BC Refugees Blog

from the official IDW Publishing press release . . . . . I DW To Release Brand New Artist Edition Featuring Marvel’s Fantastic Four   San Diego, CA (February 23, 2017) – IDW Publishing continues to celebrate the King of Comics’ centennial birthday, this time with the forthcoming release of Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four World’s Greatest Artist’s Edition . Jack Kirby and Stan Lee crafted what is considered to be one of the greatest runs ever in comic book history and this volume makes a solid case to bestow that honor on it!        Clocking in at 168 pages and measuring a huge 15” x 22”—the same size as Kirby’s original art—this book will featur e four complete “twice-up” stories from the absolute prime of the run: Issue #33 (“Side-by-Side With the Sub-Mariner”), #45 (“Among Us Hide… the Inhumans!”), #47 (“Beware the Hidden Land!”), and #60 (“The Peril and the Power!”). The last issue is the final chapter of the classic storyline in which Dr.  Doom steals the Silver Surfer’s boar...

CIVIL WAR II: THE OATH  #1 - (Marvel Comics, March 2017) Writer: Nick Spencer.  Artists: Rod Reis with Phil Noto, Rafaele Ienco, Szymon Kudranski & Dono Sanchez-Almara.  Letterer: VC’s Chris Eliopoylos.  32 pages of story. $4.99.  Rated T+.       We did not follow the CIVIL WAR II storyline, which just wrapped up.  The reason is not that we thought it would be a mediocre story. Rather, we prefer not to get wrapped up in storylines that require purchasing so many books in order to follow.         On the positive side, it does allow the Marvel stable of writers to explore a theme with great depth.  However, it also includes a number of books that link to the event and really only serve as padding and below-average filler. We’d rather not get wrapped up in sorting that out.       Like most everyone else, we’re on a comics budget and would rather purchase books that span more genres and more publishers.  I don’t want to let a single publisher or genre (super-heroes) dominate wha...

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve spent several articles trying to persuade comics readers to always pre-order their books from the local comic shops. It’s a highly profitable era for the comics industry, but unfortunately not much of that profit is trickling down to the local store.  They have to work hard and work smart to make a respectable income, and not the big numbers that the publishers and distributor enjoy.       We’ve dedicated a lot of space to talking about what readers and fans should do.  How about the rest of the industry?       Comic shops can help their own cause. They need to do more to promote pre-ordering from the PREVIEWS catalog. Maybe give some of those away to the regulars once or twice, or just to the big spenders.  Let customers browse through the catalogs and place their orders on the spot while still in the store.  One comic shop that we patronize, Captain Blue Hen in Newark, DE, prints out a one-page checklist of new books and keeps these near the cash register so ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: No, I’m not done talking about the importance of pre-ordering your comics . . . . . . . . . P.S. . . . That ’ s not me at the right. It ’ s creator Brian Azzarello. Keep reading, we ’ ll get to why he ’ s pictured here . . . . .   Those of us who have watched the evolution of comics distribution and availability have a deeper ap preciation for the role of the brick-and-mortar local comic shop.  These began to spring up in small numbers in the mid-to-late 70’s. Comics publishers would use different bar codes on the covers to separate the ‘direct market’(dedicated comic stores) from the wholesale (newsstands and drug stores).     As fans caught on to the trend and began to support the local shops, more and more of them sprung up across the country. It became so successful that comics publishers abandoned the wholesale market, and went straight to the direct market (much to the benefit of the sole remaining survivor of the short-lived distributor wars - - Diamond Distri...

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve often wondered why more regular comics readers don’t pre-order their books every month?   OBJECTION: Some readers just don’t like to order any products in advance, not just comics. They want it when they want it, which is usually now. They expect the comic shop to have enough books on the shelves to satisfy what they are looking for, month after month.  ANSWER: With the changing times, that’s becoming a bit of a dice roll.  There are so many publishers and so many titles that comic shops can’t stock them all. They have to cut back somewhere — and it’s usually less copies of the bigger titles and sometimes three, two, one or none at all of the lesser known or brand new works.  If readers only want to read books from the Big Two publishers then the odds are better that they can walk in the store and find it. But even then, certain Marvel and DC books become overnight hits through word of mouth and suddenly the shelves are empty.  Here’s some more books that we b...

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve often wondered why more regular comics readers don’t pre-order their books every month?  OBJECTION: Readers balk at having to pay for PREVIEWS magazine. They don’t want to spend their comics allowance on what amounts to a catalog.  Comic shops could give it away, but that could get expensive and eat into their profit since they don’t get the catalog for free either. ANSWERS: 1) It’s actually more than a catalog. PREVIEWS also features interviews with writers and artists, as well as special themed articles about various subjects of interest to comics fandom. It’s also the only source if you want to find out what comes out each month in comics, graphic novels, magazines, books, games, trading card, statues and collectibles, and more. 2) You don’t have to buy a copy of PREVIEWS in order to place a pre-order.  You can see everything that’s in the catalog on the PREVIEWS website. Just write or type your own order, include your name and contact information and give ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve often wondered why more regular comics readers don’t pre-order their books every month?  OBJECTION: One of the reasons may be that they don’t want to commit to a monthly book because, especially in the case of the Big 2 publishers, the creative team could quickly change without notice. These days, not many books get beyond the 25th issue, and many are deliberately discontinued and then re-booted. Same goes for writers - - who wants to keep following a book when your favorite writer gets pulled off it?  And who wants to keep reading a book when you don’t like the style of the new artist?  ANSWER: It used to be that comic shops wanted readers to sign up for automatic pulls on titles, and then get the issues every month. However, we are of the opinion that comic shops would gladly waive the automatic monthly requirement if readers would just say what books they want to get in a particular month, and then pre-order them, perhaps changing what those books are each mo...

EDITOR’S NOTE: Has this ever happened to you? You hear or read about a new comic title and decide to buy a copy. You drive to your favorite local comic shop during the week of release . . . and learn that it sold out, and they can’t get more copies. How do you make sure that the books you want will always be available?  The best way we know is to use the PREVIEWS catalog, select what you want, and pre-order it. If more customers placed pre-orders, the local comic shop could stop buying titles based on guesswork. We looked over the Feb PREVIEWS catalog (for books releasing in April) and picked those titles we think might sell out quickly - - all the more reason for you to pre-order them!   AFTERSHOCK COMICS ON SALE IN APRIL . . . . . . . . . .   ELEANOR & THE EGRET #1 John Layman, writer. Sam Keith, artist.     Quite a talented creative team with Layman, the writer/creator of CHEW and Keith, the writer/creator/artist of MAXX working together.         In 19th century...