Armageddon!
Yay! I finally went and my God, I am SO glad that I actually put some real effort in saving for the day. What makes things even better was that even though I gave myself a fairly generous budget (that wouldn't leave me destitute for a month), I still managed to spend way below the budget even though I bought a fantastically generous amount of comics - Seriously, my right shoulder still aches. (My one rule was to buy stuff I really wanted that I couldn't find at Minotaur or the two Comics R Us stores).
My one gripe though was that the comics stand I spent the most time at for some reason kept their Avengers and Captain America comics under their full trestle tables so being the Cap fangirl I am I had to spend about two hours going around on my knees in the semi-darkness to find the issues I wanted. Meanwhile, everyone else was tripping over my legs trying to search the Spider-Man titles that were on the tables above me. It was all very silly.
But! Besides finding out the addresses of 3 new comic book shops and their spin-off branches to try one day (I am ashamed of myself really, one was on friggin' Chapel St and the other on Bourke - how the heck did I miss those two?!) I got a hell of a loot. And some of them were so damn hard to find that I had actually given up until today.
Anyway, the very brief rundown of the stuff I got are:
Daredevil vol. 1 of the early Frank Miller run - This was the time when Daredevil really started to come on its own as a title. It's easy to find vol.2 and 3 but I until today I couldn't find 1. I personally think Miller has one hell of a madonna-whore complex but I've got to admit, Elektra was damn cool. And props to him in really developing the Daredevil canon (and developing Foggy!)
The entire Alias trade paperback collection by Brian Michael Bendis - I was really happy to find this bundle for its price and the fact that in the stuff I bought today it was the only one to actually focus on and have a really interesting female protagonist. Bendis sometimes annoyed me with his later work concerning how he treated some female characters but this was from a better time.
Marvel Holiday Special - It's a trade paperback of some older Christmas issues from various titles. It had Spider-Man, it had silly holiday shenanigans, it was cheap. I'm sold!
I Die at Midnight by Kyle Baker - Why I Hate Saturn was basically one of my favourite graphic novels ever and I loved Baker's cartooning book, he is so funny and I love his goofy drawing style. I also find his method of keeping all dialogue under the drawing instead of having balloons to be really cool too - since I'm not crazy about using balloons in my own comics ;)
Marvel Team Up vol. 1 - Evil!AU!Tony Stark/Iron Man is for some reason the funniest thing ever to me. He's so campy. And come on, he calls himself Iron Maniac. And gets all emotionally stricken at the sight of Steve - even referring to him at some point "My Steve". Brb loling forever.
Tales to Astonish - I wasn't planning to get this at first but since I was already getting Tales of Suspense I thought why not. Peter David was always really good at writing the Hulk, and I was really happy to get a great story and a really sweet Hank/Jan adventure, even if they're not a couple in this story. At least they were written well though, usually I think they're the top in Marvel's list of favourite couples to screw over - they really love their angst over there, especially now.
Tales of Suspense - Oh dear God, the writing in this story was so purple I can't even remember what the plot was about. But that's not the point. The point was that this book was basically an excuse for Captain America and Iron Man to continuously wax poetic about each other. I am still laughing at the part where Tony talks about Steve's "clear azure eyes" and just being a total woobie in not understanding why someone as awesome as Cap would want to play with him after school. Oh okay, not really, but seriously. This was one of the books I really wanted to buy but was never able to find.
Love Fights vol.1 and 2 by Andi Watson - How much do I love Andi Watson, as a storyteller and artist? Lots. How much do I love him for his gorgeous romantic dramedies? Lots. How much do I love silly superhero stories? Lots. How much do I love stories featuring journalism? Lots. This series has it all! It even has an adorable cat! I never figured out if he ever wrote more for this series though.
The rest of my comics were single issues in limited series and so forth. I have yet to find the issues I wanted the very, very most (I had a long list but stupidly, I forgot to actually look at it today so I'm going to have to put aside some days in the distant future exploring the new comic book stores I discovered today) but that wasn't to say that I didn't find some stuff I had been coveting for awhile. Three of note are:
Civil War one-shot Iron Man & Captain America: Casualties of War - I confess - I already have a copy of this in my Civil War Iron Man book. But I really wanted a copy that I could use for the scanner, and I just love it so much for a certain panel for the detail in the art and the art in general. It's also a rather sad story about how Tony and Steve's friendship falls apart due to stuff and is a pretty decent rundown of their entire shared history. (Please don't get me started on my feelings concerning how the writers tackled Civil War. It's been years since it happened and many Marvel fans are still a bit nuts about it, including me. But we all have different reasons so it's just ridiculous and it all becomes a bit heated). It gets even sadder when you actually know what happens later - and have read Bendis's The Confession, which is one of my favourite one-shots.
