent off an email to my LCS, but I really have no idea which way he'll go. He's a great guy, but he's pretty strict on FCBD, since it is a really big deal for his shop. He gets tons of people coming through, especially kids. Last year he was totally wiped out by 1 or 2pm.

Plus he always buys a bunch of extra books to donate to libraries and stuff. And I didn't tell him this, but I figured if he did hold one for me I'd give him a few bucks as a donation for all the books he donates as a thank you - I didn't want to seem like I was bribing him to hold one.