Avengers: Red Zone arc - I think by now it's a little clear that yeah, I kinda sorta ship Cap and Iron Man. Oh, I am very well aware of how strange it sounds to an outsider because when I first heard of the ship on ship_manifesto I was all O_o, but then I realised just how long the backstory between them had been going on (decades!!!) and seriously, sometimes you get an arc where the Avengers go on an adventure and the writers find an excuse for Iron Man to perform mouth-to-mouth on Cap with dramatic lighting, close-ups and the comments about how special one thinks of the other. Seriously.
Avengers: Once an Invader arc - I really wanted to know more about the old superhero team Cap used to be on in the old days and having stories about the old and the new always interests me. (Yes, when they have it in trade paperbacks I am defintely buying the limited Avengers/Invaders series that came out fairly recently).
The rest were an incredible amount of very cheap but highly coveted Captain America comics, some for the intersting stories, some for the nice art. I'm not going to list them though since it would probably break lj or something. ;)
Besides buying a lot of comics, I also got to listen to Peter David and Greg Rucka at a discussion panel, which was pretty interesting. I unfortunately missed any chances of hearing about the recent fabulousness of PAD finally making Rictor/Shatterstar out and canon but it was pretty interesting all the same, especially with the discussion concerning the comic book industry. I tend to have rather mixed fellings about PAD since he has had some moments on his blog where he comes across as slightly egotistical (and in one case concerning race issues damn offensive with the whiff of the "reverse racism!" wail) but I do admit liking his work and that in general I do like what he has to say. (The Liefeld and PAD internet flamewar over Shatterstar kissing Rictor was loltastic).
I also got to see the coolest Deadpool costume ever. Even though there were so many people wearing really awesome Star Wars costumes around, my eye just went straight to Deadpool-wearing person. I think it was the fact that their costume was on one hand a skintight spandex outfit and yet at the same time they seemed to have padded the inside so you don't get too much information. I think there were more cosplayers at Supanova though, I remember seeing a Ms Marvel outfit and quite a few Rorschachs the last time. Aaach, but now I just wish wish wish the powers that be would just hurry up with a Deadpool movie already! Especially since Ryan Reynolds has shown himself to be a great Deadpool. (Sort of - he was great as pre-Weapon X Wade in Wolverine but the movie people just did some really weird shit to him later on in the movie - so I'm hoping for a spin-off that redeems the idiocy, and if they can get Deadpool to make some crack about it that would be awesome). :D
All in all, it was a really good day. I can't wait for Supanova and Armageddon next year! And now I would go back to being restrained in buying stuff - I am so close to hitting certain money-saving goals and milestones that I never thought I could reach before!
My one gripe though was that the comics stand I spent the most time at for some reason kept their Avengers and Captain America comics under their full trestle tables so being the Cap fangirl I am I had to spend about two hours going around on my knees in the semi-darkness to find the issues I wanted. Meanwhile, everyone else was tripping over my legs trying to search the Spider-Man titles that were on the tables above me. It was all very silly.
But! Besides finding out the addresses of 3 new comic book shops and their spin-off branches to try one day (I am ashamed of myself really, one was on friggin' Chapel St and the other on Bourke - how the heck did I miss those two?!) I got a hell of a loot. And some of them were so damn hard to find that I had actually given up until today.
Anyway, the very brief rundown of the stuff I got are:
Daredevil vol. 1 of the early Frank Miller run - This was the time when Daredevil really started to come on its own as a title. It's easy to find vol.2 and 3 but I until today I couldn't find 1. I personally think Miller has one hell of a madonna-whore complex but I've got to admit, Elektra was damn cool. And props to him in really developing the Daredevil canon (and developing Foggy!)
The entire Alias trade paperback collection by Brian Michael Bendis - I was really happy to find this bundle for its price and the fact that in the stuff I bought today it was the only one to actually focus on and have a really interesting female protagonist. Bendis sometimes annoyed me with his later work concerning how he treated some female characters but this was from a better time.
Marvel Holiday Special - It's a trade paperback of some older Christmas issues from various titles. It had Spider-Man, it had silly holiday shenanigans, it was cheap. I'm sold!
I Die at Midnight by Kyle Baker - Why I Hate Saturn was basically one of my favourite graphic novels ever and I loved Baker's cartooning book, he is so funny and I love his goofy drawing style. I also find his method of keeping all dialogue under the drawing instead of having balloons to be really cool too - since I'm not crazy about using balloons in my own comics ;)
Marvel Team Up vol. 1 - Evil!AU!Tony Stark/Iron Man is for some reason the funniest thing ever to me. He's so campy. And come on, he calls himself Iron Maniac. And gets all emotionally stricken at the sight of Steve - even referring to him at some point "My Steve". Brb loling forever.
Tales to Astonish - I wasn't planning to get this at first but since I was already getting Tales of Suspense I thought why not. Peter David was always really good at writing the Hulk, and I was really happy to get a great story and a really sweet Hank/Jan adventure, even if they're not a couple in this story. At least they were written well though, usually I think they're the top in Marvel's list of favourite couples to screw over - they really love their angst over there, especially now.
Tales of Suspense - Oh dear God, the writing in this story was so purple I can't even remember what the plot was about. But that's not the point. The point was that this book was basically an excuse for Captain America and Iron Man to continuously wax poetic about each other. I am still laughing at the part where Tony talks about Steve's "clear azure eyes" and just being a total woobie in not understanding why someone as awesome as Cap would want to play with him after school. Oh okay, not really, but seriously. This was one of the books I really wanted to buy but was never able to find.
Love Fights vol.1 and 2 by Andi Watson - How much do I love Andi Watson, as a storyteller and artist? Lots. How much do I love him for his gorgeous romantic dramedies? Lots. How much do I love silly superhero stories? Lots. How much do I love stories featuring journalism? Lots. This series has it all! It even has an adorable cat! I never figured out if he ever wrote more for this series though.
The rest of my comics were single issues in limited series and so forth. I have yet to find the issues I wanted the very, very most (I had a long list but stupidly, I forgot to actually look at it today so I'm going to have to put aside some days in the distant future exploring the new comic book stores I discovered today) but that wasn't to say that I didn't find some stuff I had been coveting for awhile. Three of note are:
Civil War one-shot Iron Man & Captain America: Casualties of War - I confess - I already have a copy of this in my Civil War Iron Man book. But I really wanted a copy that I could use for the scanner, and I just love it so much for a certain panel for the detail in the art and the art in general. It's also a rather sad story about how Tony and Steve's friendship falls apart due to stuff and is a pretty decent rundown of their entire shared history. (Please don't get me started on my feelings concerning how the writers tackled Civil War. It's been years since it happened and many Marvel fans are still a bit nuts about it, including me. But we all have different reasons so it's just ridiculous and it all becomes a bit heated). It gets even sadder when you actually know what happens later - and have read Bendis's The Confession, which is one of my favourite one-shots.
Avengers: Red Zone arc - I think by now it's a little clear that yeah, I kinda sorta ship Cap and Iron Man. Oh, I am very well aware of how strange it sounds to an outsider because when I first heard of the ship on ship_manifesto I was all O_o, but then I realised just how long the backstory between them had been going on (decades!!!) and seriously, sometimes you get an arc where the Avengers go on an adventure and the writers find an excuse for Iron Man to perform mouth-to-mouth on Cap with dramatic lighting, close-ups and the comments about how special one thinks of the other. Seriously.
Avengers: Once an Invader arc - I really wanted to know more about the old superhero team Cap used to be on in the old days and having stories about the old and the new always interests me. (Yes, when they have it in trade paperbacks I am defintely buying the limited Avengers/Invaders series that came out fairly recently).
The rest were an incredible amount of very cheap but highly coveted Captain America comics, some for the intersting stories, some for the nice art. I'm not going to list them though since it would probably break lj or something. ;)
Besides buying a lot of comics, I also got to listen to Peter David and Greg Rucka at a discussion panel, which was pretty interesting. I unfortunately missed any chances of hearing about the recent fabulousness of PAD finally making Rictor/Shatterstar out and canon but it was pretty interesting all the same, especially with the discussion concerning the comic book industry. I tend to have rather mixed fellings about PAD since he has had some moments on his blog where he comes across as slightly egotistical (and in one case concerning race issues damn offensive with the whiff of the "reverse racism!" wail) but I do admit liking his work and that in general I do like what he has to say. (The Liefeld and PAD internet flamewar over Shatterstar kissing Rictor was loltastic).
I also got to see the coolest Deadpool costume ever. Even though there were so many people wearing really awesome Star Wars costumes around, my eye just went straight to Deadpool-wearing person. I think it was the fact that their costume was on one hand a skintight spandex outfit and yet at the same time they seemed to have padded the inside so you don't get too much information. I think there were more cosplayers at Supanova though, I remember seeing a Ms Marvel outfit and quite a few Rorschachs the last time. Aaach, but now I just wish wish wish the powers that be would just hurry up with a Deadpool movie already! Especially since Ryan Reynolds has shown himself to be a great Deadpool. (Sort of - he was great as pre-Weapon X Wade in Wolverine but the movie people just did some really weird shit to him later on in the movie - so I'm hoping for a spin-off that redeems the idiocy, and if they can get Deadpool to make some crack about it that would be awesome). :D
All in all, it was a really good day. I can't wait for Supanova and Armageddon next year! And now I would go back to being restrained in buying stuff - I am so close to hitting certain money-saving goals and milestones that I never thought I could reach before!